Blogs from Kerala, India, Asia - page 170

Today the travel agents got back to me - I CAN fly to Sri Lanka - for FREE! Wow. I really didn't believe I could, and so today I even took out more money, and yesterday I planned my way back to Mumbai. So now I have to choose between a new country and seeing more of India. It's such a tough choice!! I think I'm gonna go to Sri Lanka, though. The fact that I got the flight change for free, and I've heard such great things about Sri Lanka....I can't miss it! I'm sure I'll end up coming back to India in the future in order to see MORE - if I stayed here till I'd seen everything...well, even an entire lifetime wouldn't be enough! So I think I'm flying to Colombo tomorrow morning ... read more

On the morning of the 15th, Michael and I set off for Alleppey. We were looking to meet other tourists to share a house boat with, so we thought the earlier the better! The bus ride went well, with me finding a place in the women's section of the bus and Michael having the pleasant experience of having a man attempt to sleep on his shoulder in the back of the bus! Once we got to Alleppey, we started walking along the river bank to check out all the hundreds of house boats. They all look about the same (will add a picture in the -hopefully near- future) but have varied number of rooms, lounging areas, and decks. After about 2 hours of being hassled by every single boat man and looking through most of ... read more

Finally made it to Kerala! My last day in Palolem was the perfect conclusion to my 'longer than expected' stay - just laid on the beach for the day and then I went to say bye to a few people - Nick over at Smuggler's Inn, Jules on the beach, and by a stroke of luck I saw Ayelet along the main street. She was about to go to Cool Breeze for dinner - which meant I had a chance to celebrate going down to Kerala with an amazing piece of Banoffee Pie! At 11:00 I took a taxi to the train station (had a great chat with the taxi man - which won me a free trip ! wohoo!) and sat down near some other tourists. They were all going to Kerala, and so ... read more

Hello again! Well we left Palolem kicking and screaming, and took a flight to Kochin in the state of Kerala- right near the southern tip of India. We were again greeted with smiles aplenty and people being very friendly, naturally I was very suspicious of 'help' but it was totally unneccessary. Fort Kochi is a colonial town full of character, we had a ricksaw driver take us around the city to see all the sights- some known and some not so known! People from Kochi are mostly Christain or Hindu- however there is one Jewish family and so had the only synagogue in India-very impressive. He also took us to see a huge elephant - but the poor thing couldnt even turn around- he had it in his back yard. We also visited a traditional Kerala ... read more

Apres avoir passe plusieurs jours dans les plantations de the dans les montagnes du Kerala, dans le sud de l'Inde, nous prenons notre clavier pour militer. Militer pour l'importance d'acheter du the biologique et meme encore mieux issu du commerce equitable, parce que ce qu'on a vu depasse de loin ce qu'on aurait pu imaginer. Une horreur! C'est incroyable la quantite de fertilisants et de pesticides qu'ils utilisent pour le the, bien que selon plusieurs personnes rencontrees la tendance soit a la baisse: beau discours pour nous faire plaisir... Faudrait quand meme pas decevoir les touristes! Ils utilisent tellement de pesticides qu'apres la vaporisation on se croirait en hiver! Et c'est pas des blagues. On a des photos! Telle une armee qui s'avance sur le terrain pour affronter son ennemi, les pauvres hommes se deplacent en ... read more