Mumbai - Trivandrum - Kovalam

Well it's started, there's no turning back now! I landed in India on Tuesday in Mumbai. The Virgin flight was really good, the plane was 3/4 empty so I had a couple of seats to myself, and could have had a whole row of 3 if i'd moved into it quicker. Oh well, next time I'll be more ruthless.

My flight down south was the next morning so I had already booked a hotel near the airport for my quick stopover. The car journey from the airport quickly reacquainted me with Indian driving, but I was too tired to be as scared for my life as I perhaps should have been! Got to my hotel only to find the power was out so I was sent to another one, fortunately it looked marginally better than my original hotel so I didn't mind. I got a couple of hours sleep and headed out to find a cash machine (it's illegal to take Rupees in or out of India). The area was a slum, really, really poor and I felt a bit intimidated at first being the only foreigner or tourist visible, but I soon realised no one was taking a blind bit of notice of me. I got back to the hotel and went to get some dinner washed down with my new regular tipple, the trusty Kingfisher Beer and ended up watching some of the Windies v Pakistan world cup cricket with the waiters.

Next morning I caught my flight without incident. Flew Jet Airways which I think is supposed to be India's equivalent to EasyJet, however it's much, much better! The cabin crew do not stop serving the passengers throughout the whole flight. Its only a 2 hour flight but in that time you get water, then juice, then a meal (tandoori chicken and rice dumplings followed by chocolate fudge cake, all served on real china dishes and eaten with real metal cutlery!), then a coffee/tea, then more juice, then more water. Anyway, you get the gist, it was good.

I arrived at Trivandrum which is the capital of the state of Kerala. On the plane I decided I was going to head down to Kovalam first, which is a beach side resort type town. I asked the tourist information desk for details of the town and met a Canadian guy called Deepa (he has an Indian dad) doing the same thing. We decided to share a taxi and got talking on the way over, he seemed OK so we decided to split a room too. We managed to get a room in this big old colonial looking place for Rs 800 between us (about 5 pounds each). We dropped off our stuff and went out to explore the little town, there's not a lot to see really except for a couple of nice beaches. We were staying near the main beach which is called Lighthouse Beach, for reasons that will become obvious from the pics below. Its quite touristy here, with a little European style promenade running behind the beach. However its still tiny and quiet by western standards - and its supposed to be Kerala's biggest and busiest resort! I'm looking forward to finding some really cool, untouched places if this is the busiest.

It's my first whole day in Kerala and I've just spent it lazing around (start as I mean to go I suppose!). We went out for a few beers and some seafood last night (I had crab) but being a North American lightweight Deepa hardly managed any beers! He's also been chucking up regularly since 3 am thanks to the dodgy fish he ate and has hardly been able to move the whole day without puking. Nice! He's heading north tomorrow but I think I'm going to stay another day or maybe even two here to soak up the sun a bit more. We changed rooms today to one thats only Rs 500 between us. I've heard about quite a few now that are even less so I'm on a mission to find one for about Rs 150 (less than 2 pounds).

Anyway, it's too hot to sit in an internet cafe any longer (34 degrees according to the bbc weather, rising to 36 midweek!) so this is your man in India signing off :)