Our Adventure in India

Onam is a 10 day Hindu harvest and cultural celebration and is one of the major festivals in Kerala, India. Everyone makes a big deal around Onam.  Sunday, August 20 On the first day of Onam, it is the day of the elephant or Ganesh.  People make an offering to the elephant for the future, that all will go well.  It is probably like wishing for the new year. These flowers are in our local village.  They are arranged late at night or early in the morning for the next day. The flower arrangement is called a Pookalam. Shaji says it is done by a group of young men. Monday, August 21 Our local flowers were set up by 1:00 am.  We saw this as we took John to the airport.  I took a picture later on the way to the gym and work. The design is a lotus flower with the symbol of Om.  It is a mantra used in yoga for you to be centered.  Tuesday,  August 22 The flowers form a conch.  This is the royal symbol for the Travancore Kingdom. Wednesday, August...

Tiger Gym celebrated Onam with all of their local branches (5).  They invited me to join them at the Uday Samudra Kovalam.  I agreed to come but did not agree to wear a saree because I was saving that for Marshall's celebration on Thursday, August 24. Athira is the receptionist at the Trivandrum branch that I've been attending for the past month.  She greets me every morning and lets my trainer know when I am there. She greeted me at the hotel when I arrived and stayed with me all day. Onam is about the return of the king Mahabali. In Mahabali's kingdom, everyone was treated equally and all his subjects lived peacefully and prosperously.   I did not know the guy who was the king but the gym members were cheering for him.  He flexed his muscles on the stage and everyone cheered. The owner of the gym and his wife spoke and welcomed everyone.  There were others who spoke mostly in Malayalam and I didn't understand what they were saying.  I just clapp...

  House boat tours are the number 1 thing to do in Kerala on every travel site. That is why we saved this for John and I will say that the river did not disappoint.  Being a Saturday, there were many houseboats on the canals. Boats are the way of getting around so we saw all kinds of people going here and there. There is even a water taxi system that runs. We were cruising on a Sunday morning and saw people walking to church.  Here is one of the churches on the backwater. We saw many people washing their clothes.  There are many places with steps down into the water.  The ladies were standing in the water and washing their clothes in the water and on the steps. Our boat took us to a local market that sold seafood.  We bought some fresh prawns to be cooked for our dinner. We also bought some ice cream, kit kats and a Diet Coke for me and it is always fun to meet new people.  The majority of tourists are from India or Europe.  Americans are less com...

Shaji took us to a very local Indian restaurant on our drive from Kovalam to Alleppey.  You would not believe the stares we received when we walked into the restaurant.  It was the first time Shaji was able to see other people's reactions to us.  Shaji ordered for us.  We had poori masala (my favorite).  We had vada and idly with two different chutneys.  The boys ate completely with their hands and I even ate mostly with my hands but used my napkin a million times.  Marshall tried to tell me you don't clean your hands until the meal is done.  I can't quite do that!! I have my first Chai, which is tea.  It was delicious!  It has milk and sugar in it, I think.  I wish I had found this sooner! Marshall and Shaji both had coffee.  John just drank water. We were served a welcome drink as we boarded the houseboat in Alleppey.  I think it was a mint lime drink.  This is fairly common and we really like it. Here is our lunch ...

  We booked a luxury houseboat with the Alleppey Houseboat Club.  Luxury meant that it had air conditioning.  John was with us so we had a 2 bedroom.  He is a little big to sleep on the floor of our room. We had a boat captain, a cook and then a boat manager that took care of everything. This is where we tied up to have lunch. John and I are standing on the top deck. we basically spent all day up there looking at the sites. Marshall and John are sitting in the upstairs sitting room.  We had a blue tooth speaker so we were playing tunes.  We had air conditioning but we opened the windows while the boat was cruising. This was our bedroom and the bed.  It was nice and comfy and had a great comforter which we didn't have at our house.  I wanted to stay in bed for hours.  We are missing our comfortable bed in Wilmington.  This was the best bed I have been in since July 13.  Marshall had a good one on his trip to Baroda. This is John's Ro...

Today was the day for our first TukTuk ride.  Suki arranged for the TukTuk to come to our house.  Suki helped with the communication because our driver did not speak English.  He drove us to the Divine grocery store.  John and I went into the store and he waited out front for us.   We held our bag in our lap and the water bottles and Pepsi bottle were on the floor between our feet so they wouldn't fall out.  Our TukTuk was soccer themed.  The lining of the seats and the roof were covered in soccer or footballs.  The back is quite small.  John hit his head getting in the first time and then hit his knee getting in the second time.  No A/C but a little bit of a breeze. After the grocery, he took us to the local beer store.  I had never been there before.  There were 4 guys in line ahead of us.  You pay a man in line and then he moves to another window to get your beer.  The last time Marshall went he could only get...