Around the World

Continued from http://allyouwannaknow.net/aroundtheworld/2009/06/28/trip-to-kovalam-all-the-planning/

We boarded the Island express at 9:30 at Bangalore city station and waited for the train to start moving. The train started slowly at 9:55 PM (although expected departure was 9:45PM)
We were quite tired as we had been to office and then the rushing to the station…..so by 10:30 we were up on the berths catching up with sleep.

Next day was a late getting up (not very late….because people wanted to sit and so we had to get up)….we had a long time in the train…we would be reaching Trivandrum only at 3:10PM officially (and God knew if there would be any delays)…so we had a lazy washing up and then breakfast (the usual idly and vada).
Although we had booked the window seats…somehow….there were others occupying it.

At about 9AM, we were at the Othapalam station….and there started the problem. There was a huge crowd getting in…..mostly (or rather all) unreserved….they started asking us to move a little and adjusting in our seats….it got very uncomfortable when we had to squeeze into our seats.
If we would just get up to go to the wash basin or the restroom, we would come back to see that there was someone at our seat. Then we had to explain that it was indeed our seat and they had to get up.

This continued till the Cochin station….after which most people got off the train….still there were a lot of unreserved people…but since there were empty seats we dint have to actually do all the squeezing…whew!!!

We had carried the PSP with us. So we then watched the hindi movie ‘99’ on it. We also had some snacks which we had carried and so decided that we would have lunch once we reach Trivandrum station.

Slowly time seemed to drag…..the only amusing thing that kept me engaged was the colour of most houses…..there were a lot of bright coloured houses….dark blue…orange and pink….dark pink….it was a little funny. They are said to be trendy colours…but I guess they should be used the right way with the right combo. And it was not just one or two…. I saw many such houses….strange….
Of course there was a lot of greenery which also I loved….kept wondering how someone called Bangalore a Garden city…..
It felt like we reached heaven when we saw Trivandrum station.

We got down and went out of the station. Here we decided that we would go to country club and then find something to eat. We walked towards the bus stand….but we found out that there was no direct bus to Kovalam. We had to go to East Port and take a change of bus.
We had quite a bit of luggage….so we decided to take a prepaid auto and so walked back to the station. The bill was printed out at Rs 130. It was about 30 minutes drive to Kovalam from Trivandrum….but where in Kovalam were we supposed to go…???

We roamed about a little….and then with some difficulty found out that country club was located in one of the most interior roads of Kovalam where without a transport vehicle planned, we could not come out.

Of course…because of all the roaming that we did we had to pay the auto driver Rs 180 instead of 130….

We went to the reception and checked in…he gave us a small heart attack when he said that the confirmation mail print out was not enough and we needed the receipt that was given to us (which we were specifically told was not necessary when we enquired). However, we managed to check in and we were given room 310….very close to the restaurant.

We went in and just washed hands and legs and ran to the restaurant as our stomachs were raging with hunger.
He said “No food available sir, only snacks now”…….we ordered sanwitch and some onion pakkodas along with masala tea….
It was all good…..but the taste faded away when we saw the astonishingly huge bill that we were supposed to sign….anyway….this was how it was going to be for the next 5 days…so we just gulped down the shock and signed and walked back to the room.

We were told that the beach was just behind the resort and that we could go to it via a back gate. We thought….if we would get into the beach, we would have to anyway come back and take a bath. So we decided that our bath would be directly after we visit the beach.
We walked to the beach from the gate at the back. We found that there were only rocks and not a beach as such. Also there were danger signs everywhere and we were not allowed to go close to the water (later we found that we could go to the actual beach if we walked a little further).
We were a little disappointed. We anyway shot some photographs…..the waves were crashing…the sky was multi coloured…it was great….and by the time we could enjoy this ….cloud started showering us with its glory….we had not carried our umbrellas. We ran back to the hotel getting half wet.

After this we decided to just chill in the room. So we had our bath and relaxed. I decided that I would not take out clothes for the next 5 days from my bag. So I made myself at home and arranged all the stuff we had carried into the cupboards.

We had decided to visit kanyakumari the next day. So we went to the reception to ask them the travel options. Finally we settled down for a non-AC indica that would take us to Kanyakumari covering a few other spots on the way.

We had a dinner buffet at night…Prashanth made sure he ate maximum to cover all the costs that they were going to put up in the bill….unfortunately I did not have the capacity to do the same.

The resort had a nice green ambience (and so did Kerala itself). It felt great to breathe the cool fresh air and the intermittent showers were also beautiful.
Obviously…with all this it was a nice peaceful relaxed sleep.

Tweet This Post