India - Part II

Trivandrum.

So next up we went down to Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala. You can tell it's a proper city because some streets have raised sidewalks. The roads are the same as the villages, though: single laned and patchy.

Actually, driving (or being driven) in India has opened my eyes to driving in Dubai. I thought I understood after going to Mumbai, but doing real driving in Kerala is something else. For starters, everything is single lane - but in the Indian sense, which means that if a car is overtaking an auto-rickshaw, and a bus is overtaking that, and you're going faster, then it's ok to overtake the bus, car and auto-rickshaw. And if the same thing's happening on the other side, that's ok too - everyone slows down and starts driving on the (dirt) sidewalk. Sometimes, though, it gets too crowded and someone needs to stop and wait, usually honking at someone to get out of the way first.

"Keep Left" is more a concept than a rule

In fact, honking, as alluded to in my Mumbai post a while back, is a key part of driving in India. Sometimes it means "Hello there, I am approaching from behind, so don't be frightened"; sometimes it means "I say, can you please move over so I can pass"; or perhaps "Hey! Dickhead! Hurry the hell up and get out of my way!"


Anyway, We had a look around Trivandrum with a guide, which was excellent. He really knew his stuff and spent a lot of time explaining about Hinduism and the gods and their stories in the museum. He also took us to a famous handicrafts store where I picked up a great (stone) chess set for about US$40 and some paintings for about the same.

Trivandrum from the Taj Hotel

We took a day trip to Kanyakumari, the southernmost tip of India. Just of the coast is the shrine on a rock where some great Indian thinker meditated for a few days some years back, and now it's a big tourist attraction. And while it's not a total Dog on the Tuckerbox, to be honest it's not far off.

We were meant to be able to see the three sees from this vantage point (ie, Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal). I guess we technically could see them as this was the point they all met, but it was difficult to make out the different colours as we'd been assured. It's pretty crazy to think, though, that if you headed out from there, the next landfall would be Antarctica.

Kovalam Beach.
Final stop was the Leela Hotel, famous for being super luxurious, etc, yet bugger-all per night (around AED700 or so). And yes, it was nice, but it was a little bit colour-by-numbers. Maybe we've been spoilt by frequenting 5-Star hotels in Dubai so often, but the Leela seemed like just another super luxurious hotel that could have been anywhere on Earth. (Unlike the Coconut Lagoon which was definitely Indian and hence our favourite place.)

The Sky Bar, an alright spot for a drink

The Leela also nearly killed me. After surviving 10 days without illness, I was taken down either by cheesecake or lime juice on our last full night. The next day, our last, featured an all time record for me for bathroom trips (7 in 7 hours, 10 in 12h) which completely cleaned me out. So much so that I couldn't eat when taken out for dinner by the travel agent (and friend of Anand's) on the last night, nor could I eat last night at a friend's place here in Dubai!

So that's India. More photos, as always, at picasaweb.google.com/njlander. In summary, nice trip, great honeymoon, glad to be home.