Long time ago, I read a book named “Around the world in eighty days”. A guy travels the whole world by balloon in 80 days only!!! Even I often heard people going for world tour for 2 months or like that. I used to be surprised how this is possible! How can people see everything of the world in such short time! Later I came to know that they don’t really visit everything they just touch places!
Our Kerala trip was almost like this. 28th September, 2009, in a Monday Morning Meeting, we came to know that we are gonna have a Government holiday on Friday. Saturday is half; so we asked Satprem for a leave and he agreed. Uuuu… we had three days of holiday; we can make a long trip!!
We know that we are going but we didn’t know where. At the eleventh hour we decided to go to Kerala. Frankly speaking before going to Kerala I didn’t know that it’s a state, not a city. Anyways, it was a little bit (!!!) tight schedule. On 1st October we were suppose to shift from Mitra Youth Camp to Revelation and at the same day we had to leave Auroville for Kerala.
Nothing was planned or decided. We just arrive at Pondy bus terminal. We didn’t have any idea that it will be so crowded. As there was holiday ahead, everybody was moving. So all the buses were full, full means full. People were traveling on the floor. In fact it is not a big deal here. In Bangladesh I have seen people traveling on roof of the buses and trains. But here people sit on the floor and later when the bus starts running, they lie down and sleep!
Anyway, we didn’t get any bus. Somebody suggested us to go to Villupuram bus junction, only two hours from Pondy and there we will obviously get a bus. Okay! We took a local bus from Pondy to Villupuram and we reached there at 12:30 am. Then started the main problem…..
Oh! Very important!! We were making plans from a guide book, “Inde du Sud” (south india). Buy something like this before you start your trip. It’s really very helpful. It would be impossible for us to see India without that.
Every minute buses were coming for Trichy, Madurai, Salem, Coimbatore and sometimes for Trivandrum. Now comes where to go! Yet we only knew that we were going to Trivandrum first but didn’t know the route. We wanted to talk to the information office but the guy was sleeping. Station masters were passing us from one to another. A lot of people arrived to help us and as you know, ways are as much as opinions. So some people were sending us to Madurai, some to Trichy some to Coimbatore ….. uff! Within one hour we travelled the whole Kerala!!
Fine, it’s too much, we took our own decision; we started looking for bus for Madurai. But again there is a problem. Everything is written in Tamil. Buses are coming and people are rushing into that. So before we understand where the bus is going that was full. Finally we jumped into a bus without knowing where it was going and good God, it was going to Trichy.
We were happy to see the bus, the seats are comfortable enough for a 4 hours journey….but wait…where is our seat? There was no seat. We have to sit on the floor. “bisshash hoina” and you know how much was the tickect? 192rps!
5 in the morning we arrived at Trichy. Now again we need to look for Madurai bus. We started looking from one platform to another and asking “Anna, Madurai?” Anna means brother in Tamil. At last we got the bus and it will start at 7:45.
Restaurants and toilets-two good things of the Indian bus stands. You don’t have to know the location; extreme strong smell of open urinal zone will inform you that you are in a bus stand!! But there are pay toilets in every bus stand. You can pay 2-3 rupees and use them. As they are taking money at least they try to clean it, so it’s usable. Not so much… but what to do… Prokritir Dak Bole Kotha! But my boy friends, I heard in spite of paying the boys’ toilet is horrible. Do you want a description... Aw! leave it.
The bus came on time and we found there were only two seats. One at the first row and another at the last. Antoine and Camille sat there and me and Celine sat on the entrance stair. And actually that journey was not bad at all. When the bus was running it felt like I was driving the bus myself. The road was going through horizontal landscape with fields and trees, only green on either side….. it was good.
Whatever, we reached Madurai and then from Madurai to Trivandrum. Though it was almost three o’clock, we didn’t have time for lunch. We had to go to Kuthiramalika Palace Museum which closes at 5 and we had to buy train tickets for Verkala. So we ran to Palace museum….. literally running on foot. But honestly speaking, I was not so impressed. I mean, yes, it was nice and interesting, but I felt so familiar with this type of architectural details that I was not very amazed. This is all my university’s fault they teach us in a way that everything becomes seen to us ;-) but this is not true for all. There were a lot of tourist and they were very amazed too. Why not! It is a typical Kerala Architecture made of wood and highly detailed. You can visit!
After the Palace Museum we went to drink juice. Because it was written in the guide book that in Kerala, one should not miss the pineapple juice and pink banana. It is weird to see banana of pink color. Ithink Allah created it especially for me.
Verkala is one of the nicest place we visited in Kerala. We reached Verkala at almost 8 in the evening, we find out a cheap hotel near the sea. All the hotel, restaurants and even trains schedules we found from the guide. After 24 hrs of journey, no sleeping and without proper food, we were completely tired. So first thing we wanted to do is taking shower and then eat.
Verkala is 3-5m high fom the sea level and it has a very linear sea beach. We went to the beach and it was amazing. I am not talking about the sea; we couldn’t see it at night. But I really liked the place. It is full of nice restaurants and guest houses facing the sea and the roars are always with you. We had chosen a very nice restaurant and ordered our food. Here for the first time I drank Mojito- it’s a drink with white ram, lemon and mint…. Awesome.
Next day we had our breakfast in the same place, we enjoyed the sea for sometime and we started for Aleppey by train. It was a very short journey and Allepey is a very small town. Within 2 hours we walked through the whole town and we reached our destination- the boat yard. The guide book also suggested not to miss the back water journey from Allepey. We took a public boat for kottayam at 2 o’clock. It was like a public bus, stopping in different villages, ringing bells and passengers were coming out to board. For this 3hrs journey we paid 10rps per head. You have far better options. There are some house boats that you can hire to travel. Those looks like heaven, but only 200rps per hour per head. Now its your choice. I would say I didn’t miss anything. It was more than awesome.
We reached Kottayam and took a bus for Kochi, our last destiny in Kerala.
Kochi is a big city. It’s different from any part of Kerala. Its busy, its more modern even people look different. It is basically a city with three islands. We wanted to go to the malls, to the restaurants and to visit all the islands, but we didn’t have time we need to reach Auroville by Sunday night. So we went to train station to see if there is any train for tomorrow. Yes they had, but at night, at 10:30 and at 7 in the morning. So I suggested skipping Kochi for this time and taking the train that day. But who cares... no one. Finally we bought ticket for the morning and stayed in very expensive (for us) hotel for the night!!!!! Wow. The next day we woke up early in the morning before sunrise and we started walking through the city to visit as much as we can. Ok, it’s nice, but what can we see at 5 o’clock? Almost nothing. We came to the rail station and started for Auroville.
Kerala was our first trip outside Tamil Nadu. We were too much in hurry and at the end it was tiring too. But after coming back I realized I saw a lot, I know a lot. But still there’s a lot to visit there. I surely need to come back…
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