Still can't get photos from the camera. Grrr..

Cows on the beach

The rest of our stay in Cochin was great. The woman running our cookery course was fantastic, quote of the day from her - 'I'm Indian, This is my home. But I don't like India people'... She taught us to cook 5 different curries and chapatti, and even better we got a huge feast of it all at the end. She also explained to us the reason behind all the police with AK-47s on the island that day - apparently it was on terror alert.
The train journey to Goa was surprisingly enjoyable for a 15 hour train journey - comfy beds which fold away during the daytime and down at night, air conditioning which made a fleece necessary for me, and Biriyani brought to our seats. I'm actually looking forward to the next one on Thursday!
We're currently in Goa (Anjuna - previously famed for hippies, drugs and parties, now not so much), until Thursday when we head to Mumbai. We tried yoga. Kev was good at it. It turns out my complete lack of bendiness isn't designed for it.. We then hired a scooter and went on a bit of a tour (Kev drove. I dug my fingers in his back and prayed..). Conversation when we hired it from the guest house where we're staying :
Owner - do you have a license?
Kev - Yes.
Owner - for a bike?
Kev - No.
Owner - Keep some money separate in case the police stop you. They probably won't.

There are cows on the beach EVERYWHERE! It's really funny to see - they'll be a normal scene of people sunbathing on loungers, and then a cow in the shade of the umbrella! I want to put a photo with this, but unfortunately this computer doesn't seem to like the camera very much. More photos once I can. Off to Mumbai in a couple of days and then a couple of weeks making our way slowly to Darjeeling via Delhi and Agra amongst other places.

1 down, 11 to go...

Last night I had a hot shower. It was 30 degrees outside, I had spent the day with sweat dripping down my back, but it was the first time I've had the chance of hot water in a month and it was lovely.
We've now been in India for a bit over a week, and it's been great. We were going to check out of our bamboo hut in Varkala (South Kerala) twice before we actually managed to - the long, lazy days and evenings were very difficult to drag ourselves away from. So, after a final evening dirnking beer out of mugs, making sure the bottles were safely hidden away from police eyes (nowhere has a license, everywhere has it's own unique way around this) we made our way North to Kollum. Here, we hit the hustle and bustle of a busy town and spent a long afternoon being shown around houseboats that we couldn't afford to rent. We took a canoe boat tour through the backwaters of Kerala - a maze of waterways connecting village after village. Here we saw a lot of water snakes and Kites (birds, not toys!) as well as local village life as we made our showly and peacefully htrough the waters. That was pretty much it for Kollum, so today we headed North again to Cochin. After a confusing time at the train station we finally made it to the right train, and (after a telling off from the ticket inspector) to the right seat. At least it was good practise for the 3 long distance trains we have now booked - Here to Goa, Goa to Mumbai and Mumbai to Delhi.
So, after a ferry ride we are now in Fort Cochin, a lovely peaceful feeling town where we have arranged to have a Keralan cooking class tomorrow evening (followed by eating the results...) and plan to spend the day sightseeing around the island. Monday takes us to Goa, ith a week of yoga (and maybe the odd massage afterwards...)

Miss Rosie is now thin and beautiful...

A very flattering and gratifying thing to hear. The first time. And perhaps the second time. By the time it's been said by just about everyone in the village where I spent a year nearly 10 years ago, two things cross my mind.
1) Just how fat and ugly was I??
2) Stop piling more food on my plate. That's how it happened last time...

My overall feelings about the Sri Lankan part of our trip are very mixed - filled with nostalgia but tinged with a strange feeling of it no longer being home. I'm very glad we started our trip there, but it's only now that we are in India that the adventure really begins for me.

After a few days at the beach, we made our way to Kandy - one of my favourite parts of Sri Lanka. We did the usual tourist things - visiting the temple of the tooth , watching traditional dancing, visiting the botanical gardens (how I missed my residents visa and the local prices it gave me - multiplied by 10 for the tourist trade). After Kandy we spent some time staying with an old friend of mine, Darshi, who had been an English teacher in my village school, seeing and riding elephants, climbing over rocks and visiting numerous members of hers and her husbands family and friends. Each of these visits, of course, involving cups of tea, cakes, biscuits, bananas...

On our final day with Darshi, we were driven by her husband to the villages where I used to live. Now, the roads and driving in Sri Lanka have to be seen (and heard) to be believed - ng overtaking any way possible and horns beeping all over the place . But Rohitha's driving took it to new levels for me. It's all very well overtaking and generally taking over the roads if you are confident the driver can drive... but a little more concerning when you're convinced he can't. Never have I met such an impatient driver. Not helped by the long tales of the last two times he crashed his car. Or by the stop on the way by the roadside to look over the edge to a sheer drop where a car had gone over just the day before. After a few very near missed head on collisions, we arrived in the village to a special 25 year anniversary celebration of the opening of my old school. Where the exclamations of my beauty and thinness began and my plate was piled higher and higher with food....

We were unable to stay in the temple that had been my home for the next few days as they were busy with celebrations and overun with monks from the local area, so we headed to Nuwara Eliya (Little England) from where we made our way to Adams Peak. They say that you are a fool if you don't climb Adam's Peak once, but you are an even bigger fool if you climb it twice. Well, Kev was determined to climb it, and I was determined I wasn't. But still I found myself, for the second time, gasping for breath and forcing my legs to keep moving as I climbed stair after stair after stair. 3 hours of climbing up stairs at 3am with no sleep. The sunrise at the top was magnificent and as we sat of a rooftop watching the colours spread across the sky s thesun appeared between peaks, I was glad I had been an even bigger fool. Less glad once we started the slow, painful descent!

We made our way back to Thispane and the monks, and spent 3 days being fed endless plates of rice and curry and scrutinised at every meal to ensure we had eaten enough and that our technique eating with our hands was good enough. We went out for meals at friends houses, and more food was piled on our plates, and by the end of 3 days I was in no doubt at all that any longer and I would certainly no longer be 'thin and beautiful'. Kev was delighted to have his hair cut by Somananda, the 'second in command' monk before we left.

So, now we have made it to India. Currently we are in Kerala and I am relishing the choice of food and especially the array of seafood which is laid out in front of the restaurants at night for customers to make their choice and choose their style of cooking. I loved Varkala, the beach area where we are staying at first sight. A long straggling row of restaurants, guesthouses and shops full of beautiful, colourful clothes and jewelry on a high cliff top overlooking the beach - I can easily see how you could forget to leave.