Kerala

So as you all know my father is a travel writer...and this time he had to do some thing about bananas from the purest place and we went to KERALA. This place is in India, on the South Coast. I've been to India a couple of times before actually.
So anyway, I recorded my journey and I wanted to share it with y'all.

Day 1.
The plane ride was so..uneventful. Unless you can call the usual ear buzzing and queasy feelings an event. Which I don't.
But I am excited. We are at Kerala! God's own country!! Though technically we are going to the city Kochin.way a country. i think our driver is a Himesh Reshimya fan considering that was all e listened to in the car. personally, I dont like HR all that much but to each his own i guess!
I have a grey jacket which has been my faithful companion on many of these trips. It was a really good buy. and my kindle says thankyou to my mother. She gave it a very handsome new brown cover.
The hotel is called Abad Hotel, and it's pretty good. I especially like the curtains.
So we met Nidhi, who is my sister's friend from a year ago. (They were in the smae class.)We all to eat at Chicago Revolving Resteraunt...why is it called that? We are in Kerala, not Chicago.
Bizarre.
Well the food wasnt all that amazing but the ambience was very pretty and I liked the soup..it was thicker than average and full of my favourite things. And as usual I ended up taking care of the kids. It's very plausible really.
The interesting thing about this resteraunt was that it actually REVOLVES..like the Space Needle in Seattle.
We got back at midnight.
That's all for today.

Day 2.
Today we went on a boat..not the canoe types but his big ones with like 50 people in them. It was peaceul except for there was this annoying man who couldn't stop complaining. And also two very beautiful girls wearing these adorable gauchos. And a bunch of other people.
We saw some very interesting things actually. There was this boat that ferries cars across, a man-made island, and some very bashful dolphins. The lake was called the BcakWaters lake or the Kochi lake or really whatever you want to call it seeing as the guide didn't specify a name.
We went to a Jewish synagogue where there was this bazaar with a lot of really funky and useless things. The icecream was different somehow. More like vanilla with a hint of chocolate, I dont know? There was also this mueseum describing the Jewish peiod in Kerala. The Jews lived here for a very long time, starting as traders and staying much longer after Independence. They left on their own will a few decades back though some still say here. We also went to Saint Francis' Church. It's a Protestant church so there is no idol of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary.
A few hours and a dozen cocunuts later, we went to Cherai beach with Nidhi. It was really, really fun. The nice thing about that beach is that there are kites floating everywhere which is really special to look at.
Again we got home really late.

Day 3.
Today we were going to bid adieu to Cochin and move on to Munnar. On tghe way, we passed this heavenly waterfall where I climbed up to the top! Munnar is like a tea plantation. Correction- thousands of tea plantations. The views were beautiful.
We stayed at a place called Bellmount hotel and the view outside the balcony is splendid. you can see an old church, and a school. The ride to Munnar took a pretty long time (plus my sister threw up on me), so it was afternoon by the time we ended up there. We went to the Boating Centre where I road horse whose name was Starfire. My mom, sister and I took a boat ride in a paddle boat which was pretty interesting because my sister kept getting scared and my mom kept splashing. After that, we went to Echo Point. It's a realy cool place where if you call something out you can hear come back to you just as clearly. In Anne Of Green Gables, Anne has an echo friend named Violet. If she had one at echo point, they could have proper conversations. Another nice thing about the place was that there was a movie store right across with really cheap movies. We also went to the Madupetty Dam.
But the most spectaucular thing about Munnar is the view. The view looks like something God made when he was in a very good mood. So lush and green. We had dinner at Mahavir Resteraunt which serves pretty awesome food.

Day 4
And now we're going to Thekkady!!! On the way, we went to the amazingly beautiful Lukham Falls, where we did stone skidding which was fun! Plus my sister fell down..but oh well..you have to fall before you stand! It was quite amazing though. We also went to the Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary. We had to stand in an hour long line(ugh!)..and then go in a bus to a different spot. Then we had to walk. And walk. And walk.
And this whole time I didn't see a bird, let alone a tiger.
But oh well..it was still pretty fun.
We reached Thekkady where we stayed at the Ambadi Hotel. My God, that place is regal.
Amazingly wooden and utterly perfect...
We went on an extremely dissapointing elephant ride..but oh well. We also went to DC Bookstore..and ate lunch a some really posh place which has this scrumptious mushroom preparation.

Day 5
So we set out early. Like really early when it was still dark outside. We were going to this very in demand safari. In fact, we were in an auto which was racing with a bunch of other autos to get to the gate first. Then we had to run..like really fast to get a place on the boat.
The safari itself was rather dissapointing but I consider the race the highlight of the trip.
Then we were off to Kumarakom.
In Kumarakom we stayed in this AMAZING house boat called the Mayura. It was heavenly..I felt so rich. There was such a baeutiful view and the whole ambience was scinntilating. I will never forget how it felt. Like a real experience.
We slept rocking on the water that night...it was so..romantic.

The entire trip was wonderful. I will never forget how beautiful the house boat was, or how good it felt to sit in a racing auto or how good I felt climbing a waterfall.
Kerala.
God's own country.