Thursday, September 2, 2010

India Trip (part 5)

Kerala (where I am from) is on the south west tip of India. Kerala means “land of coconuts” and the language we speak is Malayalam (the only language name that is a palindrome if written in English) means "speech from the mountains". It is interesting to note that India has more than 25 languages and 2500 dialects.

Kerala has a tropical climate with greenery everywhere. The long nine summer months are difficult with temperatures reaching 36 degree C (97 deg F) and relative humidity more than 90%. At the end of summer in March/April all  trees have their fruits fall so that the seeds are ready. By then, everyone is longing for the rain. 

But once it begins, it doesn't stop. It is the land of south west and north east monsoons, dumping an yearly average rainfall of 311 cm (122 inches) mainly  in the months of Jun, Jul and Aug (info taken from http://www.kerala.gov.in/knowkerala/generalfeatures.htm).

During my last visit, the monsoon started when we were in the Malampuzha reservoir.

Partly dried reservoir


We even rode our bikes deep inside the reservoir


Monsoon clouds building up above the mountains


After raining cats and dogs we had visitors from down under


12 comments:

Al said...

That looks like a beautiful place. But that's a lot of rain!

JayLeigh said...

Oh, wow, I loved reading about Kerala! Thank you so much for sharing. And the pictures are really beautiful. What a cute visitor you had after the rain! :-)

Anonymous said...

Wow - such stunning photos. A truly lovely place!

Sylvia K said...

Terrific post for the day and what a beautiful place Kerala is! That does look like a LOT of rain though! Love your little crabby looking friend! Hope you have a great week!

Sylvia

EG CameraGirl said...

I didn't realize India has so many languages! Amazing!

Noel Morata said...

aloha,

what a beautiful views, it does feel very tropical, i can just feel the heat and humidity, your photos and words are inspiring :)


i have an interesting place to visit today on my sari site

DeniseinVA said...

Magnificent scenery, great photos and a wonderful post, so interesting to read.
An English Girl Rambles

Kay L. Davies said...

Amazing! And a crab actually came out after the rain? That's fabulous. Thank you.
Kay
Alberta, Canada

BraCom said...

Thank you for sharing these beautiful India Trip photos

Have a nice week,
Greetings, Bram

My Word Tuesday post

Seen on My World Tuesday

Julie said...

An interesting visitor from 'down under'. Not the way we Australians usually look when coming out of a lake!! *grin*

On a more serious note, are these the monsooonal rains that have visited such havoc upon your neighbour, Pakistan?

Gypsy Lala said...

Wow, I love the place, especially the crab, so lovely.

giorno26 ¸¸.•*¨*•. said...

Meravigliose queste foto !