Green Green

We've gone upscale, non A/C! Two days ago we arrived in Kovalam, a small resort area on the Arabian Sea, which is a mini Puerto Vallarta with it's tiny (five foot wide) malecon passing by shops and restaurants in front of a beautiful crash of surf. The beach is not perfect - some black sand mixed with the fine brown sand, making it look dirty, but the sound of the surf is lovely.

Our hotel is back aways though, amongst the swaying fronds of a palm grove (which is the name of its restaurant). We have a huge room - a suite in fact, big enough to have a three person yoga class in front of our bed (king sized) and a long sit out (balcony to the uninitiated) which itself looks at more palm trees. There is a small Hindu temple down the road aways with a long drone of music for parts of the day. We have a sitting room too, with its own fan, and another bed in case we have a fight or something. The bathroom is nice white tiles and the room is kept spotless by the invisible staff.

Now about that air conditioning. We booked non a/c to save money, and we thought the hotel was on the beach and we would have sea breezes. Not so, it is back inland aways and there is no breeze so it's pretty hot. We then thought what the hell - we'll ask for air conditioning and pay extra - hah! It's another 30 dollars extra so we'll just take the fan. In fact it's quite pleasant to sit outside on the balcony most of the day, since the place is mostly in shade all day.

Kerala is the next state up the coast from Tamil Nada and is so so green. The vegetation is lush and the colours are very rich. We drove again, and on the way even got a little culture in since our driver asked if we wanted to stop at the Padmanabhapuram Palace which although in Tamil Nadu is considered the finest surviving example of traditional Keralan architecture. It's even administered from Kerala. This palace was once where the rulers of Travancore had their administrative and cultural centre - Travancore being another small state squashed in between TN and KR.

The palace is huge and quite empty of furniture, except for two beds - one owned by the king which was given him by the Dutch East India Company, and the other by the queen. The entire building is constructed of wood and granite and we were told by one of the many guides stationed throughout the building that it is the largest wooden palace in all of Asia. And it's large - it took us an hour to walk through, getting our bits of information from the strategically located guides, looking around, marvelling at the ceiling in one area, made with rosewood and decorated with 90 carved flowers everyone unique. The floors are also mirror polished, using we are told, a mixture of crushed shells, coconuts, egg whites and plant juices. The dance hall is the most highly polished and is in fact called the Mirror room.

The architecture is all high ceilings with low walls. I guess people sat down to look out because it's not easy to see the views without bending down if one is standing up. It's cooler though because of the high ceilings. In one area, just to contradict myself, the entire room is carved granite, each pillar and piece carved from a single block of stone (not like Mamallapuram where the whole building is one piece of stone).

Back to the real world, Kovalam is full of package tourists. We arrived on Friday, and yesterday morning a group arrived at our hotel and settled themselves in. You can always tell because they immediately go out on their balconies to check the views. (Which is what we did too, of course.) I suppose they paid for air-conditioning and are basking in it right now. Continental breakfast is included too, and here that means, juice, coffee, lots of it, toast and eggs - gotta love those continentals. There isn't a sign of local restaurants where the folks eat off bamboo leaves, or coffee is hurled from cup to bowl. The restaurant in our place is a little pricy, but the ones on the sea wall facing the surf all have very similar menus and the prices are better. Lots of food for the people on the package tours - and us too - I confess, I had pasta our first night, but hey it was seafood pasta, so it had local food.

Speaking of seafood reminds me of what I saw yesterday. Geordie was still sleeping, I was awake so I decided to go off for a bit of walkabout. Between our hotel and the beach are those green palm groves and even some former rice paddies, but between the fields and groves are raised walkways so one doesn't have to go out to a road to get to the shops and restaurants. There are even tailors set up on the backsides of all the shops so if we wanted a shirt made we could. Out on the beach though was a sight that is probably unique to the area - teams of fishermen, hauling their nets in from the sea, like a great tug of war, and singing together all the while. Very atmospheric. I must get up in the morning and go for a few pictures.

Tonight our hotel is doing a mini version of the Kathakali Dance performances of Kerala. These are ordinarily events that go all night and maybe into the next night, but the hotel's offering is only three and a half hours. The first hour and a half is labelled as "Makeup and Dressing" and apparently it is part of the package paid for. I think it is quite the production, so we will have to pay our money and find out what it's all about. The stories are taken from the Mahayana, one of the seminal books of the India mythos, so we will probably have little idea what's going on, although we are promised ongoing commentary - tourists like us need all the help we can get.

We are settled in here for a week and then we are hoping to spend 10 days further north in another beach village called Varkkala. We've asked for a reservation and again are asking for non A/C, and the place I've requested is described as having all rooms with sea view, so if we get it, maybe we can get the sea breezes that go with them.