Our train to Ernakalum left at 10am (ish) from Kannur and so after another wonderful breakfast we sadly said our goodbyes to the friendly hosts at Kannur Beach House and to the other travelers and guests that had accumulated during our stay. We thought about staying longer but also wanted to move onwards.

The doctor’s got the same train as us and accompanied us in the reserved seat section. They had only paid for a non-reserved seat and so upgraded at a measly cost of 43rs for the 3 of them! Crazy that you can travel so far for so little here in India, train and bus travel is such a cost effective way to get around. Our journey took around 6 hours to reach Ernakalum and we were ready to get off the packed train when it did. Simply trying to get off the train can be quite a hassle (these are the downsides of cheaper public transport). When we got outside of the station our rickshaw driver from Mother Tree Inn was waiting for us and it took nearly an hour for the underpowered machine to reach the guesthouse in Fort Kochi. We didn’t end up at Mother Tree though, instead he took us to The Good Kharma Inn which is the sister guesthouse of Mother Tree. We didn’t mind and the young owner Anu was pretty amusing with it. The room came to 700rs/night with breakfast included, bargain.

We didn’t have much time to see any of Fort Kochi that night but we walked along the fort area people watching what seemed like hundreds of locals there for the evening. We also ate at the highly recommended Dal Roti; ginger, lemon soda and 2 paneer thali’s and we knew we would be back here the next night. The food is really good, the layout is pretty rustic and the maitre’d quite a character.

For our first full day in Kochi and after a satisfying scrambled eggs, toast and jam we took a walk out to the Chinese fishing nets located on the water front. It was pretty rammed full of cruise liner tourists that we weren’t feeling the authenticity of the nets at all, they are there really for tourism now and try to get you to buy fish from them and to go up and take photographs etc. From here we took a rickshaw to The Dutch Palace also known as (Manchetterry Palace) which we timed very badly as it seemed that all the cruise ship tourists had been bused in. We could hardly move in there and it’s not a very big museum at all, so for us we wanted to get out as soon as we arrived and managed to stick it out for 15 minutes before making tracks. At the Synagogue we were also faced with problems, they wouldn’t let us take our cameras in, regardless of whether or not we would take photographs there was no way we would leave our beloved Leica anywhere we weren’t!

However we did find some very nice items at Crafters in Jew town in the form of antique printing blocks which we thought would work nicely as decorative art back home. We actually wanted to get a wooden carved piece and found a beautiful old window cover but to ship it home would have been nearly 3 times as much as it was to buy! So we settled for the intricate designs of the printing blocks and bought 4 pieces for 1600rs. We also ate at the cafe upstairs mainly because we were hungry and didn’t want to be shopping around for food in a tourist area.

When we left Jew Town after exploring some more of the back streets we took a rickshaw to The Indo-Portuguese Museum only to find out that it was closed on Mondays! So instead we went to a shop on Lilly Street a few doors down from Dal Roti and bargained for a few more household items in the form of 2 very bold and contemporary block patterned bed covers and a material wall hanging. We followed our shopping trip by enjoying tea at Tpot Cafe another colourful rustic joint. We were finding more things that we liked about Fort Kochi! We once again ate at Dal Roti with a German couple we’d met at breakfast, this was followed by cheap Kingfisher at one of the drinking bars.

One our third day we went on a tour, our first tour in India and for 650rs each we paid to visit the Kerelan backwaters on a traditional wicker style boat. We opted to see the backwaters from Kochi rather than Allepey as we’d heard it gets very busy down there and so we hoped for a tranquil tour. We had a very friendly young guide who was also quite assertive and informative when required. With two boatmen using the punting technique we ambled through bigger canals down to very narrow ones throughout the day. It was a very relaxing tour, all we had to do was sit and take it all in. Along the route we stopped off at spice plantations, rope making, coconut farm and a calcium cement factory. A real mixture of the type of trade that occurs in the backwaters of Kerela. We also enjoyed our first banana leaf style lunch; the traditional way to serve a thali.

By the end of the day we were back in Kochi enjoying our final evening there, we had booked a train for the next day to take us to Varkala leaving at 9am. We ended up having food in the bazaar where a cool cafe place sits on top of the tourist information office. Although the presentation of the cafe is very in keeping with the yellow antique effect seen all over town, the dosa didn’t live up to earlier one’s we’d tried. We followed this with more tea at the Tpot (when we got back from the tour we nipped into Tpot for a juice and some of their delicious cheescake!) before heading back and preparing for another move the next day.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0, 18mm f4, 90mm Tele-Elmarit f2.8, Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 processed in Lightroom 3)

The 3 tier non-AC sleeper was very basic. The windows provided plenty of ventilation and it actually got a little chilly, however a lack of curtain deprived any kind of privacy and no sheet on a plastic covered mattress completed the uncomfortable set. Non the less we did get some earplug assisted sleep and awoke with only 1hr until we were due to arrive  in Kannur, our first steps in India’s laid back state of Kerala. Breakfast was bought at the train station in a vegetarian restaurant and we devoured Masala Dosa’s (thin crispy bread, spicy potato filling and curry on the side) and Masala tea – 25rs, amazing value at 30p each.

After researching on the internet we discovered Kannur Beach House Home-stay which looked great and got very high ratings from previous guests. An 8km rickshaw ride south of Kannur to the beachfront of Thottado Beach and we arrived at the guesthouse situated on a stretch of backwaters. An annual Kerelan festival was taking place called Theyyam, it is local only to Kannur and takes places between October to May across each temple in the area. We caught the tail end of a 48 hour ceremony visited and observed the local population taking part and utilising traditional costumes, amazing facial painting and some trance (not the hard-house variety) based ritualistic dance.

Heading back to the home-stay we explored beautiful hidden beaches with golden sands, palm tree shade and then retreated to some well deserved hammock action. It did not take long to see why people love this home-stay. The food was some of the best we have ever eaten and we have eaten a lot! The 2500rs per room fee includes breakfast and evening meal which are Ayurvedic Kerelan home cooked in variety and you can have lunch for only 100rs each extra. The owners were equally accommodating and loaned us yoga mats as well as being able to observe their chef in action in the kitchen. A family of 4 and very close to each other they used to work in IT but have now built this lovely home-stay which attracts repeat visitors year in year out. We could see why.

Our fellow travellers also appreciated the surroundings and the food, it was really great to share this experience with Ture & Revital (London based conceptual designers/artists) and three graduated doctors from the UK. We cannot speak highly enough of the food. Each meal was a buffet selection, eaten outdoors frequently with the hosts and family and all washed down with herbal water and hot tea. To use a Master Chef quote… Vegetarian food does not get better than this! Yum!

We didn’t really want to leave but we were tied into a train ticket, although only costing around £2 so we could have easily discarded it, but at the same time we had a little bit of momentum going and didn’t want to settle just yet. On our last evening we enjoyed a longish walk along the quiet stretch of beach which just seems to go on and on. Some of the locals were out sorting out fishing boats and so on, whilst others were out to enjoy the views like us. We stopped for a group photograph with some girls from Kannur before making our way back for our last night of fantastic food and company.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0, 18mm f4, 90mm Tele-Elmarit f2.8 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

After a good breakfast at the Lam Tong we checked out of our little place and moved over to Mellow. Luckily our room was ready so we dumped the bags got into our swim wear and headed to the beach, pretty much running in and enjoying the nice temperature. We played in the sea for a while swimming, trying to body surf and Helen got washed up. It made a refreshing change from earlier this month walking in our winter gear every day.

We did some research with J&J into our ideas for a Mekong tour, we were all quite convinced that a biking tour would be up our street so we looked into a few options and then hired a moto for the rest of the afternoon. We took ourselves up to the next village passing by markets, fishing boats and Pagodas. Children chased us around asking to look after our bike, we were teased into a temple and then asked for money which we didn’t have so made a sharp exit.

It was quite cloudy on our way back and so stopped for the stormy looking sky with the sun breaking through. Back in Mui Ne we ate at the restaurant where we had stayed the night before and enjoyed some lovely fish kebabs, the only downside was Jules was looking forward to a nice jacket potato but along came 2 very small potatoes wrapped up in foil turning out like hard boiled ones.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

After an early morning run up and down the beach followed by a swim we enjoyed a hearty breakfast at Long Time before deciding on a route to go out on the scooter. After about 10 minutes of heading south of Mui Ne we were pulled over by the Police, we had no idea why they pulled us to start with; both of us were in helmets which is now the law in Vietnam, we weren’t speeding and we had driver’s licence…however we soon came to realise that they weren’t going to be pulling us over for any rational reason. They asked to see our licence or permit from the bike owner and took the bike from us placing it into a compound full of other bikes they’d already taken in that day. Dave had to pay for a moto-taxi back and forth to Mellow to pick up our details, and when we showed them to the Police they weren’t interested and insisted that we needed a Vietnamese licence. We knew this wasn’t the case and tried to argue our point even pointing to the Lonely Planet section on hiring bikes, but they weren’t interested and told us to leave.

So back to Mellow it was where we arranged to meet up with the owner and see what was going to happen, we knew there could be some kind of bribery involved and it was communicated that if the bike owner was to get his bike back from the Police then the total fine would be 1,000,000 dong which is $50! He asked us to pay half of this amount, to start with we asked a few questions with other bike companies and western people who’d been in the area for a while, but we learned that unless the fine was paid our bike owner would loose out on 10 days worth of trade. We also found out that many of the bigger companies pay a fee each month to the Police to avoid any problems like this with tourists. One comment that was made by a western man at Mellow went a little like this…”the police pull in a lot of bikes around this time of year…funny how it happens just before and after Tete…beer money!” Hmmmm! So another lesson learned and hopefully of some advice to those of you looking to rent bikes in this region. We decided to pay half to the man and be down with it, such an annoying start to the day and for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

So back to the beach it was for the rest of a lovely afternoon, we didn’t let it bother us too much and enjoyed more swimming and relaxing. Later on we had a fab pizza from a restaurant about 10 minutes walk east of Mellow followed by an acoustic session with the Vietnamese version of a 70′s soul star at Joe’s bar – open 24 hours apparently.

22nd – Another day at Mui Ne

This was definitely the location for us Vietnam where we found some time to relax, obviously there are many tourists that travel through, the Russians use this area as their holiday destination but so do many professional kite surfers with the world championships taking place the previous week. You will often see the anticipation of kite surfers waiting for the wind, every day they wait for the right time, often getting ready and going home again after an hour of disappointment. Its good to see especially when the light is good.

We started the day again with running and swimming and the amazing fruit platter for breakfast from Long Time getting in a head start towards our 5-a-day. We decided to use the day once more for some beach action, earlier on there was some rain but by the afternoon it all cleared and we enjoyed a wonderful late afternoon sun, Dave even managed another run! This was followed by a moody golden sunset and we walked along the beach photographing what we saw along the way. You can learn to windsurf and kite surf on the beach and there are many schools offering this but it all costs money and was out of our budget but it is THE place in South-East Asia for Kite-surfing so no doubt the instruction will be top. Other activities around Mui Ne include the sand-dunes and various options of getting around them. We were heading this way when our bike was taken from us so we were quite happy not to spend anymore money getting around, but again have heard it’s a good afternoon option.

Our last evening in Mui Ne saw us go back to Joe’s for some Thai food, it was okay perhaps the portions were a little small for the cost but the atmosphere was good and we enjoyed more live music. Back to Mellow for our last night and the next morning we were due to leave at around 7.30am. Mellow were pretty good at offering us a discount for 3 nights stay with them, it’s always good to ask for discounts if you’re planning on staying a while.

Up early for our last time in Yangshou we were picked up by taxi from Trippers to be dropped off at the coach station for our journey to Nanning. It took around five hours or so to reach Nanning and we jumped on a bus to make our way to the Lotusland hostel. We found it relatively easily and checked into our double room which was small but functional and clean. We headed to the booking office to book our bus journey into Vietnam which cost £15 each. Looking for some food we followed the map provided by the hostel and decided to go to a restaurant with an English menu. The food was pricey and not very good, with Dave having a difficult time eating his food with all the bones in his chicken curry! On the plus side the steamed and fried dumplings with a custard style sauce were the highlight of a disappointing meal.

The following day we ate our own breakfast in the hostel, as they do not provide food, but a microwave and bowls and then washed clothes and hung them out to dry on the roof of the hostel. We walked into town to see what Nanning was like during the day. It’s a typical Chinese city full to the brim of shops and little food places.

There is a free museum called The Guangxi Provincial Museum not far away from the center of town, it took around half an hour to walk there from the hostel. They were showcasing the Nanning Institute of Art and Design degree shows, which were quite impressive with fashion and product design, architecture, 3D and visualisation. It was great to see what the students are completing for their degree levels in China. There are also some permanent exhibitions in the museum featuring ancient drums, jewelery and other artifacts. Afterwards we were feeling hungry and found a Japanese restaurant in a shopping mall which helped quench the hunger pains.

We met up with Jane, who we had met in Dali, at the hostel and decided to go for food. Walking around we found a fast food style Chinese restaurant and had some pretty good food. The food was served in a wooden basket which was interesting, but tasty.

Neon lights and people dancing in the parks were our entertainment for the walk back to the hostel and then an early night as we had a change of Country tomorrow and we were excited to see a new landscape and culture of Vietnam.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)