This was, again, another car ride. Not as long as our first, and surprisingly on schedule. We got to cross the mountains, so again, we had a chance to see some more varied scenery and vegetation on the way—tea plantations, rubber plantations, forests, and so on….
Speeding by the tea and rubber plantations....
I couldn't really get a good shot of this, but we passed by many jeeps that were totally packed as full as possible. Many of the guys were on their way to the Ayappan temple in Kerala....
As we got closer to Kerala, it was hard not to notice the great number of men on their way to (or from) the Ayappan temple. My initial reaction was that it looked a lot like the pictures I’ve seen of Woodstock…. For some reason, the Ayappan men are all fascinated with Henny. When we were at the Menakshi temple in Madurai, a whole line of them came up to her, calling her “Mama” and wanting to shake their hands…. Henny, of course, loves the Ayappan story, and seemed to be quite impressed by the number of people on this pilgrimage. Apparently, she can visit the temple, so maybe the next time….
When we got to Allepy, we need to find our boat, which we did easily enough, and pretty soon, we would be living in luxury for a couple of days.
The houseboat trip started off, in fitting fashion, with a huge late lunch—a lunch which prepared us nicely for a lazy mid-afternoon lounging around and watching the water and other houseboats float by. Soon enough, the sun was setting. It was a pretty spectacular sunset that gave me a good excuse to take plenty of photos with my new camera. Then, we had dinner and held out against the evening bugs as long as we could before deciding to head off to sleep early.
The Grumpy Writer’s Grumps
Sun. Jan 14 – Madurai to Allepy & Houseboat
This was, again, another car ride. Not as long as our first, and surprisingly on schedule. We got to cross the mountains, so again, we had a chance to see some more varied scenery and vegetation on the way—tea plantations, rubber plantations, forests, and so on….
Speeding by the tea and rubber plantations....
I couldn't really get a good shot of this, but we passed by many jeeps that were totally packed as full as possible. Many of the guys were on their way to the Ayappan temple in Kerala....
As we got closer to Kerala, it was hard not to notice the great number of men on their way to (or from) the Ayappan temple. My initial reaction was that it looked a lot like the pictures I’ve seen of Woodstock…. For some reason, the Ayappan men are all fascinated with Henny. When we were at the Menakshi temple in Madurai, a whole line of them came up to her, calling her “Mama” and wanting to shake their hands…. Henny, of course, loves the Ayappan story, and seemed to be quite impressed by the number of people on this pilgrimage. Apparently, she can visit the temple, so maybe the next time….
When we got to Allepy, we need to find our boat, which we did easily enough, and pretty soon, we would be living in luxury for a couple of days.
The houseboat trip started off, in fitting fashion, with a huge late lunch—a lunch which prepared us nicely for a lazy mid-afternoon lounging around and watching the water and other houseboats float by. Soon enough, the sun was setting. It was a pretty spectacular sunset that gave me a good excuse to take plenty of photos with my new camera. Then, we had dinner and held out against the evening bugs as long as we could before deciding to head off to sleep early.
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