Kerala

After another 3 day ferry ride marked by days of lounging in my hammock, reading and smashing open coconuts, I made it back to the mainland where i spent a couple days with a local family through couchsurfing.com. They were incredibly nice and gracious hosts. I got to meet allot of their family and hang out at their office where they run a technology company that is very family-like. All the employees are close to one another and spend time hanging out and they all go to movies together and eat lunch together and what not. It was a really neat thing to see. wish I had more time to spend with them because i left the next day after meeting them. They offered to have their restaurant's chef give me north Indian cooking lessons and i just may take them up on their offer when i come back to Chennai to see them.

And then another night train for about 14 ours through beautiful rice fields and villages (of which i could only see the next morning) to South-Western India and the state of Kerala. I went to a beach-town called Varkala where I wound up staying way longer than I though I would because I, as always, met alot of great people. The beach was a nice whitesand beach with a big cliff behind it where springs ran down the sides and washed over the pristine sand, staining it like green halva (a sweet that looks like swirled marble). It was very easy to just stay at Varkala and never leave. We would keep saying, okay I am leaving tomorrow, but that tomorrow wound up being 4 days later.

Now A few of us are all meeting up 4 hours north of Varkala where we will hopefully take a "backwater tour" which is a houseboat, rented for 22 hours. You cruise down the canals and you have a chef on board making you meals and drinks. If it doesn't work out; oh well. I'm sure i will be back to do it again sometime.