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.