Not-so-deeply buried in the backwaters of Kerala we dig ourselves out of the Ashram refreshed from Darshan and a short spiritual awakening. We head into the town of Alleypey to find the inlet to the famous backwaters of Kerala. “Eastern Venice” as it’s often referred to as sits lower than sea level. Fresh and salt water mixes through the canals and through its estuaries. They provide romantic get-a-ways with house boats where your hire a personal chef, driver, and porter to satisfy all your luxurious needs. Yes, rich people needs. Which we apparently are now.
We’re so rich, we hired out a canoe to paddle us around the whole day. If you’re to splurge, this place isn’t a bad idea. For a whole 14(USD) we got ourselves a full day paddle tour of the Kerala backwaters. This includes breakfast, lunch, and transportation. Relatively speaking, it is a little more expensive than most things in India, but what the heck, how often do you get to see rural village life in a pretty rare terrain (Backwaters). Our boat paddler expertly needled the canoe through the tightest twists and turns the canals have to offer. In some cases, the canals are only as wide as the canoe itself.
We also tried a local specialty; coconut beer. At first it tasted sweet and flavourful. Toward the end of the bottle, it became chore to drink as the drink slowly evolved to a drink that makes you go “Blargh” after every swig.
After lunch, the paddler recruited Ian to help paddle the canoe back to Alleypey. A gruelling 30 minutes of paddling in the hot Indian sun with not much relief from the waters. As boats passed by, the passengers cheered Ian on paddling; we’re not sure why – maybe because it’s a rare thing to see the tourists doing a “local’s” job or they mistaken Ian for a Tibetan refugee and is now working in the backwaters.Whatever the reason, it’s a good thing Ian knows how to paddle. Not because anything went wrong but because he just knows how to paddle. And is now paddling. In hindsight, we probably should’ve haggled for a discount seeing as the tourists worked.
With the canoe trip concluding on the dock, the day isn’t complete without a mandatory soak of relief from the South Indian thunder showers. It puked rain for a good half hour before anyone dared to crawl out from their hiding holes to brave the remaining pitter patter. We covered our heads and ran back to our hotel, Lemon Dew.
Wow, what a much needed getting stuck. We had originally planned to stay here for 4 days , but then shortened it to 2 because of the whole Kovallam situation. 2 nights became a “maybe 1 or 2 more nights” because we had lots of much needed catching up to do with our life that we left behind in Korea. Our contract has officially finished and so we must tie up all the loose ends. And our moving boxes that we sent to different countries have arrived or showing up soon.
For the most part it was sunny, hot, days of laying on the beach and eating water melon. For the other small parts it was freaking about the boxes that were shipped home.
Varkala’s intoxicating beaches
Our schedule ran mainly like this, for a week
Morning Yoga!
7 am We would wake up and go to morning Yoga. Ian ever only made it to 2 sessions. Finish up, have Chai tea and eat breakfast; eggs, toast, fruit salad, hash browns. Christa was more dedicated and made it to several classes
11 am Whatever we damn well pleased.
2 pm ORGANIC VEGE BUFFET LUNCH FOR 2USD!!
4 pm Beach. Christa teaching Ian how to body surf.
7 pm Dinner
We ended up getting stuck for a week. It would’ve only been a day earlier departure had we not been tempted to see if Christa would be called to be a Bollywood extra. The production was looking for about 50 girls. We went to their dinner to see what the fuss was about.
Bollywodo movie set
We arrive to a table set for 15 girls. About 30 girls came with their male accomplice sniffing out for free food. Ian was one of said male accomplice. There was barely enough tables, even after the waiters scrambled desperately to smack on tables at the end of the row.
Finally, the main actor shows up with the director and started looking at all the girls while we had a scrumptuous meal of fish curry, vege curry, lemon rice, and chapattis.
Next morning, nothing out of the ordinary, except this time during beach time it was check-out-the-bollywood-movie-shoot time. Cranes were brought in for this shoot and Ian went to talk with the extras. They did almost absolutely nothing that day. In the film industry, it would seem the extras get paid for eating and standing around all day. Life could be worse.
That same evening the shoot was taken indoors to the same dinner venue as the night before. They wrapped up the movie shoot in there. From here it was a chase of buses and boats to the backwaters of Kerala and to see the Hugging Mother.
So nothing from the previous post actually made it through. Dare I say, it all fell apart the moment we got off the bus. First and foremost, our time estimation was completely wrong. We entered, once again at 3 in the morning to some unknown city called Kanyakumari. We’re trying to wake up as were being ushered into a hotel that is ridiculously too expensive. A huge flag warning should’ve gone off when another tourist ran back shouting “No thank you, that’s too expensive for me!”
We took our chances slash we were zombie-fied following our guide. Originally it was going for 2000 rupees, at least. That’s about 40 usd a night. Nowhere in India charges that much for a mid range hotel. After much deliberation and Ian hesitating, the manager gave in for 600, about 12usd.
After much fuss, we took a short 45 minute nap and woke up to see the sunrise, the most famous sunrise in India, in Kanyakumari. The special site to see here is a huge statue of Thiruvalluvar in the ocean accompanied by a very poetic story. This is also a very special place in India, as its the meeting of 3 oceans; The bay of Bengal, Indian ocean and the Arabic sea. We headed down to the beach (the one we were hoping to sleep on) to take pictures of the sunrise. Thank god we opted for the hotel instead of our original plan of sleeping on the beach. The beach wasn’t exactly a beach, but more of a rocky shore with smashing waves. Surrounded by hundreds of pilgrims watching the sunrise followed by the market opening and the murmuring start of the day.
We spent the rest of the day trying to find a way to get out of this city. At the tourist info, we bumped into a friend we met 2 cities away in backpackistan, Max. We keep running into him as our trip runs very similarly. We thought he had moved on ahead bit instead he’s been lagging behind in his journey. We caught up of his amazing travels on Indian trains and riding in luggage stow-aways over a cup of immaculately sweet chai. At this point we pretty much haven’t slept in 24 hours. We headed to the bus station armed with multiple conflicting information about what bus goes where at what time. we hopped in a completely separate bus and ended up in a city that wasn’t marked in our Bible – or the lonely planet guide book to India. We figured our way to through the mess and continued our journey to the west coast beaches.
Half way through the bus ride, we met this incredible fellow named Shiva. (That’s his real name) we got off the bus with him after a 3 hour delayed journey into Trivandrum. He and his friends, now onwards dubbed “the 3 musketeer” put us in the right direction to our next destination, Varkla
However, backpacking is never without its problems. The 3 hour delay is because of traffic jam. The traffic jam is caused by a festival going on in Trivamdrum, the city which we needed to go to to get our bus to Varkala. this festival is filled with colourful aromas and fragrant lights flashing all around celebrating their gods.
As the 3 hour delayed turned out to be delayed to cancelled bus routes, we were practically stuck in Trivandrum. The 3 musketeers ended up squabbling for a tuk tuk to get us to a hotel 16 km away on one of the more famous beaches on the west coast, Kovallam beach. Those 3 musketeers were a few of the most friendly Indians we’ve met and first in Kerala state.
At this point, its about 10 at night and we haven’t slept soundly in over 36 hours (realistically 3 days if you don’t count sleeping I’m buses). Our tuk tuk driver navigated his way through the mess of celebrations, blaring music and lots of pots for boiling rice, all hugging the side of the road. We made it to a place called Kovallam. Supposedly one of the more posh places for beach goers in India.
We finally end up in Kovallam, our last minute backup go to place for a beach side stay. We descended into the night time abyss of sea side aromas and palm tree roads. The tuk tuk driver dropped us off at our poorly researched hotel which, not surprisingly was full. A touter from across the street emerged and gave us a much needed fair bargain for places to stay. Very refreshing to not have to barter for every single thing. We got ourselves a beautiful hotel for a modest priced and charged toward dinner.
Needless to say, sleep came quickly shortly afterward. Our first full night sleep since Pondicherry, (4 days ago)
In hindsight our journey to Madurai was one of our most comfortable and smoothest yet. It was still the beginning of our journey so we were still hesitant to tackle the estranged Indian public transport system. We opted for an AC bus with reclining seats as we did have a 9 hour journey ahead of us and it seemed like the best thing to do.We had a bit of a confusing transfer to another bus in the middle of the night, clinging onto our belonging heading toward a bus that was pointed out to us, praying that we have not just been scammed and that the bus would indeed accept us and take us to our next destination. We got in!
A sudden awakening at 3am by the bus driver mumbling “Madurai, Madurai” with the accompanying head wobble indicated that we had reached our destination. We get dropped off at the bus terminal, grab the closest tuk tuk and mosey into the late night dead streets of Madurai. The tuk tuk driver tells us that there aren’t many hotels open at that time of night and takes us to a hotel that he recommends to be “open and cheap”. With the first offer of 600 rupees (12usd) with stained sheets and water hose for shower head, dingy dirty hole in the wall hotel we kindly decline, thank him for his help and walk into the dimly lit streets. I must admit, we did both feel a bit sketched, especially after the tuk driver advised us not too. Very soon we spiked the interest of nearby lurking touts and eagerly they starting banging on various hotel’s tressil doors until one finally opened. (Seriously, they’re up at 4am looking for tourists!? That’s a bit sketch) We ended up settling for 750(14usd)room with fresh sheets, no hot water (its ok, it was 26 at night) and 3 beds at “Hotel Surapi”, along one of the budget hotel streets of Town Hall rd.
Indians and tourists alike come to Madurai to see the Sri Meenakshi Temple, the largest temple in south India and considered to be the pinnacle of South Indian temple architecture. The temple is incredible and is the home of the triple breasted, fish eyed-eyed goddess Meenakshi Aman and is more of a huge complex enclosed by 12 gopurams (towers). Some of these towers are larger than others (and so far the largest that we have seen in India) and all are littered with wondrous colourfully painted carvings of gods, goddesses, demons and heroes. Most of the temple is off limits to to non-Hindus, but visitors are allowed to wonder around the complex and through the corridors where you are bound to discover some sculptures of various deities.
On this journey we have been very lucky with stumbling upon elephants and within the complex we were once again pleasantly surprised to turn a corner and to find an elephant religiously blessing people for any donation that they have to spare. We had heard. We had read about the Teppam (float) Festival that supposedly happens on the full moon of the Tamil month in Jan/Feb where the deities of the Temple are taken for a walk around the outside of the complex, accompanied by the elephant in the customary adornments, for all onlookers to see. So, as it was a full moon when we were there and there was clearly a lot of excitement in the temple with hundreds of people walking through the security check into the temple grounds, masses of people entering the ‘Hindu-only’ areas where sounds of chants and the strong aroma of incense flowed from into the visitors area and hordes of people lining up for something. We couldn’t figure out what they were lining up for (and I’m sure some of them didn’t even know) but they stood, and the line was so long that it started at one of the tower gates and stretched all the way through the temple grounds. We didn’t stand in the line as it seemed that it could take the entire day and we didn’t know if we would be allowed to enter into where ever the line led anyways. But yeah, as there was so much going we were certain that we were going to witness the ‘gods going for a stroll.
We have come to realize that every city we’ve been to carries some unique trade. In Mamallapuram, it was stone carvings, in Pondicherry were drums, and in Madurai, textiles.
Inside Ganesh’s textile shop
First a cold shoulder to a man who offered to tailor our pants for 50 rupees (1 USD), custom fit. After figuring out a way out of the city, we went back to him as Ian needed long pants for the night against mosquitoes. He hustles quickly through the traffic of Madurai and we soon end up upstairs in a small little textile shop with colourful stacks of fabric reached up to the ceiling. He introduces himself as Ganesh. A few expert whips of the tape measurer later, we have our sizes ready to be tailored. We both go silk. Because we’re that cool. We ended up getting 2 things; a dress for Christa and silk pants for Ian at a total of 33 USD. We could’ve haggled better, but we had no idea what any market price was. And plus, the old tailor was such a sweet little man. In hindsight it is still a little expensive according to market price in India there. 4 hours later, we picked them up and paraded them through the streets.
Our short lived surrogate mother
Toward the end of the night, we heard a parade happening in celebration of the full moon in these auspicious days for the southern Indians. The streets are packed with celebration and the occasional fire crackers that no one ever seems startled by. An elderly beautiful wonderful Indian woman decided to make friend with us, starting with a bindhi for Christa. And every time we walked by, she gave us more and more gifts. Mission accomplished when she sat Christa down and put a reef of flowers in her hair and bought us chai tea. We went through her store and both came out with Ganesh bracelets, 10 rupees each. About 20 cents usd.
We came in by accident as all the trains were fully booked and the only available over night bus took us as far as Madurai. However, we made the most of it and made it a trip and time worth seeing. We were not disappointed.
Next step, taking an other late night bus into kanyakumari, the cape of India were 3 oceans meet. We sat down, stood up and paced back and forth waiting for our overnight bus to pick us up from our hotel. Here’s to trusting another bus company!
Our rope tying skills
One hour late and less than expected “luxury” bus. This has all the luxuries of open air windows, self-strap-in luggage (with own rope), right behind a noisy gear box (given up by a nice gentleman who went to the back and took up the whole row, which in hindsight we should’ve done), and chairs that recline a whole awesome 1 degree back.
This trip is only 220km but expected to take 6 hours. Already an hour behind schedule, we’re looking to arrive at 6 am. Luckily this bus is fully equipped with rackety suspension and noisy everything for a good nights sleep!
Plan as of now: survive this death trap of a ride (already a near miss with a head on collision with a larger truck and swerves, dodges and weaving through some hairy potholes. Which if not missed sends all of us flying up into the air with our luggage obediently behind us) and get off the bus with the beach and sunrise waiting for us. We’ll grab a nice view of the sunrise, find some food, chill at the info centre and then check into a hotel for one night. That’ll do. Yes.
To be quite honest, I’m not sure how I’m even capable of typing this up on this damn bumpy ride, bustling through the night time country side of south India. The air is quite refreshing with all the windows open; if you ignore the perpetual waft of god-knows-what from the outside.
First things first. Cheaper than Mamallapuram, “backpackistan.” We stayed in a heritage house based off French Colonial era with high ceilings, wooden pillars, antique furniture, wooden staircase and roof patio (where we enjoyed our breakfasts in style). And we paid just as much for our room here as we did in Malla. Real luxury! We had free wifi, a large comfy bed in a stained class window room and got a full breakfast of toast, eggs, coffee/tea/ fruit juice and what have you, for less than 3 usd.
Food in Pondi is at half the cost than in Malla. And there are loads of little gems of restaurants to be found where we got an extra-ordinary amount of food for what otherwise would’ve been a meagre meal in Mamallapuram. Food so far in south India has been incredibly savoury. No dish has disappointed and everything has been so incredibly yummy!
An old canal – or open sewer – divides the city into east and west. The more French part being on the east side (closer to the sea, obviously!)where the lesser spotted street signs still say ‘Rue’ instead of street, and the more Indian side being on the west.
Blessing elephant
The collection of cobble stoned roads lined with colourful town hosues in varying conditions, walking through Bharathi Park, where Indian and colonial influences is evident in the design with sculptures of Shiva and other gods guarding the entrances, while old canons line up neatly buried in the central flower bed really make it a delightful experience. Inevitably, everyone stumbles onto the beach promenade where people gather to admire the Gandhi statue and have masala tea from one of the many vendors on the side of the path, while watching the sunset (Also where we incidentally came across our friendly friend Max from Malla, a very pleasant surprise indeed). And if you walk far enough in any direction you spill out on the busy streets of typical India where scooters are plenty, the aroma of delicious curries fill the air, and where, if you stumble into the right road, there is a real live elephant ready to bless you for a few coins.
Being an old French colony, it’s not surprising we stumbled upon a plethora of churches. One of which was “Notre dames des anges” Ian, being the art historian manage to guide Christa through the church describing architectural details and the layout amongst other things.
Even the streets were laid out in a typical grid like fashion which was very planned out, evidence of modern urban planning. The main reason was to get rid of the mosquito’s as the grid like streets create a wind tunnel effect to blow them away. If you notice how at home the grid like streets are windier than usual (in Toronto, blasting cold air plow the wind tunnel like streets downtown in winter)
Notre Dames des Anges in Pondicherry
Pondicherry provided us with our first attempt at keeping pace with the Indian traffic with our measly one gear scooter.We rented a scooter and dived into the traffic, navigating our way through a larger part of the city whilst desperately trying to avoid an accident in the chaotic streets. The main reason for getting the scooter was to head out 14km from the city to see the infamous “hippie” commune called Auroville, built in commemoration of Aurobindo, the “mother” (a term given to to female spiritual leaders) of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. This Ashram is located in Pondicherry and seeks to synthesise yoga and modern science.
Matrimandir /Auroville center ball of “concentration”
Auroville is a ‘new age’ concept of an international community in the process of creating a ‘universal township for a population of about 50, 000 from around the world. “Auroville wants to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realise human unity.”
The community researches and experiments with subsistence ways of living and everyone in the community has their part to play.
With the “new age hype” and one of the most organized hippie communes, it’s a bit anticlimactic to experience as a ‘visitor’. Visitors may merely roam around the information area, eat at the overly priced but delicious cafeteria (or restaurants along the road) and shop at street stalls of your choosing. There is very little chance to see the actual community or interact with the “Aurovillians” (expats seeking a self indulgent rustic escape).Visitors do, however, have the honor of having a glimpse at the outside of the Matrimandir (the holy grail or ‘spiritual heart’ of Auroville).The Matrimander matches the shape of a giant gold golf ball stuck in dirt, consisting of a chamber lined with white marble and in the centre flaunts a solid crystal 70cm in diameter (the largest in the world) for all of Auroville (pop. 50,000) to see. The Matrimandir can only be accessed by Aurovillians which they use as a place for deep ‘concentration’ (as apposed to meditation).
Banyan tree with roots stretching from
the branches
Personally the most impressive part of Auroville (accessible to visitors) is the Banyan tree (where the inauguration ceremony of Auroville was held in 1968). The Banyan tree is both a sacred tree and the national tree of India. It is believed that the leaves of the Banyan tree is the resting place of Krishna. The Banyan is a fig plant that starts it’s live on a host tree. The seeds of the plant germinate and send down roots straight to the ground, sometimes down the trunk of the host tree or shooting straight down from the branches, giving the appearance of giant wooden columns coming down from an outstretched green canopy.
To us Auroville seemed a bit pretentious and had an air of exclusivity. But we spoke to an acquaintance who had previously volunteered in Auroville for 3 months and he said that if you get involved in the community and stay there for a while that it really is a magical place of peace and harmony with wondrous experiences to be had.
Back in Pondicherry, after a nice little tour of the old French Colony, that included a succulent “steak au poivre” and “coq du vin”, we headed out on a night bus to Madurai.
http://www.hotelcoramandal.hostel.com/ – great place to stay. Beautiful, clean, good location and the people who work there are super friendly and helpful. Rooms of various price ranges, our room was 900 rupees a night. Highly recommend this place.
So, we started by flying into Chennai and heading straight for Mallahapuram, or otherwise known as backpakistan. Malla is a small, slow paced port town that seems to run on tourism. The little town consists of a few streets notorious for budget hotels and restaurants serving delicious local and foreign cuisines, specializing in freshly caught seafood. When dining at any of the street or sea view restaurants, watching other travelers wondering by while you wait for your meal, it becomes inevitably clear why this town is known as “backpakistan.” The city itself used to be huge port that enabled trade with many parts of the world, including china, Persia, Rome, and other nations, but the main attraction in Mallahapuram is the Archaeological site that surrounds the outskirts of the little town. It consists of amazing monolithic carvings of temples and sculptures carved out of a single piece of rock (apparently the second biggest of its kind in the world with the first being in Cambodia). Here you also find Krishnas butter ball (a big circular boulder seemingly balancing on a slanted slab.) It is said that the British thought the positioning of the boulder was dangerous and tried to move it with 10 elephants, but still it didn’t budge.There is also a magnificent temple at the shore(aptly named the shore temple) that really is a spectacular site to behold at either sunrise or sunset. In summary, Malla is a quaint, dusty little town crawling with contemplative foreigners. The beach is strewn with fishing boats and bundles of fishing nets, but there seems to be a little corner of it where travelers congregate for a late afternoon swim and sunbath (we did however find a bigger cleaner beach on the otherwise of the shore temple where horseback riding on the beach at sunset is also an option). Seafood is completely to die for with prices that range to about 250 rupees (5 USD). Clothing and stone carving shops are abundant. Electricity availability is unpredictable and beggars (women and children alike) are very persistent. Mala is a great place to get away from the hustle and bustle of the bigger cities. At it’s slow pace and relaxed mood it is the perfect location to either start a trip and acclimatize and familiarize to the weather and new country. Or a great place to consolidate thoughts and do some shopping before leaving India. We stayed at Siva Guest house, a clean quite place situated very near the main road leading to the beach. The rooms are of varying prices, with or without A/C and the guy who works their is honest and helpful. At Siva’s Guest House, we also met a couchsurfer named Max. He’s a fun German guy with lots of enthusiasm! He has become our pseudo travel partner; only even if we bump into him by accident along the way… Siva Guest house, #2 Ottavadai Cross Street, Mamallapuram, Tamilnadu, South India 603 104,Phone 0091-4427443534, check in – 12:00 – check out . 900 INR a night without A/C.
Shiva’s Guesthouse – where we began our India trip
