Kerala Vacations

A trip on our boat

We were very excited at the thought of spending a few days on the company boat. It has been working well since we launched it in September, and has been successfully trying out routes and ideas the other boats can't do. It is narrow and has a shallow draft, and we were keen to test the idea of going South to Kollam.
Depending who you ask, if it possible to go to Kollam and it is not possible to go to Kollam. The crew are very experienced and if anyone could get to Kollam it was them!
We met the boat South of Alleppey and set off very quietly. The boat is driven by a petrol outboard which is very quiet and the peace was blissful!
After three days we discovered that you can get to Kollam, and you can't get to Kollam. It depends on the position of the shutter which lets the water into the backwaters and regulates the levels in the paddy fields. As you never know when the shutter is to be opened, making it impossible to get further South then Thottapally, planning a trip is hazardous! The official ferries no longer run all the way down the coast, although they are still advertised.
Our trip was  an adventure of wandering around the backwaters meeting various hazards to navigation and backtracking. Our way was blocked by a new bridge under construction, a fallen electricity cable and water hyacinth. Even achieving Thotapally required patience and many "short" cuts!
However, three days of pottering about the narrow canals, cruising the flat lands of the Kuttanad and navigating the waters of Lake Vembanad make a wonderful cruise as part of any holiday. More later.

GRT Temple Bay

GRT Temple Bay Occupying 46 acres close to the Shore Temple at Mamallapuram, the GRT Temple Bay is a very attractive resort of chalets, groups of rooms, villas, individual houses and rooms, some with sea views. They boast a quarter of an acre of swimming pools, one giving an uninterrupted view of the beach, the other large pool surrounded by new rooms at the back of the property. The best way to get around is by golf buggy, and if you start to walk anywhere a cheerful driver will pull up and offer you a ride. Our room faced the beach and the noise of the surf during the night's high wind reminded us that we were within feet of the bay of Bengal, and we woke to a dramatic view from our huge picture window. The room was large and luxurious with a terrace equipped with chairs and a rack to dry swimming costumes. Unusually for India, there was a kettle for tea and coffee along with snacks and a mini bar. There are two restaurants, a grill and the main restaurant which serves a buffet as well as a la carte options. Food was speedily delivered and the breakfast buffet one of the best we have encountered anywhere. The staff are efficient and helpful, and it is difficult to fault this resort, at least at the end of the season when it was admittedly quiet. The new rooms towards the back of the resort provide more intensive hotel accommodation, and it will be interesting to see if the greater number of visitors impact on the high quality of what is at present on offer.

Arriving in Chennai

Arriving in Chennai in the early morning is a pungent reminder of coming back to the East. The airport is concrete and smells of the less exotic aspects of a visit to India. Immigration is swift and casual, but a visit to the loos is another reminder that we have at last arrived.
The drive South to Mamallapuram takes in the long sweep of beach with its resident fishermen. This community suffered great loss in the Tsunami, and the concrete block houses built for the fishermen are still not finished.
Mamallapuran is an old port and is now a World Heritage Site on account of the temples which litter the area. Most were built between the 7th and 9th Centuries, many carved from a single block of stone. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahabalipuram) The whole area has the aspect of a series of demonstration samples of the art and architecture of the time, my favourite sculpture being an unfinished panel of an elephant with a baby playing underneath its tummy.
The stones are unprotected and other visitors can make it a noisy and litter-covered experience, but a short time looking at the detail in the sculptures shuts out modern annoyances. The Shore Temple is on the beach, and a stunning place to visit at sunset or sunrise.
All around the temples are stone carvers who work the soft stone of the area. They specialise in Hindu deities, but visitors to the markets and tourist shops of South India will recognise the delicate and skilled carvings of elephants and other animals. The stonecarvers line the route out of town and display their wares outside their lean-to shacks where they both live and work, oblivious of the health hazards of the stone dust.
Back to GRT Temple Bay, the walk along the beach was beset by the usual problems where you have a fishing community, but the naturalist may have been pleased by the huge piles of dead anchovies and large puffer fish on the shoreline. There are several small guest houses and restaurants on the beach.

Visit to Awake Mercy Children's home

One of the most enjoyable parts of our visit to South India this year was the brief time we spent at the Awake Mercy Children's Home. Clients often ask us if we know of a suitable place  to send a donation to help some of the most disadvantaged people they see whilst in India, and whilst we have been able to direct their giving, we had not found a charity which we felt we especially wanted to support. Awake Mercy really showed us what can be achieved here with modest amounts of money to give children the opportunity to lift themselves out of a cycle of poverty through education and the provision of a loving environment.
Full details of the home and what it achieves can be found at http://www.hapsi.com, but the web site alone cannot begin to give a picture of the way in which Krishnamoorthi and Elizi and all of the children act as a loving family. Our visit was dominated by the children, who wanted to tell us all about themselves and to make sure we enjoyed ourselves. We sang songs in English and Tamil; "The Wheels on the Bus" came up more than once, and the chldren danced for us showed their great capacity to entertain themselves with nothing other than their dirt plot to play in.
Keralavacations will be supporting the home with a direct donation for every customer who books a holiday with us, but we hope that others will also be able to help them realise their ambition of providing adequate accommodation for 50 children before the start of the new school year. They have land, a well, the beginning of a garden and a building which has reached roof level- and then stopped.
Donations can be made online via the English Charity, (No: 1122876) which is run by volunteers and makes sure that every penny goes to India.