Month: August 2023

We already had had a load of impressions, of which I could describe only the most outstanding ones. Mysure was the last “sightseeing” place, towards the end of our holidays these should get a more relaxing touch as after our return only Levin had one more week off. So besides broadening our mind we also wanted to get some rest. The state Kerala in the south was said to be a good place for that. It has a long cost and behind, a wide net of canals and lakes in-between villages and rice fields. One day and night on one of the many houseboat should get us in the relaxing mood. The experience had been arranged for us by my colleague Kedar.

Yet we had to get there before. A train from Mysuru would bring us to Allapuzha (Allepey) and a taxi from there to the boat. All worked as planned, the 15 hours overnight train ride was an experience maybe to be told in a post on transportation (that has yet to be written). 

But once there, we were welcomed by the crew of three persons with a fresh mango drink, placed our backpacks in the two double rooms and directly set off. The boat – although we didn’t see it from the outside at first as we boarded through two other ones directly aside of it – was the classical style with a roof that looked like made from straw. 

Yet it was equipped with air conditioning for the bedrooms (which we used for the night only). The navigator was sitting in the very front, behind there was an shaded but open to the sides “lounge” with table and armchairs. From there we could watch the scene with water hyacyths passing us by slowly… slowly.

After having a shower and the taking some pictures of the scene we were served lunch, vegetarian as we ordered it, and probably less spicy for western tourists, but this was OK. There was fried beans, a one-pot with lentils and other vegetables (dal), coleslaw salad and cooked potatoes both with coconut, but the potatoes with curcuma, and nan bread. I’m sure there are specific names but I cannot keep them in mind.

After lunch I shortly fell asleep. The slow motion caught me. I spent the afternoon snoozing on and off, watching the banks of the canals and waving to people there who mostly waved back while the boat made its way from one canal to the next. Tea time with baked bananas as a break. Nothing more to say. We once stepped out to have short walk, when the boat was tied up for the night, but our urge to explore more has been surpassed by our urge to relax. Dinner was evenly delicious as lunch and the baked bananas for the tea break. We spent the evening in the outdoor lounge that had to be covered from one side after a rain shower set in, talked and looked into our mobile devices, but as it had been dark already since around 6 p.m. we went to bed at 10 and had a relaxing night.

Next morning started early (7:30 h) with breakfast, again somehow surreal, the four of us sitting in a very spacious and clean boat on a very calm canal – while India for us showed itself in the last week often loud, crowded and dirty. We surely haven’t see all sides yet. The cruise ended at 9 a.m. in the spot where we started – I lost track on which waterway we have been anyway rather soon – and the taxi driver picked us up as arranged the day before. Thank you Evergreen Tours. Thank you Kedar.

After the day visiting the Hampi temples, we already had to check out of our straw huts (more on the accommodation in another post) as we had booked a night train leaving at 21:10 from the nearby Hosapete train station. Taking overnight trains should save us the cost for one night at a (stationary) hotel while at the same time we would not loose daytime for traveling. So much for the plan. Thankfully my Indian colleague mentioned that trains should be booked well in advance to get seat confirmations. Unfortunately I did not take this advice seriously enough so that – despite booking 3 weeks ahead – for this train we did not have seats confirmed, instead we were number 1, 2, 3 and 4 on the waiting list. So in case someone cancels/changes her/his trip, we’d get the vacated seats that respectively berths. This made us somehow insecure because 24 hours prior to boarding we still had no seats. But to make the long story short with the help or the Vector colleagues and their enquiries at the train company and frequent updates to us we finally managed to get 3 of the 4 berths in one cabin and our youth adjusted to share one berth so we had a train ride nearly as planned. 

Nevertheless the insecurity has let us stay most of the day in the very relaxing open air lounge/restaurant of the Dream Mango Hotel to be available in case of any change of plan. Also a day of rest did suit us all well, the Indian temperature and humidity, the cleanliness (or dirtiness depending on where we turn our heads), the multitude of impressions, the different food and the in-between travel arrangements that were more complicated than in southeast asian countries we traveled before, were taking its toll. So we chilled the great part of that day.

After all was arranged though, we had some more hours to spend and as the others liked to be lazy, I decided to walk to the Hampi Falls, some waterfalls in an arm of the Tungabhadra river around 5 kilometers from our place. Prepared with best motivation to do some physical exercise I turned into the main road. As thirty seconds later the first tukuk (riksha) stopped and asked it could take me somewhere, I declined and the tuktuk went off. 30 seconds later I sat in the next one that had stopped and was on my way.

The driver dropped me off and – surprise – asked when he should collect me again. We arranged a time and he didn’t bother driving away while I enjoyed the small but beautiful scene.

The driver turned out to be a good tour guide, so on the way back he recommended to see the Sanapur Lake, an artificial reservoir lake, fed from a Tungabhadra canal that probably is (also) used to manage a constant water supply to the many rice fields. So I saw another great site with boulders, some of which I climbed (without doing serious bouldering).

On the way back I had some more impressions of that beautiful landscape before – after sunset- we made us on the way to the train station.

Today’s village of Hampi is the name under which the tourist finds two types of stones. One one hand gigantic boulders that mark the impressive landscape, several are 10 meters and higher, like pebbles of prehistoric giants.

The other type of stone are the temples and other buildings that remain from the medieval empire of Vijayanagara, which – at the times of its largest extent in the 16th century – ruled most of the Indian subcontinent, from the arab sea on the west side to the Indian ocean on the east coast.

These temples are the reason for most tourist to visit the area, but maybe the beauty of this place was the reason to found Vijayanagara in the 14th century right there. We dedicated our first day in Hampi to these architectural reminescensces.

If you want to dive in deeper into the history, I highly recommend the captivating episode Vijayanagara – The Last Emperors of South India from the “Fall of Civilizations” podcast , available on Spotify or YouTube. It gave me better understanding of South Indias History in the times until the British South East India Company ruled the country.

Here I can merely show you some pictures of the beauty, carved in granite, hundreds of years ago, giving sign of a flourishing society. 

What may be common knowledge is that a society produces a high degree of art, architecture and beauty only, if it has resources free that are not tied up with warfare or nourishment. What I kept im mind from the podcast is, that also with this empire a wise governance with tolerance towards all kinds of peoples and religions lead to not only the greatest extent of the empire but also to the highest prosperity of the complete society.

Note: The decline of the empire, on the other hand, was initiated by arrogance and overestimation (podcast from around 02:20:00 following) which lead to the Battle of Talikota. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijayanagara_Empire)

Another day, another post? While I received the feedback that some people read my blog to follow our vacation, the news to post get less everyday. This part of our journey is meant to be relaxing, which means that we don’t have the days fully packed. Today we just explored the vicinity of our Guest House on foot. That’s why today you get only a few impressions on the excessively vital nature, that surrounds us.

Please don’t ask me, what these plants are. I’m very bad in botany, nevertheless I enjoy its beauty. The only one, I can tell is the baby pineapple. If you know and want to tell me though, I’m happy to add their names: blog[at]joachimvollmer.de

Arriving by train – and on time – in Pune we chose to walk the 2.4 km to the hotel. Pune was not as hot as Mumbai, but the air appeared more dirty. Before we completed our check-in I was already contacted by a colleague from the local subsidiary Vector, the company I work for. He and other colleagues assisted us in the preparation of the journey to India with many tips and tricks and of course I wanted to visit them. After we took our first Indian tuktuk to visit them in the office, they offered to spend some time with us and showed us around various sights in the city and around.

The pataleshwar caves, an underground temple fir the Hindu Lord Shiva, carved out of massive stone many hundred years ago:

The Shaniwar Wada, a fort and former residence of kings of in the center of the town. If you notice the spikes at the large entrance doors that start only from around 3 meters upwards and you wonder, why this is so, let me share my newly acquired knowledge: To break the doors usually elephants were used to run into them. If you imagine their size you can do the maths.

After another Shiva temple that was so crowded that we did not queue to get inside, we went over to the commercial side of the tour and did some window shopping in shops for jewelery and fine clothes followed by famous sweets shop where we filled the space in our backpacks, that was just freed by handing over a few German sweets to our colleagues, with sweet specialities from India. 

A common dinner with local food ended the entertaining day. Thumbs up.