Here in Kerala

Day 28 - Monday 20th February

4 weeks down! Today it was the Shivaratri festival, celebrating the birth of Lord Shive I think, not really too sure. But there was lots of dancing and singing and elephants and the like in typical Indian fashion. So I spent my evening going to a couple of Shiva temples and uploaded those pictures the other day, if there was any confussion as to what they were. Went in to town to send some post, but it was a national holiday so it was closed, so instead went into Aleppey town and ate some typical Keralan food. All over the place in India they have these tiny restaurants which serve 'fast food' where they'll have a few different curries in a large pan and some rice and bread always ready. So they offer you the choice of curry or give you a few to try and it comes instantly. It's a really good why to try loads of different stuff which all tastes good, and it's about 50p a meal which is a bonus. Forgot to mention they also come round and give you free refills if you've run out of any food. After eating there we took a look around the town and it's not particularly interesting, seems the only thing to do here is go on a boat on the backwaters. Unfortunately unless you have 100 quid a day to spend, you can't do it on a house boat. Going to go on the local ferry somewhere tomorrow to hopefully see some cool stuff.

Day 29

It's only been 1 week since I left Palolem, but I've travelled so far and seen so much that it feels like a lifetime ago. Starting to feel like I could travel forever, having such a good time and there's so much stuff out there to see. Went on the public ferry today with the forementioned Mike whom I met earlier in the week on the way here and a French girl called Aurore who's staying in our place. So yeah, got on a 3 hour ferry to a place which I can't remember the name of and saw some amazing backwater scenery along the way, especially towards the end of the trip where there are parts of the river covered in these flowers which makes it seem like you could walk across it. But the boat just carves a smooth way through. At one point, loads of school kids came on the boat and kept asking for pictures, so I've got about 100 pictures of Indian kids putting their face in front of the lens because they don't understand the concept of standing back. Eventually you just push them back and they understand. In Kerala, people seem to be really interested in white people and constantly ask your name and shake your hand, as if there are none around, I guess they're all out on the house boats. We walked around the town we got off at, then got a bus back to Aleppey and had some dinner in a really tasty Indian 'restaurants'.

Day 30

Today I had a really nice lie in, haven't had the time for it lately with all the tough times of travelling around and getting boat ferries and the like. As it is so hot down this far South and today was particularly moggy and humid, I could not go on any missions until later in the day. So I spent the morning reading and eventually went into town to the Post Office and sorted out Pops' bracelet, and then got lost for a bout an hour trying to find the way back to the guest house. The problem with there not being many tourists here is that the rickshaw drivers don't speak very good English, so unless you have the card with the address written in hindi they can't help you. So if you do forget the card like I had on this occasion you just walk around hoping to find your street. After getting back from that I then spent the rest of the afternoon reading and in the evening went out for dinner at another shoddy restaurant and had a great vegetable curry (2 actually) some indian bread and fried chicken, great food! Then we spent the nght sitting in the tree house listening to music. The other 2 are off tomorrow so I'll be pretty much the only westerner left here in Aleppey. I do want to move somewhere soon, but I'm really unsure where I want to go, and I only have 1 week until my flight so I've gotta move soon if I want a couple of days somewhere.