Shblog again…

Hey All,

We are being pretty poor with the posts of late but that is becuase we have entered a new section of our trip, the rough section. We are staying in a place called VattaKanal. Its a mountain village (2000ft above sealevel). We have our own two story house with a bathroom, kitchen, sitting room and bedroom all for 200rps per night(4euro). Now you might say that we are living in the lap of luxury but there is no running water, there is very little electritiy ie. 70% of the time we don’t have electricty. Buts its nice getting back to nature and all that. We have tasks in the morning like getting the water for the day and also sorting out kindling( small sticks to get the fire going for all of you with out solid wilderness knowledge).

Its good fun, we have breakfeast in the mornings with a bit of Chai, I make a good cup of chai! Then figure out what we are going to do for the day, either go for a trek, take a shower in the waterfall,  do some shopping for supplies, meet up with the lads(3 indian travellers) and have some dinner, I was telling them about steak and its how good it is so one of the lads took me to the buchers on his motorbike. Now its not the most hygenic place in the world but the way they sell the meat is hillarious. for any cut of meat is 80rps per kg. So I had a look around and was able to get enough for 6 steaks (Good steaks), and enough for 3 curries talk about good eating.

Thats pretty much all the news at the moment, but don’t worry I will get some more posts up soon.

Talk to you soon

Joe

Power doesnt last here long enough to finish writing a post….

Went from kochi after having a boat trip and watching a kathakali performance, keralan ritualised dance.. Every gesture the dancer makes with eyes/nose/forehead/individual fingers/etc make basic words, and the dance itself is telling a story (usually from hindu mythology) It takes years (12 I think) of fulltime practice, and before the performance is an hour of putting on makeup…

The one we went to was cool though, before the performance was a talk about hindu philosphy and its influences in traditional culture here.. I took loads of pics for a bbc contest, but the power was out so I couldnt submit…. If anyone wants 150 slow capture shots of a guy dressed up dancing just shout…

From there we went to Allepey by bus for a housboat for a night. Alleppy is a gateway town to the backwaters, a maze of interconnected rivers and lakes, and you can rent out converted rice (I think) carrying barges turned into private palaces.. Anyway was cheap so tried it, a nice experience, but think id head out in a small boat if I went there again.. 

Oh and not during monsoon, the mosquitos were so many you sucked in 50 everytime you took a breath once it got dark, the lizards had a field-day… Oh and the giant beetles (which surprisingly can fly)  the size of your fist scramble on the walls around you… But in fairness, you cant be squemish about bugs here, after a day you dont notice the giant ants, and them big things that look like giant mayflys (have the same sence of direction too, smack into every wall)… You only notice when theres a ridiculuos amount in your chai, even then if you were very thirsty…. And the lizards and chamelians an monkeys and millipedes are just cool..

Anyway we decided to head to the mountains after hearing about an amazing place, so we going ever so slightly off the lonely planet/rough guide track to a villiage called vattakanal in the ghats -”watch out for bison”- We couldnt get a direct train so decided to spend a night in Varkala (because I liked the name on the map), and ended up spending 8 instead…

Nice place, with an extraordinaryily cool place a mile or to down the coast  — where the waves explode (litrally -theres caves behind you) all around you, but only ever-so-slightly- saturate yourself, with eagles perched or hovering beside you …

Big cliffs and giant waves and a black sand beach, fishermans villiages outside the main beach (the main place is costa del sol in season, nearly deserted now) To dangerous to swim though, the waves reach 2meters sometimes….

When theres a storm, the rain comes horizontally at you from the sea, and the place is shrouded by a mist from the breaking waves, but its still hot enough to wanter around saturated wet — and not catch your death a’ cold..

So we finally moving on, in a net cafe in varkala town, catching the night train to madurai, will have a look round and then back on the road for a good few hours drive into the mountains.. The road there is famous for views, so hopefully its not pissing :)

Ian

Finally got to see a big storm, turns out last night was the first one of the season.. Its like thousands of firehose-chainguns aimed down on you, and the thunder sounds like someone battering galvenise right above your head… One strike was within 2-300m of our hotel, thought the place was expolding.. Oh and of course the power goes out for the night too.. Before all this we took a look at the chineese fishing nets, these are the ones on the front of every guide book to india strangly enough….

They work on counterwights and are pulled up by 4 or 5 guys..

Myself and joe had a go but he prefairs a supervisory role…

..And a days work…

Some pics, churches, churches, and more churches.. oh and snake charmers.. We went on a rickshaw tour, and in exchange for going into government craft shops for a look around, got a decent deal (he gets a litre of petrol commision for every two shops we walk in and out of…) Petrol, surprisingly, is 58rps a liter, about the same as ireland… Its fairly relaxed here, the highlight being the huge chineese fishing nets… Alot to see though, the city and its twin are separated by water so we’ve only explored one island so far, the gov boats costs 1cent… Have never been to portugal but this place seems very portugese still, more than goa, the posh people live in villas by the sea painted white and pink…

Portugese church

Hindu Temple (They keep cobras in here, but its ok coz they only escape when it rains heavilly)

Jesus-themed church

Jain Temple - they were nice in here, let you take pics and wander around everywhere, really big place, pidgeons everywhere and smells of insense… but there were people prayin all over the place so didnt feel comfortable…. (We also saw mosques and synagogs…)