Tracing my way through Kerala - Alleppey, Kochi, Munnar
Munnar, Kerala, India
Tracing my way through Kerala - Alleppey, Kochi, Munnar
Events have been pleasantly leading me instead of the other way around, as is usually the case. I am now in Munnar, center of the tea plantations in South India. I am up at 1500 meters, and surrounded by hills handsomely contoured by rows of tea plants.
This morning I walked to the top of one these hills with two friends of mine, Raph and Ethel. They are an English couple who do a lot of traveling, although if you ask Raph where he's from there are a couple of other possibilities. I met Raph and Ethel when we organized a houseboat tour in the backwaters of Alleppey.
The houseboats are large affairs -- the one we took had three bedrooms, a kitchen, and a covered deck. The upper walls are made of bamboo and the boats look beautiful.
We joined four other people on the boat - Paul from Thailand and Chris, Anna, and Nikki from England. The cook, a former military man, made us three fantastic Keralan meals.
The backwaters are calm, and the slowly-cruising boat ensured twenty-two hours of good conversation over food and beer.
After the cruise the girls headed east, the boys headed south, and Raph, Ethel, and I went north to Fort Cochin, which I had missed on the way down from Kannur.
The two days in Cochin were relaxing. In addition to sampling the Portuguese food and architecture, we got to help a group of fisherman raise their traditional Chinese fishing nets - huge contraptions with booms at least twenty meters long that lift up to the sky using counterweights. In Ernakulam, the large city across the bay, we also saw a Kathakali performance, an elaborate traditional Keralan dance with vivid makeup and outlandish costumes.
It will probably be only one day for me here in Munnar. Instead of going back down the rough roads to Cochi and down the coast of Kerala, I may head east to Madurai, a famous temple town -- and finally reach the state of Tamil Nadu, of which I've talked so much to my friends from there.
Tracing my way through Kerala - Alleppey, Kochi, Munnar
