David and I have had an extremely interesting, exhausting past few weeks! We traveled up to the (relatively) cool mountains in the Wayanad district of Northern Kerala, where we explored lakes, mountains, and of course, restaurants. A highlight was climbing Chembra peak, which was a very strenuous and windy trek. Luckily, we brought lots of fortifying snacks for the journey. One bummer about the area is that for some reason guides are required for all hiking, which is (relatively) expensive and kind of awkward.
We left Wayanad and headed via a 14 hour train trip to Tamil Nadu, the state directly East of Kerala. We we very lucky to sit next to a couple from Chennai and their three year old daughter, and shared lots of fun times and snacks. We spent the next half day seeing a temple and a fort in Trichy, a large city in central Tamil Nadu. This region of India is particularly known for awesome, gigantic temples dominated by gopurams - massive, intricately carved gateway towers. After leaving Trichy, we headed to Thanjavore, a city only a few hours away by bus. We sat next to Nawaz, a friendly guy who invited us to his house for coffee, and next thing we knew, his mom was making us biriyani and insisting we stay the night, we were watching his sister's wedding video, and David was driving his best friend's motorcycle. We spent most of the next day seeing another awesome temple, visiting an overgrown palace, and meeting up with Nawaz and his friend for dinner. They came up with a plan of a pizza 'friendship party' picnic that involved us blowing out candles and left us very impressed with their friendliness.
The next day, we were on the move again, this time to Puducherry, a former French colony where we vegged out in parks, caught an outdoor concert and strolled along a seaside promenade. Hilariously, we stumbled on to the filming of the Life of Pi movie when visiting the Puducherry Botanic garden. We didn't understand why the gate was locked up, so we just stood there until a security guard noticed and rushed over to open the gate, apparently taking us for movie stars - easy mistake. We then wandered around enjoying the trees and dilapidated greenhouses and wondering why there were some many trucks and tents set up, until we finally wised up by reading someones ID badge. So look for us in the background f the movie!
After our brief cameo in Puducherry, we rode on to Malmallapurum, a small beach town known for its amazing stone carvings cut into massive boulders. This town was a major religious/political center around the 7th- 10th centuries, and giant caves carved into rock faces and beautiful carvings are present at seemingly every turn. We had a great time poking around looking at the ruins, and walking/swimming on the sandy beach that was surprisingly clean with the exception of the odd washed up puffer fish or bizarrely colored eel. This morning, we flew to from Chennai to Calcutta, saying goodbye to southern India.
We left Wayanad and headed via a 14 hour train trip to Tamil Nadu, the state directly East of Kerala. We we very lucky to sit next to a couple from Chennai and their three year old daughter, and shared lots of fun times and snacks. We spent the next half day seeing a temple and a fort in Trichy, a large city in central Tamil Nadu. This region of India is particularly known for awesome, gigantic temples dominated by gopurams - massive, intricately carved gateway towers. After leaving Trichy, we headed to Thanjavore, a city only a few hours away by bus. We sat next to Nawaz, a friendly guy who invited us to his house for coffee, and next thing we knew, his mom was making us biriyani and insisting we stay the night, we were watching his sister's wedding video, and David was driving his best friend's motorcycle. We spent most of the next day seeing another awesome temple, visiting an overgrown palace, and meeting up with Nawaz and his friend for dinner. They came up with a plan of a pizza 'friendship party' picnic that involved us blowing out candles and left us very impressed with their friendliness.
The next day, we were on the move again, this time to Puducherry, a former French colony where we vegged out in parks, caught an outdoor concert and strolled along a seaside promenade. Hilariously, we stumbled on to the filming of the Life of Pi movie when visiting the Puducherry Botanic garden. We didn't understand why the gate was locked up, so we just stood there until a security guard noticed and rushed over to open the gate, apparently taking us for movie stars - easy mistake. We then wandered around enjoying the trees and dilapidated greenhouses and wondering why there were some many trucks and tents set up, until we finally wised up by reading someones ID badge. So look for us in the background f the movie!
After our brief cameo in Puducherry, we rode on to Malmallapurum, a small beach town known for its amazing stone carvings cut into massive boulders. This town was a major religious/political center around the 7th- 10th centuries, and giant caves carved into rock faces and beautiful carvings are present at seemingly every turn. We had a great time poking around looking at the ruins, and walking/swimming on the sandy beach that was surprisingly clean with the exception of the odd washed up puffer fish or bizarrely colored eel. This morning, we flew to from Chennai to Calcutta, saying goodbye to southern India.
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