Elephants and House boats!

Still catching up but here goes:



So we went to Kerala which is in the very South of India and very hot!

First stop was Fort Cochin which was very obviously influenced by the Portuguese and British which was very visible from the architecture and Catholic churches. It was strange being in an area that ate beef! We went for a lovely evening walk along the sea wall and came across an amazing sight-a female Leatherback turtle was busy digging a hole in which to lay her eggs!!! We watched for a while but were then moved on during the laying process. It looked very hard work but amazing to see. We found out that once the eggs are laid they are removed and hatched using incubators to provide a higher chance of survival and then they are released into the wild.



We then moved onto Kumily where the Periyar National park is situated. Here we went on a tour around a spice and tea plantation with a visit around a tea factory. The smells were amazing and we will never look at a cup of tea in the same way again-the tea making process is so intricate. To finish the day we went for an elephant ride in the rainforest, they are very slow and lollopey. Amazing animals! We have only just recovered from having to sit almost in the splits to get our legs across the back of the giant! Emily then decided that she was too hot and sweaty and needed a spray down from the elephant and so sat on its back whilst the elephant sucked up water in its trunk and then sprayed her. It was a mini Niagra falls, she was soaked! She smelt better after a few sprays!!!



For dinner we cooked our own Keralean food under a local family's instruction. They open up their house as a restaurant and the deal is that we pay to cook but then eat what we made. We learnt to grate a coconut, chop a huge table of veg very finely-Emily was bored after the first carrot!!!! we made the batter for Parathas and then cooked them into fluffy tasty things. Loads of time and hard work goes into Indian cooking!



Next day we got up very early much to our disgust but it was worth it as we went for a lovely 3 hour walk in Periyar National Park. We walked through Jungle and saw Deer, Wild Boar, Elephant dung, lots of birds, leeches that tried to get on our legs! and a wasp that stung Dawn! A few monkeys were also thrown in for good measure and possibly otters from a distance!

That afternoon we caught a very bouncy bus to Kovalam but missed the ferry to Alleppey so had to take a bus instead. We were glad we did in the end as we went through an amazing festival which had a parade of very dressed up elephants, dancers and floats. They were celebrating a Hindu festival that we are unfamiliar with. We finished the day with dinner in a posher than normal looking hotel. However the restaurant was a bit dirty and crawling with HUGE cockroaches that Dawn only noticed halfway through dinner which then sent her into a mad panic leaping up out of her seat and then the waiter amused himself by flicking it at her! We didn't leave a tip even though Dawn had many for them!

Next day was far more tranquil. It was spent cruising the backwaters on a house boat. There were no Cockroaches in sight just a few lizards helping to keep mosquitos at bay. The waters are so beautiful, sometimes canal type channels then opening up to massive wetlands like the Norfolk Broads. The boat was luxury. It had a very comfortable seating area at the front in the sun and our berth had an ensuite bathroom which was spacious for a boat. We enjoyed being waited on hand and foot. It was a lazy 22 h0urs watching the world go by. Emily enjoyed a swim in the water which was so warm and soft, she chose to ignore the odd waterlilly that became wrapped around her ankles!

We then made our way upto Bombay with more complications on the train-probably the worst yet but we will tell the story when we get home. We stopped at Mangalore for a few hours in which we visited a beautifully painted chapel, then we returned to Benalim for a days RnR on the beautiful beach sadly though the beach huts were full so we had to stay in the town. We had a day in Bombay before flying out. We walked around various sights, watched 100 local cricket matches going on all at once. We have no idea how they knew which game had which ball but it seemed to work!!! We then caught the train to Gandhi's national park where we went on a real whizz bang safari and saw, deer, tiger, snow tiger and lions. They were guaranteed sightings as they were in enclosures. It had a great info room in which it highlighted how much is being done to save the worlds Tiger population.

Random fact of the day: Tigers only need to eat every two days!!!!!
(Dawn has taken Emily's Tiger status away!)

We arrived at the airport 12 hours early for our flight to then discover that we were actually 12 hours late!!!! We had missed our flight!!!! Whoops we had read 28th Jan flying at 00:30 wrong. We felt like fools! Never mind we managed to book another flight out the next morning. We spent a delightful 24 hours on the floor of Bombay's Airport! We opted for this over a hotel as in Bombay the hotels are very overpriced and manky!

GOODBYE INDIA!!!!!!!!!!!!