Kerala pt 2: Munnar

The next stop on my two-week adventure in Kerala was Munnar. As we drove up through the mountains on our way to the official town of Munnar I found myself instantly in love. I was pretty much ready to find any excuse I could to stay in Munnar forever. The mountain are big and beautiful and covered in tea bushes. The patterns made by the tea plants make the hills look like a huge patchwork quilt. One guide book describes Munnar as having a Sound of Music backdrop and I couldn't agree more. In addition to it's fabulous beauty, Munnar has the benefit of being cool (I wore a light jacket at night!!). If you plan to see the waterfall and are coming from the top of the mountain, make sure you give yourself ample time and don't believe anyone who says it is only two kilometers. There's a very nice hotel on the way down, which I unfortunately forgot the name of but had nice food and looked way out of our price range. On the bus ride into Munnar we passed tons of amazing looking hotels hanging off the cliff, but I'm not sure if those were technically in Munnar or some tiny little towns.
Things seem to close early, at least in the off-season, but there are plenty of sights to see during the day including many gardens, damns and a waterfall. The central hub of town is a bit longer than walking distance from the KRSTC bus station/our guesthouse but there is food within easy walking distance.

Accomodations: JJ Cottage- This was a very nice place with reasonable prices. Three of us stayed in one room with a giant bed (which actually turned out to be 2 beds pushed together) and one of the cleanest and bluest bathrooms I saw anywhere in India. Our room came with a tv and a pretty strong ceiling fan, though unfortunately no window other than one in the bathroom. I was never able to get the water anywhere above chilly temperature despite our hostesses assurance that there was hot water always available. Our friends stayed in a room down the hall which also seemed adequately spaced and nice and clean. There was a bit of noise from a small temple located behind us, but other than that it was a very nice place, with a very sweet resident cat.

Eating: SN Resteraunt - This was the most convenient and least sketchy looking place to eat near us. The food was excellent and served quickly too. Prices are pretty reasonable for any meal. Meals are served on a banana leaf!
Silver Spoon- Further into the main part of town and best accessed by rickshaw if you are staying farther out in the outskirts but also with good food. We came in the afternoon and had to wait a very long time but their paneer was delicious. We were saddened by the fact that the Indian music stopped about 5 minutes after we arrived and was replaced by terrible western 90s music, presumably for our pleasure.

There are plenty of places which sell chocolates, spices and tea in Munnar for extremely good prices, all of which are excellent quality.

A guide to Kerala Pt. 1

I've been back in the states for about a month now and I realized today that I still hadn't put together my little Kerala guide that I had intended to create. The purpose of the guide is just to give my review of places I stayed and ate. While it is true that you can find most of these places reviewed at other sources (LP cough cough), I wanted to provide slightly more detailed account in a forum with more space then say, a guide book. So this is mainly for anyone planning on traveling in Kerala, although there will be some description of my travels too.

So, first off Fort Cochin (central Kerala).

I flew into the Cochin area which was pretty easy, however the airport is about an hour out from the ft Cochin Beach area/ my favorite named town, Jew town. You pass through Ernakulam to get there, which seems to be a very city area similar to Hyderabad, though much smaller from what I gather. You can take a cab from the airport all the way there or you can go to the ferry and then take it across from Ernakulam to Cochin. Our friends stayed at a place which they said was cheap and reasonable right next to the ferry. Where we stayed was about 1.5km from the ferry.

Accomodations: Elite Hotel on Princess street- The rooms are tolerably clean. We stayed for 4 nights without any real problems. The room had a tv and the bathroom was reasonably clean. Not a terrible place to stay but not amazing either. There is a restaurant downstairs which has a great little bakery. The location is what really sells this place because it is right in the center of everything. Hotels line the streets all around there as do shops and places to eat and the water is a 2 minute walk away. Off-season is pretty laid back.

Eating: Kashi Art Cafe - Probably the best place I've eaten western food in India. No it wasn't Indian and yes I enjoyed it but the value is incredible. This place is open for breakfast and lunch only and has one item on the menu per day for each meal in addition to an assortment of cakes and drinks. For 85 rupees I had a bowl of the best cream of mushroom soup I've ever eaten and an epically huge slice of quiche with fruit slices. This place also boasts by far the greatest ice tea I've ever tasted which is served with sugar syrup and fresh lime to be added at your discretion. The breakfast omelets are wonderful as are the cake and fruit platters.
There are many places to eat in the area including our Elite hotel restaurant which had pretty good food at fairly good prices. Notable also is the Calm Cafe across the street with debatably calm music. The prices at Calm are a little higher than some budget places but as we found out, it is generally worth it to pay a little more for higher quality seafood.

Other notes and observations on Kerala/Cochin: It is dreadfully humid!! From the moment we got there we were drenched in sweat. It was not nearly as hot as the dry heat in Hyderabad but the humidity was killer. It was definitely worth it though because Kerala is gorgeous. Kerala is highly Christian and there is an interesting fusion of Indian culture and Christianity in the many churches you find in Cochin. There are large and colorful statues of saints in front of most churches which are reminiscent of Hindu temple statues.

Goats are everywhere roaming about in addition to the usual dogs. There is no Hindi script almost anywhere in the region. The whole state is a giant garden of greenery, thus earning it the nickname "God's Country". The local dance for is Katekali, which is closer to a play than a dance and is worth seeing because it is quite bizarre and fascinating. Kerala in general seems to have a high proportion of Aruvedic treatments. I got a full body massage for a pretty hefty sum by Indian standards, but if you can handle a bit of invasion of privacy its actually a pretty great deal.
During the off season the vendors are incredibly tame by Indian standards, barely even bothering to ask you more than once to have a look in their shop. They are also far more willing to cut deals in order to sell something.

Still to come: Allepey, Munnar, Varkala

Holiday in Goa!

So I got back from Goa yesterday morning ( actually early for once!).
Goa is like another world. You can easily forget you are in India there because it is very touristy and it is like any other beach town anywhere. There were a lot of Europeans there and Australians and such. What makes Goa so interesting is the heavy Portuguese influence and the massive amount of churches. As you will see eventually from the pictures you could mistake Goa for a town in Europe.

I traveled with 5 other people which worked out well enough although I would prefer to travel with less people from now on. We took an overnight bus which was supposed to be 16 hours. The bus left later than it was supposed to and had some delays ( not surprising since this is India). It actually wasn't a bad ride overall and for a good amount of time. One section of the trip when we were near Goa was a tiny road down through a mountain. We could see the huge valley next to us as we wove our way nauseatingly down the side of the mountain for may 20-25 minutes. I didn't particularly appreciate that part of the trip.

Aside from that though everything was very nice. It was fabulous to be away from the pollution of the city. Goa is actually fairly large and it takes a bit to get around there. Unlike in Hyderabad where it takes 45 minutes to get to Banjara Hills because of traffic, in Goa it takes half an hour to get somewhere because it is that far away. The big market which I was keen to go to in Anjuna was actually 45 minutes away and only open on certain days. We asked the owner of our guesthouse to reccomend a beach and market area which is where we went on Saturday. Friday we arrived and found our guesthouse and ate a lovely seafood meal (yay shrimp!) and then took a bus over to the area with a number of churches in it. Half the group wasn't so much into seeing churches so waited around a shop for a bit while three of us went up to another church and the really cool ruins of another church. The churches are very elaborate but I was dissapointed that I didn't see the mix of cultures in the churches as I had been told about in the lecture I attended on Goa. I looked for signs of Hindu temples or of mosques but in the few churches we visited I didn't see them. As I said though, Goa is very large and there are many many churches so I guess we didn't go to the right ones. I also took a lot of pictures of bridges in the hopes that one of them would be the bridge in the Bourne Supremacy because they are in Goa at the beginning of that movie. I don't think I got it but apparently they filmed in the town we were Panjim.

Saturday we hit the markets and the beach. I'm so tired of hearing "Madame" and "good price" and "Taxi?" you have no idea. I spent a fair amount of money in Goa although it is actually pretty cheap there. After some time walking around and getting food ( I had salad and avacado! other people had burgers but my stomach was feeling a little unhappy so I sadly declined) we went and laid out on the beach. The beach was gorgeous and very clean. We set up next to the aptly named "Typsy food and drink stand".

The water was a great temperature and even just sitting on the beach was nice because of the breeze. The air is so much cleaner! The waves looked a bit strong but weren't actually too bad.

I had steak for dinner on Saturday which was glorious. We also found an amazing French bakery with dirty cheap everything. I don't know how I will be able to live with US prices when I get back. I think I could easily live in Goa as long as I had no schedule because we had to wait a REALLY long time every time we tried to eat. Other than that it is amazing and I bought a whole bunch of things. We also took a really rediculous sunset cruise which had nice views but silly music and dancing. I decided to just watch the water and land from the front of the ship away from the crazy cheesiness which was quite nice.

I will post pictures when the internet is being reasonable again, which it isn't right now. Thursday night I head down to Tamil Nadu to see an ashram so I will update about that when I come back. I will dare to dream that the internet will have returned to the guesthouse by then. We did get curtains in the common room while I was gone!