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11/4/2011
Got up at half 9 for a backwater trip. Equipped with a water and a mango juice, it was a brief motorbike ride with the two of us on to our launch point. Expecting to be with other people, we had agreed 500 rupees each and all we had was one guy rowing us around for nearly six hours!
But in saying that, it was one awesome experience.
Whilst watching the bigger luxury boats speed past and making noise with their engines, we were softly floating along with just the guy at the back and me paddling at the front. The poor guy only got 300 out of the 1000 we paid the hotel so we blatently should have scored a cheaper deal! It would have been nicer to have got places a bit more pronto but gliding down small waterways seeing locals cooking, having fires, swimming, washing, climbing palm trees and hacking down coconuts, collecting shells for food, cooling down, kids playing, cormorants and big bright kingfishers diving into the waters for fish, water snakes along the sides, closer-to-home ducks, herons, egrets, crows, cattle, goats, tamed eagles, rice fields, small homes - just so much to see.
Our guy took us to a small restaurant on the side of a river and I had a reasonably fresh fish cooked in some delicious spice there and then, served on a giant banana leaf and accompanied by vegetables, rice, and sauce. Magic for under three pounds. Traditional Keralan munch. I was fascinated by the tamed eagle they had, holding and feeding it for ages. So beautiful and majestic!
On the way back ended up doing a lot of paddling as we were going so slow. Our guy even stopped to buy a cheap beer off of one of his other 'water buddies' out in the middle of the the backwaters! Oh yeah, and with the heat, he had his sun-umbrella hat on looking borderline ridiculous but I suppose at least he wasnt getting burnt.
Most of the locals were nice, waving and shouting and the tourists on the other boats especially bantering with us as we paddled and they stormed past! We started racing some other small boat with French guys on and then Chris, who was sifting the waters of litter (of which it's absolutely disgraceful in India in water and on land!), came across a piece of old fishing net that had a live fish in! He did his good deed for the day and untangled it before releasing it into the water.
We got dropped in the middle of nowhere and ended up walking back via rough directions, a huge convoy of supporters of an electee for state government patrolling most of the roads and finally a nice guy in and amongst all that, giving us a free lift and a short tuctuc ride to our guesthouse.
Bartered a little bit off of our bill because of the poor end to the day and then had a fight with a tuctuc driver over the price to the train station. He wanted 50, we were told 40, a local even said it shouldn''t be 30, but despite his threats to take us to the 'police' I stood firm and was getting away with it. He wouldn't even take the 40 he was that adamant. Me thinking I had won, Chris paid him a further 10 which I didn't know about! I wasn't happy as these guys are solid rip-off merchants and they need to be taught a few lessons!
Ice-cream, crisps and a coke for our journey to Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum for short). We had to wait ages for the train and in that time, a load of kids were playing cricket by the tracks. They kept calling me over but I was worried about the train. Eventually I gave in and hopped over the tracks, smashing a four down the ground first ball and all the locals on the platform loving it! Sods Law, the train then turned up, so flip-flops back on and sprinted back to the platform.
Ended up playing cards with some random old boy locals and chatting away before my at-the-time, craziest bus ride to Kovalam. An obscene amount of Indians hoarded onto the bus (luckily we had got on first with our bags) at one of the first stops and it was like watching wildebeest trying to cross a croc river! They were all over the shop, sprinting, shoving, cramming on and utilising every bit of space on the bus (and many gettin away without paying because of it). And it wasn't just in the bus. They had grabbed onto the windows and were hanging off as the bus was moving and otrhers climbed onto the roof and rear of the bus onto the ladder racks! Mental!
Had to catch a tuctuc to Lighthouse Beach with a driver old as hell but looking like he was off his head on crack, and as ever trying to rip us off. Checked in at Siriya guest house for 300 rupees before a mad, desperate hunt for food. Most cafes had stoppeddoing food by 11 but some nice chaps agreed to do us some jam on toast. Because I was so agitated having not eaten (I need my grub!), I splashed out on a naughty blue exotic cocktail.
Absolutely massacred by Mozzies in bed!
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