Keralan Sharks

This weekend, we went to the Backwaters in Kerala. After taking a semi-sleeper (no-sleeper) bus to Cochi, we arrived at 0430. So we wandered around trying to find a hotel that might give us a room that we could pile into. In the end, no-one would, so we settled for sleeping in the reception of Hotel Excellency. They didn't mind much, because we promised to have breakfast there when it got to a decent time of morning. We then did the usual tourist thing and saw various bits and bobs, before heading to Allepey to a 'Hotel' owned by a friend of a friend.

This turned out to be a bad move. The 'Hotel' was actually his outhouse, that he was doing up so he could make it into a guest house. The problem being that it had nothing in it, and anything that was in it was covered with dust covers. He then tried to charge us Rs 75 for the beers that he had kindly bought us, even they clearly said on the bottle 'Maximum retail price Rs 50'. He tried to argue for a while but in the end I just said that if he had paid 75 for them when he should have paid 50, that was his problem! To make up for it he drove us to a restaurant for dinner (saying that the transport would be free... we'll see) which was pretty good, even though they only had one item on the menu (though somehow all the locals seemed to be getting different things).

After an alright sleep, on a mattress on the floor (that cost Rs 500 each!), he took us to his house boat. He then offered to buy some more beer for us, but i said i would do all the paying, carrying and consuming thank-you-very-much! His house boat actually turned out to be pretty spectacular. It only had 2 double beds (and we had 6 people) so we had 2 makeshift mattresses again. We later discovered that he had two other boats that had more beds in, but i think he thought we liked sleeping on the floor. 

The scenery from the boat was absolutely spectacular! Palm trees everywhere (we later found out that 'Kera-la' means 'Coconut-land'), Kingfishers, Eagles (see picture), Water Snakes, Prawns as big as a baby (see picture). It really was 'Gods-canvas', as the locals call it! We finished our cruise the next morning, and after a small misunderstanding over the charges (on his part), we were on our way back to Cochi.

On Sunday, we went to a beach nearby - another absolutely breathtaking part of the country! The waves were in full flow, and we spent a good few hours being buffeted by the Arabian Sea. The weather was spectacular until 5 minutes before we needed to go, which was good, because I don't think we could have left otherwise.

We then took a bus back (the clutch broke halfway home), and went to a traditional Indian theatre show. This involved a lot of face paint, dancing and face and hand movements. It was great to watch, tho we didn't follow much of the storyline. Then, after a quick pizza (i mean really quick), we got our sleeper (no-sleeper) bus home, to arrive here at 0400. We spent the rest of the morning in bed, and now i'm off to ICU. Alex and I are taking John out for dinner tonight in Dindigul, and hopefully i can get a suit made then too. Enjoy the new photos.