We got up the next morning and went for breakfast. All the restaurants in Kochin have terrible service, and it took an hour just to have toast and tea! We went to look for the bus to Allepey, and as usual, none of the locals knew anything. You ask for the bus to Allepey, and they point at a bus and say 'bus' but it's never going in the right direction! Eventually we discovered we were in the wrong place, and went to wait further down the road to where we would actually get the bus! The journey took about and hour and a half to get there. Allepey is dubbed 'the venice of the east'. It is actually not the venice of the east! it is a busy smelly city, with 2 manky canals running through it. The only good thing was that we found a nice guesthouse there, it was like a homestay, the owners had a big villa with 3 rooms for me and Jack, Lucas and Hannah, and Vera. It was very cheap aswell. It had a living room and kitchen, so the others decided to cook a meal that night. Jack and I went out for dinner, it only cost 40rupees for a meal, and i didn't want to cook when you can get really good food for so cheap! That night, the owners told Hannah that they were all gay (which we should've guessed when they played the Vengaboys album followed by the Backstreet boys!). They're quite brave to tell us, as the penalty for being gay in India is 6 years imprisonment! We had a nice evening, and Jack and Lucas played Karam with the owners which is an Indian game, played on a Karam Board (obviousley) and it's kind of like pool but with checkers pieces, and you flick them. It's a really cool game, we're thinking of buying a board on the way home. It was a nice evening and nice to have a living area for a change. We had already decided to leave the next day though because we didn't really like Allepey and we can do the backwater trip from Kollam instead.

We had breakfast with the others before getting the bus to Kollam. I had my first Masala Dosa which is a traditional Indian breakfast. It's like a crispy crepe with potato and tomato curry, and some sauce on the side - delicious! See blog for Kollam...