Dysentery- The come back! (and some other adventures)

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We were all so relieved that my dysentery had surfaces a week before we had to get on an over night train. Relieved that was, until the dysentery reappeared again a week later, when we were due to jump on the train that night. The next few hours were a blur of panic, doctors and buying ‘stoppers’ whilst trying to fit the contents of my room, into a significantly small bag!

Fortunately we made it to the train, found where we’d be sleeping and met the people we’d be sharing our little section with.
The next few hours were also a blur of cramps and squat toilets (I’d like to meet the genius that thought squat toilets on a moving train were a good idea) and solitaire and then it was 5 in the morning and we were somewhere that wasn’t Chennai and wasn’t stinking hot and was quiet-all unfamiliar territory!

We’d arrived in the Nilgiris and were driven to a place called Kotagiri, somewhere up in the clouds, surrounded by beautiful tea plantations, mountains and smiling faces. We stayed in a guesthouse, which is essentially someone’s home. We were up on top of a big mountainous tea depository, have a TV and no longer have embarrassing sweat patches nor am I struggling with dysentery. It was brilliant!

We’re now in a place called Fort Cochin. We’re staying here for the weekend coz our accommodation wasn’t ready but its truly worked in our favour!

We’re in the state of Kerala ( which everyone refers to as 'God's Country' ) and the train trip involved going past thousands of palm trees and beautiful countryside (we even passed an elephant, I think it was being kept as a pet coz it seemed to be in someone’s backyard). We will be about an hour out of Fort Cochin when we’re on prac but intend on having a few weekends here.

Fort Cochin is a cute, essentially tourist, town. There is lots of fish (we just had a delicious dinner with lots of fish) and on the waters edge you can go and choose your fish and a restaurant guy will take it and cook it for you for a cheap price according to its weight! There are lots of shops and I think I’m going to buy an Indian mu-mu! Just in case I put the weight I lost back on!

It’s lovely being here because this is the exactly place Mumma and Pete moored Ishtar when they sailed to the Med in 2006/7. Tomorrow I’m going to find where the boat would have been!

On the train trip up I met the dude in this film clip, Anwar Shareef. He’s apparently a famous Malayalam singer. Here is one of his
video clips!Hilarious!

Funny who you meet on a train on a satty avo! Anyhoo! Am loving you all from over here and think of you all often! (Still trying to think of a catch-phrase to finish the blog entries with...'in your corner' doesn't really work when I'm not writing a blog about boxing!)

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