Day 18 - Kovalam/Trivandrum

This morning we took a trip into Thiruvananthapuram, (or to give it it's Colonial name, trivandrum).

The first stop was the Sree Padmanabhaswam temple.  This is a seriously impressive 260 year old Hindu temple. Non-Hindu's can't enter the temple, which is the spiritual home of Trivandrum, evenjust  from the outside, it's seriously impressive.

Sree Padmanabhaswam temple.

On the street leading to the temple are lots of little shops and stalls targeting those coming to worship at the temple.There is also the Puthen Malike Palace museum.  This 200 year old palace of the Travancore Maharajas is comprised of 80 rooms, 20 of which are used as the museum, with the other 60 still in use by the Royal family.  The guide who showed us round was very good, and went out of her way to point out things that we probably would have missed. (she got a well deserved tip at the end of the tour).

Artefacts include portraits of the maharajas, massive mirrors, intricately carved wooded ceilings, a throne made of crystal, and a throne made from the ivory of 150 elephants!!

Unfortunately there was no photography allowed inside the palace, but we got some in the grounds.  The one below shows some carved horses on the buildings.

Carved horses on the Palace buildings.

Next stop on the trip was the Zoological gardens and museums.  The gardens that contain the zoo and the museums (there are more than one here) are really nicely laid out, and worth a visit in their own right.

We gave the museums a miss, and headed into the zoo.  I'm not a big fan of zoos, I'm split between approving of ones that do a fantastic conservation job - San Diego zoo being one - and being against zoos that have small cramped cages and keep the animals in poor conditions.  Fortunately this zoo is nice.  The animals have huge areas to roam/fly/crawl in, and it's nicely set out.

Back in the car, and we stopped off at a small craft fair that was taking place in an exhibition centre in the middle of town.  We had a wander round, bit as we weren't looking to buy anything, we only picked up a couple of little knick-knacks.

Trivandrum overall looks like a nice town, we were glad we did this trip.

In the late afternoon, we got ready for the beach, and spent about an hour getting soaked by some big waves on Lighthouse beach.  The place was jumping, with locals and tourists all enjoying themselves.  After we'd dried off, we had a late lunch/early dinner and watched people still on the beach, and a few people who were surfing in the bigger waves.

On the way back to the hotel, I bit the bullet, and bought a meditation bowl I'd had my eye on.  It's got a really nice tone to it.  So I'm happy with that.