Cheese Pies

Another tour of duty finished and I find myself in Cochin waiting for the next group arriving tonight from Singapore. In the room next door is a very pretty French lady who looks rather comical in a non too fetching neck brace a result of a mishandled ayurvedic massage and a rather unfortunate fall off one of my mountain bikes. I blame the massage. She blames me.
All else appears well except for some access issues with some of tea estate managers in our highest mountain bike base of Munnar. The tea estate managers are instantly visible with their wide brimmed hats, socks pulled up over the knees, ludicrous thigh clenching shorts, walrus moustaches and accents sourced presumably sourced from back copies of Black Adder and the character of Colonel Melchet. We now have “allied” tea estates where we can cycle around freely without fear and those now classified as “enemy” estates manned by watchman whose job it is to expel any foreigners, cyclists or clueless Indian newly wed tourists intent on grabbing a quick photo.
Food problems continue with the Nepali guide Rakesh, we have moved out of the rooms with a kitchen and are back staying in the same hotels as the guests, here Rakesh has no choice but to noisily shuvvle down the same food as the rest of us which he described; in a particularly impassioned attack on the merits of South Indian food; as disgusting.
Everyone is a food snob in the subcontinent. Witness any tour party arriving from another part of India and you will see an entourage of chefs pot washers and helpers piling out of minibuses clutching vast cooking vessels ready to rustle up exactly the same food as the tour party is used to at home. Plan to bring my mother over next year with bags of flour and some cheese and knock together some of her famed pies.