Life is a beach

We made the decision a few days ago not to stay here on the beach until Xmas and to do a bit more exploring of Kerala. Our rough plan now is to travel north by train tomorrow to the start of the "backwaters": a 900 km network of waterways, where people live on narrow strips of reclaimed land only a few metres wide. It's one of the things that Kieran really wanted to do in India, which included taking a House Boat into the backwaters for a night or two. Not sure if we are going to do that now, as the costs are high in this busy season, but we had a top tip from a friend who suggested taking the local ferry with an overnight stop over in a famous ashram, where the "hugging mother Amma" hangs out, check her out here, getting the hug and a meal before completing the next leg of the ferry ride the following day. Therefore seeing the backwater for a tenth of the price and getting a hug from a big breasted wise women into the bargain. From there we plan to go to the main town Kochin even though someone told us it was 'smelly' and from there head into the hills at Ooty for Xmas in front of a log fire (colder up there and therefore a bit more homely) where there are treks and horse riding.

We have been working on our tans , yoga and the beach way of life (late to rise, beach, late to bed). We did managed to get our arses into gear yesterday and take part in a cooking class. We both really got a kick out of it and threatened the cook that we would soon be opening up a Kerala curry house in England as we seemed to be "born to cook curries". I did have some small doubts that the praise was part of the cooking fee. We cooked 6 Curries and two breads. The most fun was the bread called Parata bread which involved slapping the dough into the table until it was stretched and then curling it like a Mr Whippy ice cream.

It took us from 9am - 1pm to make all the meals which were then served up to the public in a Thali (rice and 5-6 curries). While we joined them of course we soaked up all the praise from the customers as they ate our creations, some even asked if we were cooking tomorrow :-)

We wrote the ingredients all down for each meal, so hopefully when we get back we will be able to serve up some proper wicked south Indian dishes.

We are going to have some tandoori barracuda tonight as it maybe the last fish we have for a while and maybe a cocktail in happy hour, Passage to India anyone! ! I am starting to miss a pint of ale and a glass of wine, I might look out for a wine shop in the city ;-). We are going to miss Varkala but we feel it is time to move on. BTW mum this little holiday is part coming out of your Xmas money (the rest at Xmas) so thank you from both of us we have really enjoyed it and needed the rest xxx