Hectic India
Trip Start
Oct 01, 2002
1
51
158
Trip End
Aug 08, 2005
Cochin,
India
Monday, October 13, 2003
A quick update from India so far...
In the heat and humidity of Mumbai, we toured the streets and sights, visiting hustling markets and regal museums, passing the crumbling colonial buildings that have all been renamed from their old British, to more appropriate, Indian titles. Somehow, it still feels like an old British colony. Perhaps it's the thousands of old British advertisements, the hundreds of Morris Minor like taxi cabs or just the streets and buildings themselves. The constant harrassment from the street vendors, rickshaw wallahs, beggars and other touts, was getting a bit too much so we decided to head south to a town named Mysore, stopping on the way at a small town called Lonavla.
Lonavla is very unremarkable in itself but is the site of ancient Buddhist cave temples carved deeply into the side of a mountain and to which we slowly climbed up a twisting stone staircase
01 Maharaja's Palace, Mysore
. Along with hundreds of Indian tourists we passed stalls of dubious drinks, peeled cucumbers and other refreshments along with offerings of incense, flowers and blaring Hindu music tapes. The caves themselves, from the 2nd century B.C., were impressive and a more recent Hindu temple at their entrance provided entertainment as the worshippers danced, chanted, and chimed their way around the temple.We caught a train to Mysore that night, it was all very civilised with the conductor waiting for us with sheets, towels and pillows. We both slept well and the other passengers were all very friendly and welcoming. We arrived in Mysore quite late and in the middle of a monsoon downpour but we found decent accommodation at a good price which was surprising as we had luckily arrived just in time for the town's major festival, Dasara. Mysore is also the home of Karnataka's Maharaja and a tour of his beautiful and extravagant palace was a must see. It was magnificent, with silver doors, chandeliers and gold leaf everywhere. At night the whole place was lit up by thousands of bulbs and we stayed for a complimentary Hindu singing concert. We've come to the conclusion that tunefulness and lyrics dont count for much but what obviously matters is how long you can keep going from one single breath! In the case of the lady we saw, it was more than enough. Still we were shown excellent hospitality by some of the locals and it made an interesting evening
02 Maharaja's Palace, Mysore
. The next day we made our way to Somnathpur, a tiny village outside Mysore famed for it's intricately carved Kashava temple to the Hindu god Krishna. Although it's almost 800 years old, it was still in amazing condition with layers of carvings depicting elephants, gods, dancers, animals and scenes from the Hindu holy books. The whole place was extraordinary and well worth the rough local bus rides to get there, even if it did mean suffering more blaring Hindu music and the Indians' love for sounding their car horns incessantly and for no apparent reason. We stayed in Mysore until the Sunday and the climax of the festival with a colourful and lively parade through the crowd packed streets. The highlight was the procession of colourfully decorated elephants which we thankfully saw after searching over an hour through the bustling crowds for a good vantage point.
From Mysore we headed south-west to the coast and to the tiny but historic town of Fort Cochin. To get there we caught a night bus and 10 hours of hell later, we arrived in rain drenched Ernakalum, then rickshaw, ferry and rickshaw later, we finally found a bed. It took us a while to recuperate but Cochin was the ideal place. A little touristy but quiet and with a few nice sights it has been quite relaxing. One night we watched a fasinating performance of the famed local dance, Kathakali, in which the actors meticulously made up and dressed, perform their roles using various body, face and hand movements to tell a story. It was very dramatic and as with all things Indian, a little intense. We also sampled the local Kerala cuisine during a excellent boat cruise through the region's backwaters. In both natural and man made canals we silently drifted, passing local villages and houses and calling in to watch them spin ropes, mats and carpets from coconut husk fibre
03 Maharaja's Palace, Mysore
. It was pretty amazing to watch and really impressive that they make a living purely from coconuts. We were also given our first yoga lesson by a hippie couple from Australia who were really nice. Unfortunately, Cochin has become a bit boring now so it's time to move on further north to Gokarna, just south of Goa. We are on a bit of a strict schedule as we'd like to get to Nepal for the peak trekking season but need to keep our options open as Nepal has a few problems at the moment but we'll see how it goes.
Anyway, take care all,
Kev and Sian.
