India, Sri Lanka and The Maldives - Days 36 to 39 - Alleppey & Kovalam, Kerala

Our first afternoon stroll from our Homestay through the tiny village. Not sure of the name, but its located here 

Day 36 was completed by lounging in hammocks, lounging on day beds, gently walking along the canals and river of the village, beer and crossword, and dinner in the big house. The housekeeper who had welcomed us was very attentive, two lots of lime soda, coffee and cake at 4pm, and anything else we needed. The food was good, cooked by Salima, while we sat and talked with Mr. Chacko. They were both teachers but she has retired while he has moved to the university to lecture in Pharmacy. Disappointingly they didn’t eat with us, a mixture of him having had a big lunch and it being Lent. He was good fun though.

Quite a few Kingfishers hanging around the canals looking for their dinner

Day 37

Finally I didn’t wake up between 6 and 6.30, so what happened? Brian did and decided this was the best time of the day so he was getting up. (Despite giving me a look when I did just that the previous day). We went for another walk to different bits of the village. It may have been early, but walking was still at snails pace, it’s already hot. The canals look very pretty, filled with water hyacinth, which does make it tricky for the boats, so it’s always being cleared, somewhere. They are used for everything, transport, bathing, washing, washing up, teeth cleaning! Imagine doing all that in the Grand Union Canal?

Happy Jackie! There were a lot of cats in the village, most of which ran away at the sight of white people

In for breakfast, and more chat, before relaxing, (I can’t say chilling) moving between my hammock and my day bed, reading. I didn’t even go out for the evening walk with Brian. Again beautifully looked after by the housekeeper, juice, coffee, bananas , pakora. Only no lunch, because we said we didn’t want any. Duck curry for dinner as ducks are bred locally which was quite interesting, and we’d had beef the night before. It’s ok down here, and our hosts are Christian. They are obviously quite well to do, two cars, the housekeeper, the lady who seems to spend all day sweeping the lawn, the boatman come garden assistant. The three homestay rooms and a rice field. It was good to relax, though I almost think I’ve forgotten how.

This one seemed to think that whatever came out of the water was his

Day 38

Breakfast was idli, funny spongy dumpling things. I don’t like them. It’s ok, there was also toast and homemade jam, cornflakes, sambar (thin curry) to go with the idli, bananas, oranges, juice and coffee. No danger of going hungry.

Fabulous lilies growing on the waters

Into the canoe to go and meet Shareef before our 4 hour drive to our beach front ‘resort’ 3 little cottages, with windows wide open to the sea. (No mossies here) He recommended leaving the windows open and just drawing the curtain, which I think would have been cool enough, but we just couldn’t bring ourselves to do it, not with the party house just behind us.

The water hyacinths, while looking very nice, are a bit of a menace the boat engines (the Drongo bird didn't seem to mind though  

On the web it sells itself as an Ayurveda centre (holistic eating, detox, massage etc) which we are not interested in, but it hasn’t been mentioned. You’ve got to feel sorry for the place, his road access has been cut off by the building of the new port, so we had to enter through the very posh, proper resort next door. The breakwater may do him some good in the long run though as although the sea felt like a hot bath and we had great fun padding in it that is all we could do. It shelves so steeply, there are huge waves with such a strong undertow, it’s all very scary. It is an amazing setting though, a good breeze, the amazing breakers to watch and the kites. The kites are just cruising around, frequently coming between us and the palm trees, so within 6-8 feet! He did warn us to be careful of our toast this morning!

This should have been a great photo of a Kingfisher, but the camera lens was misted over from condensation. It had been with us indoors all night in an air conditioned room, so when we went out for our walk in the warm morning air this is what happened. It took about 10 minutes to warm up and be OK again, but the Kingfisher wouldn't wait!

Dinner for some reason was complementary, for one of our nights, not sure why, though I think he may be trying to ingratiate himself with Magic tours, who for some reason picked up the bill for the two previous nights, in Alleppey, again, not sure why, but not going to complain!

On our boat back down the hyacinth clogged canal and across the river to meet back up with Shareef for our drive to Kovalam. The boatman had to stop twice to cut weed from the propeller

But we made it through and Shareef our driver was there waiting for us and took this bit of video

Day 39

Trivandrum today, about half an hour back the way we came. Is the capital of Kerela. No guide laid on, but that’s ok. Shareef parked up and walked us to the temple, which was quite impressive, but not open to non Hindus. Then into the museums in the Kuthira Malia Palace which was quite interesting. As usual we had to pay 10x what Indians have to pay (this is quite usual). We were then sat down and told to wait for the guide, who was quite good, only for him to announce at the end that he is not paid by the government, only by tips! Same again for the lady who just appeared beside us in the second museum. They were both quite informative though.

This little Youtube is of some Black Kites that constantly fly around us when we're outside on our patio. The view of the sea is the view we see straight through our bedroom window. Its a bit like paradise here!

Into the bazaar which was nothing special before going back to the car. I wanted a milkshake (we’ve been having a few of these, with icecream, so cold, and no water!) which for some reason was hard to find. He triumphed in the end. He’s been desperate for us to go to golden sand beach, though the beach and rip tides are no better than here. It’s a boat trip through the mangroves, oh, and there’s a floating restaurant. All sounds great till we looked it up on the web yesterday. The two are linked, the boat is expensive and the restaurant worse. It’s all a bit of a cartel, for which I’m sure he’d get his kickback, but we don’t really want to be paying top U.K. prices for a few prawns! So we’ve disappointed our owner here as after he said we were getting one complimentary meal here I told him we were going out tomorrow (this was before we’d done our research) and we’ve disappointed Shareef by finding our own restaurant that he has to take us to! Ho hum.

Look at this crab scuttling across the sand. I took this from our patio by zooming in with the camera. The crows would quite like to eat them and we've seen them swooping down to try to catch them, but they're quite fast when they need to be, running off into the surf

There's our patio chairs overlooking the Arabian Sea. We went and had a paddle, but the steeply shelving beach and huge waves make it very dangerous. A wave that come over our knees is enough to almost knock us over (it did knock Jackie over twice), any further and we'd be dragged out. Apparently at least two people drown along these coasts every year. Lovely warm water, but don't go out of your depth (about 10 feet out!)

This was our dining table last night. Beer and meals brought to us while the waves crashed below. And they really do crash, last night, on the odd occasions we woke up it sounded like a huge storm was raging through the trees, but it was calm, just the ocean

There's a man there climbing a coconut tree. Not sure whether he should be doing this or not, but a group of four appeared, one shinned up, threw down the coconuts and they consumed them on the beach. He has a short sling round his ankles to give him purchase on the tree, but he went up there like a monkey. Obviously done it many times before. That reminds me, we were woken up to a loud clunk in the night, which I suppose was a coconut falling off a tree

We went on a tour of Trivandrum today, the capital of Kerala. In the car on the way I tried to pronounce the old name (still shown on my phone maps): Thiruvananthapuram. Go on then, have a go! I said my pronunciation to Shareef who had no idea what I was saying. After a while he realised and then pronounced it correctly in about a third of the time it took me. Isn't that what I just said, I asked him, he just laughed! He told us that 'Puram' means junction, so a road junction is a puram in their local language. I confused this with the local word for river, but he told me, no, river is pura. Anyway this is a very special Hindu temple, The Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple dedicated to three gods. Non Hindus are not allowed in, but we were told that inside is an 18 foot (6m) shrine of Padmanabha, on the bottom is Shiva, the destroyer, in the middle is Vishnu the preserver and on the top Brahma the creator 

This is the closest we non Hindus are allowed. Anyone beyond this point must wear no modern clothes, men are bare chested and must wear a dhotti, which is a white cloth (you can see some men ahead dressed accordingly), women wear either a sari or long skirt. No shoes are worn.

There's a long list of things you can't take inside

Got told off for taking this photo, too close! We retreated and visited the two palaces at the side of the temple (inside the palace the guide showed us a secret door that gives direct access for the royalty into the temple. Well, it's not secret anymore!). No photos were allowed inside either palace so nothing to show you. A pity as they very interesting. They work on a matriarch system where the son of the current kings sister becomes the next king, not descendants from the king himself. There is still a king now, but its only ceremonial, he has no powers since India gained independence. Apparently the current king is a businessman 

Took this photo walking between the two palaces and it illustrates something we didn't know and were only told recently. Perhaps you didn't know either, so I'll tell you: A banana tree only lives for 1 year. It produces bunches of bananas beneath a flower and can only produce the number of bunches of bananas as flowers that bloom that year. At the end of the year it dies, but new shoots grow up beside it and here you can see dead banana trrees and, look at the near one on the right, it has three or four new trees growing around the dead one. I a proper plantation they are managed and moved to give the correct spacing, but in the wild this is what happens

Here's a bunch of bananas growing beneath its flower. They use the banana flower for cooking, we had some mixed with other vegetables and its quite nice

We came out of the palaces (over there on the left, but stretching a long way back) on the other side and walked back round to here to get to the market. Here's a view of the purifying pool with the temple beyond. We walked round the market and Jackie was quite tempted to buy a sari, but decided to wait until we see a lady guide in a few days and ask her. They are difficult to put on and wrap in the right way, but I told her someone in the shop would show her how. They were only about 310 rupees (£3), but they wear a blouse underneath and that put her off as it has to match. Another shop further on had sari and blouse for 600 rupees (£6), but the shop looked a bit serious and if she went in she'd feel obliged to buy. She may or may not buy one, we'll see, it depends on how much room she has left in her suitcase after the other things she's bought (or I carry it in mine!). Well, that's about it, might be some more photos from here on the next blog, we've got our evening meal at a cliff top restaurant that we've chosen, we have to walk along a path on the clifftop to get there, Shareef will wait in the car at the bottom. We'll get there for sunset to enjoy the view and will remember to take our headtorch to find our way back. There's a beer waiting for us in our fridge for when we get back. We'll sit outside listening to the surf breaking on the shore in the evening warmth. Bye for now...