Our Kerala Trip

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I will post more of the photos relating to this entry later.

Saturday, December 31, 2005

Time is a funny thing these days…sometimes it seems like a day is a week because of all the experiences one day can hold… other times it seems as if it’s flying by. Our trip is almost over.

Several days ago (I can’t say exactly how many because of that time thing I just mentioned) we left for a trip to Kerala. At the start of the trip those traveling included Praveen’s parents, Prasanna and Santhana, his sister, Sandhya, his uncle, Mohen, aunt, Vina, their toddler twins, Vina’s mother, two of Praveen’s close friends, Shaggy and hummm…. Schrader (spelled incorrectly I’m sure), Greg, Angela, Ruth, Praveen, and myself. We took a large van as well as a car. The van was pretty cool with two seats (which reclined) on one side and one on the other sort of like airplane seating. It came complete with driver, a/c, and to top it off, a DVD player.

The plan was to stop in Palakkad (Kerala State) to visit Praveen’s grandparents home (where Praveen actually spent much of his childhood) as well as Santhana (his father) family home which has been in their family for many years. They are both in Palakkad which is about an hour from here. After those visits, just Praveen, Ruth, myself and the other close friends would continue on for sort of a group honeymoon, I guess. It seems sort of strange to share your honeymoon, but hey, we were all happy for the opportunity to see more of this beautiful country, and this particular trip promised to be not only fun and full of interesting sites, but relaxing as well…. Sort of a time out for all of us after all the busy-ness of getting ready for the wedding….

I already mentioned how we are now two families joined as one, and yes, it did seem that way when we were welcomed into the family homes. It was fun to see where Praveen grew up, the yard he buried his time capsules in, his old toy box and books were still there too….(In case you are wondering why he lived with his grandparents, it’s because his parents lived in Saudi Arabia (for work) and the schools there were not good, so he stayed here for his schooling. Oh…and those time capsules…. Apparently that was a real thing with him…he’d bury little items and make maps where to dig them up… unfortunately he said he buried the map too. So that yard is filled with little treasures waiting to be found.

Praveen’s grandfather is called Mutachen. (possibly spelled right but possibly not) It is pronounced Moot-Achen and I believe means grandfather of high father. He is his mother’s father and the respected head of the family. Praveen’s grandmother passed away so Mutachen is remarried and his wife is called Villiamma (not spelled correctly) which means high mother or something like that.

Side note here…in this society people refer to others with titles, never just by name unless (I think) they are the same age….and even then they are considered “brother or sister” This is very important, even to the point that when one of the room service guys was asking about Ruth’s wedding he called her my “sister”…I said, no she is my daughter…RUTH. He said yes he understood but he must call her sister, not by name. Mostly they all call me “Madam”….I mean the hotel staff and waiters in restaurants….and clerks in stores…etc…. It’s kind of weird but nice in a way. Maybe I’ll start going by Madam at home too?

So, I got side tracked…. Back to the visit with Mutachen. We had a nice breakfast and realized again the difference in restaurant food and home cooked food. Villiamma herself did the cooking and it was great…. Really really good. She had help with the kitchen so we wondered who did the cooking and she explained that she always cooks, the help is only to clean up. Prasanna also cooks herself, but because of the large amount of people and the huge amount of wedding duties she had, she hired a cook for the occasion. Praveen keeps longing for his mom’s cooking though, the cook was good, but nothing like mom, apparently. And, after tasting the food at Mutachen’s home, I now understand.

After we ate and got a tour of the home and yard, we settled into look at the family photo albums. It was a good experience for me to share this time with Mutachen and afterwards I felt that we had formed some sort of bond. It was cool to see Prasanna and her brother, Mohen, as children (she used to be a dancer!) as well as to see photos of Praveen and Sandhya when they were little. Some of the other relatives that I’d met (and sang and danced with) were recognizable too…. Mutachen was and is a big part of all of their lives…(not only his own immediate family but the extended family too.)

When we left their home and good byes were being said, I couldn’t help but cry. I could tell how hard it was for them to be seeing Ruth and Praveen off because it was going to be the last time they would see them for awhile…until the next visit to India at some uncertain time in the future. I had to put myself in his shoes and realized how I would feel and I couldn’t help crying. I have to say I’m very glad to be flying home with them and “only” have them half a country away….a four hour flight not a 20 hour flight from home.

We loaded ourselves into the van and drove about a mile to Santhana’s family home. It has been in their family for many years and I think he said is where he grew up. It’s a large home with a large yard where his parents raised NINE kids….yes, just like me! Since both of his parents have passed away, his eldest sister and her husband now occupy the home. The also served us a small (and delicious) meal, as is the custom when people come to visit. It was there that I learned all about banana trees. They also have either mango or papaya trees (or both) as well as coconut trees and a lot of other plants including a pepper vine.

We said some more tearful goodbyes….and loaded ourselves in the van. This is where we left the other family members and headed off on our way….honeymoon, here we come!

A note about goodbye. We have tried to learn some of the words to use in the native languages….(which is difficult because it changes from region to region), but when we were asking about how to say good-bye Sandhya told us that there really is no word for good-bye. To literally say BYE…would mean…”I’m out of here…and I’m glad about it”…or something like that, not at all polite. They use words that mean, “Until next time” or commonly…”I’ll be back”

The van was a little more empty since we lost Sandhya and Mohen (uncle) and one of the twins… Just the seven of us to share a total of 10 seats and a full width back seat (half loaded with luggage). Our destination was first Kochi where we’d have a quick visit (and a gin and tonic! with some more cousins…and then switch vans and head to a resort at Alleppey. There, we’d board a houseboat the next day for a day trip in the back waters. This van was even bigger with an extra three seats…. Yippee more room to spread out…none of these journeys were short or quick, as the roads leave much to be desired. Distance is best measured in time, not actual distance…

Somewhere on the route though a small town we saw our first elephant being ridden on the road. It wasn’t in any sort of parade (we saw THAT later) or anything, it was simply being ridden by one man and led along by another. It was carrying a trunk load of banana branches. It was pretty amazing to see this huge animal making its way slowly between the pedestrians and vehicles of all sizes and shapes. It had ropes (or maybe chains) on two of it’s feet, which we learned was to keep it from being able to run.

Later we ended up in a traffic jam because there was a parade…it was apparently an important person’s birthday so we saw several processions but this one parade was really huge. A bunch of elephants with gold head gear walked right next to the van. There were a bunch of people playing drums and a lot more just walking. All of them were wearing yellow…. Which I’m sure has some significance but I don’t know what. When parades and/or processions happen here, traffic doesn’t stop as it does at home…the parade just seems to make its way through it. We were moving slightly faster than the parade and to the side of it….I actually wished we’d been going a little slower so I could see the elephants (right outside my window) a little longer.

I think we arrived at the hotel sometime in the early evening….. what I DO remember is that to make the final leg of the journey, we had to get on a boat. We divided the rooms…one for Ruth and Praveen, one for the boys and one for me and Angela. Hehe…at last I had Angela all to myself…. (she is a riot, by the way). It was decided that we would all put on our swim suits and go for a swim in the pool….which was built out onto the water! So…. I gathered all my nerve (I hate wearing a swim suit!) and tried on both of the two that I brought with me…both of which I hate equally….then I grabbed some shorts. Yes, I did get brave enough to actually lose the shorts, (to get in the water) but it wasn’t easy. It helped that we found we could order beer to the pool deck. It didn’t help that the beer tasted a bit too warm and too “skunky”…but oh well, in this land of little alcohol one can’t be too picky.

I was mostly a pool side observer being OLD (and lazy)…and anyhow someone had to pour the refills, right? The youngsters had a good time playing around with a ball (water soccer??) and finally deciding to have a back flip contest… where unfortunately Ruth managed to snag one of her toes on an underwater pool light….After that she joined me as an observer, but not without leaving bloody footprints on the deck…and later on the porch to her room. She cut a good sized flap of skin off the top of one toe! Thank goodness for Angela’s girl scout preparedness….with the band-aids and antiseptic. (Between Angela and Greg, we’ve had all bases covered most of the time…) They have proven to be not only fun to have around, but USEFUL too…

We ate dinner at the hotel buffet which was not so hot…literally. Actually Praveen and Ruth were both upset about the quality of the food and had no problem making that fact known. The cook promised better for breakfast….. and I’m not sure if it was or not, at least though they has cooked to order omelets, which generally made everyone happy. Being the EGG hater that I am, I stuck to fresh fruit and toast…and jelly. (later in the trip I decided to eat eggs even though I don’t like them…just dousing them generously with the Indian version of catsup. (to everyone’s dismay…but hey, if there was Picante sauce, I would have used that….but there wasn’t.)

Around noon we boarded our houseboat for one of the coolest experiences (and most relaxing) of the trip. We actually could have stayed overnight on it but opted for the day trip since the boats aren’t allowed to travel after dark and it would have just been docked along the side of the water anyhow. These boats are so cool…. They are all hand made with bamboo or other similar types of materials… I read that the old ones were made without nails, but I’m not sure about all of the ones on the water these days…. They are mostly tied together though, you can see that. The one we were on was great, with an upper deck…part out in the sun on the very front of the boat and part shaded… The lower floor was mostly shaded…furnished with comfortable chairs and a couch and a dining room table where we were served a great meal prepared on the boat by a cook. One of the dishes was freshly prepared tiger prawn curry…we stopped along side the water to pick them out ourselves and they looked more like small lobsters than prawns… I wasn’t too thrilled since they used (apparently) the whole critter (cut into chunks)…and I wasn’t anxious to try my first prawn “chest cavity”. Everyone else insisted that it was great though. We also had fish, fresh beet curry, and a lot of other Indian food…..which I’m sorry I can’t name.

A special treat was stopping to buy some “Toddy” (spelling again, just a guess). This stuff is sort of intoxicating I guess…and gets more so the longer it sits. It is sap (or something) that is tapped from coconut trees…(like maple syrup??? Not sure) Anyhow it had an okay taste but was hard to get used to and we didn’t drink much of it…thinking it would be better cold if we could get it into a fridge at a later time. We sampled some that had been left to ferment awhile and it was horrible….like vinegar. Another thing to add to our list of new experiences…

Let me try to explain the “back waters”… it seems to be a system of canals that winds around like a roadway (complete with mileage signs to villages) and intersections where canals meet and cross. It would be easy to get lost out there! Sometimes it opens out into a wide area more like a large lake or bay with small canals coming off at various points. All the banks are lined with coconut trees, many of them bending out across the water…as well as other jungle like vegetation. You can see native people on the water in all sorts of small boats, hauling things around. I think all of the boats were propelled by long sticks which they stuck into the bottom to move the boat forward. (the larger house boats had motors, but still traveled very slow…) There were also water-taxis that mostly the local people used to get around in. The water ways were pretty busy but not as busy as the roads. Along the edges of the water we often saw people bathing or doing whatever they do for their daily life. A couple times we saw large flocks of ducks all huddled in an area (and in the water in front of it)…only later we found out that some people feed the (wild) ducks and get them to hang out, then they take their eggs….

We stopped once so that the guys (oh…and Angela) could jump in and play around in the water….which is not very deep, but was still “over their heads”…. The boys (oh, and Angela) had a good time while Ruth (with her injured toe) and I (with my lazy old age, non swimmer status) watched and took pictures. After a bit of aimless frolicking, they suddenly remembered the great diving contest from the day before and someone (Hummm Shaggy?) got the idea to climb up to the top deck and jump off…. No diving…it wasn’t deep enough…only feet first diving.

We all hated for the trip to end…the surroundings were like a movie or something…totally unreal…and we had more beer than even WE could consume…..full tummies too…. But all good things come to an end and around 6 pm we were delivered back to our van….ready for the next part of our adventure.

We loaded ourselves and our pile of belongings into the van again and settled in for another 4 hours (or so) on the road…. The destination was Estuary Island, a resort in Kovalam…further south almost to the tip of the country slightly on the western side….

It was a LONG 4 hours…and I tried to sleep much of the way since it was getting dark anyhow…. Let me add here that bathroom stops on road trips are a major pain in the butt…There are no “rest stops” and public restrooms are hard to come by. The only way we survived was that our driver managed to get us privileges at a gas station here or there….The gas stations are NOT quick shops though…and it appeared that it wasn’t real common for people to be allowed to just stop and use the bathroom. Other times during our driving escapades, we actually bought something (like water) at a hotel restaurant just so that we could all make a trip to the “toilet”…

Oh, and those gas station toilets…yes, they are the Indian kind, which Praveen says is a good thing because they are easier to keep clean….you just spray down the whole room. However, I have to add that Ruth, Angela, and I are getting to be pros at this aspect of Indian life also…. We can measure our progress by how much splatter is on our ankles when we are done. One funny little side note here…. Angela had her swimsuit on under a long skirt…..and was in dire need of using the toilet….now, talk about tricky? Yep. I personally didn’t witness it, as I was standing outside the door, but Ruth was assisting with the process…… Another thing is that you don’t want any of your clothing (or anything else) to accidentally touch the bathroom floor….as it’s usually covered with water….and….hummm….who knows what. (I am not talking about the bathrooms in peoples homes, which are quite clean, just some of the ones in the gas stations and other similar places…)

We arrived at what we thought was the resort only to find out that we’d again be loading ourselves and our belongings into another boat for the final leg of the journey….This time it was very dark (but the boat from the resort had a light on it thankfully). After about 15 minutes we arrived just before they were shutting down the dinner buffet at 10:30. We grabbed dinner before heading to our rooms…again, boys dorm, girls dorm, and married couple room….

The next morning we took another boat to an island…rather “sand bar” where the beach was. It was easily visible from our hotel, but we wished we could have walked to it instead of having to rely on a boat… but oh well. The ocean was beautiful….a green color and the waves were really strong. The beach had a steep incline so the waves crashed but quickly became shallow…but remained strong enough to knock you down…. The younger set figured out that you had to dive beneath the waves, not let them hit you…. As usual….I stood guard on the beer and took pictures…. Praveen actually sort of helped me with this part too…. The hotel set up umbrellas and chairs for us and we got someone to deliver the beer…. It was perfect….

And then, there were the kids….all ages of them hanging out on the beach playing in the water and playing some sorts of games… BUT when they spotted “white people” and specifically (I suspect) RUTH…in her little black bikini….they became our fan club… They loved to have their picture taken and especially to see it in the camera after it was taken….usually they’d be vying for who got to stand in the front. These boys, by the way, were swimming in their “skirts”… I have no idea how they kept them on, although not all of them bothered. Nudity seemed okay for a certain age…

Greg got his cricket bat and brought it over which REALLY thrilled the kids…and “we” (minus Ruth, Praveen, and I) played with them. Greg ended up giving them the bat and ball when we left and it was like he’d given them a million bucks.

The only bad thing about that day was that Ruth ended up spraining her ankle when a wave knocked her over… Praveen took her to the avoreotic (spelling???) guy and got it prodded and wrapped…but she did a bit of limping around until I offered her one of my pain pills…(on reserve for emergency back problems and pretty potent….) All of a sudden Ruth felt a lot better…. Almost immediately, actually, and was enjoying life again….which I suspect had a lot to do with her little tequila flask….(Yeah….she knows that drinking and taking a pain killer is not recommended, but she said it was just a sip….and anyhow what’s a mom to do?)

We ate dinner at a little floating restaurant and had some of the best food yet (aside from the home cooked meals)…especially the FRESH fish was GREAT…

Later we went back to the beach to watch the sun set, then to dinner at the hotel….it seems sometimes that all we do is eat….but hey, it’s vacation, and it’s fun…. (I’m thinking January will be diet month….and back to the gym….but not until maybe the 10th or so….and just watch…by May I will have worked off all this extra (yummy) “bread” and rice….

The plan was that the following day we’d drive back to Kochi (about 8 hours) and take a plane back to Coimbatore. Angela and Greg would part ways with us and head to Bangalore, and Shaggy and Shreeder would take a plane to Bombay (to attend another wedding). As it turned out OUR flight was cancelled….yes….just plain eliminated. The others caught their flights while we arranged for a driver to bring us the additional 4-5 hours home by car.

It was a heck of a long car ride yesterday but we made it “home” fine…first to Praveen’s house where Prasanna had dinner waiting for us…then they brought me back to the hotel where I sit now.

Actually, the drive last night was one of the few times I’ve been a bit nervous on the road. We had more than one close call, and I wasn’t the only one thinking that either, as Praveen suggested the driver might like to stop for a rest and some tea… Praveen said that it’s a lot different being in a small car (like we were….and I mean SMALL) than in a larger one… plus at night there are a lot more trucks on the road. The flow of traffic seemed to be going the opposite direction which meant a lot of the time seeing three or more sets of headlights spread out across the road all coming directly at us (in the process of passing each other…) Then, there was the usual collection of smaller “vehicles” and people walking in the dark along the road. We even saw a funeral procession (on foot) with the body being carried over head on a stretcher type thing. I think Praveen said it was a Hindu cremation procession. It’s really a wonder that there aren’t more accidents! This was a highway so the traffic moved faster….not very fast...but faster than in town…I think I saw a speed limit sign of 40 kph.

Today is a “down day” with nothing planned (that I know of) and so I’m relaxing and writing what I can remember of the trip. I wanted to upload a bunch of photos but the travel blog site seems to be photo-challenged right now and pictures won’t upload. I’ll try again later.

Tomorrow evening we will board an overnight train for Chennai with Praveen’s parents and sister. We’ll spend the next day there with cousin Jayshree and her family and head to the airport at our designated time. Ruth, Praveen, and I will head home to the US (via Frankfort) and Sandhya will head back to wherever her university is. I guess that will leave Prasanna and Santhana to head back to Coimbatore by themselves. Good byes…or rather….”I’ll be backs” will not be easy for any of us…and yes, I can see myself visiting India and my new family here again…. And hey, I already have a sari in case there’s another wedding in the family!

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Photos

Back Water Boat Trip
Taken on the upper deck, a feature that most of the other houseboats lacked. Praveen picked us a good one.

Lower Deck
Party time.

Thirsty?
Take note, this is the regular size of a beer bottle here. It's 650 ml.

Comments

[Gay]

I love details!!
Deb, this has been such a enjoyable morning, reading about your adventures. I knew this would take awhile so I waited to view all the pictures and read all your great comments when I had quiet time all to myself. What an adventure!! Gay