Chachu's Column #37: Of God's own country
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Family congregations offer excellent opportunity to shed the monotony and go places. When one such opportunity placed itself before me, I plunged without much ado. But before that, the planning had to be taken care of. And even before that, the venue had to be decided. The choices were aplenty. But the budget was thin. And when you consider that the toddlers do not get any grace from the aviation industry, unlike our good old railways where they can be squeezed here and there, the matters only become worse.
Living in the country’s capital also posed its unique challenges. You could go up and immediately end up on some hill station. In the last few years, various venues had already been lapped up. Shimla and Chail for one (see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chachus_pen/message/10). Then there was a visit to Nainital and Kasauni last year where the 16 hour return journey nearly broke the back of my NRI relative; not to mention the number of stoppages for nausea et. al. Another visit to Mount Abu too was rather unceremonious not because what it offered but because of plethora of minor issues. Ergo, hills were totally out of the question.
Going west meant good old pink city Jaipur and its siblings like Udaipur and Jodhpur and the royal hotels that graced them. Jaipur had been visited, while others with their sky rocketing room rentals did not offer much chance. Eastern India, including places like Sikkim and Darjeeling, were also hill stations and not under consideration.
That only left South India. Here too, there were considerable options. One could explore the solitude of the islands in the Andaman; or could go to the beautiful Lakhsadweep. And then obviously there was the God’s own country – Kerala. After much deliberation, “Kerala” was chosen. Now, Kerala is squeezed between Lakhsadweep Sea and Indian ocean in the west, and the Western Ghats in the East. Oceans also seep inside the state at various points thus forming the famous backwaters. Thus, for tourists, it offers plenty of options. There are sea beaches, the most famous being the Kovalam. On the west there are many hill stations - Munnar and Thekkady being the important ones. Then there are backwaters, including Alleppey, the Venice of the East. Now, choosing venues for our trip had the concomitant predicament. Many tourists prefer hopping from one venue to other, each morning being one of packing bags, stuffing the shaving kit, loading the goods in the minivan and hurrying the lethargic populace into action. It was as though the objective of travel was marking the venues into the list of traversed cities - much akin to traveling 13 European Cities in 16 days. I abhorred this concept because for me, travel was for leisure where the foremost priority was relaxation, living life at one’s own pace, not having to bother about professional duties. For the spouse, being relieved of house hold duties was the greatest benefit. Thus, the itinerary was deliberately kept light and the travel and hotel hopping kept bare minimum. With travel industry booming in the country, the travel agents offered pretty competitive rates. And then an excellent air travel offer meant that return fare for Cochin ex Delhi was brought for less than eight thousand rupees. And only few years back, if my memory serves me right, one way ticket to Trivandrum was nearly fourteen thousand rupees.
The entry port for our trip was Cochin (or Kochi as it is popularly known) where the relatively new Cochin International airport greeted us. The airport though small had a pleasing architecture and was pretty neat and clean. A minivan greeted us outside. Unfortunately, the van did not have a boot space or a carrier. Thus, the tons of luggage were stuffed below and above the passenger seats. And the empty ones were occupied by the passengers. Our hotel was about an hour away from the airport. The drive gave us the first glimpse of Kerala – God’s own country. The state seemed sparsely populated, with lakes and lush green trees dotting the journey. Roads though narrow were well maintained. Immediately, prospects of accruing financial benefiting by investing in real estate opportunity started conjuring up.
Our hotel (www.milmermaid.com/) too was built on the bank of a small river. The river surface was green with weeds and lotus leaves hiding the water. And just at the edge of the river was a small swimming pool. Thus, while swimming one felt as though one was being carried along with the river water. The hotel rooms were simple and decently built. The one night stay in Cochin meant that the bags had to be packed the next day itself.
Having had our breakfast early, we left for sight seeing. As a tourist destination, Kochi did not offer much (http://www.cochin.org/tourism.htm). In fact, for most of the people visiting Kerala, it was the easiest entry point where a night was spent at a decent hotel, a cab hired and the kerala journey continued. Nonetheless, we took our time to visit some important spots. One of the places we visited was the Jewish Synagogue and Jew Town, Mattancherry. The maiden visit to the synagogue meant that the difference between a church and a synagogue was slightly clearer. There, we also saw a shop that had a fifty-feet boat, traversing the entire length of the shop. While tourists stormed to take its pictures, the proprietor allowed only one photo per family. While many complained, I thought it was his right to protect his IPR – after all it was his boat.
The next stop in Cochin sight seeing was the Fort Cochin and its famous Chinese fishing nets. The idea behind the extravagant nets was to suspend a large fishing net through a massive structure of bamboo poles. The structure was lowered through ropes by a group of fishermen. After a while or so, it was pulled up again. While the whole effort was quite painstaking, the rewards were not commensurate as only the very tiny fishes were caught in the net. Moreover, as the nets by different groups were placed every forty meters or so, there was lot of competition to capture the fishes. We drank fruit juices and enjoyed the fun.
The last stop in the sight seeing affair was the Hill Palace at Tripunithura. The one time palace was now converted into a museum that purportedly displayed a fine collection of articles showing the wealth and splendour of the Rajas of Kochi. It was a pity that when we reached there at around 1.00pm, we found museum closed in the most bureaucratic manner for an hour of lunch. One wonders when huge amount of money is spent in Incredible India! Campaign (http://www.incredibleindia.org/), one only needs to look inside at the problem of tourists to know where the fault lines lie. We waited patiently for forty minutes and when the patience ran out, we left the palace without seeing the museum (probably never ever to return!).
After sight seeing in Cochin, we proceeded towards Thekkady. The journey to Thekkady was rather long one spanning nearly six hours. The journey towards western Kerala was through small hills having rubber, coffee and other plantations adorning the roadside. When we had nearly reached the hotel, our van stopped abruptly. I enquired about the reason and was told that the road ahead was not good. The van then took a U-turn and went ahead in the reverse gear. It was quite evident that the two feet high road that was being build through large rocks and boulders led our country to pre-historic ages where may be elephants dragged rocks for building roads. No construction machinery was visible and only sweaty men with spade and shovel were in sight. When we got down and entered our hotel, we were in another India (http://www.nivalink.com/silvercrest/index.html). The contrast between public works and private aggression could not have been more stark.
As a tourist destination, the most famous spot in Thekkady was the Periyar lake (see photo) that went through the Periyar wild life sanctuary. A two hour boat journey early next morning promised a lot, but the wild life was no where to be seen. Still the lake seemed to be among the largest in India and its peace and tranquility was almost unrivalled. The boat journey tickets had a tag of a hundred rupees but we were told that the queues would make it impossible for us to buy the tickets early morning. Promptly a service charge of 25% per ticket was paid to an Agent. However, much to our dismay, the ticket counters before our journey wore a deserted look. Long live the Indian “Agent” System!
Apart from the fine resorts and an extremely beautiful lake, Thekkady also had some other specialities. First of all, it had wide variety of tea, cardamom, rubber and coffee plantations. Other important event for many was the elephant visit. From an asking price of Rs 350/- per head, we managed to get two adults and two children for merely 250/- in all. The ride on an elephant that meandered dangerously on the slippery soil of a hilly plantation was good fun. Then there were numerous shops offering exquisite collections of herbs and spices. Most of these were costly by Indian standards and fit only for the foreign tourists with dollar earnings.
Thekkady, and many other towns of Kerala, was also noted for its famous ayurvedic massage. Every third shop offered this massage and it was difficult to judge which one was the best. Thus, one who offered cheapest price was chosen. The experience was invigorating and the steam bath in a make-shift wooden cupboard with our skull jutting out was thrill. Then there were live shows of classical Indian dances which again hardly any Indian was interested and was largely aimed at the foreigners. Another specialty was the show of Kalari Fight (a traditional technique of martial arts with specialized weapons and fire).
After spending a couple of days Thekkady, we proceeded for our final desitnation Alleppey. We had heard that the place was reachable only through a boat. I could only imagine how the place would be like? Surrounded by waters at all sides? Our van driver took us to a jetty. The jetty offered us a first hand look of Alleppe and the reason why it was said to be the “Venice of the East”. Alleppey was a town connected through an elaborate network of canals. In the remote parts, one could find large tracts of land with an isolated hut situated on the banks of the canal. And there were large tracts of water where the ocean had jutted inside the mainland.
The resort chosen was to be our highlight of the Kerala trip (http://www.lakepalaceresort.com/). And much to our delight, the place was among the best resorts that I had visited. The resort was situated on the serene banks of the Vembanadu Lake and was reachable only by the complimentary boat service provided by the resort. The resort was a rectangular tract where the lake flanked the boundary. Inside the resort there was another lake that covered bulk of the resort. And right in the center of the lake was a beautiful swimming poll (see photo). Apart from the pool, the resort other facilities like health center and an ayurvedic center. Every evening, the resort also offered a complimentary cruise ride in the back waters of Alleppey. The cruise took us deep into the hearts of Kerala where there was only palm trees and water to be seen. Most of the time was spent loitering in the resort. Close to the resort was the Allapuzha beach. Beach was rather deserted yet cleaner than some of the popular tourists beaches like Marina or Juhu.
Our last day in Kerala was planned for a 4-bedroom houseboat. Stay at the houseboat was considered almost mandatory for those visiting Alleppey. In particular, the newly wed honeymooners found it very attractive proposition for seeking solitude. The houseboat though expensive, was a big disappointment. The furnishings were poor and room quite small. It seemed as if the two bedroom houseboat was squeezed to accommodate four rooms. The meals too were of limited quantity and were not sufficient for all. A DVD player was provided but no DVD. Luckily, we stopped in the middle of a lake where the sole shop offered chips, ice-creams and DVDs. We brought some DVD only to find the player not working. However, the laptop came to our rescue.
The houseboat took us to similar places where the boat cruise earlier had taken. Only that the rooms were tiny. And then there was the diesel generator to handle. The rooms closer to the genset had to brave noise, smell and the chill of the AC. Those away escaped the noise, smell and unfortunately the AC (because of common AC vent). After a rather unceremonious last day at the houseboat where very poor feedback was given which in turn led to the assistants refusing to help with our luggage, we returned to warmth of our house (or the cold of Delhi winters)!
Chachu 13/01/2008
Web Resources
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http://www.incredibleindia.org/ (Govt. of India website to promote tourism)
http://www.milmermaid.com
http://www.cochin.org/tourism.htm
http://www.nivalink.com/silvercrest/index.html
http://www.lakepalaceresort.com/
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