Visiting Kochi, India: How Travel Can Really Choke You Up (Human Edition)

The picturesque small streets of Kochi

I could barely breathe. My whole body seemed to refuse to obey the command my brain was sending out to inhale. Just pulling air into my lungs was an exercise in mind over matter.

I sniffled.

I rasped.

I steadied myself.

And then I let go. Just a bit. Just a tear or two. And I slowly staggered through the tear-blurred room into the embrace of Linda, and the embrace of Kochi, in India’s Kerala.

Kochi was trying to share something quintessentially human with me. I decided to let it.

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While we were visiting Kochi, India, we stayed at a place that I had booked through Airbnb, called LeLinda’s. It was named after its host, Linda, and because of Linda it became one of my favorite places I have ever stayed.

As far as hosts go, Linda was very involved. But not so much that it was a burden. She wanted to make sure we enjoyed Kochi. She wanted to make sure we were safe, and healthy, and well fed.

And she doted on our daughters like a mother hen. Watching. Tending. Shepherding.

We signed up for Linda’s cooking class. It was just our family, and the price was quite low( it was ₹500 in 2016). It was more watching Linda cook than it was actually cooking, but we didn't mind.

Because we loved Linda. We loved being around her. She made us feel cared for. Even when she was pitching her cooking class to us, we didn’t feel that Linda was just about making money off those who stayed with her. Sure, she needed to make a living. But what Linda really wanted was a connection with others.

And we wanted that too. So, we took to Linda like a long lost auntie.

Linda and the daughters

After a few days, as we were talking with Linda, she told us that she had a son that would be about the same age as our oldest daughter. And tragically, he had passed away. Recently. Within the last year.

And just like that, we started to understand why Linda was so drawn to our daughters. I cannot even imagine what it must be like to lose a teenage child. Linda didn’t have to imagine. Sadly, she knew exactly what it was like.

We stayed with Linda for the better part of a week.

She made us breakfast.

She asked us about our day when we would come home after exploring Kochi.

She would pat our daughters, a small, physical sign of affection. And I hope that simple acts like that gave Linda the comfort of making a connection with young people.

When it was time for us to leave Kochi and Linda, and continue our journey northward up the coast, my daughters wanted to do something special for Linda. So, they called her to the main room in the house, my oldest daughter took out the ukulele that she was carrying with her on our trip. And they sang her a song.

They harmonized a song of love and happiness over the gentle strumming on the ukulele.

Tears started running down Linda’s face.

I sniffled.

I rasped.

I steadied myself.

And then I let go. Just a bit. Just a tear or two.

We all hugged and said our goodbyes to Linda.

As a parting gift, Linda presented my wife with a hair straightener. At first, it seemed a bit absurd for my wife to carry a hair straightener in her bag for over a half a year as we worked our way back to our home.

But carry it she did. And she even used it from time to time. But the real value in that hair straightener wasn’t that it could remove the tropical frizz that was plaguing everyone’s hair.

No . . . the real value was that it symbolized an interaction with another person.

It represented a very human experience.

It reminded us that the reason why we were out exploring the world, is because travel is a way to connect to the wide world, and to remember that life is just a shared set of experiences—and none of us is really all that different from everyone else.

Linda, if you ever make you way to this post, we still love you and we hope you are well.

The daughters playing a song for Linda