Hello all,

Decided to spend another two nights in Kovalam, still getting over the jetlag and very much enjoying the cold beer. We wandered about the beach but after all the hassle from the fruit and sarong sellers we decided to move on to Varkala.

Day 5 was a 05:30 getup to get to the bus stop at the top of the very steep hill at 06:30, not good with a thick head first thing in the morning! We caught the bus just in time and made it to Trivandrum where we caught the second bus to Varkala. We both stood out at the bus stop and got lots of attention from rickshaw drivers wanting to charge us 400 Rupees when the bus fare was 34. We arrived with sore arses then caught a rickshaw to Rubybleu Guesthouse which was run by a really tall fella with wonky legs and his wife a raki master, they also kept a geezer that slept under the stairs but we didn’t ask.

We got the last room in the place, very nice and only cost 350 rupees so about 5 quid for a room, see the pics nice and clean like wilsons and still with an english toilet, we keep taking pics of the toilets not through some strange fetish but just so you guys can see the standards..english stylee thank god!

Varkala is not what we expected, I don’t think we expected much to be honest but it’s absolutely beautiful, the cliff top is stunning. First day we dropped our stuff off and walked a few miles across the cliff tops great for our tans you may want to know Jo & Jen (my feet are coming on particularly well Jen haha! look at my holiday feet..you will rue the day). Tried swimming in the sea but the current is ridiculously strong, no way you can just swim out and if you try the guards have something to say quite rightly. On our trek we found a really nice guest house, quite a way out but right on the sea front called Dream waves checked out the room and got the best one there the guy had just opened for the season that day so we were only charged 300 rupees so 4 quid ish…we’re getting better at this!

So this is where we are right now, woke up this morning to the sound of the sea, sat out on the balcony eating red bananas and watching a near kick off between some locals as one threw a coconut which nearly hit the other on the head, shouldn’t laugh but it was funny! We walked into town slowly as its just so chuffing hot here, then went to the local temple sorry can’t remember the name, had a wander around need to find out why they hang plastic dolls from trees quite scary really, we’ve also seen them throwing them in the sea? Set off some fire crackers and headed across the way to the temple restaurant which is a traditional Indian restaurant..aka a dirty garage complete with rats, cats, crows you name it, traditional toilet and no soap in sight with everyone eating with their hands including us. We had the local Thali which was really nice a combination of about 6/7 different veg sauces, rice, poppadom and chappati washed down with a few cups of chai and it came to less than 2 quid!! The locals were bathing and washing their clothes in the water which wasn’t particularly clean, saw them making a film by the waters edge but decided not to hang around in the background as 2 westerners just might spoil the movie!

So here we are, trying to stay out of the afternoon sun, plans for the evening not really sure seafood, which is amazing by the way and maybe an early one as we’re up early tomorrow to try and catch a train to Kollam so we’ll let you know what we find there, so keep posted for the next installment, hope everyone is well at home and before we leave I have a short horry story to tell, Mark even you wouldn’t have liked this!

Sat in a bar one day and go to the toilet where there was a beautiful butterfly fluttering around..very nice. Later on in another bar (we don’t spend all our time in bars by the way), go to the toilet and see a shadow of something fly over, a butterfly I think, then it lands in my hair, as I flick it off to my horror it was an enormous cockroach! At that moment i look up and they all start climbing over the walls loads of them it was horrendous, as I pegged it out pretty traumatized I realize that next door to the toilet is the kitchen and even worse this is where we had just had our tea! On that note I bid you farewell xx