Honeymooning with the Honeymooners

The honeymoon tour group included the newlyweds Sanjeev and Diana, Diana's parents from Colombia, Jose and I, friends Nicole and Brian from Toronto, Gurinder and Rosie from Winnipeg/Toronto (coincidentally Gurinder has a dental practice in Swan River), Trevor and Kelly from Winnipeg. The first day we went to a temple along with Sanjeev's family; a temple where Sanjeev's father had once prayed for him to marry and where he (along with us) were returning to give thanks. And a big thanks was needed as Diana is beautiful; inside and out!

After a boat ride through a bird sanctuary where the highlight for me was seeing crocodiles sunning themselves, we went on to Mysore, a city I had visited 2 years back. There we toured the beautiful Mysore Palace. Fortunately for us (and please note the sarcasm) we were there on a day that every Indian school was touring which meant hundreds of kids; dozens of whom wanted to shake our hand, ask our name and/or take a picture with us which made the audiotape tour a tad difficult. I sure hope I haven't been photoshopped into some Indian porn magazine or something but anything is possible with the amount of pictures that were taken. We also went to the amazing Mysore market that I had fallen in love with the last time. The colours and sights are incredible. In Mysore something else very special happended...my love for banana porridge was reborn which led to a daily morning pursuit of the delicious dish :)

From there we went on (via a 10 seater Tempo Traveller van) to Animilai, a Tiger Reserve where we stayed in rustic tree house style accommodations which are Forestry Dept lodging that Sanjeev was able to arrange through his connections. We were unlucky during our safaris according to Sanjeev, as we didn't see much wildlife. Although there were many bison roaming around which were quite unnerving to those coming home that night after a few drinks! Probably the most exciting wildlife encounter though was the next day when some monkeys got on the roof of the van. Poor Kelly just about had a heart attack when one almost came in through her open window! Good ol' Gurinder chased them off...

From there we went on to Munnar which is higher up, cooler and with beautiful tea estates. We drank delicious tea (I know, big shocker that the tea was good) and meals outside, had a bonfire and the next morning strolled though the tea estates..incredible scenery! I think Munnar was most everyone's favourite of the tour as a result.

Then on Xmas Eve, to Fort Cochin, a quaint port town, where we watched a Cathikali (theatre) performance native to the area followed by a dinner/performances at our hotel. Late night a few of us strolled around by the water and town where I was taken by the beautiful Xmas lights and stars that were lit up everywhere. We were greeted often with "Happy Christmas" which made me wonder why we say "Merry Xmas" rather than "Happy Xmas" when we use Happy for every other occasion? Anyway, I think I'm going to go with Happy Christmas from now on because it sounds nice.

The next morning I could've killed Jose because he got us lost on the way to the internet so we walked all over God's green acre when we had little time to make Xmas calls. The group had a term for someone who got worked up about something and it was called "clenching/clenchy." I can admit that I was clenching that morning which could have been why my ass was killing me which made the walking even worse! :)

That morning we went on to Allepey where we caught our houseboats for the overnight tour of the backwaters of Kerala. I had done this before but this boat was more beautiful than the one I had been on; with 3 bedrooms/full bathrooms, a dining room (AKA dance floor when you have latinos onboard), and an upstairs with chairs and couches to lay on and watch the beautiful view. We cruised the canals, relaxed, ate and drank, while served by our 4 staff. At one point we docked and took a small canoe, exploring some of the smaller channels where we could closely see regular life; women cleaning fish in the river, washing clothes, kids swimming etc. I did feel sorry for the locals though as they have little privacy with all the tourists floating through clicking away. And that night on a boat in the midst of the backwaters..I witnessed the fastest salsa ever..ay yay yay Jose and Diana can dance! What a great night...

Oh how sad to wake up the next morning and leave the boat..but I knew we were moving on to the beautiful Kerala coastal town of Varkala which I had also been to before and loved. I barely recognized it this time though..after tons of development. But no worries, I was still able to find my favourite porridge place that I had remembered for 2 years, and it didn't disappoint! We stayed in Varkala for 2 nights and just strolled around, ate, swam and relaxed. It was lovely apart from the dead dog floating in the water while we were swimming one day. Oh and another day Jose encountered a shirt and shoe in the water which I was worried would follow with a dead body! We all had ayurvedic massages here (a hot oil rub down while buck naked) which I had looked forward to based on past experiences. Some of the group (who shall remain anonymous) paid a bit less and ended up in a shady backlane with nothing covering the table and what I am pretty sure was a gay brothel..unfortunately for me I paid more and didn't have that experience cuz we all know being in a brothel is my dream..but mine could still be described as closer to molestation than a massage..but hey who's complaining :)

Then on our way back to Bangalore we stopped over in Thekaddy. Now it's quite touristy, apparently everyone is there to do an early morning boat cruise into the animal reserve. I had no idea what it was all about and when I found out it involved a 5 a.m. wake up call I tried to back out, that is until Sanjeev, the most calm, relaxed guy I know, got a little snarly, and I caved (along with a couple others). Sorry Sanjeev :)

Well 5 a.m. arrived and the 5 of us walked from our hotel to the front gate of the park where we had 2 tuk tuks waiting from 2 a.m. to hold our place near the start. The line up was craaazy..I was thinking holy geez this must be something amazing with all these people here! So then I find out that after the gate opens at 6, the tuk tuks will take us (or rather race) to another place where we will then have to run to the ticket counter (about 300 metres, which for the record meant nothing to me in terms of distance). And we're being told by the drivers that we have to run fast or we aren't going to get tickets, AND the worst part is you can only get one ticket per person so the pressure was on all of us to get there quick. This was a FML moment for sure as most of you will know how I hate running (flashback to Kenya, me running in my flip flops on a dirt road with a bunch of speedy Kenyans while shots are being fired). Then I hear Rosie is some kind of track star. Holy crap I thought, how am I gonna do this? Anyhoo, the engines start to rev, the drivers are blowing into their hands and concentrating hard on the task at hand and then the gates open...20 plus tuk tuks race through the reserve no doubt sending the animals deep into the forest, overtaking eachother like a Formula One race, random Indians running alongside trying to beat them, a jogger trying to have a peaceful run, and then we stop, barrel out of the tuk tuk, a flood of people running..I'm running with a purse full of shit that I can barely hold up, trying to keep up with Diana's 50 plus year old dad who was filming as usual until Sanjeev yelled to stop filming and run..a woman falling so hard that her pants fell down (and I remember feeling guilty for not stopping but the peer pressure was too intense), and finally.. after a short but very necessary break from running, I made the ticket counter! After a long process of getting tickets, me blocking others from budging in front of me and nervous moments waiting to see if we made it..WE WON!!! We got tickets to the first boat, the best of the day!! Yahoooooo!! So along came 7:30, we put on our big mother life jackets (because of a major boat tragedy years before apparently) and away we went to see....(drum roll please....NOTHING!! Ok ok maybe I am exaggerating..there were a couple of wild boars in the distance and a couple birds, but otherwise, it was a peaceful, uneventful boat cruise of nothing. And coming back you would not believe the loads of people waiting to take the next boat. Poor suckers..Before we even got off the boat the next group, including an old woman, was jumping into the boat to get a good seat (even though they were assigned), and a physical fight broke out between a bunch of people. Pure madness, to see nothing! But, I wouldn't have traded the experience for anything and the others felt the same way :)

After a relaxing day in Bangalore while staying at the same hotel, which now felt like home, a few of us set off for Chennai to celebrate New Years. Jose decided to jam on us as he was done with the long travel days (apparently witnessing near death experiences numerous times a day was too much for him) and we were sad about that, but Diana, her parents, Rosie, Gurinder, and Sanjeev's cousin Suma and her family filled the void of my roomie. It took forever to get there so we basically freshened up quick and headed to Sanjeev's cousin Rekha's house for New Years Eve drinks. Rekha and Jai have a great room for entertaining and the drinks, BBQ and snacks were excellent. Turns out Jai is also a salsa teacher (go figure) so latin music was a plentiful (which we planned to rub in to that jam tart Jose who eats, sleeps and breathes latin music and dance).Then we headed to a bar where we were Big Shots from Montreal as my Grandpa Moshenko would say, in our private room with unlimited drinks and snacks but with access to the jam packed bar where music pumped and an all Indian crowd partied the night away. Now the night is a bit of a blur thanks to Rekha's bright idea of doing a tequila shot (amongst the light rum, dark rum and champagne of the night). I blame that nasty tequila on all subsequent events which I won`t go into, nor do I fully believe. Nah I'm exaggerating..but it was a great time; a memorable New Years in India. I could have done without the hangover the next day when as luck would have it the family had a fuuuullll day of sightseeing planned for us. Thankfully I got in a nap while they visited the crocodile farm which I had seen before :) Near the end of the day we checked out Fisherman`s Cove, an amazing resort area on the beach where we frolicked in the water (nice word, frolick) and just enjoyed the setting. Then a late night trip to Bangalore so we could enjoy a full day of relaxation the following day. Poor Suma stayed awake until 3 a.m. to make sure the driver didn`t fall asleep and kill us all!

A sad thing happened upon our return.. Jose and I separated. There would be no more "what`s the plan??" questions from him the exact second the alarm went off and I opened my eyes, fighting over time in the bathroom, him prancing around in a towel, and too much information about bodily functions. I can admit that I did miss him though and so that day was a great day of catching up after our little break from eachother.

On the group's last day together we went to a family member's so called "farm house." So our caravan headed out and unfortunately on the way one of the cars hit a boy who had darted across the road. This led to a big mob gathering and all of us stopping; fortunately nobody blamed our car as they had seen what the boy had done (and I say this as it is not unusual for people to get beaten if they have caused an accident in India). Some money was given, the boy was to be taken to the hospital and we were on our way. Poor kid...

Now I'm pretty sure you would all have the same picture as me as to what a "farm house" would look like in India..I'm thinking we're going to a rural little farm house with some animals grazing around. So we arrived and first went to the temple (the family's private temple) followed by the home, which is the family's weekend home. Well it turns out that this "farm house" is a huge, multi million dollar private estate, used in movies; in fact a movie was being shot there that night. It was simply beautiful and everything was well thought out in its design. The pool including swim up bar was to die for. I made it known that I would be willing to be adopted into the family (as the couple has no bio children) and was told that rather being a second wife would be an option. Not a bad option given the home I would get out of it, but I decided against it in the end :) Anyway, that was a lovely day with the family.

We gathered at Sanjeev's parents' that night to see Jose off (boo hoo) and I said my goodbyes as well as I was leaving the next morning. I knew this would be hard on me; leaving my friends, having the security of the group and being taken care of by Sanjeev's family as it had all been so wonderful, but I did pretty good that day.. I think in part because of how comfortable I feel in India.