| Trivandrum is the capital city of Kerala. We had heard it was also a beautiful place to see and it was quite cosmopolitan. Kerala is an education hub with many well known universities and institutions and is also developing into an IT hub. Once we reached the guest house we had arranged accommodations in, unfortunately Maneesh's fever returned. For the next two days again we took rest in our guest house and only ventured out for meals, medication or visits to the doctor. By the fourth day Maneesh was finally feeling well and we felt we could continue our planned travels. However at this point we were seriously considering returning back to Delhi on account of Maneesh's health. We were on the extreme south end of India and very far from home. Getting back home wasn't so easy. The flights were extremely expensive and also a days worth of travelling (hopping from one airport to another transitioning between flights to get home, or the train rides were exceedingly long - three days and three nights possibly). Neither seemed appealing at that time given the health situation. It would still have been taxing had we decided to take on the journey home at that time. So we thought to rest and slowly travel towards a city that made it a bit easier to get home from. Originally we had planned to hop between destinations and to take planes, trains or automobiles from one location to another. The plan was not only a way we would get to touch the destinations on our itinerary but it was also a way to cut the long journey back. Getting off in various cities and looking around for a day or two would give us a break in the journey all the way back up north. Trivandrum was a nice place overall. We rented a car one afternoon and cruised around the city. Most big buildings are in the typical British architecture left behind by the colonials, that is currently used as the local government buildings. One evening we spent wandering around on Kovalam beach, a well known beach and resort in Trivandrum. We watched the sun set and enjoyed the cool breeze. There is one historical temple located in Trivandrum believed to be in existence since 500 years before Christ. Its known as the golden temple and is the wealthiest Hindu temple in the world. The temple is dedicated to the god Vishnu and is a highly visited place by pilgrims and tourists alike. The temple's architecting was not very different from all the previous temples we had seen in the south and have realized most of the temples were renovated by the same dynasties from the 6th century onward. The architecting is also in typical Dravidian style. Dravidian people were the indigenous and ethnic people of south India before the population became infiltrated with colonial rulers. Presently most south Indian languages are derived from the main Dravidian languages of the ancient times. Most historical temples reflect the characteristics of Dravidian culture, therefore from state to state and location to location, we eventually got a very good sense of the ancient Indian temples. Most were characterized by very tall rectangular towers marking the entrances to the temple. Some were painted colourfully and some were plain white in colour. From Tirvandrum we headed to the most southern point of India to a city called Kanyakumari. |