Hotel Samudra Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum)

... the day I signed on the ship. The romance, the affair, the human side of me should be hidden under a heavy blanket and away from sun rays. La passion, the fountain of joy and trouble all together. What a dilemma! Stop thinking romantically can be such a easy tool to alienate one from another. What a handy tool to be left out the drama, the commotion, the madding crowd. Locked up. Emptied from ...

... our snack when Kip said "that looked like a flash of lightening" A second later it started to pour and we hurried inside. <br><br>We had pre-ordered dinner in the morning and they called when it was ready. Kip and I had the fish biriani which turned out to be fabulous. The fish was fresh pomfret, perfectly cooked and served in rice with incredible flavors. It was a perfect way to end another day in Incredible India.<br> <br><br> <br>

... This crazy bird has to be free but i can fully understand why some people prefer to be in the easy living, peaceful ashram bubble permanently rather than out in the more difficult Babylon world and there are people who live there full time quite happily. They call the world outside the ashram the illusion and the life inside is their reality. I suppose it is. The yoga is great and the devotional chanting was too but it is ground hog day everyday in there. I found ...

... had a great atmosphere and the music was pretty good too- basically commercial house! We then got a 9 hour train to Hampi and were amazed at the landscapes on the train, at one point we were on the top of a valley and all we could see was endless trees, it was beautiful. Hampi's landscape was amazing too, it's basically rocky, the boulders look fake, like they;ve all been carefully placed on top of each other to make mountains, i've never seen anything ...

... that wouldn't be difficult. But after five days of sun salutations and copious amounts of sweating, we can definitely touch our toes a little more freely. It makes us feel like we're doing something productive with our day, despite having to walk around like penguins after the first couple of classes. We signed up for a cookery class with another couple we had bumped into along the way. When we walked into the kitchen for our class we weren't too inspired by the vision ...

Ros: Varkala is a very strange little place. The main town is set back from the sea and is apparently a 'temple town', dominated by a temple non-Hindus can't go into. However along the clifftops overlooking the beach is a separate little tourist town run by Tibetans. The guesthouses are nice, there is a variety of types of food (yay for lunch-time sandwiches) and it is altogether quite an agreeable place to unwind for a few days - not least because the restaurants and ...

... with the "pre-paid" taxi guys who wanted us to just pay our driver....and wanted to charge us lots of money that we weren't willing to pay. (what is the point of "pre-paid" if you just pay the driver?) Once all that was sorted out we got to our hotel, Hotel Ganesh, and got cleaned up. The hotel wasn't bad...kinda dirty but big rooms and lots of TV channels so that was great. Did some movie watching and monica got some ...

... and Roger Moore is a scraggly old man. What I'm trying to get to here is Udaipur was wicked. After Udaipur, we had a wonderful 15 hour bus ride to Mumbai where we were cramped in a "sleeper" compartment, which was actually just being stuffed in the overhead compartment. Yesterday, after our night of swimming at the Taj Hotel, we flew to the very south of the country to the state of Kerala and came immediately to Varkala. Varkala is a tiny town ...

... forward to the challenge as well as the eye-opening that is sure to occur. Amma is known as the "hugging guru" and at times stays awake for days at a time, receiving thousands of people to give them a sacred embrace. For those of you who are curious, the homepage of Amma's website gives the following blurb describing who Amma is: Love, compassion, empathy and tolerance--under the pressures of modern life, these qualities have all but disappeared. Through Her loving embrace ...

Season was winding down almost to a standstill as I rolled in, Hot weather, and occasional rain signals the onset of the monsoon. . The original plan was to go down to Kanniakumari, at the tip of India, but as things go in India, plans have a tendency to change. Having my lunch at the 'funky art cafe,' I heard the familiar inflection of an American accent, and looked over at the group next to me, asking after such fact. Indeed, a young ...