Dakshin Mahayatra

It was a wrench to leave Kochi area, because we had really liked the vibes of the place, including the interlocking tiles on the roads that often gave a feeling of driving in a fairyland town, like Oz. But we were about to travel to another iconic place, Palakkad. When we were in Muscat, half the people there seemed to be from Palakkad, which made me want to visit the place someday. Firstly to see the origin of so many luminaries, and secondly to understand why so many luminaries left the place. Palakkad, like Kanyakumari, reexamined its cultural identity in 1950, and in 1956, the mostly Tamil-speaking Kanyakumari shifted from Kerala to TN, and the mostly Malayalam-speaking Palakkad shifted from TN to Kerala. Who gained in the process? Who knows? Today's travel was to be only 125 km, around 3 hrs of driving. We had left at 8.30 am and we would have reached Palakkad by 12.00 noon, even having provided for a breakfast break. So we decided to take a little detour to Thriss...

Driving 290 km inside Kerala can be a pleasure. It can also be a pain. And this can be contributed by the road, the driver, or even the pedestrians. Road surfaces are uniformly good; the teenager's cheek is replaced by a baby's bottom - smooth and silky. Having said that, NH66 does suffer from diversions due to roadwork, especially from Alappuzha to Kochi. Even then, the diverted stretches are not too bad; in similar situations in Maharashtra, driving on diversions felt like riding the Rover on the moon. Many roads here are just two-cars wide - small ones. Good flow of traffic, luckily for me. However, since, in Kerala, the townships practically sit in each other's lap, the NH66 seems to be flowing through one massive town hundreds of kilometers long! It's a totally different driving experience, I tell you. Kerala drivers are skilled, and often very disciplined. But there is a significant section who are always on overdrive. Overtaking seems to be Steven Cov...