We began the day with a leisurely brunch out by the pool (who cares if it rains). Service is – slooooow, but the food was good. The bagel I ordered with my breakfast was 2 -18 inch long bricks of bread. Susan’s muffins became a plate of bread which consisted of 2 chocolate cupcakes without icing, a vanilla cupcake without icing and 2 croissants, and 2 “other things”. The hash browns were round but hash browns. The bacon as a ¼ lb of wide strip bacon per person. Nicky and Tim got pancakes and French Toast with 2 cups of whip crème per plate. This was considered an American breakfast. No wonder all the Americans are obese. After our tif with the checkout – they just couldn’t get the bill right or our names right or ... read more

Sunday, we get up and head out around 10 and take the subway to the train, we are going to Sintra. At the first subway stop Nicky sees a sign from the subway station that maybe we can catch the train there. Yep they have one, but we missed it by about 5 minutes. It's quicker for us to go into town on the subway and take the train from there. We find our seats and watch the country side slide by. About 40 minutes later we arrive in Sintra, along with the rain. Luckily we all have umbrellas but mine well, is just not right. It's toast once we get to Barcelona. We find the bus to make it to the quirky castle. ( Palace of Pena ). The bus ride is on this curvy ... read more

So Susan and I started our Portugal, Spain trip with a bust. We get to the ILM airport, get on the plane and taxi to the runway. They tell us then that ATC has delayed us, then 15 minutes later they tell us they are taxing back to the gate, Mechanical issue. We deplane and they say that it will be at least an hour. Oh no, we can not make our Amsterdam flight now. I call, it doesn't look good. The later flight to AMS is full, same with Paris. They check USair, it's all full. Then suddenly she finds a flight to London and a British Airways flight to Lisbon. We book it. Each of our flights were delayed but we made it to Lisbon about 6:15. Taxi from the airport and check in. ... read more

I see now that this one saved but didn't post so I'm posting now, even though it is late. -------------------------- We made our drive to Cochin and we found an ATM that worked to get the last of the money for the elephant and tips. Anil dropped us off at the airport and we hugged. He did such a wonderful job on our trip. The Cochin airport looks like a fancy hotel from the outside. It's not that fancy inside though. Our flight on SpiceJet was ok and we made it to Mumbai on time. In Mumbai we had to transfer terminals (about a 15-20 minute bus ride). But, we got to see the new international terminal from the outside. Wow. I wish I had had my camera available. It's beautiful. And the bridges leading to ... read more

Today is our last full day. Shelly gets up early and does a hike with ‘Baby’ the owner of Vanilla County. They hiked up a hill and Shelly said it was a tough hike. I instead worked on the blogs. After breakfast (a real Kerala breakfast), we hike with our guide Machoo (ma – achew like a sneeze). It was a tough hike downhill to the swimming hole. It took us almost 2 hours. My back wasn’t liking it but the scenery was wonderful and we learned all about rubber trees and bleeding the trees, we saw lemon grass, mahogany, jack fruit, rubber and many other tree types. Finally we make it to the watering hole. Oh the water was so cool feed from high off the mountain. It was a good way to cool down. ... read more