The Kerala Tour

 As a part of my study abroad program I was lucky enough to go on a tour of the state of Kerala, India.  Kerala is located at the very southern point of India and is very, very beautiful and very, very hot.  The language spoken there is Malayalm, of which I know a few words such as nane (thank you), adi polli (that was good!), madi (enough), yettra (how much), and a few others.  (These are all spelled phonetically and the alphabet is completely indecipherable to me so you’ll have to excuse my misspellings!)

Anyway the tour started in Kottayam with a day-long course called The Art of Living, which was a crash course on yoga, mediation, and Hinduism.  We focused on how controlling your breathing brings you back to the present moment, learned the basics of Ayurvedic medicine, and were able to sing a few Hindu chants.  Everything was very interesting and enlightening!  I also learned how hard it is to sit cross-legged for over 6 hours!

The following day was a trip to a local women’s college called BCM.  There we got to enjoy various presentations on Keralan culture, and we shared a tiny bit of U.S. culture as well.  What followed the presentation can only be described as an outpouring of love and fascination.  The students rushed us with praise, thanks, and gratitude for visiting their college and speaking with them.  I’ve never experienced anything quite like it.  However, I think they are the ones who deserve all the praise, thanks, and gratitude for being so willing to meet and share their culture with us.  What I experienced that day was something that I will always remember because of the amount of sincere love they showed us.

The journey then continued onward to the resort town of Kumily in the Western Ghats of Kerala.  Our days there were filled with jeep excursions to places of extreme beauty, bargaining with local shop owners, and cultural performances.  We ate raw sugarcane, ate bananas straight from the plantation, and enjoyed saffron tea (In the words of a friend of mine, we drank liquid gold).  All the while everyone we interacted with greeted us with warm, beaming smiles.

And on we went to the remote town of Munnar high in the mountains.  Tea plantations that were started by the British during their occupation surround Munnar.  The scenery there was indescribably amazing, but the vastness of the plantations is often overshadowed by the fact that the many workers hand-pick all of the leaves there for only a couple dollars per day.  Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, especially our sunrise mediation and yoga on top of a mountain!

And finally here I am at my final destination of Bhubaneswar in East India.  We were lucky enough to have dinner at the exclusive Bhubaneswar club with a group of Korean volunteers who were working at our university.  The meal was delicious and the drinks were free!  Needless to say, I will be sleeping very well tonight!

I hope the winter isn’t too cold back home!