Answering Nature's call during the night had been hampered by not being able to find my torch - the toilet is in an outbuilding at the back of the house and I had to go out of the front door to avoid disturbing others. Fortunately, urination was just done onto the ground - it's a rural area and there's plenty of rain to wash it away - so at night I could just step out of the front door.
My torch wasn't in my bag or anywhere I'd normally have put it. I had either left it at the chai-shop nearest to Ajeesh's house where I'd bought some bananas on the way home or in the phone booth, or dropped it on the way up the hill or left it at the cinema. I walked to town, scanning the road and verges, stopping to ask at the chai-shop - no sign. However, back at the shop from where I'd phoned, the owner happily handed over my torch and some other stuff I'd left. He was pleased to do so, even though his phone-booth had blown over and smashed in the night. I wonder if this would have happened in a more tourist-centred place?
Meanwhile Radio Random Bozo was on a rampage, coming up with refrains from A Saucerful of Secrets, Interstellar Overdrive (from Piper at the Gates of Dawn), Hammering on the Gates of Nothingness (a piece of crazy Hungarian heavy rock which features songs celebrating the Huns' victories over the Turks in who-knows-when) and even Judas Priest's United, mashed up with Corporal Clegg.
I wasn't keen on changing travellers' cheques at Nedumkandam's banks so I took the Kerala Switchback to Kattappana to use the ATM and ISDN connection there. On the way back, the rain came through the bus windows, soaking my shoulders. It was unpleasant but amusing and may have been the start of my current lurgie.
Back at the house, Sandra was full of cold and so was dressed in trousers, a heavy jumper and a balaclava that gave her a cute-smurf look. The local cable-TV station news had a feature on Ajeesh's attempts to get people not to litter the hill-top temple with waste plastic - there was even a flash of him on TV so he was very pleased.
This evening the wind and rain noise were intense - I got to sleep after 4am.
© (except the blatantly ripped-off bits) Random Bozo 2006