The last three weeks - Mumbai to the South

Hi everybody!

Even though I'm already home for quite some time, there's still the last part of my travel, from Mumbai to Kerala, missing that I would like to add now.

Mumbai is a city with a great english heritage you can see in a great amount of colonial builidings, for example Churchgate Train Station, University of Mumbai or CST (Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus) also known as Victoria Station.

The first Day in Mumbai, we experienced the city as a quite vital, exiting city but due to the terrorist attacks our stay changed a bit. We vitnessed the shootings and blasts in Victoria Station (pictured above) in a small cafe, some 400 meters away.


From there we went straight to our hotel and the next day many things changed. The stores remained closed (the street markets, too) and in many spots, you still could find traces from the shooting.

We also gave interviews answering questions if we still feel save and if we would come back to Mumbai again and even though we felt save and could walk through many parts in a save and free way, we left Mumbai with the feeling of having seen the city from a distance and just partially having seen the real life.

From Mumbai Tanja and I went to a Beach where we split up and Tanja flew back home to Germany.

I went futher south with the destination of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the two southern Indian states. On the way I stopped twice, the first time in Hampi, a huge area, full of tempels and ancient bazaars and houses, situated in a landscape marked by crazy stone formations, that together with palms, banana plantations and rice fields builded a great setting. I just add some impressions with the indication, that the violet bike seen in one picture was my vehicle for the day and the discus-boats where necessary to cross the river dividing the area.

The second stop, I made in Mysore, a town famous for its palace and the second biggest christian church in India. Visiting the church in the morning you can observe the pupils from the chistian school next door, doing their puplic morning prayer.

In Mysore, I also got the chance to visit a beedies-factory (beedies = Indian cigarettes) as well as Aman, who has a phd in Ayurveda and sells all kinds of oils in his house.

Outside of Mysore for kilometers, you drive through green rice fields to visit small tempels with great artisan work or Brindavan Gardens, a huge artifical garden where many Bollywood movies got shot.

Having seen tigers in the wild, I had the dream of seeing elefants in the wild as well. Though I went to Wayanad, an area in the north of Kerala, where two national parks are situated. Together with (from l. to r.) Heather, Gustav, our two Indian guides and Laura we went to one of them on the search for wild elefants.

And after the morning mist disappeard, we got lucky and spotted a herd of eight elefants, that even started charging us, after we approached them too close.

From Wayanad I went to Tiruvannamalai, part of it in an old swiss steam train with nice elderly company.

Tiruvannamalai is famous for its tempel as well as a festival, that takes place once a year in which Hindus celebrate the appearance of one of their gods as a column of fire on top of a mountain next to the town. At the festival, in which I accidentally bumped into, huge crowds of people pilgrimage to the top of that mountain, where at six o'clock in the evening an elightment of a fire takes place.



One way takes about two hours and in certain distances along the way you can find water and bananas. Due to the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, there was high alert and military and police everywhere. The officals closed the very top of the mountain two hours before the enlightment and seperated the tourists as well as elderly ladies from the crowd

As the fire got enlighted at six o'clock, there were fireworks everywhere and the city and temple at the foot of the mountain became a sea of lights.

The seperation enabled us to be the first ones to see the fire, which turned out to be way smaller as we imagined it to be from what we've heard before. Nevertheless a great experience!

From Tiruvannamalai I went to Pondicherry, where I met again with Markus and Esther as well as Corinna and Thomas, two other Germans, that travelled with Markus and Esther for a while.

In Pondicherry you find evidences everywhere, that this part of India used to be a french colony.

Together we went from Pondicherry to Mamallapuram, a little tourist fishing village next to the sea and also famous for its quarrymen.

In Mamallapuram we also celebrated Esthers twenty-fifth birthday.

After two short but intense and funny days together we had to split up again and I went further south to see some hinduist temples in Trichy, Thanjavour and Madurai, everytime leaving with the compulsory blessing from the temple elefant.

In Madurai I got to know Wira, a Indian boy from Chennai, who decided to accompany me on the nine-hour busride from Madurai to Kochi and stay with me one day there before going back to Chennai.

After spending a day with Wira in Town, I went to see the backwaters the next day. The backwaters is a 900 km long net of watercanals, part natural, part artifical, broad and narrow and an amazing natural landscape. (in which I just had to take a bath!)

This net imbed islands where people live and work (mainly on coconut or banana plantations) The ladies produce ropes from coconutfibre and tourists have an easy life enjoying the coconut just been collected and prepared for them.

Kochi is also very famous for it's Kathakali Theater in which the actors wear splendid costumes and communicate not by words but through gesture and mime.

In the morning hours, you can observe the fishermen coming in and selling their catches on the fishermen market. Or you can help some fishermen at the chinese fishernets. In the evening you can buy the fresh fish from the merchants, take it to a restaurant, get it prepared and enjoy it with a "cup of tea" (that's the way they serve beer when it's not allowed to be drunk in public) as I did with Christian and Jan.

From Kochi I went further south to pass Allepey, where the temple elefant first did his job to join the rikschas and people later on the street.

And passing the palms dividing the canal of the backwaters from the rice fields, I went to the palms giving shadow on the beaches of Varkala, my last station.

Varkala is situated on top of a clip and a touristy but calm place to enjoy the last moments of the journey. And as if there was a circle to be closed, after 10 weeks I met Richard again, with whom I've been on Poon Hill in Nepal. A great coincidence at the end of a great voyage!

That's it! Hope you had fun and I could share a bit of my voyage and experiences with you!

Take care everybody!

Boris