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When I´d booked them back to back overnight trains sounded like a good idea... by the time we reached Varkala on the south west coast of India I´d seriously rethought that decision! Fortunately we didn´t have anything more taxing to do than sit on a beach for the next few days.

Various people I'd met along the way had recommended coming south but now, having been, I've learnt to ask why someone liked a place so much before heading off there! Don't get me wrong, I had a relaxing few days in Varkala, just sitting on the beach or walking along the coast to discover heaps of deserted coves - my problem was that it was full of Europeans and not very India. What summed it up for me was when having browsed the menus of all the waterfront restaurants to find lots of Italian, Israeli and other western food but not much in the way of Indian food, I asked our hotel owner where we could get a decent curry. His response, well he laughed...lots. It seemed we needed to jump in a rickshaw, head 3km back into town, well away from the beach and... well, we never quite made it. Instead we stuck with the western menus and the entertaining beer lottery... sometimes we had our beers proudly sitting on the table in front of us, other times it was hidden under the table or, my personal favourite, the beer came decanted into a teapot!! Yup, picture a whole restaurant full of rather drunk westerners, all with teapots in front of them. It seems to be related to how much the owners are paying off the local police... or not in the case of the teapot users!

I left Mick, the guy I´d been travelling with for the last few weeks lazing on the beach in Varkala and headed up to Allepey where I planned to do a backwater tour. Someone had recommended a place called Kollam to me - they´d spent nice afternoon there being paddled around narrow canals in a wooden canoe. It sounded perfect and initially I'd planned to do the same. But then let myself get persuaded that Allepey was a nicer town. Well, maybe it was, I´ll never know, but for a relaxing canoe based backwater trip, well, I should have gone to Kollam! Allepey was, however, the place to go if you wanted to go posh on an expensive boat - some even had satellite dishes and air-con units attached! At times though it did feel like rush hour on the M25 canal equivalent - crawling along at one point I could see at least 15 different posh boats! The town of Allepey was an interesting place - I struggled to find any restaurants but in the process discovered a row of shops all selling umbrellas, heaps selling gold jewellery and then within a 5 minute walk of each other a mosque, a church and a Hindu temple! But I went to bed hungry.

I ended my trip in Fort Kochi, with it's very touristy centre but where less than a 30min walk away the streets revert to the type that I'd enjoyed wondering around so much at the start of my trip - the colour, the smells of spices and street food being cooked, the hustle of people trying to get somewhere and shops selling all kinds of random things.
Once a simple fishing village the area was granted to the Portuguese in 1503 by the Rajah of Kochi, who also gave them permission to build a fort near the waterfront. The fort that they built, Fort Emmanuel, was later destroyed by the Dutch and all that remains now is a cannon and a small section of wall.

I spent most of my time here hanging out along the waterfront, watching fishermen hauling in their catches at the end of the day as a big crowd of spectators gathered to watch. Other men waited with scales ready to weigh the buckets of squid that came in before unceremoniously dumping them on an ever growing pile as they got on with the next batch. And behind all the action crates of ice were ready to get the fish straight off to market, or perhaps to the kitchens of nearby restaurant. Early in the morning the vibe was much quieter - some fisherman sat smoking, chatting or mending their nets whilst others manned the huge Chinese fishing nets that seemed like a lot of hard work for not much gain!

I had some good encounters with locals in Fort Kochi and some not so good ones. Unfortunately as a western woman no matter how much you try and cover up Indian men see you as fair game for a grope. And to be honest it doesn't seem to matter whether you're on your own, with a guy or in a group of girls - they'll still have a try. Because at the end of the day what are you going to do?! It happened twice more in my last few days in India and by then I was having a real sense of humour failure about it all - the guys are usually quite sly about it, more rubbing themselves against you rather than going for an obvious grope, but the effect is the same and leaves you feeling really ugh. My response on both occasions was to turn round and shout abuse at the blokes concerned - they might not have understood the words but they certainly got the sentiment! Alas I have no doubt that they tried the same thing with the next white women that passed. On the upside though my response to one of the guys had an old Indian man who'd been snoozing under a tree come rushing over to check I was OK, with his mobile out already to call the police for me! And then there was the family that owned the home-stay I stayed at - run by a lovely young couple I wasn't allowed up to my room each night before I'd sat and had a chat with them about my day, the news, whatever. The one that I spent most time with though was the guys sister - in her late 30s and I think never married she was fascinated by the kind of life that I led and what women in the west do. As I was packing my bag on my last day she started asking me about the Internet. Despite there being at least 5 internet cafe within a 10min walk she'd never seen it but was interested in what it could do and whether it was as bad as people said. So with the clocking ticking till my taxi turned up I took her off to the internet cafe at the end of the road - after she´d gotten changed into her best clothes of course. Something so normal to me was for her a really big deal.

Next up Tango in Buenos Aries

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