Category: update

Ayurvedic massage, an eye-opening experience.

Six years ago in Hampi I had a full body massage, which was fabulous, so I was keen to repeat the experience. I knew that in Kerala they offered Ayurvedic massages, which I thought were supposed to help with various ailments, but I had no idea what I was letting myself in for!

Having arranged a full body massage for 1200 rupees (about £15 pounds) I popped next door. So far so good. I had checked that the masseuse would be a woman and when I got to the room I understood why the owner was so insistent that massages were “female by female and male by male”: I was asked to hang all my clothes (yes everything) on the back of the door was then presented with a very thin piece of gauze which hang down between my legs and was tucked into a tied waistband at the back. Needless to say I felt a touch awkward but thanks to the naked calendar I did with my family to raise money for a Diabetes camp in 2011, I just got on with it.

First I sat on a stool while the lady massaged my head so vigorously that I thought it might come off at one point. With copious amounts of oil, she massaged my shoulders and back with a sweeping motion that was heavenly. Then on to the bed where I did indeed get a full body massage. The overall experience was amazing although at points it felt too up close and personal! My advice is definitely go for it if you get the chance, but only if you’re confident getting naked in front of a complete stranger.

Munnar: a breath of fresh air, literally

We’ve been nearby the coast for every day of this trip but yesterday headed inland up into the Western Ghats, a long ridge of hills which runs North to South for much of Kerala. Starting in Kochi with temperatures of 30c and high humidity, our driver drove up, up and up to a hill station named Munnar and our hotel the Green Magic Home which sits above 2000m above sea level.

This place is literally a breath of fresh air, and cold fresh air at that.

From Kochi the road ascended a few percent all the way and after half an hour the big city was way behind us and we drove past plantations for pineapples, rubber and much more. At 9:30 after two hours on the road we had breakfast and headed to our first stop, the 13 steps waterfall, which was at its most stunning given the monsoon rains. Waterfalls big and small dotted the landscape around us before they gave way to spice plantations.

The 30 minute spice plantation tour was really interesting although I had to do a fair bit of eye rolling when the guide showed us the Insulin Plant, which we were told would not cure Amy but if she took it every day she would not need her insulin. *eye roll again* Normally I’d do a little education here but the language barrier was a bit of a problem. Needless to say we didn’t buy any of their Insulin Plant “medicine”.

On to the small hill station of Munnar which is pretty much the centre for tea production in Kerala, and is surrounded by tens of thousands of acres of tea.

It was lunch time and Jane and I both ordered Onion Pakoras – yes, Onion Bhajis do exist in India albeit with a different name – for £1, expecting 3 or 4 for that money. A plate turned up with 8, not so bad we thought, followed by another plate! It seemed somewhat ironic that in the centre of so much tea it was not possible to get a cup of tea with our lunch, apparently it’s not a lunch time drink so no restaurant in Munnar serves it. What?!

The HDCP Tea Plantation tour was mildly interesting, seeing how tea is produced, and hearing that green tea is really tea, and differs only from (black) tea by its production method. I’ll never mock green tea again, then again I won’t drink it either.

After a full day of sightseeing and travelling we headed to our hotel, the Green Magic Home, perched high up on the side of one of Munnar’s hills.

The roads are pretty thin round here, dotted with potholes, with sheer drops to our right. There’s no real passing places either as we found out when a vehicle came towards us. The other driver went cheekily to his right – in India they (are meant to) drive on the left – forcing us to take the sheer-drop side. I got out to help guide our driver who literally had only six inches on either side of his car, and I wasn’t wholly confident the outer six inches was stable either. Shaji, our driver, was clearly concerned and he drives these roads every day.

Finally arriving at the Green Magic Home and we’re totally in the clouds, can’t see a thing of the wonderful view I know is there. Robin, the guest house manager/cook, greeted us with a warm smile and warm pint tankards of tea, now that’s something I could get used to. An hour later and the cloud movement gives a tantalising glimpse of a tremendous view, then it was gone again, repeating this for the next few hours. This morning as I write this with a view of total cloud I kind of wish it would bugger off for a minute.

Robin prepared us an excellent meal from scratch last night, which we shared with the other guests, 3 french people who don’t speak and a lovely young English couple, Alex and Rhiannon, with whom we spent hours playing games and cards. During the afternoon Robin had allowed us to watch him prepare all the dishes and Amy and Rhiannon had a go at rolling out chapatis, shortly before Robin decided round ones are better, and took back control. Dinner was by candlelight which was not only lovely but a real necessity as the power had gone off for a while.

Sadly we’re leaving today as I’d really like to stay more nights in Munnar, it’s a beautiful place.

Kochi’s Kathakali Culture Show

Way back many days ago in Kochi – we’ve stayed in 4 hotels since then – we spent our last evening at a Kathakali culture show. Kathakali is an ancient method of dancing which is probably fab, if you like that sort of thing, or more importantly, you go and see a different performance. For us this was, well, erm, dull and surprisingly both Jane and Amy wanted to leave early, although to be fair this was still 90 minutes into a performance which is probably still going on now as it showed no signs of finishing anytime soon.

We watched the actors ply themselves with the Kathakali make-up, that was interesting. Then we got demonstrations of the eye movements (very interesting), hand movements (not so much) and expressions of emotions (standard).

Watch the video to see how fast the actor can move his eyes, it’s pretty amazing.

Long story cut short: I won’t be attending a Kathakali evening anytime in the (not so) distant future.

Underwhelmed and overwhelmed at Kochi’s Chinese Fishing Nets

At first glance India’s most photographed fishing nets were as underwhelming as I was worried they might be. I could see that they’re a wonderful set of engineering ingenuity, lots of planks and poles all lashed together, using lots of weights, pivots, pulleys, and above all else, people. But still I was underwhelmed.

Facing north on the island with the sunset to the west through the line of the nets they’re a photographer’s dream, and the stereotypical sunset shot has been adorning my computer at work for 6 months. Virtually every TV documentary which features Kochi, Kerala or its backwaters will at some point probably show the fishing nets.

I remembering feeling underwhelmed when I saw the Eiffel Tower for the first time. Saturated with seeing too many images beforehand, being there just didn’t feel like a new or great experience.

All this changed last night.

As Kochi’s clouds thinned for a while and with the sun coming through a little I readied my camera bag and headed for the nets, barely 200 yards from our hotel. I stood with many others on the walkway near the nets and took some photos, still underwhelmed.

It was low tide, the water lapped at the end of the poles supporting the nets, rendering them unusable. Many fishermen were underneath the huge nets hand casting circular nets in the hope of catching something small. So I made my way through on to the beach, through the junk and seaweed, past the dogs and fishing boats, dodging the ropes controlling the nets.

Eventually I found myself at the water’s edge, underneath the massive nets, and started appreciating the nets a lot more already. I took some photos, then some more, and some more still. I stared at the sheer size of the nets in contrast to those used by the fishermen.

I looked at my watch; I’d been there by myself, taking photos, for almost an hour.

I had fallen in love with the Chinese Fishing Nets of Kochi.
They really are magnificent.

And here’s a little video:

I’m going to miss Kovalam, a lot

After 4 lovely relaxing days here in Kovalam and as we ready ourselves to catch the train to Kochi for 5 nights I’ve been reflecting on Kovalam, which is meant to have really gone downhill in the last two decades since we last visited. Yes, it’s changed from the single storey palm-roofed places to multi-storey hotels, yes the small little restaurants have grown and grown, leaving behind their charm. Yes the hawkers have increased. But so have your local tourists and at the same time the drug-fuelled hippies have moved on – not a bad thing.

So, I reflect…

I’m going to miss your many different bays and your roaring seas.

I’m going to miss chilling with Amy and Jane in some of the nicest places to have a drink, like here at Bait.

I’m going to miss the beautiful hotel, the KTDC Sumadra.

I’m going to miss watching all the eagles, kites and fish eagles soaring in the early afternoon winds.

I’m going to miss the sunsets.

I’m definitely going to miss the way the fishermens’ tilly lamps twinkle like stars as the waves between us rise and fall. I love this is still the same as it was 21 years ago.

I’m going to miss all the fresh seafood at next to no money – Rs600 or £7 for 15 large prawns.

I’m going to miss being served a freezing cold Kingfisher Strong in a massive bone china tankard, just in case the police walk past…especially when I’ve eaten nothing that day (hic!).

I will be back.

Short stopover in India’s southern most tip: Kanyakumari

I’d never really thought much about coming to Kanyakumari to see India’s southern most tip as I guessed it would be a little like the Land’s End disappointment I felt upon seeing it: “is that it?”. But Amy really want to see it so I planned our journey around it, changing our intended train from Chennai to Trivandrum (for Kovalam) to Chennai to Kanyakumari. Trouble is we’d have full rucksacks with us so sightseeing wouldn’t be fun, and we’d still need to get to Trivandrum/Kovalam. The problem was easily solved with another train booking in sleeper class from Kanyakumari to Trivandrum, which then entitles you to use the luggage cloakroom for Rs30 (36 pence) per rucksack for 24 hours. Our train out left at 10:30, giving us 3 or so hours to see what we could.

First we needed breakfast so relying on the Lonely Planet we walked sans-rucksacks to Hotel Seashore and their much appreciated a/c seventh floor restaurant. The view was stunning and being the first visitors at 7:15am we got prime position.

Realistically we only wanted to see the view, we weren’t interested in visiting the temples, or seeing anything else. We did venture down towards the ferry to the islands but with not enough time we decided against that and headed on down to accidentally discover the fish market which was a hive of activity, and well worth seeing. Hardly something you’ll find in recommendations on TripAdvisor, proving yet again just getting out there and building your own experience is the way to go. Also saw this man which I thought was interesting:

And finally, happy anniversary to the both of us:

Here’s a little video panaroma:

Video: 750km overnight train from Chennai to Kanyakumari

Last night we slept on a train, well, kind of sleep, kind of didn’t. It was our first train of this trip and the longest one to boot, 750kms, taking 13 hours to go from Chennai to Kanyakumari, which is India’s southern most tip.

It was good fun, we all love the trains.

We used 2AC class which has air conditioning and usually cubicles of 4 berths, 2 below, 2 on top, with a curtain between the cubicle and the walkway, plus it has lines of side berths, 1 up, 1 down. This time though we had the only coupe – 2 berths one about the other and one lower side berth.

Street life around Mahabs’s Fishermen’s Colony

You really feel like you’ve escaped the confines of the grockel shops and Mahabs’s Backpackistan when you head off in the maze of streets towards our guest house, on the northern edge of Fishermen’s Colony. People going about their everyday life, no hawkers, no beggars, rangoli patterns in front of most doorways. We’ll be sad to leave* this place.

Here’s a little video of us navigating the maze of streets, firstly to our guest house during the day and then from there to the Santana restaurant when it’s pretty darn dark.

*actually, we’ve already left, I scheduled this post for when we’re on our 750km train to Kanyakumari, 13 hours through the night to the southern most tip of India.

Mamallapuram, or Hampi-by-the-sea

My friend recommended Mamallapuram to me, we’re glad he did: Mahabs as it’s also known as is great. We’re staying in a pretty little guest house with its lovely owners who are so attentive and make staying here a great experience.
Mahabs has a lot of heritage from many centuries ago and today we went on a stroll – very slowly, blame the humidity – around much of it.
It reminds us so much of Hampi which we loved so much when we visited in 2011, but with a backdrop of tropical surf, what’s not to like.
Yesterday’s ocean view meal, at the Santana restaurant, with its backdrop of a tropical lightning was just stunning. Fish curry, calamari curry, butter chicken masala, all eaten during a power cut, with wind blown lanterns glowing gently. Wow.