The diary game || Shopping at Malampuzha street

Hi friends,

Generally, tourist destinations feature a wide variety of goods for sale—particularly luxury items and local specialties. The roadside stalls, in particular, display a plethora of interesting items that eager tourists often purchase as souvenirs. In this spirit, during our visit to the Malampuzha Dam last week, we bought a few items ourselves.

First, we stopped at a shop selling hats, where we found a diverse assortment of styles. Among them was a cowboy-style hat; given the intense heat that day—and the fact that I really liked its look—I decided to buy it. To cool off after my purchase, I bought and enjoyed a cone of ice cream from a nearby trolley. My husband took a photograph of me enjoying it, which I am delighted to share with you all. Similarly, another shop featured sunglasses and eyeglasses for sale; they were quite stylish and attractive. Interestingly, while the vendors initially quoted high prices, they eventually bargained them down to almost half the original cost. Consequently, we each bought a pair of glasses—one for each of the three of us. Although the initial asking price ranged from 200 to 250 rupees per pair, we ultimately managed to purchase them for between 100 and 150 rupees each. Afterward, we browsed through several other shops in the area.

These stalls offered a wide array of Kerala-specific products, including handbags and food items—most notably, banana chips and jackfruit chips. This is because jackfruit is a fruit that is extensively cultivated in this region; similarly, a specific variety of banana known as Nendram is widely grown here, which is then processed into chips and sold.

After browsing through all these shops, wearing the sunglasses we had bought, we went to explore the dam and the river located there. Then we headed to a restaurant for dinner, where we enjoyed our evening meal. We ordered and ate Idli; while the Idli itself tasted just like the ones found in Tamil Nadu, the chutney served as a side dish had a slightly distinct flavor.