We arrived into Ernakulum station after a rather more subdued journey than our last nun-fun-filled adventure, and headed to For Kochi across the water. A short argument with the rickshaw driver about the price of our home stay which he insisted was more expensive than his mates place. It wasn't and we won. Our host recommended some nice places to visit and cheap places to eat. We went for a walk to the Dutch palace, it was shut, and then to the Synagogue, it was Sabbath. Decided to cut our losses and get some food. We must have walked straight past t because we reached the ended up reaching the end of the road without seeing the fabled Krishna Cafe. Headed to the other recommendation and had the best thali so far - we are getting to be quite the experts now. We also enjoyed the company of the owner who was very helpful and can only be described as the Indian Father Christmas. We liked it so much we promised to go back, and we did try, once it was too full and the other time it was shut. Embarrassing for us as we had specifically taken a friend there to try it...error on us.

In Fort Kochi we also experienced the worst meal since we have been in India. Just as Laura was halfway through the sentence 'we haven't yet had a bad meal here all the food is outstanding...' out came our meal as mediocre as England's world cup display. We didn't go back. Another evening was spent with a mental Indian woman called Leelu whose house we went to for a cooking lesson. She had a dog whose best description is a lion, though he did receive some good belly rubs. Laura was the best at making chapattis, a natural for sure. Sean wasn't quite as successful, the pressure of going last. Apparently. He shrugged off his failure with the comment 'it doesn't matter because it's the woman's place in the kitchen right?' Leelu agreed. Though despite her insistence that she followed her husband's food orders to the letter, she employed boys to do the work in the kitchen for her. She also kept trying to fill Sean's plate 'more chapatti Sean?' and then barking at her boy slave for more chapatti and telling him he was too slow. I don't know why because the poor boy looked half starved himself. In the course of the evening we also befriended a girl who was staying there and was travelling in Kerala on her own. We really enjoyed recommending different places in Varkala to go, as it was pretty much our home in India. We also accompanied her to a Kathakali performance. A brief explanation: Kathakali is a traditional form of a play but told without words, just a language made up of gestures and facial movements and a drum and wailing singer. The plays are based on stories from the religious texts and are usually 12 to 14 hours long running through the night until dawn. We went to a tourist performance so only one story and only a couple of hours long. The story was of a king who wanted to bed a chefs wife and she told her husband and he decided to lure the king to their house and kill him. The story was no more elaborate than this and had only those three scenes but still took an hour and a half to tell through the medium of mental face and body language. The obvious weapon of choice for the chef was a large wooden spoon which was used...picture this... the scene we were presented with after the curtain dropped was of the king bent over with the chef grappling him from behind, spoon no longer in sight, the king squealing like a pig. Me and Laura found this hilarious. No one else did, which made us feel highly immature and we had to put on serious faces in front of our new friend who found the whole thing fascinating and not amusing in the slightest. Sean was actually howling with laughter at one point. Well worth the hour and a half. All I could think of was why hadn't Bond tried this method?!

We had a few days in Kochi so we leisurely explored the sights. Fort Kochi is an old spice trading port and was used by the Portuguese, Chinese and British and so is an amalgamation of all three types of architecture. A refreshing change from traditional Indian architecture of corrugated iron, blur tarpaulin and bamboo, tied together with string. Maybe that's why it's still standing. We visited the old Jew town and the Synagogue. I loved all the chandeliers which were each different in turn and gave is a hodge podge homely feel. As I turned to Sean to tell him this he blurted 'god this place is tacky...' We also went back to the Dutch palace during opening hours. The word palace is slightly misleading as our home stay looks more impressive from the outside but inside the history of Kerala was interesting and some rooms covered in murals of stories from the Ramayana which was all lost on us until we found a handy guide. Still mostly unintelligible but interesting all the same.

We took a ferry to the newer and busier town of Ernakulum. A breezy 20 minute ferry ride. Not bad for 3p. We walked to the train station to book our tickets out and were distracted by a second hand book warehouse on the way. We easily passed an hour here leafing through hundreds of secondhand or pirate books and both came away with good collections. Sean is getting right into the classics and has developed an impressive taste, so far finishing '1984', 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' and 'Animal Farm' and a couple of Bret Easton Ellis. Five books in three weeks an actual record. Laura has finished the Stieg Larsson series and another questionable novel we picked up for the beach. Also struggled through Gandhi's Autobiography in an effort to learn about Bapu's teachings, but controversially she wasn't impressed with his views of education, but don't tell the Indians about that... also The Talented Mr. Ripley - it's like our own little book club and of course have had many literary conversations concerned with character psychology, writing style and, crucially, Sean's favourites, font sixe and chapter length.

We also, by chance, discovered a Cafe Coffee Day right on our street!! From our wide experience of CCD we weren't overly impressed as it wasn't up to our usual standards but we can never complain about our favourite hangout. Never before has so much caffeine and ice cream been consumed. We also eventually found Mr. Spice's recommendation Krishna Cafe and continually thank Ganesh that we did. We went there every day and enjoyed all you can eat thalis, properly traditional this time we know because it was served with piping hot water just as the Indians like it. We gorged ourselves for about 30p each. India is great.

On our final day we hired cycles to explore a bit further. It was fantastic to see parts we wouldn't have seen otherwise. Some roads were a bit bumpy and uncomfortable and road etiquette takes some getting used to but it was the best 80p we spent in Kochi. The next day we were both walking like John Wayne to the train station though...

On the train to Goa. Unfortunately it was sleeper class with the locals and not our usual luxury ac. On the whole it was fine apart from being woken up at every station by the tannoy and Sean getting drenched from the rain halfway through the night!! Next stop Goa and more beaches!