We decided that to complete our coastal tour, we’d make it down to Thiruvananthapuram or Trivandrum as it was known before the name change (and what the locals still call it). Seriously, why go for something so complicated? To get there, we took another train. I know, I know, us and the train rides. I’m beginning to think that our first train ride was just a fluke because I haven’t seen any roaches since then. Then again, it could also be because we’re only traveling during the day and roaches are nocturnal. I don’t know. Anyway, from Kottayam it’s only a three-hour ride, so it wasn’t too bad. We lucked out because there was almost no one on the train and we actually had our sleeper compartment to ourselves. There was an adorable little girl on the train who we played with for a bit. Yes, I like kids and my biological clock starts ticking whenever we meet a cute kid, but not to worry! They start screaming and the clock completely stops. We’re talking sabotage and gears grinding to a halt. Anyway, we got in around 6pm and took a tuk tuk to the Varikatt Heritage Homestay.

Varikatt is run by this really nice retired decorated Colonel named Roy. Roy turned his family’s home into a homestay after he retired as a way to meet people and have some fun. He’s really funny and plans to have a cookbook out sometime next year full of his recipes and anecdotes; I think the title is Cooking with the Colonel. He has some really entertaining riddles that will make it in there as well. I’ll link to it when it comes out. It’s a gorgeous house with five guestrooms and a large main house. Each guestroom is massive and has an amazing bathroom. Oh, and can I just say that Roy also cooks. Amazingly well. And because it’s the South, we didn’t have vegetarian food. Our first night there dinner was tandoori chicken and a sampling of other Keralan cuisines. At the Varikatt you eat family style and Roy also ate with us, which was really nice. He also shared the story behind the house with us. It’s kind of tragic. Girl meets boy on a boat, girl moves from England to follow boy to India. Girl builds her dream house, finds the guy, and marries him only to find out that while he’s away in the tea plantations he is less than faithful. Girl gives up her dream house to keep an eye on her errant husband. The whole story is online and once again, kind of tragic. I can’t believe she gave up her house because of her douche-y husband. Oh well. That’s love.

Because we only had one full day in Trivandrum we decided to do a “best of” tour. Be impressed. Neither of us had gotten very much sleep the night before and we were woken up by a barking dog around 5am. So the fact that we were productive at all was a spectacular feat. We started at the public parks and made our way through the Napier Museum and the zoo there. The Napier Museum was… interesting. It had a good collection of religious artifacts from all over Asia including leather shadow puppets from Bali (so cool!) and a collection of Chinese masks (wasn’t sure what the point of those was). The Hindu artifacts of the different gods were particularly cool and well preserved. The only bummer was that there were no notes up to explain what the different artifacts were or the reason for putting them all together (like why put Chinese vases in the exhibit). The zoo was awesome. It’s this large open-air zoo in the middle of the city and has over 75 different species of animals there. We saw hippos! And monkeys! And I was a bit too excited about them. What can I say? I like zoos.

Then we made it across town to the Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple. The Swamy Temple is one of the holy temples of Lord Vishnu and the outside shows Vishnu reclining over a serpent. I wish I knew more about Hinduism so that I could give a bit more description about the story it depicts, but my knowledge about the temple runs out there. It’s a massive structure. It takes about 15-20 minutes walking to get from the North Gate to the East Gate. You’re actually not allowed inside the temple unless you’re a Hindu, but you can take photos outside and the monks are really nice. It’s a beautiful temple and the most famous one in Trivandrum. We ran into someone who was very friendly and the first thing he said was, “Well, you’re going to the Swamy Temple, right?”

We ended in the Puthe Maliga Palace, the palace of the old rajas of Trivandrum that’s been converted into a museum. You’re only allowed into the museum with a guide who knows the history of the Palace. It’s a beautiful structure that was built about 200 years ago and is full of gifts given to the rajas from various European powers. There’s even a crystal throne. I’m not kidding. A throne made entirely out of crystal. Decadent much? The Palace is huge, there are only twenty rooms open but another sixty rooms still haven’t been renovated, nor are there any plans to renovate them in the near future. It’s kind of a bummer because it could be so cool. The outer courtyard is even used for a classical concert during the winter months that’s free to the public.

Once we were done with the Palace, we were pretty much beat. The heat that day was intense and I think I got sunburned on my feet (again) since they started peeling two days later. I even drank an entire liter of water in about an hour and for those of you who know me, that’s an impressive feat. It was ridiculous. So we went home and vegged out for the rest of the evening before dinner.

One thing that we kept discussing was that we saw men everywhere. It just brought home how different India is in the separation of the public and private sphere with respect to gender. We saw women mainly when we left the main streets and were wandering the residential areas. Men were everywhere: in the restaurants, public transportation, stores, and the main streets. Which is not to say that there aren’t women out and about, women work and do all sorts of things. It’s just that the public sphere is very male dominated. It’s usually not too bad; for the most part as long as your clothes are loose you aren’t hassled. It only starts to feel a little threatening when you walk into an Internet café and you are the only woman in the room and the room is packed.

That’s it for now. Next time: Mumbai!

Advertisement