A wonderful experience. Our Kerala Local Guides 3rd meet up, Kochi, Kerala

[StephenAbraham]

2 weeks through the Malabar districts of Northern Kerala, and our Kerala Local Guides 3rd meet up.

It has been over a year since I have last stepped foot in God's own country, Kerala. Have been longing to come back to visit all the old friends and places. This time round, I had planned to backpack through the Malabar districts of Northern Kerala, which details, I would probably cover in another post. And the timing coincided with Eid and Onam celebrations. Suffice to say for now, my backpacking travels have been nothing short of amazing, exploring new places and meeting new friends in around Kasaragod, Bekal, Kannur, Thalassery, Kozhikode, Mukkam, Malappuram, Manjeri, Nilambur, Kotakkal, Ernakulam, Kochi and a few other places.Will cover in more detail in future post sharings.

A good friend, brother Varghese Jose @Sariga and myself had started setting dates for a meet up to coincide with my time in Kerala, and we had set a date for September 10th, 2017, it was the Sunday after Onam, and it was towards the end of my trip. Varghese had done most of the preparation and the setting up of the event page in LG Connect, and also checking out the venue. He had also been kind to sponsor some tea and snacks for the meet up, as well as the stickers and tags. He has been one of the more active Local Guides in Kerala, and has been shooting lots of 360 panorama photos in his free time.

Our meet up was at Subhash Bose Park (https://goo.gl/maps/5PGveXpoj8m), which is a government managed public park right in the bustling business district of Ernakulam. Lots of trees, and with a large stretch of the park facing the sea, with lots of cool breeze, made this a wonderful place for our meet up. Our meet up was at 2pm. I was there earlier, and friends started to slowly arrive. It was a great feeling to meet old friends again, and some have travelled from far away to join our meet up. Was really glad every single one of them had come.

This is Varghese Jose, who had also taken time to print out stickers and name tags for the event.Not too shabby is it? Everyone wants to be like some hero 🙂As we waited for more people to arrive, we had time for many photos.Here is Varghese Jose (our event organizer) and Adhil (our talented videographer). There is a link to our event video at the bottom of the post. Do give a thumbs up for our video.A few other important people in our community. Arun Muralidhar (the one holding the sticker) who is our Kerala LG community owner and pioneer. And Santhosh John (in the striped shirt), who is our India Google Maps regional lead, and has contributed so much time and effort in keeping Maps up to date and accurate.Kerala Local Guides Meet up: Ernakulam Sept 2017Selfie time. That "little" boy is Maqsood and had come all the way from Kasaragod for our meet up. He is over 18, but he looks really young. And beside me was Adhil, our videographer.Kerala Local Guides had prepared a small banner, where members could sign. This banner will be with me when I visit Google for the 2017 Local Guides Summit in San Francisco next month. In spirit, all members will be with me in SFO. That is Santhosh John our India regional lead signing.Adhil, our videographer hard at work.360 panorama time. Kerala Local Guides Community South IndiaKerala Local Guides - Kochi Meet UpAfter our tea and snacks and photo shoot, a small group of us planned to take the ferry to visit Fort Kochi, as many members had come from far and had not been on the ferry or visited Fort Kochi. Because it was a Sunday, the queue was just extremely long and we had to wait for over 1 hour to get to our turn. There is at the queue, everyone was waiting patiently at the Ernakulam Jetty (https://goo.gl/maps/gnoM7qTuwZt)Finally we got on the ferry, and the good thing is that the entire group of over 20 of us was able to get on the same boat. Adhil had got a side seat and was able to shoot some nice videos of the cruise to Fort Kochi Jetty.The picturesque ferry cruise (about 20 mins) which costs on Rs4, which was about USD 0.06.We alighted at Fort Kochi jetty (https://goo.gl/maps/cNWh1W5sWL62), all members had really enjoyed the ferry ride.Kerala Local Guides Photowalk through Fort Kochi, KeralaSome photos of our walkSome photos of our walkChinese Fishing Nets in Fort Kochi, Kerala, IndiaWe kept walking until we had reached the Fort Kochi beach viewpoint (https://goo.gl/maps/aQzTGseg8L32), and we spent the next 1 hour just being mesmerized by the beauty of the sunset, the soothing sound of waves crashing into the shore and serene sound of birds chirping in the background.Enjoying the evening with cool creamy local ice cream. I was eating too, but someone needed to take the photo! 🙂

Thanks all participants for coming and special thanks to Varghese Jose for making most of the arrangements for the event. Keep in touch and hope to meet all of you again soon.

Our event meet up page in Connect
https://maps.google.com/localguides/meetup/3rd-kerala-local-guide-meet-up

Our beautifully edited event video by Adhil
Video - https://youtu.be/KEQ1crfHHtw

Our second video edited by Aneesh Isaac

Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACXLKDVxRkw&feature=youtu.be

Our event photos
https://goo.gl/photos/vh9eGbHGrhtgoXqJ8

Our Community

https://plus.google.com/communities/116710017243062726855

Special mentions

Event Organizer Varghese Jose @Sariga

Kerala LG Community pioneer and moderator Arun Muralidhar @ArunMuralidhar

Videographer KM Adhil @kmadhil, @Aneeshisac

[NareshDarji]

Wow it was amazing meet-up dear @StephenAbraham many congratulations for this successful event and thanks for sharing with us.

[NareshDarji]

Hey guys please check this recap

@OSAMA @HelloSamsonR @BishowvijayaP @Jnjoe @deepakjhic @umashankar @Sarojdhakal 

[AjvadPV]

Nice post @StephenAbraham, It was really a great meet up we had. It was the time to make new friends with same passion of contributing and help the world to navigate easy. Had great moments with you Stephen.

[JulienH]

wow @StephenAbraham you are in Kerala! Enjoy your travels

[ArunMuralidhar]

Steve , awesome write-up

Our Meetup was indeed a wonderful event. Thankyou @StephenAbraham and @Sariga for all the effort taken to put this together 

Thanks to everyone who attended and special shout out to the ones who travelled all the way from Kasargod /Malabar side and the Trivandrum guys 

[Sudhi]

Amazing write-up @StephenAbraham 
Really a great time we had. The event was created a wonderful opportunity to make new friends with same passion.
Thanks to all friends, who attended the wonderful event. And special mentions must go to the local guides who travelled from northern districts.

[MaqsoodPoovadka]

@StephenAbraham bro awesome writeup

[Sariga]

Thank you 

@StephenAbraham

You where our main attraction , inspiration and more .

You made our meet up an International Meetup . 

and we had 2 LEVEL 10 Moderators of our community . Sudeesh moderator of Malabar Local Guides and More people around the State of Kerala .

and now our community is 1000 + Members 

our meet up was a success because of the participation   

Thanks to all participants .Kerala Local Guides2 Level 10 Moderator of Kerala Local GuidesOur Stars

[Rahulratnars]

Chettayiii kidilam..👌👌👌

I missed the event 😥😥