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In Allepey, we were able to rent a houseboat for the entire afternoon to go out and see the backwaters.
We, a group of 12, took the houseboat instead of regular boat as it provided a greater comfort level and amenities. It was a three bedroom houseboat, which allowed us to take an afternoon nap after the lunch, which was cooked and served in the houseboat.
Apart from the bedrooms and their attached bathrooms, the houseboat typically has a kitchen, refrigerator/freezer. The open area on the houseboat has a large seating arrangement with sofa and traditional Indian seating. You can also find a surround sound system installed there. A TV for watching videos may also be present. Electricity is available from an 'invertor system' with the boat motor charging the batteries when it is running. Some of the house boat had a set of solar panels installed which can charge the batteries during the day.
The backwaters area is very beautiful. The lake is huge and there are rice/paddy fields visible along the stretch.
Overall we had a great time in the houseboat and backwaters. In my next post, I will put some more pictures of the backwaters and surrounding area.
The places we visited in Kerala were lush green in these months of December and January. There were banana, coconut, palm, vanilla, cashewnut plantations that we saw when travelling by road. There were also long stretches of rice fields visible. The above picture were captured while driving down the roadways.
In my next post I will put some pictures of the Allepey backwaters where we rented a houseboat for a few hours. This was one of the two best nature places in our Kerala trip.
Before I post some picture of greenery in Kerala, let me brief you about how I am managing to update or post to this blog as I travel across Kerala.
I am using a HTC Hermes Windows Mobile 6 phone. I have an Airtel SIM card with unlimited data (GPRS) connection.
When I started out, I was a bit skeptical of whether this Airtel GPRS would work in different towns, villages and cities across Kerala. But to my surprise, I found it quite reliable and available in most areas where I wanted it.
There were a couple of places we went where there was no Airtel service. One was a hotel/resort which was 6 KM away from Munnar market place. So I could not update this blog during the 2 days we stayed there. The service was available in proper Munnar market area, though.
I am using my Gmail account to send email with content & pictures, which the Blogger or Blogpost website will automatically post to this blog. This allowed me to create the email on the Pocket outlook client on the phone at leisure. I took all the picture using the phone camera. Sending the email took about 3-4 minutes for a 500KB size on the GPRS connection. I generally tap on the 'send' button/link and then the email gets sent unattended. So I can place my phone back in my pocket and continue with other things.
I will write more about the technical and related details about my mobile blogging experience separately.
The roads we traveled in Kerala were dotted with a variety of small local shops.
I particularly noticed a lot of fruit stalls or shops, many of which exclusively sold fruits only. Unlike fruit stalls in cities of Maharashtra, these were not temporary or portable stalls but proper permanent shops and a whole lot of them. The fruits were also well arranged. Most carried the local bananas of different varieties (small, long, green, yellow, orange-red), and also other fruits like grapes, apples, oranges, etc. Of course bananas were in plenty as there are a large number of plantations, big and small, visible all along the roads we traveled. Bananas could also be found for sale at other local shops. Banana plants can also been seen growing in the 'wild'.
There were innumerable local coconut vendors or stalls in the open along the road sides. They sold green coconut water. The guy simply chops of one end of the green coconut to create a small opening to the coconut inside and then inserts a straw. This is one of the most fresh and nutritious drink you can get. So aerated drinks did not get much attention from us. In addition to coconut vendors, pineapple vendors were also doing brisk business serving pineapple slices peppered with salt-chili powder mix.
Many tourist attraction places had small shops with handicraft items. There were wooden carved items like monkeys, cars, jewelry boxes, kitchen items, etc.
In my next post, I will put some pictures of the greenery in Kerala that we saw.
This is the first time I visited Kannyakumari. It was a long drive from Ernakulum and we took our own time. Having traveled by road mostly in Western Maharashtra state, I noticed a huge difference while travelling down NH-47 highway. In Maharashtra, once you drive outside the city or town, farmlands or barren land stretches all the way with a few villages or small towns in between. However, all along NH-47, the entire stretch was populated! There were beautiful green rice farms and banana & coconut plantations visible as we neared Kannyakumari.
The next day morning we visited Vivekananda Memorial. We saw the sunrise and then took the ferry boat to the memorial, which was just 5 minutes away. Local fishermen were up working and getting their first catch. The market was also bustling with activity.
After visiting Vivekananda Memorial, we visited a local wax museum. A local artist had created was replicas of a dozen famous Indian personalities. It was a very good effort.
Overall we had a good time at Kannyakumari. The picture above were taken during this visit.
In my next post I will put some assorted pictures which I capture along our way.
Here are some assorted pictures from Indian Railways. Some posters promoting national unity can still be found inside some of the coaches.
Emergency contact phone numbers of railway regional offices are also posted inside the coach. I do not remember seeing them 10-15 years back. But these make sense today with the proliferation of mobile phones. A couple of decades back, there may not have been any official means of communicating with the railways staff from a moving train other than by pulling the emergency chain.
In the first part, I mentioned about general rail station and platform improvements. The rail coaches too have changed for better. I have some details of the newer A/C - air conditioned coach...
In the pictures above you will notice collapsible bottle holders, storage for magazine/newspaper at each sleeping tier. There is also a reading light for each tier. A folding tray table is also available near window seat. Each passenger is provided with a fresh set of pillow, heavy blanket & two white bedspreads.
There is one electrical plug point provided above each window! However it is rated 110V AC. The receptacle will accommodate USA style plugs in addition to Indian style. My guess why this is set to 110V instead of 240V is that only specific usage would be possible. Specifically all the mobile device and laptop battery chargers will work. Other standard electric appliances will simply not work, thus reducing chances of any misuse. With the proliferation of mobile phones, this facility is a boon. Apart from some other passengers, I also saw the coach attendant 'boy' using it to charge his mobile phone while he collected and folded the used linen (see picture above). However, note that these electrical plug points are available in newer (2007) coaches according to the coach incharge person. My coach was an older one. So I had to spend sometime on the new coach to charge my mobile phone battery. This was possible for me as there were some unoccupied seats in the new coach.
In general, the quality of fittings, accessories and workmanship has improved noticeably. Overall, I think the speed or the rate at which improvements are happening for passenger travel in this one mammoth Indian Railways system is quite amazing.
In my next post I will put some more assorted pictures taken during rail travel.
