Yesterday I was attending toastmasters session in my company. One of the topic during the table topic session was how did you spend your annual holidays during the December shut down period. Suddenly I was thinking about how I spent my holidays. I was thinking about writing a travelogue about my trip for long time, but I was lazy and postponed it, all of a sudden I began with ease.
This time I was eagerly waiting for the annual holidays because I planned for a trip to Goa with a friend. I never plan for any trip in advance, all of a sudden I may decide and go. But this time everything was planned and we booked ticket in advance and a friend in Goa promised to arrange accommodation. But at the last minute everything turned down. My friends father had an accident and we had to cancel our trip.So, I decided to go to my village near Cochin and spent time with family. 3-4 days passed quickly as I was playing with my nephew and visiting friends and family
members.The sixth day all of a sudden I was feeling very bored. Day time most of the friends wont be there as they don't have holidays. I thought about a couple of options and then finally decided to go to Kanyakumari a place I had never visited. On the way I wanted to cover Trivandrum too.
Trivandrum
After a five hour journey from my home, I reached Trivandrum. Trivandrum is the capital of Kerala and it had many tourist places around. My classmate was eagerly waiting for me as we have nt seen each other for a couple of years. After a warm get together he took me to the Kerala legislative complex where he works. The assemby session was going on and I took a visitors pass and watched the proceedings of the assembly for an hour from the visitors gallery. I stayed with him for that day and we had a nice time recalling several events from our college life.
The next morning I started from Trivandrum to Kanyakumari. Kanyakumari, the southern tip of India is about 80km far from Trivandrum. Before independece the Kanyaumari district was part of Kerala, but after the states were restructured on the lingustic basis Kanyakumari became part of Tamilnadu. My plan was to visit Padmanabhapuram_Palace on the way.
Padamanabhapuram Palace
After getting down from the bus I had my lunch. I asked the way to the palace to a passerby. He turned out to be a native and he suddenly realized that I am from Kerala from my Tamil accent.Instead of telling me the route, he send me with a man on a motorcycle whom he was acquainted with and going that way. From my experiences during my trips around various places in south India I know that villagers rarely cheat. So, I decided to take chances and go with him. He dropped me in front of the palace. The Padmanabhapuram palace is a palace built in traditional
Kerala style and unique one of its kind in South India. It is one of the biggest wooden palaces in India. Some of the interesting structures in the palace include include the poomukham, the mysterious corridors, mantrasala, natakasala and southern palace. I met a north Indian family visiting Kerala and we visited the palace together. Walking through the mysterious corridors was a walk through the history.It took around one hour to see the palace around.
Back in the bus stand I struggled a bit because the bus boards were in Tamil. With some effort I learned to read boards in Kannada, but never bothered to learn to read Tamil. The buses were all crowded and coming and going. Due to the rush nobody was bothered to answer my queries on bus to Kanyakumari. Finally, I found a bus, but it was heavily crowded.
Kanyakumari
I reached Kanyakumari by evening after a long journey that got worse by heavy traffic.After a walk around the beach, I searched for a lodge there to settle down. It seemed easy, but then there was the second problem. Whereever I went they said there is no room available after finding that I am alone. Finally after talking to a guy who knows malayalam, he told me that first he wants to speak to my parents and check if I came because there are any issues at home and if everything is fine he will give a room. He explained that Keralites rarely travel alone and they are suspicious seeing me alone. I gave my home number and he called and my mom picked up the call. He directly asked if I came alone because of any love failure or some thing. I can imagine the shock my mom had. After getting a satisfactory response he agreed to give a room to me. I explored Kanyakumari beach and stayed till late on the beach enjoying the sea sight and the calmness at night. In the morning I went again to see the Sun rise at 6.00 AM. It was cloudy in the beginning, but finally Sun came out with full glow and that was one of the best sights I ever had.
The next thing was a boating to the Vivekanandha rock and one had to wait for a long queue for almost an hour. It was the place where Swami Vivekanandha meditated before his departure to the world religion conference at Chicago in 1891. I met a Bengali family in the queue and we enjoyed the company of each other exchanging information on various tourist places in India.The boat journey took only a few minutes as the sea was calm. There was a small memorial built for Vivekanandha and the sea was worth watching from the rocks. On the return journey we also had a stop at the Thiruvalluvar statue.
Return journey to Trivandrum
Around 2PM I started my return journey. I got a seat and it almost seemed comfortable when I started, but there were a lot of events waiting for us. In the middle of the journey our bus had a break down at a remote place. The conductor couldn't arrange a replacement bus and he told us that he will make arrangements in the other buses to Trivandrum. Many buses passed, but all of them were crowded and none of the buses stopped. The bus had many tourists from north India and foreign countries and they had a tough time understanding what the bus conductor was saying in Tamil and they were scolding him in their own languages that he didn't understand any way. I helped them as an interpreter in English and Hindi. Almost an hour went and no buses were coming our way except local buses. A french man was scolding the conductor left and right , but the bus conductor couldn't make out any thing.
The French man needs to go to Trivandrum and he asked for my help seeing that I can speak English. we asked a few local people and they said the next town is only a few kilometers away if we go by a local bus. we took a local bus to the next small town and from there we got a bus to Trivandrum. The Frenchman turned out to be a great companion. He is one of the leading architects in France and he is a member of the several architectural organization in the world. His trip to India was to visit some of the architects who were members of his organization in various parts of India. He was coming back from Calcutta and visited many places in India on the way. He shared his experiences in India and out of all the places he visited his favorite place turned out to be Calcutta. After a tiring journey with a lot of events, we reached Trivandrum by late evening and we parted saying will be in touch. Later he wrote to me after reaching France and kept his word to my surprise. My friend was waiting for me and after a few hours I took a bus to Cochin to go back to my home. The next day I had to come back to Bangalore and thus thus ended my Christmas holidays for the year 2010.
How to reach Kanyakumari- Frequent buses are available from Trivandram to Kanyakumari. Buses may take 2-3 hours to reach. From Bangalore to Kanyakumari you can go directly by Island express also.
What to see Around: Sun rise and sun set at Kanyakumari, Vivekanada rock, Sucheendram temple and worth visiting Padmanabhapuram Palace if you have time.
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