Love is Everything

Pic from Shikara

Alappuzha – still more romantically known as Alleppey – is the hub of Kerala's backwaters, home to a vast network of waterways and more than 1000 houseboats. Wandering around the small but chaotic city centre, with its modest grid of canals, you'd be hard-pressed to agree with the 'Venice of the East' tag.

We started the day trying to find the best houseboat or a Shikara. Let me tell you the difference between them, if you really want to enjoy the cool breeze, water and everything that the natural backwaters has to offer, you should go for a Shikara. Its an open boat. In case you want to enjoy the romantic time with your pair, you know what I mean, go for a houseboat. 

Over 100kms of Tree Plantation in Kerala

You can rent a houseboat for a day or for day and night as well, depending on the time you like to spend. As we didn’t had much time and our plan was to enjoy nature, we booked a Shikara for 2 hour journey. He took us inside the backwaters, at one point of time, it looks like its an ocean, but its not. There were Lotus plants all over the water without any flowers as it was not a flowery time. I remember that we too had Lotus plants at our place, but they never gave any flowers, God knows why. I thought of taking some seeds with me, but the seed would have died when parents will reach home.

House Boat

It was a nice boatride, one of the best or we can say only event in Allepey. The ride consists of peace, just don’t think anything, sit light, relax and enjoy the nature. They even have beds inside the boats, if you want to take a nice nap and music systems in case you wanna dance.

As per my thinking, you have not done anything in Kerala, if you have not drink Coconut water. So we stopped our boat for a drink, it was really cool. They may cut coconut right in front of you from trees and give a fresh one to you. In this small Kerala trip, all I ever think is about Love. Keralas a lovely place where people generally go for a honeymoon or with friends. But I was there with my folks, it was my love for them that made us to visit Gods Own Country. In the end, whats matter is Love and Love is everything.

Next we headed for lunch where we had the special red colored medicinal water of Kerala and then finally came back to Chennai.

Riding and Dancing in Lanka

Topi riding Rickshaw

From Airport we hired a tuk tuk (in lanka, rickshaws are known by this name) for Negombo. We thought that will go for scuba diving but it was very costly-75$/person, so we changed our plans and headed for lunch, when we were moving towards restaurant, our driver stopped for paan (a stimulating 

Default Dish-Meduvada

and psychoactive preparation of betel leaf combined with areca nut and/or cured tobacco), and we were waiting inside tuk tuk, suddenly my friend asked permission for driving his rickshaw, he was so cool, that he said ok-go ahead. Funny thing Topi was not even able to start it in the beginning, but once driver started, he was driving it like its own car. 

EGB-Ginger Soda

Obviously I was little bit scared, after some time we stopped at restaurant and were provided with a default item in their menu (medu vada). Its default dish weather you order or not. While we were eating, I saw a mother giving some yellow colored liquid to her 2yr old kid from a bottle which looked like daru bottle (hard drink), but I thought it can’t be possible, so to know what it contains us also ordered a bottle of Egb. When I looked at its sticker, it read as real ginger. Then we knew that it was ginger soda. Since that mother was giving it to her child, so it was clear that it is a local health drink. Note that lanka is famous for natural herbs and hence the drink was.

Dance like nobody's Watching

After Egb, we moved onto our new adventure-Dance.

Yes dance was also an adventure, the way we did it. We were walking on road and I saw a joker dancing in front of a Bata showroom with blasting sound, I was so excited to see him that I joined him (It’s a natural talent whenever I see a person dancing, I also starts, it has happened before also when I was out with my school friends.) It became a road show. All the people were looking at us. But I didnt care about all such things,  I was there to enjoy not to think about what others think and we should be like that only, we should feel free to express ourselves, because if we keep thinking to please others, we won’t be able to live.

Pic with Bald Uncle

When we were back on track, one bald uncle was looking at us and smiling, he asked about us, where do we belong to, what we were doing there and then he showed us his vintage car, we took some pics of his car and then the conversation turned about our adventure that we are looking for scuba diving. So this bald guy called two of his friends and invited us in his car. He took us to his other friends who go for fishing and scuba. These people were not professionals for scuba but they were experienced locals, they asked about our experience of diving, we informed that we have no idea about it, so they said it is not possible without proper training. So bald uncle dropped us at the same point plus he hired a rickshaw also for us to place, where we can get training for scuba. Meanwhile we asked about his profession and knew that he works in Pharma Company but at that instant he was out there for some social work which was really good and image of uncle was again raised in our eyes. I would like to stress on the fact that Sri Lankans are ready to help anyone and everyone, without having any personal agenda behind that.