Back to India - More about Kerala

So those of you who get my newsletter may be thinking that I'm leaving out a key part of the adventure in India. Just to let you know that "Caleb" and I went into this trip with admiration for each other but with no vision of a relationship ever developing mainly because I thought he was interested in someone else, and he thought I was just in K-town for a year and planning to return to the States for life. After a day or two in Kerala and clearing up our previous false assumptions of each other, though, we realized that our relationship was becoming more than friendship. So one of the biggest adventures was getting to know Caleb better. I'll just warn you now, you'll be hearing more and more about him on my blog.

After a day or two on Kochin, we made it over to the nice beach on Vypen Island. To get there you had to take a ferry and then a rickshaw (about 15 miles) to this quiet beach. This is the Arabian Sea by the way. The water was great! I loved just soaking up sun (something my arms and legs had not seen since August) and then running in for a little swim. We ended up spending 2 days on Vypen during our 9/10 days in Kerala.

Cherai Beach - Vypen Island
















Here I am on the beach with our sand model of Jerusalem.

Out of the 10 days we were in Kerala, we only took one tour, and it was on our very last day there. We went on a tour of the backwaters along the coast in the boats that held about 20 or so people. I guess I would have called them inlet waters, but you probably get the picture. After a few hours on the big boat (all human powered) we moved on to smaller canoes (held 6- 8) people each to see some more narrow inlets. Here are some of the pictures from that day.


This was on a main inlet the reflection of the trees was gorgeous.


Here you can see a smaller canoe and some small houses of the people of the area.


This is the human power that guided our boat along the tour.


Here is small inlet where we stopped to see rope being made from coconut fibers.

Of course here you can see them making the rope.


Our first stop was for fresh coconut milk and soft coconut.


My first coconut had plenty of milk, but no soft coconut inside. So I got to have 2 coconuts. I think this was my first...

Okay, I think that just about wraps up the India trip. There may be one more post to come about our adventures on "Goat Street" in India. So stay tuned. By the way, I'm thrilled because I get a day in Delhi in March, too, as a layover day on the way back from a conference in Thailand.