I N D I A

India..Chapter One

We arrived into a freezing cold Delhi at 9am 17th January.
Although I was returning to the motherland for my 4th time I had never been to North India and had heard the stories!
Every time I come back to India I still get completely overwhelmed and culture shocked. The noise, smell, and sights are something hard to get used to!
However, stepping out into the freezing air of Delhi in flip flops was acyually not too crazy..I think the cold temperatures even had the taxi drivers pretty quiet!
We seachered down hundreds of taxi drivers looking for our names as we had pre booked with our hostel..but we couldn't find it. Meanwhile a guy has been following us for about 15 minutes trying usto get a taxi with him. In the end he offered us his phone to call th hostel. He says he'll do it for us. When his is on the phone is passes it to me..and some guy is telling m that our driver has had a nasty accident and we shuld arrange another taxi! I had a quick flash back to 30 odd pages in the lonely planet about scams and waked away.
Just as I thought within 2 minutes our small happy chappy taxi driver arrives.
Welcome to Delhi Scam Central!

Our hotel was not that great- the window in our room wouldn't shut, there was no hot water, the floor was ice cold marble with rat poo on.....

So we headed out to the streets of Delhi wearing all the clothes we own. The first shop we went to was to buy extra blankets and huge woolen shawls.

We felt ill, as we had been in such a hot climate for the past five months and we certainly were not prepared for this!

 48 hours later we got a plane right down the South of India. It took 5 hours (longer than our flight to India from Thailand!!)

Finally we arrived in sunshine....38 degrees...that's better!

A friend of my parents Vinith, who studied in Worcester kindly met us at Trivandrum airport. He was so kind to us and showed us all the best places to eat great Keralan food!

We stayed in Varkala- 40 minutes out of Trivandrum. Varkala is a beautiful beach town in the Kerala. The beach was stunning, golden sand and huge fun waves. The backdrop was perfect- hundreds of sweeping palm trees and a huge cliff top at the back of the beach. The cliff was full of lovely restaurants selling delicious seafood! We had a fish BBQ most nights!

We spent the days lazing around on the fairly empty beach and watching tons of beautiful birds of pray flying over us basking in the Indian sunshine. I have never seen so many eagles in life.

One day Vinith took to us up the mountains, it was so peaceful and only one hour away from Trivandrum. The mountains were so green and breathing in fresh air in India is a rarity! It looked very similar the area where I live at home, the Malvern Hills.

After Varkala we headed down the coast to Kovalam. I had been here a few years ago with my very close friend Carl. It was so lovely to go back and reminisce about the great times we had there.

We also stayed in the same hotel as before "Wilson Hotel" which was pretty much luxury for us as it had a swimming pool!

In Kovalam we did a week of body mind and soul cleansing with aruvsydic treatment, massage and two hours of yoga each morning. It was hard work but brilliant! Even on day one they had is doing headstands; obviously Berwyn was far better than I was!

The treatments were interesting- they included sinus cleaning by pouring oil down our noses until we flemmed up all the toxins from our body- disgusting!

The massages were extremely oily, and we had to completely naked, so most of the time I was holding on for dear life so I didn’t slip off the wooden table!

Overall it was a very pleasant experience. Learning the foundations for Yoga was something we will never forget and hopefully keep it up when we get back to England.

From Kovalam we headed to Trivandrum to say goodbye and thank you to Vinith. We went to our favourite little cafe which did the best byriani for 27 rupees (35p) !!

I also went and bought a beautiful sari and had the blouse made for me within the hour.

At 5pm we headed to the train station to get the train to Alleppey. We got a rickshaw and Vinith went on his motorbike- however our driver took us to a different entrance, so we lost Vinith and it got a little stressful finding our platform as it’s not as simple at TFL!

Berwyn had bought the cheapest tickets possible 44 rupees for a three hour journey (57p) !

Obviously you get what you pay for... We couldn't find a seat anywhere the carriages were like cattle lorries at home, so we tried to get comfy leaning against the toilets!

We arrived in Alleppey late in the evening, but it all worked out well finding our room. The room was the best yet in India. It was stunning located right on the front of Kerala’s backwaters. The room resembled a beautiful old fashioned boat. Alleppey is a rather small fishing town- but still busy with all the traffic!

Our first day we headed down to the central canal and bargained for a tiny boat to take us around the backwaters.

It was such a relaxing journey through the small water ways, passing through the villages and watching the locals going about their everyday lives.

The following day we decided we wanted to splash out and get a "house boat" for the day and evening. It coasts 100 pounds which is very expensive for India and especially as we were backpacking.

Finally we made a deal. 

Our boat was called 'Tuna' and was lovely. At first I washy that impressed as I though it would be a palace on water for the price we paid, but after settling in it became beautiful. Unlike most of the others it had an upper deck section which was amazing! We had a view for miles! Looking beyond the waters to the beautiful rice paddies. And as we spent the day judging all the others we knew we had a bloody lovely boat!!

The experience was incredible. We were treated like kings... Delicious food, a feast for lunch followed by afternoon tea with banana fritters and onion bargies!