Tag Archives: India

Travel Tidbits: The Kerala Backwater experience, India

I never made it to Kerala during my three month trip to India last year.  Iris Isac, today’s Travel Tidbits guest poster has now made me totally obsessed with going! 

A holiday to India would never complete without a trip to the world famous Kerala backwaters. The tranquil backwaters are a much needed respite for any discerning traveler.  The pace of life is much calmer and the scenery is stunning – a haze of blues and greens studded with exotic palm trees.

honeymoon packages Kerala

House boat on the Kerala backwaters

The backwaters have a unique ecosystem – freshwater from the rivers meets the seawater from the Arabian Sea and is a unique feature of Kerala.  The region has captured the imagination of tourists from across the globe with its remarkable scenic beauty.  The surrounding landscape  with palm trees, shrubs, various leafy plants and bushes grow alongside the backwaters.

honeymoon packages Kerala

Life along  the backwaters

A backwater cruise along the palm-fringed waterways of Alleppey and Kumarakom is one of the most enchanting holiday experiences anywhere in the world.  In this world of simple pleasures, you will skim past ancient Chinese fishing nets, water lilies, lush paddy fields, coir villages, rustic homes, temples and coconut groves.

A houseboat cruise offers you a chance to learn about the life of local village people through a Kerala Village tour. Kerala’s backwaters are throbbing with its own unique culture .

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The Kerala Houseboat Experience

A Kerala houseboat, known as Kettuvallam in the local language Malayalam, was used to transport the rice harvested in the fertile fields alongside the backwaters to towns in ancient days. Kettuvallam means a boat made by tying together pieces of wood. Not a single nail is used in the making of a Kettuvallam and it is built by joining together anjili wood panes with coir ropes and then by coating with black resin made from boiled cashew nut shells. The materials that go into the making are all local and include eco friendly bamboo poles, coconut fiber ropes, bamboo mats, coir carpets etc.

Modern Kerala house boats have fully furnished single, double, triple and even five bedrooms with a sundeck, private balcony, kitchen and toilet. In addition there is also separate rest room.  You’ll even find a television (not that you’d want to watch it!) and a crew comprising two oarsmen and a cook .

It takes great skill and meticulousness to construct and navigate these giant Houseboats by tying huge planks of Anjili tree and the staff has been trained properly. All Houseboats have adequate safety measures and Kerala government and tourism department conducts periodic audits and inspections to ensure safety of tourists.

Food & Dining

When you book a Kerala houseboat cruise for one night all meals will be served on board. The cuisine is continental, south Indian, North Indian or traditional Kerala flavored with the local specialties; delicious local fish.

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How to select a Kerala houseboat package?

Starting point of a Kerala Houseboat Cruise is Alleppey  or Kumarakom. Houseboats are available for rental from prices starting from Rs.3500 (£40) for a Non A/C to Rs.40000 (£450) for a super luxury houseboat with butlers.

If you are opting for one of the world famous honeymoon packages in Kerala  you’ll be spoilt with special arrangements of a candle lit dinner and flower arrangements.

Food preferences (Vegetarian/ Non Vegetarian) has to be specified before the boat leaves from the shore. On prior request fishing and canoeing can be arranged.  You can catch  the fish from the river (if you are lucky) or buy the fish from the visiting fisherman in the boat who will come to your houseboat and give to your chef to cook.

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While many Kerala Houseboat Cruises take tourists from a particular point and bring them back to around the same point next morning there are some specific cruises mostly in the Alappuzha area, such as:

  • one night cruise from Alappuzha to Thotapally via Punnamada Lake
  • two nights cruise from Alappuzha to Alumkavadi
  • one night cruise from Alappuzha to Kidangara
  • one night cruise from Alappuzha to Mankotta

And so….

Travellers, tourists and locals alike have been captivated by the charm of these serene waters and the simple pleasures of life  that cannot be enjoyed anywhere else in the world. Time will stand still as the waters shimmer in the glint of sunlight. The silence is broken by the sounds of nightfall descending with the croaking frogs taking up the chorus of evening song. This is what it feels like to be enclosed in the embrace of nature.

Top 3 Boozy Travel Memories – Travel Blogger Relay

In the spirit of throwing myself head first into the travel blogging community (as I so rambled about in my last post), I was kindly picked by Mr Neil of Backpacks and Bunkbeds to join in with an Olympic sized travel blogging relay, where me and a bunch of other lovely fools, pass our Team Purple baton and witter on about our Top 3 Travel Memories in the hopes of winning an iPad2, an DSLR and some walking boots.

So it is with some trepidation that I take the slippery purple baton from the über lovely Larissa of The Blonde Gypsy. You see she was handed it from Mr Will Peach and I’m seriously hoping she thoroughly washed it, as it was likely put in some highly unsavoury places by his decrepit soul.

Now let’s get our minds away from purple batons and back on to the case in point…

I need a pair of walking boots.  That arse who stole mine in Auckland is still at large and I have much walking to do here in New Zealand. So you judges, help a girl out and consider her poor feet when you make your vote. I have been going barefoot for some time now.

Here’s my addition to the fray…

3rd – Silent Disco, Goa

what a face

Who hasn’t heard and guffawed at the idea of a silent disco?  I imagined them to be abominations of dodgy headphones and daft dance moves.  Well, Palolem in Goa showed me that they are those things and more.

With nothing but the dim blue light of my phone as a guide we slipped and tripped our way up and over jet black rocks to stumble into the most random yet brilliant party.

Three DJ’s with their decks each lit up in a different neon colour were surrounded by dancing bodies, all slightly mismatched in rhythm.  The headphones weren’t half bad and whichever DJ we chose to listen to, they lit up the same colour as his decks; that way you could spot who has the same (bad) music taste as you.

You know when a DJ starts playing music that makes you want to rip your own ears off? Well now no more.  We could just turn him off. Or to be honest, should none of the frequencies take your fancy, taking them off altogether and watching hundreds of bodies throwing a clusterfuck of shapes on the silent dancefloor is worth the admission price alone.

Maybe it was the fact that I had totally fallen in love with this hippy South Indian beach town and a one week stay turned into a month. Maybe it was the hilarious drinking partners in crime with which we had spent the warm up to the party playing the funniest vodka fuelled game of “I never” EVER.  I don’t know… It was Goan backpacking beach party heaven.

2nd – Tubing, Laos

ladylike as always

Whichever bright spark conjured up the genius idea of encouraging backpackers to jump in a giant rubber tube and float down a speeding river whilst inebriated deserves a hearty pat on the pack in my book.

Tubing is one of those ‘heard it on the grapevine’ travel experiences. You’ll often hear someone harping on about what a great time they had whilst you’re sitting there waiting for a bus or divine intervention.   Whispers of the high-jinx, accidents and epic boozeathons pass from traveller to traveller and I must say it lived up to its reputation.

Any event where you are given a shot of whisky on entry is destined to be messy affair but aside from the marathon boozing this is one of the most bonkers things I’ve ever done.

Flying off questionable home-made slides, rope swings and giant inflatables, all into a fast flowing river with more than a few bevvies inside me, is in no way sensible and clearly that was its charm.

1st – Aussie Day, Koh Phangan

Aussie day love-athon

Sounds like a contradition but yes celebrating Aussie Day – even though I am not Australian, in the not Australian country of Thailand was one of the best memories of this trip.  In truth, I can think of at least 20 other amazing days I spent on this much loved island with all the lifelong friends I met but this day had it all.

It was one of those completely perfect Koh Phangan days, clear blue sky for the sun worshipper in me, turquoise ocean, a pool-bar all to ourselves and beer for breakfast. We did it like the Aussie’s do and paid homage to all things booze with hours of slam dunking into the pool, underwater photo shoots and general face-aching fun.

Needless to say this day ended up with us jonesing for the only decent burger joint on the island (I know, I know, how could I, when Thai food is so amazing) but it just had to be done. In all our burger boozy joy we drove off on our moped totally forgetting to pay the bill. The next day we were chased down by two Thai ladies in a high speed chase only to realise that we were wanted for non-payment of burger bill. In usual Thai charm, it was all resolved with profuse apologies and smiles. Served as a reminder of the heathenry of the day before…

Why oh why did I ever leave?

…

So there we have it, those are my top moments in booze on this trip. Of course, I now realise that some of you may think I need an appointment with the AA but let me assure you I have had many other fine moments where I was not inebriated. I think…. No really…. Making it to the top of my giant trek in Chiang Mai was pretty special. See?

And now I pass the baton over to sexy Rexy of Rexyadventures…

You can follow the action in Team Purple via the twitter hashtag #TeamPurple (that is if you have gotten over the fact that Twitter is not actually the plague) via the lowcostholidays.com twitter feed. You can be a traitor to the purples and check out the other teams (you can forget we were ever friends though) via the hashtag #BloggerRelay – and if you want to join in and be part of team purple contact our team leader, the mighty neil@backpacksandbunkbeds(dot)co.uk 

My Interview @ TraveLinkSites

Kiri Bumpkin has landed herself an Associate Editor position at the super fabulous new interview site for Travel Bloggers – TraveLinkSites.  I’m secretly jumping for joy at this new role as it’s given me a great in to meeting all the other (far better) bloggers than me.  The site not only offers valuable advice on starting out blogging, it also helps those that aim to become location independent (like me) from those lucky sods out there already living the dream.  Whilst doing all that we publish in depth interviews on individual countries, making it a huge resource for people planning holidays and travel experiences.

So today, I thought I’d share my interview with you all.

I chose to talk about India, where this trip began…

Make sure you check into TraveLinkSites as we’ve got some seriously inspirational people on there.

Thanks!

Kiri

TraveLinkSites - Kiri Bowers

 

Agra &The Taj Mahal

Our train to Agra began in a bit of a panic.  Having taken a flight the day before from Goa to Delhi at 15:45 my brain confused the train to Agra as the same time when in fact it was 15:05.  We arrived at the station at 15:08 thinking we were early when suddenly my mistake dawned on me.  With our backpacks weighing us down like tons of bricks, we ran up the stairs to find a platform that might still show the train.  I could not believe how stupid I had been. I expected Roscoe to throw a fit but he was as calm as could be and told me not to worry. We just needed to find someone to help us.  Arriving exasperated at the information stand, I pointed to our confirmation print out and the friendly soul beamed his Indian smile and chuckled – this train is running 4 hours late…  4 hours?!  And here’s me having a coronary over being 3 minutes late.

When the train finally arrived, 4.5 hours later, we settled into our usual sleeper class carriage, on the upper bunk to stretch our long legs out.  This train was an express to Goa with only a few stops, one of the first being Agra.  About an hour in a fellow approached us and asked us for our dinner order. We hadn’t experienced on board food yet on Indian trains, only the delicious hawkers who alight at every station with yummy treats. Despite our order of two chicken biryani’s arriving about two hungry hours after ordering, for only 70 rupees (1 GBP) who’s complaining?

meals on wheels

Arriving in Agra was sadly rather unpleasant. We had arranged a pick up from our friends Lisa and Leigh’s recommendation – the Saniya Palace Guesthouse.  The first thing that hit us was the stench.  This wasn’t just the smell of heat and over population – this was genuine open sewage that hadn’t changed in over 400 years.  Piles of rubbish scarred every street; endless buffalo manure tainted every other step.  The air was thick with pollution.  Our hotel boasted ‘the best view of the Taj’ from its roof garden.  We arrived just after midnight and as the Taj isn’t lit up at night like most tourist attractions, we couldn’t really judge the view.  A faint shadow outlined that we were certainly close.

The next morning we awoke before what we thought was sunrise only to find that it had already broken.  We brushed the sleep out of our eyes and made our way up to the roof and were very pleased to find an impressive view of the Taj.

Getting a good sunrise/sunset shot of the Taj was very important to Roscoe.  We decided not to go into the grounds and instead scope around for a good vantage point. We felt the river would be right.  Our Rough Guide told us you could charter boats for groups of people but none of these could be seen.  Instead there was one guy with teeth blackened and destroyed by chewing tobacco who smiled and offered us his rickety wooden boat.  He and Roscoe took a liking to each other and we made an arrangement to come back for a sunset boat ride.

Regrettably it was very hard to ignore the astonishing filth of the river.  Just getting into the boat was difficult with the smell being so overpowering. The water could barely flow – it was so clogged with rubbish that the boat had to take extreme diversions just to miss huge blockages of dirt and sewage.  We just had to keep reminding ourselves to look up and cast our eyes over this long awaited wonder of the world.

Our boat guide helped us get into the right angle and we marvelled at the perfect symmetry of the Taj.  Shah Jahan’s love struck vision was utterly mesmerising from the river.  The marble glimmered in the fading sun.  Seeing the endless crowds inside the compound and then our perfectly quiet and rather romantic boat ride was incomparable. Roscoe got his shot.

The next day we went in to the grounds to see the Taj up close.  Getting in proved to be extremely annoying as we happened to be on the side where in order to buy your ticket you have to take an overpriced cycle rickshaw to the newly built ticket office a mile away.  Why on earth the Agra authorities thought this was a good idea when there is a perfectly placed kiosk right outside the entrance, I will never know.

Upon entering we were instantly aware of how clean everything is compared to the filth of just outside the gates.  Everywhere is spotless.  Walking through the arches and seeing that famous view of the water walkway and the incredible Taj at the end is a moment I will never forget. It took my breath away.  It almost looks like a mirage – it’s too perfect.

We just couldn’t resist ending our day by getting back into the boat to cherish the sight of the Taj just us two.