here we go again

Christmas is fast approaching, ours will be quiet, followed by a full house for New Year and then in mid January we are off again.

We loved our last trip to India so much that we are going to continue our exploration of a tiny bit of the west coast veering off inland occasionally. We are going for six weeks and this time we fly into Mumbai, spend some time in Goa before working our way South through Karnataka to Northern Kerala and back again.

Thats the plan.

It looks like my blog is still functioning, although there was a warning message about my e-mail account associated with it, hopefully I'll be able to continue to access it. I'll keep notes on our doings here and post piccies of what we are up to on our way around.

last days

On our way back to Cochin from Alleppey we took the coast road and pulled into Marari Beach just to make sure the beach was as beautiful as we remembered. It was. Finally we reach Cochin and the Old Harbour Hotel. As returnees we've been given an upgrade and are now currently enjoying the facilities of their Princess Suite which has its own covered veranda with the wooden windows you see in a lot of the promotion external shots of the hotel. There is a dining table with four chairs and planters chairs with arms that extend out to enable you to put your feet up. In the bedroom are the most beautiful wide polished floor boards, upon which is another great big bed and the first bath we have seen in India. It is enormous, a roll top with the taps in the middle, an invitation to wallow if ever there was one. We still opt for a shower though! Music under the stars again was perfect.

This morning I'm awake early as usual and opt for a walk along the sea wall. We've only been away six and a bit weeks and in that time they have built a new container port which opened two or three weeks ago. It has rail links to Chennai and Bangalore. Its on the other side of the river and I watch as a container ship stacked high makes it way past the traditional Chinese fishing nets. India is changing fast.

The catches of the day were being sold, the fish vendors bicycles were lined up with their plastic crates waiting to be filled with fish before being pedalled around the town to sell, their calls echo around the streets alerting householders to the approach of the mobile store.



Our final day of hard work by the pool beckons, we might splash out on a bottle of wine tonight but possibly not as we have to be up seriously early tomorrow for our fight to Dubai and then onto London and home. Its going to be tricky adjusting!

later - I don't think we will be splashing out on wine tonight as we have just found out that the first of every month is a dry day and alcohol is not allowed to be served! It is designed to stop people spending all their wages on booze.

awards

I get up early and go for a walk along the beach before it gets too hot to move. It's a great time of day, lots of people are exercising along the front, walking with arms swinging, doing press ups in the sand, yoga type stretches and so on, it must be a world wide phenomenon. Here it is mostly men but some ladies in saris flutter by. Its Sunday today and there were early games of cricket and footie in progress. Then its time for breakfast and another hard day by the pool at this beautifully restored heritage hotel interspersed with bouts of watching cricket. We have been lucky enough to have had a TV in our room for both the England matches, the first England v Holland and now today a big one, England v India at Bangalore. India won the toss and are batting well, Tendulkar got 115 before being caught by Yardy.

Its difficult to believe our seven week trip is nearly over. Tomorrow we move back to Cochin ready to fly out on Wednesday. We have had an amazing time, everything has exceeded our expectations.

The only thing I think we would do differently is miss out the rice boat trip, which is so expensive and not very ecologically friendly. I think we would take a small boat up the narrow canals to look at canalside life and not worry about spending the night on the water.

All our various types of accommodation have been great. We would definitely do more home stays having experienced the kind hospitality of Anil and his family at the Royal Mist in Munnar and the dear retired teachers near Kottayam. Best coffee, breakfast and veranda award goes to Villa Jacaranda. We enjoyed the space of Kingfisher House in Kovalam and the washing machine! Best jungle setting award was the Cardamon Club outside Kumily. Best unspoilt beach location has to go to Marari Villas, there we had the delicious dilemma of beach or pool, pool or beach. Best style and ambience award goes to where we are now, The Raheem Residency - the room we have has a walk in luggage/wardrobe room which is fab as your luggage isn't strewn around the room looking as though you are about to up sticks and go any moment. Its owned by an Irish woman and two Indian men. Here, we are neat, tidy and oh so comfortable. Best entertainment award was found at the Old Harbour Hotel in Cochin where we listened spell bound under the stars to some great Indian music every night. Best value award has to go to the Indian Coffee House where we can have lunch and mineral water for both of us for less than half the cost of one beer in the hotel!



Adjusting to home life back in the UK is going to be tricky!

slogan

seen on a t-shirt sometime ago in Varkala:

MY KARMA
RAN OVER
MY DOGMA

Periyar

We've been up in the Western Ghats again this time outside Thekkady on the edge of the Periyar Tiger Reserve. It poured with rain as we were driving up so no views for us that day. The next morning Keith walked up to the ridge above the hotel that overlooks the reserve with a guide while I tried to catch up with some Renaissance reading. Frequent sightings of bison are made there but that morning the clouds parted and they looked down on Kumily instead. Keith got suckered by a leech, difficult to think they were used as medicinal purges not so long ago! But he was enthusiastic about the whole experience.



We went elephant riding in the afternoon. I had a beam on my face from the moment we clambered on from a high platform. It easy access really, I had visions of having to climb up its leg or worse hang on while it got up from a sitting position, but it was all very civilised. We ambled around a cardamon estate trying to get used to the strange gait and wondering how on earth Botham managed to cross the Alps on one!





In the evening we went to a performance of Kalaripayattu, the oldest of martial arts, at the Mudra Kalari Centre in Kumily. We were suitably impressed with the fast and furious acrobatics and weapon wielding displays of agility.

Day 2 saw us up at 5.00 am to be collected for a jeep safari in Periyar Tiger Reserve at 5.30. It was still dark when Bibindas picked us up and roared off into the night. I had not thought through what to wear properly so I froze in the open backed jeep until the sun came up! Actually it really was rather pleasant, I've been hot and sweaty for so long. We decided to avoid the Periyar Lake area which we had heard could be very busy so we opted to visit the northern end of the reserve with a smaller man made lake. Gavi is where the various treks and jeep jaunts start from, 23k in from the reserve perimeter. The whole reserve is roughly 700 sq ks and the authorities open only a small section for tourists, roughly 40 sq ks we think the guide said.



Our guide, Varghese, was a tiny, knowledgeable, energetic totally charming local man and he said elephants had been spotted nearby that morning so off we set. After one or two false starts there they were. Amazing. Just time to click, click, click before they ambled off and disappeared just like that. I cannot get my head round how something so large can just disappear as though it had put on Harry Potters invisible cloak. There are said to be about 1,000 wild elephants roaming around, due to the acreage we were quite lucky to spot them at all, at one point we could hear them crashing around and see the undergrowth moving about but absolutely no sign of them. There was no sign of the tigers either, the 40 or so that inhabit the reserve are further east deep in the jungle. We did see languers - monkeys with long tails, Giant Squirrels, hornbills, distant bison and samba deer in the utterley fabulous mountain scenery. Great day out, absolutely knackering though - the 5.30 start was a severe shock to the system!












Now we are back on the steaming hot coast at Aleppey, smack on the beach in a heritage hotel. Sunset, a G&T and supper is calling!

We had a look at North Cliff, the other part of Varkala. It has rows of little stalls perched on the cliff edge. We think it's where all the old hippies that didn't make it home hang out!





I think if I had found this place in the 60's I might not have got home either! Its been lovely but its time to squidge those suitcases again and move on. This time we are off to the hills again and the Periyar National Park.

Temple Festival

It's party time in Varkala! Take two elephants, one with big willie, mix in some dancers of indeterminant gender, some beefcake drummers and green people and away you go! Utterly fab.

Varkala

The most hair raising taxi ride yet took us from Kovalam to Varkala. The only good thing about it was that the car had darkened windows so people couldn't see the look of terror of our faces! Anyway we are here and very comfortable in a stylish four bedroom B&B. This is our only foray into life without a/c and luckily we have acclimatised enough not to miss it terribly, we have a good fan and a nice shady veranda with a sea breeze, our breakfast is served here, its lovely and peaceful.



We've visited the beach, gorgeous to look at and paddle in but not so good for swimming because of the rip tides so we dipped in at a local hotel pool yesterday. Faint echoes of the bombing at Mumbai resonated as our rickshaw was stopped at their security gate and our swimming bag inspected. It was worth it, we had a lovely day just wallowing, it seems ages since our pool frolics in Marari. On our way back we were taken to see bats, loads of them hanging in trees near a shrine stocked with fruit reached by walking around a pair of superfluous gates. I presume they are fruit bats, they were big and when disturbed by a call of chuck-cooo they flew silently above our heads in the tops of the coconut trees.



This morning we have visited a temple just around the corner. Janardhana Swami Temple. As non Hindus we are not allowed in most temples but this one lets us into the outer courtyard. Lots of people of all ages are there. Most people seemed to do a circuit or two of the shrines surrounding the temple before entering. The men and boys take their right arm out of their shirts and bare their shoulder on going in, I've got no idea why, maybe it is historical, something to do with showing they are not carrying arms. I put some money in a donation box near the ancient Banyan tree and felt entitled to give myself a dab of yellow powder on my forehead. There is a huge water tank at the bottom of the hill for the pilgrims to bathe in, I didn't fancy it just right then! Somewhere nearby there is meant to be a very ancient temple but we've not been able to locate it yet.







This afternoon we've both had an Ayurvedic massage. Unlike the one I had in Munnar there was no fire under the massage table and this table was slightly more comfy with a full length thin plastic covered cushion to lie on. There were two ladies massaging me in perfect unison, one each side of my body. Keith had two chaps. We both started off with a vigorous head massage. Keith said later that his was so thumpingly stimulating that he thought he could be brain damaged so he ran some pin numbers through his mind to check he hadn't lost any faculties! He is funny. No steam box to get the oil off this time, it was soap and a bucket and chuck it method!

We're off for a fish supper this evening looking over the Lakshadweep Sea. Lovely.

Moving On

Trivandrum Palace and Temple

Our last trip to Trivandrum was yesterday to collect Keith's jacket and to visit the palace and look at the temple.

Unfortunately we are going to miss an enormous festival which has got in the Guinness Book of Records I think for over 1,000,000 women cooking rice puddings. We could see the cooking pots all round the town and in the next day or two women will take their positions by the roadside to make sure they get a good spot for their cooking.





We couldn't go in Padmanabhaswamy temple, which is for Hindus only and covers more than 7 acres. We could look at the outside though which is being renovated and will be spectacular when they have finished washing the stone work.






We did look round the palace which is a couple of hundred years old and is where the Royal Family moved to from the large ancient palace we looked around on our way to Cape Coromin. You could see why they moved, it has larger rooms, less tortuous steps and is generally more accessible. This palace is still owned by the Royal Family, the present King who is a figurehead only now with no power is in his 80s., he still visits the adjacent temple everyday early in the morning.

Kovalam's beaches

We are moving on tomorrow and I'm trying to get as uptodate with my photos and blog entries as possible. In between jaunting around we spent time in Kovalam itself. It has the long town beach called Lighthouse beach, for obvious reasons. People gather here to watch the sun go down, do a bit of shopping in the maze of little sandy lanes behind the beach shops and eat in the plentiful beach side restaurants. The little lanes get very hot and sticky as the sea breeze does not really penetrate, you have to do quick in and out trips. I visited my tailors in their little wooden shacks, I've had a pair of below the knee trousers made, a full length pair of trousers and a couple of tops, so I'm already for the summer. Keith had a couple of shirts made.









The next beach along is Hawah beach. We watched the fishing nets being pulled in here and got dropped at this beach by rickshaw on our way to Lighthouse Beach, which is pedestrianised, in the evenings.






Around the headland from Hawha beach is the beach nearest to us with the Mosque on the sands. Our house is on the ridge amidst the coconut trees just to the left of the mosque flag.



A little further on from the mosque, around a little rocky outcrop, is a beach we call the Lobster Pot beach because of the restaurant there with that name, which is good for lunch - spot the cow among the rocks!

Keralean folk dancing

It was a Muslim day of celebration yesterday. The school with orphanage attached near us processed to the mosque on the beach and did Keralean folk dancing on the way. We hardly ever hear them but last week we did catch faint sounds of what we now know to be them practicing their Kolkali routine. The folk dancing wasn't a million miles different from our Morris Dancing back home, sticks were hit, ribbons fluttered, it was very rhythmic, highly patterned and required a lot of concentration from the boys, who were brilliant, not a missed hit amongst them. The younger lads did a dance beating out time on tambourines while doing an elaborate sort of square dance, I thought it was called something like Dhaharamutti but I could be wrong. Maybe its all a form of Kolkali, the dance the older boys were doing.