South Pole. turn around

From Kochi, went south to Kollam, Stayed in an enormous government guesthouse which is ridiculously cheap, extremely inefficient, and where we were the only guests:

Kollam is one of the access points for the Keralan backwaters. Visiting the backwaters, and particularly staying on a houseboat, is touted as one of the best things you can do in India, so we did (we being Josephine, Simon, Olivier - all parisians, et moi). Here's our boat:

It was beautiful - reminded me of the florida everglades - palm trees lining endless waterways, eagles, kingfishers, kids running along the river bank shouting "one school pen" at the tops of their voices, great food, swimming in "lagoons," waking up to sunrise on the water etc.

It was a great thing to do, and nice not to have to "do" anything to see so much.

From Kollam it was a short hop down the track to Varkala, which lots of people had told me is their favourite Indian beach... Actually, there isn't much of a beach but what there is is pretty amazing: the sand is black and the waves are pretty good (compared to goa). So, did some (body)surfing.. Varkala is very relaxed, but extremely touristy, and as it becomes more popular, it expands very quickly so is a bit of a building site.

There's a lot of rain in south India at the moment - nobody seems to know if this is the end of the monsoon or the start of the 2nd monsoon which sometimes happens. Anyway, there were some phenomenal storms which I watched from a bamboo shack on a cliff over cocktails.

All my french friends and 2 aussies we'd met in Jaipur (and bumped into in Kochi) left Varkala on the same day, in different directions, but I stayed on to meet a couple of friends from Arambol. Both clinical psychologists, both northern, both alcoholics, both into s**t music (I actually listened to a conversation about the relative brilliance of messers blunt and powter), but both lots of fun (and it was nice to speak english quickly again!)

So, I left Varkala alone which was actually really nice - exciting to have no idea if you'll see anyone you know for the rest of the trip, and to be able to travel at my own pace (having spent longer than anticipated on the west coast) - and headed south to Kanyakumari, the Land's End of India (where the Indian ocean, Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea meet), in Tamil Nadu. I only went there for its location, so wasn't too bothered to find that, like Land's End itself, its a bit of a themepark. More sea-shells-with-your-name-written-on stalls than I could count. There were some nice bits of town, but it is a tourist hotspot (Indian tourists, that is).

Having gone as far south as possible, I had little choice but to turn around! I had a great time on the east coast, but it was nice to leave as most of the places I went are tourist-focused - i.e. its hard to have a conversation with an Indian which doesn't end in a sales pitch, which is fairly irritating after a while. Its nice not to have your guard up all the time, as when you do meet someone who just wants to talk, you're naturally cautious. Anyway, I headed inland to Madurai, a large city famous for the Sri Meenakshi temple:

I'm really pleased I saw this temple as, until this point I hadn't been overly impressed by the temples I'd seen. But to see a massive, living, breathing Hindu temple in all its colours, with all its pilgrims' colours, was quite amazing. I'm pretty sure it designed by Matt Groening, or possibly Rolf Harris though...

Madurai itself is a fairly gritty Indian city. Lots and lots of beggars, not so many western tourists, thousands of rickshaw drivers (none of them with any customers as everything is within walking distance), tailors, electrical shops etc. Despite an attempted mugging by an old woman, I found Madurai really friendly and would like to have stayed longer, but I'd already booked my train...

And unfortunately the only seat left on the train to Pondicherry was in first class. There are about 6 classes on Indian trains and the 3rd/4th are absolutely fine, but its worth seeing how the upper crust do it. It reminded me of the carriages in the fims about the Orient Express, or maybe I'm confused. The most comfortable bed I've had in India, AC, 1:1 staff:passengers etc. Unfortunately the train left at midnight and arrived at 530am, so I didn't make the most of it.

Had one of my most embarassing moments in India shortly after getting off the train, sleep-deprived, onto a packed local bus where every sleepy-eyed Indian was already staring at me when I saw 3 brothers taking their morning shit by the side of the road (as most Indians do at that time of day). The smallest boy did the biggest, and the smugness on his face made me laugh for about 10 minutes... Mature, I know, but I was tired.

So, I'm in Pondicherry, on the south-east coast. This was a french colony and the french influence is everywhere. Apart from the language, there are wide tree-lined boulevards, proper coffee, steak roquefort, and not many tourists - I imagine because the lonely bastard bangs on about the ashrams and cult here... I'm not well-informed enough to explain their beliefs, but its citizens-of-the-world, no nationalities, building a better future etc. Near to Pondy is Auroville, a purpose-built "city" for this community, which is very strange. Most of what I saw was very serious, treat-our-founders-like-gods-and-buy-their-books-while-we-meditate-over-their-graves stuff. Needless to say, I'm more taken by the french side!

I'm going south to a tsunami-relief project for a week, and then I'll only have 10 days til I fly back for Xmas. Can't believe how quickly this is going, or how badly I'm writing this! byebye.......................