TONY'S TRIP TO SOUTH INDIA

Fifth leg: Koichi to Kollam, Southern India

BY TONY MYERS FRPS

Following the advice of the hotel manager to wear a Dodi to the evening carnival, we sought out the relevant clothing shop where we were shown about twenty various types of cloth that you had to wrap around yourself in a special Indian fashion style. The sales staff couldn’t stop laughing and I’m sure we certainly didn’t look like a couple of Indians, that’s for sure. After a few pints of our favourite Kingfisher lager we were buzzing about our forthcoming evening at the festival. We ordered our motorised autorickshaw and set off to the festival.

On arrival we were met by the music, the special spicy smells, and a great carnival atmosphere with hundreds of people sat around on the floor of a large rectangular show ring about half the size of a football pitch. Dressed in our Dodis, people were giving us some very strange looks and it seemed to cause a lot of laughter as we were probably the only Europeans at the show. Our hotel manager had made arrangements for us get inside the show ring which gave us a good photographic advantage in order to get in with the action for some good closeup images. Later in the evening we were taken to meet the management team who made us very welcome and gave us some good traditional Indian food served on a large banana leaf and eaten with your fingersit certainly saves on the dish washing. Then back into the ring, alongside some huge elephants marching along in their colourful dress, with very loud live music coming from the highly coloured musicians? a great end to a fantastic evening and certainly a once in a lifetime photo opportunity.

Next day we visited the backwaters of Kollam which is a series of very picturesque palm tree lined lakes which open into the sea. We were travelling in a gondolastyle wooden boat which took us around the various lakes with fishermen standing waist high casting their fishing nets trying to catch the odd fish but always
happy to smile and have a photograph taken in between hauling in their nets.

The day went by in a nice slow and relaxing mood which was in complete contrast to the previous day. On our return to the boat station we frequently passed school children returning from school to the little homes on the banks of these beautiful and tranquil palm leaf lined islands.

Next day we set off very early in the morning and within minutes came across a very large elephant walking along the main road with its keepers, one on top and another at the side. The elephant had a trunk full of palm leaves. We made a quick stop to get a few photographs of what appeared to be a very unusual site but to everyone else was just part of the daily routine in this area of Southern India.

We were heading for Kollam to see what this mountainous area of Southern India had in store for us. Temperatures were in the 90s with a humidity of 100 so it would be little cooler up in the hills. I was really looking forward to visiting the reserve and the many wild elephants.

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