Just down the road from our hotel is a delightful spice shop with spices from the owner’s spice farm in Munnar. We have stocked up with Masala spices but also have discovered Keralan raw chocolate – It is delicious !!!
But also he has raw cacao and I’ve discovered that it’s very good for you. You can buy cacao nibs back in England and add them to your breakfast. Yum
Near Varkala beach is the 2000 year old Janardanaswamy temple. When foreign tourists visit you have to wait at the bottom of the stairs while the man at the entrance sets off a fire cracker for each visitor, presumably to give warning of our visit.
The walls around the inner sanctum have hundreds of oil holders which are filled each day and the wicks are lit at 6:30.
We went for an early morning walk along the long long beach to a fishing village. The fishermen were hard at work bringing in their canoes.
We decided to explore the village and found a little place selling chai. So of course we had some sitting outside on the step. Then the lady suddenly brought out an appam on a plate for us, and then a second appam, and then some sambar. So unexpected and it was delicious
We stayed outside Jodhpur in a village called Narlai and one of the staff from the hotel took us on a village walk showing us around the village and taking us into some family homes.
This village has a population of about 3000 but had over 300 temples! The first we saw was tiny and built into the rock. You had to climb over 100 steps to reach it.
Then we saw another large temple built onto the side of the rock
and then we saw their newest temple built from white marble which was pretty spectacular
Evidently quite a number of families now live in the city and have more money, just returning for holy days. The whole village paid for the new temple which took five years to build.
We also visited three families going into their homes.
Cooking over wood fires is the norm.
The women in this area commonly completely cover their heads with their dupattas.
at Jodhpur we stayed slightly outside the town at Chandaleo Garh which Mary had told me about. The estate has been in the family of Pranduman Singh for generations and in 1997 he turned it into a hotel. But it’s rather different to other places and was our favourite accommodation of the whole trip. It’s very simple, peaceful and beautiful.
In addition he has established a craft centre where women from the village can develop new skills and earn an income.
The evening meal was held on the rooftop and we were lucky enough to see the blood blue moon which was an amazing sight
Mr Singh took us out in his jeep to visit the weaver and on the way we saw camels and a blue antelope.
Travelling by train today from Cochin down to Varkala – a four hour journey. Found a lovely veg restaurant which did us a thali takeaway (South Indian Thali Parcel it was called).
delicious and we managed not to spill any!
The restaurant is also part of a hotel and we’re going to stay the for our last couple of nights. Simple but clean rooms with a/c for £26. It’s called OYO Gokul Ottupura. The restaurant is lovely.
Travelled to the village of Narlai outside Ranakpur only to discover that I’d left my phone charger and adapter behind. Potential disaster! But no, this is India where the mobile phone is queen. Wandered down the road to find three tiny mobile phone stalls. Initially they didn’t have a iPhone lead, but then it turned out that the salesman just happened to be there on his motorbike bringing supplies. iPhone lead? No problem.
Joshpur fort is one of the largest forts in India and is an imposing edifice and the wall surrounding it is 10k long
It has a very interesting museum containing a variety of artefacts including howdahs (seats for people being carried by elephants), carpets embroidered with gold and silk thread, and paintings containing large amounts of tiny minature detail.
Whilst in Jodhpur we went to a Tie and Dye workshop at ‘Isha Silk’ run by Ishwar Dewani on the rooftop of his house. Neither of us knew what to expect and our only experience was back in the 60s.
So this is pretty different to those T-shirts back in the day. Ishwar first described the process he uses for his professional dying and then took us through a simplified version.
We were each give a square of silk folded over 4 times and tacked along 3 sides. We put blobs of dye in a number of places making sure it went all the way through.
Then we wound thread several times creating small knots in the centre of each blob. The material under the thread will retain the dye colour.
The material was then placed in a bleach solution so that it went completely white, rinsed, and then placed in a dye. It was rinsed again, dried in the sun, and then we removed the knots. Hey presto!
