Kerala's backwaters

For the last weekend with my fellow expats we decided to go for a sail in the backwaters of Kerala. I’ve been told by most of my team-mates that Kerala is a must stop and I soon realized why. Already from the plain I could tell how beautiful it is going to be.

Surprisingly arriving on time, we took a prepaid taxi to Alleby the place where all boats are docking at and leaving from. It took us about 2 hours where I had to sit on the gear stick which was not pleasant at all.
Arriving to our very basic but lovely guest house horribly hungry we went for dinner in Park hotel for A/C and booze.



The next morning Aly, Priz and myself volunteered to wake up early and go for some bargaining. The “quick” breakfast we were thinking of took more than an hour with terribly slow going kitchen staff.



We walked out to the main road to bargain for an auto-rickshaw which really upset us (extreme greediness) and after 10 minutes we arrived to the port where we could see tens of tens of boats getting ready for their noon departure.

After checking out a dozen of them we found the one we wanted and was available. Bargaining for the price was not easy and made me VERY annoyed and I even yelled at the “agent” which was a pain. Next time (if ever) I’ll do it completely differently. If you are going to go there do the research and talk directly to the boat operator. You will end up getting a better price and no misunderstandings and false promises.



We hopped on at about noon, and with our request (and money) the boat was packed with booze. We spent overnight with the extremely nice staff which cooked beautiful food (including giant shrimps we bought from a passing fisherman.



So we were 11 people on 3 double-bed boat and we had to fit in somehow. Excited (and stupidly) Aly, Priz and myself volunteered to sleep on the roof deck. You can imagine how many bugs were around us. I could not sleep all night but the girls were fine.



The next day we went for a walk at the beach in Allepy where we saw from distance dolphins. Hungry again we walked (more than an hour) in the unbearable heat to a nice restaurant. And later on to the A/C pub to regain powers for another 2 hours ride back to the AP.

still exploring, day 3, Hyderabad

I'll keep it short this time as I'm really tired. Woke up early (10) today and around 11ish I heard a knock on my door. It was Aly and Mike apparently they pinged to say they're coming but it never got through, so they had to wait for couple of minutes till I got ready.
Today started the Pongal holiday (lasts 2 days) and the tradition is to fly kites. After having a short visit to the drag store (found out imported stuff with exactly the same prices like home) we went to Paradise hotel to have lunch with fellow Hyderabadians from the Checkout team. We had a traditional hindi dish and went out really full. It was nice to hang out with some locals.
Later Sushill one of the checkout guys invited us to his house where we went on the roof to watch the kites flying and tried it out ourselves. The skies were full of colorful kites. They fly them really high up and try to knock down each others. They're real experts. I don't wanna know how many kids fall off the roofs on this holiday (quite a few I'd say, sad.) He then welcomed us to his place with some home-made cakes his mom made.



Exhausted from a long day we went to Aly's place to hang out together and after a short while we found ourselves with few other expats in a nice Italian restaurant. With their advice I got ceaser salad. Hopefully I won't regret it by tomorrow.
It's time for me to go to bed. I told Viktor to knock on my door as he's coming in tonight. We'll see if I'm gonna wake up.

Oh yeah, tomorrow is my first day in the office, I can't wait to meet my team and I already have sooo many great ideas.

You can also have a look at Aly's album. She's a great photographer.