While writing the previous post, I just recalled an incident which took place about 4-5 months back. We had planned a trip to Allepey & munnar in Kerala. We got down at the railway station and looked for a Taxi. Kerala is famous for one thing “Worker Unions”. The dominant unions can be felt in almost all the industries out there. We somehow got hold of a guy who agreed to take us to the point where houseboats can be hired. So, he showed us where the taxi was parked and sent a driver for the ride. Now this driver, who was 6 feet tall & into his early forties drove the car for 6 kms and dropped us at a point which he called as a starting point for houseboats. The price that he had charged us was for 10 kms, but anyways at new places you are bound to be cheated. We got down the taxi and we could only see 3 houseboats standing out there.
Generally before going on any trip we read lot of reviews and do lot of googling to gather information. There should have been more than 30-40 houseboats as per what we had read but all we could see was 3 of them standing. When we enquired the price they quoted 3 times of the normal price. We thought we were early for the boats and started waiting for other boats to return from their previous day’s trip. After almost an hour, we saw no movement and we got irritated. When we turned around we saw the cab driver still waiting. We guessed the scenario: he had tied up with houseboat guys for commission. It was such a pathetic feeling and when we enquired from a local tea vendor, we came to know that there is another point where all the houseboats come and this wasn’t the main point. We had specifically asked the guy at railway station to drop us to main point for houseboats and he got us dropped at a seedy corner for some commission. The worst was we could not see any taxi apart from the one in which we had come. But somehow I was too adamant to go back in it and we decided to walk.
The driver who was observing all this started his cab and came to us asking us to drop at the right place. We told him that we don’t require as we were quite pissed waiting in hot sun for almost an hour & half. He had a guilty face and he requested us to get in his taxi. When we refused, he said politely that he is anyways gng back and he will drop at the right place without charging. We weren’t sure but then he seemed to be apologetic and we agreed. When we sat inside the car, suddenly 2 people from nowhere appeared and yelled at him. It was in Malyalam (local language) and we could figure out from the conversation that due to Union thing he was not supposed to take us, it was someone else’s turn. He denied and almost took panga there and drove us and dropped at the right place.
We offered him money but he did not accept. I felt bad for him because, for a tourist he took some problems on himself. He was doing as he was asked to but he wasn’t a bad guy! I then felt that even in a strange city you will find people who are still nice, who still have some humanity left in them and who are not just looking for commissions but the problems caused to other. That did not make me carry any bad memories for that city/state.
I don’t know how it is with other tourist but I felt comfortable with the trip. The houseboat guys had also shown great hospitality and it was overall a memorable trip.
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