Outward Journey

Our flights to Cape Town via Heathrow were relatively uneventful and as comfortable as could be expected.

I do like travelling on the 747 - there may be bigger more modern aircraft nowadays - but I always feel relaxed when I get settled in my seat on the 747. For our Cape town flight we could have chosen either A380 or the 747 but I had no doubt which one to chose. It may be something to do with the fact that almost all of my international travel - starting in 1971 - has been in the 'Jumbo' era. I know that all the US airlines have dropped the aircraft from their passenger fleets but it will always be my first choice.

Our arrival into SA was very efficient - no immigration queue and bags through promptly - until we got to the car hire. The first step with Hertz was straightforward and all looked good as we loaded up the bags and prepared to drive off, but having noticed some chips on the windscreen which were not noted, I went to get someone's attention while Linda had another look around the car. Not sure how we - or they - missed it, but she noticed that we had one very soft tyre.  That meant another 20 mins of paperwork while we changed the car and transferred the bags over and got on our way down town.

We're staying at Rouge on Rose again - think this may be our 5th visit - and it is great to be greeted like family or old friends even though we haven't been here for 18 months. Definitely feels like coming home!

Airports again

Earlier in the year someone said - 'Let's take full advantage of the festival season'. It seemed like a good idea at the time - so we have been at home in Edinburgh for all of August, and to be honest it has not been a bad month.

With a little encouragement and instruction from the boss, I managed to find a reasonable mix of theatre, music, comedy and other events for us to attend - and a couple of good restaurants in amongst the street food.

There were only two events which could be classed as bad choices, while most of the rest were in the excellent category including a great new musical called 'Buried' about 2 serial killers, and some exceptional stand-up from Marcus Brigstocke, Jay Lafferty and of course Frankie Boyle. Cora Bisset's play - 'What girls are made of' - was one of Linda's favourites, while the NYO Jazz orchestra was probably the musical highlight.

However, I now understand the attitude of some of our neighbours to the entire event - journey times across the city are a least 50% longer, it's almost impossible to move freely anywhere between George Street and the High Street, and the queues to get a drink....... It may be boom time for lots of local businesses but I can see that the proposed visitor tax will probably get nodded through on a show of hands

However September is upon us and there are signs that Autumn is fast approaching so we are off on our travels again today - an evening flight to Heathrow and onward through the night to Cape Town.

Spring in the Western Cape should give us some amazing floral displays in the fynbos and reportedly huge numbers of whales off the southern coast. There may be a bottle of wine or two along the way and who knows what interesting fellow travellers we may meet - watch this space.

Fellow Travellers

Alongside the friendly people of Kerala, we met a number of fellow travellers who were pleasant company. In particular, our fellow yogis at Hinterland were generally a nice group to spend time with – mostly European - divided between young women travelling on their own and ladies of a certain age, with a token male or two thrown in.

However, for the last few days we were joined by an American Israeli lady from Connecticut who was – to say the least – a little pushy, loud-mouthed and opinionated. Rather annoyingly, she made a special effort to get to the yoga sala before morning or afternoon tea to ensure that she placed her mat at the front of the class but would then always manage be the last to arrive for the class.

At Kaivalyam, we met couples from France, New Zealand and the UK who were pleasant company but we were slightly wary of an Indian family with a young child who screamed through most of dinner and then also screamed through most of the night. Our neighbours at breakfast commented on this and expressed their concern for the poor mother who had to live with this – but appeared totally unconcerned about poor me who had been trying to sleep in the room next door.

After the first two weekends of the Six Nations, Linda delighted in explaining to any French groups we met that ‘Les Bleus’ had been beaten by both the Scots and the Irish. Since there were quite a lot of French travellers, she had numerous opportunities to make her point.

At Thekkady, we were joined by a group of young Germans who were exploring India on hired Royal Enfield bikes – unfortunately one of them had a guitar and their evening singsongs on the rooftop went on a little longer than I thought acceptable. However, since there were 6 of them – and Jimmy C was far away in Hua Hin – I thought it best to suffer in silence. In contrast, we met a very pleasant, worldly couple from New York in the bakery and enjoyed a good chat.

At our Marari homestay, our neighbours were a family from Bristol who had live in Toulouse for 15 years or so and never made it down to the beach in the 4 days we were there.

Despite there being 17 or so other couples at Xandari, we never got more than 'good morning' from many of them and the majority just seemed to avoid any contact with the other guests.

Heading Home

Sitting in the hotel lobby with a couple of hours to kill before the taxi arrives to take us to the airport and time to reflect on our trip.

Despite initial reservations - which I still blame on the jetlag - we have really enjoyed our month in Kerala. The weather has been great throughout - it has only felt a bit too hot in the last week or so - and we have only seen one evening shower of rain - and of course no snow!

The accommodation has generally been good - only one homestay was poor - and we have eaten well and cheaply almost everywhere. With the exception of a couple of breakfasts, our pizza in Munnar and a pasta night in Thekkady, it really has been curry for breakfast, lunch and dinner - in fact we've been choosing the Indian breakfast option for the last week or so even when there were western options on offer. It has also been great to learn about the Keralan style of cooking and I am sure some of this will creep into our menus at home.

Linda tells me that over the last 30 days we have slept in 8 different beds - but only had alcohol on 6 days and no coffee either. However there is a good chance that we will be out for a steak and a bottle of red wine as soon as we adjust to the temperature in Newhaven.

We have seen most of the central area of the state from the sandy beaches on the coast to the spice and tea plantations in the Western Ghats. There is still a lot of Kerala to see to the north and south, and of course 28 other states in India. We recorded 93 new bird species - not as many as we have seen in SA but still a reasonable haul and we have only seen three people begging on the street - less than you will see on Princes Street any day of the week.

So if any of you are thinking of travelling to India, Kerala is a very good introduction - relatively clean and safe with little sign of people living in real poverty such as you see in the major cities across India. There is still a lot of plastic pollution  - although there also lots of plastic free zones - but it was hard to travel anywhere without the ubiquitous plastic bottle in your line of sight.

However the overriding memory will probably be the friendly, helpful and welcoming nature of everyone we have met along the way.

Kathakali - something different for the Edinburgh Festival?

Having seen a Kathakali demonstration and show in Thekkady, we booked tickets for the show here - very easy since the Kathakali centre was just around the corner.

As part of the introduction, we could watch the performers putting on the intricate makeup which can take more than an hour for each character.

Arjuna starting his makeup

About halfway there.

The finished article.

Even with a 'crib sheet' to explain the plot, I'm not sure I followed much, but it was a fascinating spectacle to watch - although I might pass on the full 6-9 hour performance.

I think this was Shiva and the goddess Parvathi

Slightly disconcerting to find that the all-powerful Shiva seemed to make a noise which sounded like one of The Clangers!!

Our last weekend in Kerala

Three days at Xandari was just enough and we left yesterday morning for a 1 hour drive to Fort Kochi and a couple of nights at Tissa's Inn.

Bit of a shock to the system being in the busiest city in Kerala as we are right downtown with a main road junction about 200m away. Lovely place - only 9 rooms and a rooftop swimming pool - in what was originally a very grand private house owned by a British Advocate - probably an admiralty lawyer!

Some interesting wiring arrangements

Since the Portuguese arrived here in 1503, Kochi has been an important port city which was taken over by the Dutch in 1663 and then handed to the British in 1795. Alongside the Hindu temples and the mosques, there are a huge number of very large Christian churches - both Catholic and Syrian Orthodox - along with convents and church schools on nearly every corner.

These guys are selling Perfume oils and Incense - some of the coloured powder is for the joss sticks while some is just to attract customers.

We have spent our time here wandering through the streets and Bazaar, visited a few shops and a couple of museums and eaten some very good seafood. However this is the hottest place of our trip - day time temperatures reaching 34C and only dropping by 5 or 6C at night - and the temperature will  just going to keep rising over the next couple of months -  before the monsoon comes in June and cools it all down again.

Even the goats were searching out a shady spot

Feels like it is time to head home even if our overnight flight will deliver us into a cold and wet Edinburgh on Tuesday morning. Have really enjoyed our travels around Kerala and Linda is already planning another Indian trip for years to come. 

Red Weather alert for Scotland and storm Emma in the South West of England

Hi to everyone affected by the wintry weather, hope that you are all keeping safe and warm and that any travel plans you have are not too badly disrupted - thinking especially of Ali and Neil, and Steve and Dawn who are all due to travel this weekend.

The only red warning here is for some of the sunburnt bodies beside the main pool at our latest home. After 10 days of Homestays of varying levels of comfort, we decided to treat ourselves to a couple of days at the Xandari Pearl resort - about 600m along the beach from our last homestay.

Quite a contrast - we have a large villa with AC and fan, a very smart outside shower and an enclosed garden with our own private plunge pool. However it is quite a small place with only 27 villas in total which also means that it doesn't have a liquor licence so we are back to 'mocktails' again. Lots of friendly helpful staff and excellent food - although a bit pricey - more like Edinburgh prices. In addition, there is easy access to the beach so we can watch the fishermen sorting their catch as the sun is rising.

Our last homestay was probably the best of the bunch but still a little challenging at times - the owners were very laid back and we were never quite sure if things that were requested or organised would actually happen. However it was right on the beach, they also served good food - although the menu was limited - and they could provide cold beer whenever we wanted it.

Will have to make the most of the hot weather here since it looks like it will be well below freezing when we get back to Edinburgh next week. Or maybe we should just stay here for another week or two - may have to check how much it costs to change our return flights!