On arrival in Kollam, we were met with the usual bunch of hyper-aggressive rickshaw drivers, and we had to approach three before one would give us a vaguely normal non-rip-off-the-whities fare. When I say approach, it was actually more of a situation where I would be grabbed by them and the chap would then push poor Clairy out of the way, massive rucksack and all, in order to get my attention.
We headed straight to the KTDC (Kerala Tourism Development Centre) to enquire about the state run canoe tour we aimed to go on the next morning, and to enquire about possible hotels/home stays as we had neglected to book any accommodation in advance. The tour was no problem, and we just had to report back to the office at 9:30am the next morning for our pickup. A place to stay proved to be another issue entirely though as the whole town was seemingly booked up due to the arrival of a hugely popular 'Happiness' Guru from Bangalore. This was apparently a very big deal indeed for the local population.
There were huge billboards and posters plastered over every surface along the streets. Clairy snapped this quality larger than life example.
Eventually the tourist office located us a rather pricey hotel that was down to its last room. We were only planning to stay the one night before we moved on to the capital of the state, Trivandrum (full name the rather more tricky to pronounce Thiruvananthapuram) after our tour the following day so we agreed and made our way to the Shah International Hotel. It was quite a bizarre place, which looked like renovations had just been given up on part way through. This meant the reception was all boarded up, and a 'temporary' one was sort of planted on a table in the middle of the room. Fortunately as tatty as the rest of the hotel looked, the room itself was fairly immaculate and totally did the job.
The next morning we arrived bright and early for the tour, and were joined by a motley crew of international travellers and a middle aged Indian couple. When we had enquired about the details of the tour, I had misunderstood how we would get to the backwater village. I thought we would be travelling the 24km by boat, but it turned out we were driving there by bus and would then have a three hour punt round the canals on a canoe. This actually worked quite well and gave us more time in the village.
The drive gave us time to listen to the inane chatter of our fellow tourists, one of whom had an unfortunate Essex accent that was so loud that you couldn't avoid listening to his idle banter. It seemed he had come to India with the idea of trying to get decently paid work making jewellery(?). Not only this but he had paid nearly three thousand quid for a one month stay at an ashram near Bangalore. It transpired he knew nothing about what he was in for when he coughed up, and after a month of half-arsed meditation and Hindu teaching had left feeling rather ripped off. He then attempted to chat up a young Dutch girl also on the tour using his knowledge of meditation techniques. It was almost too much for me and Clairy to bare, but fortunately for us, shortly after this the bus reached our destination.
The village was quiet, shady and very green. It was most tranquil, and there weren't the piles of burning rubbish around that we had come to expect. Just after exiting the bus we watched these big birds bounding around the trees. They had kept us awake in Fort Cochin with their loud monkey-like calls.
We passed a large canoe on the short walk down to our transport.
Fortunately this leaky bugger below wasn't our one. Unfortunately, as we were taking this pic another one of our fellow tourists thought it would be hilarious to chase a baby goat around, scaring the poor bugger half to death and getting some seriously grumpy looks from the locals. We both felt slightly ashamed to be associated with this group of half-wits, and hoped things might quiet down a bit once we got on the canoe.
As the other members of our group were laughing hysterically at the goat antics we got to the canoe first and were happy to take the front seats. Our guide, who until this point had been wearing the grey suit of a hotel porter swiftly nipped off and returned in a nice orange lungi and blue shirt. Clairy pointed out that it was nice of him to choose such complimentary colours.
The group did shut up for a bit, and it was very peaceful cruising the tiny waterways, and observing village life in near-silence.
A lovely reflection.
Initially we were on really narrow sections, with very low bridges that required everyone to get off their seats and crouch as low as possible in the boat. Then we moved out onto the larger thoroughfares.
Not sure exactly what this chap was quietly paddling along. It seemed such an incredibly stress-free way to get around and was a beautiful respite from the noisy chaos of the roads.
This man was selling something from his Canoe, occasionally shouting a few ear-splitting syllables. He slowed down and gave Clairy a big smile so she could take his pic.
As we cruised on we passed these strange looking structures which turned out to be prawn farms. I felt very sorry for the poor guard-doogies, as they seemed to just be left tied up for ever, and one of them had barked so much he had lost his voice, leaving him with a tragic sounding noise.
These chaps scooted past us a number of times.
After an hour or so we stopped at a hut where a team of women were making rope from coconut husks. Clairy snapped some great shots.
It was an incredibly efficient process, all done by hand, that only took about half a minute to produce a thirty foot long double wound rope.
The women seemed to enjoy their work. Here they're attaching the raw dry husks to a spinning hook. When they reach the end of the building the two strands are put together and wound back into one rope.
A suitably baked Clairybell. Despite the shawl and copious amounts of sun tan cream, the non shady sections were almost too much for us.
A team of men working on a new canoe. The design is yet another ingenious method. The planks are actually sewn together with the coconut rope, and this is matted on the inside seams before being tarred to seal it.
This man was busy collecting mussels. He looked rather confused at all the tourists taking picture.
A beautiful scene.
This boat was out of the water for a fresh coat of tar.
As we cruised along our guide pointed out various points of interest. At one point he grabbed this fern leaf, popped it on Clairy's leg and slapped it before she knew what was going on. The spores/pollen of the fern made an attractive print on her trousers.
You can never have too many coconuts. Soooo many uses. Our guide also said that the material making the big stack around the tree in the background were rice saplings.
And then we were back at the house where we had started where an elderly woman was carefully enclosing a mother hen and her many chicks under a cage for their protection. We wouldn't want the little buggers falling in the canal!
I liked this house opposite with its 'welcome' screen above the door.
All in all, minus the annoying tourists, it was a very pleasant experience, and definitely made me think that the top-dollar rice barge house boat cruises would be a very enjoyable experience indeed if one had the ready cash. The quiet coolness of the backwater villages were a huge contrast to the hectic town life.
On our return from the canoe tour we had a spot of lunch and then headed to the Kollam State Police Museum. The description in the lonely planet had sounded suitably mental, so we couldn 't resist.
We went through the front entrance but there didn't seem to be anyone about to collect our fee. I checked though one of the side doors, and their was a chap totally crashed out sprawled all over the table. I coughed gently, and the figure sprang to life whilst apologising for being asleep. We guessed that the place wasn't used to a whole heap of regular visitors.
It was quite a compact little place, and the chap insisted on personally showing us around. We started with a couple of rooms of photos, which begun with the history of the state's police departments, and worked up to the incredibly modern concept of all women police stations. As Clairy pointed out, you can imagine in this deeply chauvinist country that they would want and need their own stations!
This moved onto to some rather harrowing photos of police involvement in the various disasters to befall the state, from natural - earthquakes, floods etc., to not so natural - mainly train crashes, and a rather disconcerting number of them in recent history. We moved on to the next room, which turned out to be even more horrific. Here were some incredibly gruesome pictures of road accidents, murders, decomposed bodies and anything else that they could put up that would make you feel ill. Clairy didn't stay to look at these, but I found them quite morbidly fascinating.
After this we were shown examples of police weaponry, uniforms and headgear through the ages, before finally exiting out the rear of the building. Here there was the most enormous banyan tree, that had found itself a top quality water supply by taking over an old well. It really was a beautiful specimen and our guide was very proud of it.
You can just make out the well at the bottom. We weren't quite sure where the concrete dinosaur came into it.
We thanked our guide and paid the tiny entrance fee on the way out. It was just the kind of mad and dusty museum that me and Clairy love and we were glad we had checked it out. As we left we tried to give our guide a tip, but he wouldn't take it, protesting 'I'm a policeman you know!'. We found this very funny in this country of endemic corruption.
That evening we made our way back to the railway station for our short train journey onto Trivandrum. Clairy took some nice pics in the evening light.
I'm pretty sure that the train we ended up on had come all the way from Delhi on a journey that took something like 48 hours, with Trivandrum as it last stop. As a result it was one of the most manky trains we had yet encountered and was absolutely crawling with cockroaches. Clairy took this shot of it, but it came out a little blurry due to the bumpiness.
After locating the nice Hotel Regency, we were pretty pooped from our long day so had a tasty curry at the attached restaurant before turning in.
In 1957 Kerala was the first place on earth to freely elect a communist government. Since then it has been known as one of the most forward thinking states in India in terms of education, land reform and social welfare. It has one of the highest literacy rates (91%) of any developing nation anywhere in the world, and an average life expectancy (73 years) 10 years above the Indian national average. When we arrived in Trivandrum, the communist party were having a huge pre-election meeting, and the city was covered in all things red. It made quite a sight.
We weren't sure exactly who this chap was in the party, but his wonky eyes and teeth had to be captured.
We headed to the Puthe Maliga Palace, a 200 year old home of the Travancore maharajahs. It was apparently a good example of typical Keralan architecture and took 5000 workers four years to complete. We arrived just as a guided tour was about to leave and were informed that we had to proceed with a guide. Boo.
We were allowed to take photos only of the outside of the building. This turned out to be no great loss as the tour was very short and only showed a tiny rather forlorn section of the building's interior. Outside were some beautiful carved rosewood ceilings.
The Keralan style includes lots of ornate carving and wooden braces inside and outside the roof edges.
The inner courtyard was very pretty, but almost as soon as the tour was finished we were told we had to leave, so we didn't get a chance to explore.
Lovely carved horses (all with very detailed penises strangely).
'Yes, I would like to be in your picture...Thanks'.
More of the lovely woodwork on the way out. Short but sweet.
Next to the palace was a huge bathing pool that was part of the Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple complex, which although looking thick with green slime, was actually teeming with large fish. Clairy snapped this nice detail from the wall of the pool.
And here's the temple itself, apparently the spiritual heart of the city and its guardian. The seven tiered gopuram is over 30m tall. The inside was only open to Hindu's, so we didn't try and sneak in.
Clairy liked the religious sticker collection of this cheerful rickshaw driver who took us back to the hotel for a quick air-con break in the restaurant.
'No...these bananas do not hinder my driving in anyway. Ok.'
That evening we found a rickshaw that would take us the 8km out to the Veli Tourist Park. It was yet another mental sounding place, filled with giant sculptures created by a local artist, Kanai Kunhiraman. The journey out seemed to go on forever, and this turned out to be due to the fact that a lot of the major roads were closed for the communist rally. We spent a good fifteen minutes sat in the back of the rickshaw on a dirt road while an endless stream of buses came past ferrying people to the rally. By the end we were quite literally covered from head to toe in dust.
But blimey, the sculptures certainly were massive. The park was generally very nicely planted too, apart from a couple of areas having some maintenance done.
The mahoosive shells in the lake were our personal faves.
Some of the sculptures were definitely verging on the riské. This one had boobs and a lovingly carved bottom. We were quite surprised it hadn't been defaced.
Oh hi!
The river that ran past the park headed out through the beach to the sea. Clairy liked the dense lily-like plants, that had collected in this corner.
We figured we should probably at least look at the beach as we were so close, so we followed the path along the river. This area had collected a more man-made variety of objects. Nice.
Scavenger heaven.
Clairy did manage to take this quite nice picture of the traditional boats hauled up on the sand...
...but in reaching the nasty stench from the sea, our expectations of another manky Indian beach had been confirmed so we headed back to get another rickshaw home.
The communist rally had pretty much finished, so we passed a huge number of slightly unfulfilled looking men roaming the streets on the way back. I tried to get a pic of this communisted-up roundabout from our speeding rickshaw, but it was a little too quick for me.
And that was Trivandrum, quite an interesting little place to spend our last couple of nights in Kerala.
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