Our group trekked out of Kannur on January 2, 2012. Our destination was Kochi, a charming seafront city with heavy Portuguese and Dutch influences. We'd booked rooms at
Green Woods Bethlehem outside the Fort area, a simply pretty suburb with loads of homestay options, beautiful greenery, courtyards draped in colored lights and paper lace star lanterns. We arrived in the late evening after a boiling train ride, and a refreshing ferry from Ernakulam, the mainland port connection to Kochi.
On our first full day in Kochi, we visited the small, but ornately chandelier-ed
Synagogue in Mattancherry, I took a gander at some jewelry in Gem Palace, housed in the Ethnic Passage, and then we trod on to the
Dutch Palace, which was as unique as it was hot; very much so. The building looks so little like a palace you might pass it by, but the contents are delightful. Originally built by the Portuguese in the 16th century, the Dutch remodeled the palace in the 17th, but the beauty lies in the more than 300 square feet of naturally pigmented tempera murals that depict important and sometimes cheeky scenes from the Ramayana, as well as other important texts and Sanskrit poems. Also impressive were two rooms with ornate teak carved ceilings. The tragedy of the visit was not being able to take any photos inside the palace, or buy postcards of the murals upon exiting, as there is no gift shop in sight.
We also took the touristy walk along the sea wall of Fort Kochi to eyeball the Chinese Fishing Nets and for Liz and Gareth to buy two Kingfish steaks, which were then prepared by a nearby restaurant stand. I headed to
Koder House's Ela spa for a quick pedicure, which I really needed after scuffing through streets in my flip flops, and then on to the very touristy Teapot for, can you imagine, tea and a very bizarre version of cheesecake, before we made our way over to the
Kerala Kathakali Centre to see a traditional dance performance. Guests arrive around 5pm and watch the four actors grind rocks into pigments, which they use to color their faces as appropriate for their characters. In the play we ultimately watched, Arjuna, a boastful archer, challenges a disguised Shiva in a deer hunt, and then a battle. When he realizes who he's been fighting and insulting he humbly begs for a swift death, which Shiva denies, and even rewards his strength and skill by giving him his Pashupatastra, an infalliable bow. It was a fascinating performance, as the actors use intricate and difficult facial movements and hand mudras to convey dialogue, instead of words. We had a late dinner and finally retired for the evening.
We spent a bit more time in Kochi, enjoying lovely Keralan hospitality, before jetting off to Alleppey for what proved to be a highly entertaining over-nighter on a houseboat. I like boats, but 24 hours spent staring at one another was a bit tedious for my adventuring soul, so I was quite please to hop in a taxi and speed off to Kumily's hilly tea plantations for a 3 night break from the hot coastal visits.
Kumily/Thekkady/Periyar, three towns within 3 kilometers of one another are perched high top tea covered hills inland in Kerala. We stayed at
Green View Homestay on Green Wood's owner Sheeba's recommendation, and we were thrilled about the entire experience. Green View offered in house booking of everything you could want to do in the hills. On our first night, Lizzie and I booked two spots for the cooking class they coordinated, which was offered by the fabulous, warm, generous family that runs Campfire Cafe. If you do only one excursion in Kumily, it should be this cooking course. Owner and master chef Shernil is as friendly as you could ever imagine, he welcomed us and 15 others into his home/cafe, where we prepared nine Keralan dishes and enjoyed his family and other travelers company for a long and enjoyable night of cooking and eating. All for 350 INR, which is less than 7 USD, an amazing price tag for all you can eat. We liked him and the food so much we came back the next night!
We also tuk-tuk-ed around on a fun tea, coffee and spice tour, as well as a wonderful nature walk at the
Periyar Tiger Reserve. On that three-hour hike we saw a mouse deer, loads of monkeys and a wild elephant! We'd come to the furthest point on our hike, a remote lake somewhere in the interior, and after having our photo snapped by our guide, Lizzie points to the water's edge squealing "Elephant!" to which our guide squealed "RUN!" Apparently solo elephants are typically young males who get angry easily and hate the color red, so as we tore away into the bushes, the guide ripped Jamie's red backpack off his back and threw it away from us. I was very glad I hadn't worn my red hiking shirt.We watched him from a patch of high reeds for awhile before heading back to the bamboo raft launch.
Our Sunday in Thekkady consisted of a Jungle Safari, which was touted as an all day excursion including a 40 kilometer jeep safari through the preserve, a 3 hour hike, 1 hour plantation walk and boat ride, 1 hour of some other tour as well as breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea. The
Gavi EcoTourism group that offered this day-long adventure is located outside the park, and if you can imagine your neighbor charging you $40 to come look at the lake in his back yard and eat two meals, then you have vividly captured this experience. The guides Gavi offers are "tribals," which seems both highly offensive and counter-intuitive to hosting a bunch of westerners around a hike. Our guide wore his best skinny jeans and bright aqua plaid shirt for the occasion, but didn't speak a word of English and had only been on the job 3 days, so instead of taking us hiking through the jungle, he walked us along clearly marked paths and then made us take the paved road back. We asked for more hiking, but apparently 1 hour was all we got. The upshot is we were ready to leave by 2pm, instead of 5pm!
I scheduled an Ayurvedic head massage at Mayura Ayurvedic Center after that downer excursion and found it a great mood lifter. The boys wanted pizza, so we went to
Chrissie's Cafe for dinner and brought along some Kingfishers to complete the meal. Next day was a travel day, so we retired early.
That gets us to Trivandrum, after a bus/train combo, and this was mostly a layover until our flight to Jaipur on Jan 10. We got ourselves some cheap hotel rooms without AC, which is not advisable, and sat in the India Coffee House trying to figure out what to do with ourselves for the next 8 hours. My winning suggestion was to see
Don2 in 3D, which just happened to be playing down the road from us at 6:30pm. Lizzie and I decided not to tell the guys that there wouldn't be subtitles; we figured the plot would explain itself. As a huge Shah Rukh Khan fan in general, I was thrilled about the movie. I'm perhaps biased on the issue.
Don2 is a classic story of gangster who turns himself in to then bust himself and a friend out of Sri-Lankan prison, then forming a team of criminals to help him steal the bill molds for the Euro from a Zurich bank, while a comely Interpol agent chases him around in daring car chases, a sexy dancing scene and then enlists his help to catch the criminals he was working with who double-crossed him, though it was all really a triple-cross, or maybe quadri-cross, because he wins in the end. My only complaint was the terrible porcupine wig the director made him wear throughout - it was atrocious.
We dined at a 5-star hotel buffet after the film, which naturally gave me food poisoning. That plus a boiling hot night meant I was sufficiently weakened for our 10 hour travel day to Jaipur. Spectacular!
