Incredible India?

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March 21st 2010

Published: March 21st 2010

Incredible India- That is what the advert on TV proclaims which seemed to be on TV every time we switched it on when planning our trip......

After previous experiences of flying into Delhi and Mumbai in the middle of the night and being hit with serious culture shock, it was good to fly into tiny Trichy airport in Tamil Nadu on the only international flight of the day landing there. The day before we had sat in Margaret and Swithin's house with the LP phoning the hotels in Trichy trying to book a room. Everywhere seemed to be 'no room at the inn' so i asked the last one on the list why they were full and the bloke said there was an election on in Trichy and all hotel rooms were booked out by party officials. We were not going to see much in Trichy anyway, we just used it due to the cheap Air Asia flight and its general location in Tamil Nadu, so we ended up getting off the plane straight onto a local bus at the bus station for 4 hours to Madurai. In Malaysia we had raved about how comfortable the busses were- A/C, massive leg room, toilet onboard and drinks served to your seat even WiFi access! I made a joke to Alex when we got on the aging rustbucket to Madurai and said- shall i check if its got WiFi? at that point the guy next to me said this bus had a newly installed flat screen TV and had a TV channel beamed via satellite to all the busses in Tmail Nadu. Talk about not getting your priorities straight! The bus had bald tyres, no padding on the seats and we both had to sit sideways to fit in the seats. Anyway, in hindsight it could have been a lot worse and the chap next to us was good conversation which passed the time well as he was an English Literature student who chatted with Alex about the finer points of Shakespeare.

Madurai is a hot, bustling city and to quote the lonely planet 'smells variously of petrol and piss'. The reason to visit though is the magnificent Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple which dominates the city. A good day was spent wandering round mixing with the pilgrims and trying to work out the best way of getting curry and rice in our mouths using just fingers and thumbs!

The next day we traveled by bus up into the Western Ghats, the hills which border Tamil Nadu and Kerala. We stayed in a village called Kumily next to the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary which is based around an artificial lake created in the 1800s by the British. The cool mountain air was really refreshing after the heat of the plains and to actually feel cold in the evening was bliss! We stayed with a lovely family in a homestay in Kumily who were so friendly, we could have stayed a lot longer than the 3 nights we were there. The highlight of our stay was getting up way before sunrise to go into the park and get on a boat to skirt the lake's edge looking for wildlife coming to drink. The lake was shrouded in mist and the dead trees (from when they flooded the valley) stood out of the water as the sun came up and we were lucky enough to see Indian Bison, wild boar, deer and countless species of birds. Later in the day we took a guided trek through the forest and heard wild elephants very close to us but unfortunately they were being camera shy that day.

A long day was spent on a local bus getting down to the Keralan coast to Kollam where we stayed in an absolute dive of a hotel and escaped with only a couple of bed bug bites. We went on a great day trip on a punted canoe along tiny backwater canals which meant the wildlife couldn't hear us coming. We saw loads of snakes (one with a half swallowed fish hanging out of its mouth!) and loads of birds.

The next 6 days were spent in Varkala, a beach village in Southern Kerala. We stayed a bit longer than planned due to us getting tummy bugs and a day when we got too much sun. The temperature is rising really quickly and even the locals down tools for long periods of the day. From Varkala, we spent a day on a ferry through the backwaters going up to a place called Allepey. The ferry went past some lovely villages and past the signature chinese fishing nets lining the canals. Once there we decided against staying on one of the houseboats and to save our money. Instead, we hired a small canoe boat and spent a lovely relaxing afternoon paddling through the canal system watching village life pass by on both banks. The contrasts are amazing between the towns and cities which are an assault on the senses and the countryside which is really peaceful. We are both enjoying India but there are many things which are a constant source of frustration. Firstly, the apparent lack of social responsibility and dumping of rubbish everywhere. Plastic is a real problem here and every morning we wake up with the smell of burning plastic stinging the back of our throats. There is no excuse for it when there is so much cheap labour available and a functioning government which could employ refuse collectors and recycling schemes. The second one is the incessant staring at Alex by groups of men. She has been religious about covering up and wearing loose clothes but even when she is walking by my side the staring is incessant- it is not curious staring either.....

We are now in Fort Cochin which is an old Portuguese colony born out of the spice trade and full of beautiful churches and architecture. Tomorrow we take a night train up into Karnataka to a beach called Gokarna before hopping into Goa to catch our flight to Nepal. The trekking is getting us really excited especially after hearing Aislinn and Jonny's stories when we were in Malaysia.

Thank you for the emails, we both really appreciate them and I hear the big freeze is over so i don't feel as bad complaining about the 40 degree heat here!

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