It’s been more than a week since I’ve written anything and I’m disappointed in myself. There are so many stories and experiences that have happened in the past 10 days that I don’t even know where to start!
After Goa, it has been go-go-go until now.
We were about to give up and re-think our strategy until we arrived at Piyoti’s Villa. An elderly woman opens the door and says she may have a room available but maybe not. I go in to check it out and tell her I like it but I need to ask my wife [later I found out that’s why she let us stay there]. We decide to take the room and this is what has led us to a random journey to Kannur [but that’s for another post].
Our stay at Panioty’s Villa was extremely pleasant. It was a house on the beach with a large courtyard. The first evening, after dinner, we arrived to the house and Iris (the owner) sat with us enjoying a nice ocean breeze with some chai. We talked about religions, Kerala’s communist party, how she started the homestay, and various other interesting topics.
Iris is a 74 year-old retired English teacher and school principal who previously received a presidential award for her awesome work. Her fascinating stories were always full of laughter. “Religions are all confusing, I pray to my creator and that’s it. He gave me life and who cares what any religions say” .. she would say. It is sad I stopped writing because she had so many other funny sayings that I forgot. =(
She was so nice and such a great cook, I had asked her where I could get puttu, a breakfast Keralan dish, and she said she would make it for me! It was delicious!
Being a homestay we had the option of getting all our meals cooked by Iris, but we were stupid and decided to venture out to the town and find some interesting restaurant. The only thing we found was traveler’s diarrhea. The second day of our stay was more on the sleeping and crapping side trying to recoup from this annoying sickness.
Probably due to the sickness and the beach not being “so” beautiful [we’ve become snobbish after Agonda], we are antsy to leave to another adventure. As we share this with our homestay neighbors Pat and Richard, they suggest we visit Iris’s daughter’s homestay near Kannur. They say it’s beautiful, paradise on earth …
We get excited and start looking for options on how to get to Kannur. It’s Jan 3rd and almost all the trains are sold out but we finally find two tickets to Kannur for the following morning! We call Iris’s daughter and she was able to find us accommodation from Jan 4th to the 9th!
On Jan 4th, with a sick stomach and a cipro in the tummy, we head over to the train station for a 7 hour train ride hoping to reach Kannur alive!
Long story short, we made it! The train ride was probably OK would it had not been for an upset stomach.
We are now in Ezhara Beach and it is paradise on earth (yet again).
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Side notes: I think the last 10 days have been so go-go-go that we did not take pictures in Cherai, nor of Iris, nor of the train ride! How disappointing is that?!