Kerela!

Day 3

We arrived at the airport with no accommodation! We called a guesthouse listed in the Lonely Planet (what a silly name for a travel guide, the last thing you want to be is lonely when travelling the world!) and arrived there 2hours later!

We thought Kerela was going to be beautiful as soon as we arrived at the airport but it wasn’t. It was just like a quite Delhi or in other words, smelly!

We stayed in ‘romantic’ Fort Cotchin! If you call a smelly fishing town with many a stray dog and thousands of mozzys romantic then you would be very impressed by this place! Our first meal in Kerela was in a Traditional Family Restaurant, when we arrived we were the only Western couple and when we left we were one of about 30! And we hadn’t even seen any tourists until then!

Day 4

We booked to go on a backwaters tour and got picked up at 7am. We went to a place close to Alleppey and went on a long boat for the day! The huge boat was powered by a small Indian man pushing the boat along with a huge bamboo rod! He did this for 7hours! The boat took us to a factory where they made calcium hydroxide from clam shells and coconuts, they also made Toddy alcohol from the coconut plants and made string and rope from coconut shells! It was amazing to see and they were so sexist, celebrating that men just sit around and women do all of the work! Ha!

They let Matt and I go out on a smaller boat and let us steer it ourselves- it was very difficult and the man laughed in my face at my poor attempt!

We ate lunch on a small island; we ate from a palm leaf and had a traditional vegetarian Kerelan lunch. Matt and I ate with our hands because Lakshmi had taught us how to and we felt more cool than the other Westerners! Oh yes!

I had sunstroke when we got home and Matt had to get A/C for me- what a pansy! But we had a good day!

Best part of the day was feeding our leftovers from the palm leaf to the fish and a turtle!

Day 5-

We got up late and moved to a new guesthouse- less money!

We had read about a ‘lovely’ beach called Cheri Beach so thought we would make our way there as it was only 4km away!

First we got a foot ferry over to the island (it cost 2rupees each which is about 5pence or something stupid!) Then we got a bus for 1hour, the women sit at the front and men at the back. Matt took a while to grasp this concept and so did I; we couldn’t understand why the men were pushing me away from him! During this bus journey Matt saw a wedding, an elephant show and many beautiful things; whilst lucky Millie was looking out of the other window and saw about 20 butchers’ shops! Gross!

After the bus journey we had to get a Rickshaw taxi to the beach. After all of this fuss what we saw was a dirty polluted bay. There were about 50 plastic bottles floating around and lots of litter. It wasn’t very picturesque! We were quite disappointed! Plus we were a white sweaty skin feast for the mozzys and almost died on the way back- getting in a rickshaw at night should be on Worlds Most Dangerous!

Day 6

We washed Elephants! They use coconut shells to wash the elephants. There was a mummy and two babies! They were very graceful but the young ones were disobedient- they were our favourite! As we were washing and filming, one of the elephants did a huge poo and in the background we spotted an Indian man brushing his teeth and flossing in the same water! YUCK!

On the way to Munar we almost ran over a bull in the middle of the road, as you do!

Munar- the most beautiful place in India by far is very high up a mountain and far away from all typical Indian countryside and views. It is the birthplace of Tetley Tea! It was so lovely to visit clean air and greenery. There is a small English Church on top of a hill- built 100 years ago when the plantation was owned by the British and there are any gravestones of the British people who died whilst in Mumar (no boring deaths- including driving off a cliff, being struck by lightning and one committed suicide!)

Matt and I had the best Masala Chai ever and bought tea to send home! Even the cows were fat and healthy and looked like they could produce milk- we think they were fed grass and not the standard rubbish bin concoction!

Munar was a lovely place but it was made typically Indian in a few ways.

1. Every local we walked past begged us for money- even though they were carrying shopping bags of food and wearing nice clothes.

2. Every local we saw spat on the floor- even in such a lovely place and one right by my foot.

3. Our driver stopped off and had a poo by the side of the road on our way back!

Happy days in India!