Lots of long wooden fishing boats are also parked on the beach.

Here’s the back side of our hotel room. It’s a cute and spacious place.. only about 50 yards from the beach.

We did make breakfast before it closed. Gabe used it as a chance for packing in some meat eating.. he made a Max-style sandwich (he said) flled with bacon and sausage.  I think he’s getting tired of Indian food.

We then went on another explore of the hotel. We found a good place to out a SamStone.. in a fountain in one of the hallways.

We came back o find our room had been cleaned.. but this guy had taken up residence with us.. Ick.

We then out and walked the length of the beach.> We came across these guy making a beautiful nude mermaid in the sand.. (but is it art ? )

The walk along the beach was nice.. the wind was whipping pretty good. The waves looked fun … and dangerous.

So.. we went in anyway.. it was a blast.

We think this rock looks like an elephant.

It’s fun watching the Indian families come and enjoy the beach. Most of them stand around nicely dressed and look at the sea. Some of them go in the water fully dressed. The women are so beautifully dressed.

We took a short walk midday to explore the public beach area. It’s nice but a little honky-tonk for us.

After our explore we went up tot the main building for a swim in the  ‘horizon pool’

Then walked down to the badminton court for some 2 on 1 swatting. This fiberglass woman guards the entrance to the badminton and tennis courts.. she gives me the creeps.

Gab ecreamed us most games.. and we were really trying !

Around 5:30 Manoj came and picked us up and we did some last minute shopping. The ride to travandrum was pretty interesting. The streets were really full of water.

Manooj took us to see a famous Hindu temple on the way.. It was several hundred years old and was right outside the Maharaja’s palace.

THths woman is selling colored paint for bindi’s, the dot that Hindu’s put on their forehead

The place felt good so we placed a SamStone there.

I think this looks like and angry face.. even though the statues I photographed was a deer and a hunter.

Just as we were leaving all the lights in this section of the city went out.. A few minutes later.. a few buildings came back on with their own private generators.

From there we headed into the center of Travandrum to finish our shopping.. Diane and gab made quick work of that.. We then headed back to Kovalum for dinner.  It’s a Hindu holiday today so the streets were colorfully lit.. and there were many Pooja (prayer) meetings going on.

We found a nice restaurant on the strand at Kovalum beach and ate a fantastic meal of fish and burgers (for Gabe) . I think it was the best meal I’ve eaten on the trip..

I particularly liked this bottle of chili sauce.. I think I ate half of it in the course of the meal..

Dinner with Manj was fun.. We’ve really enjoyed traveling with him.. We’re really going to mis him !

OK.. we’re leaving at a quarter to 7 tomorrow morning.. so I need to end now. I suspect I may have trouble blogging tomorrow due to our 24 hours of travel.. I’ll do my best.. It’ll be nice to be home..

Love you all.. see you soon. Gnite Sam

-us

Before we left Thekkady, Gabe put a SamStone in the pond at Spice gardens.

The folks at Spice Garden were so attentive and so sweet. It took a half an hour to say goodbye to them !. Many of them had come to us to talk about Sam.. I’ll never forget their kindness.

Here’s Deepestra and Jobin, the guy who helped us get our charger back.. Thank you !

They all lined up to wave goodbye .. it felt like a family send-off !

The rains last night flooded the streets even more.. it was nearly to the doors of the car.

We got out on the road about 9:15.. I realized that my camera was now broken (my backpack fell on the floor).. We switched to Gabe’s camera.   Here are some sights from the road.

We caught and passed Patrick Linda and Raj.. Ha !

We stopped at a tea processing factory . Here are the houses where soem of the pickers live.

Today was a Keralan Hindu holiday. This car was on a pilgrimage. You can tell by the flowers. 

Here come Patrick and Linda again !

This is strong communist country. They say it was he first deomcraticlly elected communist government in the world. It’s pretty cool.

Here’s the tea factory.. we got there about 10 minutes before it opened.

Here are the leaves in a washing hopper

This machine takes out the sticks and stems..  The tea then goes through a grinder, fermentor  and dryer. 

The dried tea is graded by grain size. This factory only makes powedered teas.. not leaf teas.  Tea dust was everywhere.. they had broom to keep cleaning the wall. Everyone had face masks on.. except us !

We took off from the tea place and started decending from 1000 meters towards sea level. Lots of twists and turns. Small towns, big towns, crazy drivers.. etc.

We came across this beautiful church on top of a hill. The setting was unbelievably gorgeous

We passed our friends Freida, David and Roddy  from Scotland. Everyone is doing about the same things so we keep bumping into one another. They’re great !

Another (!) beautiful waterfall

We stopped for tea and Linda and Patrick, Frieda, David and Roddy stopped too.. they hadn’t met so that was fun. We ate fried bananas and Chilli-graham fritters and drank masala tea.

Hey Chai.. this picture is for you !  (We miss you doggy !)..(You too Scott !)

We came across a cattle market.. Too bad the camera doesn’t capture smells ! Some of these things looked more like water buffalo’s than cows.. They’re horns were painted beautiful colors.. They could all stand to gain a bit of weight too.. We still haven’t  figured out which cows are holy and free and which ones are for meat.. 

Here’s a truck being loaded with raw rubber from one of the many rubber plantations.

We came across a working elephant on our travels.. he must have been working in the forest.

Shortly after that we turned down one of the small tracks that lead along the canals. Our houseboat was moored there.

Here’s our boat and it’s friendly crew !

The place is crisscrossed with canals instead of roads.

Bye Manooj.. see you tomorrow !

Mathew guides us out of the canal and we’re on our way.

Here’s our room.. nice !

There are tons of small boats in this lake… most being poled or paddled, but a few under sail.

Nothling we had to do now except watch the beautiful scenery roll by.

Fisherman kept approaching the boat asking if we wanted to by tiger prawns. None for us..

The first of several meals ..  they were all delicious.

We’d moored for lunch.. we got off on this concrete peer in the middle of nowhere.. water on all sides. No people. We’d thought about hiding from the crew as a joke.. but the prospect of getting left there wasn’t very fun. Gabe found a great place for a samstone..  High on the trunk of a tree.

..oct1907/Oct19075.jpg”>

Linda and Patrick again !

They let Gabe steer for a good long while. His second boat piloting experience for the trip.

We saw so many cool things.. Like this beautiful 400 year old church out on the jetty.. accessible only by boat.

The boats are so nicely built. Ours is one of 650 that are working the backwaters of kerala. 

Here are some more of the crazy houses perched on these narrow jetties. These houses may be remote.. but they are not without creature comforts.

Here’s why we didn’t want to eat the prawn’s… Sanitation is not priority number 1 here.

Here’s a bunch more scenes from inside and outside of the boat.

Diane caught the sun just right so it gave her green stars in her eyes.

We came up to this power pole just moments after it fell into the water. Even though the power was out, everyone was pretty nervous about crossing it with the motor running.. so they backed up…took a run at it.. and killed the motors and coasted over

The law says they have to stop moving by 5:30.. so we docked on a jetty in the middle of nowhere.  There was a great subtle sunset beginning. 

Patrick and Linda again !. They parked a few meters up from us.

We all took a walk up the jetty to near the end. There was a boat taxi stop there even though there was only about 3 houses in walking distance.

We got back on the boat and started in on the beer/soda with our  friends.

The boat guys worked it out so that Linda and Patrick could eat with us.. Both sets of cooks did their stuff and we shared all the dishes. It was fantastic.. chapatti, okra curry, dahl, mixed veggie curry, pickle, kerala rice, chicken curry and papadoms. Yum

After dinner, Gabe did some more work on his homework… He’s really doing his work on this trip. I’m proud of him.

Around 8:30 our friends headed home and we went into our room. We watched a few parts of some ‘Bollywood’ Indian musicals then  put in one of our videos.. I lasted about 5 minutes… then was fast asleep.   I woke around 4:30 as I’ve been doing every day for a while.. I lay in bed until about 6AM.. then went out on the deck to watch the sunrise.. which is where this blog began..

We got to watch the dancers suiting up. It’s an elaborate process.. Everything about the figures is exaggerated. The ‘good guys’ have their faces expanded by wearing glued on paper ‘cheeks’. They all wear bustles of rice bags tied at their waste. The colored make up is made from local minerals and  oils only..   . There is a strict vocabulary of hand gestures that allow the story to be told  while the dance is going on.

One of the most remarkable things is the ‘vocabulary’ of exaggerated facial gestures. I have a great movie of this.. but I’ll have to upload it later.

The dance production lasted about an hour. It was amazing. One guy chanted the text while accompanying the dance with tiny cymbals. Two other guys kept a beat with a high pitched drum. The characters didn’t talk.. but the ‘bad’ guy (actually Lord Shiva dressed up as a bad guy) made these wild ‘whooping sounds..   I’ve got some  great video of the dance.. but again.. you’ll  have to wait on seeing that until I can upload .  We got a chance to go up and be photographed with the dancers afterwards.. Which one is me ?