The gray cloud

2 months ago

3 am: A cold January morning and I'm half asleep and suddenly I'm woken up to a warm wet feeling on my head. It smelt strangely funky. Oh shit! It's pee!

After running to the bathroom and washing my head with shampoo, I found the pee-er/the offender looking at me with a curious expression and demanding to be let out of the house.

The said pee-er is my furry faced grey haired kitten, Rani aka Ronnie aka .... You can never have ONLY one name for a cat/dog, can you? It depends on how sweet or how naughty they are.

Rani at 5 months.

We got Rani just before the new year in December 2016. She came into my life and everything changed. I wake up at odd hours, try napping on the sofa and worry about her next doctor's appointment and wonder if she's eating well.
At some point in life it's important to have a pet and I'm enjoying it! (It's exasperating at times.)

6 am: Rani's wake up time. Ok, let me correct it. 5 am. No wait! It was 4-30 am 2 weeks ago. Nah, you have to wake up when she wakes up. Or she's going to bite your toes, fingers or mew loudly in your ear, or she'll walk on your pillow or on you. After she wakes you up, she'll rub against your legs with every step you take to the kitchen (she secretly wants you to trip especially when you're groggy eyed at some weird hour). After you drop a cup of Whiskas cat food into her bowl, the spoilt child will eat it noisily, spilling a few of the stuff on the floor.

6-15 am: It's toilet time! Despite my best efforts, I can't get her to look at me while she's taking a dump. Whistling, name calling, clapping - nothing works.

Flashback: My mother and her sisters have had plenty of cats in their teens and even later. So, most of the cat advice usually comes from them. All their cats have had interesting personalities - some having weird tastes like dosas, some were great hunters whereas some were born cuddlers.

So when suddenly in January when Rani was acting strange it was unnerving. She used to pee on all the sofas, the bed and mew endlessly all night. When I asked my mother about it she said it may be because we aren't at home most of the time and she's alone and feels lonely and unloved. I was unconvinced as we used to cuddle her and give her a lot of 'love'. A few days later I looked up the signs on a pet website and it was a surprise. Rani was in heat.

We immediately went to the vet and asked if it was possible to have her spayed. The vet looked her up and said she's about 4 and half months and we could have her spayed. We didn't want Rani to have babies of her own as we used to have a cat earlier whose kittens we had to give away and it wasn't a nice thing to do. I guess having her spayed is also not the nice thing to do but it's lesser of the two evils.

After the operation Rani recovered quickly. She was trying to get up an hour after the operation. And then I knew, this girl is a fighter and has a mind of her own. The anti biotics given were strong and caused a lot of loose stools but it didn't affect her perkiness and her attitude of playing with anything and everything.

February 2017: Rani likes to explore the outdoors and never misses an opportunity to bolt out as soon as the door is opened. She does that even now though the windows are open. After she recovered completely from her surgery, we used to let her out of the house. One Sunday we let her out at usual at about 1 in the afternoon and till 6 pm we didn't see any sign of her. It was worrying and we went out to look for her. There was no sign of her anywhere even 6 houses away. After searching till 10 we gave up and prayed she came back home safely. I couldn't forgive myself for not going out to look for her earlier.

At 4-30 the next morning we heard familiar mews and found her hopping in through the window. The girl is back! After cuddling her for a good 10 minutes we gave her food and then checked to see if she was hurt. I picked her up and there was a strange creaking sound and she had strange marks near the ribs. A visit to the vet confirmed it. The little tyke had broken her ribs. It still didn't matter to her though the vet advised complete rest. She was still jumping around and didn't really care despite our anguished 'ayyyeeee' every time she jumped and ran. I'm hoping ribs all fine now. If I could I'd stick it with superglue.

Rani's growth has been fast. Every time I get back from work and open the door I can't help myself saying - "Hasn't she put on weight?" This isn't really welcome by the wife and the mother who give me dirty looks every time I say it.

Sleeping scenes

Rani maintains an active life of sleeping, eating, shitting, playing with cockroaches apart from generally being a pest during the mornings.

A week in coconut country

In one of the lanes of the old town of Fort Kochi

This trip was not hurried! It was planned well in advance and my wife and I had decided to book the whole trip to be done by train. Tickets were booked through IRCTC website and the hotels were booked through MakemyTrip from the 1st to the 10th of October coinciding with the Dussera vacations. We didn't need to take any days off from work!

We decided to start by spending two days in Eranakulam, one day in Alleppey, two days in Varkala and three days in Kovalam (probably the worst decision ever made - I'll explain later).

We decided to fly to Cochin after the 'rents said the train will be dirty and crowded. All excited, bags packed, camera charged we set out to explore Kerala. We reached the airport early and planned to have breakfast after the security check. We had idlis and vadas at the overpriced South Indian restaurant after waiting in a line for a good 15 minutes with many groggy eyed people. It took another 15 minutes for the cashier to explain why 75% of the items mentioned in the menu weren't available.

Maybe it's just me but I notice many mothers and fathers with their kids who seem really irritated at airports. They snap like turtles even if the kids ask for water. And there was a lady with a kid looking eagerly at my idlis during breakfast. Strange.

After an uneventful flight we reached Kochi airport - small, but powered entirely by solar energy! The airport authorities have been strangely silent about it. Hope more airports follow the same.
The taxi to Eranakulam took more than an hour and we had booked a hotel just opposite the South Railway Station (My stingy soul crying over the money we could have saved if we had taken the train from Bangalore 😧). Hotel South Regency is a new hotel and the stay was great. The rooms were clean and the food was good and affordable. If you eat meat, Kerala is a good option to try out beef and fish. My criteria of a good hotel is if they offer great food and have clean sheets 😁.

Ernakulam and Fort Kochi
The city is composed of many small islands and I'd suggest visiting as many possible using the Government run boat service. They are cheap and frequent (₹4 for a one way trip!). Language is not a big problem. Most people speak English or Hindi.
We decided to go to Fort Kochi the first day and headed to the boat jetty. There was a long queue and we joined in. After 15 minutes the man at the ticket counter got up and disappeared! The wife and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows wondering how much longer it would take for the man to come back. 10 minutes. No one. We decided to take an auto. We found one and agreed to pay ₹300 to take us to see the Chinese fishing nets at Fort Kochi. This trip took us a good 45 minutes by which time the sun had almost set and we were just in time to take a picture of the sunset.
Aha! moment - About the boat ticket counter guy disappearing - we later saw that the driver of each boat is also the same guy who comes in to the cash counter and issues tickets. So don't panic if you see no one at the jetty.
The fishing nets! The wife jumped out of the auto nimbly like a gazelle and took out the Nikon, hopped on to a precariously balanced boulder and clicked. Nothing. All this while I was appreciating her determination but then sauntered over smugly (I think I take better pictures) and examined the camera - no memory card... The buggered thing was still stuck in the laptop at home!

The Chinese fishing nets. A common sight earlier but not anymore.

The fishing nets are supposed to be a must see but I'd give it a miss (would rather check out the many restaurants in Fort Kochi). But I discovered that the restaurants in the area aren't really great and mainly cater to our fair skinned cousins from the US and Europe. There are varieties of pasta, Chinese, North Indian and Continental. The food is so-so. There are only a few places offering authentic Kerala cuisine. There aren't many fishing nets used in Kerala now and there were only 9 working ones.

Finding a sackful of cat is always welcome, Fort Kochi!

The next day we came back to Fort Kochi to take more pictures of the fishing nets and to see the Jewish Synagogue (unfortunately closed for 4 days because of some festival). We went over to the Mattancherry Palace which has some beautiful murals from various scenes from the Ramayana and the life of Krishna. There are also portraits of the Varmas of Kerala. Photography is not allowed here. An interesting read on the Varmas of Kerala - 'The Ivory Throne' by Manu S. Pillai.

We also went to a store selling articles made by tribals in India. It's a part of the post office in Fort Kochi but some of the stuff is pricey.

Our hotel served pretty decent food at affordable prices. I had the podimeen fry (fried anchovies) - you can eat it whole - with the bones (who's got the time to pick out bones anyway!) and it's very tasty. I also tried the beef varattiyathu and beef ularthiyathu which again have pieces of roasted coconut I love. I also had the squid roast but didn't particularly enjoy it.

Alleppey
We took the morning train to Alleppey - took about 2 hours including a prepaid auto to the Prince Hotel. 

The Ernakulam South Railway station is clean and comfortable to hang around and perfect for people watching.

The Prince Hotel is an old establishment but the rooms have been spruced up and are quite comfortable.The Kerala meals at this hotel was very good and I highly recommend it. I also tried the beef fry here. Decent. The good part about the hotel is that they have a swimming pool and strangely during the holiday season, this hotel was quite empty so we got the pool all for us. And the beer is far cheaper in Kerala than pub-city Bangalore.

One of the hundreds of houseboats in Alleppey.

Kerala sadya at the Hotel Prince, Alleppey.

We wanted to go on a backwaters ride and the hotel helped us book it. It costs about Rs. 1400 for a 2 hour ride in the backwaters. But - hold your breath till you exit the city because all the restaurants and small shops leave their sewage right into the backwaters. It improves when you move to the village areas with lush green paddy fields. There are hundreds of house boats but I wasn't too keen with some reviews mentioning the drivers/cooks getting drunk in the night. I wouldn't want a drunk cook making me a fish and burning down the boat.

Alleppey was the best part of our trip and it's a pity we stayed here only a night.

Varkala
The evening train from Alleppey to Varkala was slow and tedious. We reached the InDa Hotel only in the night. InDa is a nice place owned by a Ukrainian couple. The rooms are clean and though they don't have air conditioning, the heat was bearable. There were many foreign guests and predictably the food was all continental. We had some soup for dinner - sizeable portions and delicately seasoned. Our complementary breakfast was a surprise with 6 monstrous pancakes, maple syrup and fruit. The next morning the cook received strict instructions to make me only 4 pancakes.

The sea from the North cliff, Varkala

The sands are packed hard and easy to walk on unlike Pondicherry.

The hotel is close to the North cliff and offers some breathtaking views. There are some restaurants and shops selling overpriced junk above the cliff. The restaurants offer similar dishes - mostly pastas, pizzas, biriyani and North Indian stuff. It's tough to find authentic Kerala stuff. There are many places offering massages and yoga classes but we steered clear from them as they look seedy.

Kovalam
We took a taxi to Kovalam and reached our hotel sometime in the afternoon. The hotel, Unwind pronounced un-wind (as in - the movement of air) by everyone is an ok-ok place on the Lighthouse beach. Expensive, not very clean but the standards are pretty low in all the hotels in Kovalam. The hotel is behind a restaurant called Malabar Cafe - this can rank 2nd in your worst-places-to-eat-list. Avoid at all cost. I had a ginger chicken which tasted bad. Another customer got a pizza with a burnt crust. The waiter will creepily smile at you and give lame excuses. Strangely, no restaurant in Kovalam will give you hot water to drink.

A rat snake fishing in the restaurant pond, Kovalam

The other restaurants too offer food that is just about edible and you get measly portions. It's sad to see a beautiful beach destroyed by poor service and commercialisation. We are to blame for it.









Since there was nothing much to do in Kovalam (I felt like kicking myself for coming to this place) we went to Trivandrum which takes about 30 mins by auto.

Gazebo at the zoo, Trivandrum. An inbuilt speaker plays 'How to speak Hindi' lessons every evening. 

Trivandrum and the Napier Museum are well maintained and plastics are banned. The aquarium doesn't have much variety (if you get all excited by a goldfish don't miss this place). The Napier museum was reconstructed in the 1800s and is built in the Indo-Saracenic style. They have some interesting exhibits from South-East Asia and India - intricate ivory and wood sculptures.

We wanted to buy some chips and walked down to Maha Chips - marketed as the best in Trivandrum. After fumbling for some time with phone maps, we were able to find it easily. There was a union protest all along the route so be prepared to walk on these lucky days. The jackfruit and the banana chips here are fresh and crisp and we finished two packets of the good stuff before we reached Bangalore.  

We headed back to Kovalam in the evening and walked along the beach. There are lots of dead jellyfish on the beach and even the live ones are harmless and not poisonous. The purple jellyfish are beautiful to look at.

View of the lighthouse beach taken below the lighthouse.

After this trip I decided to avoid all the touristy places and look for unexplored places. In Kerala, I'd recommend going to the less crowded places - Trivandrum, Alleppey, Thrissur and Eranakulam. Avoid all the tourist places - Kovalam, Munnar and places advertised on travel portals.

Yes, most of the pictures were taken by Kavita Shah, the wife. I was too lazy to carry the damned camera.

Kumta! Beach love!

January! I wanted to get to a beach. Goa was one option but it worked out too expensive, crowded and littered with remnants of the New Year parties. I didn't want to travel too far off as we only had 3 days! So, the other options were Pondicherry and Gokarna. I had already been to Pondy and Gokarna or Kumta were the best options. Kumta is (still) not as well known a beach spot as Goa and I hoped the beaches would be nice and empty. Kumta is on the West coast and approximately 500 kms from Bangalore. The beaches are mostly empty and is close to Gokarna - popular for its Om beach.

A mid-January weekend was fixed and my fiance, a friend and I were ready to laze around on the beach! Train tickets were booked in November-end and tickets worked out to a cheap Rs. 900 per head return. A beach resort was decided and bookings were done online. The resort faces the Nirvana Beach and the website showed white sands and calm waters. I was expecting a nice, relaxing time on the beach with periodic dips in the calm Arabian Sea.

The Karwar Express leaves Bangalore at 20:30 and reaches Kumta by about 13:00. I was excited to get on the train since it'd been ages since I'd been in one. The train journey was decent - not the most comfortable. I had more fat on my ass when I was a kid, I guess. The seats felt really hard. Fellow passengers assured us that the new coaches were very comfortable but obviously this train wasn't on the list for an upgrade. After an hour my back and my rump had quite a few stories to say and I quickly had dinner and clambered up my upper berth and went off to sleep. The other highlight of the journey is sampling all the food that passes by. I enjoy my food and maintain lower standards regarding taste and cleanliness when on a train (The food looked pretty clean though!). Don't miss the goli bajjis of Mangalore and my favourite - Maddur vada. The people on the train were friendly (as always) and that you won't find on a plane. Friendly=train, Grumpy=plane. Weird.

The Kumta station is small and clean and there are autos and taxis always waiting out to take you wherever you need to go. It's good to haggle as all of them think everyone who comes out of a train is loaded with gold biscuits. All we had was Parle G (pj - sorry!). The Nirvana beach - also called Birkodi is well known and takes about 30 minutes to get there.

There's a lot to say about the place we stayed in. We had booked a tree house and just below it was a room with no windows. Technically, not a tree house! The room below was shabby and dark. The shared toilets are poorly maintained, no proper lighting and there was no shower head in one bathroom. Bathing under this shower is like washing each part of your body in detail - fingers then hands, then wrist, then arm, elbow - you get the drift. The cook has many roles - he walks the dogs at odd times, looks after the accounts etc. Food took more than an hour to arrive and he talks a lot. We actually wished for a tape for his mouth and a lock to keep him in the kitchen. I was 'hangry' most of the time. The highlight of one evening was the Chicken 65. It tasted Indian-Chinese but also had mustard seeds in it. Very weird tasting. The cook periodically assured us with a smile saying "we don't charge too much for food" but it was a different story when he handed us the bill. And shockingly, the place DOES NOT SERVE FISH! The fishermen bring in their catch every morning exactly 40 steps from the resort.

The location is no doubt great. After reaching Kumta, we headed down to the beach to watch the sunset. A sight indeed!

The best part was there were only 2 other people at the beach and it made the whole experience a lot more surreal.

The same scene every evening! Made me want to build a small shack and live my life here.
It's a good idea to book a tree house at this resort but carry your own instant food.

The next morning, we headed out to have a look around the place and visit Gokarna and the Om beach. The bus stop is a short walk across fields behind the resort and the bus takes you to the boat point. You can book a full boat or share with others. We opted for the latter as it works out a whole lot cheaper and you get the chance to watch people! I like people watching. :)

Hopping off the boat, you can see many fish canning factories and looked like most of the produce gets exported. To reach Om beach you'll need to take an auto and it took about 30 minutes. As always, be prepared to haggle. The Om beach is much more crowded but beautiful. The shape of the beach is in the shape of an 'Om' and is a haven for selfie maniacs. The one restaurant at the beach serves pretty average food. Avoid the food and have a beer or a lemon soda.

After spending time at the Kumta beach, the Om beach seems too crowded and makes you feel like heading back. My suggestion - go back to Kumta!

And spending some more time in the water!

And finally, I'll miss this sight!

Strangely, the mosquitoes in Kumta have a schedule. They suck the beejeesus out of you from 6 pm to 7 pm. It's peaceful afterwards.


    

Chitradurga and Hampi

Let me be honest - among the places to visit Hampi was not the first on the list. The main reason is the place is hot and walking between boulders in the sun is not my idea of a holiday! Despite this I wanted to see Hampi because of its magnificent architecture and I hoped the sun wouldn't be too strong in mid-November.  I wanted to see Chitradurga too for its magnificent fort and it's only a small diversion on the road to Hampi.

The plan was to leave early on a Saturday morning and be back in Bangalore by Sunday night. We were three of us and we all had to get back to work on Monday. Yes, 'hurried' is an understatement here!

The drive to Hampi is about 6 hours, 350 kms. We left Bangalore by 6 am on a Saturday morning in a vintage Tata Indica that had the 'check engine' light permanently glowing. I wanted to ask our paan-eating driver about it but I was feeling adventurous and decided to take the risk.  The roads out of Bangalore are excellent and a small part of your expenses goes towards paying toll. If you plan a month in advance, you have a good chance of booking a train to Hospet, far more comfortable and cheap. From Hospet you can take a taxi or auto to Hampi. If taxi is your option - I'd recommend an air-conditioned one.

If you're the type that cribs about the ever increasing traffic - here's an update! The road till Yeshwanthpur is crowded but clears soon after. The other road that is crowded and required slowing down is the 2 lane road from Chitradurga to Hospet. There are a lot of heavy vehicles and villages in between so this stretch takes more time.

Reaching Chitradurga is easy if you have Google Maps and network connectivity is fairly good. It is a windy city and it looks like a good bit of energy is harnessed by the windmills on the outskirts of this small town. The sun is sharp but the wind makes it bearable. You can never play badminton here!

The highlight of this town is the fort and it is magnificent. I'd go as far as to say this was more interesting than Hampi. Many Bangaloreans will relate it to the Kannada movie, Naagarahavu and the mental picture of Vishnuvardhan in bell bottoms is still fresh in my mind. The fort has many interesting elements; temples, zig zag entry path - to confuse oncoming troops, a moat, large stone entrances that supposedly had poison dipped spikes on the wooden doors to kill elephants and the famous 'Obavva' episode. I won't go into the history of the fort as it was too confusing and the sun had muddled my brains. Look it up somewhere on the net. There are huge boulders, resembling the shape of an elephant, a frog and a rabbit. The guides will point these to you very enthusiastically.

The treasury of the Chitradurga fort.

We left Chitradurga by about 12pm and we reached Hampi around 3pm. I had already booked our stay at a heritage house in Anegundi village called Uramma. They have a set of cottages and 2 heritage houses at a walking distance from the main cottages. You need to come to the cottages for lunch, breakfast, etc. The house we stayed in was well maintained with AC. A fan is not enough for the heat. The house is right across Hampi separated by the river. To go to Hampi, you need to take a ferry across the river. This is very convenient if you're back-packing and the ferry point is at a walking distance but doesn't make much sense if you're driving. If you have your own car or a taxi, you need to take a roundabout road to Hampi and that adds close to 30 kms to your fuel bill and the road is pretty small and crowded and takes about 40 minutes. I'd advise you to take the ferry. Another option is to stay at a guest house in Hampi; cheaper and more convenient.

At the heritage house

If you have time in the evening, don't miss the walk to the river bank. It's a 5 minute walk and you can sit by the bank and watch the river. There weren't many people and only a few egrets waiting patiently for a fishy evening snack. The banks are rocky and you can sit and feel the water on your feet. It's a pleasurable experience - for a city slicker like me, the only water I get to see is the black Vrishbhavati river in Bangalore University and I wouldn't dip my feet in it! 

We were keen to have dinner at Uramma (because there was no other place to eat!) and the food didn't disappoint. It was wholesome, oil less and I never felt overly stuffed despite indulging. The spread is simple - beans, a few vegetables and dal with chapati and rice. The breakfast was the highlight - there were home made papaya and apple jam, toast, eggs, avalakki and fresh juice. I ate up all the jam! It was that good! We were also accompanied by a chatty cat and she went on whining for a good bit of time.

The chatty cat

A very tasty breakfast!

We set out for Hampi early in the morning in a vain attempt to save ourselves from the afternoon heat. We got the ferry (cheap) and then took the golf cart to reach the main Hampi ruins. The first was the Vitthala Temple complex and this by far is the most noteworthy in Hampi. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

One of the Vitthala Temple complexes

The roof has some interesting carvings that look like a bird's wing in Vitthala.

Nothing compares to the beauty of this frangipani tree.

A short walk along the river to your right from the Vithhala Temple takes you to the river bank and you can get a coracle ride for cheap. If you've never been in a coracle, you should try it! You can get a good price if you haggle. Tip - Ask the coracle guy not to spin the coracle at the end of the trip if you get nauseous. Once you get in to the coracle, it's a beautiful experience. The sound of the water, being surrounded by rocks and you can see the temples beneath and close to the water. It's interesting and one wonders how they were built.

Fascinating patterns made by the river

If you follow the path you get to the Hampi Bazaar area and the Virupaksha Temple. The Virupaksha Temple is like any other temple. There are rogue monkeys here and it wasn't pleasant that one particularly well built guy grabbed my water bottle. The temple is pretty crowded so we took a quick turn and walked to the Hampi Bazaar and had lunch. 

The mobile phone network is very patchy throughout Hampi. You need to do quite a bit of posing to get that one bar. People in Hampi won't be looking at you strangely - they do understand your plight. We found that only BSNL has network in this area.

After lunch we set out to look for the Laxmi Narsimha statue. It was almost 2pm and the sun was beating down on us. On the side of the main road is a mud path that leads to the Laxmi Narasimha and the Badavara Linga. The statue of Narasimha is unusual. The ferocity is apparent in the eyes and the mouth that is exquisitely carved. It was originally carved with Lakshmi sitting on the lap of Narasimha but numerous battles have damaged the original and now only one arm of Lakshmi is visible. It really makes you stand for a while and look at the uniqueness and appreciate the workmanship of the sculptors. Don't miss this!
The Badavara Linga is just beside the Narasimha and features a stone Shivalinga partly submerged in water fed by a stream from the river. The name 'Badava' meaning poor in Kannada is because it is said to be commissioned by a peasant woman.  

We had a look at a few other places - the palaces, a few more temples and finally came across something more unique and beautiful. This is the Prasanna Virupaksha Temple also called the underground Shiva Temple. The temple is below ground level and a large part of it is always submerged in water. It must have looked marvelous in those times! Another interesting thing about the carvings here is that they look 3D even in the pictures.

Entrance to the Prasanna Virupaksha Temple

The Prasanna Virupaksha Temple

Despite this being a very short trip, I felt it is sufficient if you want to cover only the prominent buildings in Hampi. If you're a large-ish family, 4 to 5 days would be comfortable. 

Photos by Mira and Kavita - Thanks, ladies!