Above is Naraj the Mayor of Anaikalpatti, who you will remember from picking coconuts last time in Anaikalpatti near Marayoor. I had a few days in Marayoor last month, and I had in my possession some photos of Naraj doing his thing up and down a coconut tree that I took last April. One afternoon I set off walking from Marayoor to Anaikalpatti with the photos of Naraj, thinking the chances of me finding him are remote so I'll have to leave the photos at the village shop. While I was walking through the forest to reach Anaikalpatti, I found Naraj sat by the road having a rest on his way home. We were both very surprised to see each other! I took the above photo of Naraj with his photos in his hand as proof that we always keep our promises at OMD.
One of many Masala Dosas from Hotel Variyath that entered my mouth.
The office of the Field Officer has got a new plastic sign, with some writing in Hindi - Weird.
In the Marayoor toddy bar with Allahuddin and two of his friends.
Here's the fishmonger of Marayoor.
The green valley of Marayoor had a lot of mist in February, but sometimes the clouds clear like in the above photo with the town in the distance. This visit I learned from Sarath that "Marayoor" means "hidden village".
Santosh and MG took a couple of days off from working at the toddy bar to visit the popular Murugan temple at Palani in Tamil Nadu. They got their hair shaved off as a sacrifice to Lord Murugan. Santosh seems to have lost his smile along with his hair.
I can't remember the name of the man above, but he's very photogenic.
It's good to see Santosh smiling as usual.
Ok, now is the time to introduce some new people involved in OMD. You already know Sarath of the huge Variyath family that operate the Hotel Variyath, and above is Sarath with Lawrence who is another sipe from the UK, and Kutty who is a malayalee from Marayoor like Sarath. We all went on a road trip for a few days from Marayoor to Athirappilly and Alleppey in Kutty's big car. Kutty doesn't say much and smiles even less, but he eats rocks for breakfast and is a good guy to travel with. We left Marayoor and after going through Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary we crossed the border into Tamil Nadu.
After a couple of hours driving through Valpara district in Tamil Nadu's extreme west we entered Kerala and headed on to stay at Athirappilly.
After enjoying the falls we visited the local toddy bar at Athirappilly.
After leaving Athirappilly we went to Alleppey and Sarath arranged a boat for us to explore the backwaters for an afternoon, with a few toddy shops along the way.
I'll see all of you again soon for more of the same activity. Next time I'm going to visit Naraj at his house...
