First Time - India
My first trip to India was amazing, and I hope to be back.
India was everything I wasn’t expecting. I was expecting to find massive poverty, but I didn’t. I thought I would see massive amounts of people like in China, but I didn’t. All I saw was the green of the coconut and palm trees. The blue of the water and the bright colours of the saris. The most stunning thing I saw was the clear blue skies. I thought it would be brown/yellow from pollution, yet there was none.
All of these things are probably because I was in Kerala, near the southern tip of India. It is the “vacation” spot for most people in the country because of its nice beaches and sparse population. It was hot as we hit temperatures of 35, 36 and 38 C. It was winter time, and the temperatures would only go up in the summer time when almost no one came to visit.
The Backwaters of Kerala hold a special place. It is a green Venice.
The biggest thing to do was the “backwaters,” which weaves from the northern city of Kochi down to the city of Alleppey in the center of the state. The backwaters is a collection of lakes, rivers and streams which make up India’s version of Venice. The streams are so small that they can only be navigated by small canoes, and the lakes had huge houseboats. We spent most of our time in the backwaters, mostly using canoes. We had a chance to stay in a cottage near one of the rivers. The whole experience was exactly what I wanted: lots of water and green.
I had a chance to try cooking some Indian food at a great homestay called LeeLu’s. We couldn’t stay there since they were fully booked, but they made our experience wonderful by offering suggestions and making reservations without being pushy. Mr. Roy recommended a few other homestays to go. The cooking class was done by his wife, and it was very good. We made some pumpkin curry, string bean curry and some fish curry. All of it was amazing.
We ended our vacation as we began it, in the small beach town of Kovalam, farther south. It was a nice, clean beach with huge waves. When the airline lost my baggage (beware when flying Tiger Airlines), the Kovalam Beach Hotel went out of its way to try and help me out. They were not successful, but it just showed what a great place this area is because they went out of their way to help me out.
I will go back to India.