Ashley's words earlier this week. We are having a great time! The trip is flying by and we have done lots since my last post. We left the beachside of Varkala and took a short train ride to the backwaters of Kerala. This is an absolutely breathtaking area of India, man made canals and lakes surrounded by palm trees and its just beautiful. They have houses along the banks and get around by boat. There is also quite a tourist industry now of "houseboats" that people would rent for a few days and are supposedly really nice. We took a boat ride to our homestay, which was actually like a guesthouse, it was the house of a really nice couple and they had 2 adorable little girls. The husband, Thomas (this is a very Christain area of India) took us on a walking tour through his village and around the rice patties. Rice and coconuts are the big products here. They also have this cocunut drink they call a "toddy" that is an alcoholic drink, not so good but they really like. We stayed the night and had some great south indian home cooking.
The next day we took a local bus to Kochi, one of the big port cities of the Western coast of India. The place we stayed was not great, not in the main area and our bathroom had other inhabitants...but it was fine. We spent most of our time in Fort Kochin, a ferry ride from where we were staying , which has a lot of Portugese and Dutch influences. We visited a synagogue, there used to be a lot of jews in this area and they actually have an area called "Jewtown." Now its just tourist shops because the jews moved to Israel once it became a state. There are only 13 jews left at the temple today. We also saw a Kathakali dance show, a famous type of theatre from Kerala. Elaborate costumes and they act out theatre through movements of the eye and body...very interesting. After the show we went to dinner at a local restaurant, thought to be okay by our leader...turns out not so much. The next day 3of our group was sick with food poisioning, luckily we were okay.
From Kochi we took an overnight train (I do not sleep well on trains...) to Bangalore and then a bus to Mysore, which is where we are now. Mysore is a fairly large crowded city, typical India. Lots of people, cars, cows, pollution, noise, etc. They have a phenomenal palace here that we saw yesterday, one of the most amazing I've seen. We also toured a local veggie market. We were so exhausted yeseterday, we literally in bed and asleep by 10:30. Today we had free time and Ashley and I went out to some factories this morning to see silk and incense made, it was pretty interesting. We just had the most amazing lunch of real western pizza. Our stomachs have been a little iffy lately so this was such a great find for us.
This afternoon we head back to Bangalore to catch our last overnight train to Hampi. We have 2 days there and then on to Goa, last stop!! Hard to believe how fast the time has flown!
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