Zion Villa Varkala

Namaste from the seaside!!

We arrived in Varkala a couple of days ago. It is a small resort town set on high cliffs above a picturesque but not very swimming friendly beach. Most of the hotels and restaurants are set along one strip, which makes for convenience, but not exactly comfort, as the frequent invitations to go into shops becomes a bit wearing at times, and saying you will come back later is not ...

So far we have landed in Mumbai, flown from Mumbai to Goa taken a taxi for a tenner for about 2.5 hours from North to south Goa after staying in Mandren - possibly eaten the best Tandori chicken ever in a restaurant called Try Me again a full meal for 2 with lots of beer fora fiver. Where did the UK go wrong - OK so at least we managed to get the whole bathroom area down ;0) After North Goa we arrived in the idilic Palolim which is straight out of the bounty ...

... done a sterling job of shaving himself that morning. What hope did I have? They say you should check out your hairdresser's haircut as some sort of indication of his quality but surely that's done by somebody else? As I was to find out, my man had clearly shaved himself that day. As I was pondering all this in my head during the shave the barber finished what can generously be described as a ********** job. Many tufts of beard were left for me to neaten up ...

... nd the devil sticks. Mono Loco w*s given * glowing coll*r from Pi* the Germ*n *nd he h*d * f*nt*stic time d*ncing *nd drinking Kingfishers too. Chris w*s h*ving fl*shb*cks of his r*ver d*ys *t the silo in Holl*nd. M*ny l*ughs were h*d *nd * good time w*s h*d by *ll. We followed the crew who were singing 80's songs *ll the w*y *long the cliff to the Funky Art C*fe where there's no *rt for *n *fterp*rty th*t never re*lly got going. The young l*ds who work there were ...

... a guitar and fiddle at the Salvation Army for Steve and Kevin, and the team sang Knock, Knock, Knocking on Heaven's Door. Kevin then did his Celtic thing on the fiddle as we all attempted to dance behind him, and Michelle successfully invited a local lady to join in. Without going in to too much detail, suffice it to say that the build was a huge success as expectations were ...

... the only place I have ever seen this bird before is on the label of a bottle of larger), saw Herons, snakes, various spice trees, which one eastern european man was so excited by, every time one was pointed out by the guide he stood up, rocking the boat and took about 8 photos. I've never seen anyone so worked up about Nutmeg, and who was he going to show these photo's to? I felt for them. Saw some sort of massive falcon or eagle, brown in colour with a ...

... of canals here in Kerala which reach at least 100 km (don't exactly know how big they are). We went on just a few hour trip on a small canoe, and also got to see some rope-making and boat-making. Day was easy and relaxing, which was good, because tomorrow we have an eight-hour boat trip towards north in some more and bigger backwaters. Now we already feel like we're running out of time in India, and one month is definitely not enough for seeing much in here. Already now I'm ...

dear all, mike has the short straw and only a shortish entry this time round - no crying in the cheap seats! the usual short version: - train from madurai to kollam in kerala - cockroach ridden room lead us to a ayurvedic resort - an evening in monsoon backwaters on a small boat - train to varkala further down the coast in search of beach and found mostly corruption and the best bit... a casual 8 hour cross country jaunt took us from the dramatic ...

... been to the station to pick us up. What we want to know is, why hadn't the lady (we think his wife, but we're not sure - it seemed like an odd relationship) known that he'd gone and told us to wait there when we spoke to her? So we were far from impressed and things didn't really improve from then on. We really didn't like him and thought that he was quite a strange, suspicious character. A german lady who had also ...

... pretty good. For the most part, it was a two lane highway. However, more often than not, the two lanes became one as they were either working on the highway going in the other direction or there was some sort of accident. The transition from one side of the highway to the other was never as smooth as you would have hoped as the oncoming traffic often did not understand exactly what was going on and why they suddenly had to move over into one lane. There are two things I ...