Alleppey, Venice of the East

After the beautfil National Park in Thekkady we headed for the coast to Alleppey. Also known as Venice of the East this place has the most beautiful and unique backwaters in Kerala. We went for a fantastic tour with small canoes in the small canals.

Houseboats in the morning

South Indian Thali meal. Exotic and weird for the western tourists. "Could we have spoons please? And what is this and what is that and-...."

"No, no, enough. Taste isso weird...where is my croissant??"

Captains House

Rice Paddy

Alapatty home stay, such a nice family!

Periyar Tiger Reserve

I'm sorry to disappoint you, but here are no tiger pictures. Instead we saw beautiful tea and coffee plantations and some other smalle animals such as birds, squirrels and elephants. And lots of spices of course. The elephant ride was included in our Spice Tour, otherwise we would never had done such a thing. 

Tea

Our lovely home stay, Meadow View Inn

Monkeyy

Kathakali Dancer, Keralas famous and traditional dance form. So so funny!

It was a bit scary I have to admit...

coffee

Tea Plantations

Coffee again

Cardamon

The legendary elephant ride!

Pepper

Pineapple

View Point, border between Kerala and Tamil Nadu

Periyar Lake

The most enthousiastic bird watcher (mum) was always last in the tourist group

Spot the elephant

Bamboo rafting

amused

Giant Squirrel

Meadow view from our home stay

Hunsur and Kovalam Beach

In the following texts I will put pictures from our journey in Kerala. The first days we spent in Hunsur with my host family and after that we proceeded with a night bus all the way to Trivandrum in Southern Kerala.

Women empowerment project in Hunsur

Evening at the host family

Amma and Mamma sitting and talking in the garden

Mum became a bit sick after the exhausting bus ride so she rested in our nice hotel room...I had planned a bit too hard beginnig for our journey.

Lighthouse Beach, Kovalam

Dreaming about Lakshadweep, Nightmare at the airport

Here in India we had one slogan with the other volunteers that could be applied on everything: Never Expect Anything.  This country is so full of uncertainty that it's easier to be without any expectations in order to avoid unnecessary disappointments. During our travel with Mum we have took it easy, done the things that felt right in the moment and didn't have any "must do" or "must see"'s. And so far our travel had went without any complications or bigger  problems. There was however one thing that I took for granted. One thing that I'd planned a long time and dreamed about many months. Our journey to the Lakshadweep islands. A little bit more exclusive and expensive journey, something special we wanted to do together now when mum came so far away to visit me. During my half year here I tried never to expect anything. But since we had booked the flights and the accommodations at the islands I thought that this thing would be certain. But of course, we had one more lesson to learn from our dear India. Never expect anything.

It went wrong already in the morning. The taxi didn't arrive because the man who we trusted to book it had somehow forgotten it. We took an other taxi a little bit later but arrived in good time at the airport. We had to wait for a while before the check in would open. We were happy and excited. But at the check in desk our smiles were wiped away when the guy asked for an entry permit to the islands. We showed all the payment receipts and bookings and flight tickets, but no. Without permission you're not going anywhere. I knew that, but the permit was supposed be included when you make the reservation for the islands. We were so angry and panicked. We had one day of bureaucratic hell in head of us.

We spent 7 hours at the airport fighting with Air India and the Lakshadweep tourism office. The flight for the next day was full but we could get the extra seats if we payed the double prize for the new tickets. We made many angry phone calls to the tourism office so that they switched of their phone in the end. They said that they never received any proof of payment even though we had sent them mails with all the required information. No one was taking any responsibility and it was all a big mess. Mum fought till the end, arguing with the officials and managers at the airport. I was totally lost. Just wanted to go home to Finland and quit this country where nothing works and where you never get any clear directions or answers from anyone. In the end we faced a problem with the airline company and the Lakshadweep Tourism office. The airline company needed the entry permit to book new flights for us and the Tourism office needed the new flight tickets to give us the permit. Talking about well arranged cooperation between these two.

We manage to book the new expensive flights and headed for the tourism office in Kochi. We hadn't eaten anything that day, but we survived on our adrenaline reserves. At the tourism office it came out that the problem was bigger than we had thought. They never really received the payment, not reading their emails properly wasn't the only problem. So we had booked new expensive flights to the islands but we had no accommodation booked or anything. My mum had the invoice of the payment but the tourism agents had never received the money... We started calling Mum's bank and finally someone answered back in Finland. They checked the necessary things and it came out that probably the money was never sent because of some security questions and arrangements that had to do with money transfer to India. So they were not fooling us at the office. Somehow we got it all managed at the there, we booked new accommodation for three days and gave them all the missing information. In the end, we were not totally innocent in the case, we should have checked things more carefully. But the agency should have contacted us. They had my contact details and they knew that we had booked flights to the islands. Why couldn't they call me and ask about the payment and the other things missing?

It is probably because of some problems with the small flights to the islands. Everyday there are locals waiting at the airport, hoping to get the left over seats from stupid tourists like us. There is only one flight per day and all the flights are fully booked for at least one month in the future. That is why they have the system with the entry permit. To get more free seats in the fully booked air-plains..or at least it's one of the reasons.

At the moment I'm again at the airport. And guess what? The flight is delayed and should part at 12.50 instead of 10.20. So we will miss a half day on the islands in addition to the day we missed yesterday. But never mind. Never expect anything. Maybe the flight will be cancelled after one hour, who knows. The thing is that we have learnt so many lessons again about India and its people and about how things are working here (or not working). Never take anything for granted. never expect anything.

Tourist Species

India is well known for its huge diversity in almost everything; languages, religions, cultures, people, nature and so on. A careful observer might also notice the diversity of different tourist species among all the other things. These can be found all over the country, the highest densities being in special tourist areas where the tourists prefer to gather during specific times of the year. The best time to spot as many different tourist species as possible is during the tourist season (november to february) but many species can also be found througout the year. The different species can be distinguished be outer appearance and behaviour.

The Besserwisser is a kind of species that knows everything worth knowing. It wants to enjoy its own smartness to the extent that it is always teaching others. It loves to teach especially the tourist guides by asking questions and then answering them itself. Some bessewissers also overestimate their own English skills and try to correct the Indian people's pronounciation. This is funny to observe as the bessewissers themselves quite often have a very strong and weird accent. You could say that some bessewissers have a lack of social intelligence and are not able to see themselves from the outside. Besserwissers are hard to distinguish only by their outer appearance since there is a wide variety of different looking individuals. But their behaviuor reveals them even faster.

India Expert s know everything about India after they've been in the country a couple of days or weeks. They know exactly what India and the Indians are like after only having a short encounter with them. India Experts make fast conclusions about everything and tend to mix their on own prejudices in their statements. You could almost say that this species is the expert of generalizing. The India Experts do not necessarily spend a long time in India and during their stay they tend to only strengthen their own prejudices about the country and its people. They are also very convinced of their own countrys superiority to every other country and therefore fail to learn anything knew from their journeys. India expert are also hard to distinguish by outer appearance. Most of the tourists have traces of the India Expert behaviour in the beginning, but many loose these while spending more time in the country.

The Naive Saviour came to save the world and the poor. It brought its old shoes and toys to the poor slum children. Also wild dogs on the beaches and cows on the street are a part of the this species saving program. The naiv saviour has huge pity for everything in the country and feels sorry for everything that is not the same as in its own home country. It thinks that the only right way to do things is in its own manner and feels sorry for the local people not realising it. The Naive Saviou has sometimes a hard time seeing the reality of things and is overly convinced by its own ability to save to world and make a difference.

The Careful (neurotic) Traveller always carries around cleansing wipes and a variety of hand desinfection bottles. These items are used every ten minutes. The Careful (neurotic) Traveller is therefore easy to spot in the crowd. This species is afraid of virtually everything and takes serious safety precausions in every action. It have taken food supplies from home, not to be forced to taste the tasty local cuisine. The careful (neurotic) Traveller never takes risks and prefers to plant its journeys very carefully. Quite often this species manage to miss very many nice experiences such as delicious local food, local culture and traditions and so on.

The Typical Backpacker has its own holy book: the travel guide. It might be lonely planet or some other nice book with lots of nice advices for the traveller. The Typical Backpacker can be distinguished by its huge backpack and dirty hippie-tourist clothes, and of course the travel guide. Backpackers tend to gather in specific places called backpacker paradises. These are highly recommended in the tourist guides. The backpackers form their own communities and might even stay in one place for a longer time. The backpacker paradises are places cut from the real world and the populations consists of foreigners only, since many backpackers tend to have prejudices against the local people. Some backpackers however manage to break away from the rooster coop (expression borrowed from 'The White Tiger' by Aravind Adiga) and succed to experience the real side of the country as well.

The Volunteer Tourist (sometimes even Voluntourist) knows what the 'real' India is like. This species do sometimes feel superiour to other tourist species as it have stayed in the country a longer time and lived the local everyday life. Eventhough sometimes arrogant towards other tourist the Volunteer Tourist is more humble towards the locals than many other species. It have realized that things can be done differently in different cultures and that something being different doesn't mean its wrong or bad. Sometimes the Volunteer Tourist might however be blinded by its own big understanding of the indigenous culture and fail to reflect rationally and independently on things. The Volunteer Tourist is constantly torn between its own culture and the local culture and therefore has to find its own way of coping with all the differences. The voluntourists don't like tourist places in general since it they don't like to be treated like normal tourists. The females can be distinguished by wearing local clothes as sarees or chudidas, the males sometimes weare loongis.

Unfortunately my time is running out now and I have to leave some other species to be described an other time. Here you can still get an overview of some of the different Indian Tourist species. Please note that many Tourists tend to be a mixture of many species and therefore obtain features from many different species. You can also try to find out which species you would be yourself, or which combination of species. As a conclusion I would also like to note that all the species are nice and beautiful in their own way and it is always nice to meat different species on your journey!