Well Diwali was really dissappointing, we stayed out till late and just saw and heard a few firecrackers, the men for burning were all lined up along the road (they are about 10ft tall) when we went back to the hotel about 11.30 so we assumed that they would be burning them the next evening, but no, they burnt them at 4 o'clock in the morning (makes sense uh!).
We have finally escaped Goa and both had a very very relaxing 8 weeks. The new pool was beautiful and we both topped up our tans, I am starting to look like a local!
We took the overnight train to Cochin in Kerala. The journey took about 16 hours, and we were both pretty comfortable in our sleeper berth. Unfortunately when we booked the tickets we could not get 2 beds together, so the conductor robbed Andy of 500 rupees to move us (considering the tickets only cost just over 1000 rupees each this was a bit steep!) Just one other problem with the journey, I fell out of the top bunk, when I got up to go to the loo in the morning and woke Andy and lots of other people up with a bang!
We spent one day and night in Cochin, which was very pleasant. The chinese fishing nets are amazing (do have pics), we also did a tour in a rickshaw which was fun.
Next day, we decided to go to Alleppy (not sure if spelling is right), with the intention of saying overnight and doing a back water tour to Kollam. When we arrived at the station Andy left me there with the luggage to look for a hotel, but they were all grotty or mega expensive. So we made a quick decision to get the train to Kollam (about 80 km on)instead and get the bus to Varkala the next day. However when we got on the train we asked a man if we were in the right carriage of the train and he said no, but that we could pay extra to the conductor. He then asked us where we going and when we told him he said that the train we were on stopped at Varkala (another 20 or so KMs) and again we could see the conductor and pay the extra. Well seemed like a good plan and meant that we would not have to spend a night somewhere we hadn't planned to. However, the conductor did not come round before we reached the stop we had paid for. We did not know what to do, so in the end we pretended to be asleep at the station and stayed on!!. We were both a bit nervous about staying on but figured that it was worth paying the fine if we had to. Anyways about 20 minutes later Andy said, oh we are here BUT THE TRAIN DID NOT STOP, it sailed right through the station!!. So once again we had a quick change of plan and decided to stay on to Trivundrum. Fortunately the conductor never came into our carriage, and it is not like at home where you have to show your ticket at the barrier. So we are now fare dodgers!!
Well you would think that we had had enough excitement for one day, but no there's more! We arrived in the evening of 2nd December about 6.30 and it was already dark. We knew that there are loads of hotels In trivandrum so did not think for a minute that we would have a problem in finding one for the night. Unfortuntely between the 1st and 5th December there was an all India TUC conference in Trivandrum and all the hotels were full of delegates!!. After about 1 and half hours we did find one that had 1 room available, which was actually quite nice.
The next day we caught a bus to Kovalam and checked into a what looked like a nice wooden hut in the middle of a large garden on the outskirts of the town for 4 nights. BUT when we came back from dinner in town, we had too many uninvited guests in our hut, creepy crawlies, spiders, ants and the biggest croakroach I ever seen. We had to stay anyway as it was too late and too dark to start looking for another hotel, but needless to say we checked out again the next morning!!.
Now staying in a really really nice pretend log cabin, 50 yards from the beach and we are here until Friday of this week. We are then moving to Varkala and have booked a really nice small hotel on the cliff for 24 nights which will take us through the christmas and new year period. Varkala is beautiful, we spent the day there Thursday to have a look for a good hotel for Christmas. Whilst we were there we had lunch on the cliff top and saw about 8 dolphins in about 1 hour!. Oh and on the way back I missed my step trying to fight my way off the train, through the hundreds of people trying to pile on and fell on to the platform, no damage to my body, just my pride, but at least it gave the locals a laugh!!.
Anyways that's all for now, hope everyone is well, not working too hard and enjoying the weather and the Christmas shopping.
Take care
Shirley and Andy
