I'm back from my holiday.
I hope those of you on
holiday are having a nice time.
I had a great holiday of
my own to Alleppey which was one of the grade 11 field trips that went to
different places in south India. Some other grade 11 trips went to Pondicherry
and Karnataka.
Some
info before we start the story:
There were 30 students on
the trip and 4 chaperones (teachers), the absolute max. The school had hired
only 6 canoes with a max of 3 students in each. This left at least half of the
group to stay in the large boat that went at the back. In the scorching heat,
it became quite boring.
The chaperones we had
were Mr Sarkar, Mr Irfan, and 2 interim teachers named Ms Jessica and Ms Karly.
Mr Sarkar keep on trying to persuade me to stay at KIS and finish school here.
It's something I've been thinking about a fair bit. The time to decide will
come soon, but I'm still pretty sure that I will come home.
In the big buses, there
are normally 2 or more drivers. The bus instead has a cockpit of sorts that's
up the front where they all sit. They help by being extra eyes for the driver,
seeing where the bus is, and mainly if they can fit between those 2 cars that
have stopped in front of you for no reason.
Anyway
lets get into the trip:
Day 1
It was about a 10 hour
bus trip from Kodai to Alleppey (not including stops). I had a large breakfast
which featured porridge, the first time I'd had some since Australia. It was
delicious. I had breakfast with Mr Sarkar, no one else had arrived yet. Even
when I left the dining hall at 7:30, very few people had arrived. I knew the
departure time which was set for 8 was going to change. In highschool, the only
thing that you're on time to is class apparently. I sat around and talked to a
couple of people until we finally left around 8:45. Before the trip I had
declined travel sickness pills. This was because I thought that I don't get
travel sickness. My long time safety line of "why not?" skipped my
mind for that moment, and I paid the price whilst bumping down the road.
In about an hour I began
to feel queazy and THEN I took some pills. For the next 3 hours or so I sat
next to my open window, starring dazzily at the passing scenery. In one way I
think it may have been a good thing, it meant I saw more instead of sleeping
like everyone else. I didn't feel like taking photo's though. I didn't throw up
though :D
There was one
spectacular view though which was a highlight. We were still passing through
the mountains and we were descending along the side of a valley. The opposite
side had around 7 waterfalls that fell down its steep slopes towards the bottom.
It was really magnificent.
The trip had many other
great views though.
When the ground finally
flattened out and we reached the plains, I still felt sick.
We finally came to
Thekkady in Kerala and had lunch in the Orchid Restaurant, under the Hotel
Sandra Palace. We all got 200 rupee's to spend plus some of our own money. I
ordered Sweet and Sour chicken and chicken fried rice (I needed a break from
Indian food).
We got back on the
road.
They tried to show some
movies using USB's that people had brought with them. It failed. The movies
were of the wrong format and the dvd player couldn't read them.
The difficulty
communicating to the driver about instructions for the DVD player didn't help.
I was reminded of how I had difficulty understanding what to do with our
collection of vinyl records back home. Dad explained it as that I wasn't born
with it, so how could I have know. It was the same in this situation. Everyone
on the bus had grown up with DVD's, but the drivers hadn't. It made it very
difficult for Mr Irfan to tell them not to touch the USB, press play or go
down.
So we were left to just
talk and sleep. Some people managed to get 9 hours of sleep on the bus. They
were very fortunate.
We continued to drive,
and I managed to get some snatches of sleep. There wasn't much that could be
seen outside the bus window when it was getting dark. Looking out the front you
could only see car and bike headlights, and hear the sound of horns.
And so we arrived at the
end of the bus trip, but we hadn't arrived at the hotel yet.
We got out of the bus
and found our bags. near the there were 3 boats, each that could hold 10 of us.
People put their bags on the boats and tentatively got in. The other boats
looked a lot like Gondolas with no roof and the driver standing at the back controlling
the boat (they had motors though). Our boat was a bit different and we had to
go down some steps to sit under a roof.
We were all packed in
tightly together.
Then, a huntsmen sized
white spider crawled out just behind a guy called Nipun's head. The boat went
in an uproar, they started screaming and moving away from it. I was sitting
next to Nipun at the time, so I backed right away from it. They tried to scare
it away and eventually it went to the engine room.
It was a perfect
opportunity to be a hero. I hate the fact that I now keep thinking to myself
"why didn't I just pick it up and throw it out?"It seems so easy to
do it now that I reflect on it. It doesn't matter though, the fact is I didn't
do anything.
So what felt like a long
time on the water we arrived at the hotel, the Green Palace Hotel.
They welcomed us with
fruit juice, and once we had our bags we went to the rooms. People began to
take rooms immediately. There were 4 of us guys who ended up without a room.
After much confusion (due
to tiredness) everyone ended being in a room, and I with my 3 other roommates
ended up with a great room. The other guys in my room were Johan, Vishnu and
Moon. They're awesome, am really glad that we were the only ones left without a
room.
Once we got accustomed
to our rooms we each had a shower. It didn't have any hot water so I used the
bucket instead which did. The water also tasted a bit
funny/different/strange/possible harmful.
Finally we had dinner
which was buffet style.
I was in bed at 12.
A big night of travels,
and the only photo I took was of our hotel room.
So that ends day 1.
Onwards, to day 2!!...
Day 2: http://bit.ly/174EDi6
If you have any question, you can email me
at: comanduash@gmail.com
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