Stranded in Tokyo...

In a major airport like San Francisco International Airport, technicians were not able to move the passenger boarding bridge from the flight. After struggling for almost 2 hours they decided to move the flight away from the bridge, rather than the other way around! So outcome of all this?

Cons:

• Missed my connecting flight to Delhi from Tokyo.
• Which meant one more day of delay before I meet my dear husband whom I hadn't seen for over a month
• Which meant, I get to spend less time with him, before he leaves to the US on an official trip, in a week's time 
• Which meant being stranded alone in Tokyo.

 Pros:

• I got a transit visa with 4 days validity
• Stay at a 4-star hotel
• Return ticket to Delhi the next day
• Got to meet and interact with an amazing lady
• Last but not the least, I had half a day to see Tokyo and I had found the right company with whom I could go around! 

View from my hotel room

 The flight finally landed at 5:00pm and my connecting flight was at 5:30pm. In a state of panic, I was rushing towards the next gate hoping that I might be able to make it just in time. But people from the airline were waiting to let us know that the boarding had closed and that we will be provided stay and a return ticket the next day same flight. There were a few others who were in the same state as mine. That was when I met this amazing lady, she is a Scientist in the Pharmaceutical Industry and she was traveling to India to set up a new office in Noida. We both decided to stay together so that it would be easy to take care of logistics, finding the formalities to be done, collecting baggage, getting to the hotel, checking in and out and getting back to the airport the next day.

After checking in and letting the feeling sink in that I am in a completely foreign land unexpectedly, I decided to settle in for the night and sleep it off. Surprisingly, I slept peacefully but then got up by 5:00am. I had another 12 hours to kill. So got ready, made myself a cup of coffee and started searching if there was anything close by and found a Temple which was about 30 minutes drive from the hotel where we were staying. Around 8am, I called my Scientist friend and asked if she was ready for breakfast and over breakfast I suggested about this temple and she was totally for it.

So we took a cab just outside the hotel and headed to Naritasan Shinshoji Temple.























The temple is a very old Buddhist temple built in the year 940. There are many shrines inside this spacious complex.

Monks of the Naritasan Shinshoji Temple - looks like the color of the robes indicate their ranks

The above photograph is inside the main hall. After seeing the main hall, we started walking around the grounds towards the other temples.

We walked around the grounds exploring the different temples. Everything was in Japanese so it was quite difficult to really understand much.

As we kept walking we finally reached the top most level of the grounds. There we found another temple. This looked like it was the main temple, the Great Pagoda of Peace.

Great Pagoda of Peace

Main idol inside the pagoda of Peace

Unique Water fountain

Another unique water fountain

Finally, after couple of hours of walking around the various temples we set out onto the main street. Explored it for sometime till our cab arrived to take us back to the hotel.

We checked out around noon and then went back to the airport with 5 hours to spend. And then Tokyo Narita Airport was well explored, from one end to another!

Kumarakom - Backwater luxury

Connect with nature - CHECK


Now it was time for some indulgence! Which meant checking into Backwater Ripples, Sunset cruise, Speed boat tour, and ofcourse rest and recuperation... re-energizing ourselves before we head back home.

Backwater Ripples

Getting to Backwater Ripples from Vagamon:
Thanks to my Google Navigator which lost signal as we were driving back, we took a wrong turn and started heading north rather than going west. This caused a slight delay in our travel but then we were able to turn back before we were completely lost, thanks to my husband's natural navigational skills. He decided that the sun was not where it was supposed to be, so the route I was telling him was not correct!

Once checking in to Backwater Ripples, we decided to rest for sometime - I was very thankful for that! The imaginary Swedish Memsahib and her lover who were killed in that cottage (the characters from the spooky story that I heard in Vagamon) had made sure I don't close my eyes for too long the previous night. I couldn't be more thankful to get some sleep! But the best part of all this was, I really love this sleep; the kind which you crave for, the feeling a desert traveler would get after hallucinating about water and then finally finding an oasis, water would taste like ambrosia to him. A perfect analogy for that moment when I put my head down on that pillow! And then I slept... like a baby! A power nap was all I needed to get back into form.

Things to do:
Rejuvenate at the ayurvedic spa, go on a sunset cruise, cool down at the swimming pool, or just relax on the hammock with a book...

We decided to go on the sunset cruise, a nice way to relax. The cruise is for almost 45 minutes starting at 5:30pm and we are in the middle of the lake when the sun sets. On a clear day you can see the sun setting at the horizon. After the cruise, we cycled around the resort for sometime, played some table tennis, caroms and then decided to call it a night.

But if you are looking for something which rushes your adrenaline then you can go for the speed boat ride. Its real fun, the speed boat can go from 50 to 150 kmph in a few seconds. They will take you from Kumarakom to Allapuzha crossing the Vembanad lake and would take you through the various canals, some narrow ones too.

A old woman fishing outside her house for her lunch

A fisherman pulling out his catch as we cross him on our speed boat...

The speed boat ride lasts for almost 2 hours and you get a complete tour of the Kuttanad area, the Nehru Stadium where the annual snake boat race happens, the narrow canals of Allapuzha, small backwater villages and then back to Kumarakom.
 
Once we got back, we decided to check out and head back home. Before leaving, we lazed around some more time near the lotus pond and hammock. We really didn't want to leave this place behind but our holiday was coming to an end and we had to get back to reality.

Overall the Kerala holiday was a huge hit, a very lazy and rejuvenating one and we all came back refreshed and ready to get back to work!