The beach at last! This is what a holiday is about! After 3 hours on trains we arrived in Varkala. Lovely beach and looking forward to spending a few days relaxing.

Well what a lovely relaxing day we have had! Have been waited on for our every need by our 3 members of staff on our own private houseboat. Spent the morning eating pineapple and drinking coconut milk. Then had a nice relaxing laydown on the front of the boat followed by a short canoe trip. Spent the evening eating more and then had a couple of beers.

Got back to Fort Cochin after 6 hours on the bus (only 2 this time!) from Kumily. Had a little trouble getting a tuktuk from the bus to the ferry port, but fortunately a nice man helped us. Went to a travel agent and booked a house boat for tomorrow...

Yesterday we got to Kumily, just outside Periyar Tiger Reserve, after 6.5hours on 3 different buses - everyone kept telling us to get on different buses and we went through a few towns that weren't actually on my map so I'm not quite sure where we were, but we got here fine! We have our own little tree house to stay in which overlooks the park, and at only 250 rupees a night (3pounds) for the two of us, its a bargain! Today we spent from 8am - 4.30pm inside the...

So here we are in Kochi. Caught a taxi to Fort Cohin (an island just off the mainland, connected by road) and found a nice place to stay. Its lovely here - nice and hot and sunny, lots of palm trees! Its quite quiet, not that much to see or do, but a nice place to relax and be away from the cities. We'll prob stay here a couple of nights before heading somewhere else in Kerala. Oh, and good news - we managed to get the money back on our train tickets that we'd bo...