Finally escaped from verkala!

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Hello again!
Haven't written again for a little while.....oooops! but there is a reason for that this time! ........... Verkala Syndrome! You'll be glad to hear I'm fully recovered now and actually managed to escape this morning! I'm not exactly sure when I picked it up....but i had it bad! I was only going to stay there for a few days initially, (being that I'd spent most of the last 2 months on a beach already) but something strange happened! Made my landlords laugh a lot though....think they thought I was completely bonkers! It was a homestay this time....ie renting a room off a family, which worked out a wee bit cheaper than a guest house. They wanted the money up front, which I don't normally do, so I said I'd pay them each day for the following night as I didn't know exactly how long I'd be there. (If I'd known it'd be a few wks nearly I probably could have got a discount!) I think I told them I was leaving soon almost every day but then each morning they'd be another nights money for them!
I'm not entirely sure what it was about the place actually. It wasn't a paradise.....its basically a reasonably nice beach in front of some cliffs. So you have all the restaurants and hotels etc on the cliff top and you walk down the steps to the beach........and back up them again if you've forgotten something......or at beer oclock, whichever was the sooner! Yep, not ideal, but I have to say I was kinda glad about the steps in the end.... it was the only bit of exercise I got apart from the odd bicep curl now and again!! So yep, going back to Verkala, it's not paradise but you get a bit attached to it. Its got a really nice feel to it.....tons better than Kovalam. I'd go back there again.....and I'd recommend it to others too.
So what did I get up to while I was there? Well, suprise, suprise, not an awful lot! Days consisted of breakfast, back to get my beach stuff, beach, swim (well not exactly swim......more going in for a good battering from the enormous waves.......not good for swimming but actually does wonders for a hangover) beach, swim, sometimes lunch, then beach, swim, beach, swim, beer, shower, dinner, more beer, bed! mmmmmm! Good job I escaped eh! I was kinda forgetting what travelling was all about!
We did have a barby on the beach one night as well which was good......that was my first night there I think. I'd run into a couple from Edinburgh, James and Lisa, in a restaurant when I was looking for somewhere to stay, and they said they were planning on doing a trip to the fish market and the bottle shop and light a fire on the beach to cook. Some guys in one of the restaurants were going to provide the salt and pepper and a few cooking utensils and come and join us when they closed. Amazingly, none of us ended up with food poisoning AND we all made it back up the steps alive at the end of the night! it was actually amazingly tasty, if a wee bit sandy! but heh, bit of texture is always good! :O)
So, apart from that, most days were pretty similar. Met some great people there who helped while away the evenings and some of the days too! Spent a lot of evenings in the 'puppy bar' (or that's what we christened it...think it was actually called the sunshine cafe) which, as you've no doubt guessed had a load of luuuvvvllly puppies! They had 3 when i got there ....2 had already found homes. 2 black ones and 1 white with a black patch on one eye. They were at that lovely age......about 10 12 wks I guess, where they are into everything and incredibly naughty! If you left your bag under the table, they'd drag it off to play with while you weren't looking! The guys in the restaurant really looked after them too.....all too often puppies are in really bad shape over here, but these ones were the picture of health, and mum was doing well too. They were even taking them all the way to Trivandrum for their jabs.......a lot of people wouldn't bother even if the vet was local.
Oh yeah, nearly forgot the festival last night! Wow. It was pretty amazing. It was a hindu celebration festival.....I think they're being held all over india around now......and verkala had one on the temple a short walk back from the cliffs. It basically consisted of some beautiful elephants, lots amazing drummers, and a load of completely bonkers indian men charging round and round the temple with this 'temple tower' they'd built, which must have been around 50 ft high and weighed an absolute ton (judging by the looks of pure anguish on their faces anyhow!!) This thing should have fallen over going round the first corner...it leant over at some impossible angles and gravity should really have taken it over, but somehow it managed to stay upright! The drummers were incredible too. There were a few different groups of drummers in the procession, all really talented. They must have kept going for a good couple of hours and you could really feel every beat going right through you..... The energy they had was mind blowing. All in all it was an amazing night and I'm really glad I stayed that extra night to watch it.
Well, today was the day I finally got it together to leave. It meant getting up really early.....about 6.30 ( because I'd been sidetracked by the bar the night before and hadn't managed to pack!) as the train to Kollam was at 7.45. I actually thought I'd probably miss that one and take the one an hour later which also got me to Kollam in time for the 10.30 tourist boat up the backwaters to Allepey. Amazingly enough, I made it for the 7.45 ferry with about 10 minutes to spare. When I got to Kollam the usual gang of rickshaw drivers mob you coming out of the station, determined to get the fare. I managed to escape and walked across the road to a cafe. There I found out the jetty was a few kms away, which with a backpack I didn't fancy walking. Hence a rickshaw it was. I was well glad I did too as I'm not sure I'd have found it if I had've walked. All went incredibly smoothly and having bought my ticket for the boat I went off in search of breakfast. I didn't need to go far.....a cafe up the road was heaving with bus drivers from the station opposite which indicated this was the place to eat. One masala dosa later (and a couple of bhajis take away for the boat trip) I wandered back to the jetty and the boat was there.
The backwaters are a huge string of salt water canals and lakes which stretch up the Kerala coastline from Kollam right up to Cochin. They are stunningly beautiful in places (not all places, but the majority of them!) and are the highlight of many peoples trips to Kerala. The tourist ferry is a fab way to see them. Its 300 ruppees, you get a full 8 hours or more and get to see a huge stretch of the backwaters in relative comfort. (OK so its only a plastic chair, but its a reclining plastic chair. Seriously! I haven't seen plastic chairs like them in UK....even after the 8 hours you're not uncomfortable.) Many people get a houseboat and spend one or two nights on them. Don't get me wrong, the houseboats are beautiful and come in all standards of luxury.....ac, tv, onboard cook etc, but you do pay for the privelidge. The cheapest price I've heard someone say they paid for one night (22 hours) was 3000 ruppees and you can pay as much as 8 or 9 thousand. Maybe if you're in a big group it might be fun to stay overnight on a houseboat just for the experience, but from what I've heard you don't get to see as much of the backwaters as you do on the tourist ferry (apparently they just circle certain parts of the lakes and canals rather than going the full length) ....and you've paid at least 10 times the price. For what I was doing the tourist ferry was perfect.
I sat on top deck and luckily enough was early enough to get a seat under the sunshade because it was really hot. A few people departed the boat that evening with a distint glow about them! It was a really lovely day. The first few hours were spent taking in the scenery.....and the various groups of kids determined to get a 'schoolpen' even though there was a good few metres of water between where they would be launched from and the bank which they were running along! Undettered they ran along beside the boat shouting out to us and loving any attention they got back.....even a wave. At lunchtime we stopped at a riverside restaurant which served a fab thali, prawn fry and pineapple. Stuffed, we all regrouped on the boat for the afternoon stretch. Afternoon snooze later I woke up as we pulled into an ashram along the way to pick up some more passengers. It was unfortunate, as now there wasn't much room to swing a cat up top, where we did have loads of room for the first half of the day. Still, it was ok. Had a really wierd american guy come and sit next to me. He was about 60 I'd say. I tried talking to him....like you do when someone sits next to you...and he leaned over and said something along the lines of 'shhhhh....listen to the birds.....its much better when its quiet' and then did a zipping motion across his lips. Wierdo. If thats what an ashram does for you, I think I may steer clear! After stopping for chai, most people had resigned to reading their books.....there's only so much beautiful scenery you can take in in one day! Sunset was beautiful, but I have to say, by this time most of us were looking forward to getting to Allepey. 8 hours on the backwaters was plenty for me. Having arrived in Allepey I escaped the mob of guest house owners trying to catch you coming off the boat and walked off to try and find a hotel. Normally I prefer to look at a few hotels and choose one rather than being accosted when you get there and taken to something you've not seen, but it was pretty dark by this time and having walked around and found nothing that looked remotely decent I walked back down to jetty. There was still one guest house guy there who said his guest house was about 5 minutes walk away across the canal.....the opposite direction to where I'd walked earlier, so I followed him back there. The room was ok but he wanted too much for it. Having told him what I wanted to pay I said I'd go and look at the one just further up the road and the other two we'd walked past on the way. On my way back from the one up the road (which was more expensive and had a distinctive aroma about it!) the guys (2 brothers) in the first hotel relented and took what I wanted to pay. Its not a bad place either.....clean and has its own bathroom. The fan sounds like its about to fly off the ceiling, but they've lent me a floor standing one which is loads quieter.
All in all its been a pretty good day. I don't think I'll stay here as having wandered around there's not much here....its literally a departure town for the backwaters. Tomorrow I think I'll head to Cochin, which wasn't originally planned, but its so close and I'm curious as to what's there. Sometimes last minute plans are the best ...... I guess we'll see.

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