A week's trip to Kerala

was more fun than I had imagined.
Kerala's beautiful. And I realized that pretty early in the trip.
I woke up at 6.30 and looked out of the window of the running train and saw tiny slopping roofed houses lined along the railway track amid lush greenery. I just couldn’t go back to sleep again! So till 10 am when we reached Ernakulam I tried to see as much as I could.
There has to be a separate travelogue written to describe our trip, but till I find the motivation to do that, here are the highlights.

Banglore- Meeting A's friends, his neighbours and checking out the neighbourhood where he grew up. I have not spent more than 5-6 years in one place, so my school and college memories are made of different faces and places. But I could easily sense A's happiness of being back where he's spent 22 years. Yeah, I know I digress.

Kochi- Visit to the Synagogue, Jew town, St. Francis Church, Marine Drive and the Hill Palace.

Alleppy- The stay on the houseboat for a day. Memorable. Nothing can be more relaxing than being on the boat and gazing around at the backwaters. Hmm...I miss that.

Thekkady- Visit to a spice garden, seeing a Kathakali show. Spending a day in the Periyar Tiger Reserve- trekking and relaxing on the bamboo raft. And trying to get rid of the leeches and imagining them to be everywhere for a day after the trek.

Munnar- Tea, tea everywhere! Visit to the Eravikulam National park to see the Nilkurinje (how do they spell it?) flowers in bloom. Sadly, there were not many flowers but the park is great. And it looked amazing when it started raining. Spotted the mountain deer.

Strangely, coming back from the holiday was not as bad as we dreaded. I think that's a good sign. We are getting used to the idea that you can’t run away from your routine for too long.



Alleppy backwaters



Periyar lake, we are on the other raft



Hmm...