In the last six days Anu, Miriam, Anna and I have travelled through Kottayam, Alleppy, Varkala, Kovalam, Kochi, and hopefully tomorrow we’ll do Kumarakom before we get on our train to take us back to Ooty.
It’s been absolutely amazing. While I’ve been to some of these places before like Kovalam and Kochi, I think I’m a better traveler now… and I’m able to absorb so much more. Maybe it comes with getting older? I don’t know… I just feel like I’m so much more attentive to the big things as well as the details now than I used to be. And that’s great! But it’s also… exhausting! So lots of writing has been done in the past couple of days, just to sort of clear my head a little before the sights and experiences of the next day come rushing at me!
My favourite part of the trip? Well, I’d say it was coming “home” after travelling to yet another town, city or beach. “Home” is where Anna and her family live. It’s a huge old house in a small little village called Vazhoor, about 45 minutes outside of Kottayam. Anna is a friend of Anu’s from when they were doing their Masters in Chennai and she’s been our host/guide over the last couple of days and is absolutely awesome. Her home has sort of been “base camp” for us this trip. We travelled most of every day and while it’s been so great and we’ve seen some really beautiful sights, we were always so happy to be able to come back “home” at the end of the journey, eat simple food, live like they live and sleep in a bed that’s now become familiar. I’m always blown away by hospitality – the genuine kind that comes from whatever the person giving has to give. I want to be like that. I want to be comfort to the travelling person, to the lonely person, to the young and broke people (like us :P!)… To bless people the way I have been blessed!
Anu and I made a good team of photographers and we've got some amazing shots from this trip but you'll have to wait till I get back to Ooty to see them all. For now, here's a picture of the four of us in Cochin.
Kerala is beautiful, and Kerala is home. I don't know if I told you, but we had a couple of houses there for the longest time. Outskirts of Trivandrum, and Aluva. My dad was brought up there, and I lived there briefly too. We still go back sometimes for holidays, because we know so many people there, and my grandparents pretty much spent their lives there.
ReplyDeleteI miss you, Piu. I didn't realize how much until I looked at the photograph.