MacFuller

30th April We made our way to Heathrow via the tube. It couldn’t have been easier. Once at the airport, we grabbed a tasty lunch and before we knew it, we were flying over Scotland and heading the furthest North either of us have been. Once we had got our bags back, we headed outside to catch a 50km bus ride to Reykjavik. It was so cold that our exhalation was visible; it went right to my bones and to think that summer is nearly here. Weirdly, the bus station in Reykjavik was in the middle of nowhere and there was only one bus company. We had no idea what was going to happen. We disembarked off the big coach only to climb onto a minibus and the driver said something in Icelandic to which ... read more

March 30th George insists on going as early as humanly possible to catch flights (which, I guess, is why we didn't miss one) so we were first in line at Etihad. Although first class wasn't an option (it doesn't hurt to ask!) we managed to score ourselves some emergency exit row seats! We were right behind the bathroom though, so people kept disturbing us by cutting through and there was a 3 year old next to George. Going to make a mental note about that to try to avoid it in the future. Once we landed in Heathrow and braved the non-EU lineup, we found Claire's smiling face waiting in the arrivals for us. She had headed out at two, and here she was, five hours later, to give us a warm welcome. We met her ... read more

March 21st Back on the beach, we haggled hard with the most enterprising of the hawking locals. This man had purchased a large (and extremely varied) assortment of body-boards, and was renting them out by the hour. The waves were relentless. Our book informs us that despite the recent introduction of blue-shirted lifeguards, a couple of tourists still drown every year. The lifeguards lead a harried existence, blowing their whistles every time they think someone doesn’t see the next massive wave that’s about to crash on their head, or swims too close to the rocks. The undertow is so powerful you can barely walk against it, let alone swim, so those poor lifeguards spend their days sweating buckets in their collared shirts and fretting about body-boarding morons who swim too far out. After about twenty minutes, ... read more

March 19th We woke at 0630 and grabbed a masala dosa by the bus station and hopped aboard a bus for a three hour journey from Kumily to Kottayam. It started with predictability. The driver was driving way to fast and missing absolutely everything by between one and five centimetres. It was a roller coaster ride and better than anything Universal Studios had ever thrown at us. We drove through tea plantations as we climbed a bit further into the cloud-covered hills. The plantations own everything. There was a noticeable Christian church that wasn’t just a blank four-walled box; it was ostentatious, even for the developed world, but still nothing compared to any of the Hindu temples. As we got lower, we passed through so many rubber plantations that looked so scarred as their sap is ... read more

March 16th We woke in Ernakulam, the adjacent town of Kochi. We were greeted with the usual hustle of, “taxi, sir?” We assessed the town and realised we wanted to stay in Fort Cochin. This was where most tourists stayed and for good reason. This area was a hub of trade to and from Europe from the sixteenth century onwards. The Portuguese mainly controlled it and there are a few relics left but they are crumbling into the sea. We, lazily, took a tuk-tuk to Fort Cochin, (the other alternatives were a bus and a ferry, but the ferry was quite a walk and we had our lives on our backs). After checking in to a lovely place called Santa Cruz and finally getting clean, we went next door for a holistic Indian healthcare experience; an ... read more