A bike trip to Kerala - Part III - Mushrooms and fungi

Pin It

Beautiful ones, not so beautiful ones

Tiny ones, large ones

Colourful ones, whites ones

I have never seen so many varieties of mushrooms. Mushrooms always fascinate me. My 10 fingers are more than enough to count the actual number of times I would have seen mushrooms in their natural environment. So you can imagine my excitement when I saw so many varieties on a single day on our short hurried walk to the river. My husband did not share my excitement and so I did not get a chance to hunt for more. I'm sure I would have seen more if we weren't in a hurry to get back home.

A bike trip to Kerala - Part II - Rubber plantation

Pin It

  

More photos from our trip and these were taken at a rubber plantation. You can see part 1 here. 

We stayed there for a couple of days and I saw rubber trees for the first time. A slanting incision is made on the trees and small vessels are tied below to collect the dripping latex. 

There was a stream running through the plantation and there was also a small one right in front of the house where we were staying. Imagine how nice it would be to enjoy your early morning coffee by the stream! There were plenty of leeches too. 

The last part would be on mushrooms, plenty of them. 

Have a great day!

A bike trip to Kerala - part 1

Pin It

The year before last when we made a motorbike trip to Coutrallam, me and my husband planned to make the next one to Kerala. Unfortunately, my father-in-law had to be hospitalized during our last vacation and we were unable to make that trip. This vacation, however, we made it happen and I would say that the 3-day trip on the motorbike was the best part of our entire one and half month vacation.

We hit the road early in the morning (about 5:30) and reached Konni in Kerala about 6 and half hours later taking short breaks in between. Our destination was a rubber plantation near Konni where my husband has relatives. Though the plantation is not too far away from Konni, we took a few wrong turns and ended up traveling an extra few kilometers and reached home by 1 in the noon.

Though the journey was a long one (especially riding pillion), we enjoyed it thoroughly due to the weather being very pleasant. We rode through cities, small villages and hills with greenery everywhere. 

We came across this 108-year-old railway bridge called the Pathimoonu Kannara Palam or 13 Arch bridge near Thenmala. My husband didn't stop the bike, so I just clicked on the go. It was a beautiful structure and I wish we had stopped there for a few minutes to get a better shot.

However, we stopped at the Thenmala dam to click a few pics. 

Also saw some beautiful flowers that I had never seen before. 

There are many more photos that I wish to share with you. So there will be a second and third part to this post. In the second part I'll share some photos taken at the rubber plantation. 

Have a great week!   

Sharing with

Our World Tuesday

   

Snippets from vacation

Pin It

Amongst the clouds...

At a village ...

     

A village cemetery...

                  

My parents' garden ...

Have a happy weekend!

A trip to Manali

Pin It

The first time that we visited Manali, Himachal Pradesh, was 11 years ago as newlyweds. I LOVED the place - the weather was pleasant, the crowd was less and apple trees were in full bloom. It was a dreamland. The same year my husband's colleagues planned a trip to Kullu and Manali and though we had visited it only a few months ago we didn't want to miss a second opportunity. Unfortunately the second trip was a great disappointment, it was exactly the opposite of what it was the first time. 

We made our third trip on the 26th of this month, this time with our son and my dad. If I rate this trip I would say it was somewhere between our 1st and 2nd. We were there for only 2 days and it was constantly drizzling both the days. On the first day we set about visiting a few temples and a Tibetan monastry. Because of the rain we just rushed about and could spend only a few minutes in each of these places.

 On the way we saw a local woman working on her loom.

The apple trees hadn't started blooming but we found one with beautiful blossoms outside a temple.  

There were plenty of shops selling knitted goods, but only very few with crocheted items.

There was yarn shopping too. I picked some random colors.

On the second day we went to Solang Valley. It was raining and all I wanted to do was stay buried under the quilt. Initially I refused to go and asked the rest of the 3 to make the trip without me but eventually relented and agreed to go.

Anyway I am happy that I went because otherwise I would have missed the actual snow fall. It started out light and became pretty heavy by the time we were prepared to leave.

After two days of enjoying the snow we are back again in Delhi where summer has just started and I am already dreading the heat and dust of Delhi's hot summer months.

Sharing with
Mosaic Monday at Little Red House
Sweet Shot Tuesday
Our World Tuesday