Back again

Its been a few days since I blogged and the hiatus was caused by a trip out of town and into the hills of north Kerala with some Swiss and German business associates. These folks are here in India to expose my team to a new technology they have put in place to manage thousands of square meters of building space over the internet. We have been in this domain of computer aided facilities management for some years now and little had changed in the technologies deployed in this domain but now we have some serious new stuff to handle and it was a pleasure to be working with these Europeans on the new systems they had developed.

The training done it was time to give the Europeans a taste of Kerala which incidentally they had read up about and were aware that it was one of 50 destinations that National Geographic recommends as a 'must see'in a typical lifetime. So off we went to Calicut from Chennai and checked in to the Kadavu resort on the banks of the Chaliyar river. I love this river for its pristine beauty and because I know that not so long ago it was a 'dead river' because of industrial pollution from a rayon factory that was built on its banks in the 60s. The local people protested and with a concerted effort they were able to close down the offending unit and within a few years the river healed itself and looks oh so beautiful today.

The European visitors feasted on the beauty of this part of Kerala and watched in awe as sand divers went down to the bottom of the river to bring up baskets of river sand to dump into their boats moored mid-stream. To fill up a typical sand barge a diver needs to go down atleast 200 times - this is hard and demanding labour that really could be done by a machine but local laws prohibit that lest people over-dredge the river and mess up the riverine ecosystem. Once bitten twice shy, I guess!

From Calicut we went up into the high ranges of Kerala to the Vythiri Resort - this is dense tropical rainforest area and is quite remote. There is nothing else around and the only sounds are those of a gushing stream, crickets, birds and the swishing of leaves as monkeys swing from tree to tree! The resort was full and it wasn't foreigners that filled the place it was people from all over India! It was a working day and the place was full - I'm wondering how these folks at this remote resort manage to get this kind of traffic even on working days. It perhaps has to do with word of mouth promotion. Whatever it is, I highly recommend a night or maybe two in this resort - take plenty to read because there really isnt much you can do in the place and guess what, no cell phone coverage!

The tree houses here are awesome - one is 60 feet up in the canopy of a massive silk cotton tree and the only way up and down from there is by a cage lift operated with a water assisted winch! And the food is to die for - guess they have to have it that way or else the guests who have no where else to go for food, would be a bitter lot!