Day 38, 39 - Backwaters - Wednesday 23rd, Thursday 24th November 2011 We were up bright and early to have breakfast before setting off to finishing point to secure our houseboat. Over breakie we met a really lovely couple who were at the end of their world tour with India as their last stop. We chatted about the various countries and recommendations and exchanged email addresses. Loaded up with all our bags and rucksacks, we started the 20 minute walk to finish...

Day 37 - Alleppey - Tuesday 22nd November 2011 We arrived in Alleppey at noon with the sole purpose of securing a house boat for the following morning. Every guide book or reference to Alleppey says that you will be hassled as soon as you step into the town with offers of the houseboats and so c*** sure, we ventured around with our best haggling heads on. After 3 hours, 2 cups of chai, an egg masala with poorta and asking about a million people "house boat?...

Day 34, 35, 36 - Varkala - Saturday 19th, Sunday 20th, Monday 21st November 2011 We arrived at the bus stop in Kovalam at 1pm to catch our bus to Varkala only to be told it didn't leave until 3.30pm! With a few hours to kill, we decided to gate-crash a 5 star hotel… Leela Resort - was our victim of choice! We got a few strange looks as we walked into the reception - we were looking a bit hot and loaded with our backpacks. The place was very posh; they were han...

Day 31, 32, 33 - Kovalam -Wednesday 16th, Thursday 17th and Friday 18th November 2011 Before we set off, we woke up and had breakfast back at the Indian Coffee House. Back to our rooms, we packed our backpacks ready for some beach life in Kovalam, I swear our backpacks are getting lighter and we must be leaving some stuff behind, but I think we are just finally getting used to them! We checked out at 12pm and half an hour later we arrived and began our walk alon...

Day 29 - Madurai to Trivandrum - Monday 14th November 2011 Because we arrived at our hotel at 7am, we had to also check out at 7am!! So we were up early for a bucket shower (basically filling up a bucket and pouring on your head!!) and checked out, we left our bags there and walked to the station. What a fun time we had ahead… First we got a ticket straight away (awesome), then we were told this was standing only, no seats (our journey was 8 hours), so we went...