Beach life

Beach life is great, fresh seafood, sun, sand & cool beers at sunset - we both switched into holiday mode and even extended our time here by an extra day to make it to 4 days. We spent our days walking along the coastline or sitting on the beach as well as venturing into the sea. It was very clear once you were in but lots of waves so I stayed well within my comfort zone although got caught by 2 waves which gave me a good taste of the salty water.

Whilst there, we met up with a lovely American couple - Heather and Bill from San Diego. They were living in Delhi for 9 months before travelling south Indian and then to Europe. We hung out with them for breakfast and dinner each day and really enjoyed their company and they even gave us 2 books which we really enjoyed reading so were grateful for the recommendations.

On Sunday morning we dragged ourselves away from this paradise we had found in Varkala and headed for the train to Kollon. We arrived in town, most shops were shut being Sunday and we felt upset we had left the beach for this uninviting and uninteresting town.

The main reason was to find a way to the back waters of Kerala. At the boat terminal we booked ourselves onto an afternoon canal trip. We had time to find our lodgings before we had to be back at the boat. We found a very cheap $4 room for the night, and headed back to the waters. We travelled on a small punting boat with one other guy from America through the luscious backwaters, small canals seeing daily life on the rivers. We saw spice plants and trees, coconuts being prepared for oil making and coconut husks being pulled off and piled up to weave into rope. It was very interesting and the guide was very good.

Arriving back at the hotel later, the room was very hot but we quickly headed out for dinner hoping for the room to cool down. In fact when we got back, it felt hotter, we were both sweating and considering sleeping on the balcony or the street, the cockroaches we had seen earlier however put us off. I took a cold shower and eventually fell asleep quite disgruntled at the heat but hoping I would lose a few pounds in sweat !! In addition to the miserable conditions, we both got eaten that night by one or two very greedy mosquito's!