I haven’t written in ages so I’ll just do a quick catch up and then write about Uganda. I think the only thing I didn’t write about was my last bout of traveling which was round south India again. I went with a friend I made in Bangalore, a girl called Faria from London who I love to bits!! (esp if she’s reading this!) We had a girls trip to Kochi with about 6 of us then the others had to return to work in Bangalore for Monday morning and Faria and I went round Kerela. The night they left we went to a Kerelan dance concert which happens every night, it was incredible to watch them. The makeup is applied on stage, starting a 6pm and the actual show starts at 8pm just after they’ve finished! It’s a work of art in itself! The faces a painted in huge bright colours, each of which have meanings (so green or red paint indicates evil characters etc…) – I’ll upload photos at some point, I even have videos of some of it. Then they reenact stories from the Hindu holy texts. After we went to dinner in an absolutely gorgeous restaurant on the water side (average 2 pounds per head!!), but the best part of the evening was the rain! We were sat out in the open eating and all of a sudden it started to properly rain, then there was thunder and huge bolts of lightening! We stayed outside eating, it was the first rain we’d had in 3 months of being out there and there was no way we were gunna miss it!
First stop Munnar, it’s a tea plantation area up in the hills and definitely one of the most gorgeous areas of India I saw. We took a package tour from Kochi which left at 6.30 am on Monday morning and took us to an elephant sanctuary where we got to help bath the elephants! I scrubbed behind an elephants ears! They were so docile and did exactly what their keepers instructed them. The most incredible thing was when the keeper scratched behind one of the elephants ears, he then promptly lifted his front foot for the keeper to stand on and climb up onto his back!! After we continued driving to Munnar, through the hills and valleys of Kerela, en route convincing our driver to come speed boating with us on the lake created by a dam (we saw wild elephants by the side of the lake baby!!). We arrived to find our hotel was one of the best we’d ever stayed at, complete with television, en suite, double bed and balcony overlooking the plantations and the sunrise (which Faria kicked me out of bed for, but I went back again 5 mins later, I really had seen sunrise practically everyday up north, I like my sleep!!). We walked through the plantations in the morning, then visited a really interesting tea museum where they showed you the whole process, and a spice garden on the way back to Kochi.
From Kochi we made our way to Varkala, a really touristy beach on the west coast, where we stayed for couple of days. On the first day we took a yoga class, but it was harder work than I’d expected and so I didn’t bother again! I got incredibly sunburnt in the sea, literally bright red, and so really enjoyed the full body massage we’d already booked for that evening!! Faria went back to Bangalore the next day to catch a flight back to London, and I stayed in Varkala for a few more days relaxing and meeting other tourists.
Then I wandered up further north to meet my Bangalore buddies in Gokarna, another beach area!! We stayed in little beach huts with no electricity, padlocks on the door or organization of any kind (they barely wrote down what food we ordered all weekend so trying to pay when we left was interesting to say the least!) But it was directly on the beach, you only had to walk 5 steps from the front of the cafe area to be in the sea!
India was an amazing experience, and I learnt a lot from it, but I don’t have time to go into detail about that! Some other time maybe. For now though I’m going to start writing about Uganda.
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