“India 🇮🇳 ~Alleppey (Alappuzha), Lighthouse, Snake Temple and Alleppey Beach Garden”

This afternoon, we started out with beautiful weather to visit the nearby lighthouse. After the lighthouse stop, we continued on in a Tuk Tuk for an hour to explore the Snake Temple.  If we had time, there was also another Temple to visit as well.

The lighthouse visit was first, and we did get to go inside. It was so hot, after climbing the lighthouse, we entered the little museum for the A/C, before we moved on to the next stop.

This lighthouse is just one of MANY along the Arabian Sea in India. They line the coast, from North Goa, all the way down to Kerala. (see map photo). We love lighthouses, and honestly, if the road system were better, south of Mumbai, we would have arranged a self-tour, but the misery of being thrown around on roads, that are so torn up, along with the heavy traffic of such a populated country, would not make for a very fun trip. It would take DAYS to go the full distance of the coast, due to such a poor road system. One day, maybe the roads will be fixed, because it would be fun to see the lighthouses.

Sadly, the weather had taken a terrible turn, as we neared the Snake Temple, so it was in a downpour that we made a dash for the structure; only to learn it did not open for another hour!  We hopped back into to Tuk Tuk and returned to Alleppey, and called it a day.  We were so looking forward to going inside the Snake Temple, as it’s very old, and it has the most interesting stories of myths and legends! The other Temple, we did not learn anything about, because we turned around and traveled the same bad road, back to Alleppey Beach, without any more stops, with the storm raging on!  I honestly do not know how that tuk tuk driver could see anything; all the while, Daryl is on the left side of the back seat and I am on the storm side of the tuk tuk, with wind blowing the rain in, to perfectly pool on the seat to my right. I sat in a puddle for an hour and a half, and I protected my purse and my camera, between Daryl and I, as I was huddled close to him, to try to get away from the rain. Crazy thing was, I ALWAYS take a light rain jacket and a little day pack, with a camera rain cover inside, but for some reason, this time I did not not. That will teach me! My camera and my “barely working” iPhone are no worse for wear, and the one thing about humidity and tropical storms, everything tends to dry quickly, including me and my dress.

Fast forward to early morning, next day. It is 3:30AM, and we are up and packing for another domestic flight, back to Mumbai. This will be our last domestic flight in India, after two months of touring. We can’t help but wonder, if an early morning flight will take off on time, any better than all the other flights we have taken, closer to midnight. We shall see, but at 3:30AM, we seriously wondered if we could roll over and sleep for another hours or so, and still make the 8:15AM flight (that was surely destined to be delayed; even with the 2.5 hour drive to the airport in Kochi). Not wanting to take a chance that this plane would actually be on time, and leave without us, we get moving. We enjoy our coffee, then packed up, and were in a taxi by 4:30AM. We made good time, and arrived at the airport in 1.5 hours, so we are way early. We find a power outlet inside the airport, to charge our devices, so we can entertain ourselves, while standing by. Finally, there were humans at the Air India ticket counter. We got in line to get our boarding passes. We were then told there WAS a delay in our flight from 8:15AM to 9:30AM. Yes, this is the flight schedule we have come know. Long story short, while we did take off at 9:30AM, we had to circle the Mumbai Airport for 45 minutes, waiting for a gate to open, though.

Finally on the ground, and so grateful to be done, with yet another LONG transfer day ( another two-two hour flight that took us nine hours to achieve). BUT, we ALL know how much plane travel makes things so much faster *sarcasm here.*