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Tag Archives: travel
The Backwaters of Allepey
Lonely Planet has this down as a must-do before you die, and having spent a couple of days on the backwaters of Allepey, we concur. This is a bird-watchers and fish-eaters paradise. We take a gentle motor through the backwaters, viewing sunken rice fields and people-watching the locals as they go about their business on the famous river banks of Kerala.
The Crows Of Fort Cochin
Finally, after a year’s absence! Welcome to the brand new followtheboat podcasts!
Podcasts, for those who don’t know, are free mp3 audio files that you may download and listen to on your stereo, ipod etc. They’re the equivalent to a radio show, and we produce weekly radio shows of our adventures. This entire series is dedicated to our travels around the Indian sub-continent. We aim to get under the skin of India, the people and the culture. We’ve got a ton of adventures that take us from the very north in Sikkim to the very south of Tamil Nadu.
In this first episode we take a nice, gentle stroll around Fort Cochin, the area in Kochi where the European adventurers settled after opening up trade routes between Asia and Europe. It’s a typically warm day so Liz hides under the shade of the tree-lined avenues, forever surrounded by the cawing of crows.
Photographing The Limboo People
Our last blog post on our trip to Sikkim ends with a photo-montage of the Limboo people. As you read in our last post we spent some time with out guide, Perna, and his family. They reside in the village of Darap in an old house passed down through the generations. Perna lives in relative luxury with a TV in his room, but the main house is like something out the dark ages. We were privileged to be allowed to spend a morning with these gentle people, even more so that they patiently allowed us to snoop around their house and photograph them going about their daily chores, which was mainly drinking salted tea and cooking pop-corn.
We Meet The President: A Darap Village Homestay In Sikkim
Ever been to Shangri-la? We have. It’s alive and kicking in Sikkim. Almost anywhere in Sikkim, outside a large town or tourist area, will do. We found our lost horizon in Darap, near Pelling. Two hundred year old houses growing out of the side of the mountain in which tiny people and chickens share their home with you is not something that happens every day. An afternoon getting high on hooch in the Himalayas is something to remember.
Kechopari Lake Almost Gave Me A Heart Attack
Liz has very kindly omitted the tale of our 17km trek to Kechopari Lake. In a nutshell it is the story of a 40 year old man realising his limitations. Realising them in a way that involves clutching the left arm, breathing like a 100 year old, having to walk backwards up hairpin tracks to avoid the constantly seizing leg muscles, all the while watching his girlfriend skip gaily by, light as a feather, hopping from leaf to cobweb like a woodland fairy.
Decay Theme – Life On Bolgatty
A submission for the theme Decay. Rather than go for an old, battered, black and white decayed look, I took a photograph of a decaying sign just on my doorstep (the Bolgatty ferry pick-up point) and brightened it up.
Sunset Over Cochin
I should probably save this photograph for the #SunsetSaturday submission, but I couldn’t resist popping this one up now. It is the view just before I catch the ferry back to Bolgatty Island from Ernakulam. In the far distance are the famous Chinese fishing nets.
Busy Bus In Cochin
Photograph: A typically packed bus in Cochin, Kerala, south India. It’s predominantly Catholic here, hence the nuns.
Jamie’s Photographs To Appear In Exhibition
This is one of six photographs to appear in my first exhibition, titled ‘Urban’, which I’m very excited about! More details to follow soon.
Telegraph Publishes Liz’s Winning Piece Tomorrow
I’m really pleased to announce that Liz has won a travel writing piece, which will feature in tomorrow’s Daily Telegraph in the UK. If you happen to be near a news agent then please do buy a copy. If you can’t get to one, don’t worry, we’ll be publishing it on followtheboat in due course, but not before her well-deserved moment of glory. Well done, Liz. Here’s an excerpt…
Pongal, Pilgrims And Palani
In the previous post we finished somewhere in the middle of the Western Ghats, lost, yet the journey up until that point had been fascinating. Not only were the local people preparing for the fantastically named ‘Pongal’, a celebration not too dissimilar to Harvest back at home, but Tamil Nadu was over-run with pilgrims from all over India. As we drove in one direction, so there were thousands of pilgrims walking barefooted the other way, heading towards the temple in Palani that wouldn’t look too out of place in a James Bond film.
Getting Lost In The Western Ghats
Over the next month we will be serialising our road trip of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the two southern-most states of India. We cover 1,200km, ascend over 2,000m, get lost in the mountains, rub shoulders with gods and relax in tea plantations. The eight or so posts will come out on Mondays and Thursdays, where each new episode continues from the last. They return to what followtheboat was always about: documenting our observations of the people we meet and places we visit through words and pictures. Lots of pictures! We start by taking in the incredible Western Ghats, the huge mountain range that divides India and dictates the monsoons. Just don’t hire the driver we had the misfortune to end up with…