Sun, Sand, Storms and Cruises

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Wanting to ditch Trivandum as soon as we could, we caught a super early bus up to Varkala hoping to hit the beach asap (Apparently Jane had been doing lots of this in Goa but it was always 'tan o'clock for her!'). We arrived in to the idylic clifftop Varkala around 9am and it was definitely worth the early start.

Straight away we met loads of people who seemed to be pretty confused as to how long they'd been in Varkala and after spending only a day there we could all see why. The sun, sand, waves, western dress rules, fresh fish, yoga and sweet juicey pineapples we're an amazing way to pass endless days, and it was very hard for us to keep our stay limited to only 3 nights!

Apart from eating fresh fish cooked tandoori style from the sea we also enrolled in a coooking course to try and gain some skills for back home. We cooked up Chipattis, Paneer Tikka Masala, and an Aloo Gobi (which ended up on the floor - gutted!) which we're all damn good - although clearly not thanks to our skills. The evening was made even more exciting when the rains came, the roof leaked and we were cooking in a little lake on the floor!

We eventually tore ourselves away from Varkala and headed up to the famous Backwaters and Allepy. On our three hour village tour we saw boat building, pineapples growing, coconut trees beeing felled, so many children screaming 'hello pen!', and cloves, tumeric and garlic growing. The area was absolutely stunning a tropical forest with huge rivers and small canals to transport all of the above around.

After the tour we headed to our little homestay backing on to the water and had an amzing evening relaxing, watching sunset on the veranda.

Then on to Kollam on the 8hr marathon boat ferry. It was meant to be a tourist attraction but turned out to be all about a good read, chill and chat. The scenary was still amazing but the guy in front of us giving all the children pens just annoyed us so much!

It was a real quick stop in Kollam before heading up to Munnar the next day....

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Photos

safari jane
cruising down the backwaters, jane looks as stylish as ever