G.O.C. - DAY III

The day started out very well! I had onion uttapam for breakfast, and it was delicious! In all the tours that we have been on, I would drive my mother up the wall when it came to eating breakfast. Till now, we had traveled only in northern India, where dosas and uttapams were not on the breakfast menu, and I don’t care much for toast and jam or aloo parathas for breakfast.
But now, breakfast was a much looked forward to meal!! I just love dosas and uttapams, and can never get enough of them!
We were greeted by a new driver, Anthony, who could speak decent English, and also, thank the Lord, a Qualis!
We set out for our next destination, Allepey (or Allapuzha as the locals call it), which was three hours away. We reached Allepey at 12 noon or so, checked in to our hotel, Prince Allepey, and then went for a cruise on the backwaters. Aah! This is exactly why I wanted to go to Kerala, to see the famed backwaters of God’s own country.
So we headed towards Kumarakom. On the way we saw quite a few people standing on the banks with fishing poles, fishing for their lunch! The scenery was truly awe-inspiring! Shady avenues of coconut and banana trees, and brilliant coloured flower bushes lining the banks.
As we neared more open waters we saw birds (species unknown) gracefully flying in tight formations. And I also saw to my right great big billows of clouds framed by a violet-tinged sky! I’ve never seen this colour in the sky!
After a while I dozed off. I was half awake, half asleep, not being able to differentiate between reality and dreams. After roughly 2 ½ hours we reached the Taj Garden Retreat, where we had lunch. The resort was very pretty! Small individual bungalows standing in shady avenues, with names like Kingfisher, Woodpecker and so on. Hmmm… I think I’m sounding like I’m plugging for the resort, so I’ll stop the description here! But it truly was a beautiful place!
After lunch, D had to got to the bathroom to do (ahem!) you-know-what, and we had to sit in the lawn waiting for him. Our boat driver (or is it captain?) came to get us, as it was getting late, and no traffic was allowed on the water after 6 pm. So I went on giving my brother missed calls to make him hurry up! I had no wish to get stranded on the resort, however picturesque it was!
On the way back I slept for more than half the journey. We came back to Allepey at about 7 pm.
Dad bought a pair of silver earrings for me from the little gift shop in the hotel. Also bought another pair for a friend.
Then had dinner, which was strictly O.K., except for the murgh malai tikka, which was yummy!
D was more obnoxious than usual at dinner! Allepey air must really agree with him!

G.O.C. - DAY II

Our first destination was Cochin. The train arrived an hour late and we were supposed to be in Cochin for only a day, so half the day was already over when we reached Cochin. The driver, who we had hired through a travel agent, met us at the station. But he spoke no Hindi at all, and very little English, and communicating with him was a Herculean task. My father, as is his wont, lost his temper at once (one of the downs, I was talking about earlier) and raged against the education system in Kerala for not having Hindi as a second language and all that jazz. All I could do was roll my eyes and try to block his voice out.
And another bone my father had to pick with was that the car that we had booked was a Qualis, and the driver had come in an Ambassador. So the first place we went to was to the KTDC, where Deadly Dad demanded that we should be given a Qualis. After a silly confrontation, which was not needed at all, the guy in charge told us that we should speak to the travel agent who had booked the Qualis for us, and told us to use the Ambassador while we were in Cochin.
So after all this we went to our hotel at last, Hotel Aiswarya! There we freshened up, that is, just splashed water on our faces, except my brother, D, who just had to use my face wash!
Anyway, we had to hurry, if we wanted to see any of the tourist’y’ places in Cochin, which all shut down by 5:30 pm. And we had just a little over 45 minutes to see the places. Thank God all were in the same vicinity. So we drove to the area of Mattanchery, where we went to Jew Town, and saw the oldest SYNAGOGUE in India. It looked very ordinary from the outside, but the prayer hall was beautiful! There was also a room, which held paintings depicting how the first Jews had come to India. That was quite interesting too. It reminded me of how the Parsis had landed on the coast of Gujarat, hundreds of years ago.
After the synagogue, went to see the DUTCH PALACE. This building also looked quite ordinary from the outside. And we were just in time too, 15 minutes to closing time. Inside we saw murals depicting the Ramayana, and a few palkis and dolis, exquisitely crafted! One of the rooms contained the royal clothing, very rich!
When we came out, my stomach began growling uncontrollably! I hadn’t eaten anything since the morning in the train, when I’d eaten two cold idlis. I then bought a pack of Cheetos, and some peanuts to assuage my hunger somewhat.
We then went to see the CHINESE FISHING NETS that are unique to Kerala. On the pavement, my mother saw people selling fish, and as is her wont, went up to explore on her own. She became very excited when she saw all the different varieties of fish, and the giant shrimps, and ordered us to take pictures! I didn’t think it was a good idea, but Ma insisted! There was even a shark-like fish, which D insisted was a baby shark, but I was not too convinced.
When we reached Hotel Aiswarya, it was about 7:30 pm, and all of us were ravenous! We went straight to the restaurant and ordered our food. We had fried fish (yummm!), tandoori chicken, chicken tikka masala, appams, and chocolate ice cream for desert. Then we went to our room and crashed on to the beds!
This was the end to a very tiring Day II.

God's Own Country - DAY I

I’m back from my Kerala tour! Kerala really is God’s own country! It is so very beautiful!!
Am gonna start a series detailing my tour, day by day. This is Chapter I.

The trip didn’t start out on a very nice note. A family got into the cubicle opposite to ours, and the “head of the family” began screaming at another family already present in the compartment, ordering them to move their luggage out of the way to accommodate his!! What a creep!!
Later this same man, lets call him Mr. McScream, began playing “educational” games with his small son, asking him to name the largest mammal, the fastest bird, and other such questions. He later included three other children too (they belonged to the screamed at family). He asked them if they knew the definition of a mammal, and told them that a mammal is any living being that suckle their offspring.
Then he asked them if they knew about a bird that also suckles its offspring. I too was very intrigued at this point, and wanted to know the answer. All the kids scratched their heads, but were unable to come up with the answer. At the end of five minutes or so he proudly declared that bats were a species of birds that suckled their young!! For a minute, I thought that I’d heard wrong, but then one of the kids hesitantly pointed out that bats were mammals, but Mr. McScream said in a very lordly manner, “No, no! Bats are birds! If you look at them closely, you will see that they have wings!” Good god! I was like, is this guy for real?! Mr. Know-it-all (I could give this guy a few more choice names, but I will refrain from doing so!) should refer to an encyclopedia, or even a dictionary before trying to act all smart, but making a complete ass out of himself in the process! I’m sure that a bat is indeed a mammal, but being a very thorough person I even checked online for the exact meaning. And this is what I found: According to www.dictionary.com a bat is defined as

Any of various nocturnal flying mammals of the order Chiroptera, having membranous wings that extend from the forelimbs to the hind limbs or tail and anatomical adaptations for echolocation, by which they navigate and hunt prey.

Note that the term “flying mammals” is italicized!
So here’s my advice to the Know-it-alls of the world (this group, unfortunately includes me too, but only in very rare cases! :D): Get your facts right before opening your trap and making a complete fool of yourself!
This tour had a lot of ups and downs, and the downs were all to do with PEOPLE! I will elaborate on this in my future chapters! Actually, there won’t even be any need for elaboration!