So we woke up at 6am to go on a jungle trek which turned out to be not so much fun...It was a 3 hour walk through the forest and wetlands. We saw monkeys... the endangered giant squirrel (which was the size of a cat)..spiders...dears...lizards...and leaches, lots and lots of leaches. I had at one time about 15 of these little leaches trying to get in each of my shoes...Thankfully me and Bonnie had long trousers and socks tucked in and trainers as these little leaches were soooo fast and were getting everywhere. On the floor everywhere were these little leaches. [View Full Entry]

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Our day started really really early to go on a bird watching walk with Matthew which was really nice we saw loads. We had a quick breakfast then took a tuk-tuk to the public government boat to Kottyam. The boat took about 2.5hours and only cost 10rupees ( 13pence! ) It was a great way to see the backwaters and we both fell asleep as it was so calm on the boat. We the took a public bus to Kumily where the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary is. The 4hours bus journey was quite an experience for about 90p. Firstly he drove like [View Full Entry]

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We left the coast area after some awful haggling on my side - almost causing us to have to walk to the station. We took the train to Alleppey in Kerala's famous backwaters, where we went to stay the night in someones house, Thomas, Matthew, Maria, and grandma on an island in the backwaters. After a auto and short boot trip, we arrived at their house and were immediately given a huge delicious lunch, which had at least 6 different types of curries. Matthew then took us for a nature/local info walk where he explained the history and local environment, including [View Full Entry]

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So we arrived safely in Varkala and after a lot of searching we found our b&b "BKs" , the area was like a maze. We spent the first day in Varkala walking around, on the beach, getting bitten by mosi's and getting sunburnt. On the 2nd evening we met Artiste Joshe at the Kerala Coffee house...a typical lonely planet kindof place i'm quickly getting used to/sick of. Anyways Joshe was a Yoga guru who invited us to some early morning yoga which we did. We met him and some other tourists in a hotel block and did at least 3 hours [View Full Entry]

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Awoke at 730am, deliberately this time, had a curry breakfast and checked out, made our way to the main station by getting a tuk-tuk/auto to one station then a local train, then another tuk-tuk where the fat driver not only tried to rip us off but fitted 7 people in one tuk-tuk! we only just made it in time as the station was packed. The train, the famous konkan railway was transport for the next 31hours all the way down to the south of india. It was supposed to be 27 but we decided to stay on longer and go to [View Full Entry]

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Woke up at 730 by mistake (my mistake) got to breakfast before we noticed woops. We went back to station to get tourist train ticket after much "Q"ing :P By the time we got our tickets it was 2 pm!!! Had some veg related products at station, the went outside and then meet a random guy called Mr Shah and he took us on the train to Dhobi Ghat the washing area, see picts, we then came back to the Colaba area, had our first Chai masala experience...we then went on a boat trip around the lovely industrialised bay with Mr [View Full Entry]

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Flight with the ba was great, curry already!! it was a night flight so we woke up in Mumbai, we took various public buses to the Colaba area, it was only 10 rs ( 15p ) each . We found the ymca for girls, ywca, really easily and checked into a 4 dorm room which was really clean. We dumped our bags and walked towards the "gate of India" it was really hot and humid. We saw the Taj hotel where all the attacks were, and then we to the Leopold cafe, which was a bit scary as there were bullet [View Full Entry]

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Only 5 days to go until i leave, feeling slightly nervous...ok rather nervous...and have the biggest list of things to sort out before i leave... including setting up this blog :) at least its one thing i can check off my list. [View Full Entry]

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