My Trip to In-di-YEAAAAA

Right, let me try and recall what happened chronologically...

25th Jan - My sister's birthday, and joy I remembered it without being reminded. Brownie Point! It was also the day my contract at the terror home with Lauren ended. Oh she said I was her best housemate and that if I wanted a place to stay (when I return from India) that I should ring her... imagine my shock. Now Jay, I know you know this one.. but what's a polite way to say HELL NO?!. 

Anyhoo, that night I was all set to head homewards. I had travelled with Emirates this time as oppose to British Airways, so had a stop over at Dubai. Honestly, when my dad booked these tickets I thought this was some sort of test... I mean who in the right mind would let their shopaholic daughter linger about at a shopping festival for 5 hours?...Ans: my genius dad. But he did well. I was so exhausted from my lack of sleep, carrying about my lil luggage and my need to ensure I was going to catch my connecting flight that I couldn't think about shopping. Ok, that wasn't the ONLY reason. I was just surprised by the prices- I had this irking feeling that I was being cheated cause I didn't have a clue of what's the running rate of a commodity was. And the stuff I saw wasn't any cheaper from clothes I saw here in the UK. What are they calling a sale?

26th Jan- I kissed the ground when I landed. I hate long haul flights and air food. I was so happy to be home and on ground level. 

I was really happy that weekend, had attended a program that Green Shield had scheduled. I met with some of my juniors and teachers. My dad and sister came down from Singapore and showered me with attention and stuff to carry back to Lancaster. Later during their visit, we headed to Kerala, a south western state in India. I was really looking forward to a nice massage, some sunshine, sand and water. I was elated with the first place we visited called Kovalam.

We stayed at a resort just by the beach. It was perfect! I loved every moment of it. My mum decided to pull out this kite she bought during the kite festival in Singapore. It was fun watching the kite flying about going crazy with the sea breeze! The wind was so strong it carried the kite into a distant coconut tree. My dad managed to let a nearby coconut vendor know and requested his expertise to help us get it back... You see, in Kerala, there are many coconut vendors who are trained to climb up the tree with no equipment- just bare hands! They learnt the trick of the trade from monkeys- no joke! It's really skillful you know, made me wanna do it... and I tried but cracked my nut in the process. Ah what's to loose, it was half cracked already!

Further from there we went to Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala where we ate some authentic Kerala dishes. There's a thing in India where we can order a "meal" in a restaurant for lunch and dinner. The meal constitutes a three courses of rice (in south India, Indian bread in north India) with approximately 8 side dishes. The meals are well liked because of the variety and of course the unlimited refill. (There's a google image for your eyes to feast on).

The capital was interesting. There was a clear Arabic influence in the shopping malls. For those of you who don't know, a lot of malayalies (people from Kerala) travel to Saudi Arabia to earn a pot of gold. Umm.. Gold, that reminded me. My mom and aunt went berserk with the amount of jewellery shops there. I don't understand why...but its a prestigious thing to own jewellery and stuff. To add to my misery, because I hate gold, the jewellery shop had a sale. So my mom's eye struck gold and my dad felt his wallet burn. I think I pretended to have a heat stroke just to get my folks out of the shop. So we are back to our resort to catch dinner and a cultural performance called Kathakali. A little fact, this dance usually narrates a story in exaggerated facial expressions and dance moves with consistent drum beats.  The good character has green painted face with a rice ground paste beard that takes half a day to shape and dry. The evil character has a red and black painted face. I am freaked out of my mind when I see them all dolled up with that exaggerated make up. Worse, the women characters in this classical dance performance are sometimes men. Yikees!  But I was distracted by a platter of food and I felt so much better.

The next couple of days we ventured out to the other beaches dotted around the coastal region of this Spice trading state. We travelled further south until we reached Kanyakumari. The tip of the peninsular sub-continent where the Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean meet. It was a bit saddening when I learnt that the tsunami in 2004 affected them in an adverse manner. The water ate into the coastal region affecting the fishing industry. Many families were lost as well. It was all a bit sad but the young fisher boy tells me that they get big fish from close to 50 m from the coast into the sea/ocean!That's a good thing! We then hopped into a boat that sailed us to two famous spots further into the water, The Vivekananda Memorial and the Thirukural statue. Story has it that the two statues helped break the high tide during the tsunami that spared many. Local residence believe they were spared by the grace of the highly spiritual Vivekananda. The next morning my family packed our bags and headed home.

I loved my trip, but I was elated to be back home in Bangalore. I had caught up with my friends and the Bangalorean trend. I really missed home, was happy to be back. A week flew past and it was time for me to head back to sleepy Lancaster. It was a fabulous trip back. I flew business class because the officials gave my seat to another passenger despite my check-in receipt stating otherwise. Ha! Well business trip was grand till Dubai. Then flew economy from there to Manchester. It was lovely to have Pat greet me from the airport. I knew a royal pampering had been planned. Yay!

The end.