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... )

Cochin and climate change

Hello! We've managed to find an internet cafe in Allepeye today. Here are a few more pictures.

We're doing well, although it is hotter than it should be for the season and we've had thunderstorms two days in a row with heavy rains. Everyone says it is not normal for the season (We are seeing the effect of climate change here!) and can damage fruit trees, which could mean no mangoes this year :-(

We stayed in a fab homestay in Cochin. The family were celebrating their 1st anniversary of the homestay and cooked us a feast that night.

Pic: Home-made Keralan food!!! Miam miam.

We went to see Katakali, the traditional art of Kerala:

We saw a Christian wedding too, by chance. Here is a little 5-month old baby dressed for the occasion:

Ok, that's it for today. Time for a thali. Tomorrow we are moving on to Chengannur to see a project which helps families and children.

We made it!!!!

We made it!!!
A bit late, but all the better rested, we made it to a surprisingly busy Cochin Airport on Wednesday morning and arrived at the lovely Abad hotel full of lovely lovely staff and thankfully clean rooms with fans..
Cochin is still as we remembered..


and we're taking a few days to get acclimatised (- whatever in Europe to +30 odd here...) and catch our breath.. and do a little house keeping. This included the purchase of some rather nice new scissors (just about room in the rucksacks) and a rather (I would say..) successful first attempt at sorting out the Sylv's hair... helps by low-flying crows, laughter from the girls on the next roof and some strong nerves from both of us - who said moving house was the best test of a relationship?!


Night falls as the finishing touches are made to 'la coupe'

Harriet and Sylv stop off for a night in the gulf.... unplanned..

Sylv's travel jinx struck agin at Istanbul airport... this time resulting in a 24 hour stop over in Bahrain
As you can see... beautiful scenery and just the place for the two train travellers already in shock from having to go to an airport that morning!

Anyway, welcome break in a dusty, half-glam hotel almost on its last legs (to the extent of rather out-dated canned classics playing in the corridors...)
Luckily we made the flight the following night, or we'd still be there going slowly mad worrying about the effects of desalination, the oil trade and reclaimed land on the planet...