After spending a lovely day on Captain James’ boat in Alleppey, Marieke and I headed down to Kollam, where we had an interesting stay at a local hotel. Still unsure of whether or not we wanted to commit to…
This is India
Coming into the trip, we had been told a lot of different stories about India, and what to expect. After 6 weeks in, here is a bit of our take on what we’d been expecting, and what we have actually…
When a Man Comes a Knocking – A Story of Dealing With the Unwanted Attention of an Indian Man
We hadn’t expected the knock at the door. It was 4pm and I had just woken up from an almost two hour long nap, my solution to the afternoon heat in Kollam. I was puzzled as to whom it…
Welcome to the Backwaters of Kerala
When we decided to focus our trip to India on the South rather than the North one of the must do activities we both agreed on was renting a houseboat on the backwaters of Kerala. Houseboats aren’t expensive relative to…
The Secret Garden meets the Jungle Book – A Visit to Kumily
After the tea plantations of Munnar we continued south by bus to Kumily a town that borders Periyar National Park, Southern India’s most popular wildlife sanctuary encompassing 777 sq km of land and a 26 sq km artificial lake…
Morning in Munnar
As the bus lurched around yet another curve, a refreshing gust of air sailed through the window, providing a deceptive sensation that I was my own separate entity, and not in fact merged with the other three individuals sharing my seat. Despite…
2014 Up in Flames
We spent most of the 31st unaware of how lost we were, walking through the less touristy district of Fort Kochin trying to find the neighbouring district of Manticherry. While it might seem that we had done nothing special at…
No Sore in Mysore
Due to the very high season falling between Christmas and New Year’s, we didn’t end up splurging on a nice place to stay in Hampi, as there really wasn’t anyplace available that was worth spending an extra ten dollars a…
My Heart Will Go On: A Hampi Love Story
On the afternoon of our second day in Hampi, Steph and I decided to seek out a quiet place to practice the meditations we had learned at the Ashram in Gokarna. We stopped in a particularly peaceful temple, built along…
Christmas in Hampi
While Christmas away from home is always a little strange, it was also my fourth time in the last five years. I have spent Christmas day in Nicaragua, Bali, Colombia and now India. Inevitably, it always seems to be in…