Hello all,

I know we've been a bit slack on the email front recently so let us bring you up to date on our activities;

After Cochin, where we last left you, we took a boat South to Trivandrum, in South Kerala. The boat trip, through the backwaters of Kerala, which are a series of canals and rivers that run literally just behind the West coast beaches, was promised to be the highlight of our trip to the state. As such, it was a little disappointing. It would be better billed as a pleasant day's boat ride through some rivers... I'm sure, however, that the houseboat cruises, in a traditional Keralan houseboat, would be a lovely idea and might rise to deserve the title of 'trip highlight' but we couldn't afford the 100 US$ per night that they wanted for it so we took the ferry.

Arriving in Trivandrum, the state capital of Kerala, our first thought was to head for the beach (naturally) but the news warned of a cyclone heading in across the East coast, which promised a few problems (such as 150+ km winds) for our beach hut, when we got one. Following the advice of our paranoid natures, therefore, we holed up in the largest, most solid looking concrete hotel that we could find and watched BBC World until we were convinced that it was safe to go outside once more. This took about 2 days. The cyclone (I forget its name now) was roughly the size of South India and made landfall at Madras (now Chennai) and made its way South West from there. There are a couple less villages around Madras now; they got deposited in the next state. The cyclone did, however, manage a wonderful disappearing trick after a couple of days and so we got our swimming togs on and shot off to the beach.

The beach local to Trivandrum is Kovalam, a series of bays only about 10 miles outside of town. Kovalam beach is OK, it's certainly better than Bournemouth, unfortunately the restaurants are fully aware of their captive market and so the general quality of the food was not what we expected after having sampled the dishes just up the road, in Trivandrum. The local authorities also have an interesting attitude towards beer. We noticed that not one of the beach cafes and restaurants had beer on their menu, although one of the really expensive places up on the cliffs is rumoured to have a license, but almost all sold it. We couldn't quite work out what was going on, especially as the beach was crawling with cops most of the day. Things became a little clearer (if you can call it that) when we read a newspaper article, which mentioned that the beach bar owners had been campaigning to be left alone by the authorities, who are always on their backs about serving alcohol. It seems that there is a special dispensation for beach bar owners, who are allowed to carry 2 1/2 litres of beer "for the convenience of foreign tourists." Here's to convenience...

The beach itself was fine, although most afternoons would find a few thousand puffer fish washed up on the shore (don't ask, I don't know) and aside from the mediocre food we had a nice few days. Body surfing was a particular laugh, although I did lose my watch whilst a wave was doing its best to drown me.

From Kovalam, we moved down the coast to Kanyakumari, which is the southernmost tip of the peninsular sub-continent. Yawn. Not a horrible place, but not quite as interesting as we had been led to believe. The most interesting thing about Kanyakumari, is not its location on the Southern tip, but that (probably due to this) the 'Wandering Monk' [Swami Vivekananda] has his memorial and museum here. Now, I will have to do some more research into this (if I can be bothered) but I've got an idea that this is the bloke who started off the Hare Krishna cult in the west. He was a disciple of a guy called Rama Krishna (not Krishna the deity, some but beardy sadu type bloke) and was picked to take over from him. The wandering monk's life was characterised by (wait for it...) a trip that he took around India, from Varanasi to the Himalayas and right down to the Southern tip at Kanyakumari, where he sat on a rock until somebody finally came along and built a statue of him. He seems to have been quite a progressive thinker, supporting the abolishment of untouchability (before Gandhi was a glint in the rickshaw driver's eye) and equal rights for women etc. He felt that he could help India to progress in the world, if he went to the US and traded India's spiritual knowledge for techno secrets. He started at a conference in Chicago in 1893 at some religious conference, where he wowed the crowd and then proceeded to tour the US and Europe giving lectures on Hindu spiritualism, after which he returned home and set up the Ramakrishna mission, which is where I think all those lads with top knots, orange shirts and macramé bags who hang around Oxford Circus tube trying to sell books on tantric sex etc come from. So, unfortunately, he traded Hindu spiritualism not for the secrets of western industrialisation but for a handful of aimless students after an excuse not to wash for 6 months.

From Kanyakumari to Madurai, which is well worth a visit. Madurai is a town (which in Indian terms means a population of between 1 and 5 million) in the foothills of Tamil Nadu, India's major Southern state. Geographically, Madurai is a nice size and climate to tour by bicycle, which is good, because bikes are easy to find and cheap to hire (about 5p an hour.) There's loads to see in Madurai, along with the Gandhi museum, where you can spend an hour or so feeling guilty about being British, the Sri Meenakshi temple, which is a 'kin enormous temple in the centre of the city and the Madurai tank, which is an artificial lake on the outskirts of town, where they have lots of ceremonies and stuff (although sadly not whilst we were there.) We spent 4 very enjoyable days in Madurai and, although it may not have been the most monumentous town we have visited so far, it has a nice atmosphere about it and plenty to keep the weary traveller busy for a few days (not to mention a proliferation of street side lager vendors.)

Thence to Trichy (or Tiruchirappalli, as they insist on calling it now - I'll stick to Trichy, if you don't mind...) Trichy really didn't have much to offer, except the worst maps so far encountered (both in the LP and from the local tourist office) which led us a merry dance in search of the Sri Lankan airlines office, in order to try and get our tickets moved to an earlier date. Actually, just looking back at the pictures, there are a couple of temples and that (quite large, although currently being renovated) in town, but nothing as nice as Madurai. Having found the Sri Lanka airlines office, we were set up to leave for Colombo on the 13th December (told you I'm behind with the correspondence.) Sri Lanka will be the next excerpt, which should hit your virtual doormat in less than 6 weeks (hopefully...)

Anyone who has noticed that I have managed to cover 3 weeks travelling in the space that I often use to cover 1, this is due to the following;

1) too lazy to keep up to date

2) too busy having a good time in Sri Lanka at xmas

3) for all I have said about it, the section of our travels from (but NOT including) Cochin to Sri Lanka have been somewhat disappointing and is probably best considered merely a hiatus in our thorough enjoyment of the rest of our trip so far.

So there

Cheers for now

James