Trip to “God’s own country!”
Kerala fascinates everyone in this country. I doubt if there is any part of this country that deserves the attention that Kerala gets on the tourist maps, rightfully so. Be it the beautiful beaches, lush green hills, or the backwaters, the state although small in size makes a huge impression in everyone’s heart across the country. From the first impression, it appears that life in “ God’s own country “ is relaxed, clean, pleasant, and quite fulfilling. Be it the cleanliness even in the urban centers of Kochi or Thiruvananthpuram or the little villages dotted all across the state, the picture-perfect landscapes in the state Kerala appear pleasantly different from the plains of North India.
My relationship with Kerala began only this year when I got the opportunity to pack my bag and actually go there to see for myself what I had heard and to do things I wanted to do. So, with an excited mind, I hopped on to an Indigo flight from Delhi to Bangalore, picked up Lakshitha, and immediately got on to the “ Kochuveli Express “ to Thiruvananthpuram. Kochuveli is an extremely small station right outside Thiruvananthpuram and doesn’t feel like it’s near to the capital of the state! After having a typical south Indian breakfast at the small food court there, we took a cab from there to the main city where our stay was planned. Traveling on the roads inside Thiruananthpuram, we felt a pleasant calmness which we did not expect in the capital city. The traffic moves smoothly, with almost zero honkings. Anyways, we had a little trouble locating our host but she was kind enough to pick us up, from the next block to her home where we were cluelessly lost thanks to the expertise of Google maps!
Thiruvananthpuram is a very clean city { The same is true with almost every place in Kerala}. The ban on plastic is implemented here, not by force but by the discipline of people and there is almost zero littering on the streets. The first day, we wanted to go to the beach as it was almost 1500 hrs by the time we finished lunch, hence we went out to Kovalam. It is approximately 12 km south of the capital and a nice place to hang out during the evening. The sunset over the Arabian sea offers a soothing experience to the eyes. There are plenty of shops offering freshly captured fishes and other seafood on the menu, right next to the beach, and dinner over there with a bottle of beer appears to be a memorable experience. Sadly, we were in an unknown hurry to reach the city so missed that. We returned at night, after having dinner in a nice restaurant with a 40+ page menu. Food is diverse in Kerala as I experienced with almost every kind of non-vegetarian or vegetarian dish available.
Thiruvananthpuram is famous for having a temple that is said to be the richest in the world: The Padmanabhan temple.
It is dedicated to Lord Padmanabha, a form of Vishnu with Lord Brahma sitting on a lotus originating from his navel. The story about Lord Padmanabhan is quite interesting in itself! We wanted to see the glory of that place, hence we woke up early morning and left immediately for the temple. The pants and shirts are not allowed inside, and men have to change to Dhoti and the top part should be uncovered. Even for women, only sarees are allowed, if wearing salwars, girls have to wrap a dhoti around their waist. We did not have any problems, as I was well prepared and even our host offered us pretty good advice before visiting the temple. So once we reached the temple, as is common in the grand temples of Southern India, we expected a huge line of devotees but we were surprised, there was not a huge line. I immediately imagined the Meenakshi Temple at Madurai where the line sometimes gets well outside the temple compound. This was pleasant, we immediately did the darshan of Sri Padmanabha Swami and spent a lot of time just strolling around the compound. The temple feels pretty grand and some part is under renovation as well. The oil lamps are huge, some more than 30 feet, I wondered how beautiful the scene of those lamps, when lighted, would be!
Any temple in India offers a multitude of experiences. Anyone who visits the temple purely for worship and leaves without appreciating the art and culture associated with that temple misses a lot. Of course the temple God is the central figure and should be given utmost priority but if one dives deeper, there are numerous things to be awestruck.
Sometimes I wonder what could be the purpose behind people building such grand architectures, could it be only the devotion? On a careful examination, every temple tells a story, and by visiting these places one not only gets to purify his mind but also becomes a part of that story. The builders of these grand temples did know very well about their mortality but since the stories prevail, they too exist in some form. Of course, even with modernity casting a shadow over our thought processes and memories, there is enough room to accommodate those stories in our lives.
The temple fascinated both of us. There was something that pulled us again and I could feel the attachment for a long time. So, we were out of the temple by noon and it meant we could go to another temple ( for us!) near the capital: the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC). It is located in Thumba, approximately 12 km north of Thiruvananthpuram. We took a local train and then a taxi up to the campus. The VSSC runs a space museum at the very site and it a quite a place. There were rockets, miniature rockets, exact replicas of satellites, and real parts used in space missions. The place is built inside a church compound with an inspirational story (I’ll write about it later). These are the kind of places I always wanted to visit as a child and indeed visited a few places when I was in Delhi. But, even today when I enter these museums and look at the exhibits, the child inside me awakens.
The place is quite secure with the CISF staff deployed 24x7 and there are quite strange security protocols as well, one of them being theprohibition of walking on the main roads. So we had to wait for 30 minutes in the sun, in order to catch the next bus! But the visit was quite an experience and of course, I learned a lot from there too.
As I could not resist the temptation of the temple, we went there again in the evening and witnessed the evening aarti ceremony, with the elephant and lots of drums being blown. My favorite Carnatic instrument; the Nadashwaram was playing at its best and it sounded like bliss. It was drizzling when we entered the temple, and of course, the experience was made even more memorable due to that. Even the next day when we had to leave, I had a strong impulse to visit the temple for some time at least, but due to time constraints, we dropped the idea.
The next day, we had to leave Thiruvananthpuram for Kanyakumari, the southernmost tip of mainland India. It is a small town, not so clean as parts of Kerala. We went to the Vivekananda Kendra there. I had some contact with this organization before, hence it felt nice being there and seeing for myself what kind of activities are being coordinated from the center. We could not visit the rock memorial as the time was less and even next morning we had to leave early, hence the idea had to be dropped but we spent quite a good time at the beach and the meeting of the three seas, provides a very different kind of view. The Indian peninsula in the north surrounded by the 3 seas from east-west and south! Apart from that, the beach is a typical one we find everywhere in India, with almost the same things at sale everywhere.
From Kanyakumari, the challenge was to reach Kochi by evening. From Kanyakumari itself, there are a few trains in that direction so we headed to the next station nearby: Nagerkovil, of course, larger than Kanyakumari, situated approximately 25 km north.
In between, we passed by the famous Suchindram temple, which again due to time constraints, we could not visit. Within an hour, in the scorching sun, we were at the Nagerkovil railway station. If someone lives in the North and thinks of traveling by train unreserved, this was going to be hellish. There can’t be another way, pan stains everywhere, groundnut shells on the floor, and 500 people in a coach, with another 20 hanging out of the doors, and it's better not to talk about the time taken to reach the destination. But Kerala is different. Trains are clean, uncrowded, and punctual. So we bet on a passenger train till Thiruvananthpuram, and it was punctual indeed. From there, within a gap of 5 minutes, we took the Janshatabadi express till Ernakulum, and fortunately found a couple of seats in the current quota, as the train was only half full. The journey was quite enjoyable and we managed to reach Ernakulum by the evening. There was a strike that day over the Sabrimala temple issue, hence almost the entire market was closed. We hailed a taxi and proceeded to our destination- Fort Kochi. But before that, we had to cross the “Arabian sea” twice!!
Yeah, I’m talking about the backwaters!
Kochi is a destination to reckon. When I saw the life in that city, it left me literally mesmerized. It is the most cosmopolitan city I’ve ever seen in this country. There are Jews living side by side with Muslims who proudly pray in a mosque established 1400 years ago, Christians all over the city, Hindus of course and apart from the obvious religious identities, other identities prevail too. In an area as short as fort Kochi no less than 30 languages are spoken! Here one finds art galleries, museums, palaces built by Dutch and the Portuguese, theatres, restaurants offering cuisines as diverse as Syrian and Portuguese, all packed up in a small area known as Fort Kochi. This place has left an indelible mark on me. Life moves at a relaxed pace. We had to spend 2 days in Kochi. The first day we went to the naval museum, which is located on INS Dronacharya in the Northern fort area. It is a nice museum telling the story of Indian maritime history, both ancient and modern. The place is well maintained by the navy. Once we were out of there, it was time for food, and it's available in plenty in Kochi! We picked up a nice restaurant, and I tried some Syrian chicken with specially prepared Kerala rice. The aroma was mouth-watering. In Kochi, anywhere we went, we found fewer Indian tourists compared to the western ones, be it the restaurant or the art centers and the height was the day we went to the trip to the backwaters on a boat, where we 2 were the only Indians among a group of approximately 20 people!
On the second day, we went to see the commercial area of the city. Actually, Kochi is a twin city with Ernakulam being the other twin.
Ernakulum is like any other city in India but obviously much cleaner. We took a ferry, which is unbelievably cheap (Rs.4 for a trip!) to the other side. On the way my eyes were stuck on the largest aircraft carrier in this country: the INS Vikramaditya proudly standing in the Naval Dockyard. I tried to get a few pictures of it but could not capture a great shot. The view of the huge ship left me amazed for a moment. Of course, since Kochi is a port too, large vessels pass frequently on the very same course we were traveling on. We spent the afternoon in Ernakulum itself, before returning back to Kochi to watch the live Kathakali performance. There are two theatres in Kochi which offer live performances. It was a treat to watch the Kathakali performers performing the graceful steps less than 20 feet away. It was the first time I saw the Kathakali live performance.
After the performance, we had dinner near the sea, took a stroll on the seafront, with the cool air from the sea slightly passing by us, making our evening even more pleasant. We returned back to our homestay for what was going to be our last night in Kochi and packed our bags in advance as we had to leave the next day early for the backwater trip.
The backwater trip was not planned, in fact, it was only decided when we went to the Kathakali theatre and the friendly guy at the counter suggested the backwater trip to us. So, we started at around 0800, bid goodbye to our host Firoz and took off for the backwaters. On our bus, there were girls from Switzerland, a couple of German girls, a college group from France, a few Americans, an American Indian couple, a few Italians, and a guy from Australia. Overall the group was 20 in number with us being the only ‘resident’ Indians! It was a pretty unique experience, where on the one hand we were tourists but on the other felt like locals in front of everyone else. Anyways since the trip was for 6–7 hours, there was bound to be a lot of talk among each other, so within an hour everyone was talking about themselves and their backgrounds. The boat ride was extremely slow as it is meant to relax. We passed through narrow channels, which were enough to accommodate the boat, sometimes we’d be passing through what appeared to be a lake, sometimes we’d be in dense forests, sometimes, we’d pass through settlements, the whole experience seemed serene! These kinds of experiences are very difficult to describe in words. The feeling which can come closer to what I was feeling is bliss. We were just living in the moment, completely forgetting about our lives. Everyone in that group came from extremely diverse backgrounds. A guy teaching in Doha, a woman working with poor children in Bhopal, I was the one doing a Ph.D. in astrophysics. By the way, I spent a lot of minutes trying to explain my research to a few people!
We had lunch in the middle of somewhere, which was delicious. Everyone liked the food and after having lunch some of us felt sleepy too. Anyways, by 1530 we were back to Kochi from where we took the ferry. And sadly it meant the end of our stay in Kochi. I didn’t feel like leaving at all even at the last moment, but alas..these experiences need to be restricted otherwise what will be there to talk about! So, we again took the ferry to Ernakulum.
We had planned to take an SETC bus from Ernakulum to Salem via Pallakad and Coimbatore ( the best mode available to us according to the situation). Actually, on this trip, we didn’t plan the last part as it wasn’t sure where we will be on the last day! So, we boarded the SETC bus and it was off to Salem in a few minutes. We can’t complain about the roads in Kerala or Southern India in general and without any hiccups, we were in Salem at 0500 the next day.
From there we planned to take a bus to Bangalore.
We chose the 3.33 express bus run by TNSTC which interestingly is named so because of the fact that once it leaves Salem, it reaches the Electronic city (or the Hosur toll gate to be precise) in exactly 3 hours and 33 minutes!!! We didn’t check it for ourselves though but we were inside Bangalore well in time and even on the highway, the bus was pretty fast compared to ordinary ones. From Bangalore, I had booked an Indigo flight to Delhi and within a few hours after landing there, I was back in Nainital rejoicing the memories.
The trip to Kerala was easily the most comfortable I had in my life. Of course, the 1-week trips to the remote northeastern states like Mizoram and Nagaland were no less important, but with Kerala, I got more than what I expected. I hope to visit Kerala sometime again in the near future. My belief in the notion of “God’s own country” only got stronger with this visit to Kerala.
Thanks for reading.
