I Could Stay Here for the Rest of My Trip

On Wednesday I had the extreme pleasure of meeting John and Esther Prabhakar in Cochin, and I can honestly say that this was one of the most perfect days I have experienced since arriving in India three and a half months ago. I was so overjoyed to be in the presence of good friends from home that it wouldn’t have mattered what John and Esther planned for our day together. We could have sat on the ground in front of the train station that I rode into early in the morning for all I cared; fortunately, however, John and Esther had something a bit better in mind…

A houseboat cruise!!! Now, I have been on Kerala’s backwaters before and I have seen enough palm trees to last me a lifetime, but this trip down the waterways was like no other I’ve experienced. We were on a luxury houseboat. (I was forced to give up on that “simple living” thing just for this one day.) The boat had two bedrooms, although we didn’t need them during our three-hour tour, a bathroom (and I’m not talking about a squatter, folks), and a kitchen, from which we were served an incredible feast. And aside from all this, the boat was just beautiful.

And the moments we spent on the boat were beautiful. They were moments of rest, moments of relaxation, moments of reflection. There were moments during which the entire world felt right. They were moments of peace, moments of pure and utter contentment for me. At one point, as I lay peacefully on the soft mattress at the very front of our beautiful houseboat, I whispered softly to my friends. “I could stay here for the rest of my trip,” I said. And I could have.