Day 49 - Kollam

Well, we're really back in India now. Kollam is a busting, friendly southern town somewhere between Alleppey and the capital of Kerala, Trivanandum.

We arrived here last night after our all day cruise along the Keralan backwaters. The cruise was nice - 8 hours of palm trees, water-side huts, women washing their clothing and thousands of ducks (saw the first Duckherd - the man was cadjoling about 100 quacking ducks down the waterway with the aid of a bag on the end of a pole). The boat was full of rich Indian tourists who took more photos than us, and a few travellers who had obviously just arrived in india (pale skin, clean clothes, dazed expressions). We stopped briefly at Amma's ashram, and breathed a sigh of relief that we weren't visiting - the 2000 people who reside on the little island do so by staying in a hideously pink block of grotty flats - not quite the twee huts we envisioned.

The boat dropped us off at Kollam Jetty at about 7, so we jumped on a rickshaw and booked into a dump (New Lacshmi Tourist home - poisonous showeroom, cockroaches as big as mice). We left the room sharpish, and wondered aimlessly looking for somewhere to eat. There are quite a few restaurants around, and they look pretty nice, but generally the moment we entered, a sea of male heads turned to look at us, at which point we invariably went "meep" and run away. We ended up eating in an airconditioned, curiously empty restaurant - All Spice (looks like Indias answer to Pizza Hut) - with the most inept waiters to date. Food was okish, but the bill was slapped on our table pretty much the second we ate the last mouthful (a strange eculiarity here in the South - I think they think they are being efficient), so we paid and left. The room was as bad as we remembered, so we turned the light off as quickly as possible and got an early night.

Today we had brekkie at the Indian Coffee House (for a taste of real india). We were undecided which room to sit in : The dark 'Ladies only' room? The empty middle room? Or (as we finally chose) the 'Ladies and their Families' room? Now we are leaving to pick up our bags. At 11.50 we are catching a local bus to the beach town of Verkala, which sounds very nice by all accounts - can't wait!