Kerala

taking the train is always a new experience, luckily we got the top bunkers which are the best as indians wake up early and starts talking so its best to be higher up. Anyways it wasn't to bad to take the night train I slept ok considering that its a very hard bunk "bed", a lot of noise and loud local people. Woke up pretty early thou to the lovely shouts of chai, coffee, breakfast, water, lassi etc etc every 10 min there is a new guy shouting and selling from early morning to late in the evening and its only "quiet" a few hours. What was suppose to be around 12 hour train journey turned into 17 hours (but hey its India you always have to add on a few hours). We got to Kernakulam in Koochin in Kerala (that for your info means coconut)around 3 PM, straight to a rickshaw to the ferry and over to forth Koochin. On the other side there was a new line of rickshaws with loud drivers shouting come with i show you very cheap hotel, very cheap (obviously said in the lovely indi english accent), so we picked one with the best deal and found a hotel. Very strange to sleep in a bed in a room after being used to sleeping in huts, but at least we hot water for showers too :)

We spent 3 nights in forth coochin spending one day as proper tourists going around town seeing museums, shops, churches etc etc, one day with backwaters going around in a tree boat on the lakes where we got served a delicious home made veg thali on plam tree leaves of course and the next day on local buses up to Munnar. Its funny to see how commission based India is that we really got to experience up close on out rickshaw tour as every time he shows up a shop or museum the driver earns money, everybody has some connection to each other hehe


anyways after being fed up with the heat and mosquitoes we found our way to beautiful Munnar :)