I started with a weekend itch to go out somewhere, so while driving down the trivandrum bypass, saw this board which read Akkulam Tourist village 2 KMS, Took a left, nice scenary. kept on going and finally reached this place called
The Akkulam boat club
The club was deserted, no one to be seen, we walk further down and see 7 people inside the ticket counter chit chatting. I was with my friend Jenni (she is quite an adventure lover, for the ones who have read my earlier thread about agumbe know this), took a row boat, they gave us one with different sized paddles. This was my first experiance with a row boat. as soon as i got into the boat i knew something was wrong. There were extreamly strong under currents and within 5 minutes we were docked about 3 kms awaw from the club in a deserted spot, There were only weed arround us and no sign of land. The smell of sulphur was strong. with every paddling the boat was not moving forward and was going in circles. We were stuck there for 2 hours, the boat tickets we took were for 30 minutes and no one came to check upon us for those 2 hours. The sun was at its full blast, and the stench was awakward and was nausiating. I kept on trying and finally gave up after 2 hours of struggle. i realised we were so far that no one can see or hear us.
We were loosing precious daylight and some how i felt Jenni started panicking now. She asked me to call cops, Since she is new to kerala she doesnt know how helpful the cops are, i told her thats not gonna help. I was dead tired batteling the currents, and the smell was horrible, with every padle hitting the bottom was unleasing more methane and inhaling that was adding up to the troubles.
She sits quite for some time and asks me for my phone (we were in the city limits so we had network) calls her bro in bangalore and asked him to google Akkulam boat club and find out their number.
He takes 10 minutes.
In the mean time the winds have redused, i gave another try, it started moving forward. i kept on going and finally reached one of the shores.
She is delighted, she gets off the boat and asks me to get down the boat dosent have a rope so can't anchor it. and can't leave it. So i stay on it.
She runs to the boating house and finds gets help, now the real drama starts.
Those guys come in a motor boat and i am completly exhausted.
I asked them, why didn't they come in search for us when we took the boat for 30 minutes and its already 2 hours.
To this this guy replies in malayalam, "Saar people like you usually does not return in the said time"
To that i asked dont you keep an i this guy stats blushing and says "sir you know what all couples do, so we do not look"
I was about to explode, jenni does not undestand malayalam and she says in english "what if some one dies here dont you have life guards" To that he replies in english "Life guard No"
. It didn't take me much time to understand we were wasting our time with these people, I asked Jenni to keep quite (woman) finally we managed to get out and get to the car, i was thirsty, but alive, had a bottle of water and went home and had a shower to get rid of that foul smell, it was in my lungs, but finally i was alright.
This ordeal made me learn very important 3 lessons
1. When something can go wrong it will go wrong
2. Do what you know you can do, and you have done it in the past
3. Never trust any govt establishment in kerala, all kerala govt employees are the same, rights before duty (no offences ment to anyone though)
Though there were 7 people at the ticket counter mostly ladies, I am sure the guys were life guards, they gave us those jackets when we left. I am not sure how they cannot understand the risks involved.
I know its my mistake as well, so all those who are ready to throw stones at me, i am ready