Vembanad Lake Resort Kottayam

... each day, all of whom are volunteers, even down to a guy who comes in to shave & cut hair. Nurses, doctors, dentists & just the normal men & women who devote their time every day to these patients. One thing that did strike me was that they all seemed happy and at peace. I was so overcome with emotion I could hardly speak when praising Mr. Thomas. It is so wonderful that in a country so stricken with poverty, still has people who have so very little ...

... each passing day we seem to get better at it, culminating in the purchase of eighteen large tiger prawns for 300Rs, that's just over four pound! If we stayed here we could dine like kings and queens every night with this plentiful supply of cheap, fresh seafood on our doorstep. Fort Cochin was welcome break from trains and buses but now we are all heading south once more where we will try to get a good price on a houseboat to tour the backwaters in style. XXX

... Keralan food is yummy! The flavours are much more subtle compared to your average curry as roughly ground coconut and yoghurt are often used as the base for the sauce. We ate lots of rice with dhal, rasam (watery hot soup) and avial (root veggies in thick sauce). But no meat!! Yes, you heard us, we haven't eaten meat in over 3 days!! Mike is a little light headed but coping fine. The only thing we were not too crazy ...

... and huge bats either hanging from the trees or flying about. On our last day we went around the backwaters in a canoe. In the end we decided to take an ore each and help move the boat along. It was a good job as I think I would have fallen asleep as it was very relaxing. The guy who took us out also showed us the dragon boats which can fit 60 people and take part in the dragon boat races.

... of "God's Own Country" (Kerela's state motto). The scenery was breath-taking and quite ordinary at the same time. The only "touristy" thing about what we saw were the other houseboats. Otherwise, it was rice paddy fields as far as you could see, local villagers and placid backwaters covered in violet flowers stemming from floating lily pads. It was one of the ...

... often from large houseboats made in the local lashed-together-with-no-nails-being-use d-at-all 'kettu vallam' style, is apparently very much the tourist thing to do in Kerala these days. My intention had been to catch Friday's tourist-specific ferry which made an 8 hour daily journey through the backwaters from Kollam to Alleppey, the more commonly used local name for Alappuzha. However, this late in the season the ferry isn't quite ...

We woke up having had no visits by the mice and not many mossi bites,so we headed to Namaste cafe by the beach to see the place in daylight.It was much cooler by the sea so after Glenn had a swim and some camera guy was finished trying to persuade me to get in we headed off for breakfast.We later learned that some reality TV show was filming ...

Perhaps, after reading the title of this entry, you are wondering like me why most places in the state of Kerala begin with the letter 'k'? I have set myself the task to find out now... Last Monday I took a night train from Margao in Goa to Thiruvananthaparam (also known as Trivandrum) which is the capital of Kerala. On the train I met a 58 yr old retired french headteacher, and he ended up being my travel companion for the next 3 days! He didn't speak much English so I was thrilled ...

... lots of red an green chillies) or maybe also because they get a different kind of tourist here. 8. different houses The houses are also different in Kerala, some really look quite like European houses or have some kind of courtyard in the middle. 9. more relaxed atmosphere Kerala is more relaxed, taxi drivers don't sound their horn all the time, people take more time to get to know you and they are less inquisitive (with the exception of rickshaw ...

Yeeeeeeeeees this is it paradise, ill upload some photos soon its awesum here Im going to hit the beach which seems to be full of hot people and not many hawkers, I got a room on the cliffs above the beack for 400 rupees which is about 14 dollars a nite , with my own bathroom and double bed yada yad , it kicks koh samui and koh pagnans ass so far but weell c. awesum