Advertisement
Published: January 29th 2007
Edit Blog Post
India is indeed an incredible country. It's people are warm, passionately patrotic and immensely curious about foreginers. They're friendly, good-humoured and hugely proud & dignified. It's a country we hope to go back to again and again.
Our trip began in Bombay. We were met by Lynsey and Brendan, two friends from Doha and whisked away in a cab to Brendan's family home in the northern suburb of Malad West. We passed the world's largest slum, but were shocked by the general state of cleanliness through the streets. That night we wandered over to 'Kuzzins', a residential building which was hosting a 'Paani'. The Paani is similar to the western tradition of a pre-wedding hens or bucks night, but is celebrated by men and women together. As we entered, there was a 20 piece brass band whooping out tunes and the festivities were well under way. Within 5 minutes, Gav had been dragged to the front of the crowd, sat down in a chair and covered in talcum powder by the groom's auntie, in a mock shave, while the band tooted and the female relatives sang! Not long after we found ourselves dancing through the streets, (band in tow!) heading
toward the local well to fill an urn with water, somewhow significant to the upcoming union between man and wife. A brilliant night and a fantastic introduction to the colour, music, vibrancy and personality of India!
We spent two days in Bombay, and thanks to Brendan's friends & family were shown a side to the city that we could never have seen as backpackers on our own.
From Bombay we flew south to Bangalore where we checked into The Airlines Hotel - Bangalore's finest ferral-star hotel! We spent two days there, mostly wandering around the MG & Brigade Road area with Garry, Mira & Danah Cummins, our neighbours from Kew. Mira's mum lives there & hosted a fantastic New Years Eve party, where we shimmeyed with some of the city's hoity toity and generally had a great night.
On New Years Day we flew south again to Trivandrum, capital of the southern sate of Kerala. (The city's actual name is Thiruvananthapuram...try saying that three times in a row after a few Kingfisher beers!) This is the place where the majority of the Indian ex-pats in Doha and Dubai are from...including my Project Manager, Manoj. For the next
couple of days we were spoilt rotten, in particular, fed like Kings as we stayed at Uncle Ram and Auntie Mira's house. We were additionally spoilt to engage the services of Sudheer, Manoj's driver, who drove us to all sorts of amazing places, and, more amazingly, drove safely!!! We spent one full day driving south to Kanyakumari, the southernmost tip of India. On the way we stopped off at a palace and a temple, both highlights of our trip to India.
After saying goodbye to our exceptional hosts, we headed for Lagoona Davina where we spent two luxurious days, enjoying our 3rd wedding anniversary...initially in quiet, low-keyed, romantic seclusion. This being India though, we weren't going to get away with the entire village not knowing and sure enough, as we were waiting for our serene candlelit dinner on the lagoon, out comes the entire staff of the resort, holding a ginormous cake and singing (grossly out of tune and rather hilariously) "Happy Anniversary!" Classic! Lagoona Davina was just the most perfect place we could have stayed at. Simply divine. We spent one day just wandering along the beach opposite the lagoon, lisening to the villagers' sing as they hauled
in their HUGE fishing nets. A really fantastic couple of days.
From LD we drove north to Alleppey, where we spent a day and night on a traditional wicker houseboat in the backwaters. The backwaters are a system of canals, where four rivers converge into the Vembanad Lake. Most of the land here (predominantly ride paddies) lies 0.6 to 2.2 m below mean sea level and is famous for being perhaps the only region in the world where farming is done below sea level! Again, the food we ate was exceptional, and the hospitality of the people so warm and friendly.
Our last stop in India was in the diverse town of Fort Cochin which has, over time, been influenced by Arabs, the British, Chinese, Dutch, Italians and Portuguese. It's a great place to spend a couple of days, wandering the quaint little streets, exploring the bric a brac stores, and visiting any of the churches and temples of numerous different faiths. It also has a very 'Indian' solution to laws limiting the serving of alcohol by unlicensed restaurants...they serve "Special Tea", ice cold Kingfishers, served up in nan's best china teapot and mug! Hello YES! No probalem
madam!
12 days is simply not enough time to spend in India. But it's better than not going. We had such a brilliant time and yet when we look at what we saw, it hardly even makes a dint in the list of must-see destinations in the country. Hoping very much that we can get back there again in the next few years, but without a doubt, we WILL be going back...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.102s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 61; dbt: 0.071s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb