Gin… you must be joking: Upon arrival in Kochi City, our first stop in Kerala, looking like 3 little feral children, we made our way to any hotel were a shower and bed could be provided and caught up on some much needed rest. The next day we headed to Vypeen, a smaller island located off the main land which lonely planet boasted as being a beautiful retreat… well yes, it is beautiful and certainly a retreat if you are a t-total recluse. Everywhere shuts-up shop at 9pm and getting your hands on a g&t is like getting blood out of a stone - alcohol on Vypeen is non-existent. In fact getting your hands on a meal after dark is also a trying task, and we ended up bribing the chef at our hotel who was asleep, to make us a simple but delicious supper. As you can imagine we left Vypeen, dry mouthed, early the next morning and headed for the bright lights and cultural sights of Fort Kochi just across the water on the 0.5p ferry. We then spent a couple of days roaming the streets of Fort Kochi, taking in the historical beauty of the once Portuguese colony, complete with its Chinese fishing nets and ancient Basilica. We also spent one morning floating gently on the backwaters in a coconut boat punted by two local men - they may have been old but boy did they have some stamina. We ate lunch in a village prepared by the local women, served not on a plate but a palm leaf. That evening, on our quest for gin (you will soon discover we have become slightly dependent on our g&ts) which was also in short supply in Fort Kochi, we found ourselves climbing the stairs to 'salt & pepper', a rather 'underground' looking establishment, where we were promised 'secret' alcohol and ushered surreptitiously into a rather dingy corner of a rather dingy bar. We sat down… and then got back up again and left immediately. If we wanted to satisfy our hunger for gin we would have to move down south and thus we come to train experience number 2…