Kerala:
Varkala
We arrived in India on the 1st of March and from what we had read the town where the airport is was not very exciting so we decided to take a risk and hope that there was a train to Varkala sometime that day! We got to the train station and luckily there was a train that went there but we had to wait two hours – but it’s better than staying in a town where there’s nothing to do!! We got to Varkala, got a tuk-tuk and away we went, found a cheap hotel by the cliff and that was that – a pain-free first day (which was a nice change!)

Varkala is a weird mix of Tibetan shops and Indian food laid out along a long cliff top but nice all the same. We’re starting to turn into beach bums a bit but we figure that’s OK because after India there aren’t any beaches for a few months so we’re making the most of it!!!

The weather has been pretty crappy but it allowed us (well me, I’m not going walking when it’s too hot?!) to explore a bit… We walked right along the Cliffside through some little villages and managed to spot a massive sea turtle plodding around in the ocean – this soon turned into something not many people get to see I don’t think – we walked closer only to see a huge wave take this poor little bugger over, then blood, then a dead sea turtle washing up on the shore?! Bizarre…

Later that evening we went to a Temple Festival, not really sure what we expected but we thought it’d be fun – plus they had elephants dressed up!! It was pretty cool but also kinda scary, especially when god knows how many Indians started lifting up a 50ft shrine and running around the Temple with it, wobbling all over the place!

Other than that we just relaxed on the beach (me attempting to turn any colour other than toothpaste and Jon tanning perfectly as normal – but he is peeling and I’m not HA HA).

Kollam
The main reason for coming to Kerala is the backwaters so we figured Kollam was a good place to start. We arrived at the train station eager to get out and see the backwaters so we grabbed a tuk tuk and dropped our backpacks at the hostel. Luckily enough the hostel could book the canoe tour we had read about so we paid for a tour that afternoon and plodded off to have a look around Kollam.

The easy answer is there’s not much! It had a good market though, loads of spices, fruits and the occasional goat head – yummy… We had our first Dosa – basically a giant pancake with ‘smush’ inside (this is what we call most things now, no idea what’s in them and they look like smush!) and some dipping sauces – really good and very cheap!

The canoe backwater tour was really good in parts, although our ‘driver’ did seem to take us to a lot of his favourite tea shops, think he earned commission! It was a really good way to chill out for a few hours and sit back and enjoy the scenery.

Alleppey
We decided to get the train to Alleppey as it was meant to be a really nice village lined with coconut palms and great backwaters tours – in reality it was a dingy little town that smelt really bad, Lonely Planet lied! To make time pass quicker (so we could get the next train out of there) we went on a government run boat to Kottayam and back (6 hours!!) costing us 40 rupees in total, this turned out to be really good and much better than the canoe tour we did (which cost 600!!, oops).

Cochin
Not relying on Lonely Planet anymore but more on what people we had met had said we got the train to Cochin. Instead of staying on the mainland we chose a guesthouse on Fort Cochin, an island near by. It’s a really relaxed place, easy to get around, very pretty and there’s a fair old bit to do.

The first proper day we were there we went down to ‘Jew Town’ – it had amazing old buildings, some fantastic antiques (I wanted to buy a ridiculous amount but restrained myself and only bought 2 little boxes!). We met some really nice spice dealers who seemed to take a liking to us and gave us a load of ginger, not exactly sure what we’ll do with it but putting it in tea seems like the easiest solution!

Probably the best thing there was the food – you go and buy your fish from the market and then take it to one of the restaurants nearby to be cooked, everything was fantastic, and you can’t complain when you get a whole 1.5 kg Red Snapper caught earlier that day, chips, 4 parottas (like thin naan bread) and drinks for under £3!!!

Although we really enjoyed Cochin, Goa was calling and we boarded our longest train journey yet (16 hours!)…

Goa:
Palolem
After being on a train for 15 hours, somehow we managed to wake up and jump off at a stop the train wasn’t supposed to be stopping at, but it was right next to where we wanted to go which saved us about 3 hours extra travelling.

We got a tuk-tuk from the station to Palolem Beach and we were immediately swarmed by guys wanting us to stay at their beach shacks, this worked out pretty good as we could play them off against each other and get a better price. The place we ended up going to was right next to the beach, only about 10 metres back off the main stretch so we couldn’t really ask for much better.

After not eating properly for the past 15 hours we were starving, we ended up in this nice little restaurant and although we had no idea what the food was like we decided we’d both try a cheese-burger (this is a risky decision as it’s not common to get beef in India; most of what you get is actually water buffalo or something else that doesn’t taste very good). It definitely paid off though; these were awesome, thick & juicy homemade burgers. We ate there most nights after this fine dining experience and had the best Tandoori Chicken and Beef Kebabs.

There’s not really much else to say because most of the time we were just sunbathing or cooling down in the sea. Kim did resort to using tanning oil to try and speed up the “browning” process, I’m pretty sure it made her go browner in that one day than she had the entire week we were in Varkala!

Anjuna
To get to Anjuna we had to go through the trauma of catching 4 different cramped buses which took about 5 hours. Unsurprisingly we were in no mood to go off and find somewhere cheap to stay when we arrived, but not having much choice a coin toss decided which one of us had that pleasure – Jon!

Everything seemed to be over our preferred budget in the town so we decided to walk nearer the beach to see if it was cheaper there. What we hadn’t realised is that Anjuna is massive and getting to the beach involved cutting over fields and going down dirt tracks – oops. Half way there some guy said that he’s got a place right next to the beach and it was our budgeted price, perfect it seemed, so we followed him through the back of his house and down some fields towards the beach.

Being completely shattered at this point we said it was fine and gave him the money for 1 night. It wasn’t until we’d recovered a little that we realised how bad this place was, it looked like it hadn’t been cleaned (ever), the beds were covered in sand and dirt plus the whole place was crawling with ants. Needless to say we decided not to stay there, write off the money and find somewhere else – it just so happened that somewhere lovely was just around the corner!

This was a town of firsts for us both; Sari’s, Henna and Scooters… I tried on my first Sari with help from the guy who ran where we were staying, it was absolutely beautiful but I couldn’t imagine wearing one all day as it was really hard to move around in. Later that afternoon whilst sitting on the beach, I gave in to one of the women offering to do Henna and had my hands done – looked scary at first but once I got used to it I really liked it. And then came the scooter (which needs a paragraph all for itself!)

Anjuna requires anyone who stays there to have a Scooter, there are no exceptions, and so it was time to learn. I wasn’t great but didn’t fall off and had a laugh, Jon on the other hand was also OK at riding but point blank refused to do it again – that lasted five minutes – he got back on and drove us to the sports ground where the owners said it’d be good to practice. He didn’t need to though, Jon was now officially a man of the road, and I just got to sit on the back and watch out for potholes!

We went everywhere on our new Scooter, across to Vagator, down to Baga and Calangute and all around Anjuna (trying to figure out where it ended!). Luckily we found a place called Little Vagator, which looked like the classic Goan retreat, and decided that after the Flea Market we’d say goodbye to our Scooter and head up there to relax.

The Wednesday Flea Market is famous throughout Goa so it was one not to be missed – after coming up with a strategy over breakfast as to how we were going to handle this massive market we headed off, being hounded the whole way of course, up and down the endless rows of stalls. It says in Lonely Planet this experience can be a little overwhelming and for once they were right so we headed back to our Scooter and went for a ride around to cool down and relax!

That about sums up Anjuna, Little Vagator was next on our hit list…

Little Vagator
To be honest the point of us going to Little Vagator was to do absolutely nothing, which we managed to do quite well! Where we were staying had a nice ‘chill out’ section, basically cushions all over the floor where we spent many a night (and day) playing cards and drinking beer. Another highlight of this little area was my kitty – the smallest kitten I have ever seen who lived, quite literally, in the cushions!

After the overwhelming experience of Anjuna Market we decided to hire another scooter and go to one of the smaller night markets a few kilometres away. The trouble is when you’re backpacking for hopefully 2 years you can’t really buy much so we wandered around and decided to go back and play some more cards!! The journey back was kind of funny as riding a scooter on India’s crappy roads during the day was fine but night was a little trickier, plus Little Vagator was in the middle of nowhere! We got back but as you can imagine it took a lot longer!

The season in Goa had pretty much ended and only the stragglers were left, that being said, the night we decided to go into Nine Bar, apparently a well known outdoor trance club, it was packed with loads of people on god knows what dancing the night away. A strange sight if you haven’t seen it before, with some of the worst dancing imaginable, but what you would expect from a Goan trance club I suppose!

Palolem (The 2nd Time)
We won’t bore you with yet more sunbathing details but we thought we’d go back to Palolem as it was closer to where we were catching the train from – plus the food here was excellent!! The final day of Goa had arrived, the bikini’s and swimwear had been packed away, we ate our last cheeseburger and headed for the train station and our wonderful 13 hour journey to Mumbai…