Wednesday, 25 December 2019

Friday we arrived at Trivandrum around 5.20am, feeling dirty and tired.


The groom and his brother collected us from the station and got us to the Mascot hotel. This was a place of amazing luxury compared to the train, though being in India bits still didn’t work or were loose. I ended up with broken glass in the shower then the glass soap dish fell from it’s (loose, swivelling) holder.

Everything seems busier, noisier, faster moving in this city. The language – Malayalam – is also apparently the most difficult in all of India, and the script is in a very even looped style, different from the typical Hindi script.

We had a shower and did our teeth, then a bit of a nap, breakfast with Carol and her family, then another nap before deciding to go explore.

The sun outside was fiercely hot and the air really muggy. Trying to follow our location and plan a direction using google maps was partially successful, although some streets that appeared on the map were actually impassable because they went through restricted areas or private property. Sweating freely, we eventually arrived at the cathedral of St Joseph, where there was a service going on. The singing was unusual and delicate, the church nearly full, and people had their hands in the air in worship. We did one circuit around the outside of the building (nothing of interest really, other than to note everyone removed their shoes before entering) and then made our way back.

Lunch was a snack thanks to the ‘welcome’ pack provided by the grooms family to thank us for coming, then we napped, swam in the pool, met our friends (flown in later from Goa) and swam some more. Dinner in the hotel was good, but spicy-hot!

It felt a little like a wasted day, but the train journey and lack of sleep had been draining, and we were glad to rest up.

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