Two and a half weeks in the state of Kerala in south India has passed rather quickly. Kerala had the worlds first freely elected communist government in 1957, which is still in power today. Literacy is really high, much surpassing the national average. Infant mortality is one fifth of the national average and life expectancy at 73 years is 10 years higher than the rest of the country. I have just nabbed all of these facts from Lonely Planet but scarily I also feel like I am working, this is like a traveling version of my old job. Maybe Lonely Planet will have me when we get back? But (more stealing) foreign investment has been low (so scared of communism) and lack of industrial development means that young people, who are well educated, have their hopes stunted. The suicide rate is the highest in the country. I wouldn't usually plagiarise these facts so obviously but isn't this interesting. Tourism is a huge emerging industry so get over here. Also if there was anywhere in India I wanted to come to, it was here. Thanks to Ellie Hobart for buying me books about India and Kerala.

We spent our first few nights in Fort Kochi, a town where you can feel a strong colonial past from Portuguese to Dutch to British. It used to be a busy international trading port and the people are still using fishing nets introduced by the Chinese in 1400. Traders have been drawn here for more than 3,000 years. There are many more Christians in Kerala than anywhere else in the country I believe and we saw many churches of interesting design. Also loads of Christian deities, in particular one very spooky Mother Theresa. In Kochi there is also a significant synagogue. We watched a performance of the traditional art of Kathakali (worth a google) and I took a first yoga lesson. Kochi was very relaxing and a world away from busy Mumbai, it doesn't really feel very 'Indian'. Also we enjoyed round one of Delhi Belly so spent a couple of days feeling semi delirious on the bed, hopefully this has made for nice strong guts for the rest of the trip! Food in Kerala is quite different to the standard Indian food that we eat at home, it is lightly spiced and uses a lot of coconut. Keralan fish curry was lovely. Actually there is a Keralan restaurant in Leytonstone which you can find in Time Out, I can't remember the name of it though. Who cares if you don't live in East London! Kochi has some lovely cafes, restaurants and places to mooch away time plus some fabulous hotels which are more for people on holiday, but we stayed in a lovely home-stay called Daffodil, which had a lovely wooden balcony where you could hear call to prayer from the local mosque. All very relaxing.

From Kochi we took a short train journey to Alleppey, a little further south. We swerved the AC this time and sat in the normal carriage, which was almost empty. These carriages have open but barred windows so you can really see the country from the train. Kerala is known as 'God's own Country' and Yorkshire is known as 'God's own County', little bit of pop knowledge for you there. Alleppey town is pretty uninspiring but the reason for visiting is to take a house boat trip onto the extensive backwaters. This was the most relaxing thing ever. We had a small wooden houseboat to ourselves that came with a captain, engineer and chef. There are two nicely cushioned seats sitting outwards at the front of the boat, waiting for you to park your bum and not move. We were fed like we needed fattening up and spent one day slowly moving through the backwaters, where people have built their small homes on the banks. We watched people washing and cooking and looked at the endless palm trees. We spent the night sleeping on the boat and in the morning we headed back to the town. All really special, a bit of luxury. We also stayed at another great heritage home-stay called Cherukara Nest.

The morning after we jumped on a local bus to the tea plantation town of Munnar. Seven hours on this bus was numb bum territory. The bus cost 250 rupees which is just over three pounds. We did not stay in the best hotel here so I wont recommend it but its saving grace was that we had the most perfect view of the mountains and tea plantations from our balcony, prime location, bugs in the bathroom! Munnar is a place to walk around and admire the scenery and it really is very very beautiful country, so bright green because of the tea bushes. It is in the hills so is cooler and in the nights even a little chilly, how nice. We visited a tea museum and drank tea and ate more amazing vegetarian food, we are starting to leave the meat as the veg is so good. We are also getting used to eating with our right hands and we rarely get given a knife, since there isn't much that needs cutting.

Back on the bus again to head up north through the winding hills and mountains to a wildlife sanctuary called Parambikulam. This was another mammoth bus journey; four hours on the first screeching through the hills, half an hour to the next location to pick up one of the two buses that heads into the sanctuary, another two and a half hours. We were feeling pretty rough by the time we got there and had no reservation. It was possible they would send us back. On each bus journey we had been the only foreign people and also in the town where we waited for the bus to take us to the sanctuary so we really stood out and people were staring at us left, right and centre. There are different notions of personal space here and we have realised that this isn't just physical (e.g. everyone pushing into a bus and fighting for your place) but also visually, it is not rude to stare here where as we were always told not to stare, that it is impolite. After being stared at for ages or by many people you do feel that personal space also includes being looked at. We met another couple at the bus stop from Finland so we were all in it together and headed off to the park. At the entrance we struggled to understand our options to visit the sanctuary but I also think our patience was running thin as the bus driver had been less than helpful to us. Having said that, another strong paradox, all the people on the bus were smiling and helping us. You can feel frustrated here and things can be hard or full on but people are kind and you feel very safe.

We stayed for two nights in the sanctuary and went wildlife watching and boating. This place was again like an oasis away from the busy Indian towns we had been in to reach it. There was a small village and we watched the local women perform a dance. We saw many birds including eagles, kingfishers and woodpeckers, bison (Lee made two jokes: 1) do you think they are called Mike?, 2) I think those animals are doing some housework, maybe vacuuming - genius :o)), wild boar, different types of deer, crocodiles, giant squirrels, snakes, many different monkeys (I have never seen so many monkeys - all over the place, sitting in the tops of trees and calling in deep growls in the morning and evening) and bears! I could not believe that we saw bears, two black ones and we saw them from the road, apparently we were lucky as it is not the best time to spot them yet as the honey is not ready for stealing. And we saw most of these things a lot, there was a lot of spotting and twitching to do.

Back on the same bus, same bus driver, down to the town but this time feeling a bit more confident and a great bit of timing meant we jumped straight on another bus to take us to another town and we made our connecting train to head up to Kozhikode. It could not have been easier. One night in Kozhikode in a business hotel where I was the only female in the restaurant and we took a bus back into the hills to another wildlife sanctuary - Wayanad. I am typing from our perfect home-stay (Pachyderm Palace) and it is six PM and the sun has made the forest golden. The rest of the guests have gone out to see an anchient Hindu temple (3,500 years old) but we went last night, it was very special. Our host is Venu and he is so kind and rambles so much, a lot of which we don't fully understand. It is full board here and he makes such great food so we will all eat again in a couple of hours. The guests here are from England, Ireland, Sweden, Norway (I'm a quarter Norwegian don't you know) and Holland, a European contingent. It is good to be in places where we can eat and spend the days with people. We have been on safari again here and seen the same animals as Parambikulam (minus bears!) but also this time wild elephants, in the sanctuary but also by the side of the road, amazing - we saw two males in the forest and a family of three on the road. You do have to be careful and apparently they charge motorbikes and rickshaws quite a lot.

Tomorrow we are taking the cheaters way out and hiring a taxi to take us into the state of Karnataka, heading for Mysore. The defense is that we get to go through the National Park in a car as opposed to around it on a bus but in reality it is Sunday tomorrow and we are so relaxed here I am shying away from another bus. Hopefully for the next part we will be taking trains. The joke is I have learned that I don't travel very well - trains are fine but buses or planes or boats leave me feeling ropey. Even Lee has felt rough after these winding journeys in Kerala. Worth the headaches and dusty faces though, this is a beautiful state, perfect for backpacking but also a holiday or a even a honeymoon.

A final note on food, these are some of the things we have enjoyed so far:
Thali - like an Indian meze
Iddly and sambar - ground rice patties and a light daal curry for breakfast
Masala dhosa - also for breakfast, big light pancake type bread filled with potato curry
Masala chai - spiced tea, so good but you have to order without sugar (they love sugar and salt here!)
Lime soda - soda, fresh lime, a little salt, sugar syrup, sometimes ginger
Pickles - we get offered lime pickle in Indian restaurants but here is more common to have a mixed or mango pickle. I love pickle!
We had a vegetable korma - it was completely different, of course.
Loads of vegetable dishes - daal, chickpeas, eggs, peas, cauliflower, potato, pumpkin, no spinach yet, maybe that is more northern.