Is Kerala hyped up?

Is God's Own Country hyped up as a tourist destination?

My experiences in Kochi have certainly led me to believe that it might be. Kerala has definitely been blessed with a lot of natural beauty and Kerala was listed among the top ten tourist destinations in the world, but, it definitely is some skillful marketing that has made it more famous than it has deserved to be. Coming to Kerala, after visiting Rajasthan, where the tourist is treated like royalty, the lack of professionalism in the hospitality industry is glaringly evident. Kochi, inspite of being the economic capital of the state, amazingly, has only a few places of interest for tourists and even these were hyped up.

Other than the natural beauty of the state, there isn’t much man-made beauty around. The Jewish Synagogue, St. Francis church, the Dutch palace & the Chinese fishing nets all turned out to be disappointments. The Jewish Synagogue was a small building in the old Kochi area and except for its historical significance, there wasn't anything there for either a Jew or a non-Jew to see. St. Francis church, India's oldest church, is famous for what was there for about 14 years many centuries ago - Vasco da Gama's buried body. The Chinese fishing nets near the remnants of Fort Kochi stink literally and inspite of being plugged as a wonder, there weren’t much of a wonder. The Dutch palace at Mattancherry, though the paintings are rather poorly preserved, is really worth seeing. Photography is not allowed inside and they don't sell pictures or any literature about the place. The Kerala Tourism counter in the entrance of the palace, instead had books about Agra, Delhi & Fatehpur Sikri. When I asked for a book about the monuments of Kerala that was listed, I was told that it was out of print. Even the guides at the palace gave a skewed up version of the Ramayana while explaining various paintings to the tourists.

The renowned Kerala Ayurvedic massage, wasn't so great even though I had it at a place approved by the Kerala Tourism Board. The masseur couldn't speak English and was keen to get me to write my comments in the guest register.

Cherai beach near Kochi was touted as the cleanest beach in India. One walk down its short stretch was enough to prove otherwise. Cherai is clean but not as clean as some of the beaches in Karnataka and Maharashtra.

The most pejorative was usually the discussions I overheard at the breakfast tables of my fellow hotel guests and the tourists I met at various places. Most of them were disgruntled of the hard sell that they had been subjected to. They talked about the generally bad experiences they had, the auto drivers and taxi drivers who robbed them blind and the not-so-great massages. Kerala may attract many more tourists with ad-blitz and suave promotions but it needs to do a lot more if the tourists are to keep coming back.

A trip around Jaipur

The Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation (RTDC) arranges daily guided tours of Jaipur city and nearby places for a sum of Rs. 170. After being assured that it was the best way to see the sights of Jaipur city by both the Park Plaza staff & some locallites, we decided to take the tour.

The nearest RTDC office being at Gangaur hotel off Mirza Ismail Rd., we reported there by 08:15 a.m for a tour that was supposed to start from 09:00 a.m.A 33-seater bus, probably considered a luxury bus in Rajasthan, compared to all the other heaps of junk that ply around the Jaipur city, was our mode of transport. Our RTDC guide was Mr. O.P.Verma, who made up for his rather poor English with his wit in Hindi along with some curt replies to the tourists' queries. Mr. Verma started almost every sentence with a history of Jaipur's rulers but his parroting of certain trivia soon became monotonous.

The Birla Mandir, a beautiful marble temple, not far from where we were staying was the start of the tour. Twenty minutes was all we got for our tour of the temple. Adjacent to the temple is a hill-top fort, the Moti Doongri, the residence of Maharani Gayatri Devi.

The Albert Hall, a museum close to Birla Mandir, is closed for renovation at present.

Hawa Mahal, the ubiquitous symbol of the Pink City, turned out to be rather disappointing. Even the RTDC guide wasn't too keen on explaining about it, saying only that it had a lot of rooms from where Rajput ladies would watch processions. Since the Hawa Mahal is situated in a busy area of the old city, there's no place for parking and we had to be satisfied with only seeing it from inside the bus.

Just behind the Hawa mahal is the Jantar-mantar. Jantar-Mantar, the final of the five designed, the most famous, first one, being in Delhi, was really amazing. The fact that our ancestors could calculate the time to an accuracy of 2 seconds many centuries ago is just breathtaking. The intricate instruments designed to study astronomy .definitely does make me feel proud of my heritage.

Adjacent to the Jantar-mantar is the City Palace. The present head of the royal family, Brigadier Sawai Bhavani Singh stays there. A part of this palace has been converted into a museum but, photography is not permitted there. The clothes used by the royal family members are displayed here but the best part of the museum is the arms section. The ceiling of the arms room is painted with pure gold and the different weapons, some of them multipurpose really are worth seeing. There is a third room that contains the art collections of the Jaipur kings.

The drive to Nahargarh Fort, a distance of 18 kms, is quite scenic at times. On the way, is the Jal mahal, a 5 floor palace situated in the middle of a lake. Only the topmost is over water, the others being under water. Since it is being converted into a hotel, it is closed for public.

The Nahargarh fort was built by Sawai Jai Singh and named after a prince whose spirit was supposed to haunt the place...

..... To be continued