Cempaka

02:50am: Today we head back to Calgary (yahoo!). We left our hotel at 12:30am in the morning for the airport. Said goodbye to the wonderful staff, who all asked if we were coming back again, that they truly enjoyed getting to know us and hoped we would return to visit them. Of course we would love to be back, maybe in a couple of years. The international airport is only a 5 mins drive from the hotel, which is great. There were no crazy line-ups although what we've seen in India so far has demonstrated that queuing is not a known concept - which infuriated us greatly. Many a time, we queued patiently for our turn only to be jostled by the locals. At the airport, there was some queuing, which was good. But we also ... read more

17 April, today we head back to Bombay. Our last day in Goa, we had breakfast downtown at Kamat restaurant. It is about a 20 minute walk from our hotel. Kamat restaurant was full of people so we figured it must be a decent place to eat. Their special coffee (south Indian coffee) was one of the best we've had so far. It only costs Rs. 20 (CDN 50 cents) each, while regular coffee or chai was only Rs.10. Keep it mind this was the “inflated” price because we were dining in the A/C room. We had tomato onion uttapam, uppuma and vada for breakfast, all were delicious. Stuffed, we wanted to take a rickshaw back to the hotel because my foot was starting to hurt but they demanded Rs. 50 when it should only be ... read more

Woke up a little after 6:00am to get ready for the days outing, our driver will be here around 9:00am. My foot still hurts when I walk. Still have to limp but pain is bearable if I walk real slow. The redness in my eyes seems to be clearing up today. Prem’s cough is under control as well. Had breakfast at a coffee shop a block away, just simple toast and jam with some south Indian filtered coffee. Meanwhile we made some calls to change our flight back to Mumbai which was scheduled for 16 Apr to 17 Apr just so we are not in a rush all the time. Our driver was prompt, at 9:00am. First we headed to an area called Old Goa to see The Basilica of Bom Jesus, meaning “Good Jesus” in ... read more

Prem had an interesting encounter overnight in the washroom. She heard a weird noise at bathroom window, sounded like a piercing shrill and something was knocking the window trying to get in. She froze completely, unable to move. It stopped after a while and she ran back to bed. She heard it again the second time when she went to the bathroom later that night. Not sure what it was in the end. We had enough of this old house, it’s very spooky and there are always strange noises from all over the house on top of the cricket, bird and sounds from other animals. We checked out today. When we went to settle the bill we were told that the credit card verification machine was not working so they demanded cash! We did not have ... read more

Breakfast is included with the room, it was a continental style breakfast with eggs, jam, toast, etc., we were hoping for some Kerala type breakfast but that's ok. Today we move to the hotel we had booked originally, the Ballard Bungalow. It is over 100 years old which belonged at one time to the Diocese of Cochin. We packed our bags and left it in the room, the hotel staff will move it for us to Ballard in the day. We headed out after breakfast to the building next door which is the Indo-Portuguese Museum which was formerly the Bishop of Cochin's home. The museum houses some early artifacts like processional crosses and altarpieces from the Cochin Diocese. Its a small collection but quite impressive. The Museum also has a very well maintained garden surrounding it. ... read more

NOTE: it's 16 April today, probably wondering what happen to us... don’t worry, we are still alive although have been very sick and recovering. More about this later. Also it was difficult to get internet access in the Kochi area that we were in and I didn’t try very hard either, so I've been continuing to write on the little Eee PC. We are in Goa now, managed to get a slow internet connection at our hotel so I'll be uploading when possible Today we headed out to Kollam (formerly known as Quilon) for a tour of the backwaters in a houseboat. We had arranged this when we arrived in Trivandrum. When we arranged it we had agreed that it won't be on a lake, instead it will be in the many canals and channels that ... read more