Hi All

We were unable to write last week as the wifi internet wasn't working, so heres a summary of what we got upto in Kerela. The owner of the homestay, Russel, was lovely and always ready with advice and tips on where to go and what to see, then waited untill you got back to make sure you had a good experience. He bokked a couple of excursions for us;

We took a tuktuk ride through Fort Cochin to see Vasco de Gammas house and burial spot, spice market, synagogue, chinese nets, laundry, and lots of other little sights followed as usual by the obligatory 'genuine art and craft centre' or a big shop full of elephants carved from wood or marble, jewels, silver, gold, etc - no thanks!

After that we did a couple of excursions the first one was terrible - but we got breakfast and lunch thrown in which was worth the fee alone; we went to see Elephants being bathed, 4 of them, unfortunately this involved beating the baby ones with a stick until they lay down in the river - it was quite disturbing - where was the elephant whisperer? we then drove to a crap temple tower thing climbed up about 500 steps to see a big plastic Hindu god that people threw money at? it was like a dummy from one of St Johns market stalls wrapped in an orange coloured sheet...before we were taken to beautiful beach (ahem) we walked up and down a tacky promenade had a pepsi (remember no beer) I walked on the sand and got drowned by a wave - there was nowhere to sit, not a single deckchair.

The next excursion was much better - a trip on a barge and canoe through the backwaters of Kerela. we were punted (is punted a word?) for an hour or so through tiny creeks and streams, ally had a very close encounter with a frikking big snake, whilst passing under a low footbridge I hear a shreek next to me - "SNAKE!!!!" it was hanging of the side of the bridge hissing at her about 6 inches from her face....after this we transfered to our rice barge that chugged slowly through larger lakes and rivers, we visited a couple of island communities and I tasted home cooked freshwater mussels - delicious. lunch was served on board - again another thali meal - I'm getting to love these!

Next couple of days Ally had the squits and felt terrible so we stayed round the area, there are some lovely little restaurants and cafe's that are so cheap - eg Elite bakery a bowl of curry is about 80-120 rp, pastry 30rp, a cup of tea 10rp (but no frikking beer!!!!) £1 gets you 70rp at the moment - I had by this point found a bar attached to a hotel that sold beer - 120 per 650ml bottle of kingfisher strong so was feeling a little better now that I could wash down dinner with some cold stuff.

Ally felt better so our next trip was to the mountains, Munar, in the high range. It took about 4 hours to get there but we stopped several times en route to see some lovely waterfalls (spoiled by the piles of litter all around) before we got there - the road was so rough that we both felt a bit crap! Munar is 1600 meters up and it was much cooler here. Once we left Munar we climbed higher and higher until we reached our base - a little homestay in the middle of tea plantation - the plantations are all between 1500-2000 meters up on slopes of 35/45 degrees (2000m is about 6000ft - 2x Snowdon) the scenery is stunning - we were in clouds and the view across the valley was revealed only occasionally, had a wander through the plantation and watched the tea pickers, surprised to see they were not chimps but actually all the tea is picked by women. The men worked in the tea factory, that we had a look round the next day - very informative, then it was off even higher to see Mutarpathy Dam and lake - marvellous but again spoiled by hordes of Indian tourists throwing litter, gobbing on the pavements, pissing next to the road and generally ruining the atmosphere.

So we got back to Russel and packed our bags for the trip north to Agra (where I am writing now). The train was the 2617 super express we boarded and found our bunks no problem, we were the only westerners on the train and were instantly celebrities! everyone was lining up to chat to us. The train rattled along a good pace and at we settled into a rythym of reading, chatting to the locals and waiting for the waiters to come past shouting - 'chai chai', 'coffee coffee', 'biriyani biryani', 'samosa samosa', there is a pantry carriage attached to the long distance trains so everything is freshly cooked - the waiters take your order for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We eventually arrived in Agra...very tired and a suffering from cabin fever!