SOUTH INDIA

KERALA

Day 1 -11.02.2015 Cochin

We arrive in Cochin in the middle of the night, very tired and irritated by the lot of paperwork we have to do in the airport. It is unbelievable :at 3:30 in the morning the airport is very busy and crowded. We meet our contact person from the agency who drops us at the airport hotel (Hotel Flora) and who will pick us up 4 hours later….We drop into beds for a short rest.

Day 2 -11.02.2015 Kumarakom

After breakfast we leave for Kumarakom. It is an almost 3 hours' drive on a rather bumpy road. We cannot enjoy the sightseeing since we are so tired that we sleep during the trip. Arriving at a jetty we wait for the boat that will bring us to Coconut Lagoon . There is no road leading to the resort. We check in and start exploring the resort. The rooms are little "chalets" with a bathroom in the open (no roof). Very nice. We walk along the lagoon and discover the amazing size of the lake. At dusk we see some flying foxes. Lovely dinner in one of the resort's little restaurants.

Day3- 12.02 2015 Alleppey

After a luxurious breakfast we wait again for the boat at the jetty. This time we are going to spend the day and the night on a houseboat, the traditional Kettuvallam, the rice barges that were used for the rice transport on the river since there are no roads. The backwaters of Kerala are the rice bowl of the county. The Kettuvallam is a surprise: A large boat, with its own little living room, a bedroom with a flushtoilet and shower (we are sailors and used to different things…) and a whole crew looking after us. We glide through the backwaters and watch life at the riverside; people cooking and washing at the river, the constant banging of the clothes on the rock turns into a familiar sound. Late afternoon we moor the boat and have a walk in the little village. Dinner on the boat is delicious: Ladyfingers. beetroot with graded coconut, mustardseeds with carrots and ginger, egg curry and rice noodles and fried bananas.

This is the coconut country: every part of the coconut is used. The meat and  the milk for food, the fibres for mats etc. We have a good sleep on the boat, astonishingly without any moskitos…

Day 4-13. 02. 2015 Cochin

In the morning we travel back, meet the driver and head back to Cochin, hotel the 8th Bastion. A guide shows us the town of Cochin. Fort Cochin, St Francis church, the Basilika, all very modest sights.Vasco da Gama landed in Cochin,trading with spices,  died there and was buried in the Basilika, but years later taken back to Portugal. In the harbour we see the old Chinese fishernets, impressing in their size. The Synagogue and the Dutch palace are closed . In the evening we see a Kathakali-show, the traditional Kerala dance. Unfortunately these are not the temple dancers that we had hoped for, but some grotesque characters in strange costumes and heavy make up, moving their hands in extra postures and pulling faces…all accompanied by terribly loud singing and percussion, rather unpleasant. The air conditionning is freezing and we flee back into the roads buying spices on our way and getting dinner.

Day5-14.02. 2015 Athirapally

Lovely breakfast in the hotel with Aval, crushed rice, mixed with coconut, a paste one can add to muesli and cereals. We leave Cochin, slowly progressing in the traffic. On the motoway we see an elefant getting a ride on a truck: the animal gets transported to the temple festivities. We arrive at the Rainforest Lodge, Athirapally. The view from our room is stunning, as well for the thunder of the waterfalls. We get settled and walk off to the waterfalls. Ever felt singled out?? We see hundreds of tourists, all local people, not a single white person. We pass college buses and the students shout friendly hellos and greetings. The place seems to be popular for excursions, entire schools are heading for the water. they dash into the water, fully clothed (!), with jolly giggling and screaming with laughter and splashing the water around. Nobody seems to mind the wet clothes. Our treat of the day: they walk up to us and ask for some pictures. After the ice is broken we stay for the rest of the afternoon and take uncountable pictures. They enjoy sitting next to us and get their picture taken. A pleasure for the eye! Many monkeys watch out to sneak off with some goodies, stolen from the bags. Later we walk back to the hotel and relax. In the evening the hotel provides a Valentine's dinner for the guests, but they lack the experience for organizing it in the proper way and we have a good laugh at the oddities…

KANATAKA

Day6 15. 02. 2015 Conoor

Annoyingly no visa payment possible…We are off to Kurumba, facing a very hard and long drive. We arrive at Village Resort, check in with the speed of light and off again to Conoor for a train ride through the tea mountains. Unfortunately there was no warning that the train is all "open air", no window panes to protect us from the cold. It is so windy and cold that the beautiful sight of the tea mountains is lost on us. Too much travelling for an event not worth it. We drive back, frozen, on a terrible winding road, noise of the sounding horns, driving technique and traffic, all terrible. Finally we get a quiet dinner at the hotel to recover from the strenous day. A lot of monkeys around!

Day 7- 16. 02. 2015 Nagerhole National Park

In the morning we skip the botanical gardens and get away from Nilgiri landscape. The land gets flatter, we are in palm tree areas and cross a national park on our way to Kabini. On the way we have tea and buy some aryuvedic remedies for Gaston. Kabini Orange County is a beautiful resort, the rooms are amazing, with a private jacuzzi in the backyard. We have a quick bite for lunch, very good food, and leave for a safari in Nagerhole National Park. A small open air bus rides us through the park: deer, giant squirrels, wild boars, eagles, hawks, egrets, beautiful kingfishers, beehunter (a green-tailed bird), monkeys…. At the lake we see a tusker, a male elefant, quite close. The treat of the ride: seeing a leopard! Return and enjoy the best of dinners. 

Day 8-17. 02. 2015

Sadly we have to leave the beautiful resort, all too early. The road to Mysore is bumpy and tricky for a while, but improves at the end. Hotel Sandesh the Prince. We rest a bit and a guide takes us for the visit of the Palace. After that we drive to Chamundi Hill to see some temples. We walk down part of the 1000 steps to the giant bull, Nandi, Shiva's vehicle. Back in Mysore we get to Devaraja-Market. The place is buzzing with people, colourful and busy as Indian markets are. We buy some incense, typical for this place and enjoy ourselves. We stay for a while and then head off towards the night's special: every so often the palace is lit by more than 100000 lightbulbs just when night falls. The place is crowded and the sight of the palace reminds us of fairytales….Walk back and enjoy dinner.

Day 8-17. 02. 2015 Mysore

Sadly we have to leave the beautiful resort, all too early. The road to Mysore is bumpy and tricky for a while, but improves at the end. Hotel Sandesh the Prince. We rest a bit and a guide takes us for the visit of the Palace. After that we drive to Chamundi Hill to see some temples. We walk down part of the 1000 steps to the giant bull, Nandi, Shiva's vehicle. 

Back in Mysore we get to Devaraja-Market. The place is buzzing with people, colourful and busy as Indian markets are. We buy some incense, typical for this place and enjoy ourselves. We stay for a while and then head off towards the night's special: every so often the palace is lit by more than 100000 lightbulbs just when night falls. The place is crowded and the sight of the palace reminds us of fairytales….Walk back and enjoy dinner.

Day 9-18.02. 2015 Bangalore

We leave Mysore and visit on the way Sringapattanam, Sultan Tibu's Palace. The sultan was famous for fighting the British army several times.

After that the trip continues towards Bangalore, Indian's Sillicon Valley.

Bangalore hits us as being noisy, full of dirt and dust, garbage heaps in the road, foul smells and mad traffic, India at its best!! We have a walk in the part called Majestic and flee from the noise to a little street restaurant on a quiet first floor. Lunch is nice and we can overlook the street from where we are staying. Strengthened we continue our Bangalore visit and discover back at the hotel a nice terrace on the 7th floor. We enjoy sunset up there and a quiet beer.

Day 10- 19. 02. 2015 Chennay-Kanchipuram-Mahabalipuram

After a rather uncomfortable and short night on a hard bed, we are off to the airport, quite early.There will be an aeroplaneshow and the metropolitan is already crammed. Luckily we left early enough to avoid major traffic jams. Spicejets airlines fly us (1 1/2 hour) to Chennai. Another big city and a lot of traffic, but no visit planned. We leave immediately to Kanchipuram. Here a rather stressy guide shows us the first Shiva temples, trying to squeeze too much information into a short visit and spoiling it for us. However the old sandstone temple Kailasanatha is nice and dedicated to Shiva. 

After that we see the so called "Mango temple" with parts of the old Mango tree, its official name Ekambaranathar Temple. The legend says that Shiva married Parvathi in this place after she made a holy lingam ( Phalluslike religious symbol) for him. The lingam is supposed to hold the holy spirit of the god inside…There is a Shiva festival and the place holds the lovely sound of Shiva mantras and music.

We travel on to Mahabalipuram Temple Bay Hotel. We are not really satisfied and wonder what we need to change for the rest of the visits.

Day 11-20. 02. 2015 Mahabalipuram-Pondicherry

We drive into the town of Mahabalipuram to see the stone carvings. Krishna's butter ball is a solitaire huge boulder holding its balance on a flat rock. This area is famous for Arjuna'sPenance, a big wall (30m x 12m ) with a beautifully carved relief, animals, deities and semidivine creatures as well….

From here we drive to the sea to visit the seashore temple. We enjoy walking around, there is a lovely breeze from the shore and people walk up to us and ask continously for pictures.

In Nakula Shadeva Ratha temple we see the amazing sculpture of a huge elefant. This is one of the 7 rockcut temples resembling to chariots. We buy some souvenirs cut out from solid rock and drive on to Pondicherry. In Pondicherry we meet Mr Bishwajit, called "Bischu", our guide. This man has the incredible talent to explain the historical facts of Pondicherry and make it all sound like a fairytale, a natural storyteller. He tells us his life's story, too, we discover that modern India with its eleminated caste system is not modern at all, still stuck in the old schemes and rules and giving people a hard time.

Pondicherry is still very French, we see La promenade des Anglais and hear the story about the fighting of English against French. When India becomes independant many low-caste Indians leave to France and return decades later as rich people. Bischu shows us our first Ashram, Aurobindo. This is a place of "good vibrations" and spirituality. After that we visit an Indian temple called Le temple des blancs. The legend of this temple says that the Ganesha statue was thrown by a non-believing baron 3x into the sea, but miraculously the god returns each time to the temple and the defeated baron turns into a fervent believer…Here we get a true Brahman blessing at the sanctuary (ashes on our forehead…)In the street we enjoy a South Indian Coffee Kofi, learn the technique of pouring it into 2 different vessels to cool it off. At last we visit a church, with "Lourde TV", crowds of colourful people praying and singing, a lot of noise and a very Indian atmosphere. Funny!

As a special treat our guide lets Gaston ride his Royal Enfield motobike, this rounds off a splendid visit and day. 

Day 12- 21.02.2015 Tanjore

Early departure to Tanjore. On the way we visit a big temple complex, Anand,  with a tiny guide (hardly reaching up to my shoulder…) .The place is under restoration, the towers are covered by scaffoldings and building material, what a disappointment. But, "good Kharma" as the guide says, we see the last minutes of the temple dancers' performance: beautifully dressed in extra costumes, heavy make up and many little bells at their ankles tinkling while they move…

We drive on to a temple that wasn't originally on our program but turns out to be one of our favourites:Gangaikonda Cholapuram. The temple is very sober, no colours, with a beautiful Nandi at its entrance (not black but beige this time), and surrounded by trees and greens. Many college girls visit the temple, all in school uniform and all happy to take our picture.

Darasuram is the last temple of the day. Here the ground is so hot that we can hardly walk, we are barefoot, true to the rule. (no entering of a temple in shoes). But our suffering is not in vain: the temple holds very delicately chiseled figures and statues (elefant, wheel, horse..). huge halls with merciful shade, and beautiful pillars.

We have dinner in our Hotel Hotel Ideal River View Resort  and rest.

Day13-22.02.2015 Trichy

We drive towards Trichy. We are going to visit Srirangam, the second biggest temple complex in the world (after Angkhor Wat).

Unfortunately the outside is covered up for restorations and we are terribly disappointed. But inside the temple is still spectacular: food stalls, Brahmans praying, the temple elefant blessing the believers with its trunk, mantra-singing, people having a picnic between the pillars, smells and sounds all very intense and Indian.

We get out of the temple to see Amma Madapam a traditional festivity when the children get their head shaved and donate their hair to the temple. There is a festivity for the first ear piercing, too. We walk around and admire people in their best clothes, take pictures and get invited for lunch. People bring food and donations to the temple and "picnic" right in the temple's hall. We politely decline the invitation but feel very honoured.

In the town of Trichy we drive to Fort Trichy.The fort is built on a high rock and you can reach it by climbing the many steps. Before starting the climb we get the elefant's blessing, a procedure when the elefant's moisty trunk pats your head….Up on the fort we meet friendly youngsters who take pictures and want to know where we are from…Beautiful girls in colourful sahrees, all "topmodel" style…

We return to Tanjore to see the temple Brihadishwara in the golden sunset light.This temple holds the biggest Nandi of India (6m). The long halls with beautifully carved pillars offer some shade, big impressiv gopurams (pyramidical shaped gateways) show many statues of gods and semi-gods…

There is a museeum in the open with old stone and bronze statues. On the roof one has a nice view.

Day14-23.02.2015 Madurei

On the way out of 

Tanjore we see cashew nut plantations and the roa-sting and peeling of the nuts. 

Our driver suggests a little detour to a town where rich Indian families have built huge houses, 100-bedroom-houses , their "summer or festival" residence. Inside we see richly decorated banquet halls (all teakwood). These residences have big inner courtyards, built to air out the whole house and offer some coolness to the inhabitants. Sadly these houses are abandonned since no one has the money to restore them…After that the driver shows us a 1200 years old little temple, with huge horse statues as guardians in front of it. Again we are lucky to receive the priest's blessing…

In Madurai we first drive to the flower market: baskets full of jasmine, roses and marigold and lotusflower. We discover a weird kind of vegetables, a bigger version of the "ladyfingers", called" drummsticks".

At the hotel (Heritage Madurai, http://www.heritagemadurai.com/) we have a swim and a rest and stroll through the town. We see the signs of a wedding reception and try to peep into the hall to get some snapshots. Immediately somebody drags us into the hall and after a few moments I am on stage next to the bride and bridegroom to get some pictures. Again and again we are astonished at people's hospitality and friendliness.

The rest of the walk is typical Indian:traffic, noise, hornsounding, smells, cows…anything.

Dinner at Bell Jumbo's a friendly local place.

Day 15- 24.02.2015 Madurei

We start the visit at Tirumalanayak Palace, a nice although not terribly impressiv palace in the open.We have a ride on a reekshaw towards Sri Meenakshi Temple, Madurai's biggest attraction . This time NO restoration but the prohibition to take fotos inside!!!! Mobile pictures are allowed. What a pity! But the temple as a complex is already a jewel. Majestic halls with incredibly long rows of pillars, all in granite. The place is busy with local visitors and believers. We enjoy the temple's richness for a long while, even without our cameras. * http://view360.in/virtualtour/madurai/

After the visit we stay on in the town.We walk, shop, talk to the people in the street and end up in a 10km's walk. We get lunch in a tiny local place where everybody is staring at us and we almost feel like a little exotic attraction…

Day 16-25.02 2015 Kumuly

On our way out of Madurai our driver stops at a very local Hindu temple, no tourists at all, very authentical. We are on our way to Periyar National Park. On the road we see many trees with a special fruit, resembling mango, but not used for food. The inside of the fruit is filled with a cottonlike material, used for pillow filling.The road leads us through rice fields, coconut plantations and even some grapes. Then the landscape changes while the road slowly starts winding up into the teahills. Here the air is colder and the climate cooler. We check in at the hotel in Kumily, Hotel Cardamom County,  and get a ride to the spice gardens:cardamom, kurkuma, curryleaves, nutmeg, cloves, vanilla, pepper , coffe and cacao,and many more. After that we enjoy a massage. We have dinner in a local restaurant,"Bamboo Inn", with good food and beer served in teapots….

Day 17-26. 02. 2015 Kumuly

We get up at 6:00 am to leave for a jungle walk. This jungle is different from South East Asian jungles: the sounds and noises of birds and other animals is amazing. We see Sambar (big kind of deer), the great Hornbill (Kerala bird), stranglerfigs, rosetrees, sandalwood and teak to name but a few. Then high up in the hills we detect some movements in the treecrowns: an elefant is moving through the dense vegetation and we start following it. This is in the middle of the wilderness and we are aware that the elefant is quite close, an exciting feeling!

We return to the hotel and have breakfast. In the afternoon we are off for a boat ride along a lake. We don't expect much of it since there are crowds of tourists…But it turns out to be surprisingly nice: animals come to drink at the lake's shore, we see many birds, deer, goa (=waterbuffalo like) and a large group of elefants. Then heavy rain starts to fall and the air gets rather chilly. Luckily we have our raingear with us and don't suffer like the other passengers. The elefants don't appreciate the rain but search for shelter under some trees where they miserably wait for the rain to stop…

Day 18- 27. 02. 2015 Munnar

We change our plans and drive towards Munnar instead of Cochin.

The road is climbing and we see the tea plantations all around us. It is a very scenic and beautiful drive. We get into Munnar and take a stroll through the little town. The little local market is crowded and the vegetable stalls look clean and neat. We have a delicious lunch in a local place, paneer butter massala, paneer cashewnuts and roti (bread) with pani (water)…We drive out of Munnar to the Ambady Estate Hotel, a very nice place in the middle of the mountains. We go for a wonderful walk in the cardamom plantations until some rain forces us to turn back. We even see 2 giant squirrels and a big woodpecker. We are surprised to find some elefant dung uphill on a single trail, we never thought elefants would get through this kind of dense vegetation.

Day 19- 28. 02 . 2015

In the morning we walk down the hill towards the main road. We follow it carefully until we see the tea mountains all around. Stunning views. Walking back we miss the Hotel's entrance and end up with a much longer walk than initially planned. We check out and leave for Cochin.

On the way we decide to take a hotel close to the airport to rest before the long flight back home. It starts raining heavily and we are glad to be in a comfortable place. Late in the night we get a shuttle to the airport and start our trip back home.