We got up a little later than expected because we were tired from the night before. But we had breakfast and packed our bags. John knocked on the door to say bye before we left and James said he would send him details of where we are booked into for Varkala. Anoob had arranged a tuk tuk to take us to the bus station at 11.00am in Ernakulam. James got a photograph of Anoob and his brother as we'd really enjoyed our stay with them.
The tuk tuk took us to the bus station and the driver showed us which bus to be on, as we'd got there people had only just started to get on. We got on and only just managed to get a seat with our huge bags. There were two/three/four people to a seat and some people standing down the aisle. We set off, the journey was supposed to take between four and five hours which wasn't great but it was a lot cheaper than getting a taxi and it was a bit if an experience! It seemed to take forever to get out of Cochin as the bus was stopping to pick up more and more people. When we thought there was no way more people could fit on, on they came squeezing up to everyone. At about half way we stopped at a bus station and a lot of people got off and more people wanted to get on, people were throwing their bags through the windows to claim a seat which very rarely worked! Even more people had got on this time, James was being squashed into me and one of our bags and an old man was pushed right up to James. It wasn't the most comfortable journey. Once we got to the munnar region the landscape changed, there were rolling hills of tea growing, it was beautiful. And on the way we saw two families of monkeys at the side of the road. We were relieved to have made it eventually after five and a half hours and the bus driving up the hills wasn't that fun because as it went round a bend the bottom of the bus scraped on the floor! We only just managed to get off with our bags before more people were pushing to get on. We were both really stiff and in pain from being sat in uncomfortable positions for so long. We got a tuk tuk to take us to our hotel. As soon as we walked in we dumped everything and laid on the bed, happy to be there! We got some tea before long as we'd not eaten since breakfast and got to sleep early. What a day!