MegDesk – The Blog

I know that a few people have been eagerly waiting to see some photos of our trip to India, so I’ve been working overtime this past week to try to get them sorted and uploaded in a timely manner.  We don’t want any repeats of last summer’s Alaska trip!  [Speaking of... I have finally started uploading Alaska photos, but I still have a long way to go on that.]

So without further ado, I offer you all a brief recap of our Christmas/New Year’s trip to India!

Bombay

(Yes, I call it Bombay.  Lucas calls it Bombay; his family calls it Bombay.  I take my cue from them.)

We arrived in Bombay just after midnight on Christmas Eve, and Ida, Nat, and Samantha were all there at the airport to meet us.  We spent our first day doing some random shopping (wireless router, herbal soaps, Microsoft Office, blue jeans…) and then attended the midnight service at church.

While it was nothing compared to the Christmas crowd at Grace back in Franklin, I’ve never seen so many people in that little church!  For me, the highlight of the service was when they cued some recorded Christmas music that turned out to be “Christmas in Dixie” by Alabama!  We’re not sure if it was a mistake or not, but it was certainly surreal to hear country music playing in the middle of church in India.

On Christmas morning, Samantha made us all pancakes, and we had a champagne brunch before opening presents.  In the evening we went over to Aunt Bette’s to visit with the family.  The few days were a bit of a blur with visiting friends and neighbors, including attending the wedding of two of the sons from the family next door.  Before we knew it, we were off to the airport (bright and early) to catch our flight to Cochin.

Cochin

Our first stop in Kerala was Cochin.  I’ve heard lots of good things about the town, so my expectations were possibly a bit high.  While it was an interesting place to visit, after a few hours we found that we’d run out of things to see/do (partly because we were having very bad luck with opening times).  Looking back, we did see quite a bit, but not a lot of it was exceptional.  We visited the famous Chinese fishing nets, the synagogue, and a small part of the Dutch Palace (most of the complex was closed).

Although we missed out on St. Francis Church, we did get to see the inside of the Santa Cruz cathedral, thanks to the help of a somewhat-crazy parishioner!

The highlight of our visit to Cochin was the Kathakali dance performance.  We went to one of the touristy shows that also included various other traditional dances.  Although the kathakali performance itself was rather short, we were glad we hadn’t chosen a longer performance, because didn’t understand a lot of the meaning in the movements.  Not being familiar with the story, I think it would have been difficult to stay engaged through a longer demonstration.

Munnar

Since I hadn’t read about a lot of things to visit in Munnar, I wasn’t sure about spending two nights there.  However, Munnar turned out to be the biggest surprise of the trip.  The hills around the town are covered with tea plantations, and the scenery is just beautiful!

The 3-hour drive from Cochin was exhausting, but we decided to see as much as we could on our first afternoon, because there was an extensive strike scheduled for the next day.  We managed to visit Eravikulam National Park to see the endangered Nilgiri Thars, but after that we were all exhausted from the long day.

On the day of the strike Lucas, Samantha, and I planned to walk into town, but we happened upon a rickshaw driver who was willing to arrange an all-day tour of the surrounding area.  We drove all the way up to Top Station in the Nilgiri hills on the border of Tamil Nadu.  Along the way we stopped at Mattupetty Dam, Echo Point, and Kundala Lake.  The scenery around the lakes was fantastic, but unfortunately by the time we reached Top Station an extremely heavy fog had set in.  Not only could we not enjoy the views, but we could barely see each other just a few feet away!

The second overnight in Munnar was a good chance to rest and relax before the 4-hour drive to Thekkady.  Luckily the morning was sunny and clear, so the views were beautiful.  Unfortunately, for the first leg of the trip we couldn’t stop and take photos, because we had been caught behind a group of cyclists training on the narrow winding roads.  It took us so long to find a chance to pass them the first time that we were desperate to stay ahead of them the rest of the way!

Thekkady

The big draw of Thekkady is the Periyar Wildlife Preserve.  Most visitors explore the preserve by taking on of the regular cruises on the lake, but a tragic accident a few months earlier meant that the boat trips were suspended indefinitely.  Since the lake cruise was out of the question, we opted instead to do a 2-hour guided trek through the jungle with a private guide.  Although we didn’t see very much wildlife (a handful of birds, a few monkeys, and a giant squirrel), the quiet walk through the jungle was certainly more peaceful than the crowded boat would have been.  And judging from other people’s experiences, it doesn’t seem that many visitors have the chance to see much more.

While we were in Thekkady, we also visited an organic spice farm, and Lucas and I had an Ayurvedic massage.

Kumarakom

After another long drive back towards the coast, we arrived in Kumarakom.  We were spending New Year’s Eve at a resort on the lake, which was only accessible by boat down a small waterway from the parking area.  We didn’t have plans for the afternoon, so we enjoyed the chance to relax, swim, and watch the sunset.  Lucas and I ventured into town to hunt down some champagne for New Year’s, and we ended up with a surprisingly drinkable bottle from Sula Vineyards, near Nashik.  I think that next time we visit, Lucas and I need to take a trip out to the house in Deolali (since I’ve never seen it), and we can explore the world of Indian wine tastings!

Houseboat on the Backwaters

A stay on a houseboat is the highlight of any trip to Kerala and probably the reason the backwaters made it into National Geographic’s list of 50 places to visit in a lifetime.  The houseboats are all built out of traditional materials, and dozens of them cruise the backwaters giving visitors a chance to lazily enjoy the scenery and watch the daily life of the people who live along Kerala’s famous waterways.

The houseboats come in a range of sizes and levels of luxury.  Our houseboat had three bedrooms (we only used two) and was staffed by a captain, a cabin attendant, and a cook.  We boarded the boat in the morning and spent the rest of the day relaxing on the deck, reading, and watching the scenery float past.

Kovalam & Trivandrum

Our next stop was to spend a few nights at a beachfront resort in Kovalam.  Aside from swimming, we spent some time in Trivandrum, where we saw the Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple and wandered around the zoological park.

Nagercoil

On the way to Kanyakumari we stopped for lunch in Nagercoil to visit Lucas’s great aunt and uncle, and I got to see Lucas and Samantha’s grandparents’ house.

Kanyakumari

The last stop on our trip to the south was Kanyakumari at the southern tip of India.  Our first stop was the circular seaside fort of Vattakottai.  By the time we arrived in town, it was too late to buy ferry tickets to the Vivekananda Memorial, but we were able to visit the Gandhi Memorial and the ghats at the southernmost tip of India, where the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea, and the Bay of Bengal all meet.  That evening Lucas finally had a chance to order paper dosa, and the next morning we visited the Vivekananda Memorial before heading to the airport to fly back to Bombay.

After our whirlwind trip we had a few more days in Bombay, which were packed full of meetings with friends.  I finally had the chance to meet some of Lucas’s good friends from college, but we didn’t have much time to rest before it was time to fly back to the cold north.

FYI – The rest of my photos have been uploaded to my online photo albums.

This entry was tagged with christmas, family, india, photos, samantha, sightseeing, trip recap, wine and filed under Journal, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.