It was a complete write-off of two days but we got ourselves down to Kerala without any problems. The train journey wasn't too bad as we were expecting the worse after the Death Bus up to Kashmir... but it was relatively painless in comparison. We arrived first in Varkala where we got straight ourselves straight to the beach. There was a few locals kicking a football about so we couldn't resist but get involved, we got a match organised: India vs. England. We had a plan of playing silking one touch football round them, but typically English having gone a goal down we switched tactics to route one football and lost the game 5-4. In our defence we were outnumbered about twelve players to four. Still, we took the loss pretty badly... it had been a bad month for English football. We then proceeded to swim in the sea which was fun, the waves were absolutely crazy so we couldn't go far out at all without the lifeguards blowing whistles at us. After befriending the lifeguards though we learnt that the reason behind their extreme safety conciousness is that no-one is India can swim (them included). They eventually allowed us to swim but we'd have to get out if any locals started to copy us.
Next in Kerala we ventured up to Kollam where we went on a backwater boat tour through the rivers of the jungle. Due to time and money we just went for a half-day, but it was beautiful and well worth while none the less.
Another monster train journey got us to Goa, there was no sleeper tickets left though so we we're pretty squashed sardine style in the carriage. James and Tino did well to get up on the luggage rack, Pete and I were not so lucky. We decided against going via Hampi as we didn't want to cut ourselves short with our plans back up North, so went straight to Goa. This is my first major regret of the trip as we have heard really good things about Hampi, whilst Goa was out of season so it did nothing but piss down with rain the whole time. Not great weather for a beach resort. We tried to make the best of it though... the highlight probably exploring the countryside on mopeds and making friends with some old English hippies with funny northern accents who had been living there for years.
Next stop is to Varanasi to see the Ganges, looking forward to doing something a bit more cultural!
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