Indien Hermitage A Resort Hotel Kanyakumari

... us for 20 rupees (for those that do not know yet, it's 67-70 rupees to the pound) and visited most of the guest-houses in the town, looking to find the cheapest, which turned out to be a small guesthouse over three floors with tiny little twin and double rooms, a hole in the floor and a pipe in the wall and that's it. We couldn't expect anything more for 200 rupees for the two of us. The staircase window offered a fairly good view of the sea a few flight of stair below us. There was ...

... and has to be as well an important pilgrimage center devoted to one of their deities whom unfortunately I don't recall the name. I assist to my last Hindu rituals early in the morning. As always, very interesting, very colorful, very arcane and totally incomprehensible. I think I deserve a rest so I decide to spend the next couple of days at the beach, far away from any liturgy or religious ritual and avoiding contact with any temple.

... at the sunset and praying (daily ceremonial!). Then next morning, wake up at 6am to see the sunrise, went back to bed (hehe) and enjoyed swimming in the 3 seas. Then visit of the Kumari Amman temple (a goddess conquered demons and secured freedom in the world so pilgrims give her thanks. Unusualy, men had to leave their shirts, so that it was even more obvious that i ...

Varkala (18/2) Kanniyakumari (19/2) Madurai (20/2) Varkala By the time we got to Varkala we were feeling ready to push through this beach town and start heading back up north to start our time volunteering. There is also a noticeable difference in using public transportation to get around in the south and it's much more challenging. The trains can't make it to most places and while the bus rides are quite beautiful, they are long and usually ...

... the Vivekananda memorial. Swami Vivekananda was a famous Indian philosopher who lived from 1863-1902. On the other island is the huge statue of a Tamil poet by the name of Thiruvalluvar. Because these two islands are at the southern most tip of the sub-continent, the water on the left side is from the Bay of Bengal and Indian ocean while the ...

... the bus didn't have a TV, hooray, although it did have a CD player, boo, which managed to blear out music for pretty much all of the 6 hours. I could also have done without being almost man handled off the bus by the conductor while I was waiting for two pensoiners to carry their bags off the bus. One thingh I've found so far is I've met some of the friendliest people here in India when you get the feeling you've been mistaken for a film star, and also some of the most amazingly ...

... to our side that had been following us. We decided to lose him by going down one stairwell and coming back up to the roof using a different set of stairs. It worked and, of course, we were very proud of ourselves for being so clever. After visiting the memorial we toured the town's major temples and walked for a while along the beach, climbing to the top of the look-out tower in the process.

... and west-have flocked here to pray in temple after temple. To make offerings, give thanks, and placate the gods. Maybe to find a husband, a wife, wealth, or happiness-maybe to find themselves. I haven't seen may Westerners on this path, I can't say why, and there's always a great curiosity about what in the world I could be doing here. "Why?" I don't have answers. I ask myself the same, every day. I wonder, though, if I can ...

Since the refreshing stop in the mountains of Ooty, we have now made it to the land's end of India, via the sublime Keralan backwaters. From Ooty, we headed directly to the city of Cochin. This place is separated into two areas, the main area being Fort Cochin on a small island. There was much to see and do including watching Chinese fishing nets hauling their catch in, playing some tabletennis with two slightly overweight locals, whilst enjoying some fine ...