Blogs from Kumily, Kerala, India, Asia - page 4

What began as a brief stop on our way to meet up with Burt's friend at a yoga center turned into a six-day love affair with Kumily. The weather was cool, the people were friendly, and there was hardly a mosquito in sight! Kumily is situated just outside the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary and is surrounded by tea, coffee, and cardamom plantations. So there are plenty of exotic sounds and smells to accompany the views. ;) Our eco-tourism buddy Oosaka signed us up for a full day's visit to the sanctuary, complete with jeep safari, jungle trek, and paddle boating. A rickety old jeep pulled up to our house at 5AM and we piled in with two other tourists, a Canadian girl and an older British man. The jeep lurched and shook the whole way and my ... read more

We arrived comfortably on our long flight Jaipur - Kochi, we touched down twice to load people off and put some new on before we finally arrived in Kochi. Flying is not really our favorite method of transport any more, but what can you do. From the airport we caught a prepaid taxi straight to Fort Cochi. There, we noticed that guesthouses have sprung up like mushrooms after the rain - they were literally everywhere. The weather was also very different from Rajasthan. Hot and wet rather than dry and bearable. We dropped off our bags and went for a walk - mainly with the goal to find some lunch, but soon we found it too humid and too hot and actually the search for some indian food was quite a challenge. All food served here ... read more

The best Spice Garden in Kumily, BBC was allready visiting him. Abbraham explained us everything about the spices. We got a private tour around his garden. He told us about a walk on a mountain, it was the best we ever did. ... read more

After Varkala, anything we did was bound to be somewhat of a disappointment. Unfortunately, we decided to do the most expensive activity scheduled on the whole trip: House Boating. In all the guide books and on all the websites, house boating in Kerala’s backwaters are toted as the “chose a fair” while in Kerala. It is the one must see in the whole state, and floating peacefully along on a barge, through meandering canals sounded like an excellent way to spend a day and an evening. So, we headed from Varkala (sadly) on Thursday, on route to Kollam which was the less crowded of backwater tourist places. Upon arrival however, we were persuaded that Allapey, the more active backwater departure point, was the only place where a punting boat (man powered, not stinky or loud or ... read more