While the hills were hot, it was far cooler than the beach and it was tough to be back in the heat. When we got to Mararikulam we checked into the homestay, had lunch, and then went to the beach. With no intention of going for a swim, we were too hot not to. Still in the clothes we had worn for now 6 days, we used the ocean as our “Prewash” of our clothes. The Arabian Sea was amazing. The water was close to 90F and it was luxurious.

The Arabian Sea

The hotel had some old junker bikes. We put 60 KM on the bikes seeing the wholesale fish market, Allepey, and Mararikulam areas. It was great to see a ton of the surrounding area that we were visiting.  

Our mighty steads

2-lane roads

The sunrise fish market was super cool. The smaller fish were sold by the kilo and the larger fish were sold by a verbal auction.

Fish Market

One of the things listed as not to miss in the Allepey area is a backwaters boat cruise. You can do large houseboats, small boats, canoes, or kayaks. We chose the canoe trip. If this was your first chance to see local communities it would be an amazing experience, but having spent 5 days walking through the communities, it was a disappointment and was not worth investing 6 hours of a day. We got bored so we helped paddle for about half of the trip. We were still glad to have done it, but would have seen more walking another day in Idukki.

Canoeing the Backwaters

Another very interesting thing that we wanted to do and ended up doing twice was an Ayurveda massage.  It was a very interesting process with oils, chanting, and massaging from the top of your head to your toes in one motion.

We enjoyed a little beach time before spending Thanksgiving as a travel day. It was a two-hour drive to Kochi, a 70-minute flight to Bangalore, then a four-hour drive from Bangalore to Mysore which included a stop for a roadside dosa which may have been the best dosa of the trip.

Thanksgiving dinner

Mysore is known as the cleanest city in India and it showed. It was so different than any other Indian city. It truly was clean. Only in a few back dirt roads did we find the normal road trash of India. For our first full day, we had arranged a cooking class. It was 3.5 hours in a husband and wife’s home where we made 9 dishes and then got to indulge ourselves in eating them. It was a great meal and greatly built on the other 2 classes we had taken. The rest of the day was spent walking around and seeing some of the many temples and palaces of Mysore.

Shree Chamundeshwari Temple sits at the top of Chamunde Hill with 1,025 steps leading up to it. It was great to get some climbing in after a few days. The temple was huge and there were tons of people making the pilgrimage to the top. We chose not to deal with the long wait to enter and instead took in the surroundings. This also made a great workout on Sunday morning doing 2 laps of stairs before taking the train back to Bangalore marking the end of an amazing Southern India trip.

Cooking Class

Mysore Palace

Since our first trip in 2002, India has been near and dear to our hearts. It had been a long time since we had been there and it has us eager to plan another trip. Maybe a bike tour in Uttar Pradesh or Uttarakhand?

We had a lot of highlights. We each took a turn writing down our highlights and then when we compared we both wanted to add each other’s to our list. I guess that is the sign of an amazing trip.

Chad’s Highlights

1. Overall walking from village to village of Idukki and just seeing local life.
2. Picnic with locals on the walk from Kurisumala Hill Church to Thangalpara
3. Cooking class in Mysore
4. Diwali with Mamatha and her family
5. Having cheap, but really good food and doing some dirt bagging
6. Flower market in Bangalore

Emily’s Highlights

1. Diwali with Mamatha and family
2. Flower market at Diwali
3. Walking around the streets in neighborhoods seeing people celebrate Diwali
4. The two breakfasts of eating parotta with the locals
5. All the friendly people when we were walking through the villages
6. Walking through the villages seeing how people live
7. Ayurvedic massages
8. All the colors, smells, food!

Overall, every trip to India is a rewarding experience. It is not a restful vacation, but we have always come back with a deep and long-lasting appreciation for everything it has to offer.

Kochi – The Queen of the Arabian City. We arrived in Kochi and immediately felt the intense heat and humidity. It was overwhelming from the first step out of the airport. We had 2 days to explore Kochi before heading into the hill regions. With the heat that was going to be plenty. Kochi and much of Kerala state is much different than anywhere else in India in that it has a large Christian presence. There are numerous churches dating back as old as 800 AD. Vasco de Gama was in Kochi in the 1400s and died there. There is a mix of Dutch, Portuguese, and British influence. There was also a Chinese influence as well. 

Chinese Fishing Nets

Kerala is known for Fish, Tea, and Spices, especially Caradmmon and Pepper

We had over a week in Kerala and a big goal was to take some cooking classes. Our first class was in Kochi where we made Dry Vegetable Curry (Thoran), Daal, Coconut Rice, Chicken Masala, and Roti. The cooking class took place in Meera’s home and it was a great experience, the dishes were delicious, and we can’t wait to make them at home. A village-to-village trek through the Idukki region was definitely a highlight of the trip. It was very hard to plan a trek with limited topo maps so it was sort of a big guess of back roads tied together in a route from Google Maps, GAIA, and CalTopo. The route ended up great and in the end, we wished we had spent at least 2 more days walking. Day 1 was pretty much a bust. We got to Idukki Dam and it was closed so we couldn’t see the dam and walked to our hotel at 10^o North. We got dropped off up the road a little way and had an amazing 7.5-mile walk with over 2,000′ of climbing.  About 1.5 miles from the hotel it started raining – HARD. We had a great time sitting at a very small store along the road for about a half hour drinking tea and waiting for the rain to die down (a little). Our hotel was set on a beautiful plantation hillside. Unfortunately, it was socked in fog with zero visibility the entire time we were there. 

Waiting out the rain with tea and snacks

Day 2 was a taxi ride to Vagamon for the rest of our hiking. This by far started the best part of our trip. We walked around Vagamon, then to the Kurisumala Hill Church which was a long climb up to a Catholic church overlooking the valley. We had not packed food assuming there would be stalls along the road like we had seen during our trip. A few hours went by and there were no food stalls. As we topped a hill there was a small tour bus with a big group of men having a picnic. As we walked by, they motioned us to join them. We declined twice, but on the third request, we accepted. What came out was a highlight of our trip and this great rice and chicken meal. The men loved that we ate with them and asked to take pictures of us. They took tons of photos and videos of us as we ate and we had a fun group photo at the end. Even though they spoke no English and us no Malayalam, we could tell it was a highlight of all of our days and a lifelong memory for us. 

Hilltop picnic – this was a highlight of the trip

Post picnic group photo

From there we continued to Thangalpara which was another climb, but this time to the tomb of Sheikh Fariuddin from the year 1200 AD. Many schoolchildren and locals were making the pilgrimage.  From there, to the Pine Forest which was a beautiful forest that was frequented by many locals and Indian tourists. 

Thangalpara – Thomb of  Sheikh Fariuddin

Day 3 was not about sites, but rather about walking back roads and plantation trails. We were completely “off the beaten path”. People looked at us like we were crazy and I am sure they were wondering what the hell we were doing. Breakfast was also a fun experience for us as we found a “homely” restaurant (that is literally what the sign outside stated) which we called the local bread shop as not only were there lots of locals coming in for breakfast but many coming in for takeout of the parotta bread wrapped in newspaper and a plastic bag of the local curry to accompany the parotta.  All along, people were so friendly, they would wave, greet us, or stop their car or moto to talk. The friendliness was just amazing and made us feel great. We felt like we were integrating into the local culture. It was hot and shade was minimal. An umbrella was fantastic for shade as we walked. 

It may say homely food, but it was excellent.

An umbrella was welcome shade in the stifling heat

This was a fairly typical 2-lane road. I measured the slope angle at 20^o

Day 4: We regret not having more time to spend in villages. Our final day was great walking through plantations and going out of our way to see the Pattumala Church.  We had several people asking to take photographs with us which is always a comical, but fun experience.   

One of the many locals excited to see white people and ask us to have their picture take with them

Day 5: A short walk past Valanjanganam Water Fall and then a bit further to our pickup spot for our ride to Mararikulam. 

Valanjanganam Water Fall

Part 3 coming up – Allepey, Mararikulam, and Mysore

Ahhh – India. Our first visit in 2002 was our first big travel experience spending 7 months in Southeast Asia with most of that in Nepal. At that time, we walked across the border from Nepal to India and then took trains across the country through Varanasi, Delhi, and Rajasthan. That alone was an experience.

Our next trip to India was in 2007 to Ladakh and Sikkim. We spent 6 weeks in Ladakh with most of that doing dental clinics for kids with Tom Grahams and then trekking through rural villages teaching handwashing and tooth brushing and giving out toothbrushes. We had an amazing experience learning and teaching. Tom was later executed by the Taliban while doing dental work in Afghanistan with a British humanitarian group. It is impossible to be back in India without him in our minds. 

We have never traveled through South India. We were excited for this trip and a big part of that excitement was for the food. It is hard to get South Indian food in the US, but that is the food we prefer.

It doesn’t seem like much has changed in India since our last trip. The traffic is still crazy and the roads are a mix of asphalt, rock, and dirt and are shared by cars, buses, motorcycles, cows, and donkey-drawn carts. Street food is everywhere. It ranges from something we should probably not try (or risk getting sick) to street stalls that are mostly clean, and busy, and the food is all freshly cooked. We ate most meals at these stalls where the 2 of us could eat a meal for ~125RS per person ($1.50) and it is better Indian food that we can get in Utah.

Thindi Beedi Street Food Stalls – Dinner on Night 1

Thali Meal for just over $1.

Bangalore is a green city. There are lots of parks and huge trees. It is so different than a city like Delhi where I don’t remember parks and much greenery.

Diwali – the Festival of Lights – “victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance”. It is like Christmas meets the 4th of July.  We were excited to spend Diwali in Bangalore. To see one of their biggest holidays in a city of over 11M people was surely going to be an experience. We were also invited to celebrate the holiday with Emily’s past boss and her family. We were excited to see how the locals celebrated. We started our Diwali early walking to the KM Market (Krishnarajendra Market) which is the flower, vegetable, and fruit wholesale market. The market was crazy and overwhelming. It was at least 6 blocks in both directions and probably 500,000 people. Amazing flowers everywhere and people buying huge bags of them for their celebrations as well as for reselling.

KM Market with people stocking up for Diwali celebrations

As we walked around the street on Diwali, we walked into a Hindu temple where we received our first-ever Hindu blessing. It was an amazing process of the Hindu Pandit (priest) reciting something as he moved a tray with a burning flame around a shrine 5 times. We then had to put our hands in the flame smoke and touch our foreheads 3 times. This was followed by him putting the red powder on our forehead then a tablespoon of sweet milk being placed in our hand to drink and then a tablespoon of coconut water in our hand to drink. It was a great experience.

We donned our Indian attire for an evening Puja and celebration with Mamatha and her family.  It was amazing to see. They had a puja to worship Lakshmi and bring good fortune. The shrine at the house was amazing. A ghee lamp needs to burn for 24 hours.  At the shrine, they give 5 fruits and 5 desserts. There is a burning of some type of material that you bring the smoke to your face and then carry through the house. After the puja, 51 oil lamps are lit and placed at every door and window to honor Lakshmi. We ended the evening walking around Commerce Street which was all lit up for the holiday and packed with people.

Puja Room

Diwali Celebration

Diwali Celebrations on Commerce Street

Part 2: Kerala