Photo update...

A few pictures of the holiday within the holiday... We're back in the hills cooling off and the scenery is spectacular...

I can get my favourite biscuits (tummies now fully recovered, you'll be glad to hear!) and the bottled water has improved in quality..

... and the buses have taken on a touch of Alsace!

We've even got a picture of the two of us!

with love Hxx

Holiday with Sylv's parents

Sylv writing: my parents have arrived in Cochin on Wednesday. They are coming to visit us for 2 weeks! They are doing extremely well so far, enjoying every moment and coping very well with the jet lag, the heat, the trafic, the noise. We have a little programme ready for them: a tour of the best of Kerala: Cochin, Munnar, Kumily, Varkala.

This means a little holiday within the holiday for us and that we might not be posting anything on the blog for a couple of weeks...
But we might try to post some pictures...
Highlight of the day: Harriet had a chocolate pudding tonight and my mum brought me sweets (fraise tagada)!

Sylvia and the elephant

Here is the movie of the temple elephant turned into money box ;-)

Quiz 2

Next quiz: what are they all watching??

Still here..

A brief update from the back of a shop at the end of the world..

After a few days in peaceful and beautiful Kumily (up in the mountains, cool! and relatively quiet) where we contented ourselves with nightly sessions of bat watching (our room was under the flight path of thousands of enormous bats (or flying foxes ?!) leaving their cave every night - a fantastic spectacle and great for Sylv's bat and mouse phobia ;o) ) rather than hoping to see elephants that were sensibly hidden in the woods of the peaceful Periyar reserve... we spied black monkeys too, their little babies hanging on and the neighbours chucking stones when they decided to pee down onto passers by!

(they're not Christmas stocking... just leech socks !!)

From there, down into Tamil Nadu for a tour of the coastal pilgrim sites - via the impressively scaffolded temple in Madurai to Rameshwaran and Adam's Bridge, Tiruchendur (on the same day as 1 million pilgrims... good timing!) and now the southern most point, Kanyakumari... via a lovely bout of dehli belly (la tourista for our french readers) - mutual support, hair holding and fair distribution of access to toilet facilities - we must try not to catch these things at the same time in future...

Anyway, we've made it to Kanyakumari - The bottom end of India and host to MANY tourists from everywhere (and as many 'fancy' shops, pearl necklaces and offers of sunglasses). In a bid for freedom we spent hours queuing to reach a rock not far off the land where we managed to contemplate the enormous sea all the way to antarctica pretty much in peace - and the sunrise this morning was SO spectacular we've stayed another night to see it again tomorrow..... such freedom!

H with nothing from here to the south pole...

Pictures of the new (slimmer) Harriet and Sylv to come soon.. and a flim of Sylv giving money to a live elephant money box. The answer to the first quiz has just gone up and we've got some more that we need answers to too - though we're not really sure what the right answer is in some cases!

A few more pictures:

Laundry service

Flowers for the temple

School in need of help!

We just spent a few days with Jacob, Deepa and their family in Chengannur - a lovely time 'en famille' and a chance to visit beneficiaries of Jacob's work with the East Sheen Chengannur Trust who do many things in the area, linking sponsors with families in need and building solid houses.

A recent applicant for support was this school - the government pays for the venue, the teacher and her helper, but no materials with which to teach or for the children to play with. It's a government pre-school where children who's parents cannot pay for this can bring their children to play with others and start learning basics that will help when they arrive at primary school.

A blackboard or whiteboard would be of great help teaching the Malayam and English alphabets and toys for the children to play with would be good too.

It seems donations could be arranged through the trust, so anyone (or any school?) wanting to get involved, let us know and put you in touch with Jacob!

The school.. and the classroom (and most of the class!)

A Game!

Hello. Our first QUIZ!

1. Watch the movie below. What is drawing the attention of all these men?


Answers on a postacrd (or a comment... )