Kanyakumari Part IV

  I could have stayed in Kanyakumari for weeks. There is so much to see and do in and around the tip if India seeing as it has been cranking for nearly 8 thousand years, you can always find something of interest.   We took a side trip a few kilometers away to the Suchindram Thanumalayan Temple. We …

Kanyakumari Part III

His frail voice hung in the air, echoing off the buildings on either side of the street, barely discernable but it was still beautiful. Eerily beautiful yet fitting. The little man, hunched over from years of labor perhaps, walking slowly in his dhoti and steadying himself with a long staff, was singing a Hindu devotional to himself.  We had just …

Kanyakumari Part II

Narendranath Datta was born in Kolkata in 1863 to a prominent Bengali Kayastha family and would take the name Swami Vivekananda while taking his monastic vows on Christmas Eve, 1886. His life is fascinating and most Americans, myself included until a few years ago, never knew he was well received in Chicago at the Parliament of the World's Religions in 1893. Vivekananda traveled …

Kanyakumari Part I

We left Kovalam on the 24th of March 2011 and headed South, to the Southern-most tip of the Subcontinent of India. Our destination was Kanyakumari, where 3 oceans meet, the Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean. It is a very sacred place, where devotes of Kanya Devi and religious pilgrims of all kinds flock by the tens of …

Kovalam, Kerala, India Part III

One could spend months, even years in one area of any part of India and still not see everything, experience everything there is to offer. We try to see highlights wherever we go, yet inevitably miss a whole lot. We always placate ourselves by saying aloud, "We'll see it next time we come." Twenty or …

Kovalam, Kerala, India Part II

One of the side trips we took from Kovalam was through the Vizhinjam fishing village, which is a short walk from Kovalam proper. My late Father-in-Law had taken my wife here years ago. So we headed over to Vizhinjam to see a small ancient temple devoted to Nandi. It was on the hill above the …

Kovalam, Kerala, India. Part I

  One hundred and eighty kilometers south lay our next destination. Situated on the Arabian Sea, Kovalam has been around for centuries but gained notoriety when the Regent Maharani Sethu Lakshmi Bayi of Travancore constructed her beach resort, Halcyon Castle here towards the end of the 1920s. The 1930s saw European guests of the Travancore Kingdom using it as a tourist destination, but Kovalam gained wide notoriety in the 1970s …

Kerala backwaters are calling me back

One of my favorite stops so far in India was the backwaters of Kerala. Serene settings with fabulous sunrises and sunsets, this, to me, was a place to go to really unwind and relax. We arrived from Munnar close to sunset, and I was able to really get a feel of relaxation looking over the …

Munnar, Kerala, India. Part IV. Tea and spices.

While in Munnar, we did do some of the touristy things. It's inevitable, I guess, but still nothing I wouldn't change. We took a tour of a tea plantation and its aging, small, yet productive tea drying and packaging. The people were nice and showed us the process from start to finish and then handed …

Munnar, Kerala, India. Part III Top Station

  One of the longer day trips we took in Munnar was to Top Station. The winding two-lane road took us through many Tea Plantations on our 36km, windy trek. Along the way, we passed the Mattupatty Reservoir and drove for a few kilometers along its flank. A couple of kilometers past that we came to Kundale Lake, another man-made …