Kubla Khan, Kerala, Backwaters and Bedmates

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So we left Goa via Thivim (Tivim) railway station an hour and quarter late (were getting used to this!). However, as we were late we were treated to a chorus of peacocks as it went dark. As the trains are so long in India we finally sussed that we needed to be quite a way down the platform for when the train arrived. This is helped by a very useful board that shows where your carriage is in relation to the locomotive (it even points in the right direction). As we were quite late on we missed our evening meal so ordered breakfast of omelette and toast which transpired to be cold omelette and bread!! Fortunatley we bought snacks on board once more! We had what is know this time as '2ac', which means two berths eitherside with air con. David climbed onto the top bunk whilst I chickened out below!!! It's a big climb for a little person!!! Bedding is provided and I supplied my own ear plugs and got quite a bit of sleep! Our journey was along the coast and this time there was less paddi fields. However, I did notice fields of water lillies and they were in flower, which with the backdrop of palm trees was truly magic. We got off the train at Ernakulam Junction and found our way over to the reservations office to book the next lot of tickets for Friday. After an hour we caught a rickshaw over here to Kochi. Fair play to the driver his persistence paid off as we were set on getting the ferry. He said it would be dangerous and we had too much kit, he also said there were student demonstrations and it would take forever to get over to the ferry. We relented and he got the fare. And to be fair to him when we saw the ferry he had a point! The demonstrations are very mild and nothing for anyone to worry about! We were more concerned for the driver as he was smoking dope and the roads are - well - lets just say MAD!!!!

We headed for a homestay called Vasco Homestay where it is reputed Vasco da Gama died, but they tried to charge us high season figures and I said no way. We went round the corner and found another one where we paid 450 rupees. So we decamped and headed straight out and down for something to eat and then to have our first sight of the chinese fishing nets. Oh my these are truly something else. They date back to the court of Kubla Khan, and it takes at least four men to operate the counter weight system. There are about half a dozen here at Kochi but there are others to be seen around and on the backwaters tours. You can pick fresh fish from here, turn round and take it to a stall to be cooked up in front of you - how fresh can you get. We saw dolphins in the bay too and sea eagles yet again - they are getting quite common now! There are more photo opportunities to be done here so we will be re-visiting the nets before we leave.

In the evening we ate at a restaraunt called Talk of the Town. We were the only ones there and very nearly ended up as me being the only one there. Why, because David try to throw himself out of the window! This came about because the seats are benches with the feet almost in the middle. He sat down and then started mad arm swinging and various gargled noises as he headed sideways, before regaining his composure, dusting himself off and sitting back down - in the middle this time!! Fortunately he wouldn't have gone far if the worse had happened as there was a tiny balcony that would have stopped him! On retiring to the room that night we were joined by a new bedmate. Hmm, what could it be, cockroach, moth, ants, no it was a lizard. He shot up the wall in front of us and then shot back down and under the door, all so quick neither of us had chance to say anything until he had disappeared! Oh well that's a new one!

The next morning we wandered over to Oys for breakfast who also happen to have rooms and we have now moved here and are saving ourselves yet another 100 rupees to boot (and we have lizards here too). Now we have a bar and restaraunt to hand which is quite pleasing. We didn't do an awful lot yesterday, but we did head over to Teapot for High Tea. Very Very Good, especially the samosas and Death by Chocolate, they are now going to have a daily visit - Oh and the tea is superb aswell.

Today saw us heading out on a backwater tour by boat. This involves have a morning river cruise on o Kettavallan (rice barge) for four hours in the morning, lunch on board and then decamping to a dug out canoe. We departed at around 8.00ish and then waited the best part of forty minutes for a family to join us from Delhi. I hasten to add I think they were on holiday here! Our barge took us along the lagoons and wide canals, where we saw men fishing for mussels by diving from their canoes and dragging the nets back up. There was ordinary net fishing and some of the chinese nets were about to. We saw countless kingfishers, sea eagles, comorants and egrets. We stopped for about an hour on land to see the traditional method of extracting the sap from a coconut palm. This can then be drunk as non alcoholic but if you leave it for six hours or longer it turns to liquor. We had a mini trip around a few spice and herb plants and then onwards to a mussel factory. You see they don't waste the shells here once they have extracted the meat. What they do is effectively burn the shells and then grind them down into calcium carbonate, which is then used for in many ways. We set sail again and not long afterwards pulled up at shore for lunch. This consisted of a huge plate or rice, vegatable curry, tomato salsa, shredded coconut, shredded carrot and something else which was extremely spicy, which I chickened out on. The Mother In Law of the Indian family, dished out the spoons, but then stopped us from picking anything up until photos had been taken. The three year old daughter that was there by this time was getting a little anxious (I'm being polite).

Our afternoon was spent in a dug out canoe exploring the smaller man made canals. The mother in law almost fell in the water whilst trying to get into the canoe and was none to impressed. She was even less impressed when she found out it was about another two to three hours on a canoe! Our gang of four managed to hot foot it to the front and we managed to see iguanas, more birdlife and a seasnake before the aforementioned three year old got too noisy. We stopped and climbed up a steep bank and had fresh coconuts farmed for us. We drank the milk (I didn't like it) and then ate the flesh. Mine was all wobbly so I ate some of Davids which was a bit older and not so wobbly!!! When we turned to leave we found that the mother of the family had managed to get herself into the front of the boat, thus decamping us to the back. Bang went us seeing anymore wildlife. So David and Sam started rocking the canoe in a bid to get certain people to fall out - tut tut boys!!! We briefly stopped once more, to see coir being spun in the traditonal method into rope. All to soon we were heading back, once that is the family had managed to drag themselves away from the little food stalls along the road (even the driver and guides were getting annoyed). It took about forty five minutes to get back and we didn't drop the family off first, the driver took our little gang all the way back to Kochi first - driving past their drop off - before returning them - lord knows how much later! Is that what they call Karma!!

Tonight we are heading off to a Kathakalli performance. Will we watch the makeup and costumes being applied and then see a shortened version of the performance. Traditionally the performance goes on all night. Off now to Teapot once more - well we need susitence until we can eat later!!! Tomorrow night we leave for Trichy on an overnight train. We then possibly will catch the bus upto Pondicherry for a few days there.

Oh and hopefully you will get some photos very soon!

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