Reflections on the canals

More gaps to fill in...this time from our peaceful and reflective time in Kollam.

Kollam street scene

We departed Kovalam at around 9:30am for the remaining two-hour journey to Kollam where we were looking forward to our eagerly-anticipated cruise through the backwaters. Kollam is a typical bustling city, nothing remarkable in its own right, but for the increasing tourist market built up around the backwater canal experience. This is the main reason why we were there and so in the afternoon of the following day we hopped on a bus for what we were told would be a half-hour trip to the village where we would start the cruise. The half hour turned into one hour as the run-down state-owned tourist bus rattled down tiny laneways filled with potholes and the expected assortment of late-afternoon traffic. In India, apart from the standard cars, rickshaws, scooters, motorcycles, buses, trucks and pedestrians, the roads also accomodate dogs, cats, chickens, goats, cows, pigs, elephants, donkeys, water buffalo, monkeys, and ponies! Shanks still often smiles in amusement whenever we pass a cow on a busy city street!

Would all the heavy passengers kindly move to the right-hand side?

We have written before about traffic in India. Let me tell you some more...in India, road markings and signs are taken as mere suggestions, speed limits are universally understood to indicate minimum rather than maximum travelling speeds, and driving on the left hand side of the road may occur momentarily as drivers weave to either side in their attempt to find the clearest path forward. We are going to consider Australian traffic tame after this trip (let's just hope that none of us come back with bad habits picked up here)!

Many trucks are decorated and painted quite garishly like this one!

Anyway, back to Kollam. We arrived shortly after 3pm in a small village where we hopped aboard a boat made from wooden planks sown together with coconut fibre (coir). Along with the four of us was a couple from Bhopal - the man was a commander in the Indian Army so Astrid had to be on her best behaviour for the entire journey (needless to say, she wasn't)!

Aaaahhh life...

Our guide steered us through the maze of canals with a long wooden pole at the ambling pace of about 2km an hour. This was the perfect speed for us to observe village life. Although we felt voyeuristic at times (some of the thatched homes that we passed would have been just metres away from the edge of the canal), we hoped that there would be some positive flow-on effects from our tourism to the villagers whose lives are intruded on in this way. However, it is still not something that sits very comfortably with any of us, especially when we realised how little our guide was being paid for his efforts.

Children from the village

Along the way we stopped to see how the boats that travel the canals are constructed and we also got a quick tour of a spice garden at one of the homes in the village. The backwater tour was certainly a highlight for all of us due to the seclusion and quietude that it provided but it again made us reflect on ourselves as tourists and what we are prepared to do in the name of sightseeing. Just as we despised being seen as commodities in Fort Cochin, I don't imagine that the villagers whose neighbourhood is continually beseiged by tourists particularly appreciate being seen as tourist attractions. This is a dilemma that we have often discussed together and it is something that we are ever mindful of. We are hoping that our behaviour - simple politeness, appreciation and respect - makes our presence a little bit more tolerable!

The villagers from the house where we stopped for our coconut break

Chennai experiences...filling in the gaps

While we are here in Kollam (Quillon) passing time before our trip to the backwaters this afternoon, we thought we would try to fill in some of the gaps since our time here. Photos will have to come later though as we are having difficulty finding a computer with a working CD drive!

We arrived in Chennai shortly after 10pm on Thursday 7th December. Without any problems getting through immigration, we collected our bags and headed out the doors for our first whiff of the Indian atmosphere. We were pleased to find that the air was not quite as humid and stinky as we were expecting, and we went in search of a taxi to our hotel. This was of course going to be the first haggling experience of the journey, so Lorraine confidently assumed her air of "Indian authority" and quickly proceeded to get the best deal available (so she thinks!) and shortly after we clambered into our taxi headed for a hotel. The first hotel we went to was fully booked, the second wasn't, but upon investigation of the rooms, we beat a hasty retreat back to the taxi. Even in India, there have to be some standards! We finally settled on one further down the road, and the lengthy check-in process became our first introduction to the at-times extraordinarily frustrating Indian bureaucracy! After what seemed like half an hour in the hotel lobby, we finally managed to reach our rooms where we all collapsed gratefully into bed.

The next morning, after a little sleep-in, Astrid and Lorraine were ready to hit the streets (seasoned Indian adventurers that they are)! As the boys were still asleep, we decided to go on a reconnaissance mission to check out good eating places nearby. Having found a restaurant dishing up the local cuisine, we went back for Shanks and Christian, who were by now fully roused. This was to be their first "taste" of India, and we all decided to settle on a firm favourite - masala dosa. I remember getting a masala dosa with Shanks at a restaurant in Perth once - this set us back about $AU25! Here in India, for the authentic version, we paid about 50c! The price of food, and everything else, still amazes us all sometimes. We eat out 3 times a day, and the most we have ever had to pay to feed all four of us is $AU6.00! India is still the place to be for the budget traveller!

Later in the day we checked out a large modern shopping complex called Spencer Plaza, as Astrid was trying to find a camera battery for the digital camera she purchased in Singapore. On the way back to our hotel we looked at another hotel and decided to switch, as the latter one was cheaper and much nicer! On our second day in Chennai we went to George Town, a bazaar area in the older part of Chennai, then T. Nagar - another market area, where we had lots of fun haggling for some nice cool cotton tops. Later in the day it was time to start thinking about organising a car and driver for the remainder of our trip. We decided that it would be a good idea, given our short time here, to hire a car and driver, rather than relying on public transport to get us around. This gives us 100% flexibility with our plans and our timings, and the total cost for a 17-day trip for the four of us came to Rs 25 000 or $AU10.50 each per day!

One thing that has touched all of us is the warmth, friendliness and helpfulness of all the people we meet. Sometimes we may meet with curious glances (especially Lorraine), sometimes with excited shouts of "Hallo" from little children eager to shake the boys' hands, but when the people realise that we are also friendly, keen to eat the local food and observe the local customs, we are treated almost as VIPs and people, especially at restaurants, bend over backwards to ensure that we are being well looked after. We have all decided that we are going to try to fit in as much as possible with the locals - whether this is learning some phrases in the local language, abandoning cutlery and eating with our right hands only, and eating where the locals eat - not the flashier upmarket places which tend all too often to end up becoming clustered with non-Indians!

We will attempt to fill in the trip from Chennai to Trichy in the next post!

Head in the clouds

The journey from Trichy to Kodai took the better part of a day, and gave us an opportunity to witness the different landscapes of India - from the flat plains dotted with coconut palms and fields of maize, sorghum and rice to the banana and coconut plantations nearer the base of the Western Ghats (mountains). The pace slowed dramatically as the road wound it's way up the thickly wooded slopes with stunning views of the farmland below and cascading waterfalls in the distance. We were treated to another lesson in 'horn etiquette' as we discovered that the horn is sounded before venturing around corners (a very good thing considering the many blind corners there are twisting up the mountain)! As we climbed higher we could be forgiven for thinking our travels through India were just a dream and that we were really driving though the Dandenongs. Towering eucalypts dominate the landscape through most of the area, along with blackwood and wattle...maybe we should send some koalas to Kodai to complete the scene!

We finally arrived at Kodaikanal at around 3pm in the afternoon. The hotel we chose had views overlooking the town and the hills in the distance. At times, the entire area is swimming in the clouds and we felt as if we were on the edge of the world! Kodai is a hill station, population approximately 30 000, and not a rickshaw in sight! This makes for a very pleasant atmosphere and our ramblings in town were much more enjoyable without the pressing crowds and overpowering pollution of the larger centres. On the second day, one member of our party succumbed to the dreaded nemesis of stomach trouble...poor Shanks spent the day in bed feeling a little bit feverish, nauseous and achey. Not entirely unexpected, it was a good thing that he had a couple of days to recover before we have to pack up and head to our next destination.

One thing that some of us were a little bit unprepared for was the cold...Kodai is approximately 2200 metres above sea level, and the night-time temperature drops to about 5 degrees. This sent us scurrying to reception for more blankets after we almost froze on the first night! Braving the cold, today we undertook the 7km walk to Pillar Rocks. On the tourist trail for both Westerners and the locals alike, we weren't quite sure what would be waiting for us at the end of the trek, and it is a good thing that we weren't too attached to the outcome, because when we reached the famous Pillar Rocks we found them bathed in a sea of cloud! A brief break in the clouds allowed for some photo opportunities and as we waited we chatted to an Israeli couple who live close to Haifa. We swopped phone numbers and travel plans and if time allows we hope to catch up with them after our pilgrimage to the Baha'i Shrines on Mt Carmel.

Tomorrow we head off bright and early towards the coast and into a new state - Kollam (Quillon) in the state of Kerala. Here we hope to explore the backwaters and experience life in India at a different pace and at a different temperature to Kodai! We have hired a car and driver to get around from place to place - the most efficient way to travel when you are short on time. Our driver, Rajendren, has told us to expect an eight hour trip, but this doesn't phase us too much as there is always plenty to see and discuss along the way. We are all having a fantastic time and can't believe that we have been here for almost a week already.

Next post...Kollam!