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Published: September 16th 2006
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I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Kerala. I spent my first few days in Varkala relaxing on the beach and beach cliff restaurants. I stayed down on the slightly less touristy, but no less busy Beach Road. The beach at that end of Varkala is a pilgrimage site for Hindus and all day long busloads of people would come through, to the temple, the tank (sort of water reservoir down from the temple) and then to stand on the beach. I believe the beach is supposed to have some purification effects. Most of the restaurants, hotels, and tourist facilities are up on the cliffs to the north of where I was staying...and I did frequent a few of the cafes. There was some excellent food to be had...the Kerala style fish in coconut marinade cooked in a banana leaf, lots of lassis, fresh juices and chai, and tasty paneer butter masala with butter naan. You can't get enough butter. Just about everything I had was excellent. There is a western style beach down from the cliffs on that end of Varkala, but the tide was only a out a bit, and I guess doesn't go fully out until around November,
so there was limited sand. I think I spent most of my time reading in cafes and chatting with other travellers. I did meet an ex-pat that gives demonstrations of this code, through which he receives messages from God. He had an interesting story about delivering and ultimatum from God to the British and US government, and then another story about receiving the code. I also met a nice Norwegian girl that is an Iyengar yoga teacher. I also managed to get an ayurvedic massage one afternoon, and that was nice, really oily but nice. Varkala is really nice and I think that many travellers end up staying longer than they originally anticipate.
My next stop was Amritapuri to stay at Amma's ashram/monastery. Amma is the hugging mother saint and her ashram is at the place she was born a little ways north of Varkala along the backwaters. I took a boat up the backwaters, as they are called, and enjoyed the relaxing float under the sun roof. I think it took about three hours. The ashram was nice. It was busy with lots of people, but there was good sense of community...and everyone was really kind. I think
there are usually 3-4 thousand people there, which includes many Indian students who go to Amma's school across the water from the ashram. I think I heard an estimate of one thousand renunciates, but I'm not sure if this is accurate. Everyday outside the temple there is a large board that lists the days activities, and I usually ended up following it. It includes some time for Seva, or selfless service, and mine was mostly in the kitchen...doing the usual new arrival ashram jobs like dishwashing and chopping vegetables. It was a really international environment, especially in the kitchen, sometimes four languages going at once. I really enjoyed the baked goods that they made for breakfast like pumpkin bread and apple spice coffee cake. One of the days I was there was a celebration of Amma's birthstar. Her birthday is later this month. Amma served everyone lunch in the temple and later that night they had a beautiful puja ceremony with sand art, flowers and then passed out a big banana leaf full of Indian sweets. I like the caramel type pudding with flat rice dumplings. Another day was Krishna Jayanti, or the celebration of Krishna's birthday. This was really
super busy. There were tons of people and events all day. It started early in the morning with a cow puja and the cows were all adorned with flowers and gold ornaments. Later there was a drumming and dancing, and they brought the elephants out as well. In the afternoon there was a really lively parade. The children were all dressed up, and many of the men were singing and dancing in the street. We paraded to the Krishan temple, at least that's what I think it was, and then back to the ashram. On arriving back Amma greeted all those dressed up like Krishna and the boys played this game where they tried to break a clay pot full of butter that was hanging from a rope...it was kind of like a pinata, but the men on the side through water and colored water while they ran through from side to side, jumping in the air trying to hit it with sticks. The whole time there was lots of music. It was pretty wild.
One particulary crazy event happened that morning of Krishna Jayanti...I was in line for breakfast and I turned around and was totally shocked to
see Vineet. For those that don't know Vineet, he is our friend from Olympia who left Olympia for California in June to help his dying grandfather. I hadn't really heard anything from or about him since then. Apparently, his grandfather passed away three weeks ago, and he arrived at the ashram the day after I did. Neither of us knew the other would be there and we didn't run into each other for two days because things are so busy. The day before I thought that I had seen someone that looked like him, but I thought my mind was playing tricks on me..."that's impossible, he is in California..." But it was nice to see a familiar face and we had a few meals and watched the pinata pot breaking before I had to go. I think he is staying for sometime, but I had a flight to Chennai the day after we ran into each other.
I am currently in Mamallapuram south of Chennai, which has these huge ancient carvings out of big boulders as well as a nice beach. There is also a village of current stone carvers, and much of their work is shipped to temples
worldwide. I spent today wandering through the ruins and temples and watching the carvers work. Very nice little town...and more excellent South Indian cuisine. I'm heading back to Chennai tomorrow and then its to Thailand on Tuesday.
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Melissa
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Oh Alana, I envy you your travels. But's it's great to live vicariously through your blogs!