Tonight, I am drinking in the Golden Tavern Bar, Kollam and Kollam means that I'm back in Kerala. Kerala has a funny relationship with alcohol and it's hard to buy booze, other than in swanky hotels. There certainly seem to be no bars in Kollam, so I went out hunting swanky hotels. The Golden Shower Tavern is not swanky, although for legal reasons I should state that the hotel it is attached to, may very well be.
The Golden Rivet is quite like a working men's club and is rather jolly. Full of slightly drunk men singing and laughing loudly at the bar (Seated at the bar, laughing, rather than laughing at the bar itself, obvs). They couldn't be less fussed that a soppy English guy has come in to drink beer and look at maps. No photo, I'm afraid, coz it's very nearly as gloomy as the USS Enterprise last night. Still, it's nice to give your cone photoreceptors a holiday too.
So why am I not drinking in my hotel, I hear absolutely nobody ask? Well, the Hotel Nani was built by a cashew nut magnate (yup!) who frowns heavily upon drinking, or indeed, any form of fun which doesn't feature cashews. Beyond their consumption, I am not aware of anything remotely fun that's ever been done with a cashew nut. If you are, please keep it to yourself.
However, despite its prudish, nut-centric philosophy, Hotel Nani is totally lovely in every way and......they've given me another comb! Back of the hair-net! From a combophile's perspective, I am having the best holiday ever
Yes, I realise that you're scraping the barrel, comedically, when the comb photos come out. I am sorry about the lack of content today but some days, stuff happens and on others, it doesn't. So here's a pic of my personal favourite from India's Got Talent.
I don't think his head is that flat in real life - it was a cheap telly - but he had a lovely voice. Obviously, most of the other singers sounded like a flatulent, bagpipe-playing goat being pulled through a jet engine but that's just my cultural ignorance
Anyway, back to Hotel Peanut for the chef's speciality curry. Ooh I wonder what the protein might be? The obvious thought is something on the nut spectrum but I'm not ruling out finely sliced goat in jet fuel.
Taking of regional music, I was in reception, waiting for my room to be made ready and sat through a jazz-funk arrangement of the song "Sonny", played on an ocarina. (It's such a scandal that there are so few songs written for that beautiful instrument). I've now been through there on 8 separate occasions and heard the same song every time. If I worked here, I'd have gone bat-sh1t crazy by now and lumped somebody.
Strangely, my nut curry (behave at the back) was accompanied by the jazz pianist Bill Evans playing "I Should Care". Wasn't expecting that in Kollum.
No comments:
Post a Comment