Tropical temperatures and sunshine welcomed us to south India. Our first stop was Bangalore, the IT capital of India. It's not exactly a tourist mecca, but we'd planned to visit a childhood friend of mine who was unfortunately called away at late notice. We'd treated ourselves to a fancy hotel for the weekend so we decided to take things easy, plan our travels for the next week and enjoy the free wifi. Michael's stomach was not enjoying Indian food at that point, so it was good to get in a bit of rest.
We flew from Bangalore to Kochi, where we hired a driver and car for four days (our vehicle turned out to be the stereotypical Indian car, the Ambassador, which made for a stylish ride). Our driver Vidu was a lovely Indian man who really enjoyed driving people around and seeing them enjoy their time in Kerala, so it was a real pleasure to have him introduce us to the region.
We visited Munnar, where vividly green tea plantations spread across the hillsides. A walk high in the national park introduced us to plenty of friendly mountain goats which can only be found in Kerala. Our hillside accommodation near Munnar served up one of the most delicious Indian feasts we experienced on our trip.
Thekkady was our next destination, where we took a jeep safari into Periyar National Park and spotted monkeys and huge squirrels. We hiked for a few hours, but despite our guide's best efforts, the elephants remained in hiding.
A pleasant four hour drive brought us to Alleppey, where we farewelled our driver Vidu and boarded a houseboat for a relaxed overnight trip along the backwaters - miles of peaceful palm-lined waterways, with houses and villages dotted alongside. We stayed an additional day in the town area of Aleppey and enjoyed an autorickshaw trip to a beautiful palm covered beach about 15km away. We went for a big walk around Alleppey, where many locals greeted us with obvious curiosity and pleasure. It seemed that few white tourists spent time in Alleppey town once they had finished their houseboat trip.
We finished our time in Kerala with a very laid-back stay in the small fishing town of Fort Kochi, where we wandered sleepy streets on Sunday morning, pursued by autorickshaw drivers trying sell trips to spice markets - the main selling point being that "business is very slow on Sundays."
Our week in Kerala was very rewarding and we were glad we'd changed plans to include it - we had originally planned to visit Goa, but it sounded like we'd enjoy Kerala more than Goa's beach and foreign tourist scene. Kerala was certainly well visited, but the majority of the tourists were Indian. With the world's first democratically elected communist government and a 100% literacy rate, Kerala seemed to have greater equality than most other places we'd visited in India and we didn't see anybody living on the streets, which was very different from the poverty in the North.
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