The Unsafe Safe

I have been pleasantly surprised by how safe I feel in India. The only time people try to steal your money seems to be when they overcharge you for souvenirs or rickshaw rides. Many of the tourists we have chatted with have felt so safe that they have stopped wearing their money belts under their clothes. However, Derek and I have been overly-paranoid about our stuff, sleeping with our feet on our bags in the night trains and dutifully wearing our money belts, which are full of plane tickets, traveller's checks, American and Indian money, credit cards, and our passports.

So you can imagine our surprise the other day when we went to cash our first traveller's check (we have been using ATM's up till now) and we realized that many of them were missing from the envelopes we kept them in inside our money belts. On closer inspection, we also realized that some of our US dollars had also been stolen. All told, about $200 in cash was taken ($150 left intact) and $460 in traveller's checks ($740 left behind).

Thinking back, we only let our money belts out of our sight twice, and that was on the beach in Goa, over 2 weeks ago. Instead of a) wearing our money belts into the water or b) leaving them in a bag on the beach, we chose to lock our wallets in the hotel safe. It seems that most hotels in Goa offer this option. Indeed, the second hotel at which we did this seemed less safe (despite the security guard) because the employees were kind of sketchy, so we only left our stuff in the safe for one day. My supposition is that someone insidiously snuck into the safe during the night and removed some of our stuff. It could have taken us months to notice the missing money since we only have the traveler's checks and US cash for worst-case scenarios, when we can't find any ATMs. I wonder how many other people had stuff stolen too?

My first reaction, after I got that horrible, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, was to let this incident ruin my whole trip. Since I can't place the blame on any one person, my instinct was to think of all the people it could have been at the two hotels we stayed at. It made me feel like I shouldn't trust anybody. Ever.

But then the very next day, as we took a ferry through the backwaters of Kerala, an Indian family (also on vacation) generously offered us some of their snacks - salty chutleys and sweet ladoos. They, like so many Indians we have met, have taken it upon themselves to make us enjoy our time in their country a little bit more. They didn't ask for anything in return. I have to remember that there are more people like them than like the scumbag(s?) who stole our money.

And frankly, it could be a lot worse. At least they didn't steal our credit cards (although they are of little use here - almost no one accepts them). Or our passports. At least they left some cash behind. And I think we'll get the traveller's checks back.

...

So we have left the coast for the cooler climes of the southern mountains. They call Kerala the "spice coast" and Derek and I are finding out why. We have learned about all sorts of spice plants like ginger, cardamom, and pepper. We are currently in Munnar, which is the tea capital of the south. We are surrounded by tea plantations on steep, steep hills. Women harvest and collect the tea by clipping the plants with these shears-cum-bags; it's quite a sight to see.

Also, did you know that bananas grow upside down? They come out of a plant with gigantic leaves. People cut the leaves in three or four pieces and use them as plates here! A huge stalk grows up and out the center of the plant and curves down to the ground under the weight of the bananas. The bananas grow around the stalk, pointing up toward the sky. They look like they defy gravity!