Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Kumarakom

This is a place that I had been waiting to visit coz i felt it as a shame not visiting this beautiful place being a mallu !! After our chikmagalur trip, we decided to goto Kumarakom. Johnson fixed a deal - Rs.8500 for 8 of them which we felt was quite cheap. Our next mission was to gather 8 of them. Though there were 9 probabilities, only 5 of them turned up finally !!


*ing :- Johnson (Dingan) , Reji (Koshavan), Richi (Luttapi), Jacob (Padayappa) and Me (Tonappan).


Our up and down tickets were booked by train but to our disappointment the onward journey tickets were in WL and didnt get confirmed. After a lot of discussions, we decided to go till Palakaad by train in general class and then Palakkad to Kottayam by train again. Kumarakom is 13 kms away from Kottayam. With no further delay we rushed to Yeshwanthpur railway station to board the Kannur express and here starts our journey to Gods own country !!





This being my 1st time travel in a general compartment, I found it very interesting !! There were lot of funny incidents during our travel which kept us laughing throughout the journey :D. We reached Palakkad at 4:30 am and from there boarded the 5:30 train to Alappuzha. We got down at Cherthala station (19kms away from Kumarakom) at about 11 am and travelled by Auto to Kumarakom.
On reaching Kumarakom we were all thrilled to see our houseboat waiting for us !! All of us fell in love at the very first sight. The interiors of the houseboat was like a 5-star accomodation and it looked posh !!







Though food was part of the package, we bought some extra fish and prawns considering that we would need more since Kumarakom is famous for Karimeen (A type of fish).








We then started our journey on the Vembanaad lake. The scenic beauty made us feel guilty of staying away in a metro city !! We went past many houses and churches along the shore of the lake. We even spotted localite families traveling in boats which made us  realize that boats were one of the main mode of transport in this part of Kerala. I had earlier seen this in many movies and now got to see this live. 





We halted at an isolated island. It was very pleasant to lie on the boat and look the stars in the clear sky. The moon was hiding behind the coconut trees and I was tempted to hum few old black and white songs !! :D.. We kept gossipping about each others lives and had lots of Karimeen fry and prawns. We jumped into the water with life jackets and even tried our hand in fishing.After long hours of chatting we went to our bedrooms and had a comfortable sleep.





The next day we woke up and got ready by about 8 am. We had our breakfast and returned to the pick up point by about 9 am. After settling accounts with the houseboat dealer, we headed towards the most happening place in Kerala - Cochin. A place that gained popularity for rowdism and IT.

We caught a bus to Cochin from Cherthala and reached there by about 11am. Our 1st spot was the Deutsche palace. From the outside it hardly looked like a palace (Few of the houses in Kerala are bigger than the Deutsche palace :P).. But the history and architecture of this place kept us interested in spending some time here.





From here we headed towards the Jewish Synagogue. Though it looked very normal from outside, it was royal inside. All of us had n number of questions running in our head. We clarified all our doubts with a jewish lady who was incharge of the synagogue.





Our final spot for the trip was the marine drive. We had lunch at Kayees hotel (which is the most popular and a must visit hotel in Cochin) and then headed towards the boat jetty. We travelled in a boat and reached Marine drive by about 2 pm. Marine drive was a bit disappointing since it didnt match our expectation. By about 4pm we departed to Ernakulam south Railway station to board the train to Bangalore.
This was a different experience for all of us coz we didnt have to strain one bit. All we did was relax !! We all missed Alex who was our main entertainer for all other trips.

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