Colombo, then Adam’s Peak – Everyone’s Favorite Pilgrimage

Adam’s Peak – February 25, 2019

Another Spicejet prop plane took us on a short hop into Colombo, Sri Lanka. We had a capsule in the business district near the train station in town, so we hopped on a bus into town. At the station we learned that all trains, which can only be booked in person or with a Sri Lankan telephone number, were booked out a month solid. Apparently if you want a guaranteed seat on a train it’s important to plan early and use an agent. Luckily you can still buy “unreserved” 3rd class tickets and race the locals for a seat. To the back of the train for us! 

We noticed a number of bars serving cocktails and decided to splurge on a night out after traveling through relatively dry Southern India. We grabbed a few drinks on a rooftop bar and some delicious seafood, spending on our dinner what we’d saved by staying in a dorm style capsule hotel. 

The next morning we headed to the train station early early at 5:15 am to catch the first train out (and maximize our chances of seats) for the 5 hour train to Hatton en route to Adam’s peak. We bought our 3rd class unreserved tickets and waited around for the train to arrive. A few locals ran to hop on before the train had even stopped and there was a rush as everyone tried to grab seats, but there ended up being enough seats for everyone anyway. As we rolled through hill country the train eventually filled past standing room only. 

At Hatton we ate lunch and then caught a 90 minute bus to Delhousie, a small town at the base of Adam’s Peak, aka Sri Pada. Adam’s Peak is a very popular pilgrimage site for Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, and backpackers. There’s a rock formation at the top that is believed to have been visited by Shiva, Buddha, Adam, or St. Thomas respectively. Even though it was in the 80s when we arrived, a lot of shops selling warm hats, gloves, and sweaters. At 2:00 am when we got up to start our sunrise hike it was 60F. I guess cold is relative? 

The trail is about 4.5 miles long with 3,000 ft. of elevation, consisting entirely of well-made concrete steps and shops selling everything being offered in town as well as shoulder and foot massages towards the entrance. There was an obvious dichotomy between westerners, all in athletic wear with daypacks of water/gear, and the domestic tourists, all in jeans, sweatshirts, hats, and flip flops. Several shops were playing EDM or pop music for a party-like environment as we walked past. It was crowded. The pilgrims ranged across all ages, with some barefoot elderly hikers slowly making their way up and babies being carried in parents’ arms. Hiking etiquette was not followed, with groups of 4 walking abreast and holding hands, occupying 95% of the trail width. We made it most of the way up in about two hours (probably 75% finished) before we ran into the dreaded line of hikers waiting to finish the hike to the top. We had been quite warm but the lack of movement and breeze cooled us off as we very slowly finished over the next two hours; we were glad to have extra puff jackets, hats, and windbreakers to put on. We arrived at the top just before sunrise (at 6:00 am), looked at the crush of people between us and the last 50 feet of stairs to the temple, and turned around. The entire time we waited in line some westerners and locals would obnoxiously hop the rails and skip past the line; maybe we could have shoved through but the whole situation was annoying and we weren’t sure the god of backpackers had also visited the rock, so we left it to the pilgrims. We were happy with our choice at the time and after looking at pictures of what we’d missed we’re still fine with it. If you’re interested in the top, consider going at some time other than sunrise or be prepared to wait and/or shove your way through. 

Sunrise on the way down was beautiful and we did enjoy the experience, but it’s not your typical nature hike or mountain hike. It took us about 1.5 hours down at a reasonable pace, and it already seemed less busy, presumably because so many people were going for the top at sunrise, but we did see people heading up all the way down and at all other times of the day, so it may just always be a mass of people at the summit. We cleaned up, ate breakfast, and hopped on a bus back to Hatton having (mostly) done the hike we came to do.

Our capsule for the night

Serious crowds of pilgrims, at all hours of the day and night.

Madurai

February 23, 2019

Eventually we caught another train into Madurai, arriving late for a brief stay before flying on to Sri Lanka. The next morning we drank some coffee at a shop with a real espresso machine! Indian chai is delicious (and ubiquitous), but sometimes you just want a coffee in the morning. We wandered into an active Hindu temple dedicated to Vishnu, and ate at KFC for lunch – guess we’ve been on the road long enough to warrant “American” food? We don’t eat KFC at home to really compare, but the chicken was pretty spicy and they offered a bizarre drink consisting of lime juice, Sprite, and cumin powder (surprisingly better than it sounds). Fries are still fries, though. American fast food joints like KFC and McDonalds are far more high-end (and more expensive) than the fast food most locals eat. Then we headed to the Gandhi museum which mostly told the story of British colonialism and the long fight for Indian independence.

We finished our time in Madurai at the Meenakshi Hindu temple next to our hotel, a large and very active temple. The entrances were covered by huge intricately carved gopurams with an insane amount of detail on these 150 foot tall towers. There is no photography inside the temple, so words will have to do. Inside was as intricate and beautiful as the outside. No shoes allowed, all smooth stone floors. A large lotus pond was ringed by a covered area where every surface was decorated with colorful carvings, paintings, statues, and shrines. It was an explosion of gilded beauty, and everywhere people were worshiping at the various shrines. The inner sanctum was reserved for practicing Hindus, so we didn’t get to go in. Some of the paintings were designed with an optical illusion to make it appear that the subject was always looking at the viewer no matter what side you looked at it from. Pretty cool. Thousands of people come daily to worship at all hours, and even at 8:00 pm there were hundreds of people praying, meditating, offering flowers to Ganesha, preparing strings of lemons that were used to decorate another shrine (maybe Shiva?), burning small votive oil lamps in prescribed areas, or just relaxing with friends and family, eating local fruits (pineapple, banana, coconut, watermelon) or breads and sweets. The experience was an incredible glimpse into Hindu religious life.

All 15 stories (and this was one of 4 towers like this)

Closer

Closer still

Vishnu temple

Street watermelon

Kochi

February 19, 2019 

We took a day trip to Kochi from Alleppey, taking a local bus in the morning. It was crowded. We got seats, but I was someone’s arm rest for about an hour of the 1.5 hour ride. Kochi is a port town, slightly more populous than Alleppey, with significantly more foreign tourists. We first wandered into Jew town – a name that somehow feels less appropriate than a Chinatown or Little Italy – and enjoyed our first western-style breakfast and coffee in weeks before heading to the nearby synagogue. There is a rich Jewish history in Kochi, with the first arrival in perhaps 70 CE. Eventually the Jewish community there all moved to Israel after WWII, and the synagogue is maintained as a historical monument. No photos allowed inside. 

We walked past some ancient Chinese fishing nets (400 CE). The huge nets are counterbalanced by boulders tied together with rope, and are still in use (although they weren’t catching too many fish as we watched). We also wandered through the Indo-Portuguese Museum, which was maintained by the local Catholic diocese and largely consisted of Catholic relics dating back to 1600 CE when the Portuguese took over the city for a time before being ousted by the Dutch. Mariel found some expensive pants ($18!) at a fairly high-end shop, then we caught an uber back to the train station to catch the express back to Alleppey. The short uber, at $3.40, cost more than our bus tickets and train tickets combined. 

The highlight of Kochi was the beautiful street art and architecture, especially in the bazaar district north of Jew Town.

Tim reading on the train back to Alleppey

Alleppey - Steamy Canals and Street Food

Catching up a little – Alleppey, Feb 16-21

Now called Aluppuzha, Alleppey is a convenient staging ground for visiting the backwaters of Kerala – the “Venice of the East”. There is a large web of canals and lakes crisscrossing a large region, tying together nearby cities and villages. We booked a canoe tour of the backwaters at the government-run tourist center. Walking the mile there mid-morning was warm, but by the time we ate lunch and headed back to our hotel the heat and humidity were brutal. With highs in the mid-90s and humidity at 60% the weather was similar to a Houston summer. Sweaty sweaty sweat.

Waiting at the tour pickup point the next morning we met another traveler who paid $15 per ticket compared with our $10. We assumed we were on different tours, but then a guy showed up and said he was the tour guide for all of us. After he saw our receipt he took us aside and essentially asked us to please lie about the price we paid for our tickets – apparently he and others charged an extra $5 per ticket and didn’t want to deal with upset customers. “It’s business, you know?” A good reminder that prices are often flexible and to watch out for middle men.

Eventually we hopped on a ferry, the waterborne equivalent of the local bus. We motored out of the canal and across a lake to the tour guide’s house, where we ate breakfast before splitting up into our canoes. The six seater canoes thankfully had a canopy, with the rower/guide sitting in the back. We weren’t expected to help paddle (though offers were made). We spent the next three hours meandering through the canals past houses and small businesses as the locals went about their day. Lots of laundry, dishes, fishing, and bathing. Don’t mind me here with my zoom lens...

We stopped for snacks around 1:00 pm at a small stand in the backwaters. The sun and heat had become stifling and we were done with the tour (though there were still 3 hours to go!!), so we feigned illness caught a ferry back to town from a dock a short walk away. The ferry arrived twenty minutes later and we hopped on, paid our $0.20 for tickets, and had a relaxing ride back to town.

Besides the backwaters, we spent our time hunting mosquitoes in our hotel room (how did they keep getting in??), exploring the town and beach, and eating at cool, cheap local restaurants with delicious tandoori chai, curries, and shawarma.

Tandoori chai - made by pouring chai into one of these scorching clay pots and letting it boil over the sides, catching it in a cup.

Alleppey Beach

Most of the men wore these sheets for pants.

Wayanad

February 14, 2019

Wayanad: God’s own district in God’s own country, known for its beautiful landscapes and hardwoods, or so I was told by a local on the morning bus as we drove into the forests. Turns out Wayanad was closed for business. We had booked a really lovely homestay outside of Meenangadi, a tiny town between two other small towns (Sultan Bathery and Kalpetta) on the road between Mysore and Alleppey. We had hoped to hike up a nearby peak but our host told us it was shut by the forestry service due to fire concerns. To be fair a fire did break out in Kalpetta while we were there and a building or two burned down, so maybe fire danger was high. We shifted gears and decided to go safari in a wildlife preserve, unfortunately also closed. So instead of either of those, we figured out the local bus system and went to nearby Edakkal caves, which has petroglyphs from 8,000 – 5,000 years ago. This required walking up a lot of steps and afforded a good view of the surrounding hills, a decent substitute for closed Chembra peak. The buses worked well enough, with tickets costing between $0.12 - $0.30 each. It was only REALLY crowded about half the time. 

On the way back we stopped in Sulthan Bathery for a meal and a view of bright white Assumption Forane Church, part of the local Catholic diocese. Across from the church was a mosque, and the Hindu and Jain temples were only a few hundred meters down the road, making it easy to cover Pascal’s wager for those so inclined. It seemed like each bus subscribed to a different religion, so it was fun to see what kind of blinking LED shrine would be up front (they all had blinking LEDs).

We took advantage of some down time to plan our next leg of the trip, do some yoga, and relax. Tim used an azithromycin antibiotic to finally restore his stomach to normal (it had been a few days of not-normal). We headed into Kalpetta to catch an overnight sleeper bus to Alleppey in southern Kerala state. We were in bunks on the top level, about 5 feet up. At some point in the night I sat up and at the same time the bus swerved and I got EJECTED from my bunk and fell the 5 feet into the aisle landing on my butt. Scared the crap out of the lady in the bunk below mine, and got a few bruises (including on my ego) during the fall. Surprisingly didn’t seriously hurt myself or hit my head on anything, despite how narrow the aisle was. Won’t do that again.

Tim at the bus stop

Where's Waldo?

My new favorite hair salon name. Narrowly beats "Grateful Head" at home.

View down the aisle of the bus where I took a spill.