Alleppey (December 16)

We didn't want to bother looking for places to stay when we arrived in Alleppey that afternoon so this time we went straight to the place recommended by Ramee from Bamboo House in Cochin. 

Faisal's guest house was ok, and just in front of a beach that was surprisingly clean. Nobody talks about the beach scene in Alleppey so we were happy to have a quiet place, not too many tourists wandering about. They were all at the backwaters after all :)

There were a couple of people there already. One of them was Bonnie, who heard us asking about toddy. She showed us around the market area and then took us to the toddy shop and the alcohol store. We wanted to hide the bottles of beer, rhum and toddy that we had. We didn't have a lot, but still we wanted to be discreet. The store gave us this box... Not sure it was a better alternative.

Backwaters

A rickshaw picked us up at 10am from the bus station and brought us to a village on the outskirts of town. It was quiet and there were hardly any people, except the women who work in the shrimp packing factory nearby.

A boat was waiting for us on the banks of the lake and the boatman punted us through a small canal that led to another lake surrounded by coconut trees and fish pens.

It was our day to feel like "royalty." We didn't have to do anything, everything we needed was in the boat. 

We picked this backwater trip because it is the antithesis of the boat trips in Alleppey. Aside from being a quiet place with just 2 boathouses making the trip every day, the lights on the boat are solar-powered and we didn't have a noisy motor polluting the air and the water.

Just Coasting in Fort Cochin

On our last full day in Fort Cochin, we thought we would try the breakfast in TPot. It's been a while since I had a waffle and Henri wanted pancakes. It's funny how ordinary things like that can be so missed, especially since 98% of the places we've tried served their IDEA of French crepes, not yummy, fluffy pancakes.

Season's Greetings

To our families and friends -

Merry Christmas!

Joyeux Noël!

Maligayang Pasko!

and Happy Hanukkah!

lots of love from New Zea - no, India!

Henri and Marj

(Picture by Mickaela, fellow Israeli backpacker who made us pose "Indian honeymoon style," hahaha!)

Fort Cochin, Days 1 & 2 (or When We Were Almost Movie Stars)

From Madurai we planned on going to Kumily, a town on the border of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, but the tour operators and hotel staff all said not to go, there are no buses and it's dangerous because of the dam. Allegedly, buses going between the two towns have gone on strike and those that do not comply get attacked... or so they say. On the other hand, once we got to Kerala, everyone said it was just a psywar to keep tourists from crossing over to their side of the subcontinent. Go figure.

Because there were no buses going to Kumily, we decided to take the 4pm train. That also meant an extra day in Madurai. But since we didn't feel like moving around much, we stuck to the hotel room and the restaurants, all conveniently a few minutes' walk from the train station. 

This coffee shop is always full of people! Probably because of the "memorable coffee."

Had breakfast at the rooftop restaurant again, hoping for good omelettes.
Still, it's hard to beat Didi's in Orchha.

Goodbye Madurai!

We were waitlisted for seats in the sleeper train and we got our numbers 30 minutes before the train was supposed to arrive.

Mad Madurai

Madurai never sleeps.

We arrived at 8pm, found a reasonably priced hotel by 8:30 and found a place to eat at 9:30 - not the best place ever, but we thought we would run out of choices if we don't order fast. After dinner we walked around to get a lay of the land and saw that some tea stalls and restaurants were still buzzing with activity. 

We passed by a barber shop and asked how much they charge, but the barber insisted that Henri get his haircut tout suite. Henri said, "but it's late! I'll do it tomorrow!" But they barber was just so darn insistent and we had nothing better to do, in fact it would save us some time the next day so Henri gave in. It was so cool because they specialize in "bear carving," among others... 

What was strange was they had a sign that said they absolutely will not "shave armpits." Honestly, who goes to the barber to have their pits shaved? How lazy are you?

Tricky Trichy

We arrived in Trichy at 2am, and all the guest houses near the bus station were packed for weddings (December is wedding month) so we "trusted" a rickshaw driver with 100 Rs to bring us supposedly 2 km away to a place he said was cheap. It was just behind the street we were in, 400 meters by rickshaw, and he said the rooms went for 250 Rs... 

It wasn't a room, it was a prison cell. It was scary and dark; the blocked toilets were outside, and the shower - well, we didn't even dare to have a shower. We used the toilet only out of extreme necessity.

This picture just makes the place look pretty. In reality, it is one of the saddest things I'd ever seen... except for one room in Kolkata that looked like a good place to die.

We woke up early, just so we could get out of the room. We wanted to get out of Trichy as fast as we could so we also rushed through breakfast and asking for the bus schedules to Madurai.

This is a traditional south Indian  breakfast of idly and gravy,
served on a banana leaf that you fold either towards you or
away from you depending on how you like the meal.

Good thing the main attractions of Trichy can be done in one day. The most popular place to visit is the Sri Ranganathswamy Temple which rises out of this very modern city like a mountain, with stairs going up to the sky.

Fondly, Pondy (7th and last day in Pondicherry)

On our last night in Pondy, we offered to cook pasta for Manoj, but he ended up cooking for us! He and Henri went to the market for the ingredients, and then passed by Choco-là for some lip-smacking desserts.

I can't show you pictures of the two because they were sweating. Here's a more appetizing sight:

Gingee

Gingee was a blast of fresh air. Just 2 hours away from Pondicherry (we were on a scooter, it could have been faster *wink*), it was like nothing we had ever seen before in India. On a cluster of boulders as big as bizarre mountains, two forts watch / lord over the flat green carpet of rice paddies. Our guidebook had very little information on it, but one little line made me adamant to see Gingee Fort. It said, "like castles misplaced by the Lord of The Rings." Definitely a different world.

Enjoy the pictures for now; full story to follow. 

Auroville (or How To Steal A Parked Scooter) - Post en français

Auroville (ou comment voler un scooter garé) (traduction), vendredi 2 et samedi 3 décembre 2011.

Nous sommes donc à Pondicherry (voir post précédent) et nous avons loué un scooter pour 4 jours à partir de vendredi matin. Nous partons pour Auroville, 10km au Nord de Pondy, après un bon petit dej fait de croissant, pain au chocolat et bon café au lait, comme tous les matins passés à Pondy. Il fallait être entre 14 et 15h au centre des visiteurs pour demander des pass pour le lendemain, vous comprendrez plus tard pour quoi.

Nous étions un peu sceptiques sur le concept même de la création de ce village, mais après avoir parlé longuement avec Manoj (notre hôte à Pondy devenu ami, voir post précédent), nous étions curieux de savoir ce qu'il en était. Pour faire simple, il s'agit d'un village créé en 1968 sur la base d'un rêve fait par " The Mother" "La Mère", compagne de Sri Aurobindo, dans les années 30. Ce rêve voyait un village où tout être humain pourrait vivre librement, lieu n'appartenant à aucune nation, où tout homme de bonne volonté pourrait s'accomplir dans sa recherche de vérité. Le but est l'unité de l'humanité. Cela semble abstrait mais ce village a bien été créé et reconnu par les Nations Unies. 125 pays sont venus déposer un peu de leur terre dans une urne dans le grand amphitéatre et la construction du Mantrimandir a commencé.

Paradise (?) Beach

We are at the backwaters in Kerala right now, and struggling to update the blog :) It's been a hectic few days, and since we hadn't had a strong enough connection since Puri, we haven't been able to post.

Here's where we are today:

Paradise, right? It's a far cry from the place called Paradise Beach in Pondicherry where we thought we could have a peaceful day on the beach.

It started with a over-congested boat ride that lasted for 30 minutes. We had to pay admission fees and camera usage fees to the park which led to the dock where we had to pay boat fees... we realized later we shouldn't have paid for the camera fee, and maybe we could have asked to waive the park entrance fees - but nobody's there to explain anything; they just ask for money then wave you in.

RANDOM PHOTO DU JOUR 10

While we are waiting for a chance to upload more pictures from Pondicherry, 

let's play another round of 

GUESS WHERE THIS PHOTO WAS TAKEN!

QC people, you know the answer!

Puri to Pondicherry (or How Henri Got Food Poisoning)

)Un peu de français plus bas... alors lisez tout le post!

There are limited food choices in Puri, and after 6 days here we were running out of ideas. Henri had a sneaking suspicion that eating at our hotel gave him the runs (une diarrhée) the morning after so we kept trying new places to eat. However, I reasoned, it's just a bad morning poop so it's nothing to worry about.

One Saturday, we tried a restaurant facing the beach. It was supposed to be our rest day, and the following day we planned on visiting the tribes in the Orissan mountains - just something to kill the time while we wait for Tuesday to arrive, because that's the only day that the bookable trains can go either to Chennai or Pondicherry.

After three hours of doing nothing in the restaurant, we went back to the room to do the laundry and slept. When we woke up, it was time to have dinner again. This time, we wanted to treat ourselves; we were curious if expensive hotel food would be better than the places on CT Road (which were not exactly cheap either, they just taste cheap) so we went to the biggest hotel in Puri and looked at the menu. The food was twice the price everywhere else in Puri, but, we thought, if it's just as good as Teej in Kolkata, then we'll go back to bed happy and satisfied.

Little did we know that the most expensive food in Puri would also be the most poisonous.