In Transit

Out of all the suggested tourist destinations we asked around, my dear good traveler decided to take a 4-hr train to Palakkad which is unknown to us (not even on Lonely Planet) except it is on the way of the planned route to Chennai.

Again, we have had many "angels" help us along our journey every time we seemed at lost. The train ride to Palakkad was still pleasant except it was hot in a non AC cabin. I saw a young mother (with her little daughter) who swept the train floor to get few rupees  donation from us, instead of being a beggar!

A different model cab took us to a fancy hotel called Fort Palace $30US/night. This place is big, has nice rooms and service. It serves mostly the local people who attend conferences...so we were in our comfort zone again. The meals here are good too except we sat in a not well-lit bar for dinner, so we used iPhone as candlelight which was another laughable experience :) We went for a town festival that night just a block from the hotel.

We first were told there was no wi-fi in this hotel, but I was allowed to use a computer to E-mail for 40 Rupees/hr.  I am telling you, it's paid to marry a electronic geek (not sure about a good traveler though because the unknown does not suite me well ;)  The next morning as I was asking my nephew to publish a post for me through e-mailing, G spotted a modem under the manager's desk. Voila! We got Wi-Fi for ourselves and the reception still didn't know about it. G didn't tell them a thing ;)))

Sat morning, we walked to explore the city market for few hours. I didn't feel well from the day before with a chest cold and was loosing my voice as the day progressed. So far, I only had 4 bowls of hot & sour soup. There was not much to see in this city even it is close to the mountain range. In the evening, we went to see Alamuzha Dam, nice view of the mountains from afar, but the place looks like a Disneyland, especially on Sat we saw a sea of people!

Holly Cow!

We knew then we had to move on, so we went to book an night train to Chennai. Unfortunately, the overnight sleeper train was booked out for a week ahead, so the plan fell through! We just made the best of our day by going to see an old Fort (1745), and later had KFC-like Indian chicken that was delicious!

We discovered that Chennai does not have backwater trips as I researched, and something G hasn't experienced yet, so we decided to turn around to go back passed Kochi to Alappuzha--Venice of the East, they say (?) That meant we had to take the 5:30am morning train! We may be taking a flight from Kochi to Chennai as our last leg in India, this will include a 80-km train ride from Alappuzha back to Kochi. Well, we realized we didn't plan well, but many yin/yang experiences made it all worth while.

Happy Chinese New Year to All!