West Coast Trip - Day 1,2

it all started as early as january. Grini suggested a trip to south India. V V, Naren and Ally confirm participation. the date was set to Feb 28th weekend, to co-incide with Grini's 26th Birthday. and the duration??? 8 full days! now, we all know abt my addiction to work/life in bangalore. hence i decided to cut short the trip by 3 days. 5 days is what i was looking at. booked the train ticket to get back home on 4th Mar from kanyakumari. it was gonna be my first all day train trip alone.

the countdown to the prep for the trip was ably supported by everybodys participation in mail chains. i was held up with a lot of work( i hate 16 hr days!!) and hence was silently reading/contemplating the suggestions put forth in the mails. we also banned laptops for the trip.

so, we meet up at 4:45/50 at the entrance of Raliway Station for wat was going to be the longest trip i have been with friends so far! (2006/7 Goa trip comes in at close second, although i rate it as the best quality wise(no offense meant to the partners in crime on this trip)) we walk our way to the train and find the first amusing thing written over our coach's entrance in small letters next to our names. "Neetu Baby".
one of us thought it was the name of a baby girl accompanied by her parent.
another one thought it was Neetu with a baby.
we all knew it was a girl!!!
turns out, she is a ~20 year old girl looking very reserved/scared/intrigued by our presence.
later, on the second day, we find out that alappuzah's police inspector is also a Mr. Baby (first name unknown) and the education minister of kerala is M.A Baby. watever!

the journey to alappuzah was mostly uneventful. we played UNO, had dinner, and slept. only to wake up at 12 to wish Grini. it was silent (people were asleep around) and bright!(with ally clicking away Grini when he turned 26!)

we woke up at 5 cos the scheduled arrival at alappuzah OR alleppey was 5:45(subject to change without prior notice). Grini was a little paranoid abt missing the station so we had alarms setup in almost all mobiles! even neetu baby setup an alarm! There were some awkward moments for Grini when someone dropped dupatta for him in phased a manner. he was obviously happy abt that!

we got out of the train at alleppey and asked for an auto to Royal Park. The auto driver said "RoyaL Bark? 50 rubees". we had no option but to go with it! the hotel was supposed to be 3 kms from the station. but it definitely turned out to be more. good that we dint try to walk to the hotel.

the impression i had of alleppey was that it was a small town with a few shops, one or two man roads and then the beach. alleppey is a pretty big town, with atleast two business class 3 star hotels (one with a roof top swimming pool, which we hadnt checked into).

it was hot, but not uncomfortable for me since i was used to the humidity/coastal area atmosphere. after breakfast, we went on a boat cruise on national waterway 3! i had no idea that a waterway existed! i had only thought of oceans and seas as connecting countries, but not towns within a state! the backwaters extend from kottayam to kochi thru alleppey and other coastal towns. we even saw boats run by the govt that had route numbers on them, connecting these towns! they had boat depots like we have bus depots... Police on boats manage law n order! :D imagine having a boat come up to ur house gates on private water paths!

lazy, sleepy, relaxing and occasionally grini getting excited abt birds n photography. That was 5 hours of that day! purely "intoxicating" numbness! had fish in a shady looking backwater side (not beach side) hotel. :) tastes goooood. the interesting menu is attached here. :) see something odd??

the numbness in the brain showed up on ally. he actually called a paddy field, a garden! gadde annodikke thota anda... on our way back to where we started off on the boat from, i lost a bet to naren. and we bought a football to play on the beach!

we hit the beach in the evening wen the sun was almost down. played a bit till it got dark. Grini got his 26 birthday bumps after suspiciously tracking the four of us coming at him. :)


















The next day, we did nothing active. got an awesome rejuvenating massage from manoj. he literally went everywhere and ensured all parts of the body got the "healing touch". :D

we packed and left to trivandrum early the next morning. Naren had to sit in the back seat of the tavera and he did NOT like it!

PS: this post was previously named :"East Coast Trip - Day 1,2" :P