Backwaters of Kerala

After our Kumily adventures we decided to come back from high altitudes (fresh air) to extreme humidity and what everyone says is one of the best experiences in India. We decided to cut our trip into two segements and make the last 2,5 hours to Alappuzha by a public ferry through beautiful canals lined with coconut trees. The sunset we witnessed was one of the best I have seen in my life. I hope the pictures can convey what we have seen.

Arriving anywhere in India is always an experience of the same sort - and everytime we arrive we fool ourselves that we will manage it better. This time for the second time in a row we pushed ourselves through hoards of rickshaw drivers trying to take us to some kind of a hotel, just to go the opposite way we initially wanted. After 30 minutes walk we gave in - and succummbed to the temptation of one of our faithful followers - good choice - though accidental and initially we felt that we are again being cheated. We ended up in a beautiful home stay with the best value for the money so far and right next to a harbour which we discovered during the day. The harbour is the home of dozens of wonderful houseboats...

Anyway the next day after our arrival we decided to take a lesuirly boat ride through the backwaters. We hired a little boat with a guy rowing it for the two of us. Anybody knows what the ultimate pleasure of enjoying life feels like? We thought it must be something around the sensation we had for four ours on the canals.

The next day we decided to move one step further and checked in for a 22 hour house boat trip which was my birthday present. In short we got a cabin on a bamboo boat with all amenities you could imagine. All in all there were five of us on the boat. The captain, the cook, the mechanic and the two of us. Pure pleasure again for a bit more than regular Indian price but far from what would need to be paid in any Western country. I think that so far it was the most relaxing day of our trip. Most of the day we were cruising through the canals, reading books, playing chess (thanks Ania!), eating the best Indian food we had so far (seems that in Kerala the food is not as spicy as everywhere else) and indulging ourselves in the hardly sought out bottle of Indian red wine. Now buying any kind of alcohol in India is an adventure in itself. First of all in some places alcohol is banned as such (e.g. Hampi) or you have to somehow locate the only one store in town and push yourself through the crowds. The act of buying alcohol feels like commiting a crime and is kind of regarded as such by Hinduism (one of the themes in Mahatma Gandhi's autobiography I am reading). Anyway I managed to get myself behind the counter so that I can in peace choose from rather limited choice of Indian and Indian wines.

One more little story for anybody wanting to send a parcel by post from India. Remember that you have to have your parcel no matter how big or small wrapped and sewn by a tailor before you show up at the post office.

I mentioned some time ago in my Mysore post the "smell of planned economy" - it was definitely in the air and only in Kumily made itself visible. The picture by Rita with the red flag and hammer & sickle on it does not show the extent of the penetration but they were everywhere. Actually later on we figured out that Kerala is governed by the first ever freely elected in 1957 and ever since in power communist party.

Kumily

On the 26th of January we took a bus from Kochi to Kumily with the changeover at Kottayam. It was quite a ride again; an 8 hours trip with a fight on the bus amongst local men, most probably about politics. We could witness the communist party demonstrations and shrines throughout the way (which was a peculiar experience while reading Ayn Rand's We the Living), seasoned with an emergency backpack rescue from a puke floating with water all over the floor...

Anyway, we finally arrived to a small village called Kumily on the border of the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary, which is famous of its' tigers and elephants. So the following day we entered the park with a very welcoming 12 times more expensive ticket as for the locals and planned a boat trip on the lake. After some scrolling back and forth we discovered a friendly setup to purchase tickets - separate line for women, who are always less than men in this country (guess why, we will tell about it later) - which, after 45 minutes of pushing reached a result of sold out tickets and closed cassia for the next hour. Hence we were left with the option to make a 3 hour trekking in the park with a guide and 5 other visitors, which indeed was a spectacular experience. We learnt the 5 types of monkeys living in Kerala, saw scratched trunk of wood where tigers sharpened their nails but did not show themselves being the most shy animals in the park, black tailed giant squirrels, white therms and predator tree killer plants. But above all we saw elephant families in their undisturbed environment. We were sad to learn though why elephants are men's most dangerous enemies in the forest: they have a life-length of the humans and equal long memory to remember what man have done to them. And from this it comes to my mind, that there must be something in the self fulfilling prophecies: we had another giant visitor at night, for the variety it was a 10 cm grass-hopper and for the surprise chilling on the toilet. This time I really took all my courage to fight it, but it had more than one life. I will mention only a couple of highlights: it survived 3 doses of mosquito sprays and 5 toilet flushing ending up in a seize fire around midnight with the deal that it stays on the wall next to the mirror. It did till we left the place!

Next morning we undertook a crash-course on Indian spices, which is the other big thing around Kumily. As we understood Kerala is the spice heaven in India; most if not all the famous spices grow here and is exported all around the world. Did you know that green, black, red and white pepper are all the same plant but goes through a different processing? Or that nutmeg grows on a tree and is the seed of a fruit like a yellow plum? Or that there is a plant called insulin, which leave shall be eaten for the same purpose as taking insulin shots? We saw cinnamon trees and rubber, cocoa, vanilla, coffee and pineapple. Cardamon, ginger, turmeric, chili, henna, papaya, cloves, and dare to say that it is not heaven on earth! But we won't tell all the secrets we learnt, we might make a living of it :)

Fort Cochin

Today we discovered the island by bicycle. First we headed to the Chinese fishing nets, which are humongous wooden structures lining next to each other on the shore. Yesterday when I saw them I thought they were some ancient museum pieces, but as a matter of fact they are in use 12 hours a day, operated by 5-7 men, each. The men were so friendly that I joined them pulling a rope in order to lift the net from the water - some more pictures in the gallery will explain how the machine actually works - but the catch was really poor. They said when the monsoon comes there are more fish.

We continued our way to the Jew town, where there is a synagogue built in the 17th century. Unfortunately the synagogue was closed today - when else can we visit it than on Sabbath... - but we went around the neighbouring Jew town, which is famous of its' spice trading and Indian antiquities. The goods were sooo beautiful, that I did not want to enter the shops to prevent myself buying everything, however the shop owners with amazing azul eyes were difficult to ignore! The bookstores in India are incredibly good; they have everything and more: contemporary Indian literature in wonderful covers and reasonable prices. We also learnt in this bookstore next to the synagogue, that actually a big Central European Jewish community found asylum here escaping from the Nazi terror in Europe during the WW II. Books are another no go for us until we get rid of our currently too heavy 7 books. For the sake of completeness we also found the communist party HQs with Che Guevara's huge photo in it!

Kathakali Drama in Kochi

We arrived to Kochi before six in the morning - quite a ride. Nowadays we are much more experienced and tougher for the locals to be taken advantage of. It was the humidity of Kochi which hit us straight in the face already at the train station, but it did not make us lose our senses; we did not fall for the more than triple price for the tuk-tuk (rickshaw taxi on 3 wheels) nor for the bluff that the ferry does not work. We nicely managed to navigate our way through the still dark city to the port to take the first ferry to Fort Kochi while the sun was rising. We settled in a Home Stay, which is a very convenient and cost efficient form of local accommodation and went to sleep to recover from the 16 hours trip. When we made our way out of bed around 4 pm we could hardly see from starvation. Missing the yesterday dinner, today breakfast and lunch, it was high time to indulge in the culinary delights of Kerala. We both felt reborn after a typical Keralan dinner - to my taste the best kitchen in India I have tasted! Not too spicy, wonderful seafood with a lot of coconut and vegetables. Should not miss the ginger soda lime and the heavenly sweets!

To complete the day we decided to go for a Kathakali theatre performance, which was quite a piece of introduction to the Indian art of non-verbal communication - impossible for us to decode the message without some help. The characters can be identified by theirs make-up, where e.g. green face represents the noble character, the red the vicious, etc. The traditional play lasts 10-12 hours, though we had only a brief 1,5 hours performance about the story how Kari, the demoness crossing the river falls in love with a handsome lad, Pacca sitting in his garden. We saw how the demoness disguised as a beautiful woman - played by a not that beautiful man - tries to infatuate the young noble man, who after discovering the carnal desire driving the woman's marriage offer slowly but surely discovers her evilness and kills her.

Ooty - Coimbatore Mini Train

The best way to get to or away from Ooty is to take the mini train, which is apparently a UNESCO World Heritage built in 1908 - a century ago; and it runs with a steam loco!!! As we are stuck in Coimbatore for the transit to Kochin for a couple of hours we thought we share some more photos about the region we are leaving behind. If you decide to take the train to Ooty calculate with 5 to 7 hours ride, but we took it the other way around which took 3,5 hours. It all feels like being in a time machine: the train and all the stations on the way are restored in their authentic form with all its' old fashioned stylish signs about gents' and ladies' waiting rooms separately, about keeping the station clean and how to behave. It seems only the monkeys do not obey to these rules - at one of the stations' roof a whole monkey dynasty was waiting for the train well prepared for the usual cookie-feeding, photo posing and mocking performance attacking the platform and running after the wagon when departed. The scenery is awesome: descending about a 1500 meters we went through the transformation of the flora from tea plantations on the top through jungle forest in the middle till various palm tree plantations at the bottom. First we were disappointed for being seated against the train's direction, but only until we realized that instead of making turns the train descends in a zig-zag :).

Ooty

We are just about to leave Ooty hill station 2240 m above sea level, the former summer residence of the Madras government. We arrived on the 21st of January after a very bumpy 7 hours bus ride from Mysore, through the Mudumalai National Park with wild elephants and monkeys, through breathtaking beautiful tea plantations and the Nilgiri Hills. The first difference we faced upon the arrival was the chilly weather - during the night the temperature may fall to zero with frost, though during the day it resembles a strong late spring sunny day. So first time we could utilize our warm clothes and make our backpacks somewhat lighter! We settled in a guest house over the lake after some rumbling around to find our place and luckily and fast we scheduled a day track for the following day with some fellow travelers and a local guide. We got a jeep pick up at 9.30 in the morning bringing us 18 kms out of Ooty, from where we started our walk through an eucalyptus forest, followed by tea plantations and tribal villages with Toda people. We got to know that the tea plant lives for a 100 years and the fresh, light green leafs are harvested every 12 days all around the year. The villagers earn their living mostly from working on the plantations and the local tea factory - there is also an organic tea factory :). They are very friendly and cheerful with visitors (a flock of small kids were running to us with big smiles and screaming hi and by-by, especially if you have candies or cookies with you; ball pens are also highly treasured! We stopped for a thali lunch in one of the villages where only Tomek and I ate with our guide - the rest of course were prepared with packed lunches - but our reward was a delicious dish for 25 Rs - equivalent to 50 Euro cents - and acquiring the skill of eating by hands in the Indian way; do not think it is just so simple... We got back to our guest house by 5 pm and continued the evening with a delicious dinner in the company of a lovely Dutch couple Nicole and Lars. I hope you read us! Thanks for your travel hints and the excellent companion!!!

A day trip to Somnathpur

Today was supposed to be an easygoing day. We woke up, had a relaxing breakfast and planned to visit Somnathpur - a place around Mysore where Keshava Temple is located.

On the way to the bus station I decided to buy Rita a flower garland. I have lately noticed that many women wear it here and I new she will look beautiful. Unfortunately, the old lady selling them did not speak English so after so some weird haggling we made the deal and I had a huge bunch of flowers. I started clumsily putting in around Rita's neck but did not succeed very well. Another older lady joined in and helped me out - together with a very serious blessing for Rita (can't say what the signs she did were but definitely looked like a blessing not a curse). Rita became from then on a celebrity - like one would need to get more attention here. It seemed that flowers one way or the other were the sign of marriage...Rita is now double blessed - by elephant and some VERY OLD street lady that takes her job of blessing seriously. What more might you want from life :)

Our guidebook mentioned the way there as relatively simple. Hop on a bus - after 30 minutes change to another one and you are there. So we did. After 15 minutes of the first ride, the road ended. After another 45 minutes we ended up in a VERY remote village trying to figure out where the next bus is. After some time it has arrived...wild crowds rushed chasing it (just like in Hampi ). This time though we decided to join in as last. Since it seems everybody somehow fits in we strategically placed ourselves to be the last ones to enter the bus (we left the roof for the locals). Strategy proved correct we made it in. Bus was fully packed - we were almost near the exit so everything seemed perfect (after we lowered our expectations to the point that just getting on the bus is what we want). We have however not expected that ten minutes later there will be another stop and yet the same amount of people will enter the bus! We got squeezed almost to the back of the bus which we thought was already packed beyond comprehension -
so we suffered for another hour as the bus was taking a dirt road on which some bigger trucks got stuck and waited for being towed away.

The temple was great and well kept - in a very tranquil place, without lots of people, with beautiful sculptures etc. Worth the ride.















About the "planned economy" smell - the ultimate smell will be posted once we get out of Mysore.

Little Tibet

Nnna, after a couple of days of food poisoning symptoms we are both back again kicking! Today we jumped on a bus and shook ourselves for 3 hours to get from Mysore to a Tibetan settlement in Sera and Namdroling villages. What a refreshing experience! First of all it was not only posted on signs as all over in India, but it was really clean, quiet and neat. It is home for over 5000 Buddhist monks and Tibetan refugees in settlements built like little Tibet - as we can imagine it. It surely adds to the urge to see the homeland, too! However it is signed all around the place that foreigners may enter only with a P.A.P permit under the threat to be jailed, we just walked our way innocently without any harmful disturbances and without having a clue what this permit is. We received some shiny smiles from monks - from the age of 5 to who can tell how old - but still, till now, no other nation can beat our Indian friends in their undisturbed curiosity towards primarily white female species; this time I got a nice photo with a Muslim girl tip to tow veiled in black. The temples are jaw dropping, especially the Golden Temple with its 20 meters high golden Buddha and its wall paintings depicting the various representations of Buddha - also the way how elephants go to heaven.:) We were lucky to witness a traditional ceremony with drums and all the chanting of young kid-monks, but also to see them playing cricket or simply to run after a circle. When we got enough of watching this ancient-like scenery we made our way to the garlands of small streets in the village, where we could see monks - mostly only monks - outside the monastery walls: riding rickshaws, talking on mobile phone, bargaining for their crimson color cotton garments in a store or drinking Pepsi in the local monk hang-out restaurant. Now that is a noodle soup I will remember for the rest of my life! After silently and peacefully finishing our soup we observed a strange thing happening first time during our 13 days here: surrounded by twenty plus monks and being the only non local customers they were totally undisturbed in their manners, only rarely and very decently peeping towards us every now and then. So long one old Indian fellow entered and came right away to us...

Through Bangalore to Mysore

Our way out of Hampi should have been recorded as a short movie. We have not managed to do it just because we were too stunned to capture the moment. If somebody does not believe that boarding the bus through the windows etc. is a normal process - then we strongly recommend Hampi on an pleasant evening at the last day of some local festival. Anyway we also wanted to board this bus but decided not to endanger are lives - honestly after we have noticed the hoard of people running to the bus as it appeared on the horizon we just stood with open mouths watching whether there will be any casualties or not. All in all we took an auto rickshaw to the train station which was not that easy because the prices for that moment skyrocketed to western European standards though the service for the money was kind of not there. Fortunately the train took only the normal amount of people. I guess Bangalore is too flashy of a city for the crowds in Hampi (real middle of nowhere village which you can cross in 15 minutes).

Bangalore must be one of the more modern Indian cities as you can more or less drink coffee in a cafe just like in Italy (as we did since we do not trust that they will show up further on our way on everyday basis). We had a look around and a good nap in one of its many parks - wonderful though some of them could be kept in better condition (God damn - why this trash everywhere?!). We also had the first experience to use a auto rickshaw with a meter and it seems this way is MUCH cheaper. Though convincing a driver to do it is quite a challenge. We managed to do it once more. In the evening we boarded a nice train the Mysore at in less than three hours arrived in a small town that "smells" like a "planned economy". The magnificent Maharajah Palace definitely does not but many of the restaurants or hotels surely remember the 70-ties. We have not managed to capture the feeling on the photo yet but got an idea so we will let you judge the smell in our next post. For now we will stay here for another three days going around since we decided to make Mysore our hub.

For some unknown reason all the animals are painted in yellow here - once we know the reason we will post it - we did not think they are born like that...unless it is a big coincidence.

Hampi

After enough of watching the dolphins, listening to Betyar a Holdon from Amorf Ordogok in our cocoa hut restaurant and approving, that baron Munthausen was right, when depicted the moon as an arch sailing over the night sky, we headed to Hampi in Karnakata region. Leaving Goa behind with a 7 hours train ride we arrived to the once capital of one the Hindu empires, which is a large scale complex of temples scattered around the city and the nearby cocoa palm and banana plantations. We took a room in the Hampi Bazaar center, which is a mix of stands selling everything from slippers to airplane tickets, masala chai and fruits I have never seen. Funny how our contemporary Indian friends cosied themselves into the 15th century ruins, extended the granite pillars of the ancient bazaar to be their colorful patchwork like homes right next to the main temple. Today morning we started our tour in the Virupaksha Temple, where Lakshmi, the temple elephant was grateful enough to give me a blessing in return of 2 rupees, which she skilfully took from my hand (if the donation was banana, she ate them and sorted the cocoa nuts for the tougher days), elegantly handed it over to her attendant and ever so softly petted my head with her trunk. After a long and extremely hot walk to the Vittala Temple World Heritage site, we bargained two bicycles for an afternoon rent and rode to see the Elephant Stables and a dozen of other temple ruins which are in an unforgivably poor condition. After answering the where are you from? question to almost everybody on our way, smiling to the I am also hungry, but what is your country? and posing with 10 Indian guys who asked from Tomek (not from me!!!) permission to take a photo with me, we decided to make an earning from it; we started to charge 10 rupees for each photo. Somehow they all laughed at our proposal and we gained our peace...

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Goa - Benaulim

Days are just floating away with sleeping under our baldahin-like mosquito net in our coco hut home (the one in the middle), chilling-out on the beach, which is bearable only in the shadow, running into the waves and tasting the Goan seafood specialities (see the very left fish alias our dinner yesterday). You do not need more than a day to feel totally at ease with this easy going way of killing time. The only shock we had to bare with is a guest I discovered yesterday morning in our toilet: a spider of 5 Cms, who decided not to give away its' post throughout the whole day. We put up with a lassie faire attitude, let it stay - we were both so scared of it that we had no other choice - and it is gone today. My happiness is spoiled only by the thought, that if it is not in the toilet it is probably posing in some other corner of our lovely home:).

And until we hit the road again on Sunday we measure time by the fading of the sea star in the sand...

Goa

We survived Mumbai! I would not say I will miss its' crowd and dirt and its'16 and a half million people, especially after witnessing how wonderful the countryside can be. Yesterday we hopped on a boat and visited the Elephana island next to Mumbai, famous about its caves with magnificent manifestations of Shiva, the creator, the protector and the destroyer in one. We also had the chance to see the most elegant and shocking hard physical laborers we have come across with so far, enjoyed the never ending mockery of monkeys and finally met some holy cows, or rather bulls.

Huh, after a 16 hours night-bus drive today at 11 am, after 3 hours delay and a rocky sleeping bus road we made it to Benaluim, in South Goa. We tried to avoid the party crowd of the North and we were right; even in the highest season we immediately found our coco hut about 10 steps away from the Arabian sea on a beach which seems to have no end, full of chill-out bars and excellent seafood restaurants. We have a little doggy who found the best sleeping spot under our benches and made acquaintance with the nicest local people selling colorful silk and cotton clothing to pineapple and dolphin-watching boat trips. It is too nice to believe it is real!

Mumbai

Landing in Mumbai was way less of a shock than landing in Delhi considering my two previous trips to India. Perhaps because they have set high targets for themselves (vide photo). Hard to imagine though that this would be a serious objective for the locals because I have never imagined that the mess around would bother them at all - great to be wrong. Anyway Mumbai is much cleaner and much more organized than Delhi. We had a two hour walk yesterday through the center without having to turn down more than a dozen special offers of local handicraft etc. In Delhi almost impossible. One other thing that is common though for both of the cities - lack of need of silence - the good thing is that you get woken by a cock but what comes later is a mixture of hard rock trash metal from the street :) -

Considering though that we were supposed to be well prepared for at least the first day of our honeymoon trip, I must say we slightly failed. Neither was it easy to find a mode of transportation to the center, nor the hotel where we hoped to live had any rooms free. Seems that it is still high touristic season in Mumbai as the weather is very pleasant (SUNNY!!). We had some local food in the evening (100 choices on the menu while you have no idea about more than two) - I call it culinary exploration. By the way seems that on Sunday most of the places were closed here - came as quite a surprise to us. You would think that the new emerging states are the ultra liberal ones with everything open 24/7 and we could not even find an internet cafe.

Although as mentioned earlier Mumbai is less of a mental shock, it seems it was a big enough shock for my body since tonight I managed to get some fever - I have already done some pathology blood etc. tests to get to know whether some aliens already manage to inhabit my body. The results will come later tonight. For the time being we go and buy train tickets to Goa. I need a bit of silence and it seems neither of the three big cities we have visited during last three weeks can really provide it.

Novgorod the Great

Former capital of Russia, Novgorod the Great is not to be mixed with the other: Lower Novgorod, which is however bigger, but not greater than the city where Russia originates from. 180 kms to the South from St Petersburg lies another jewel of the Russian culture. Luckily this place enjoyes greater attention and therefore it is in a better shape than Pskov, however there is still a lot left for restauration. It must be lovely in the summer, but in winter you will be one of the very few visitors among almost only local tourists and without experiencing the Russian winter with its snow and frozen rivers you will not get all the beauty the countrty has to offer. Not to mention the silence and so clean air that it almost hearts which is a balm after spending some time in St Petersburg. After making your way through the not too inspiring modern parts in the center of the city you find a lovely park with the red brick wall of the fortress and the kremlin. In contrast to the minimalism of the white walls outside, you will find stunning candeliers and icons inside the churches. In the park Cathrin the Great poses on top of a monumental tart with her supporters at her feet and several museums offer historical collection after a lengthy walk under the old trees of the fortress. Crossing the pedestrian bridge over the river you will find the remains of the old market place which was the center of the once great merchant city, the fist self governed democratic establishment in the region, demonstrating that such structure had been possible and fruitful, until Ivan the Terrible demolished it. What a pity!

Pskov

Pskov is about 200 kms drive from St Petersburg halfway to the Latvian border. An ancient city you must see if you would like to explore orthodox cultural heritage in Russia. Unlike in St Petersburg this place has not yet been touched by the development of the 21st century, so besides the chain of snow-white churches and monasteries you will also get a glimps of what life used to be in those nostalgic soviet times. Newertheless it adds to the charm of the place that tourism is not a known phenomena yet, at least not in its` western means. Do not expect to find a decent place to sleep and for sure not a value for the price they charge - a room like a dorm in the seventies not renovated since will cost you 60 euros - , but on the upside if you visit out of the summer season you will not have to pay entry fees. This is the city which has never fall for foreign invaders since Prince Olga decided to establish a fortress of the Church on the western border of Russia in the 12th century. Contrary to the overwhelming glittering, golden ornaments of churches in St Petersburg you will find these fourty to fifty buildings scattered all over the city serenly beautiful in their simplicity. The have commonly only white walls from the outside with the traditional onion domes and a robuts build supporting its bell towers standing separately in front of the dome. Unfortunatelly funds are slow and short for restauration, hence half of the buildings are closed down or are under reconstruction, but once it will be finished for sure will be a crown jewel of tourist attraction.