One year off to travel with the boys

(Click photo above to see album)

First impressions of Sri Lanka after leaving India are very favourable; streets are cleaner and traffic is more predictable. It is much hotter than Kerala with high humidity and stronger sunlight (of course I lost my hat and sunglasses soon after we arrived). Everything is about 1.5 times more expensive, the quality of Western food at the resorts is not as high as we recently experienced in India, but hygiene is better (no more stomach pains). Like Kerala, coconut trees are everywhere but there is an additional level of tropical lushness exhibited by a wide variety of fauna and wildlife.

We arrived at Nor Lanka Hotel in Unawatuna after a four hour journey (with a brief stop at Bentota Resort) and immediately went to the beach just as the sun started to set. The beach here has been the best on our trip so far, with very clean, fine sand and clear water. Shade is somewhat difficult to find and the following morning we trekked to a cafe on the beach close by to reserve a couple of chairs under some trees, where we spent the day swimming and playing in the sand.

Next morning, Ethan and I rented a motorbike and visited Jungle Beach nearby, while Carmen and Toby went to the local swimming pool at the nearby resort. We trekked down a path from a monument called the Peace Pagoda and fifteen minutes later came across two dogs who started barking at us. Fortunately the owner appeared, a German married to a Sri Lankan lady, with a guest house called The White Villa. He told me he was usually the only person at the beach and after a quick swim there, he showed us a short cut through the jungle to get back. He warned us about centipedes and scorpions (that usually come out after rain), telling us that one day his wife put on a motorbike helmet with a centipede in it and had to go to hospital for a cortisone injection. We followed him back to the guest house and met his wife and four year old daughter. After a tour with some coke and biscuits, he gave us a ride on the back of his motorbike back to the Peace Pagoda. That evening, we took advantage of baby-sitting to have dinner at the Jetwing Lighthouse Hotel in Galle. Since we arrived late, the food wasn't so good, but the hotel grounds and pool were excellent, so we went back and spent the entire day there. Turns out it's one of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World, sort of a UNESCO World heritage site for hotels, with pleasing aesthetics in all directions.

We are now planning a trip to the hill country of Sri Lanka, particularly Unawera Ellia and possibly climbing the famous Adam's Peak.

Posted by chris at 02:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(Click on pic above to see first photo album)

On arrival in Alleppey (Allapuzah) from the Cochin train station, Carmen was intent on finding the number one rated homestay listed in TripAdvisor called Venice Castle Homestay, The taxi driver didn't know so we asked several people, and after an hour of being pointed in different directions (and getting a nice tour of the area), we tracked it down. The owner, Mr. Matthews, mistook us and offered us a room intended for someone else, who arrived fifteen minutes after; probably fortunate for them, as the room had a lot of mosquitos requiring a good deal of swatting and AC before we felt comfortable. I bought insect spray that evening and gave the room a thorough going over, no doubt to the detriment of our nervous systems and the boys DNA. Other than insects, the room was very comfortable, clean and cheap (1400 Rps, $28 per night). We immediately set out for lunch at the recommended "Kreme Korner", where we had our first exposure to Kerala Thali and the large grainy parboiled rice particular to the region. The fish curry part was spicy and had lots of coconut in it -- excellent. In the evening we tried Raheems Residency close to the beach which had similarly good food.

Next morning we had a Tuk Tuk driver take us to Mahari Beach. Although thirteen kilometers away, we really enjoyed sitting in the back of the tuk tuk going at an unhurried pace, with the cool breeze. Life in Kerala moves at a much slower pace, people are laid back, friendly and not at all pushy. When we arrived, we had a couple of coconuts from the coconut seller before finding a shady spot to settle on the uncrowded, undeveloped beach. A few other Westerners were there on the steeply sloping beach but no lifeguards, so it was with some trepadation that I went in the water and immediately felt some large crab running by my feet. After that I tried to keep my toes of the ground, but later found there was no need. Once I established there was little current, the boys came in as well: Ethan in his arm bands and Toby swimming tentatively around his comfortable depth. The sand was very soft and clean -- at least close to the sea. On the way back to the tuk tuk a couple of hours later, we were shocked to discover about ten small pits in the middle of the beach with excrement in them. Having read about this on TripAdvisor, I realized that this is perhaps where the fisherman do their 'business'. Fortunately, our base at the beach had been relatively far away from it and it wasn't drifting into the sea.

We were getting quite comfortable in Allepey 3 days later when Mr.Matthews started to inquire as to our plans. Most people come to Allepey for a houseboat trip and so far we hadn't given any indication in that direction, except for a few general questions such as how to choose a boat. I went down to the "Starting Point" -- so called because of a famous annual race taking place there -- and perused some of the boats. In general, I was disappointed and then realized that the best time to see them was in the morning when the boats that were actually being rented, came back. Next morning I went back and found all the good boats booked for the next few days. Eventually the tuk tuk driver took me to see a friend and we settled on a boat run by a company called Kingfisher, at a price of about $170. This included a two bedroom boat with AC, three service staff (captain, cook and engine person), breakfast, lunch and dinner, leaving at 11:30a.m. and getting back at 9a.m.

The kids were eager to get on the boat next morning. We arrived slightly late after having to go to the ATM for the payment. On handing it over to the manager, he smiled and mentioned that one of the staff wouldn't be able to make it because of a family incident. He said not to worry, that the remaining two crew were highly experienced and able to handle everything adequately. I was incredulous, said it was unacceptable and that he needed to find someone else before we left. As Carmen pointed out later, one aspect of having only two people on the boat would be late meals and poor service. Another would be potential difficulties in the unlikely event of an emergency situation. Fortunately the manager had another boat moored right alongside with a guy sitting there doing nothing, and three minutes later he hopped over to our boat to join the crew. A seemingly intractable situation (according to the manager) was resolved in minutes.

After the manager left, we set off and it immediately became evident why a boat cruise in the backwaters is so unique. In the comfortable shade of the boat, we cruised along the river banks enjoying the breeze; coconuts were served and a garland of flowers put around our necks. The boys were enjoying it too: running up and down the corridor to the kitchen and peering around. Our reverie was somewhat spoiled by the number of other houseboats we were following, but they were sufficiently far in front not to matter too much at this point. An hour later, we moored next to a rice paddy and were served some Keralan dishes.

After lunch, we cruised a few more hours and saw children coming home from school on the backwaters, lots of bird life, and other boats. At about 5:30, we moored and I was surprised to see that a boat moored in front of us blocking our view of the sunset, and another behind. There was some rubbish strewn around, although beyond were some nice rice paddies. When I asked about whether we could moor elsewhere, the captain said it was "company policy" and that they always moor in the same place. It was a little disappointing to hear this as we had been told by the manager that we would moor near a backwater village, but apparently the villagers didn't want the boats mooring there (according to the captain). Still, we made the most of it and walked round to view the sunset from another location before having dinner, which like lunch was also very good. At 8 p.m., the generator was initiated and we were allowed to turn the AC on, which blew cold air after about an hour. We all slept comfortably in our separate rooms, although at one point Toby wanted to use our bathroom because there was a large cockroach on the wall in his. In fact, we had two large mating cockroaches in ours, but when they are that large, they are not worth killing (maybe eating?) as they make too much of a mess of the wall.

We woke up early and saw several people going by in canoes on their way to work, paddling in unison. The captain and assistants all thoroughly washed themselves with soap in the river before we set off at 7:30 a.m. We toured some of the backwaters one more time behind about a hundred other boats, and returned to our starting point at 9 a.m. sharp.

All in all, we enjoyed ourselves, but if we did it again, would just rent a boat for the day, as everything we saw could have been done in that time frame - we did not go very far and moored the night in an indifferent location. Perhaps a company with a stronger reputation (and prices) like "Minar de Lake" would have been a better option.

The journey in the large Toyota Innova taxi from the Alleppey houseboat to Varkala was a good reminder of why I prefer to take the train whenever possible. Not only did the journey seem fraught with danger on the NH47 (National Highway), we encountered an accident along the way which delayed us an hour. The accident involved several cars, a truck carrying yellow paint and a motorbike or two. We arrived in Varkala not knowing where to stay and had the driver take us to several places. The Taj dropped their initial quoted price of about 6,000, to 3,000 Rps. a night, but we felt it was too far from the main scene of the cliff and we would have to take a tuk tuk each time we wanted to visit it. The Kreeshna Resort perched right on the cliff with hammocks but no pool, was all booked up. We chose Deshadan because it was close to the cliff without being too much in the action, and had a pool. They put us in a room across the road, the so called new section. Unfortunately it wasn't on the generator circuit, so every time the electricity went off, which it did repeatedly, we were without lights and air conditioning. Also, the hot shower didn't work so we had to pour warm water into a large bucket and use a smaller one to throw the water over ourselves. Not so bad really and we ended up staying four nights, despite my getting food poisoning from their restaurant on the second night: I was in the middle of breakfast the morning after I had the dodgy curry, feeling nauseous but talking to some people on the next table, when I had to announce a quick departure. Unfortunately, the bathroom was close by the restaurant and Carmen said some people looked a bit shocked to hear my vomiting loudly nearby. She said quite a few people seemed to be checking out that morning, but we don't know if this was correlated or not. We continued to eat in the restaurant with no ill effect, but didn't order the curry again.

The boys spent a lot of time in the pool with Toby improving his swimming considerably and Ethan being able to use goggles comfortably (with armbands). Because of the convenience of the pool, we never actually walked down the cliffs to the beach to swim there, even thought the beach looked excellent. The restaurants along the cliff were also top notch and we ended up going to one in particular called Cafe del Mar, next to the HillView Resort.

Next was the Ginger Hotel outside Trivandrum and the following morning, we left on Sri Lankan Airways for Colombo. We arrived an hour and a half before the flight left (because the taxi we ordered didn't come and then was late -- then Ethan needed to go to the toilet). After only 45 minutes flying time, we landed in Colombo, Sri Lanka with the intention of taking the train to Unawatuna. Fortunately, Carmen talked me out of it, and we took one of the taxis from the many tour companies in the airport, arriving about four hours later at Nor Lanka Hotel in Unawatuna, with a lunch stop at Bentota Beach Resort.

(Click on photo below to see second photo album)

Posted by chris at 06:09 PM | Permalink

Kerala Photo Albuim

Having settled into a relaxing routine in Goa, it was with some trepidation that we took a taxi to the train station in Margaon, an hour and a half away. Our taxi driver, Mr. Pinto, was able to ease our fears somewhat on the way down. Before we came to India, I was ambivelent about taking the train for our long distance travel, such as Delhi to Goa. Part of the reason was based on my own experience traveling by train from Amritsar to New Delhi, 18 years before, a 12 hour trip in which my brother and I sat in very crowded wooden non A/C second class seats and met Indians from all walks of life. While it wasn't exactly Darjeeling Express, I look back on that journey as a hallmark of my travels. Despite having lived in Peshawar for six months until then, I found the sights, sounds and smells new and sometimes shocking. A few things stand out: a Sikh family offering me a morsel of their lunch -- I accepted and it was something delicious that I have not been able to find since. My brother teaching 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' to someone who didn't speak English and wore a hat that looked like it was from a wolf, and then telling jokes to the entire carriage as we rolled into Delhi. On the less positive side, I remember some horrific deformities on some beggars coming through the carriage, and the homeless children sleeping in the phone booths at Delhi station when we finally arrived. I don't remember the toilets on the train.

Now with family in tow, travelling overnight on a train doesn't quite hold the same appeal, especially from a security standpoint. I remember an Indian friend of mine telling me that on her Indian train journeys to college, she carried a long sharp pin to poke unwelcome admirers. While we weren't likely to face that problem, it seemed indicative of a certain unruliness.

We were booked into second class A/C sleeper, the highest class on this particular train -- the 2618 -- coming all the way from Delhi to Ernakulum in about 40 hours. This was the train we would have taken from Delhi to Goa if I hadn't been persuaded to take the flight. How were we going to fair on the 15 hour journey -- would any of us sleep? Would I have to watch our (considerable) luggage all night? Amazingly the 14 hour, 900 km journey costs only $40 for all of us.

On arrival at the station, we found the train half an hour late. The days newspapers had carried front page articles about recent thick fog in Delhi, creating trafffic accidents and train collisions. Our driver found us a 'coolie', a description for a train porter obviously left over from the days of the Raj, and he rolled our luggage onto the platform next to several rows of benches -- solely occupied by a group of traveling male musicians. The scene at the train station immediately transported us from our isolated environment in Albequerque Villas to the 'real India': people from all castes and classes, stray dogs, coolies, water and snack sellers. Families jumping down from the platform onto the track with baggage, carrying toddlers across several tracks, before clambering up the other platform. Utter chaos to our Western eyes, but all very normal to those that have lived here a while.

Our train arrived at 8 p.m. and the coolie carried the luggage to our open compartment where we found the other two berths occupied by two students coming from Delhi. Although I had given four passports at the ticket counter in Delhi, they had only assigned us two berths, probably on account of the kids' ages. The two students had been traveling for 36 hours and anxious to reach their stop: Udupi, where they would then make their way to a town nearby with about 50 colleges. Both of them carried laptops and music players stuffed with music and movies which they generously played for us. Both were second year students of mechnical engineering and obviously came from very well off families. I learned from them that students in India have two terms/semesters of about five months each and only get two months off a year. Initially, one of them told me that they were made to work really hard. Then later, as he was getting off the train, admitted that most of the time they play pool and drink, working only for the exams toward the end of term (sounds very much like British university life).

At some point before the students got off, a portly man boarded the train and announced that they were sitting in his seat but not to worry about moving. He sat down next to them on the sleeper chair and began chatting easily. Very different from the US or UK where rights would be enforced. Turns out he is a steel businessman on his way to Mangalore, and of the opinion that India will continue to dominate China despite their cornering iron ore deposits in Australia and other places. After a couple of hours he stated his need to lie down and the students came over to my side of the sleeper area. This was possible since Toby and Carmen were in the two upper berths (one belonging to one of the students presumably), and Ethan was vaccilating between upper and lower.

Eventually the students got off, the boys fell asleep and the steel businessman began snoring. I tried sleeping as well, but was concerned about having no more water with us. Our taxi driver had told us water bottles would be readily available on the train, but then remember he said the service stopped around 10 p.m. I tried to walk down through five carriages to the food stall (or whatever it is), but someone was busy closing steel shutters to segregate the different compartments on the train, presumably for better security at night. Just as I got there, someone arrived with a young homeless girl in tow asking for the 'train superintendent'. I didn't stay to find out what was going on and returned through the carriages -- filled to the brim with students in AC carriages less comfortable than our own: no curtains to seperate the berths from the corridor and no sleeper 'beds' either. I asked the attendant in our carriage about the water situation and he said I should try to get off the train at Mangalore, as the train would be stopped for ten minutes. At around 1 a.m., I ran down the long platform, purchased two bottles, waved goodbye to the steel businessman, ran back and settled into his sleeper chair.

Just as I was about to fall asleep, Toby woke up gasping for water. I handed the water bottle up to him but he couldnt open it. I opened it and handed it back up and then got up to make sure his blanket was on properly since it was cold, and gave him a kiss on his forehead. I didn't know it at the time, but Carmen was awake watching all this without her glasses on, and thought I was the steel businessman. She told me later that day, she was surprised about how nice a person the steel businessman was, even giving Toby a good night kiss after handing him water! Toby also related that he couldnt work out why when he asked for water, the man in the lower bunk was handing it up to him, even asking Carmen: "why is that man giving me water?"

After that we all slept until about 6 a.m. when the chai and coffee wallas started passing by in the corridor every minute or so, shouting: "Coffee Coffee!" or "Chai Chai Chai". Fortunately the kids didn't wake up, but it wasn't easy for us to continue sleeping through the noise. Somehow we managed however, and woke up around 9 a.m. An hour and a half later, we arrived in Ernakulam and requested a coolie to help with our bags. Surprisingly, he balanced the two suitcases on his head and then proceeded to carry all our other 5 bags on his shoulders. We couldnt believe it; he then proceeeded to beat us up the stairs, across the bridge, down the stairs and out the station. We all lagged behind and almost lost him several times as we waded through hoards of people.

Our taxi driver outside turned out to be a very amiable Keralan who was quick to see the funny side of things. He laughed when I told him several times during our two hour journey of the enormous trucks hurtling toward us on our side of the road (and that perhaps he should begin some sort of avoidance manouver). The Ambassador car was very rickety and felt like it was held together with pieces of string. Nevertheless, he was able to achieve 50 km per hour by continuously honking his horn to clear slower traffic and calibrating the wheel so that the right outer edge of the car held the center of the road. Not having seatbelts in the car did little for my comfort levels from the front row. At some point Carmen (who was not phased by any of this) remarked emphatically: "In the US, they don't know what danger really is. They have no idea". I have to say that before this I had no idea either. Either I've been in the states too long or become old...

Posted by chris at 05:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tomorrow we leave for Kerala on the train from Margaon, 7:30 p.m., arriving at 5 a.m. in Kozhikode.

We are sad to be leaving Goa as we had developed a relaxing daily routine. On the other hand I am also glad to be leaving the specter of malaria behind; there are lots of rumours among tourists about how serious the problem is, some saying they knew people (tourists) who had got it, and locals trying to cover the extent of the problem up to ensure the continual flood of tourists.

Have to say, we hardly saw any mosquitos though, except when we were in Palolem beach in the south of Goa. Since the incubation period is anywhere from 10 days to 4 weeks in duration, we won't know we're clear until Thailand. During the time we have been here, the boys have only been bitten a couple of times and that was in Palolem, supposedly a lower risk area.

Our days here mostly consisted of having breakfast at Albuquerque, or Chocolattis down the street (excellent cakes and croissants), going to the beach on the motorcycle, hanging out at D'mellos, swimming, reading, home-schooling or playing in the sand until just after lunch. After the boys have a rest at home, we might go to the beach again or they would watch CBeebies before going out to eat at Casa Seashells. The boys would always have fried chicken, Carmen would order noodles or seafood and I the curry (with a specific request for grade 4 out of 10, which is probably about 300 on the scovile scale -- very weak, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale).

Posted by chris at 02:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)