Day 8 - The heat gets to K and she goes native.

Woke up to the beautiful scenery of Kerala through the large bedroom window on our houseboat. The second day without hot water was a bit of a worry for K but the very helpful staff brought a huge bucket of boiling water and a jug, it actually felt luxurious! Another huge meal for breakfast and an hour sailing back to port we were very sad to see the end of the boat trip (although M was starting to pace the deck, as he'd been cooped up for too long!). Our car took us the hours drive to Fort Cochin and we checked into our next homestay with a very helpful host. More private than our last homestay where everytime you left your room they were standing out the door trying to be friendly.

The main sights of Fort Cochin were quite close so we headed off to walk around however it was very humid and the heat started to make a mess of K. We stopped for lunch and then headed to a shop for K to buy a cool "ethnic/Indian skirt" and ditch those hot shorts. We walked around the foreshore where the locals tried to sell us fish that they would cook on the spot. We then hired a tuk tuk, but unfortunately we had inadvertently jumped queue and another driver came over and got violent with our driver, shoving and grabbing him, pulling on his brake and refusing to allow him to take us. We saw his point but didn't want to go to him either as he obviously had a horrid temper. We decided to get out and leave them to it. We started walking, planning to pick up another driver further along the way. A few minutes later the original driver stopped and picked us up, which turned out to be a bad choice on our behalf,as he turned out to be another pushy driver, demanding shop stops, and asking and pleading for extra money continually.
After taking in the afternoon sights we headed back to our room and spent some time getting our neglected blog up to date!

Day 7 - More boating, but this time in style!

Before breakfast we took a walk to Alleppey beach, which was a nice looking beach, quite undeveloped, but with lots of local couples and groups walking along the water's edge. After breakfast back at the homestay, we were given a tour of the new homestay belonging to the owners of our current homestay, that was due to open the next day. From the looks of it there was more than a day's work left to do - but there was a lot of activity from the horde of builders on the site, hopefully they made the deadline!
We were picked up around 11-ish and taken to our houseboat which we were to cruise on for the next day or so. The boat was very nice, with a seating area and dining table at the front, and a nice bedroom with a view of the water.
The trip was very enjoyable, slowly cruising the lake and canals around Alleppey - along with the hundreds of other houseboats doing pretty much the same thing!

The service was fantastic - coconut juice on arrival, and huge Kerala style lunch and dinner, some walking (where M tried to climb a coconut tree and failed dismally) and a short canoe trip, and then to sleep looking out the window over the water.

Day 6 - Relaxation on the backwaters of Kerala

We took the tourist boat from Kollam to Alleppey -  a lazy 8 hour journey along the backwaters of Kerala, which in some points seemed to be separated from the ocean by only 100m or so of sand. The trip was very relaxing, we started on the benches on the lower level of the boat, but as soon as we left port we climbed up onto the shaded roof and pretty much stayed there for the whole journey. We had nice lunch and afternoon tea stops, and saw all sorts of interesting scenes. Rows of chinese style fishing nets, locals going about their daily lives both on and off the water, waving back at children as we passed, it was a relaxing and peaceful day. We had left in the morning about 10:30am and arrived in Alleppey around 6:30pm. We were picked up at the ferry station by someone from our homestay.

The homestay was in an old building, with a lovely older couple there to greet us, they were almost too eager to help!

We travelled back into town for dinner, and ended up wandering the streets for an hour looking for a restaurant - which is what happens when you have the map upside down!

After dinner back to our homestay and a pleasant evening's rest.

Day 5 - Movie star mobbing.

Arrived at the train station to get to Kollam - only problem was it was the longest train we have ever seen and no conductors or staff to help us find out where. We asked a couple of other westerners if they knew what was going on, but they had the same problem - no help there! We eventually found the a/c section and just picked a vacant seat. They were quite private, two tier (upper and lower) with a bench seat each and a litle curtain, a nice way to travel. It was the first station and the train goes all the way to Delhi so it gets busier further up the line, we were only going for 90 minutes or so. Train is a much better way to travel than the bus. Another very nice hotel for a cheap price. We went to the beach which is one of the most dangerous beaches we have seen - the steepness and the way the ocean chewed up the waves and dumped with such turbulence was quite scary, although M's wayward sandal was luckily rescued with much risk to life and limb!

On the walk back to town we ran into school children who had just come off the bus and were on the way home, talk about feel like movie stars! We were mobbed and mauled for about 10 minutes, they wanted photos taken, or to shake our hand, and to know our names - it got quite hectic for a while there!

Day 4 - It's what you do next that counts!

Headed to the airport to fly from Bengaluru to Thiruvananthapuram (also known as Trivandrum for obvious reasons). At the escalators there was a huge advertising sign showing Tiger Woods studying a shot he has put into a creek with the caption "It's what you do next that counts". Unfortunately being an Indian aiprort we weren't allowed to take a photo (though we did ask) as we thought it was hilariously apt.

There was a huge line for security and after queueing for a while a kind man pointed out that there were separate men's and women's queues - so K ran off to the other side. Unfortunately M was carrying 2 bottles of duty free (no, not for us!) and only at the very last minute did they inform us we coudn't take it through (we should have known though). Huge dash back to the check in counter, jumping all queues running flat out between floors we checked it in and made the flight.

Once we checked into our lovely hotel in Trivandrum we had lunch at the wonderful indoor/outdoor restaurant on the top floor. After lunch we walked for a while, then caught an auto-rickshaw to the zoo. Lots of locals there, though we felt sorry for some of the animals, especially the poor tigers that just continually paced the same short route inside their concrete cells.

After the zoo, further walking around town, and back to the hotel for a buffet dinner on the rooftop again, looking out over the palm trees towards the ocean.

Day 3 - My sore feet are sore from walking around Mysore, where I saw the Mysore Palace!

Headed off to the Bangalore railway station, bit of a problem knowing where to find our bus - the bus terminal was huge! With some helpful directions we found the bus, M was game enough to head off to the loo - but K took one look at the outside and decided she could wait for a better offer. 3 and 1/2 bumpy head banging hours later (they love/hate their speed bumps - in Mexico we learnt to beware the "topes") we arrived and started walking to the massive Maraharaja's Palace, situated within huge grounds and populated by plenty of Indian tourists. The main palace was amazing (once we managed to enter it, since the entrance was the opposite side from the bus station, so we had to walk all the way around the outside of the palace wall). The residential area of the palace was not quite as grand however, though there were some good bits, such as a huge sword and weapon collection.

After lunch we took in the rest of Mysore's sights, including a visit to the market which had a good variety of fruit, food, spice and incense stalls, after which we headed back to the bus station. Same confusion, which bus to take? We eventually found and chose a bus, to be told by the bus driver it was the same bus we took on the way there, unbelievable when they leave every 20 minutes! Shocking bus ride back (4 1/2hrs) we took the back seat and K laid down only to be tipped off by one of those speed bumps - more war wounds. We headed straight to dinner and fell into bed.

Day 2 - Don't stand there, stand there!

First thing after breakfast we walked into the city to get some information on what to do. We found the very helpful Tourist Information centre, where we picked up a map and a few pointers on what to see. After deciding on a few key sights, we secured the services of what turned out to be the pushiest tuk-tuk driver ever (more on that later)!

First on the list was Tipu Sultan's Palace, quite small (took only 15 minutes or so to go through), but interesting nevertheless. Beside it was a large temple, which we decided we'd also like to see - and this is where the fun with the driver began, as he started telling us where to stand, what to take photos of, what to do, etc. For example, Kathryn was in the middle of a Hindu blessing by the priest when the driver told her to get out because she'd be there an hour. Kathryn did as she was told - and the ceremony finished two minutes later!
The good thing however was that because he followed us around, he paid the little tips and donations required along the way as we had no small notes for change at that point.

Next stop was the Bull Temple, which had a giant bull statue carved out of rock. We followed the locals up to the temple, and as we entered we were both dabbed with red spots in the middle of our forehead by the priest. We were then able to walk around the back of the bull and out the other side. This was all fine, but as we progressed in our travels we did get a few stares from the locals, at least until we cleaned the red spots!

Final stop was Bengaluru Palace, a majestic palace built in the style of Windsor Palace. Quite grand, but we were also the only visitors, which was surprising at it was definitely worth seeing. After our guided tour we were taken back to the middle of town, where we had a tasty late lunch.

We then decided to visit the Lal Bagh botanical gardens, which were quite nice. We strolled through there for a couple of hours, before heading back to our hotel for a shower. We dined at one of Banglore's upmarket restaurants, Ebony, which though nicely positioned, was actually quite disappointing - both food wise and price wise - what's Indian for "rip off"?

Day 1 - yeah i know it says mekong but i can't be bothered changing it

So here we are again, off on another trip, this time it's to Harbir's wedding (courtesy of the 5 page gold embossed invitation we received the day before we left), with some leadup activities in South India.
The less said about the flight from Melbourne the better, Air Asia needs to be renamed so something a little more evocative of the flying experience, maybe "Sore Back Sore Neck (with skanky paris hilton wannabe air hostesses) Airlines" is a little more accurate.
We arrived in KL and made our way to Tune Hotel which is located at the LTCC airport (which isn't the "real" international airport, we fortunately worked out). Tune is owned by the same people as Air Asia - so you can imagine what the room was like. We had to play musical chairs with our luggage just to get into bed, but we slept as well as if we were in a 4-poster king size in the Maharajah's palace. No more skanky phw's though, their duties must be restricted to the airlines division.
A few hours nap and then we bused it into KL. We hopped on the monorail to KL Tower, which is like Centrepoint in Sydney, but taller. We walked up the forest path which was quite strenuous especially as it was so humid, took the lift 286 metres to the viewing platform, which provided reasonable, though hazy views of the surrounding area.
Back to the hotel, then a bus to the real KL international airport, and then the flight to Bangalore. The difference flying Malaysian Airlines was amazing - leg room, food, elegant hostesses, entertainment - budget airlines have their place, but you realise what "budget" really means when you're stuck on a budget flight for 8 hours!
We hadn't been in Bangalore long (about 10 minutes or so) when we experienced our first scam attempt! I guess we must look pretty naive, how else would the taxi driver (and his dodgy mate) think we'd fall for his story about how we had to pay the taxi driver for both directions, not just one!!
A threat to go and check with someone got us kicked out of the taxi, and we made our way into an official airport taxi, which drove us the 40km to our hotel for a decent full night's rest.

Day 30 - Bangkok "OK ...... so that's what the mummified remains of a serial killer look like ....."

We spent the day catching boats as one would normally catch taxis, having decided on our last visit to Bangkok that the roads are useless & it much quicker & cheaper to boat everywhere the skytrain doesn't go.
This was our third attempt at trying to visit the Forensic Museum, on our last 2 visits to Bangkok it has been closed, so finally we made it this time. We were not disappointed, appalling and gruesome, it held many parts of the human body in various states of damage as well as some complete corpses! Some of the most astonishing were from traffic accidents as well as unborn babies with two heads etc etc!! We were both surprised to find some people had brought their young children along to visit.
After having such good, healthy fun we headed to Chinatown to buy Kathryn a gold bracelet for Christmas. Unfortunately for Kathryn no-one seemed to want to take our money! They either said the shop was closed, or it was wholesale only or just ignored us all together, including leaning on the cabinets so we couldn't see....most strange. You go from being so hassled over a t-shirt or a $1 fare to no interest in selling you something that is actually worth some money....go figure....
We headed back to the hotel and then out for dinner - lovely garden restaurant, wonderful ambiance - shame about the food though, too westernised for our tastes, we've obviously been away for too long!
Off to another market to buy a suitcase to carry all our purchases home, we have quite a collection of carry on luggage now as we seem to do this every trip. Time to call it a day ..... flying home tomorrow!

Day 29 - Bangkok "I didn't think getting a tattoo would hurt so much"

You could call today a shopping day - with both Christmas and the end of the trip looming, we had a few things to catch up on. Headed off to Chattuchak Market in the morning - the market is huge but having been to quite a few markets on this trip in all sorts of places already there wasn't much there that we were too excited about .... after an hour or so we headed back into the centre of the city for lunch, in the fabulous MBK food court.
After lunch, off to Panthip Plaza to fill some orders for music and software, then later in the day we went to the Patpong Night Market just as the stalls were setting up to check out the latest in fake clothing and watches. More purchases there, Kathryn bargaining hard and taking advantage of the "first sale" tradition where the stall holders believe that an early first sale will give them good luck.
While having a drink at one of the less seedy bars on Patpong 1, we were approached by a seller of temporary tattoos that we decided to take advantage of (I really really hope it is temporary and eventually washes off ...... ).