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Other entries in Kollam

Oh My Palm Trees

After a lovely Luxuary Bus ride we have truly arrived in Paradise. Kerela is like another world, I still can't believe that I am in India...it really feels as though we have traveld to a new place.  Both Andy and I fell like we have started a different vacation and I think we needed that. We have been traveling pretty hard moving every few days and in tough places...now is the time to relax.

Everything here is lush and lushous, green and full of moisture. Banana trees, palm trees, coconut trees.  It rains in the morning and I love the smell and it reminds me of home... I kinda miss the rain. Our resort...yes we are staying at a resort...we feel we deserve it and it really isn't blowing our budgets...is gorgeous...I think we are the only ones here.  Its very far out of town which would later cause problems for us  since resort implies relaxation and isolation.  We are completely unprepared for the seclusion and have no idea how to relax...thank god theres a T.V here and cable and HBO .  I know that sounds crazy but you try relaxing from 8 in the morning till you fall asleep it really isn't easy.  We are ill prepared for such luxuary and I feel like the resort owner know it.  I finish my book within hours and though we both need to catch up on sleep there is really only so much of that you can do.  Our first day is the realization of this.  We are staying in a very lovely little cabin/cottage...the room is huge lots of space to spread out in, with the T.V, as mentioned, a refirgerator, a little writting desk and a front veranda with table and chairs that looks out onto the lake.  The bathroom is almost as big as some of the rooms we have been staying in and you don't have to shower over the toilet.  We are brought breakfast lunch and dinner and eat out on our veranda.  These meals will become the highlight of our time here, since we have nothing else to do and we paid a flat rate-only 750 rup-for two days for both of us to eat..what ever we want...so good...we look forward to meal times.  The food is quite delicious I might add...a little sweeter curries and stuff thanks to the addition of coconut milk and fresh fruit, which I realize that I have been missing...I LOVE PINEAPPLE! just wanted to put that out there...I do really love them.

So after our first day of restless relaxation...we made definent plans for the next one. We took the highly reccomended 4 hour village/canal boat tour...well this ought to pass some time.  It was just the two of us and our boat man in our wooden vessle.  We slowly drifted through green green canals that are just wide enough for the boat.  Sometimes ducking under very low bridges.  I have never seen so many palm trees in all my life...it was like a palm tree forest...what would you call a gather of palm trees...I don't know...forest is a bit to dark and damp for this tropical loviness.  We saw rice paddies and prawn farms-they live half their life in the canals-semi-fresh water and then are moved to the sea.  We stopped off for tea and freid banana snacks and about an hour before it was over we pulled over again.  The boatman said that it was going to rain-I guess they can just tell these sorts of things cause I didn't see any clouds- we kept moving but aboiut 20 min later we pulled up by this house.  The boat man told us to go into the house-what? we are just gonna roll up in these people house and wait out the rain? Yes.  that is exactly what we are going to do.  About five mintues after we enter these peoples home it starts to rain and does fo a bout 20 min.   So we just come in there are a few plastic chairs and we sit down while the three of them-the boatman, and the couple have a talk.  When the rain stops we leave and finish our journey.

We are almost through when we pull over again but this time its for coconuts...yum yum.  Our boatman hacks open a coconut and we drink the yummy water and eat the flesh-so delicious.  They use every part of the cocnut here its amazing.  Drink the water, eat the pulp and they use the husk to make rope which is a large export and big buisness for Kerela...the hard brown part  that we mostly think of is used for crafts.

After this 4 hour trip I am beat and can actually enjoy relaxing.  We have nice beach chairs that are laid out for us when we get back and I take a much deserved and needed rest in the sun.  I love the sun I have missed it and freezing my ass of in Darjeeling is a far distant memory.  We eat a delicious dinner over a movie and call it a night.  We are getting up early in the mornig to check out and travel up the backwaters to our next destination....Goa!!!

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