The Leela Kempinski Kovalam Beach Kerala

... a nice collection of sharp looking rocks! This<br>also meant the weather was a bit weird, it didn't rain the whole time,<br>but the longer I was there the more and more rain we got. It's still<br>pretty hot though and it doesn't take long for the rain to dry up. The<br>people are amazingly friendly here as well, which makes for a really relaxed happy atmosphere. There's a lot of contagious<br>smiling as you walk down the road!<br><br><br><br>I did ...

... onto the beach as the tide will allow. We both commented on how shallow the beach is now, in fact there's not much of one at all. Despite all the people (It's the weekend so the place is teeming with Indians as well as westerners) Kovalam is still a working fishing village, so as we sat on the beach this evening they were hauling in nets by hand, with a few extra helping hands from some burly tourists, but the main ...

... hebben Kovalam gelaten voor wat het was en zijn de rest van India gaan onderzoeken, zelf Paul (de oprichter en directeur van het project) is voor een maand terug naar Belgie. Volledig op eigen benen dus. Wat ik hier dan godsganse dagen uitsteek? Les geven, zweten, meegaan met de sociaal werkers op huisbezoek (al is het woord 'huis' vaak enigszinds een eufemisme voor hetgeen waarin deze mensen wonen), levende spellingscorrector spelen, zweten, 100 keer per ...

... lecturer brought his class of students over to talk to us in English. Some of the class took pictures of us. The we met Youssef "the liar". He came over to chat to us, told us he was Christian, later told us he was Muslim, told us his eldest child was 20 and in university, then told us his eldest child was 18 in school, told us he was studying Ireland, then asked us 101 questions about Ireland. I understood about 10. He thought it was beside Italy. Anyway he helped us get the ...

... that the water was required more for sweat in this heat than to waste on whinging so it cut the tears ducts!!! LOL!!! ANYWAY that was the main sad thing and now the truck is all empty and weird. though given im on a 12 month trip around the world i guess saying goodbye to people is something im going to have to get ALOT better at. im going to do another entry for the next bit now anyway so basically the moral of the story is dont go to varkala cos its sad and sad. and sad. :-(

... we would still be impressed with the desolation of the landscape and the desperation of many of the people. Our breakfast pick here in Varkala has been Café Del Mar where for 80Rs (less than $2) we get a delicious spread of milk tea, porridge, 2 eggs, four pieces of toast with butter and jam, and a generous fruit salad of papaya, banana, pineapple, watermelon, grapes, and orange. That's meant for one person but Jay and I split meals on a regular basis. We've stayed ...

... make everything more comfortable (but it's not necessarily worth spending twice as much again for 2AC). We had some success with the Indian Railways website as a way of bypassing the hefty commission travel agents often charged. The downside was that for large periods of each day (roughly 9-5) the site was logjammed. Best experiences It's tempting to just reproduce the top 5 meals section above but, since you ask (in no particular order): Houseboat in Kerala Dawn at ...

... we got the train to Trivandrum, which is almost at the very southernmost point of India. We spent two days there, another not particularly fruitful two days reminiscent of Mangalore, in which we wandered around searching for a cinema and a half-decent shop to buy Fran some flip-flops! (We didnt find either!) We did go to the zoo, but it wasnt really that amazing - pretty much like any zoo in England! The hippos were cute though! The weather was actually quite sunny so we ...

... The ideal place to start is at the Nut selling old Lady ! I came accross this colourful old Lady selling nuts for a living near Padmanabhaswami templePadmanabha Temple itself. It is located right at the city centre.The 30m 'Gopuram'above the entrance,is in Dravidian style and the 365 carved granite pillars in its inner corridor are stunning.The earliest structures dates from the 11th century. Sadly,non-hindu's are not allowed into the inner sanctum but the temple from outside still offers ...

... so that we could fly from Kochi to Sri Lanka as opposed to going all the way back to Mumbai to fly. This meant hanging round in Kochi for 3 more days waiting for a response because of the holiday period. We quickly got bored and frustrated and to fill in the time we took a warm-up trip through Kerela's backwaters and lagoons. This turned out to be a complete waste of time as our guide spoke pigeon english and new nothing about the area. While passing a local ...