Backpacking

Hi all,

M pretty much covered the haps for today. Thought during the bus ride to and from the canals I managed to suss out a few more of the road rules around here:

Overtaking...
1. If you think you cant make it..... you can
2. If you know you cant make it..... honk your horn and you can

3. Theres no such thing as GIVE WAY
4. Never, in any circumstances STOP

[/b]The boat rides
Also, in true India style the boat broke down after the first leg. Nobody bothers to tell you about this though but we (the Germans, Spanish and ourselves) kinda figured it out after 20 minute of still be tied to the island. In the end they managed to make one working engine out of the parts from two and we were on our way once again.

Fairly good trip, well worth it. Have since got a mean seafood feed at Fort Kochin and been checking out the local stores (mainly art & craft). Some pretty mean stuff that I think I'm gonna have to buy before we cruise outta here the day after tomorrow.

We opted for the prawns rather than the "Fry-D oistures and muscles" (good England, huh?) and they went straight from the seamongers table into the pot at this food stall / restraunt on the beach. Decent prawns but waaaaay overcooked - India style, so a bit of a waste.

Haha, the waiter at the beach / pavement restraunt type thing we had the prawns at recommended this bar to me. We cruised down to check it out and but it was so ridiculously dark and seedy we had to leave. Even located down a dark alleyway! Cant wait till Bangalore / Goa where drinking isnt such a subculture.

Like Urdu (old Indian language) I am starting on the Left of the page (well today and will attempt to add a Maya-retrospective to the already posted Nick-tales)

A Bugger of a night, mostly because it was so sticky hot and the sheet sacs were awesome but too hot to breath under them when one is hiding from mosquitos!! Anyway headed off to the 'Backwaters' with Crazy Erratic and Tooting bus driver to where we were loaded onto a houseboat complete with red plastic chairs. Rather an idealic ride along to the 'Shellfish processing' place which was non-operational on Sundays !! and to admire local medicinal plants etc. Highlight was Kerala Lunch... White rice (std), potatoe/pumpkin/some other root vegetable curry, salads of different types and some beautiful fresh yogurt lightly spiced!! Then punting along some smaller waterways stopping to have fresh coconuts and to see Coir ropes being made.

Exploring the backwaters of Kerala

Tonight made B-line to waterfront to buy our own seafood and have it cooked for us. Decided on a huge plate of Tiger prawns and had them made into 2 dishes. Beautiful flavours but a tad overcooked, like ordering med-rare and getting well done!!, just not what your mouth was watering for.

Cheers
Maya

Wheeeew, am sitting at an internet cafe in Cochin (South West Coast) after finally putting stuff from last week onto the blog.

Been a long couple of days. Starting yestreday with another trip to Navsari, packing for the our first Tour and leaving Matvad at 10pm for the drive to Mumbai. Again, a ridiculous drive (see above)

Found ourselves in what looked and felt like a different country after our flight. Bloody hot too at 31 degrees! Before long we were in a taxi and headed for the Kochin CBD to setup a game plan for the next few days here. Got a 5 ruppee (just over 10cent!) ferry across to the island of Fort Kochin and have got a room at a backpackers-type place here. Quite a different feel to the other places I've been in India with people being more friendly, a lot more tourists (all Germans so far) and more english being spoken. Had some yum Portugese-style fresh fish feed and have got a 7 hour houseboat tour of the Kerala Backwaters planned for tomorrow. Should be good, looing forward to bed tonight though!

Lots of cool architecture and even the 'Santa Cruz Basillica' here which was first built in 1510. Different stuff around because of the influence of the Portugese and British who had both setup decent sized colonies here.

Nick