We spent four days on the Kerela backwaters which was a return trip of four years ago. Not always good to go back. These beautiful reflective waterways which are made up of inland fresh water canals similar to the Dutch dyke system,are now busy, busy, busy , so many rice barges do the daily trips that the boats are no longer allowed access to the narrower back water canals which run off the main drag. On the first trip we mentally and physically zoomed in on the lives of the families who live on the narrow strips of land between paddy fields and the backwaters , we were the pioneers of the demise of their privacy. In order to defend that privacy they now erect fences or hedges in front of their properties , there is limit as to how many photos you can endure whilst going about your private business ." Gold fish bowl syndrome " is a phrase that comes to mind.
Nearly all my photos are of Indian people doing what they do in their every day lives. An education about a small area of a very large country that comes across at times as almost out of control. Seeing the slums on the perimeter of Mumbai airport was something just impossible to imagine. The area on the side of the Domestic flight building was covered by nests of slums which had dozens of TV satellite dishes popping up like mushrooms on the roofs. None of the other areas had them though, which made me ask myself if perhaps they have worked out a way to run the electricity off the airport buildings. Who knows? As we took off the area of slum dwellings bordering the city itself was so extensive, it was just incomprehensible, they look like little brown squares of cardboard haphazardly laid down together, acres of rat runs bordered in so many places by rubbish tips .
We were talking to a manager of a private resort who told us slum dwellers are often better off financially than he is. He does not earn a lot. He told us that life is ok as long as you don't get sick , then you are in serious trouble. There was no pity or indeed any emotion at all showed for the slum dwellers.We meet and talked to an Austrian couple our age. They back pack for six months every year. They had been to Delhi. I cannot write down the things they told us they had seen, right beside the tourist office little children sleeping on the pavement huddled together to keep warm. It has been very cold in Delhi this winter. Their description of the gross poverty froze the stomach . How can one balance all this out ? The colours, the fantastic smiley faces , the electric energy that seeps through every where.
When we were in the forest we were shown a film about poor village families. The government gave each family 1million rupees help them relocate. They take the money and build a small house on a plot of land but then move back to the forest to live in shacks.
Religion of every denomination, spiritualism and philosophy are prevalent in every day life here, they all just live and breath it. We have seen literally dozens of Roman catholic churches, Jacobite churches, Hindu temples , been woken by the Muslim call to prayers at 5 in the morning, and visited a Dutch Jewish synagogue, we even meet a Jehovah's witness on Ooty . It appears that in this part of India at least, all live side by side and in peace. There is respect for the views of others and a tangible spiritual motivation.
There was some spectacular weather whilst we were in the backwaters. Thunder and lightening and the biggest hardest raindrops in the world. Great fun.
When we left that area we drove for a couple of hours to get to the beach paradise bit of the holiday. A three bedroom private villa right on the beach with wine and wifi hence all the blogs being posted at once.
The waves of the Arabian sea were so loud they sounded like lorries thundering down a road. Powerful and awesome. The colours were just beautiful , light cream soft sand through to a strip of rich burnt Siena and the sea beyond. The beach stretched from right to left as far as the eye could see . The beach life consisting of seriously thin fishermen with their coloured wooden longboats , beach dogs , sea eagles annoying the crows, sandy beach bordered by rows of coconut trees. Marari Villas run by Olga and Rupert was/is perfection, we could not believe how lucky we were to have 4 days of our trip there.
We left for Fort Cochin,( also a re run,) wishing we could cancel the real world and stay on at Marari beach forever.
Cochin was for 2 1/2 days.
Mentally we were all already home. Back in the Uk. Cochin is a lovely town of mixed origins , Portuguese, Dutch and English. There are lovely old Dutch style buildings which have been preserved. It felt very comfortable to be revisiting it and preparing to go home.
But as I have quoted a few times over in this blog " India is never what it appears to be". Once again the unexpected happened, our new driver Shamon ( not sure of the spelling) was just fantastic and wanted to make sure we enjoyed every last drop of the holiday. At his instigation we found ourselves in the middle of a massive Hindu festival. 15 elephants dressed in triangular shaped gold beaded headdresses lined up along side each other in a sandy park the size of a football pitch in front of the Temple. Each elephant had three or maybe 4 young men on their backs each wearing citrus yellow dhotis , the one on the front supporting a very tall violet coloured dome shaped parasol fringed with vivid yellow tassels. There were musicians beating drums and others blowing horns, these sound rather like when you wrap crunchy Izall loo paper round a comb and blow through it. ( did you ever do that? ) the noise was incredible, the effect was rhythmic and intoxicating.The elephants with flesh pink laced patterns on their ears and trunks chomped their way through treats, piles of chopped branches of coconut and did really enormous dollops of ball shaped dung! They looked strangely aloof from it all as they swung their trunks from side to side and then with a deft flick of the tip of the trunk curled in to pick up the next branch of leaves.
The crowd was a painters pallet, colourful, messy and beautiful. Families on an outing together,( well actually a lot of the women were on one side of the square sitting on steps while the men were in the middle where the elephants were together with the little children who all wanted their photos taken so they could look at themselves on the camera screen.) but all looked happy.
A brilliant hot , very noisy, dusty , unexpected high to end the trip.
" India, incredible India"
Ps . Photos to follow , if I work out how to post them
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Nearly all my photos are of Indian people doing what they do in their every day lives. An education about a small area of a very large country that comes across at times as almost out of control. Seeing the slums on the perimeter of Mumbai airport was something just impossible to imagine. The area on the side of the Domestic flight building was covered by nests of slums which had dozens of TV satellite dishes popping up like mushrooms on the roofs. None of the other areas had them though, which made me ask myself if perhaps they have worked out a way to run the electricity off the airport buildings. Who knows? As we took off the area of slum dwellings bordering the city itself was so extensive, it was just incomprehensible, they look like little brown squares of cardboard haphazardly laid down together, acres of rat runs bordered in so many places by rubbish tips .
We were talking to a manager of a private resort who told us slum dwellers are often better off financially than he is. He does not earn a lot. He told us that life is ok as long as you don't get sick , then you are in serious trouble. There was no pity or indeed any emotion at all showed for the slum dwellers.We meet and talked to an Austrian couple our age. They back pack for six months every year. They had been to Delhi. I cannot write down the things they told us they had seen, right beside the tourist office little children sleeping on the pavement huddled together to keep warm. It has been very cold in Delhi this winter. Their description of the gross poverty froze the stomach . How can one balance all this out ? The colours, the fantastic smiley faces , the electric energy that seeps through every where.
When we were in the forest we were shown a film about poor village families. The government gave each family 1million rupees help them relocate. They take the money and build a small house on a plot of land but then move back to the forest to live in shacks.
Religion of every denomination, spiritualism and philosophy are prevalent in every day life here, they all just live and breath it. We have seen literally dozens of Roman catholic churches, Jacobite churches, Hindu temples , been woken by the Muslim call to prayers at 5 in the morning, and visited a Dutch Jewish synagogue, we even meet a Jehovah's witness on Ooty . It appears that in this part of India at least, all live side by side and in peace. There is respect for the views of others and a tangible spiritual motivation.
There was some spectacular weather whilst we were in the backwaters. Thunder and lightening and the biggest hardest raindrops in the world. Great fun.
When we left that area we drove for a couple of hours to get to the beach paradise bit of the holiday. A three bedroom private villa right on the beach with wine and wifi hence all the blogs being posted at once.
The waves of the Arabian sea were so loud they sounded like lorries thundering down a road. Powerful and awesome. The colours were just beautiful , light cream soft sand through to a strip of rich burnt Siena and the sea beyond. The beach stretched from right to left as far as the eye could see . The beach life consisting of seriously thin fishermen with their coloured wooden longboats , beach dogs , sea eagles annoying the crows, sandy beach bordered by rows of coconut trees. Marari Villas run by Olga and Rupert was/is perfection, we could not believe how lucky we were to have 4 days of our trip there.
We left for Fort Cochin,( also a re run,) wishing we could cancel the real world and stay on at Marari beach forever.
Cochin was for 2 1/2 days.
Mentally we were all already home. Back in the Uk. Cochin is a lovely town of mixed origins , Portuguese, Dutch and English. There are lovely old Dutch style buildings which have been preserved. It felt very comfortable to be revisiting it and preparing to go home.
But as I have quoted a few times over in this blog " India is never what it appears to be". Once again the unexpected happened, our new driver Shamon ( not sure of the spelling) was just fantastic and wanted to make sure we enjoyed every last drop of the holiday. At his instigation we found ourselves in the middle of a massive Hindu festival. 15 elephants dressed in triangular shaped gold beaded headdresses lined up along side each other in a sandy park the size of a football pitch in front of the Temple. Each elephant had three or maybe 4 young men on their backs each wearing citrus yellow dhotis , the one on the front supporting a very tall violet coloured dome shaped parasol fringed with vivid yellow tassels. There were musicians beating drums and others blowing horns, these sound rather like when you wrap crunchy Izall loo paper round a comb and blow through it. ( did you ever do that? ) the noise was incredible, the effect was rhythmic and intoxicating.The elephants with flesh pink laced patterns on their ears and trunks chomped their way through treats, piles of chopped branches of coconut and did really enormous dollops of ball shaped dung! They looked strangely aloof from it all as they swung their trunks from side to side and then with a deft flick of the tip of the trunk curled in to pick up the next branch of leaves.
The crowd was a painters pallet, colourful, messy and beautiful. Families on an outing together,( well actually a lot of the women were on one side of the square sitting on steps while the men were in the middle where the elephants were together with the little children who all wanted their photos taken so they could look at themselves on the camera screen.) but all looked happy.
A brilliant hot , very noisy, dusty , unexpected high to end the trip.
" India, incredible India"
Ps . Photos to follow , if I work out how to post them
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Marari Villas Marari Beach
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