Chasing Noodles

This morning I woke up from yet another night of insane dreams only to find Nancy wide awake and reading, So we decided to get the day going cause we only had a couple hours left in Coconut Lagoon. Off to breakfast after an amazing shower in the “outside bathroom” with the sun gleaming in. Tell you what, I always said I wanted to have my honeymoon at Flamingo Bay in Mozambique but I think I’ll have to settle with that being the place I get engaged, cause I want my honeymoon at Coconut Lagoon. After a tour of the whole resort for travel purposes, we decided that because it was such a gorgeous day, we’d head out to Marari beach earlier. With our bags packed and all checked out we were taken to to the boat that would transport us over the lake. As we were leaving though, all our new friends ran out from the restaurant waving goodbye and wishing us well. Well Nancy was finished. Then began our little 30 minute trip across the water past house boats and small fishing boats. We were greet...

Today we had our first lazy lie in after deciding last night that we wouldn’t need breakfast after booking our curry lunch, but by 9 we were ravenous and headed for the restaurant to just snack on something. Some pancakes, roast potatoes, and an enormous parotta. Good start! Finally the sun came out so we raced to the pool to spend the rest of the afternoon there catching a tan. Lunch time arrived fast and furiously and there we were, back at the restaurant. This was our very first serious curry, a proper start to finish eat on a banana leaf meal. The way it is served is you get a spoon of all sorts of different meat dishes, with some roti and pickles. We finished off with a traditional dessert with banana and payasam, which is lentils in a paste. Tastes better than it sounds. With my nose running like the winner of the comrades and my brow sweating, I folded my banana leaf in half to signal that I was now done. Delicious. After lunch, the usual nap until our wake up call at 4 and bac...

Today we drove from Periyar to Kumarakom, yet another nail biting taxi ride and Aji seemed to be in an extra big rush cause he had a family wedding tonight. Never a dull moment with Aji. Somehow our conversation turned to Aji and we asked why he hadn’t married yet, to which he re plied: “I’m not pretty, maybe if I was pretty I would be married by now.” The next 15 minutes became a full on coucilling session, where we exp lained to him that he is in fact very pretty and told him the right girl would come along. This is a bit of lie though, he actually has no say in the matter. It’s up to the parents and he says 99.9% marriages are arranged. Then Nancy pipes up and says, “Well, I guess we not pretty either, cause we not married.” A small giggle from Aji, then silence. Hmmm. Thre e and a half hours, two nails and a patch of hair later we were on a jetty ready to ta ke a boat to our next destination: Coconut Lagoon. There is only one way to get to Coconut Lagoon and that’s by boat. We c...

Picture this: lying on a hammock with the sun kissing your skin, waves lapping up the sand in front of you, coconut trees and all sorts of birds around you. Yup, that's exactly where I am now. Can't write too much now, too much tanning to do before the rain comes... Not bad, we got two hours of sun today! A quick shower later and we were on our way to explore the nearest village which we were told was just 2km away, so we set out on foot. Half a km down the road we had to stop as we were about to die of sunstroke. Being India, a tuktuk was not far away and we got swept up by our very sweet driver from yesterday.  We arrived at the village and started hunting for our  coconut spoons but instead came across a bhindi shop. A photo shoot and bag of bhidi's later we spotted an elephant walking along the road and convinced our driver to follow him. Turns out he was on his way back home at the Shiva Temple and we were allowed to watch them bath him and then tak...

To a wonderful woman, you blessed us all while you were here on earth and you have left a legacy. An incredible Mom, amazing Gran and friend you will be sorely missed but Heaven can feel so lucky to have another beautiful angel. I am so sorry for your loss my family, but know that she will always be watching over you.

This has to have an entire post to itself because I need you to fully understand what Nancy and I have just been through. It is so unbelievable that I have actually asked Nancy to write her own experience before we talk about it to prove to you I am not exaggerating. What we imagined our massage would be like... Now stick with me on this one and open your mind and picture this. On arrival we were greeted by the friendly gentleman with whom we had booked with earlier.  We waited in the reception room with its lovely bright green walls, it smelt good and looked clean. Then the man started walking towards the front door and asked us to follow. A little confused, we didn’t ask questions and followed him out the door, round the back of the building, down two flights of stairs, through a passage and into a tiny room divided into 3 sections: my room, Nancy’s and the “steam room”. There was one tiny dull light and two sets of eyes staring at us from the doors. Immediately I felt...

This was number one of my list of things to do in India, and I did it. What an amazing experience, albeit bitter sweet. Wait, let me not get ahead of myself. We had an incredibly early start this morning with a 06h30 wake up call to set off to the Tiger reserve Park for a wildlife boat ride. Mmmm, not many wildlife out at the moment, don’t blame them though, we had wailing babies, screaming kids and extremely loud parents from the North. Think they heard us coming a mile away. We did however manage to see a family of ottos, couple of birds, some elephants on the top of a mountain that were so far away they looked like trees and a little black dot that the guide informed us was in fact a wildhog. Oh and some Indian buffalo. There are 37 tigers in the reserve but no one has seen them in over 12 years. That was a little disappointing but a fun ride all the same. After breakfast we headed off to the Spice Plantation where we had a very sweet man that took us on a tour around the place ...

Today was by far our most skrikerith journey of our lives. Five long hours of death defying overtaking on a mountain road that makes Chapmans Peak Drive look straight and wide. Then add some thick fog so that you cant see past a metre or two. Alas, that did not deter our lovely driver Aji.The hooting just got louder and longer. Hells bells, that was one of my top 5 worst moments of my life. With clear signage of  which toilets were Indian and which were European, we took deep enough breaths to last us as long as we needed only to find two massive buckets in the middle of the bathroom and then another one in the actual toilet, but no toilet paper.Then to add to our hellish, albeit exciting trip, we stopped high up along a mountain pass that was really breathtaking with all it’s greenery and a supernatural fog to take a toilet break. Down some creepy stairs, deeper into the fog to a landing that had a beautiful view of a valley covered with trees and jack fruit, around the co...

Last night after an afternoon snooze in the sun, well light cloud (exhausted after our day trip) we headed off to the Cochin Cultural Centre to see a traditional Kathakali Dance. Shew, I hav e never been so unprepared for something in my life. “Katha” means story and “kali” means play, so basically it is a play about adventures of god-heroes and their demonic adversaries. Here’s our experience: First off, we were the only two people to pitch up at the show, only to find out that it involved us watching the performer preparing and doing HIS make-up. The whole process was done in total silence, well other than the dogs barking outside. As we were watching, a very sweet deaf gentleman tried to explain to us what was happening, to no avail unfortunately. We simply smiled and nodded in agreement. The performer started by placing pink face paint on, then added about thirteen layers of more paint and powder, then very carefully applied black paint to his eyes and eyebrows. Not a bad job for a...