driving from aluva to vaikom to kumarakom
and back
click on the map for a visual of our first kerala jaunt. the day after we arrived (14 Dec), ashok's dad and cousin--who's a gynecologist in angamali, the next town over--came to pick us up from my aunt's place in aluva (alwaye). dad had a lot of things planned for us, which didn't disappoint. the only down side being the arduous car rides. indians are used to driving this way, and hardly anyone wears seatbelts. the seatbelt consciousness is just beginning to penetrate here. this is a culture where entire families ride together, sans helmets, on one motorcycle. i've seen countless children riding shotgun in front of their fathers on a motorbike. it's just the way things are here. the latter sentence shall be repeated many times during this trip! if you're planning a first trip to india, just chillax on all your newfangled american safety rules because they simply don't exist here!
here's a river called "cut river" in malayalam that we crossed on the way to vaikom:
our first stop was vaikom. this is ashok's dad's hometown. we stopped by the house where he grew up, but a newer house was built in its place. still it is the space where he grew up. ashok's uncle recently passed away, and now the inhabitants are ashok's two cousins, his uncle's wife, and one cousin's wife and son. it's a really simple life. we had tea and snacks there, which consisted of fried bananas, vaddas--hard to explain if you don't know, but daaaaamn they're tasty!--, and fresh pineapple.
the hotel where we stayed had this sign in the bathroom: 
here's dad on a swing:
next stop: kumarakom! we didn't stay in a houseboat, but rented a motorboat for a few hours. as you can see, the houseboats are pretty amazing. next time we're going to stay overnight in one.
this is vembanad lake. it is actually an estuary, which is the wide part of a river where it nears the sea. it is covered in hyacinth, which is considered to be a weed, but it is the most beautiful weed that i've seen:
me and the hyacinth flower:
this photo isn't the most clear because i used the zoom feature on my little camera, but it shows one crane sitting in the hyacinth. actually there were hundreds of them everywhere! some make their homes in small patches of hyacinth, others in large patches, such elegant and stunning birds! i don't know who this little black bird is...
we came upon an uninhabited island, got off the boat and walked around a bit. this was the sign that greeted us:
