Bike trip in Western Ghats

Another amazing trip has just extended my first-time-experience list: bike trip in southern part of wonderful Western Ghats forming a natural border between Tamil Nadu and Kerala. For the first time in my life I spent 3 whole days sitting on a bike (my bum is still hurting and I'm sure if it could talk it would curse me ;-)) and riding in God's own country. Despite very bad weather forecast (it was supposed to be heavily raining all 3 days!!!) we hadn't given up and set out for the unforgettable adventure. And we were rewarded for our courage because finally the weather was just wonderful with only few showers.

We were a nice group of 11 bikes and 1 car: guys and gals, Indians and foreigners, mostly members of Chennai Trekking Club, all of them just fantastic people full of energy and optimism. We started from Chennai on Thursday evening taking an A/C sleeper bus to Madurai. Chatting, playing UNO and having a lot of fun we proved that we are really ready to spend 3 not-always-easy days together. We reached Madurai early in the morning, took a breakfast, collected bikes from transporting agency and were getting ready to set out when the first complication turned up: Peter (the main organizer and founder of CTC) has lost his bike keys!!! Isn't it just a nice start? ;-) Fortunately guys were able to find a handy locksmith who, after some fighting with the lock, was able to open it and we could finally start our adventure...

Every day was somehow special. Day one was marked by ongoing problems with Peter's bike (it's funny that the chief organizer, who had been bombarding us with warnings that every biker must make sure that his bike is in good condition, was finally the only one having problems ;-)); posing for photojournalists; attacking mango stall; stealing corn from a field (Indian friends were quite scared when they saw me eating raw corn and were threating me with consequent stomach problems...oh please, raw vegetable can be actually good for your health!!!); having the first (and fortunately the last as well) accident when Parri and Balaji slipped and fell down from the bike but luckily got away just with torn pants and some scratches; and after searching for a sleeping spot and considering even a big bus stop, finishing the day at the church front yard in Idukki and being lulled by frogs croaking and some bikers snoring ;-)

Day two was filled by riding through lush green tea estates spreading all around; photography session in a tea field and squatting on a road itself; small surprise trek through a forest full of bloodthirsty leeches (victims have survived just with a little blood lost ;-)), with 400m climb to the rock peak and amazing view on the valley below; refreshing swimming in a small lake and consequent cursing by a local guy for having spoiled the only source of drinking water (hey, we didn't pee in the water!!!) and a very long night search for the camp site ending at the lodge near Annamalai.

And finally the last day, no less beautiful with riding to Valpaarai with more of the tea estates and colourful villages; breathtaking view from Loam's point ; losing half of participants on the way to Solaiyar Dam; Peter riding his bike with 3 or even 4 pillions and finally relaxing, swimming, "transporting" non-swimmers (and even saving them from drowning!!!) and taking a group photo in the middle of a dam . Despite having had only a late breakfast, we reached our destination Coimbatore in a great mood and just in time to hop on our bus and head for Chennai.
During those three wonderful days we were riding in almost all possible weather conditions: unbearably hot sunny weather, refreshing cool mountain breeze, strong side-wind trying to fling us down from the bikes, heavy rain, untransparent mist thick as a cream, nice calm night with star-spangled sky...On our 700 km long way we were passing through small colourful villages, we were surrounded by lovely valleys and imposing mountain peaks, endless green tea estates spreading till the horizon, huge dams and scenic lakes...All the time admiring the purity, greenness and lushness which we are not used to in Chennai at all. We had a lot of fun and experienced some strong, unforgettable moments together. And I'm sure all of us are already looking forward to taking part in another bike trip which is definitely coming soon ;-)
So, this was my first bike trip and I'm sure I will reminisce it a lot during upcoming hot days, weeks and months.



Thank you Peter!!!

Karnataka & Kerala Trip III.

Kochi 14 & 16/05/2009

Kochi is one of the principal Indian seaports and the second largest city in Kerala. It's spread over the mainland Ernakulalm and few peninsulas and islands. On our way from Munnar to Kochi we stopped few times to see waterfalls (which were because of the dry season very small and the only big one was inaccessible due to safety causes) and to have lunch. That's why we finally reached our guest house in Kochi quite late and thus decided just to relax and enjoy the sea air. The guest house was again pretty deluxe, situated on Wellington Island just next to ferry station.

There was a lovely promenade lined with orange blossoming trees and huge poch white houses with a view of Ernakulam Island with its huge commercial and administrative builidngs.

And a little ship parked just under my windows ;o)

I spent some time just wandering around, sitting by the sea and reading my travel guide (oh, there are still so many places I'd like to visit!!!) on a cozy terrace. Next day we went to Allepey to enjoy famous backwaters. But I'll tell you more about that after I finish Kochi. In fact there is not that much to see in Kochi apart from Fort Kochi. So on Sunday morning we took a ferry and set out for Fort Kochi. The ferry journey was short but still quite exciting because I experienced another "first-time in my life"...I saw dolphins!!! Unfortunately they didn't make any big show but still it was great to see them playing in the sea.

Fort Kochi is the oldest part of the city. Occupied by the Portuguese in 1503, it was the site of the first European colonial settlement in India. Later it was occupided by the Dutch and the British until India gained independence in 1947. Even today after several centuries you can still feel Portuguese laid back atmosphere when you're wandering in small, calm, almost empty streets. We decided to walk 2 km to the first attraction: Dutch Palace. Well, it wasn't a very smart decision to walk because it was already 11 a.m. and the heat was quite unbearable. So when we finally reached (this time I felt it was at least 5 km!!!), I was all sweaty and looking like if I had had just taken a shower. Fortunately, we were just about to hide oureselves inside the Dutch Palace. From outside it wasn't anything special (but still you don't see this architectural style in India that often ;o)) Inside was a little exhibition describing the history of Kochi and showing portraits of all its Rajas.

Then we wandered in Jewish Town with its synagoge and small colourful shops.

Since it was Saturday (or Sabbath), even the shops were pretty calm and not that many shopkeepers were trying to allure me to their shops ;o) Then we continued to rest of "tourist attractions":

St. Francis Church - a proof of Portuguese presence in 16th century

And another one: Santa Cruz Cathedral

And finally famous Chinese fishing nets. It was quite funny to watch the poor guys making so much effort to put these huge creatures into the sea and after some time pulling them back with not a single fish inside. But since there was a fish market around, I guess they catch something from time to time ;o)

We spent some time sitting on the beach, relaxing and searching for dolphins (we so some more!!!) and then set out for the ferry and got back to our guest house to take some rest between our night train journey back to Chennai.

But I still owe you a story about Allepey backwater, right? Well, let's make it fast...

Allepey 15/05/2009

Kerala is well known for its backwaters. You can hire a boat or even a houseboat and spend some time (from few hours to few days) travelling between small town and villages, admiring wonderful pristine nature and watching day-to-day life of village people.

Given our time and money restrictions, our backwater trip was just 3 hours long but I really enjoyed it. Here are some pics:

Our boat.

Big houseboat. You can see many of them all around. They are pretty deluxe and very expensive. But it's a great tourist attraction so I guess a very good business ;o)














Village people do really everything in the backwaters. This lady is washing dishes, others are washing clothes or their kids...However, it's not clean at all and I even wasn't temted to put my feet in. I saw one guy who threw an empty bottle into the river and then jumped inside with its little daughter to take a bath.















Finally I have a picture of a guy wearing "lungi" Isn't it funny? Ladies are all covered in tons of cloths and guys are wearing kind of skirt ;o)

So, that was my biggest and best trip so far. Let's hope there will be some more like this. Now I'm leaving for a 3-day bike (motorbike!) trip to Western Ghats and it's raining quite heavily there so please keep your fingers crossed that we are not washed away ;o)

Karnataka & Kerala Trip II.

Munnar 12-14/05/2009

We arrived to Cochin railway station very early in the morning, were picked up by our driver (this time a young guy called Ismail that later turned to be a very impatient driver with suicidal tendencies) and taken to the guest house. However, since the guest house was on an island and there was a strike on the bridge scheduled for 5:30 am, we could only spend one hour in the guest house and had to set out for Munnar.

Munnar is a little town located in the Idduki district in the south Western Ghats. It's a hill resort with an elevation of 1700m famous for its tea plantations. I was sleeping almost all the way from Cochin (it takes 4 hours) but when I opened my eyes I was just amazed. Kerala is called God's Own Country and Munnar region is definitely a perfect proof of a truthfulness of this apppellation. It's just a paradise on the earth: little villages scattered on hills covered by shining green tea plantations. You can see tea wherever you look, on every hill, even on the steepest one, and you just wonder how these tea pickers manage to do their job in such a terrain and very often without shoes!!!

On our way, we stopped in a spice garden. It was very interesting. I saw coffee, pepper, cardamom, vanilla, cotton, passion fruit, papaya and many other plants and trees for the first time.

We were staying in Mattupetty 10 km from Munnar. We didn't know the exact address of our guest house so Ismail was searching for it for a while and when we finally found it I just didn't believe that it was it! A wonderful old English style house on a top of a hill, surrounded by tea plantations and with a view on Mattupetty dam. OH MY GOOD!!!

My tiny room ;o) Normaly guests pay Rs. 7000 for this room. We only paid Rs. 150 for bottled mineral water that we drank during our stay.

View from the guest house














And a cherry on a cake was a concierge with his assistant who were taking care of us like if we were not a prince and a princess, but a king and a queen!!! They were making wonderful meals for us, preparing afternoon tea with biscuits and serving it in a lovely living room, and all the time asking whether they could do anything for us. I really felt like a famous movie star...I really didn't expect to experience something like this during my stay in India where I wanted to live a very modest and simple life ;o)

After our late morning tea and some rest, we set out for a sightseeing. Our first destination was Mattupetty Dam. Since it was a very nice day and the dam was just under the hill, we decided to let our driver go and to walk a bit. Poor Ismail was so horrified: "Why do you want to walk? It's very far! It's 2 km!!! I will drop you!" He just couldn't understand that we want to enjoy a little (2 km is really faaaar) walk in this wonderful landscape and he seemed to be really disappointed when we refused his services ;o) So we walked down the road winding in tea plantations and it was a very nice walk. And after this heroic performance (imagine: 2 km of walking down the hill!!!) we were rewarded by a very nice view of the huge dam surrounded by forrests and mountains.

While walking along the dam we met an elephant walking on the road and another taking a bath...Not a wild one and not a real bath. It was a trained elephant used for elephant rides and was taking a trunk shower in barrel of water ;o)

Our next destination was so called Top station from which you can have a wonderful view of surrounding mountains. On our way up the hill the lovely sunny weather suddenly changed, sky was covered by ugly black clouds and finally it started to rain. Ismail seemed to be pretty pesimist when saying: "Program cancelled", however, I was quite determined and was ready to walk to the view point even in rain. Fortunately I didn't have to because the rain stopped and let us go and enjoy the wonderful view.














The only negative of this Top station trip was the way back down the hill. Ismail is really a crazy driver!!! He was driving fast like a hell down this narrow zigzag road, overtaking in turns and in hills where he just couldn't see anything and all the time honking like a fool. Several times we missed a car in opposite direction just by few centimeters!!! I was scared like never before while travelling by car and felt so sorry for being atheist. Fortunately, we survived and not just this one crazy ride but all the others that followed in upcoming days ;o)

The last part of our Tuesday program was a Kathakali show. Kathakali is a classical Indian dance-drama (katha-kali) originating in Kerala in 16th century. Two guys with a thick layer of make-up and quite complicated costumes were partly dancing and doing special gestures and body movements to tell us a story about one of Indian gods. They didn't say a single word and only expressed themselves by those movements and grimaces while accompanied by a drum, little cymbal and singing. Well, although I would never understand the story without having it read before, it was just amazing!!! Especially the guy dressed like a lady was just awesome with all his facial expression. If I hadn't seen him getting dressed before the show, I would have thought he was a woman!!!














It was a really great ending of this wonderful day. But another surprise was ahead of us! When we got back to our guest house and were waiting for the dinner, a thunderstorm started. It was my first thunderstorm in India and, dude, it was so scary! But thanks to this storm and a powercut we enjoyed a romantic dinner with candles...not bad ;o)

Next day we just wanted to go for a long walk in mountains or tea plantations and relax in this God's own garden. To our big disappointment, we found out that walking (or even trekking) is really not a very favourite hobby in India and thus there are no paths for walking. Entering tea plantations is strictly prohibited and "trespassers will be prosecuted!!!", walking in forests is either prohibited or you need a permission from forest office. So after desperate driving all around and searching of any nice place for walking, we gave up, got out of the car and walked just on the road. But still it was really nice with tea plantations and mountain view all around.










































And that was the end of our awesome stay in Munnar. Next day we said goodbye to our deluxe guest house and its fantastic, always smiling, friendly concierge spoiling us with his great food and we set out back to Cochin where we were supposed to spend 3 days.

Karnataka & Kerala Trip I.

Last week I went for my longest trip so far. Together with Vimarshan (I've already told you about this guy who I first met on IndiaMike) we spent 8 amazing days in the south-western part of India: Karnataka and Kerala. Thanks to Vim and his connections, this trip was really unforgettable and for the first time in my life I felt like a princess: staying in very nice guest houses, being driven by our own driver, being served by army of servants (OK, not army but usually two ;o)) and all the time being called Madam. And what is the best about all this comfort? It was all GRATIS!!! Well, this was quite an unusual experience for a poor Czech girl, daughter of railway workers ;o) Vim, thanks a LOT once again!!!

So, let's get it started!!!We left Chennai on Friday evening taking a night train to Mangalore in south of Karnataka.

Sleeper class is very cosy, isn't it?


Mangalore 09-11/05/2009

We arrived to Mangalore on Saturday morning. Our driver picked us up at the railway station, took us to the guest house (very nice one just 20 m from the beach) and after some rest we set out for our first sight-seeing. In fact in Mangalore itself there is not that much to see so we took full advantage of having a car with a driver just for us and we travel all around. Already when travelling in the car I experienced my another (and there were supposed to be more during the whole trip!) first time in India: I saw a jack fruit tree. This fruit is just so funny! It's so huge and growing not just on branches but also directly on the tree's trunk. I just don't want to imagine what happens when the fruit is ripe and falls down.



















Our first destination was Moodabidri - a little town 35 km from Mangalore. This town is a center for Jainism and has 18 Jain temples among which the most prominent is the Thousand Pillar Temple. It's a very old (it was built in 1430) and really nice temple. As you can see on the picture below (it was strictly prohibited to take photographs so unfortunately I had to download this pic) it's completely different from temples in Tamil Nadu (no gopuram, no tank, no little statues of gods, no colours). Although we weren't sure about the number of pillars (they didn't seem to be thousand) we had to admit that the carvings on them were pretty nice.














Then we continued to another "tourist attraction": Gomateshwara (Bahubali) statue. This granite statue is the second highest (I wasn't able to find the exact height, different sources give different information), the oldest (same problem as with the height ;o)) and the most important Jain pilgrimage centre in India.



















Next destination was Agumbe - little hill village famous for its sunset point. Since it was too early for sunset and it was not a very clear day, we just took a quick look from the view point and continue to Sringeri. We went to see another famous tourist place: Vidyasankara temple. Again, it was very different from shining colourful temples I was used to from Tamil Nadu and it looked really ancient (it was built in 14th century). Unfortunately we had a bad luck again: 1) the temple was closed and supposed to be open one hour later, 2) president was supposed to come to the temple that day, so there were many policemen with huge guns who were kind of disturbing my meditation at this holy place ;o)














And that was the end of our first day sightseeing. We had a long way ahead of us so we set out back to our guest house. Although we saw quite nice places, we weren't very happy about how the first day looked like (it was kind of American style hop on-hop off sightseeing and we spent too much time in car). So we decided to do it differently from next day on: fewer places but more time spent there.

Next day we headed to the north - destination Udupi. On our way we stopped and took a morning walk on a lovely, deserted Kaup Beach before we continued to Malple port well known for St. Mary's Islands.




























After 30 min of waiting for a boat and 45 min of travelling we finaly reached the islands. St Mary's Islands is a set of four small islands known for the unique formation of basalt rocks which have crystallized into columns and split into vertical hexagonal blocks. When you see these rocks, you really don't believe that they were created by Mother Nature! Despite the heat which was already culminating we spent some time relaxing on the beach, watching waves smashing on rocks and Indian people swimming in their clothes, we were jumping and climbing on rocks and examining almost every corner ;o)




























Then we continued to our destination Udupi, city located 60 km north of Mangalore. It is considered to be one of the holiest places (well, there are many "the holiest places" all around) for pilgrimage in southern India. It's famous for its 800 years old Sri Krishna Temple. Since Vim is not that much into temples, I went inside on my own. It's rather small but very interesting temple. The interior is in wood and it looks almost like a nice old mountain cottage. I was just wandering around and enjoying the peaceful atmosphere when a priest joined me and decided to be my guide. He told me a lot about the temple and Lord Krishna but I didn't understand him much due to his very strong Indian accent. He showed me even some non-public places like dinning room of priests and graveyard of the most important priests who weren't incinerated but buried into ground. It was quite nice to have this guide until he start his: "You're a very good girl. I really like you. You will never forget Udupi and me! Give me your number" So with "I'm sorry, I don't have cellphone" and "Thank you" I just ran away ;o)



















From Udupi we returned to our guest house and spent the rest of day on the beach. First I wanted to swim (in my bikini) because we thought it would be empty but unfortunately it was pretty crowded and I wasn't brave enough to strip. So we were just enjoying the evening breeze, watching waves (they were huge!!!), scaring poor little crabs and walking around. It was quite nice even without swimming (although it was really tempting).

Plan for our last day in Mangalore was quite simple: Bekal Fort. Spreading over 40 acres it's the biggest fort in Kerala (yes, we left Karnataka for a while although we were just 50 km from Mangalore). The shining red-stone fort is towering above a lovely sandy beach so together with a clear blue sky and green palms around the play of colours is just amazing. It was hot like a hell but with all the breathtaking views I enjoyed it a LOT.










































This place is quite famous (a movie was shooted here) because it's just wonderful when you're standing on that "balcony" are waves are smashing on the rocks around and splashing on you ;o)















Since we were supposed to catch an evening train for Cochin, after two hours at the fort we headed back for Mangalore. But on our way we stopped in Pilikula Nisargadhama. There is a zoo but unfortunately it was closed. So we just relaxed for a while in a very well maintained park with a big lake...If only we have some parks like this in Chennai (well, we have some but not that big and not that nice ;o)).















So, that was the Karnataka part of my big trip. On Monday evening we took a night train to Cochin from where we continued by car to Munnar and thus the Kerala part started...And the write up about amazing time in Munnar, Cochin and Allepey will come soon...hopefully ;o) So stay tuned!!!