Our first stop on our long journey south was Cochi, on arrival we took the ferry across to stay at Fort Cochin. After about 20 hours travelling we arrived at Dream Home Inn as recommended by Nicola and Helen, we got a very spacious room for 500 rupees although there was a heavy population of mosquito's that came with it! Our super mosquito net sorted them out though. We went out for a bite to eat and to see what Cochi had to offer. After finding the Chinese fishing nets and watching the sunset we soon realised that was about it! The next morning we checked out then met up with my old Kiwi pal Nathan, who I met on my first travels, for a brief city tour. Then we took the short bus journey to Allepay where we spent the night and booked our boat to cruise the backwaters on an 8 hour trip south to Kollam tomorrow. In the evening we managed to tune into commentary of everton v spurs on my laptop. Gutted to concede an equaliser in the 87th minute!
We set off along the backwaters with great anticipation, we watched people go about there daily lives living alongside the river. Children would constantly run out of their basic huts and beam their big smiles at us and give us a wave. I spotted a snake swimming in the river! Our boat was only half full so we had plenty of space to lounge around and relax as the day went by. The 67km journey ended in Kollam and we decided that we would jump on the train and get to Varkala that evening. The further south we travelled, the hotter it seemed to get! We spent 2 nights in Varkala which was very chilled but had a lovely beach. On our second night we forked out on a seafood platter for our evening meal, it was delicious! We were also met with our first bit of rain as we endured a 2 hour thundering/ lightening storm.
The next morning we arrived at Kovalam, our most southern point of India. It was boiling day and night! We spent our days working on our tan and nights eating great food! We had to drink beer out of mugs due to the religion. On our last morning we watched about fifty people spend an hour pulling a massive fishing net out of the sea. We went to investigate and found it to contain a few tadpoles, big let down! When booking our next train journey we found that we were only a 45 minute flight from the Maldives. It was a tempting trip but after checking the price we soon realised it was out of our budget!
Next stop ... north Goa!
