14.01.2008

Coffee Day, not Indian Coffee!

It'd be an interesting study to look at what people bring with them when they travel abroad to feel at home and at ease.

Robin has brought his own coffee and coffee maker from Copenhagen, for reasons I don't blame him for. When you are in India for a lengthy time there are certain comforts from home you need to bring, especially when it is so difficult to get decent coffee anywhere in town and you are addicted to your coffee. As I write this I also have an image of Sami who would get so high, sweaty and hyper on coffee in the afternoons at German Bakery. If you ever wanted to observe the physical effects of coffee on someone Sami's shaking arms would be a good one to watch after 3 cups of press coffee!

I must admit that it brought a huge smile to my face when I found out about the top quality coffee I could be sipping with some top quality company. I was cheeky enough to invite myself to Robin's soon after and sipped away, in a very lady like, stylish manner of course, the most orgasmic coffee in a very long time. We are spoilt for the luxuries we have in cities.

Anyway, Robin was running out of supplies after just 10days (that's a lot of coffee) and the closest he could find in decency was an Indian brand which happened to have chicory added. To my knowledge, I don't quite understand what that is but makes coffee taste like s***. Just as we thought was the end of a very pleasurable era; we discovered that there was a Coffee Day (a chain of coffee shops way beyond Starbucks standards in India) in Trivandrum. So Robin and I decided to venture out to buy some more coffee as I recalled Purple Valley purchasing coffee from there before.

In India everything is an adventure, if you think anything will run smoothly you are in for a surprise, so as we set off from Kovalam with our over enthusiastic rickshaw driver we knew that this journey would be much more fun that expected. We had stopped at a bookshop in Trivandrum which was pretty straight forward. Then we told the driver "now to Coffee Day in Chowdrie (or something like that)". One thing Indians don't ever do is admit that they don't know what something is or where it is, instead they'll find the closest thing they find to it "Indian Coffee?". He deserved a firm "no" in chorus from Robin and I at the same time. I guess he just thought "well what's wrong with any Indian coffee place, why would you one that is so specific and I have no idea where the f*** this place is anyway".

We gave him a rough start with the direction he should be driving in and already he was driving very slowly and looking out for any random coffee houses, even a huge hotel, and kept pointing at it in the hope that we would give in "Indian coffee?"…After much driving he decided to ask a policeman at a chaotic junction, stopping in the middle of the road (as you do) and not surprisingly he had no idea what we were talking about either but the accomplishment at this stage was that we got him to understand the area we wanted him to go to. He did the most dodgy U-turn which meant driving down some side road and deciding to turn right, then swerving left and then going straight anyway. He was also getting agitated that this place was going to be a few kms out of Trivandrum and even if that meant a few extra rupees in petrol it surely was eating into his profit. So he got so nervous and kept telling us in the most pitiful begging eyes that this place was not in Trivandrum and it was 10km out of the city (it so wasn't). I loved the way Robin calmly dealt with his anxiety "we'll talk about that later, just drive now".

As he was driving into this posh area of Trivandrum which he pronounced with K rather than CH that Robin and I were saying, still oblivious to me how he couldn't even guess what we were trying to say, Robin and I were busy staring outside the rickshaw in what I call the "teenage posture" with a slump back and drooping neck. Why, because it is impossible to see anything from the stickers stuck on the screen of flowers and gods, flashing lights, carpet on the dashboard and long dreads attached to the side mirrors. It is amazing that they don't have accidents caused by such narrowed vision.

But the end result was ahead of us, Coffee Day. He was as happy as we were, maybe thankful for the fact that he doesn't have to use up anymore fuel or the fact that he would have an anxiety attack if he failed to find the place we insisted on and we were getting agitated ourselves.

Oh bliss, after an ice coffee and a choc donut in an air conditioned café, sitting on comfy sofas Robin and I were the happiest bunnies, walking out with some pure coffee for Robin to brew later on his balcony.

Mission accomplished!