Back in Trichur

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So after leaving Vattapaarathi at about midday, bit late, but when there's 11 of you to shift out of a place it takes a while.

Got over to Trichur and sorted hotel out...room rates sky high, but didn't want to take advantage and stay in house again.

Arrived and met up with a few more people from the Ashram and varkala...so now there were 15 of us....bloody hell from one extreme to another!! Travelling on your own is great as you get to do stuff really quickly, going to 15 is just rediculous...but wicked to share the experience with.

the Pooram was awesome...I'd seen the pics in LP and fancied it...so to come back up made sense as I could easily get across to Munnar from hear before heading on to Madurai, which was my original plan from Trivanandrum.

The day itself was pretty cool. typical indian festival. Lots of people hanging out...not much organisation from the event managers. There were loads of families doing acrobatics..nothing like you see at home..but some really cute little kids doing handstands on their brothers hands and so on..

The strange thing was our big group of westerners were the only ones clapping and then whooping as we were the only ones. The indian people just stood and stared...with no response...weird.


Wandered off to the main temple where the procession would happen and saw a VIP seating area....in my usual style I wander up and loiter looking to get in...as I'd been in Trichur before I recognise the tourist office guy by the seats....he recognised me too...but upon discussion he thought I'd asked about Ayurvedic massages....not one to miss a blag I told him yes it was me....to which he looked very pleased with himself and then said to come back later with my friends and he'd get me a seat...VIP only for tourists it turned out...however the number of people were immense and it was unbelievably hot just from the sheer number of people so a welcome area...felt a bit weird though all the white people segregrated from the indian people.

Saw the parade of parasols, with two teams of elephants from competing temples showing off each of their parasols and trying to out do each other.

The festival continued late into the night with more processions at 2.00am, which I missed as I was knakered. We all went out for dinner which was pretty good as it was out last night together before the gang all went separate ways.

Unfortunately the fireworks which the pooram is renowned for were not going to take place as 7 people had been killed in the prep for the festival.

So next day, spent a bit of time on web and then buggered off to Munnar, had to get a couple of buses, was sent to one town, which when I got there was told there were no buses to Munnar... abit of conflab later between themselves and the govt bus guys told me I could get a private bus...they dropped me off at the private bus stand and off I trundled.

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