We both woke up quite early so we set off for a stroll to the nearest cash point (considering how touristy and relatively expensive things are you'd have thought there would be one nearer). However we had to ask for a lot of directions because the map was so rubbish and once we had got to it and followed the signs to the beach, discovered that one of our direction advisers had pointed us to a longer, and steeper uphill route, but at least we got some (very hot,...

Had a nice lie in today (8.30 was the latest we managed!) and then went to see if there was a pharmacy on the beach front (you don't want to know what that was for but I'm sure it's easy to guess… we're in India after all). There was only a natural remedies type place but we didn't really understand how we were supposed to get help. We booked onto our South Indian cookery class for tomorrow. There were 6 sections to select 1 from each and we were quite dec...

We made ourselves Nutella and banana coconut buns for breakfast and then went to the tourist office, where we were picked up in a minibus to be taken to Munroe Island for our backwaters tour. Joining us on this excursion was Eric, a Californian travelling in India for 5 months (he was 2 months in). He told us about some Canadian man who had hired a car, didn't have a road map and was going to navigate himself using the sun -absolute nutter! The lonely planet de...

After another yummy coconut omelette, we did our first proper backpacking walk with our rucksacks on, from the homestay to the ferry jetty - we were very sweaty by the end and glad to give our shoulders a rest! When we got to the mainland part of Kochi- Ernakulum- we walked some more to the bus stand. There was a bus waiting outside our platform but it didn't say where it was going in English so had to trust the man who said it was going to Kollam. A few st...

We followed the noise of food being cooked to a rooftop terrace with a shelter on top. We sat down a bit unsure of what we were supposed to do, but after a while the owner of the homestay put before us an omelet each that his wife had made. It was delicious, and makes a nice change from standard buffet breakfast! It tasted of coconut and had tiny green chilies in and some herb of some sort-possibly coriander. This was served with toast, and we tried the pineapple...