Sorry the pic has nothing to do with the place but there are not many for India on this blog.

After shrugging off many taxi drivers wanting to rip is off by saying there were no buses to Trivandrum we eventually got there on the public bus costing 80 pence each. We then took an autorickshaw to the coastal beach resort of Kovalam.

It was a strange place at first as we were dropped off in the little back allies and winding paths where we could not even see the sea. We stumbled accross the owner of the guest house we were looking for but we had little idea as to where we were. The poor guy must have thought we were super paranoid as we didnt trust him at first but he turned out to be the nicest guy we have met so far. We got our bearings and realised we were 2 minutes from the beach and the rest of the resort. The guest was lovely and peaceful with no traffic beeps to be heard.

We had a nice afternoon and ate fresh fish (well we thought it was) by the sea that night. Through the night I had a bad tummy and fever and was sick all of the next day, but still made it to the beach and slpet under a parasoll. The following night Graham came down with a similar feverish type bug, we dont know whether it was the fish or just a travel bug. It only lasted 24 hours for the pair of us, so we got off lightly.

The beach here is a hive of activity, we watched fishermen dragging thier nets ashore, it must have taken 50 men and 2.5 hours to drag those in and all the western kids were helping too. The catch was quite big and was fun to watch. There was also a camotion when a sea snake swam into the shallows, the locals lifted it ashore but they had no clue what to do with it. All I knew was that it was poisonous so didnt really want it on the beach where I was lying. They eventually killed the poor thing as they could not really put it back in the sea where children were playing.

It was quite nice to see all the Indian families enjoying the sea and splashing about, fully clothed of course. We were alos amongst many western heads on holiday there, so we felt less alien like and also fgot some wstern fixes, like tea and toast, pasta, pizza and chips.

We only stayed 2 nights as the bed (1 inch thick cusion on a wooden pew) we were sleeping was as hard as concrete and after being ill we wanted something decent to sleep on.