Kollum to Verkala

After the houseboat we took another boat to Kollum... it was more or less a big dirty city, so our stay was short. So short that we took few pictures, and none of them made the cut for the blog!

But our next stop Verkala, where we've been for the past 4 days.
Here is a picture of us ejoying at beer at sunset on our first night here.


And the beach our days are centered around. We stay up in a really nice guest house on the cliff with a balcony, and hike down to the beach whenever we're in the mood to play.We've made some good friends here, had a great time, and found ourselves in a routine that will be hard to get up. We've added a Pomme (Steve) and an American (Leith) to our foursome, and the routine is great. We get up in the morning and do yoga on the beach lead by Jo (yeah thats everyone including yours truly), then go play in the waves enjoying epic body surfing competitions until about 10:30-11 when we go for a breakfast. We whatever we like during the day (usually includes more time at the beach), and then meet up again for 5 for more body surfing competitions until sunset. As seen below. Then dinner and drinks after which I don't think has taken anything short of 3 hours since we got here to finish off the night... A tough life indeed.

And we had to include this... just because the retaurant doesn't have a liquour license doesn't mean they won't serve beer. Just wrap a news paper around it and nobody is the wiser... :)

In short, we really like it here. So much we may just have to stay another couple days...

Appely and Houseboating Indian style...

So... we left Kochin fairly quickly and made our way to Appelley ~ referred to as the 'Venice of Asia'. Here the thing to do is to explore the backwaters and its many canals taking in the way people live their lives in this area, and more than anything its beauty. There are cheaper options, but we decided to splurge a bit since the the 4 friends were just reunited. So for a day and a half the 4 of us were shown around the backwaters on house boat below (a bargain at any rate ~ but it cost us less than $100 per couple). All the food was included and we had a crew of 2 whom basically drove, cooked, and cleaned up after us. The boat was nothing short of decadant; so much so we had to share some pics of it...
Gunnar enjoying his cocnut drink served to us when we got on the boat...

And below is just a taste of some of the sites we took in...

Jillene sitting in the captains chair...


A picture at sunset... lets not kid ourselves, we were beer in hand from the moment we got on the boat.... we got on at 11, and this was at sunset. As you can see I was really cooperating with Jillene as she attempted to take a nice sunset picture of me.
This one might be a little better...


Jillene felt it neccesarry to share how the night ended for me. Fast asleep on the bow of the boat... just catching up on a little jet lag! :)Jilllene also felt it neccessary to share how ones feet looks at the end of the day when travelling India wearing flip flops...

India ~ Kochin

We flew into Chennai, but had to take a train from the east coast to the west to meet up with Gunnar and Jo in Kochin. So our first night in India was spent on a train. Not a bad way actually to start the trip considering we arrived and midnight and our train left a few hours later. We were able to relax in the so-so comfort of we'll used sleeper car enroute and make our first Indian friends...We didn't spend too much time in Kochin, but the highlight here was watching the fisherman using chinese fishing nets (or so we're told they're called ~ irrelavant to the fact that we're in India!). How they work should be self explanatory from the picture. Basically they drop huge nets into the sea and lift them (requiring at least 4 people) and hope that there are fish swimming by when they do so. In short, it didn't seem to work to terribly well... :)

And here is a picture of Gunnar and Jillene helping to lift the nets. They caught sweet f#$k all... :)

On the Road Again ~ First stop Singapore

So we're back on the road and we actually have to stick to our dates this time. Jan 7th to May 5th. We had to stop over in Singapore to see the cuz... no trip through asia would be complete.

And let's not kid ourselves, this was not a site seeing trip to Sing. I've been here 6-7 times (we couldn't agree how many over a few beers), and Jillene not to many less. Our time was spent hiding behind the our mugs of pricey beer...

Here is at least 1 picture Jillene took the time to take. Cory and I had other ideas...


A shot in the early afternoon where it all began on Saturday... And about 12hours and 3-4bars later... Friday we behaved, but Saturday we enjoyed ourselves. Sunday Cory had to fly to London (I didn't envy him), and we were off to India. Nothing like starting a new country with a hangover...