Returning to Thuravoor

On our return to Thuravoor, we were greeted with hugs, smiles and kisses from baby Emma. It truly felt like we'd arrived home!

Unfortunately, this was the start of bite week! Almost every other day I was waing with a new random swelling. First my eye, then my finger and later, in Kanyakumari, my head!

I sulked, pouted and refuted to remove my sunglasses for the best part of 12 hours. This doesn't men I was in hiding, it was a very busy day and apart from a trip to the pharmacy, there was a cake to buy and a hairdressers to test out! The cake buying was simple, the hair dresses not so much! We stumbled upon the salon after canoeing to the village and when we saw the hairdressers chair and sink, both of us immediately booked in! A bit of pampering to cheer me up...or not!

Debs went first and was told to stand facing the sink, with her head tipped over the edge. She was ferociously scrubbed and shampooed, but not conditioned. The lady then attacked Debs' hair with the finest comb, leaving it tangled and knotty, before sticking in a handful of 90s style wet look gel. I'm almost certain Debs and I had the same aghast look on our faces! Her hair was then half blow dried flat to her head and she was sent on her way. I was next...

Using my eye as an excuse, I encouraged the hairdress to use the sink and chair properly, asking if I could go backwards. I wish I hadn't bothered, she pulled out a little stool and I had to assume a half crouch, half back-bend position and maintain it throughut the hair wash. From there, I was subject to the same treatment as Debs, until the power cut right before my blow-dry! It was restored within 10 minutes and I was transformed into a fluffy puppy!

With our hair freshly washed, my eye slowly deflating and a new bottle of rum, there was partying to do!

There was the usual birthday shennanigans - light show, "comedy-drama", songs from the children, drinks and lots of dancing - led by 4 year old Abel! One of my favourite moments of the night was popping back to the balcony to find Vickram, out boatman on the last visit and self proclaimed body guard this time, had drank maybe half a litre of Bacardi and was being tutted at by the ladies of the family! As he boated away, he slipped and fell in to the river! We were then told he'd be fine, until he got home at least as his wife wuld probably beat him with a stick, just because "that's what she's like."


We finished the rum and headed to bed.

We took a day for relaxation and then a day for exploration. We had to make sure we hadn't missed anything, so we set out on an afternoon boat trip to villages nar Thuravoor. Debs played volleyball with the children there, and I was inited to the house of a man with a hennaed red beard! I drank tea with him, his wife and their gorgeous daughter. Most f my time there was spent marvelling at their beautiful Singer sewing machine. It blows my mind that almost every household has one of these!

All of a sudden, Debs and I were whisked away by a man who wished to parade us around his family compound! Within 5 minutes, we'd met his sister, brother-in-law, cousins and newphews! As it was speeding towards lunch, we made our excuses and escaped as soon as possible.

By the next morning, Debs' ear was worsening again, so Mau too us to Ernakulum so she could get to a hospital and I could fix my "don't worry, my screen's really strong" cracked screen!



The hospital was modern, clean and pretty efficient. Being a foreigner, Debs was seen to straight away and had a long, antibiotic soaked wik threaded into her ear.

After replacing my screen and picking up Manu's laptop, we felt we deserved a beer! We headed to a top floor hotel bar with amazing views of the city and tiny rooftop which we snuck on to for a little while.

None of us were ready to head back just then, so we headed over to Fort Kochi for a few more beers and some food.

When we were ready to leave, it was far too late for buses or trains, so Sanjay, a friend of Manu's, kindly picked us up and drove us home.

On our final day and night with the family, we spent the morning with the kids before heading out for a sunset boat trip. Suku, the boat man, took us through paddy fields and up to the perfect sunset viewing spot. He even taught us how to make coir rope from coconut husks too!

As it was our last night, we got dressed up for an evening of beer and goodbyes. It was my evening to skips the queue at the beer cage, so Manu and I headed out on the scooter. When we got to the liquor shop, there was a sea of men either clutching bags or boxes, or waiting to be served.

I was ushered towards the exit and had to wait for the next few customers to be served before I could push my way through. The man serving quickly took my order and handed me a box bigger than the exit corridor! Thankfully, Manu was waiting to take the precious cargo and stow it in his bike.

We spent the evening on the balcony sharing beers and stories, and finally we said our goodbyes sometime after midnight. A couple of hours sleep and then we were ready for our 4:30am get up and the trip to Trivandrum!

Varkala - beach, bad gin and lepers!

After a 4 hour, cramped and bumpy bus ride, a drawn out negotiation and another half and hour in an even more cramped and even more bumpy rickshaw, we arrived at the north cliffs of Varkala. Although it was dark, I could hear the constant murmurs of the waves and was incredibly soothed to finally be at a beach.

We quickly found a bungalow, literally seconds from the cliff top, and headed out for food. What most shocked me was again how similar it was to Southern Thailand. This time though it wasn't due to the gorgeous scenery, which there was plenty of, it was because of the bustling shop fronts and sheer amounts of people trying to hustle you into their restaurants! It was relentless and the tiny path along the cliff meant it was also unavoidable!

Three little words brought us to a stand still - "Gin and tonic!" After weeks of beer and lemon soda, a gin sounded like the perfect pre-dinner tipple. We ordered, along with a Thai green curry for Debs, and garlic prawns for me.

The gin came first, we took out first refreshing sip, only to find the gin, branded Amazon, did indeed taste like Amazonian river water. This should have been sufficient warning, however when the food came we tucked in with great gusto. Unfortunately for me the prawns were definitely off and I pretty much spat my first mouthful straight back out. There wasn't even an argument when I told the manager, he just nodded and removed my meal from the table and the receipt. Maybe we should have done the same with the gin...

I stocked up on nuts and crisps and headed to bed, the next day was for the beach!

We spent most of the next day lazing in the sand, drinking lemn sodas and wandering in and out of shops, before eating delicious Japanese food of all things! Topped off with a couple of mint packed mojitos. It was the perfect day.

The next day would be our last, we were getting the train from Varkala back towards Thuravoor, a place which was fast becoming our home and refuge. We'd decided to factor in a bit of a scenic detour, first to Kollam, next a boat to Alleppey, and finally a bus back to the farm.

First was breakfast in coffee temple. This place was just what we needed. They served proper coffee, thick brown bread and best of all - marmite! Just as we were about to leave, we witnessed a brilliant moment! We'd been watching a crow play with a fish head in the trees, and just as a couple in front of us placed down their coffees, the crow dropped the fish head and it landed right between them. Crow, knowing he was in trouble, quickly flew away, leaving Debs and I looking like guilty fish head pelters! We tried to explain, but were too caught up with the giggles!

When we made it to the train station, we were greeted by a heavily bandaged leper. I made my excuses and tried to dash though Debs reassured me he probably wasn't contagious. In my eyes, if someone has furry lesions and bandaged fingers and toes, I'm not taking the risk! We picked up our ridiculously cheap tickets - maybe 50p for an hour long ride, and set off squidged in with a group of studious college girls.

It was my first experience of Indian trains and it was surprisingly calm and easy. We alighted at Kollam, grabbed a newspaper and headed for the boat.

The boat ride was 8 hours long, so it was pretty important that were were stocked up. As soon as we'd got our tickets, we marched in to town, swiped a selection of fruit and sweets and quickly ran back to get some of the last seats on the deck.

The boat ride was peaceful and slow, the perfect place to really get in to my book and watch the world go by. We stopped for lunch in a tiny little village with one restaurant and one shop. With all that choice, we settled for thali and fish fry - a tiny mouthful of fried river fish. It was admittedly delicious, however nobody had even though to ask the price an we were amazed when they asked for 200 rupees each! It doesn't sound like much, but generally in such a small place it wouldn't cost more than 80!

After a leg stretch, we headed back on to the boat for another 4 hours of rest, reading and slow tempo life.

We docked in Alleppey a little after a gorgeous sunset and I was feeling particularly pleased that I'd opted to spend my time in the backwaters in Thuravoor as opposed to the crowded, loud and overbearing Alleppey.

After a mad dash for a certain birthday boy's celebrations, we were back on a bus to Thuravoor.

Kochi...Again!?

From Munnar, we took a local bus back down to Kochi and jumped off close(ish) to the ferry port. About half-way to the hostel, we came across the cutest group of street girls who were collecting bottles to recycle. They wanted money obviously, and bras too, but instead of giving money or things they would sell we took them all out for dinner and had a little fun. This evoked wildly different reactions from the locals - some took photos, others tutted and scowled!

Selfie courtesy of Debs : )

After our dinner of yummy chaat - basically a crunchy samosa and a bit of everything and anythings that's bad for you smooshed up on a plate, we found the ferry, got attacked with henna stamps and made our way back to the Fort area.

In the evening, we met up with a few friends from my last time in Kochi and, being locals, they knew how to avoid the police shut down time! They took us to a fisherman's beach which was absolutely beautiful - peaceful and untouched. Even better, we saw a little turtle scurrying about on the way there!

The next morning we headed out for coffee and banana fritters - our standard Kochi breakfast, before meeting Naas, a rickshaw driver with a very cheeky nature, for lunch and a lesson in Uno - India loves Uno!

As it was our last night in Fort Kochi for a while, we decided to have a bit of a celebration. This was made even easier when we discovered an amazing shopping mall with a giant supermarket selling sparkler candles, toys and face paints! We secretly brought our new purchases, plus a cake from a local bakery, to an amazing seafood dinner with Naas (I caused great amusement here during my first real attempt at eating crab), and eventually to Vedanta Hostel where we'd stayed the last 2 times in Kochi. We took over the kitchen and prepared the cake, making sure we'd rounded up the maybe 4 awake people in the hostel!
     Indians love a sparkle and the cake went down a treat, or the candles did, most of the cake went to a ridiculously friendly pack of dogs! It was the perfect parting evening and I was happy to be leaving Kochi for more than just a few days.

Finally, we were heading to the beach!

Into the Wild...

On return, Fort Kochi seemed as hectic and crazy as London in comparison to the relative solitude of Thuravoor! It was good to be back though and straight away we headed to discover more of the Biennale art festival.

The day passed by in a blur and before we knew it we were in a rickshaw and on our way to Thattekad - 70km away! In England we'd cover that distance in no time, but in India, in a rickshaw, it took 3 hours...Nas, a friend of Debs, offered to drive us and he made sure he took us all of the way up a bumpy, rocky dirt path right to the guest house door!

Lonely Planet describe Thattekad as 'worth a trip' and even wrote a special feature on it, but honestly it was like a tropical Clumber Park! Pretty enough, but not spectacular and with some true Indian elements...

A local tribe of monkeys woke us each morning.

We found one of these not so long after arriving. Debs wasn't well, so Megan and I travelled off in search of the glorious wildlife we'd been promised. Instead, we were photographed constantly and then stumbled upon an "Animal Refuge." It was truly tragic. The animals' cages barely allowed space for the animals to flap, crawl or walk and despite tons of spare cages they'd been oddly paired up. One cage contained both owls and monitor lizards, another held a fully grown chicken with a snake!

We meandered back from our walk just in time to be served tea - a delicious Thali meal which we ate in the company of a racist, spice hating Brit couple and an elitist family from Delhi - the conversation was interesting to say the least!

Through the evening Debs became worse and early the next morning she was taken to a convent hospital and was treated by a group of nuns! Oh India!

Megan and I took the chance to have another walk, this time avoiding the caged animals and going in to some private forest area. The "hike" was easy and we saw lots of lizards and spiders before coming across a beautiful spot overlooking the Periyar River and gorgeous countryside.

In the afternoon we headed in the opposite direction and finally found some interesting birds - horn bills and tiny birds with huge tail feathers! We also came across a lot of teenagers having secret dates in the privacy of the forest and two men trying to steal spiky jack-fruit from the trees.

Back at the homestay, Debs had put on a brave face and was ready to head to Munnar - a hill station full of spice and tea plantations. Bags packed and ready, we hopped on another local bus and spent 5 hours veering round narrow bends edged by steep drops. Along the way, gorgeous views were punctuated with ominous skulls, not that this fazed the diver who would respond by putting his foot down and overtaking any vehicle in his path.

We arrived safely, dropped our bags in our new room and went to explore. The town was busy, fast paced and colourful. I drank it all in, for the first time I felt like I was in India - although with hindsight Munnar was incredibly peaceful!

We ate at a restaurant called Rapsy - they crammed 8 or 9 people around tables for 4 and made you write down your own order, but it was seriously tasty! We ate the most tender beef and I threw caution to travel advice and tucked in to a huge salad, thankfully with no bathroom based repercussions.

After eating, and in an attempt to be cultural, Megan and I went to watch Kathakalli theatre and Kalaripayat martial arts. We arrived in time to see some of the make-up process which should have indicated just how bizarre an evening it was going to be! Layer upon layer of green and orange paint was pasted on to two young boys' faces and bells were attached to pretty much anything that could be jangled!

We quickly moved on to pick our seats and waited for the show to start. We were in for a long wait! The first 30 minutes were made up of a man looking in different directions and raising his eyebrows whilst another man shouted random English words - apparently we needed to remember these to understand the story...Finally, we were given a short synopsis - the play was about a woman who tried to seduce a demon, unfortunately for her the demon took great delight in chopping off her ears, nose and boobs! A delightful family play!
     A musician drummed and sang so atmospherically that I forgot about how ridiculous the whole art form was. Not to worry though, the green demon soon stomped on to stage before I had time to really appreciate anything. One thing I really admired was the length of time one of the characters spent with his tongue sticking out of his mouth - literally ten minutes!

With the actors out of the way, the real show began. Six men flipped, kicked and jumped their way in to a pit below us. They performed a small puja (fire prayer) before giving the most incredible display of what can only be described as aggressive, fighty yoga, each round accompanied with different weapons.


The next morning, we headed out on a tour of the area. We'd requested a fun driver and when the rickshaw arrived blasting out music, it seemed a good fit. We set off and quite quickly discovered that our driver wasn't one for following instruction as we saw the signs for our first 3 stops disappearing behind us. At first, this wasn't a cause for worry, it's India after all and we were enjoying the many cows decorated for Pongol, a Tamil festival which we didn't really understand, but hey - painted cows! We went with it for maybe 25km until we reached Lakkam Waterfalls which were pretty small and unimpressive, however there was a troop of super cute monkeys playing near by.

We then drove maybe another 60km with just one stop for sugar cane, though none of us wanted it and none of us knew how to eat! We arrived at the next destination - Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary. Estimated cost - 100 rupees, actual cost - 600 rupees! We also wasn't told that it was a 3 hour trek requiring sturdy footwear and sacrificing the other stops on our tour. Politely, we declined and instead made the stop in to a beautiful tea break, interrupted only by the arrival of 2 honey collectors. I adore honeycomb, but must say the sight of bee larvae wriggling through the holes did make me question how much I loved it!

Our next stop was another overpriced wildlife park, but we coughed up and went in. The park, Erivakulam, is famous for the apparently wild, elusive Tahr goats...this wasn't exactly true. After taking a bus to the base of a small mountain/big hill, we were immediately greeted y these wonder full cute goats with backwards bending horns. We took a gentle stroll to "the limit" - 2695 meters above seal level, before making our way back down.

When we arrived back to the rickshaw, we were told the tea factory was absolutely 100% closed. Regardless, we asked to go and the driver obliged. Even better, when we arrived the was no problem getting in. The factory was very curious;it looked incredibly old and whilst it wasn't a tea producing factory, it still did produce tea... Two moments did stand out though - the delicious, albeit alcohol free, fruit beer and Debs' glorious photoshopped mug!
At the end of the tour, we went back to the agency and had a stress-relieving row with the owner. He was defiant his prices were up to date and we got nothing more than the chance to argue, but that was enough.

When we arrived home, Debs' ear infection was still playing up and she told Benoy, the owner What happened next was one of the funniest things I've even seen/ Benoy made her sit on his bed with Megan and me on either side before asking her to close her eyes, presumably so she wouldn't have to suppress the giggles like Megan and I did! Benoy then slow-motion slapped Debs' head. To finish off, he hawked up a great load of phlegm, complimented her chakras and asked the pair of us if we wanted our chakras assessing...Reiki is definitely not for me!

For our farewell dinner, we headed back to our beloved Rapsys and had one more delicious beef - nom!And, because we were saying bye to Megan, we though it would be nice to toast to our little adventure with a cold beer. This meant a trip to the state liquor shop. Debs braved it and headed in to the narrow metal walkway which led to the beer cage. She came out proudly clasping her prize and despite a few detours in to hilarious shops with phones, lamps and photo frames combined, we headed home quite quickly to enjoy our beers.

On our final morning, we headed to our favourite breakfast spot - a real authentic and fast paced place, where our earlier hefty 60p tip made sure we were treated as VIPs! We ate a delicious breakfast of tomato and onion rice flour pancakes and said our goodbyes. I was definitely happy to say goodbye to the cold mountains!