Where Pi grew up!
While most of the travellers we met in our two weeks were hitting the beaches of Varkala, we decided to save our sand time for the ten days we’d planned in the Andaman Islands, and opted to instead spent a night in Trivandrum. Trivy ended up being notable for two things really: we stayed at our first ever YMCA hotel, and spent an enjoyable afternoon wandering the grounds of the Zoological Gardens as we imagined scenes from the Life of Pi. Being good Canadians, when we read in Lonely Planet that the zoo that Pi grows up in was inspired by the one in Trivandrum, we knew we had to go. A couple of hours later we had said hello to the zebra, monkey, and a mean looking Richard Parker. We just missed the hyena from the boat. We also got to make up for missing Shercon from the Jungle Book (another book based in India) in Periyar National Park, by witnessing him devore a few raw chickens through the safety of a nice big wall at the zoo.
Richard Parker!
Done with the one attraction we needed to see in Trivy, we headed back to the YMCA hotel, which turned out to be adequate but a bit overpriced at 1100R ($22 CAD).
First stay in a YMCA hotel!
We were pretty stoked then the next day when we turned up at the Tri Seas Hotel in KanyaKumari in the middle of an extremely busy Tamil festival and were offered a deluxe room discounted to 1300R ($26 CAD), complete with a kingsize bed, ocean view and rooftop pool. And we were worried we wouldn’t be able to find anywhere to stay! But being a pilgrim town, maybe everyone is more concerned with visiting the temples than swimming on the roof?
View from our hotel
Kanya Kumari, or Cape Comorin, is also known for being the point where the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal all meet. Being the geography nerd that I am, this was a must stop for me. It’s also where a ferry to Sri Lanka would depart from if that were to ever happen, being only 30km away. The future existence of a boat to Sri Lanka seems to have become somewhat of a backpacker urban legend. Some say it’s already running, some are certain it’s not, and some say plans are in the works. The appeal of such a mode of transportation likely lies in its affordability, romantic nature of sea travel, and its direct route. Instead, you have to fly from Trivandrum to Colombo. Whatever the reason, a lot of travel conversation seems to be dedicated to it!
Ferry to temple- not Sri Lanka
Unless we just didn’t know where to look, it’s safe to say that as of January 2015 there was no operating ferry between Sri Lanka and South India. There was however, a ferry to a particularly popular temple, which we ambitiously decided should be done immediately following sunrise, to avoid some of the crowds. Unfortunately, everyone else in town seemed to have this idea as well, and we soon found ourselves waiting in line at 6:00am. Oh well.
Our ambitious sunrise
It actually worked out rather well as we weren’t super interested in the temple itself (more the location), so we instead got some great cultural photos of darkly dressed pilgrims offering colourful flowers to the temple gods. And some photos of the three seas converging of course, to satisfy my geographical tendencies. Heading back, we were once again the object of attention, but managed to make the most of it by getting a group photo of our own! We grabbed some chai and breakfast, and headed off to another temple town.
Group shot!
View from shore