Alappuzha-Ooty

Alappuzha

From Ammas Asham, we took the ferry to Alappuzha, the backwater hub. There are lots of people who will try to get you to buy a trip on a houseboat designed like a traditional rice barge. It comes with a driver, a cook and an assistaint. They are suppose to be very relaxing but they are expensive. We figured that we would get bored and it seems a bit awkward to be going past people who have nothing in a luxurious houseboat. Instead, we spent 2 days exploring the city. I have no clue how they fit the 300,000 residents in the city because it is no larger than Brandon and has few buildings over three storeys tall. We found a few good restaurants, including our favourite, the Indian Coffee House, an extermely crowded one called “Thaff” that served an all you can eat thali, a more upscale place called “Kreme Korner”, and one called “Mushroom” whose tomato fry was to die for. Our accomadation was two little cottages or “heritage homes”. The employees were a small group of laid back 20 year olds who could not clean to save their lives and were far to cheap to hire a cleaner. Cleaning our room consisted of sweeping the deck, that's all. They didn't even change the sheets. Whenever we walked past them they were sitting outside drinking liqueur and playing cards. There were many empty liqueur bottles around that were used as plannters.

Kochi

We are now in Fort Cochin, a wonderfully serene city with a long and prosperous history of trading and colonialism, It is one of the few places where you can see a church, a synagogue, a mosque, a hindu temple and a jain temple all within walking distace of each other. Today we had cold curry with perotta and appam for breakfast and then we went to the Mattencherry area to see a palace and Jew town. The palace was interesting, the best parts were the incredibily intricate murals, unfortuantetly photos were banned.

The past few days I have been noticing a distinctly Indian way of phrasing things. For example, today I saw a pop bottle and instead of saying “tonic water” it said “sweetened aerated water”. Also on an ad for a t-shirt it said, “For youth who still activily engaged in harmony with the sun and nature”. A school bus is now an “Educational institution bus”. The other day I saw a strange sign about adopting stray dogs, it said “Why would you buy a Dashdund, Poodle, or Labrador? When you can have them all! Adopt an all-in one stray dog today! Another thing that is interesting about India is the livestock that roams the streets, there are goats, chickens, cows, oxen and the usual cats, dogs and rats. I am sure that they must become quite the obstacle whilst driving.

Kochi - Ooty

Yesterday we went east into the hills of the western ghats, as the train drove along the scenery became more and more arid and huge hills started to loom in the background, by the end of four hours there was not a palm tree in sight. We took a bus to Mettupalayam, the starting point for the toy train to Ooty. When I say toy train I mean narrow gauge (width of the tracks), not a train that little childen play with. Today my dad and I woke up at 5 AM because the train was fully booked and we did not have tickets therefore we had to line up and hope that there was someone who canceled or that they left a quota of seats empty for last minute travelers. There was already a line up of 6 or so people at the station master's office when we arrived, including Robert and Henriquez our friends from Quebec and Spain who we can't stop running into. It turns out that our general itineraries for the next couple of weeks are nearly the same. Anyways, they told us we had to go and buy a waiting list ticket at the ticket office on the other side of the tracks. We ran across only to be told we needed a slip of paper from the station master as well. We went back across and got that and then returned to the ticket office triumphant with our paper from the station master, Of course When we tried to pay the fee with a 500 Rs bill we were told that we needed a smaller denomination, so I had to run over and borrow some change from Robert and Henriquez. With our waiting list ticket in hand, we went to get Mhari and Mom. The waiting list, it turns out, has no order so when we got back the 5:45 train from Chennai (that used to be Madras in case your wondering) had arrived and there were at least 30 people in the queue. The waiting list has no order so I don't understand why they even do it, if all that matters is where you are in the queue. Luckily for us it turns out that most of the train was unreserved anyways and there were seats for most of those waiting. We were put in a compartament with a nice English couple and an Indian couple who thought that my miming of the big Trivandrum poori (crispy, oily puffed-up pancake thing, hard to explain try googling it) was the most hilarious thing they had ever seen. The husband was so impressed he even shook my hand!

The train journey was absolutely stunning. 46 km in 6 hours through spectacular mountain passes, forests and tea plantations. For the first half of the journey we were pushed up by a steam engine, in the second half we were pushed by a diesel engine. The first half of the journey took 5 hours, and the second took 1 hour, although to be fair the first half was steeper. At one of the stations where we stopped for 15 minutes, the platform was full of monkeys who were running around looking for food. They were quite brave around humans and they were very hilarious.

When we arrived in Ooty we walked to our hotel of choice and got a huge room for a reasonable price. That evening we went to the lake and also went to the Thread Garden. On the sign it proclaimed that it was an art miracle, a garden of flowers made entirely of thread with no use of needles whatsoever! The optimistic adverts made us curious so we bought the 10 Rs entrance ticket and went in to find out what all the hype was about. It turns out that it was 3-D cardboard flower cutouts that were wrapped in thread. It also said that it took 50 artists over 12 years to create, which, as the Lonely Planet book says, is either very impessive, or kinda sad. It was well worth the entrance fee just to see it.

Ooty

Yesterday we went walking, bussing, jeeping and auto-rickshawing in and around Ooty. We started off by going to Dodabeta Peak, the highest peak in the Nilgiri Hills. It was very touristy up there, but the views were good and we remembered that it was Republic Day, the Indian eqiuvalant of Canada day. We walked down the mountain and went to the tea factory and museum. Unfortunatly it was not a production day, but there was a decently executed exhibit on the history of tea. We bought a big bag of delicous cardamon tea. We walked down a forest path to get back into town but halfway down it stopped and we had to ask a group of young boys how to get into town. They took us through their yards and down the dirt paths running through their cramped residential neighborhood. After that close up view on day to day Indian life we wandered through the fruit and veg market to the botanical gardens. Being Republic day, everybody was out in the gardens and they were all feeling very chatty. We meet an Indian man working in Paris as a Japenese chef, a student who wanted Dad to find him a job in Canada and took about 200 pictures of us and various other people. There was also a dog who followed us wherever we went.

Today, we went on an all-day trek through the Nilgiri Hills. We saw lots of tea plantations, Eucalyptus trees and climbed up a mountain that had the most incredible views ever. We had a thali for lunch in a small town and there were 4 dogs that came with us up the mountain so as to get their daily biscuits from our guide. Our guide's name was Anthony and he had been leading the same trek for 16 years. He had quite the system going with the locals, in exchange for being allowed to pass through their property, he gave them various things, usually it was just sweets for their children (all the kids waited for us to come by) although at a few places that were different. The trek was a great way to get out of the city and the it was great to clean the pollution out of my lungs.

Dad and Mhari and an ashram

13^th January 2011

Today was reunion day, Dad and Mhari arrived. After we ate breakfast we got a rickshaw to the airport and sat outside for 30 minutes waiting for their plane to arrive. When they arrived we were all very happy and my mom was in tears. Later that day we returned to the zoo, this time there was a rhino to see as well. We took Dad and Mhari out to our favourite Trivandrum restaurant for supper and had the best Indian meal I've ever eaten. We had all sorts of delicious dishes that I had never heard of before along with naan and perotta.

14^th January 2011

Today we went to Kovalam and sat on the beach, I had a delicious fish biryani and I got a sunburn. We also saw our friends from Spain and Montreal again.

15^th - 17^th January 2011

We spent three days relaxing in Varkala, we ate lots of good food and went for a long walk to explore less crowded beaches north of the main one. Upon leaving, we had an argument about hotel price with the owner but I was not really involved so you might want to check my parents blog.

18^th - 19^th January 2011

We had an early start this morning so that we could catch the train to Kollam in time to catch the 10:30 AM boat to Allepey via the backwaters: a network of lakes, canals, and rivers. We woke at 7 AM, packed up and headed over to get a taxi to the train station. Unfortunately though there were many taxis there was only one driver and he was pre-booked. He told us that the other drivers were having a shower break. We managed to call aside a rickshaw and then amazingly managed to fit all 4 of us and our luggage into the tiny rickshaw made to carry two people, although I had to share the front seat with the driver. We did get our train and were in Kollam by 8:40. We got to the dock soon after and so we had time to have a round of masala dosa (rice flour crepe with potato and squash inside), tomato utthappams (rice flour and coconut milk pancake with tomato) and vadas (deep-fried lentil and chilli doughnuts) before we left. The boat ride was beautiful. We passed fishermen in their canoes, many small villages and hundreds of devices that look like spiders with fishing nets attached to their legs, which are lowered into the water to scoop up fish. We got off the boat before we arrived in Allepey because we wanted to stay a night in an Ashram that had been recommended to us by a couple from Manchester (I find that funny, although I do not know why, perhaps I should spend some more time in the Ashram so as to figure it out). For those of you who are unsure, going to an Ashram does not necessarily mean doing yoga 10 hours a day and meditation the rest of the time, although it can if you choose. Instead it was more like living on a commune. You get waterey rice and curry for breakfast, lunch and supper, you do you your own dishes and the place is run entirely by people visiting. You are asked to sign up for a chore every day to keep the place running, we got pizza rolling. There are also yoga and meditation classes and an Ayurvedic hospital (traditional herbal medicines). Also, the more spiritually dedicated would wake up at 4 AM and by 5 AM they were chanting in the temple. After the first night we decided it was interesting and booked another night. The Ashrams Guru is “Amma” one of Indias few female gurus and she is very famous for her humanitarian work, We heard that she is also the Ambassador of the Hindu religion in the UN court of religions. There are pictures of her everywhere, I counted nine in our room alone, in the gift shop you can buy her doll, postcards of her, her hand or her toes, or rings with with her photo in them.

At meals, I usually ate the Indian food although a couple of times I ate that and then went to a cafeteria where they sell Western food just for something to bridge the gap between meals.

On our third and final day my mom kept asking me whether I wanted to buy one of the ashrams shoulder bags as a souvenir, I would simply repley that I liked the bag but not enough to spend three times more than what I did on my India cricket shirt. In the end she took matters into her own hands and bought one without telling me, she then showed me the bag and said that I did not need to pay her back right now but she expected it sometime. I decided that the bag was quite nice so I just paid her in full straight away. 

Kanyakumari

January 9^th

We have made it to the tip of India! Go south from here and you will go straight to the south pole. Kanyakumari is the name of the city and it is full of tourists. Only unlike Varkala, there are few foreign tourists, they are mostly Indian tourists. It is also a major pilgrimage destination and it seems that every second person you pass is wearing the black, pilgrim outfit. Since there are not many westerners here, we are very popular and everybody wants a photo with us. Yesterday we could not get away from a big group of college students. And today there were pilgrims wanting our photo, we feel like movie stars

Yesterday, we went to an island with a memorial to Vivekananda, a religous leader. On the neighbouring island there is a 133 foot high statue of Thiruvallur, a Tamil poet. Like an Indian Colloesseus of Rhodes. While we were waiting for the ferry, we met two travellers, one from Montreal and one from Spain. We had a thali with them at a local restaurant after visiting the memorial.

After lunch we left them and went to Gandhi memorial where we got the royal treatment. We got to skip the line at the place where you keep your shoes, (no shoes inside) and we got a tour of the place too.

At sunset we joined the thousands of people on the beach to watch the sunset, which was covered up by clouds at the last minute. A real disappointment.

January 10^th

After we had a delicous breakfast of Masala Dosa with potato and squash, we went to the tourist office to see what there was to do out of town. While looking at the map our friends from yesterday came in. We both decided to see the same thing, a fort and beach 6 km out of town. The fort was built by King Marthanda Varma in the 18^th century and was later captured and strenthenged by the Dutch. It was a super peaceful place, and other than an Indian couple getting wedding photos taken, we were the only ones there. We were asked to be in the couples' wedding photos (have I mentioned that we feel like movie stars here?). After the fort, we went onto the abandoned beach, with palm trees all the way back and beautifuly warm yet still refreshingly cool water callied us in. I felt like I was in the South Pacific. After the most refreshing swim ever, we walked along the beach to a small fishing village, said hello to all of the locals and went back home.

Cute Puppy

Mom, Robert and the Pilgrims

January 11^th

Today, we went to the Suchindram temple, recomended to us by the tourism man and the Spainard and the Canadian. It was an easy bus out, half an hour and 5 rupees each (10 cents). At the temple entrance there was a very tall 7 storey gopuram. It is very hard to describe what it looked like so you should just google it you want to know. Essentially it is a thin but wide tower that gets smaller as you go up. It was adorned with sculpures. When we went in we were immediately looked after by a local Hindu who knew what to do. He showed us all of the architecural features and the holy things in the temple. There were lots of holy statues and some musical pillars too, you put your ear up and he hits a neighbouring column and it makes musical notes. There are seven pillars all cut from a single rock. At the end, he asked for a generous tip so we gave him a little less than he asked for but twice what Lonely Planet said was reasonable for that sort of thing (spontaneous, unsolicited guides are common in India, one helped us in Kanniyakumari also).

Later today, I bought an India cricket jersey at the market for 90 rupees (just over 2 dollars!) (Don't worry, Dad, I will keep it in my bag while we're in England). We also went to a local ashram to see an exhibit they have about Vivekananda, the wondering monk. The exhibit was closed so we went for a walk around the ashram grounds and through the peacock sanctuary. We also had a delicous meal at the ashram cafeteria where we met a couple from Manchester, a couple from Hyderabad and a man from Bangalore. There was a delicous green banana salad, and some butter milk, straight from the cow's udder (Grandpa, you would have loved it, although it was very different from the supermarket kind).

Suchindram Temple

Trivandrum and Varkala

Trivandrum is a very interesting. It has more people than Winnipeg but is much, much smaller. Also, other than on and just off the main drag, it feels more like a forest than a large city. There is cover of palm trees and dogs and goats running around. It is very polluted and there is garbage everywhere. Before we came to India I expected things to be sharper, not pointier, but sharper smells and bright colours. Instead things are more of a blur. There are lots of smells and sounds and colours, but they are all mixed together, although the heat and humidity may have something to do with that.

Today I saw the best stereo system ever, 4 amplifiers tied to the roof of a jeep. It was playing what I think was radio but do not know as it was in either Hindi or Malayalam.

Today we had breakfast at the Indian coffee house. The building is red on the outside and a mix of white and very light green and pink inside. It was shaped in a 4 storey corkscrew shape (like the tower of Babel). The seating twirls upwards around a central column. It has fast service and yummy food. Yesterday I had a masala dosa, a crispy crepe like thing with potato beetroot curry, and today I had an egg and onion omelete with toast with jam, not very Indian, but good nonetheless.

Later we went to train station to go to Varkala, a very popular beach town but the locals said that it was very beautiful. We accidentally booked on second class which is the lowest class, we think that they don't ever stop selling those tickets no matter how many they sell. We thought we were buying one class up (sleeper) but we got the names mixed up. Anyways we could not even fit onto the train so we went to the sleeper car and got in because we learned we could upgrade when the ticket man came round. He never came so we got a cheap ride, 50 percent off, so we saved 50 cents each!

When we arrived in Varkala we walked along the beach until we got to the main tourist beach. We climbed up the stairs to the hotels and restaurants on the cliff above and stopped in a restaurant for a cold drink. Later, when we were walking along the cliff looking for a hotel, a boy in a shop asked us if we were looking for a room, so we said yes. His aunty showed us the room they had on the top floor of their family home and we took it. It costs much more than our hotel in Trivandrum but Varkala is very touristy and the location is great. Everything here is more expensive than Trivandrum, but compared to Europe it is dirt cheap, And the area we are staying in is very beautiful.

We rented boogie boards and played in the surf today and yesterday. That was fun. We also looked around town and got some souvenirs, I got a funky lampshade and my mom bought a few gifts for friends, (and a few for herself).

Pictures from Trivandrum

A hot day at the zoo

Meat men at the market

As you can see there is a major banana shortage in  Trivandrum

India

Well, Mom and I are in India now. Mhari and John will join us after her MRI scan in a couple of weeks. We are very excited even though the first day was hard. We had to wake up a 4:30 to drive to Heathrow, and then we spent nine hours on a flight. The flight was about as good as it gets when on a plane for nine hours in Economy class. We got blankets, entertainment systems with movies, tv, and video games, as well as two meals. For the first meal they had run out of chicken curry so I got the First class prawn(shrimp) curry. It was very good. 

When we got off our flight in Mumbai it was 1:00am due to the time change. It took an hour or so to get our luggage and after that a worker at the hotels desk said that he did not think that there was a shuttle bus to our hotel (they had promised one). So we went outside to look. Luckily there was a man waiting with a sign for “Mr Lesley Ball”. 

On the way to the hotel I just sat watching in complete shock, culture shock that is. Despite being 2:00am there were people everywhere, sitting around fires, sleeping on the streets or slowly wandering through the road, unaware of the cars weaving around them. There were stray dogs everywhere, although they were not aggressive at all. I watched them wander up to strangers sniff them then walk away, and people would just ignore them and continue doing whatever they doing. And I still do not know how one makes a living as an auto-rickshaw driver because it seems everyone owns one. I must have seen a couple thousand during that 15 minute drive. 

Before our trip people were all saying how hectic the driving was in India. But it was not that bad on some major roads. They even have lanes marked! (although they didn't really use them) Also, a couple of times I saw people using turning signals! At our hotel we bought an internet card so we could e-mail. But when I scratched off the silver bit (like a scratch and win) to uncover the code, It also scratched off the number! The following morning I showered under the shower which is more powerful than Niagra falls, had breakfast at the hotels breakfast buffet (I never thought I would see cornflakes right beside dahl in a buffet) and went to the airport to get our next flight to Trivandrum in the south of India. We are now sitting on our flight way above India. Today I learned, while reading the paper, that last year in the state of Maharashtra, the number of car crashes have gone down by a huge amount this year, in 2010 there were only 65,000! Gone down from 72,000 the year before.

Mumbai fun fact

The population density in Mumbai is 29 000 people per square km. 

In Manitoba, it is 1.5 people per square km.  What a difference.