And We Thought India Was Supposed to be Hectic. "On the Road Again" in Kerala

In my personal Hell, aka Calicut Airport.
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So, Goa was just the sort of relaxation we needed, but our days of lounging in hammocks by the beach were numbered, and it was time to move on. Preena, Byron, Kevin, his parents, Preena's sister, Preety, and her cousin, Nupi, and I all headed down to the southern part of India, the Kerala region. But, we didn't get there without a fight. We had heard all these "rumors" that India was known for it's crazy transportation, but the Mumbai airport as well as the Goa Airport were a piece of cake (perhaps it might have been the fact that we had drivers sent for us from top of the line hotels??) I guess everyone needs their reality check at some point, and it wouldn't be fair if we got off easy with transportation while traveling India.

There were just swarms of people pushing everywhere they went.
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Two words. Two simple words. Calicut Airport. It sounded like any other airport... Our doom awaited us. It was an early wake-up. 3:30 AM to be exact. More of an early night out on South Beach, than an early morning. You can imagine us all bleary-eyed packing into the van to transport us to the airport. Kevin and I got to the van last (we stopped for Preena and Byron, who had already left! - excuses, excuses), so it was a mad hour-long race to the Goa Airport. We were greeted by the longest line I have ever seen waiting outside the airport, people who had been waiting there for hours. We managed to skip the line, with a near assault on Joe by an angry (very sleepy and impatient) British guy. It was smooth sailing from Goa to, what we thought would be, a short stopover in Calicut before our final destination of Cochin. To make a long story short, thr Calicut Airport was basically a ramshackle old building filled with people pushing and shoving and spitting their way around you. Our plane wasn't going anywhere anytime soon (due to technical difficulties - and I'm telling you, if we had stayed on that plane, we would have been goners.) so Calicut Airport is what we called home for the afternoon. Meanwhile, Nupi's bag was nowhere to be seen, so that added to the turmoil. At one point, we had to walk outside in order to enter another section of the airport. There was a SEA of people, all gawking at Joe, Joan, Kevin and I as we walked out. It was dead silence, and we had a two foot strip of space to walk through all these people. This was my first introduction to: Traveler's Anxiety. Not so fun. But we eventually got on a plane (not an 8-hour bus, which we were considering) and actually had the whole plane to ourselves. They still wouldn't let us sit in First Class, even though we were the only people on it. Number counts or something...

"Notice the ears on the antelope. Have him notice the ears on the antelope!"

FINALLY on the plane, on our way to Cochin.
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Finally At Cochin Airport, disheveled and beyond exhaustion, our tour bus greeted us and we were whisked away on a 5-6 hour journey to Munnar. The drive actually wasn't bad (even through all we had been through), as it was so exciting (we were driving on S-turns along cliffs in head-on traffic) as well as the fact that the sites were so beautiful the whole way, filled with sprawling bright green tea fields on our way up into the clouds. I'm telling you, we were staying with the clouds in Munnar. The tea fields were like massive rolling waves of green, dotted with giant boulders that looked like whales coming out of the water. Very beautiful. And the cows! Oh, the cows... They are sacred in this land, so they are EVERYWHERE. I kept trying to get the perfect shot of "Heff's Cow" (spotted black and white), but quickly realized there were so many of them that I needn't stress out any longer and just enjoyed the ride, getting my shot when we almost ran one down walking across the road around a blind turn. I can't tell you how many times we would all look around the tour bus shaking our heads at each other after a near collision (whether it be with a cow or truck).

And this was the plane we were going to fly on... hmmm... I think that might be an obstructed view.
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After two days high up in Munnar, with some small hikes and site-seeing, we headed towards the backwaters of Kerala for an overnight houseboat tour. We had split up into two groups, as the houseboats were both two bedrooms each, but were able to tie up at night and eat dinner together. These houseboats were beautiful! I didn't think you could have so much luxury living on a boat. We had a nice little living room/dining room and a mattress at the front of the boat = a sundeck. I think there was some sort of magnetic force between myself and the sundeck... The service was incredible and the cook made delicious food. The backwaters were enchanting. It was just a peaceful boat cruise throughout the day, watching local fishermen along the river and watching the town revolve around the backwaters. The school was even right along the river and we watched the "buses" (boat ferries) take the school children home along the backwaters. A really neat way of life. We had a short stopover in a town, where we bought some great wood carvings from a local carver and some prawns for our cook to make for appetizers (best prawns we've had in India). We only did one night on the houseboat, but I think we all agreed, if we did it again, we would definitely stay at least two nights, it was so peaceful.

Communists taking over a town on the way to Munnar. It was quite a scene. It was hard to get the van through.
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Our last stop on the 5 night tour of Kerala was the small town of Kumarakom. We stayed at a really cool hotel on the backwaters in these little raised cottages. It had a pool and a... spa, which pretty much everyone was eager to check out after our loooong bus rides to and from each locale. Byron, Preena and Preety all had some sort of Ayurvedic massage done at the spa, complaining about the amount of oil that they would never be able to wash from their bodies. Byron was explaining the John Travolta slide he could do across the room (and it was a large restaurant we were in) from all the oil. Kevin and I just couldn't listen... so we went the next day. I explained to the masseuse, "Now, just no oil," to which was returned with a bucket of oil on top of my head to get the massage started. Hmmm... ok, there was definitely a language barrier there. As I was getting scrubbed with "powder" (it felt like sandpaper being rubbed ferociously all over my body), I heard Kevin in the next room trying to explain to the guy, "No, no more sand. Please stop. I'm done. It's ok. I have a sunburn. Holly, he won't stop." Kevin kept trying to get up from the massage, it hurt him so bad, but all the oil (and the masseuse) kept him down to the hard wood bed. Really, I'm not exaggerating when I say it was pretty miserable, and if you're going to get an Ayurvedic massage, be sure to know it has PLENTY of oil and the powder scrub pretty much skins you. But we glowed for days after (even though Kevin only got half of the treatment)! Kumarakom was very relaxed and we spent most of our time by the pool reading books, although we did venture out to a nearby Petrified Wood Museum run by the craziest woman I've ever encountered. She explained each petrified wood carving to a tee (even though it was written on a little card above each carving). "Notice the ears on the antelope," as Kevin was wandering a few feet away to another sculpture, pointing her stick, "Have him notice the ears on the antelope!" One of the creations I thought was kind of interesting (and hilarious) were these little blobs that looked somewhat like figures of humans that were called "Handicapped Family." "Notice the handicapped family. Have her notice the missing leg!" It was pretty interesting to see the natural formations of wood carved by waves and monsoons - and the woman who ran it made it all the more interesting.

Clouds drifting through the hills of Munnar.
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Well, the tour was over, after a short ride to Cochin, where we parted ways from Preety and Nupi and Kevin and I headed back to Mumbai with Joe and Joan to spend their last few nights. Kerala was very beautiful and I feel that we got to see a little bit of everything while there.