Category: India

Actually it is now officially called Alappuzha, but Alleppey seems more common (even in the train schedules!).
2 hours by train (Rs70/$1.75 for “sleeper” class). I almost missed getting on the train!

This is the gateway town to the backwaters of Kerala – canals and villages accessible only by boat (over a huge area).

I already did a 3-hour canoe ride (2 paddler guides) shared with Anne, a nice German almost-a-doctor I met on the train (who is travelling after studying at a hospital in Tamil Nadu for a few months). The first part was a little disappointing, and it really wasn’t until the 3rd hour (which we negotiated at the point they wanted to turn around and return by exactly the same route) that it became more relaxing and interesting – that 3rd hour definitely made it worthwhile! Anne had negotiated Rs250/$6.25 for 2 hours, which became Rs350/$8.75 for 3 hours (total, not per person).
We saw this woman and grandchild at a canoe stop for coconut water (Annerose gave some white balloons to the kids):

Tomorrow I go to my backwater village homestay in my “ridiculously picturesque backwater village” for 1 (or maybe 2) nights. Should be fun, and there better not be internet access! 😉

Update: I forgot to mention that on the train was also a 22 year old Finnish girl who had just married a local Indian boy in Varkala!

Kanyakumari (Cape Comorin), also known as Cap Com, is at the very southern tip of mainland India, where the Gulf of Bengal, Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea all come together (the southernmost of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are slightly further south, latitude-wise).
There are 4 main sights to see (not counting sunrise and sunset, which unfortunately were unspectacular due to clouds in the way):

The Vivekananda Memorial (Rs10/$0.25) and Thiruvalluvar Statue (free), reached by a small passenger ferry (Rs20/$0.50) that does a circular route to these 2 small rocky islands a few hundred metres off-shore. The memorial was built in 1970 for in memory of a swami who meditated here in 1892. Visiting this memorial had a Disneyland-ride feel to it (follow the arrows and lines around the island). Update: I forgot to mention that at the memorial there is a darkened meditation room with a glowing Om symbol and a recorded Om sound that plays every 30 seconds or soo. Very relaxing.
The statue, also referred to as the “Statue of Liberty” of India, is of the Tamil namesake poet and stands 133 feet tall (inc. the base) due to his master 133 chapter work Thirukural.

The Kumari Amman Temple (free) which I didn’t find that interesting, though it has the unusual feature of requiring all men to take off their shirts when entering the temple. It has a stunning location near the tip, but you can’t see the shore or oceans from within the temple’s high outer walls.

The Gandhi Memorial (free) – yes, another one! he’s very popular, you see – which is a multi-architectural-style building near the shore, with a good 360° view from the little tower.

The bathing ghats just south of the temple. There’s a little sandy beach too, but beware – the water is full of rocks and shallower than one would expect (I scraped my ankle). Always an interesting slice of Indian life at a ghat or beach.
Here is an emaciated old man meditating near the ghats:

Also, there is an interesting looking tsunami memorial to the lives lost in the tsunami of Xmas 2004 near the ghats.

There were far more Indian tourists/pilgrims here than foreigners, not to mention school groups…

Overall it’s a relaxing little town on a stunning location, definitely worth a visit!

My hotel was right next to the temple entrance, and I had a view of the water and rocky islands (the memorial and statue).

Madurai, about 3 hours by train south of Trichy, has 2 main sights: the big Sri Meenakshi Temple, and the Gandhi Memorial Museum. And lots of tailor shops.

The Sri Meenakshi Temple (Rs50/$1.25, + Rs50/$1.25 for camera) was built in 1506 in Dravidian architecture. The outer wall surrounds a 6ha/15acre compound. There are 12 gopurams ranging in height from 45-50m. The large pillared temple contains many gold-topped sanctums (off-limits to non-Hindus). There is also an art museum in the 1000 Pillared Hall (which probably really does have a thousand pillars!) which I rushed through.
I was getting a little templed out so overall I wasn’t wowed by this one, despite the rave reviews in my guidebook.

the closeup isn’t from the same gopuram pictured on the left…

The Gandhi Memorial Museum (free, + Rs50/$1.25 for camera) had 2 distinct sections: the first one describes the 2-century fight for independence against the British, which I had just read in my guidebook the day before, so it was a little repetitive (albeit with photos and maps) but still interesting. The second one describes the life of Gandhi, in way too much detail (well, too much detail for me). The exhibit includes the blood-stained loincloth that Gandhi wore when he was assassinated by a Hindu zealot on 1948/01/30 (I recall they had a remembrance on that anniversary when I was in Pondy, which has a huge Gandhi statue by the shore). Anyways, the reason the loincloth is in Madurai is that Gandhi had decided in Madurai years earlier to only wear a loincloth (of the style common in Madurai).

Another noteworthy item is the large number of tailor shops in Madurai. I had 2 cotton short-sleeved shirts made for me (one orange, one blue) for Rs600/$15 for the pair of them (probably “overpaid” but they work, though they won’t last forever