Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Home again

I finally made it back to Calgary after a grueling 3 day trip involving an undesired and unplanned overnight in Toronto, overbooked flights, and a pilots strike. However I made it.

My last couple days were spent in the west coast state of Kerala. I traveled through the palm forests and over the swamps and canals by train, took a houseboat overnight through the back channels, and explored the spice trading city of Cochin. All in all a good way to wrap up my trip.

A few pictures now that I'm back on wifi.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Coming to an End

After four and a half glorious days in Goa I flew to the city of Coimbatore to meet up with some friends I hadn't met yet. Uncle David met me at the airport and we headed to a lady referred to as 'Amache' or Grandmother by all the locals to spend the night. Our mode of conveyance was by scooter and since that night I've had multiple opportunities to practice holding my breath, staying centred, and trying not to cringe too much as we whizzed around obstacles, squeezed between buses, and slammed on the breaks to avoid becoming a splat on the front of big trucks. We had very special times with the group of friends in Coimbatore and then some of the other visitors and myself headed to Kodaikanal which is in the mountains for our next meeting.

The road to the mountains is like the roads in Darjeeling so I found myself glad that it was only about 3 hours up the mountain. We arrived to clear skies and cool temperatures (20sC) which was a nice change from the heat of the plains. We had an opportunity to do some sight seeing in Kodaikanal so enjoyed the view from the top of the mountains looking down upon the plains. After our very rich gathering there yesterday I traveled down the mountains again to the plains where I caught an overnight train to the neighboring state of Kerala. The trip down the mountains made me think about trauma being a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in the developing world as the driver accelerated through 50m stretches, passed a bus which was passing a truck on a road that would be considered a one way road at home, etc. However, I survived and am here to tell the story.

I'm currently in the town of Quillom which is on the coast and is an old spice trading city if I understand correctly. If all goes well I'm hoping to take an overnight cruise through the canals and lakes of this area before heading on to Cochin tomorrow. The monsoon is just beginning here so it is VERY humid and it rains fairly often but the sun is shining which means it is quite soggy feeling.

Saturday I will fly back to Delhi to return to Canada and carry on with the next phase of life - moving to Nova Scotia so the adventures continue.