To Kerala and back!

I got a chance to see a South Indian wedding in a state called Kerala.

Kerala (shown in close up on the right) is the south-western coastline of India. I took this photo on the side of a government school in Guruvayoor, Kerala. The tan state in the middle of the western side of India is Maharashtra, where I live.

The language in the middle is Hindi (which I can read), and the language on the left is Malayalam (which I want to be able, but can't). Malayalam is the local language of Kerala.

This is the town of Thrissur, in Kerala.

It was amazing to get to drive past rice, banana, and coconut plantations to into the jungle! The actual jungle! Even more amazing, this house (that I got to go inside) was built in 1815!

One of my Indian friends here told me that although he's never been to the U.S., going from Mumbai to Kerala is how he imagines going from New York City to Kansas is like. There may be some truth in that. But here's definitely more trees in Kerala than Kansas.

English is found less in rural areas.

Kerala is filled with coconut, rice, and banana plantations, and some jungles.

I saw a snake here. Everywhere in India, I (and everyone else during the rainy season) wear nothing but sandals (in fact my feet haven't touched socks in almost a month) so I became scared.

We also got to go an elephant sanctuary! There were almost 70 elephants there! They were chained to rocks and trees, and there was no glass or fence between them and us.

We didn't get to see baby elephants, those are kept inside a temple.

At first I thought the elephants that they were cleaning were drugged. Nope. Just super calm and happy. The elephants that were being washed kept making funny gargling noises that sounded sort of similar to purring.

This elephant was not happy. He/She threw a log at me, and almost hit me.

South Indian art is very different from North Indian art. In fact each state is quite different. This is typical Malayalam art.

This is Krishna. These pieces of art were at a hotel (not the hotel I stayed in, but the one the wedding was held in).

The town of Guruvayoor,where the wedding was held, is a pretty strange place. Like small college towns in the U.S., Guruvayoor is entirely centered around one institution. Guruvayoor temple is one of the most famous and auspicious in all of India.

Safety standards are lower here.

In south India, food is always eaten on banana leaves. There's an herbal juice in the middle of the leaf (water is never drunk with a meal, something I had to used to), and some spices, chutneys, and coconut mixture on the part of the lead away from me. Next, someone comes around and dumps about three pounds of rice on the other side of the leaf. Mix in spices and chutneys and you're good to go! Did I mention that now I almost never use silverware? Rice is always eaten with the hand. So mix in spices and start scooping it up.

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Goodbye Kerala! It was an awesome time, and thankfully didn't rain once while we were there!