Friday, December 03, 2004

Kerla - God's own Country! - Part 2

Food
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Although I've had very high regard for Mall food, I found that all the mallu food I'd eaten were local adaptations of actual mallu food ! My God, the original food was terrible.

Firstly, not having any vegetarian choice inside India itself was horrible. The Cherai beach was the worst! Cold appams and parothas with some vague looking green peas masala was the definition of veg food there. The waiter infact started off ranting "Beef curry, mutton curry ..". That was quite psyching.

But in the main cities of Kottayam and Cochin - there were good udupi/tam restaurants which saved us from starvation. The food at this Udupi place in Cochin was heaven! We ate and hogged like 'veg' pigs ;)

Beach
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We visited one beach - the cherai beach. The beach itself was pretty neat and clean and gentle. But a bit soily in the waves. But it was nice fun nevertheless to walk on soft non-coarse sands. But, it was very crowded. And there were people wearing burqas and sarees trying to wet their feet. That was kind of funny to watch :). And as usual there were white skinned foreigners who attracted a lot of attention of the locals. Weird people, mallus!

Mallu Christian wedding
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Very simple and charming. I simply loved the simplicity of the cermeonies and the dressing. No big fuss. Lots of songs were being sung in mallu, apparently all devotional songs dedicated to Christ. It was like a hum-aapke-hain-kaun - lots of songs in a wedding.

Also, the wedding seemed to be a very serious affair. There weren't so many smiles as you see in a normal indian wedding. Very sombre indeed.

Hospitality
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Fantabulous! We were a total of 4 vegetarians there - there was one person dedicated to cater to our needs and demands. Simply amazing hospitality at the wedding.

Other observations
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There seems to be break in the populated places in Kerala. It's a continuos and densely populated state. There's no concept of end of town, beginning of city etc.

The mallu bus drivers - I've always known them to be a bit rough - but experienced them again :) . They ought to make seat belts for all the passengers!


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