Trivandrum
Jan. 2nd, 2020 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bethlakshmi ... yeah, now it's been a while, but while I wait for the Great Burlesque Expo web site update to finish its automated regression testing so I can approve my own pull request and then push through my latest changes to the production site... I want to return to journaling my amazing experiences so I don't leave them to my ever more faulty memory!
(if you didn't understand 1/2 of that... let me try this in normal human - I am the web development team for the Expo. Because I'm a one-woman shop, I have a whole bunch of sneaky tricks to make sure that I am making changes that do great good and very little harm. Hopefully tonight I'll finish another useful little thing and get it up and live for our users!)
Life's a Beach
Trivandrum is the capital city of the state of Kerala. That's the state that is the southernmost part of the West Coast of India. Tamil Nadu has the bragging rights of being the absolutely Southernmost tip of India with the city of Kanniyakumari - but Kerala crowds down pretty far on the West Coast, and it squeezes between the coast and mountain range, while running up the coast, and ending at Karnataka (where I had been while hanging out in Mysore and Bangalore).
It's a different language (Malayalam), and it's people have their own identity (Malayaly) - and in fact their own distinct look, as waves of African migration show on most people's features. There's a LOT of seafood here, and also coconut is in just about everything. The rice is puffier - really one could even say it's fluffier.
It's also an absolutely fertile place. It's great for growing spices and also medicines, and as such, it's also a home to Ayurveda. The weather is generally warmer than everything is more humid than in Karnataka or other points farther North and it definitely has a year round growing climate. There's a very wet monsoon season, but even then, my impression is that it's pretty warm.
Given all that - it's also a perfect tourist destination. Beaches + Spas are a huge part of the Kerala income, and Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram) is just one of those destinations. In fact, there are THREE international airports - both to help bring in more tourists, but also because a lot of folks that have families here work outside of India - Dubai a common place, but then so is the US! In fact, folks joke that you'll find Malayalies just about everywhere.
That's good and bad - it's super accessible to folks like me - it was really easy for me to hang out by myself, and negotiate just about everything in tourist spots... but then so, so many of the businesses at these spots are gauging their prices up to foreigners and it's all eyes on me and my American pocket book. I don't mean so much from a robbery perspective - but more from a constant hum of "buy this!" in some spots.
I only had two nights and 1 full day here, but we packed a LOT in!
Monday - morning
At crazy early (4AM? Maybe... it's a blur) - Amma and I got up and got ready to leave. I was nervous because the driver from our Bangalore to Mysore trip (the one who was like 2 hours late) was again driving us in Amma's car (the one that didn't start so well b/c of battery problems) to get me, and while we had *some* slack, the plane was going to leave at a certain time, and we didn't have two HOURS of slack!
But we managed. We were up and out only about 20 minutes late, which in India is like being ahead of time.
We did end up fueling up... and yep, with a Micro, the gas tank is under the hood. And yes, this car is toting 3 bags (two giant, one carry-on), me, Amma and the driver! Sleeping was impossible, although I zoned out here and there. We managed to get to the airport on the early side! Our only traffic was ~20-30 minutes at the tolls, which happened just as the morning commute ensued. Since the tolls were only maybe 20 minutes from the airport, this wasn't even all that stressful.
I said a quick goodbye to Amma - not wanting to drag it out and burst into tears (more) - and grabbed my crazy luggage and went off. On the way into Bangalore, I got rather screwed by a porter, who convinced me to over tip him seriously. Not being interested in repeating the experience, I carried my own luggage. By this point, I'd become a pro at Indian airports, my passport and itinerary were ready and in I went. Paying the extra bag fees (ugh, it basically doubled my ticket!) worked and checkin was easy. They in fact weight your bags as a whole, and it all worked. I got through security unscathed, and actually had some spare time. I went and got a head massage at the O2 spa - a common spa chain in India, very swanky, and then some coffee at one of the shops. Finally I was just hanging out at the terminal (blogging!) because the plane was at least 20 if not 40 minutes late.
The flight was fine - with IndiGo you can pre-order food, and I recommend it. Stuff runs out, and may not be available. I got the yogurt with muesli and was very happily surprised to see that it was alphonso mango! The US has really lame mangos, India has a ton of different mangos for all different places, growing season and purposes - the alphonso is one of the most reknown for it's juicy deliciousness (if you love this stuff, I recommend Gastropod's podcast - they have a whole show dedicated to the mango). I also had a very nice seat neighbor - once again my enthusiastic wearing of Indian clothing made me a friend. This time a sewn suit set - 4AM was just too early for sari draping. I'm not a saint.
The Trivandrum airport is snazzier than I remember, but still pretty small - basically 2 gates at the domestic side, so luggage was easy to find. Anil came and got me himself, and we were off and running!
Monday afternoon
Anil's family currently lives on top of a mountain in a lovely home decorated with really sharp yellow and gray accents. It's a small house for the 5 of us (2 daughters, Anil, his wife and me...) and they were so kind to give me my own bedroom (and bathroom)!! I think it all works better for the three folks that normally are there (Anil's wife, Anjitha and their two girls) - as Anil travels quite a bit during the year.
The house is on a mountain because it's really close to the very good school the two girls go to. The roads up and down the mountain are *terrifying* (no picture, I was too busy trying to convince myself that I wasn't going to die while riding in the auto!) - and also a big chokepoint that makes getting to school each day really hard if you *don't* live on the mountain.
Anjitha fed me a lovely meal of seafood, veggies, rice and more. Anil had some family errands to do, but he called an auto driver, and I visited Kovalam - the closest of the resort type spots. It was an easy 20 min or so drive.
Kovalam is a seaside resort town that actually reminded me a lot of Ptown - not so much for the gay sexuality, but because it was so easy to wander about and enjoy everything - beach, food, shopping, spas, hotels - it was all on the beach front!!
I very happily shopped my way down the beach - it just so happened that nearly every shop had a particular item that was on my shopping list for presents for the troupe, so I had a great time picking out patterns and colors and doing my newbie American bargaining. I ended at the far end, and found myself a spa that had a good price for pedicures as well as threading. And they happened to have OPI - a brand I swear by in the US. I settled in for a relaxing hour or so - the pedicure was WONDERFUL - a lovely beachy ambiance and a good massage. And much more time efficient than the spa treatment in Mysore The threading ... ow. But overall - relaxing and even though it was resort prices, it was super reasonable by US standards.
Suitably blissed out, I also got a quick snack - coffee and a fried banana with ice cream dessert. I enjoyed it while watching the sunset (top picture through to this picture). I was struck by the Western-ness of the folks trickling into my restaurant - they all seemed to be Westerners (white ones) of 10+ years older than I. I felt positively young, but also given that I'm generally hanging out in normal-people places in India, it always strikes me that there are places that are so Western dominated.
I wrapped up with eating a mango on the beach, although mid-mango I got worried that the mango had been washed in unfiltered water and eventually discarded half of it. :(
The driver picked me up again at 7:30 and home we went. I had another great meal with Anjitha and her family, and went to bed pretty early.
Tuesday
On Tuesday Anjitha and I went off adventuring. A strike in town meant for a delayed start, which meant we went to Velly - a picnic spot - instead of the museum that was our original destination. I could see the potential for beauty, although a lot of the site was under construction. So mostly I had a good time watching the number of young couples that were clearly meeting here in absence of family. I dare say the two of us put a crimp in some people's plans. :)
Anjitha and I caught up a little under a banyan tree - we haven't talked in 10 years.
After about 40 minutes, we moved on, and drove to Poovar - another resort area, which is a bit farther away. It was actually a long enough drive that I was even rather drowsy and may have slept in the auto!
Poovar features the "backwaters" - which is a twining river that feeds into a tidal estuary. We hired a boat and took a guided tour. While I'm not normally a bird watcher, I couldn't help but be impressed by the Kingfisher - which is also a prominent brand.
Most beautiful to me, though was the sand bar with the ocean on one side and the river on the other:
Pictures just don't do it justice. The tour also features floating restaurants - which are buildings on floating docks that do (behind the building) link to shore. We picked a seafood restaraunt and got a total FEAST! At first I thought it was just the pot of rice with seafood stew - which was quite good... but no! We got a whole platter of seafood, papadum, and chipatti. We were so stuffed!!
We quickly finished the tour and rushed onto the spa. The tour also featured floating hotels (available to rent) and a grieving Madonna statue. I admit, in the end of the tour I was really worried, because I knew we had a massage appointment at 3:30!
We finished around 4:00 and the spa turned out to be basically next door.
Ayurvedic Spa
I was super excited for this spa trip! I know, it seems like I go alot - probably true - but then I'm on vacation.
Being the center of Ayurvedic everything, Trivandrum has the option of being both the best and the worst. There are practitioners here that are absolutely the real deal - but then due to all the tourist demand, there are plenty of places that just slap "Ayurveda" on whatever they do.
My guru, Anil, is actually trained in Ayurveda - as Kalaripayattu draws from this body of knowledge for its healing elements - Kalari teachers administer both healing massage and other treatments that use the same basis. So I figured he'd know some good spots.
He did me one better and worked out a good deal at a great place with a friend of his, who runs the Dream Palace International Hotel chains!
The massage was a full body massage, plus Shirodara treatment plus steaming. I'm a massage addict and aficionado - so if you aren't or don't care, just feel free to skip right along!....
I try to get a massage in almost every place I visit - some of it is that it's a good chance to make myself chill out, and it gives me a clear booking that lets me be sure I've got one thing that is definite. Massage appointments are pretty predictable, so it's good to know there's a ritual I already understand in my trip. At home, I'll try all sorts of things - I get cheap massages in malls and Chinatown (some of which could easily compete in quality with fancy spas in execution, not decor! And when traveling or just having an occasion - I book appointments at snazzier (pricier) places. And then - yearly - I make it a practice to fast for a month and get a Kaccha Thrimmu massage from my teacher - which is so much different from the spa world, it deserves it's own blog post (and probably got one, way back when 10 or 13 years ago!).
The Ayurvedic massage was much closer to Kaccha Thrimmu than anything you've ever had from the Far East or Sweden or anything hailing from those schools (ie, almost anything I've ever had in the US... or any of my other vacations). Major points:
The relaxation definitely worked. I was in bliss! The lady doing my massage was really good, finding just the right pressure and not focusing too long on any one thing.
I've been trying to find a real place to do Shirodara for YEARS. In the US, it's about as easy as finding a restaurant that will cook authentic South Indian food (ie, maybe it's there, but not in every city, and not if you know nothing about what you are looking for). I know generally what it is - they drip a continuous stream of oil onto your forehead to open the chakra located there (the third eye). To keep you from getting blinded they do cover your eyes with some gauze.
At the very right most edge of the picture, you can see the apparatus that does this - it's basically a signpost, with a swinging horizontal arm. A pot of more lovely oil is suspended there. Inside the pot is a hole, with a string hanging straight down. The oil drips out the hole, down the string, and right onto your third eye.
Yes - it's not your average massage thing. But it's really quite great. The oil quickly moves from being "yo!! there is oil on my HEAD!!!? WHAT IS WITH THAT??" to just a ... sensation. And that sort of transforms itself into a rather trippy experience. As with any case where I'm just lying there, doing nothing, my mind wanders... but in this case, it moved from "ah, what next?" and a grounded attempt to just be in touch with myself to something that seemed like a very mild version of the descriptions from others of an LSD trip - kaleidoscope colors, swirling sensations. No talking creatures or out of body experiences... thanks... but I definitely hit some sort of zone that I would call "tuning out" - maybe I was asleep... but it was more blissful than regular sleep, at least to me.
Dazed, and thoroughly relaxed, we commenced with steaming me. This was the most curious of all. In the US, you'd go into a steam room - it would be pre-steamy, because it's there, steaming, all the time, with any number of people in it. In this case, it was my own little steam... cabinet! I had seen, but mentally discarded it, having no idea what what was! After steaming it up, the masseuse helped me in. Inside was a small stool - not something you could collapse into, but certainly effective for getting steam all overIt definitely had an almost bondage-like quality, as I really had no clue how I'd get out of there without assistance! But once I accepted that, it was quite nice. A big bonus - the fact that one's head sticks out the top may make for a truly terrible selfie, but it meant that excess head could sort of be vented by my head, making the whole steam experience be even nicer. And the warm steam coming up from the neck hole was still very nice to breathe.
The experienced ended weirdly - a lady I had not yet met was let into the room, and she came and stared at me a bit. She asked me how it was - I replied that I liked it, and then she stared some more and talked to the masseuse. I couldn't quite tell what the heck was going on! After maybe 5 minutes more, she said "enough steam?!", I replied "yes", rather meaning "it's quite steamy enough" but she took it as "she's had enough" and they extracted me. At that point, I felt weird saying "umm... no, let me back in!" - but now wish I'd insisted, as Ajitha stayed in a good 10-15 minute longer, and I would have happily done the same.
My massage lady seated me on a stool and wiped me down, removing the now steamed off oil. And then set to work wiping as much oil out of my hair has possible. That said my hair was still plenty oily. Fortunately, I had a hair elastic and was able to do it back up in a bun (not my first experience with the Indian love of covering every inch of you in oil!), and then get dressed.
Once Ajitha was done, we got back into our auto and headed home.
On the Road
On the way back, I amused myself trying to see and take pictures of Christmas decorations. By now it was less than 2 weeks before Christmas, and Kerala has quite a lot of Christians. Also , as my teacher pointed out - Malayali love to celebrate and have big parties, so anybody's religion is a good a reason to have a party! There were plenty of Christmas lights out there, although there was a notably different aesthetic. The most striking is the hangng of 5 pointed stars... upside down with a long point. In the US, this would be considered Satanic but it was pretty clearly the normal way of hanging these. Note, the blurry images in my picture - these lights are stars, hung in the front of a shop that sells them. Unless this is a Satanic Star store (and there are many) - this is just how you hang your Christmas stars here. Note, also, the colors - they still use strands of lights and all, but the color combos are definitely a bit different. I also managed to get some pics of a church on the drive. I've been to St. Thomas's Cathedral in Chennai, but never a church in Kerala.
On the journey home, we stopped and got fish for dinner on the side of the road. Literally the side of the road - folks with fresh fish and other seafood stacked up on top of sand are selling their inventory. This would absolutely terrify Americans, but Anil pointed to this as a sign that you can get REALLY fresh fish, because it doesn't go through all the waiting and transportation of the seafood industry in the US - it's caught, brought to the side of the road and sold.
We grabbed crabs - Ajitha remembering how much I loved the crab at lunch. I admit, I was confused - these were TINY! If you zoom in - our crabs are right below the seller's knees. They are just a bit bigger than the palm of my hand. And they didn't look like soft shell...
When we got home, there yet another surprise - Anil also had a just-caught fresh fish, which he'd cut up and spiced (here's a picture, pre cooking). Then Ajitha prepared the crabs, showing me how she does it by cutting off the tiny legs, picking out the center, and then cutting it into quarters.
The less said about getting oil out of my hair the better - I think it was at least 3 shampoos. With a bucket and pitcher. And cold water, because only old people in Trivandrum use hot water.
Morning
The plan for the morning was to get brunch with Anil's friend (the one who helped with a good deal for the massage) and then off to the airport, so I had a light breakfast.
First thing, we got up and got a little bit of Kalari on the roof in. This is my second Kalari roof experience, so I felt it coming! The best part was getting a chance to spar a bit with Anil - I feel like I lag behind on hand on hand - these days my friend Revathi is up to speed, but since I've been ahead and/or alone in Boston I don't often have sparring buddies. This year has actually been really good for that and I hope it keeps up.
Hitting at Anil while he held pads was a totally different experience - even though Revathi and I do blocking and hitting, knowing I could hit with more force really pointed out to me how little I knew about HOW to hit.
Sufficiently warmed up, I also laid on the floor of the living room and Anil worked on the various elements making my lower back so stiff. Then breakfast, one more (successful!) attempt at getting the oil of my hair out, and then making sure all was packed and ready 20 minutes early. I debated putting on the sari I wanted to travel in, but held off....
And, as such is the way of India - nothing but nothing went according to plan. Anil's friend came to visit maybe 10 minutes before departure, and he needed some physical tweaking - as he is in the US, Anil is the guy who fixes everyone! I got to help! Then I ran to my room and got changed, only 5 minutes late (so basically early in India time).
As we started wrestling my suitcases to the car, a very respected maker of medicines came by - he and Anil are collaborating on bringing some of his work to the US. I got a chance to meet him (pretty cool!) but couldn't tell much of what was being said.
We all (including the friend) managed to take some group pictures...
Luggage in car, and 20 minutes late - we're off and rolling!
We stop at the bottom of the mountain because Anil needs to talk to his friend. They talk... Anil says we're going to change cars... if this wasn't a man I've trusted for 10 years, I would now believe I was being taken hostage.
It turns out we're not going with this friend from the picture in the house - we are going with a different friend, with a bigger car, who pulls up immediately behind us. I decide to invoke Tall Lady privileges and sit in the front.
Now... we head in the wrong direction to the airport - to pick up the hotel friend. And the friend with a car is a police officer who used to work for immigration in the airport.
15 or so minutes to the Dream Palace International (one of several) and we grab the last friend.
With basically an hour before I should check in, we start the ~45 minute drive to the airport. I know we are headed to the airport now, because I've got Google Maps telling me so in my phone.
My three male escorts are in good spirits - chatting and joking, but mostly in Malayalam - which I can follow the gist of, sometimes, but usually when the topic diverges from stuff I already know about, I get lost. I did enjoy hearing and seeing how much these 3 enjoy each other's friendship - it's always cool to see long term friends and notice how universal relationships can be - good long-term friends joke and have the same body language no matter where in the world you are. There's something reassuring about that.
But mostly I admire the view - there some new building (this area is definitely up and coming), an ice cream cooperative society (I'm not really sure what that is, but since ice cream is involved... I'm in!), and other destination businesses on the highway - more for normal people than for tourists.
We get to the airport with 10-15 minutes to spare, if I am supposed to check in an hour early (that's what my booking says, anyway). We take the drive along the beach - and I know that at the very least, we are so close that not much traffic or impending chaos can hit on the drive between whatever our next destination may be, and the airport. I do know that the American idea of "brunch" is not what should be happening - we don't have two hours for mimosas, a heavy breakfast, and then dawdling over coffee - we better be doing faster.
It turns out, we decide to stop at the beach for coffee - perfect! The view is wonderful and the timing is just about perfect. Somehow... India always works out - just have faith. The three of them are joking around and it's a lot of fun! We finish by taking a group shot (right) - although I see that we have a smiling disconnect - some of us are smiling in every picture, none of us are all managing to smile at once. Of course, not a one of us is a millennial, so you're going to have to forgive us our selfie skills. There's at lease one in here where it seems like I am smiling because the three guys I am with are going to kill somebody. Perhaps given my great joy at hanging out in India + the Indian male style of machismo, that's pretty much accurate. But then again, you know me - if the men are up to something... I want in... so perhaps in this story I am delighted by our plot to kill people? Making me some sort of of evil genius? (exxxceeelllent.....!)
Anyhow - the last 10 minutes of my time in Trivandrum are all of us hustling into the car, and driving the 5 minutes to the airport. Despite all these adventures, I am maybe 5 minutes late arriving (so... 55 minutes before domestic departure). Trivandrum International Airport has improved quite a bit since my last trip - but it basically still has 2 domestic gates. And on the day I flew - there was NOBODY at check in. NO ONE. I don't think I've had that happen at an airport in 20 years. So, I got my bags checked, and checkin and through security so fast that I had time to shop for spices and play a phone game while waiting to get on the plane!!
The flight to Delhi was noticeably longer than any of my other domestic travels (no surprise, it's practically the opposite end of the country and 6 hours instead of 3), so my light breakfast + airplane snack wore thin, and I bought a tin of nuts. I wish I had bought nuts on EVERY flight - cause I'd be giving these out as gifts. The cashews were fine, but the "Nut Case" was truly awesome. I really hope that the designer of this packaging did it knowing what delight I would take in having a nutcase.
(if you didn't understand 1/2 of that... let me try this in normal human - I am the web development team for the Expo. Because I'm a one-woman shop, I have a whole bunch of sneaky tricks to make sure that I am making changes that do great good and very little harm. Hopefully tonight I'll finish another useful little thing and get it up and live for our users!)
Life's a Beach
Trivandrum is the capital city of the state of Kerala. That's the state that is the southernmost part of the West Coast of India. Tamil Nadu has the bragging rights of being the absolutely Southernmost tip of India with the city of Kanniyakumari - but Kerala crowds down pretty far on the West Coast, and it squeezes between the coast and mountain range, while running up the coast, and ending at Karnataka (where I had been while hanging out in Mysore and Bangalore).It's a different language (Malayalam), and it's people have their own identity (Malayaly) - and in fact their own distinct look, as waves of African migration show on most people's features. There's a LOT of seafood here, and also coconut is in just about everything. The rice is puffier - really one could even say it's fluffier.
It's also an absolutely fertile place. It's great for growing spices and also medicines, and as such, it's also a home to Ayurveda. The weather is generally warmer than everything is more humid than in Karnataka or other points farther North and it definitely has a year round growing climate. There's a very wet monsoon season, but even then, my impression is that it's pretty warm.
Given all that - it's also a perfect tourist destination. Beaches + Spas are a huge part of the Kerala income, and Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram) is just one of those destinations. In fact, there are THREE international airports - both to help bring in more tourists, but also because a lot of folks that have families here work outside of India - Dubai a common place, but then so is the US! In fact, folks joke that you'll find Malayalies just about everywhere.
That's good and bad - it's super accessible to folks like me - it was really easy for me to hang out by myself, and negotiate just about everything in tourist spots... but then so, so many of the businesses at these spots are gauging their prices up to foreigners and it's all eyes on me and my American pocket book. I don't mean so much from a robbery perspective - but more from a constant hum of "buy this!" in some spots.
I only had two nights and 1 full day here, but we packed a LOT in!
Monday - morningAt crazy early (4AM? Maybe... it's a blur) - Amma and I got up and got ready to leave. I was nervous because the driver from our Bangalore to Mysore trip (the one who was like 2 hours late) was again driving us in Amma's car (the one that didn't start so well b/c of battery problems) to get me, and while we had *some* slack, the plane was going to leave at a certain time, and we didn't have two HOURS of slack!
But we managed. We were up and out only about 20 minutes late, which in India is like being ahead of time.
We did end up fueling up... and yep, with a Micro, the gas tank is under the hood. And yes, this car is toting 3 bags (two giant, one carry-on), me, Amma and the driver! Sleeping was impossible, although I zoned out here and there. We managed to get to the airport on the early side! Our only traffic was ~20-30 minutes at the tolls, which happened just as the morning commute ensued. Since the tolls were only maybe 20 minutes from the airport, this wasn't even all that stressful.
I said a quick goodbye to Amma - not wanting to drag it out and burst into tears (more) - and grabbed my crazy luggage and went off. On the way into Bangalore, I got rather screwed by a porter, who convinced me to over tip him seriously. Not being interested in repeating the experience, I carried my own luggage. By this point, I'd become a pro at Indian airports, my passport and itinerary were ready and in I went. Paying the extra bag fees (ugh, it basically doubled my ticket!) worked and checkin was easy. They in fact weight your bags as a whole, and it all worked. I got through security unscathed, and actually had some spare time. I went and got a head massage at the O2 spa - a common spa chain in India, very swanky, and then some coffee at one of the shops. Finally I was just hanging out at the terminal (blogging!) because the plane was at least 20 if not 40 minutes late.
The flight was fine - with IndiGo you can pre-order food, and I recommend it. Stuff runs out, and may not be available. I got the yogurt with muesli and was very happily surprised to see that it was alphonso mango! The US has really lame mangos, India has a ton of different mangos for all different places, growing season and purposes - the alphonso is one of the most reknown for it's juicy deliciousness (if you love this stuff, I recommend Gastropod's podcast - they have a whole show dedicated to the mango). I also had a very nice seat neighbor - once again my enthusiastic wearing of Indian clothing made me a friend. This time a sewn suit set - 4AM was just too early for sari draping. I'm not a saint.
The Trivandrum airport is snazzier than I remember, but still pretty small - basically 2 gates at the domestic side, so luggage was easy to find. Anil came and got me himself, and we were off and running!
Monday afternoon
Anil's family currently lives on top of a mountain in a lovely home decorated with really sharp yellow and gray accents. It's a small house for the 5 of us (2 daughters, Anil, his wife and me...) and they were so kind to give me my own bedroom (and bathroom)!! I think it all works better for the three folks that normally are there (Anil's wife, Anjitha and their two girls) - as Anil travels quite a bit during the year. The house is on a mountain because it's really close to the very good school the two girls go to. The roads up and down the mountain are *terrifying* (no picture, I was too busy trying to convince myself that I wasn't going to die while riding in the auto!) - and also a big chokepoint that makes getting to school each day really hard if you *don't* live on the mountain.
Anjitha fed me a lovely meal of seafood, veggies, rice and more. Anil had some family errands to do, but he called an auto driver, and I visited Kovalam - the closest of the resort type spots. It was an easy 20 min or so drive.
Kovalam is a seaside resort town that actually reminded me a lot of Ptown - not so much for the gay sexuality, but because it was so easy to wander about and enjoy everything - beach, food, shopping, spas, hotels - it was all on the beach front!! I very happily shopped my way down the beach - it just so happened that nearly every shop had a particular item that was on my shopping list for presents for the troupe, so I had a great time picking out patterns and colors and doing my newbie American bargaining. I ended at the far end, and found myself a spa that had a good price for pedicures as well as threading. And they happened to have OPI - a brand I swear by in the US. I settled in for a relaxing hour or so - the pedicure was WONDERFUL - a lovely beachy ambiance and a good massage. And much more time efficient than the spa treatment in Mysore The threading ... ow. But overall - relaxing and even though it was resort prices, it was super reasonable by US standards.
Suitably blissed out, I also got a quick snack - coffee and a fried banana with ice cream dessert. I enjoyed it while watching the sunset (top picture through to this picture). I was struck by the Western-ness of the folks trickling into my restaurant - they all seemed to be Westerners (white ones) of 10+ years older than I. I felt positively young, but also given that I'm generally hanging out in normal-people places in India, it always strikes me that there are places that are so Western dominated.
I wrapped up with eating a mango on the beach, although mid-mango I got worried that the mango had been washed in unfiltered water and eventually discarded half of it. :(
The driver picked me up again at 7:30 and home we went. I had another great meal with Anjitha and her family, and went to bed pretty early.
Tuesday
On Tuesday Anjitha and I went off adventuring. A strike in town meant for a delayed start, which meant we went to Velly - a picnic spot - instead of the museum that was our original destination. I could see the potential for beauty, although a lot of the site was under construction. So mostly I had a good time watching the number of young couples that were clearly meeting here in absence of family. I dare say the two of us put a crimp in some people's plans. :)Anjitha and I caught up a little under a banyan tree - we haven't talked in 10 years.
After about 40 minutes, we moved on, and drove to Poovar - another resort area, which is a bit farther away. It was actually a long enough drive that I was even rather drowsy and may have slept in the auto!
Poovar features the "backwaters" - which is a twining river that feeds into a tidal estuary. We hired a boat and took a guided tour. While I'm not normally a bird watcher, I couldn't help but be impressed by the Kingfisher - which is also a prominent brand.
Most beautiful to me, though was the sand bar with the ocean on one side and the river on the other:
Pictures just don't do it justice. The tour also features floating restaurants - which are buildings on floating docks that do (behind the building) link to shore. We picked a seafood restaraunt and got a total FEAST! At first I thought it was just the pot of rice with seafood stew - which was quite good... but no! We got a whole platter of seafood, papadum, and chipatti. We were so stuffed!!We quickly finished the tour and rushed onto the spa. The tour also featured floating hotels (available to rent) and a grieving Madonna statue. I admit, in the end of the tour I was really worried, because I knew we had a massage appointment at 3:30!
We finished around 4:00 and the spa turned out to be basically next door.
Ayurvedic Spa
I was super excited for this spa trip! I know, it seems like I go alot - probably true - but then I'm on vacation. Being the center of Ayurvedic everything, Trivandrum has the option of being both the best and the worst. There are practitioners here that are absolutely the real deal - but then due to all the tourist demand, there are plenty of places that just slap "Ayurveda" on whatever they do.
My guru, Anil, is actually trained in Ayurveda - as Kalaripayattu draws from this body of knowledge for its healing elements - Kalari teachers administer both healing massage and other treatments that use the same basis. So I figured he'd know some good spots.
He did me one better and worked out a good deal at a great place with a friend of his, who runs the Dream Palace International Hotel chains!
The massage was a full body massage, plus Shirodara treatment plus steaming. I'm a massage addict and aficionado - so if you aren't or don't care, just feel free to skip right along!....
I try to get a massage in almost every place I visit - some of it is that it's a good chance to make myself chill out, and it gives me a clear booking that lets me be sure I've got one thing that is definite. Massage appointments are pretty predictable, so it's good to know there's a ritual I already understand in my trip. At home, I'll try all sorts of things - I get cheap massages in malls and Chinatown (some of which could easily compete in quality with fancy spas in execution, not decor! And when traveling or just having an occasion - I book appointments at snazzier (pricier) places. And then - yearly - I make it a practice to fast for a month and get a Kaccha Thrimmu massage from my teacher - which is so much different from the spa world, it deserves it's own blog post (and probably got one, way back when 10 or 13 years ago!).
The Ayurvedic massage was much closer to Kaccha Thrimmu than anything you've ever had from the Far East or Sweden or anything hailing from those schools (ie, almost anything I've ever had in the US... or any of my other vacations). Major points:
- The oil. There is just nothing like the Ayurvedic oils. It could be that my "type" is always the same (Ayurveda divides people into 1 of 3 basic types, and they usually don't change that much over time), but there is a very consistent smell to the oil that I really love. It's medicinal, but not in an old aching people sort of way, more like in a verdant magic forest sort of way. The texture is also just plain really nice - thick, and long lasting, but not gooey.
- The strokes - If I had trouble with the oil, the massage strokes is even harder to describe! I guess the best description is that the practitioner is just going for a different target. Thinking of the more relaxing end of Kaccha Thrimmu - it's about covering the muscle, working out tight/sore/poorly aligned bits, but (in this case) gently yet firmly. No marma points (pressure points) - that's reserved for other forms of Ayurvedic massage. And with relaxation, the strokes are stronger toward your center and more light going out from the center (think inbound T/outbound T if you live in Boston...) - as this is deemed more relaxing - slowing down the energy. I'd say that worked, as somewhere in there, I fell asleep.
- The table - as you can see from the picture - it's got a groove around the edges, not unlike a carving board, and for basically the same reason. (not killing and eating things!!... yeah, my brain went there too...) - the liquid run-off. There is more oil in Ayurvedic massage practices - particularly as you'll see with the Shirodara!
The relaxation definitely worked. I was in bliss! The lady doing my massage was really good, finding just the right pressure and not focusing too long on any one thing.
I've been trying to find a real place to do Shirodara for YEARS. In the US, it's about as easy as finding a restaurant that will cook authentic South Indian food (ie, maybe it's there, but not in every city, and not if you know nothing about what you are looking for). I know generally what it is - they drip a continuous stream of oil onto your forehead to open the chakra located there (the third eye). To keep you from getting blinded they do cover your eyes with some gauze.
At the very right most edge of the picture, you can see the apparatus that does this - it's basically a signpost, with a swinging horizontal arm. A pot of more lovely oil is suspended there. Inside the pot is a hole, with a string hanging straight down. The oil drips out the hole, down the string, and right onto your third eye.
Yes - it's not your average massage thing. But it's really quite great. The oil quickly moves from being "yo!! there is oil on my HEAD!!!? WHAT IS WITH THAT??" to just a ... sensation. And that sort of transforms itself into a rather trippy experience. As with any case where I'm just lying there, doing nothing, my mind wanders... but in this case, it moved from "ah, what next?" and a grounded attempt to just be in touch with myself to something that seemed like a very mild version of the descriptions from others of an LSD trip - kaleidoscope colors, swirling sensations. No talking creatures or out of body experiences... thanks... but I definitely hit some sort of zone that I would call "tuning out" - maybe I was asleep... but it was more blissful than regular sleep, at least to me.
Dazed, and thoroughly relaxed, we commenced with steaming me. This was the most curious of all. In the US, you'd go into a steam room - it would be pre-steamy, because it's there, steaming, all the time, with any number of people in it. In this case, it was my own little steam... cabinet! I had seen, but mentally discarded it, having no idea what what was! After steaming it up, the masseuse helped me in. Inside was a small stool - not something you could collapse into, but certainly effective for getting steam all overIt definitely had an almost bondage-like quality, as I really had no clue how I'd get out of there without assistance! But once I accepted that, it was quite nice. A big bonus - the fact that one's head sticks out the top may make for a truly terrible selfie, but it meant that excess head could sort of be vented by my head, making the whole steam experience be even nicer. And the warm steam coming up from the neck hole was still very nice to breathe.
The experienced ended weirdly - a lady I had not yet met was let into the room, and she came and stared at me a bit. She asked me how it was - I replied that I liked it, and then she stared some more and talked to the masseuse. I couldn't quite tell what the heck was going on! After maybe 5 minutes more, she said "enough steam?!", I replied "yes", rather meaning "it's quite steamy enough" but she took it as "she's had enough" and they extracted me. At that point, I felt weird saying "umm... no, let me back in!" - but now wish I'd insisted, as Ajitha stayed in a good 10-15 minute longer, and I would have happily done the same.
My massage lady seated me on a stool and wiped me down, removing the now steamed off oil. And then set to work wiping as much oil out of my hair has possible. That said my hair was still plenty oily. Fortunately, I had a hair elastic and was able to do it back up in a bun (not my first experience with the Indian love of covering every inch of you in oil!), and then get dressed.
Once Ajitha was done, we got back into our auto and headed home.
On the RoadOn the way back, I amused myself trying to see and take pictures of Christmas decorations. By now it was less than 2 weeks before Christmas, and Kerala has quite a lot of Christians. Also , as my teacher pointed out - Malayali love to celebrate and have big parties, so anybody's religion is a good a reason to have a party! There were plenty of Christmas lights out there, although there was a notably different aesthetic. The most striking is the hangng of 5 pointed stars... upside down with a long point. In the US, this would be considered Satanic but it was pretty clearly the normal way of hanging these. Note, the blurry images in my picture - these lights are stars, hung in the front of a shop that sells them. Unless this is a Satanic Star store (and there are many) - this is just how you hang your Christmas stars here. Note, also, the colors - they still use strands of lights and all, but the color combos are definitely a bit different. I also managed to get some pics of a church on the drive. I've been to St. Thomas's Cathedral in Chennai, but never a church in Kerala.
On the journey home, we stopped and got fish for dinner on the side of the road. Literally the side of the road - folks with fresh fish and other seafood stacked up on top of sand are selling their inventory. This would absolutely terrify Americans, but Anil pointed to this as a sign that you can get REALLY fresh fish, because it doesn't go through all the waiting and transportation of the seafood industry in the US - it's caught, brought to the side of the road and sold.
We grabbed crabs - Ajitha remembering how much I loved the crab at lunch. I admit, I was confused - these were TINY! If you zoom in - our crabs are right below the seller's knees. They are just a bit bigger than the palm of my hand. And they didn't look like soft shell...
When we got home, there yet another surprise - Anil also had a just-caught fresh fish, which he'd cut up and spiced (here's a picture, pre cooking). Then Ajitha prepared the crabs, showing me how she does it by cutting off the tiny legs, picking out the center, and then cutting it into quarters.
The less said about getting oil out of my hair the better - I think it was at least 3 shampoos. With a bucket and pitcher. And cold water, because only old people in Trivandrum use hot water.
Morning
The plan for the morning was to get brunch with Anil's friend (the one who helped with a good deal for the massage) and then off to the airport, so I had a light breakfast.
First thing, we got up and got a little bit of Kalari on the roof in. This is my second Kalari roof experience, so I felt it coming! The best part was getting a chance to spar a bit with Anil - I feel like I lag behind on hand on hand - these days my friend Revathi is up to speed, but since I've been ahead and/or alone in Boston I don't often have sparring buddies. This year has actually been really good for that and I hope it keeps up.
Hitting at Anil while he held pads was a totally different experience - even though Revathi and I do blocking and hitting, knowing I could hit with more force really pointed out to me how little I knew about HOW to hit.
Sufficiently warmed up, I also laid on the floor of the living room and Anil worked on the various elements making my lower back so stiff. Then breakfast, one more (successful!) attempt at getting the oil of my hair out, and then making sure all was packed and ready 20 minutes early. I debated putting on the sari I wanted to travel in, but held off....
And, as such is the way of India - nothing but nothing went according to plan. Anil's friend came to visit maybe 10 minutes before departure, and he needed some physical tweaking - as he is in the US, Anil is the guy who fixes everyone! I got to help! Then I ran to my room and got changed, only 5 minutes late (so basically early in India time).
As we started wrestling my suitcases to the car, a very respected maker of medicines came by - he and Anil are collaborating on bringing some of his work to the US. I got a chance to meet him (pretty cool!) but couldn't tell much of what was being said.
We all (including the friend) managed to take some group pictures...
Luggage in car, and 20 minutes late - we're off and rolling!
We stop at the bottom of the mountain because Anil needs to talk to his friend. They talk... Anil says we're going to change cars... if this wasn't a man I've trusted for 10 years, I would now believe I was being taken hostage.
It turns out we're not going with this friend from the picture in the house - we are going with a different friend, with a bigger car, who pulls up immediately behind us. I decide to invoke Tall Lady privileges and sit in the front.
Now... we head in the wrong direction to the airport - to pick up the hotel friend. And the friend with a car is a police officer who used to work for immigration in the airport.
15 or so minutes to the Dream Palace International (one of several) and we grab the last friend.
With basically an hour before I should check in, we start the ~45 minute drive to the airport. I know we are headed to the airport now, because I've got Google Maps telling me so in my phone.
My three male escorts are in good spirits - chatting and joking, but mostly in Malayalam - which I can follow the gist of, sometimes, but usually when the topic diverges from stuff I already know about, I get lost. I did enjoy hearing and seeing how much these 3 enjoy each other's friendship - it's always cool to see long term friends and notice how universal relationships can be - good long-term friends joke and have the same body language no matter where in the world you are. There's something reassuring about that.But mostly I admire the view - there some new building (this area is definitely up and coming), an ice cream cooperative society (I'm not really sure what that is, but since ice cream is involved... I'm in!), and other destination businesses on the highway - more for normal people than for tourists.
We get to the airport with 10-15 minutes to spare, if I am supposed to check in an hour early (that's what my booking says, anyway). We take the drive along the beach - and I know that at the very least, we are so close that not much traffic or impending chaos can hit on the drive between whatever our next destination may be, and the airport. I do know that the American idea of "brunch" is not what should be happening - we don't have two hours for mimosas, a heavy breakfast, and then dawdling over coffee - we better be doing faster.
It turns out, we decide to stop at the beach for coffee - perfect! The view is wonderful and the timing is just about perfect. Somehow... India always works out - just have faith. The three of them are joking around and it's a lot of fun! We finish by taking a group shot (right) - although I see that we have a smiling disconnect - some of us are smiling in every picture, none of us are all managing to smile at once. Of course, not a one of us is a millennial, so you're going to have to forgive us our selfie skills. There's at lease one in here where it seems like I am smiling because the three guys I am with are going to kill somebody. Perhaps given my great joy at hanging out in India + the Indian male style of machismo, that's pretty much accurate. But then again, you know me - if the men are up to something... I want in... so perhaps in this story I am delighted by our plot to kill people? Making me some sort of of evil genius? (exxxceeelllent.....!)
Anyhow - the last 10 minutes of my time in Trivandrum are all of us hustling into the car, and driving the 5 minutes to the airport. Despite all these adventures, I am maybe 5 minutes late arriving (so... 55 minutes before domestic departure). Trivandrum International Airport has improved quite a bit since my last trip - but it basically still has 2 domestic gates. And on the day I flew - there was NOBODY at check in. NO ONE. I don't think I've had that happen at an airport in 20 years. So, I got my bags checked, and checkin and through security so fast that I had time to shop for spices and play a phone game while waiting to get on the plane!!
The flight to Delhi was noticeably longer than any of my other domestic travels (no surprise, it's practically the opposite end of the country and 6 hours instead of 3), so my light breakfast + airplane snack wore thin, and I bought a tin of nuts. I wish I had bought nuts on EVERY flight - cause I'd be giving these out as gifts. The cashews were fine, but the "Nut Case" was truly awesome. I really hope that the designer of this packaging did it knowing what delight I would take in having a nutcase.