Our bus arrived in the bustling town of Kochi at around midday on Sunday 14 October. We set off down the road to catch a local bus accross to the island of Fort Kochi - the old quarter where the first Portuguese settlers arrived. We were fortunate enough to get the last room in a nice hostel, within walking distance to most of the main sights. After some relaxing time in the room we wandered accross the square to watch the sun set behind the huge chinese fishi...

The trip from Alleppey was a short 45 minute bus trip and an auto ride away, and soon we were being welcomed by the smiling faces of the owners of Backwaters Farm House. We were shown our room which was a spacious cottage with an outside bathroom and a balcony with deck chairs overlooking the water. We were called for lunch and after eating some delicious fish & veg with rice, we sat reading on our deck chairs for the rest of the afternoon - absolute bliss...

The train journey from Varkala to Alleppey wasn't very long, but it was long enough for us to kill six roaches and chase away many more... so when we finally arrived we were very ready to get off! We were met at the station by one of owners of the accomodation we were staying at and, after a short auto ride, we arrived at the lovely "Lake and Paddy" guesthouse. It is as the name says - surrounded by a rice paddy on the one side and the backwaters on the other.....

The bus ride from Munnar to Kottayam was long and uncomfortable, so we were quite relieved when we finally arrived. We thought the train station was closer than it actually was, so ended up walking halfway accross town in the scorching heat :-/ We got our tickets and then went to grab a bite to eat at a cafe/restaurant thing accross the road. When our train eventually arrived, we discovered that it was already "full" which meant we spent most of the 3 hour jour...

Our train pulled into Kochin station at around midday on Thursday 4 October. It was boiling hot and we were sweating buckets by the time we had walked along the railway tracks to the local bus station. We grabbed some food before hopping onto a really dodgy-looking the bus to the former hill-station town of Munnar. The bus journey was quite wild with the driver racing up to cars in front of us and then slamming on the brakes while hooting loudly, or flooring it...