BEAUTY THAT NEEDS MAKE-UP. Review on Kerala, General

Review : Nature is always beautiful! Be it the Sahara desert or the Himalayas or the virgin beach! What makes us happy is the way we look at it and the way it is presented to us!The vacations are becoming shorter and budgets are getting smaller. This is the scenerio for the most of the people. In this connection, it is the treatment and the facilities you get attract you towards it. Before I begin on the technical aspects, I think all shall agree that the money spent on travel is not very significant. It averages between 20 to 40% of the total.Time required varies between 1 1/2 to 2 days on an average.

General tourist attractions are-

beaches(trivandrum,kovalam and kumarcom);

forest resort-Thekkadi;

culture-Kochi;

back-waters ride-Allapurah(Allepy)

Out of the above, only the last one-back waters ride is the unique feature of Kerala.The rest are available in abundance all over the country. We shall now discuss thetechnical features of a vacation in Kerala.

APPROACH: Kerala can be approached from Coimbatur or Kanya-kumari by road, or from Mangalore by Konkan Railways. GUIDANCE: I regret to inform my fellow friends that within Kerala, I could get very little support or info. from relevant people. The people are quite conservative and do not volunteer info. even if you declare as tourist.Language is a big hurdle and most of the locals hesitate to talk. the banners and the boards are seldom in Hindi or English.The rickshaw drivers are not ''open.''The tourist info centres are very remote and you need to spend a lot of time in getting the details or reservations.

FOOD: It is simply horrible.For a non-keralite it is difficult to enjoy food in Kerala.I remember having a tomato soup made from tomato ketch-up and parotha made in such a way that it ois difficult to lablel it as parotha. Even in so called tourist hotels, you are served puri etc fried in coconut oil-you feel like eating hair-oil! LOCAL TOUR PACKAGES: Local tour packages are not so popular in Kerala. You need to travel in public transport quite often. Ther is nothing wrong but the feel of tourism is lost!

CONCLUSION: Kerala means beauty that needs make-up! I am sure it does not cost so much to either the businessmen or the tourist to get what is missing but it needs to be arranged. A sense of looking at tourism as a business is what is required.

I shall repeat-KERALA MEANS BEAUTY THAT NEEDS MAKE-UP!

-JATIN.J.SHROFF