Hi everyone

I know its been a while since 'lunch 8 days ago' when I promised to continue writing. We had an eventful couple of days after that. We have almost updated a few photos of our whereabouts so hopefully will bring you up to date soon. I know no one will have any sympathy but if its not not finding a cafe its very slow, full of mosquitos and hot! Anyway in a nutshell..........

We are now in Kerala! We left home fully equipped with our malaria tablets, Darren realised two days before that his constant runs were not a good sign and his malaria tablets were not suited. I was fine for a couple of weeks until I reacted. We found ourselves having to try a new anti malarial here in India. We bought a couple of weeks dosages which we were ok on. These ran out - we bought some more, which were bigger but we were told instead of taking two we only need to take one.

The next day after telling you we had done some mountian climbing, we went out to the new town through a forest. Darren saw the sun shining and thought he didn't need his fleece! Well he got cold! We had taken these tablets in the morning. By the evening we Darren started to feel like he had a chill. Bare in mind the room we had was already like a fridge, it was close to the end of season, it was getting colder and the room was 4 quid a night, with amazing views I must add. We were wrapped up every night as in some of pictures, sleeping in our sleeping bags with extra blankets on top. This picture is Darren in high fever. Poor thing he wanted a picture, I did feel bad taking it but at this point he was not quite shivering like a leaf, having his face cloth wet every few minutes, which was warm by the time I kept wringing the cloth out.

I did the 'in sickness and in health' thing .......

At this point we both had enough of the cold, living out of sleeping bags and belive or not during the day being burnt! I thought about the next two weeks moving from one mountain station to the next almost killing time to get to Delhi and I thought ' Nah lets go South, so off to Keral we headed.

After this horendous night, oh I had a horrible cold as well my nose completely blocked, chesty cough, head ache! we had a 15 hour bus journey back to Delhi.

We survived it, it wasn't too bad. We decided to go to a better hotel as we deserved a little bit of comfort. Well it was a very new hotel, 8 months old or so. They were still constructing,and sanding and god knows whatelse, so we didn't get much luxury sleep in the afternoon. So like a true Indian and making sure we get our money worth,I went down stairs to not complain, but point out that we paid a lot for a good room with all these disruptions. Darren of course didn't come down straight away! - Chicken.

The hotel manager was so apologetic, he agreed that we should pay a standard rate and kept apologizing. Anyway we ended up chatting to him and telling him about our recent encounters. He happened to be a pharmacist by profession. He made some phone calls, went a pharmacy and came back and told us that we were taking DOUBLE the dose and Darren's fever was probably a rejection to the tablets rather than catching a chill as we first thought, and yes he had the constant runs!

Now we thought everything would run smoothly and we would eat in the hotel and get up tomorrow ready for a chill out. We needed some money, the ATM close by said we had reached our daily limited. Rushed back to hotel checked the online banking, eveything was ok but Halifax then suspended Darren's online banking for the second time since we've been here and yes we did inform them before we left!

Out again in the smog and filth looking for an ATM this was rather horendous. We didn't realise the impact of stopping the govt workers during the common wealth games. When we first arrived it was smoggy but nothing like the second time round oh and we got lost. Got a rickshaw back but a cyclist, who was slower than walking - night mare

Anyway we got to Kerala, booked ourselves into a luxury resort thanks to our wedding money. The villa was nestled among coconut lagoons over looking the back waters. We did nothing but sit on the beach and eat incrediably good food. Actually we pigged out.

We spen the last two days in Cochin, a really lovely historic town. The harbour has old chinese fishing nets right along the harbour surrounded by enormous old wonderful trees. The buildings are portuguese and Dutch. A fabulous laid back place. We both loved Cochin. Last night we treated ourselves to our first fine dining experience, thanks to our wedding money again. We dined at candlelight and scented oils floating in the swimming pool, nestled in trees and on the tables. We had a seafood platter of tiger prawns, calamari, lobster, snapper and king fish! and best of all we had our first bottle of wine since coming here! The food was beautifully presented and cooked. Well as you would expect being non residence we had a little table under a huge tree as other guests had better tables looking out to the musicians entertaining us. It started to rain, as it has done everyday in Kerala since we have been here. One by one people moved into the resturant. Guess what! The small little table at the back ended up being the best table as we had the whole court yard to ourselves! hee hee

We have now come to the Alleppey as we are going on a house boat tomorrow, apparently one of the top 10 things one should do in one's life! We then will be going to a 'Secret Beach' organised by the house boat for a few days. There will be no internet access, we will up load some pictures and keep you up dated then.

Hope all is well at home with everyone and hope the cold is not biting too much.

Take care love Tam and Darren