Short Visits to the Indian States of Orissa, Karnataka and Kerala

One of the joys of returning to India for me (Dan) has been to re-connect with a couple of friends. I met Sura about 38 years ago when we lived on a team together in the state of Orissa. A few years ago we were able to connect by email through a mutual friend who visits India regularly. Olive and I were warmly welcomed by Sura and spent 2.5 days with him and his wife.

The beautiful hotel we stayed at in Bhubaneswar, Orissa. If you look closely, you can see Olive in our hotel room; from my perspective, she is in 3 rooms at once!


We visited 4 rural villages where Sura has some projects going on- each village presented us with a flower garland and freshly cut coconuts

We also visited a boys home that Sura operates which we have been supporting for a number of years

While walking to one village we came across this group washing parsley before taking it to market

From Orissa, we flew to Bangalore where Dan connected with Anand, a friend he made when they both worked together for the same employer in Calgary a few years ago. Anand hosted us for an evening of delicious Indian and Western food and story swapping. From Bangalore, we decided to take a trip down to Kerala for a few days staying first for a night at a resort, then for 1 night on a houseboat, 1 night in Cochin and then back to Bangalore and on to Delhi

Cocobay Resort at Kumarakom

While at this resort,, we observed coconut harvesting and tree trimming. This guy easily climbs the tree using this metal climbing contraption

But this guy takes the cake, climbing to the top of this coconut tree with nothing but bare feet, a rope and a towel and having a machete swinging at this side as he climbs (caught his ascent and descent on video)

Early morning fishermen

Houseboat we stayed on for 1 night sailing the Kerala backwaters

The boat had a captain, a cook and a waiter - we were the only guests

Kathakalli Dance performance in Cochin

We have 1 week left in India during which we will be back in Delhi focusing on the main purpose of our visit - to get the pressure cookers sterilizers and surgical instrument baskets ordered for SPECT's project with Mercy Ships in Benin in March