David Grajal

According to the Lonely Planet, do a night on a houseboat is a must do in India and one the ten things to do before you die.

Houseboat in Allepey

For 90 EUR we got a one bedroom houseboat equipped with 3 men for 24 hours. These men drove the boat, cooked us food (lunch, tea, dinner and breakfast) and took care of us as if we were royalty. They drove us to the backwaters of Allepey for about 6 hours. It was a beautiful cruise where you pass by locals villages and watch as daily life unfolds. Women were washing their clothes, children were bathing and playing, men were drinking toddy and chilling out. Meanwhile I was reading and staring out at nature from the terrace of the boat. Life doesn’t get any sweeter than this.

Under a mosquito net, for the first time in my life

At dinner time they stopped the boat for the night by a little village. We took a small canoe to explore the small canals. We did this as the sun was setting and it was stunning!

Kerala backwaters sunset

Beautiful sunset

Levantandonos y preparando el camino de regreso

Relaxing on the boat

This was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had. It’s very relaxing and you get to absorb the most beautiful scenery and the local culture. It’s again something that can’t be explained, it’s something to be felt and experienced.

Houseboats

The state of Kerela is known as God’s own country due to its lush greenery and beautiful backwaters. Ann joined me on the club of “I don’t understand what’s going on” because in Kerala they speak Malaylam which is similar to Tamil but different. Same same, but different as they say in Asia. Our plan was to stay one night in Cochin but somehow it turned into two, due to laziness, the fact that we somehow managed to gain an extra day on our itinerary and that luckily we met some couchsurfers who were able to give us the local feeling.

Cochin

My first time in an hindu temple

Fort Cochin is infamous for its Portuguese and Dutch influence which is still evident in its architecture. The houses and churches especially. It’s actually an island with bridges and ferry connections to the main land area known as Erankulum We also had a chance to watch the traditional Kerelan dance – Kathakali. There are a lot of similarities to the Tamil traditional dance of Bharathanatyam such as the hand gestures and the facial expressions, but Kathakali is much slower paced and it always tells a story which can go on for hours. We saw a performance specifically for tourists so it was only one hour long and the dance was completely explained making it much more enjoyable. It was beautiful!

After Pondicherry we headed to Kodaikanal, a hill station close to the Kerala border that has a long history as a retreat and popular tourist destination. You can notice the change in temperature instantly! The air is fresh and the hills are filled with amazing, beautiful and mysterious mist. We stayed in suite on the very edge of the hill, with panoramic views of the towns below. We stopped in Kodaikanal for a few days just chilling out and enjoying the nice weather.

Kodaikanal hotel

Kodaikanal lake

Kodeikanal magic mist ...

... and gorgeous views

Dancing bollywood style

Auroville is a self-sufficient community a few kilometers from Pondicherry. It stretches across a vast area of land amidst some local villages. Wikipedia describes this place this way “Auroville (…) was founded in 1968 by Mirra Richard and designed by architect Roger Anger. Auroville is meant to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realize human unity. Mirra envisioned a town where unity will be celebrated and all will have a spiritual vocation. The town has 1,700 people from over 35 different nationalities, from which about one third are Indians (more than 15% are French and 15% are German).

The four point Auraville charter:

1. Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville, one must be the willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness.
2. Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.
3. Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations.
4. Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.

We visited the beach entrance of the city and spoke to a frequent visitor there who has totally sold us the idealistic idea of it. Once we left the place we realized how big Auraville really is. It was extremely interesting for me, the people seemed extremely relaxed and calm and conscious of their lives and their environment. It was captivating,  far from the hippies smoking weed and doing nothing with their lives we saw in Mahabalipurum. I would love to  return to Auroville for a couple of weeks for an enlightenment experience!

Ann on her way to the mist

From Mahabalipurum we headed south on the East Coast Road till Pondicherry which was a former French colony and is considered an autonomous state where French is still an official language. This place was full of tourists!

Yes, 20 kids packed on one autorickshaw

The city is a strange place in South India where the traffic is not too crazy and the streets are clean and full of Mediterranean style houses. They have museums with lots of European antiques. At night, a lot of locals hang out in European parks and on the beach by the ocean front, where a big statue of Gandhi