Kerala

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We extended our stay in Palolem because we loved Goa so much and left Palolem on Thursday 12 January instead of the previous Sunday. We boarded our first Indian train just after midnight (after a delay of course). We were booked on Sleeper class and had only a rough idea of what to expect. It was a bit of a shock to both of us in the beginning but after setteling down on our births we managed to get some sleep. It was weird seeing so many people crammed into a carriage, people sleeping, standing, walking around, sitting and even laying outside where the toilets are was quite unusual for us. It's quite exciting travelling on an Indian train. You see loads of people and vendors come in selling tea, coffee, food and whatever you might or might not need. The doors are open so you can look out and get some fresh air.

We arrived in Alleppey, Kerala after 15.5 hours on the train. Alleppey is not exactly the nicest place but we managed to find a nice place to stay and sorted a houseboat out. We spent one day and a night cruising through the backwaters of alleppey on the houseboat. It was a lovely experience and the food was quite good too.

After the houseboat trip we left Alleppey and took a bus to Verkala. Verkala is a lovely beach place in Kerala. All the accommodation and restaurants are built on a cliff and steps go down from the cliffs to the beach. It's very chilled here. You can get loads of lovely fresh seafood - octopus, prawns, lobster, shark, tuna, swordfish and loads more.

We almost killed ourselves today with one of us slipping on the steap steps down to the beach and the other almost drowning in the sea. The waves are huge here and the sea has a very strong current.

After Kerala we will be off to Hampi. We should have really done Hampi straight after Goa - now we will have to do it the other way around by catching two trains back up. We got told there are two ways to go there, both involving two trains, a stop over and both are about 26 hours long. We were advised of the better journey which we then booked. It turns out that the first of the trains is 26 hours long and the second one 3 hours. It only involves a 2 hour stop over whereas the other one would have been 15 hours, 9 our stopover and 9.5 hours on the second train. The first journey only involves one sleeper train whereas the other one would have been 2 sleeper trains. Both obtions suck and we are now booked on the first one. Happy train travelling in India.

I hope all is well back home. We are certainly enjoying ourslelves!

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