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Yesterday we were due to travel to Big Island but not until 4-15 so we had some time to fill. We hadn’t really decided what we would do today ..maybe we would visit the posh shops at Poipu perhaps visit the National Tropical Botanical Gardens nearby.

But in the end going back to Poipu Beach to see if the turtles were there again, won out. We’d been woken by the parakeet alarm at 6-15 so after a cup of tea we were off and this time with snorkelling gear. 

So we parked up at red knickers beach again and wandered over, fully expecting nothing to be there. But lo and behold there was one lovely turtle resting up in the same spot as yesterday. We stayed and watched it for a while but he wasn’t ready to get going yet. So I decided to go into the water and have a little snorkel. It was a beautiful morning and not many people around as it was so early. It was nice snorkelling here and I saw some nice fish including some sort of eel ( not so nice! ) . I kept an eye on Jane to see if there was any turtle movement but there wasn’t.

All of a sudden we noticed a group gathered at the other end of the cove. We decided that we better go and have a look in case there were more turtles over there. We walked over and as we got closer we realised that what they were watching were two Monk Seals playing in the water and sometimes surfing into shore! It was quite incredible , they were SO playful. Just to think , a few minutes earlier I’d been snorkelling in here. Imagine if I’d come face to face with a seal! And now as Jane was taking photos they were coming into the shore right in front of her. They were also making some very interesting snorting noises. I’m sure they were laughing at us!

After we had watched this playful pair we then went back to check on our turtle who was by now turned around and heading into the sea. It was time for me to get back in the water and swim with the turtle. It was just heaven. 

By now time was getting on and we now had an hour to go back and pack up ready to leave our lovely AirBnB by 10am. Eek. Anyway we rushed about a bit taking photos of cherry licking geckos on the balcony and by 10-30 we were ready to go. 

We drove over to Lihue where the airport is and had a late breakfast at some locals cafe. French toast and Fried eggs. Yum. Interestingly we asked for coffee but for the 2nd time this holiday they looked puzzled and said no it was past midday so they’d stopped serving coffee. But as we looked so confused she agreed to make us a special brew.

We then made our way to the airport and dropped off the rental car, realising that we’d been totally ripped off by the ‘we’ll refill the car for you’ deal. Anyway, we were quite early at the airport so after a while we found the Tiki Bar for a cold one and sat chatting to the barman and a local. Mostly about wrestling which was on the TV. 

Our flight to Big Island was fine and we landed in Kona on time at 5-15. We picked up our cases and rental car quickly and started heading towards the Hawaiian Belt Road which then joins the cross island road. However, as we started to ascend it got darker and darker and we found ourselves in a huge downpour of rain. It was other worldly as the rain was so heavy , I could hardly see in front of the car. I was really quite worried as I knew we had a long 90 mins drive across and down to Volcano, where we were staying. But we continued on past where small rocks had obviously been washed down onto the road. It was hellish and I was quite stressed. However, we hadn’t really left the city when we came across a road block where the police had closed the road. They said there was a diversion but there wasn’t really as there is just the one road! We were diverted down a massive , steep road which had turned into a river, back into Kona where we’d come from earlier.

By now I was scared. I thought all I needed to worry about was the volcano but it turned out that plain old rain would stop us. I told Jane that I wasn’t prepared to drive the alternative south road tonight and we needed to find somewhere to stay here. She agreed as by now I couldn’t even see which lane to drive in and we just about found our  way into Kailua and the first hotel we drove into was a Marriott. We drove straight out and then I spotted Uncle Billies Kona Hotel. Jane ran out of the car and spoke to reception and $175 later , we had a bed for the night. It was an ok American style hotel, with lava walls but it was nothing really special. In fact this isn’t really even that expensive for hotels here , especially as the Ironman World Championships are about to kick off here, right next door. 

We popped across the road for essential supplies and then hid from the still pouring rain in our room. What a day of contrasts- but the main thing was that we were safe. Health and Safety. Health and Safety…..

Nice house

Gilligan’s Island

Coco Palms

Where Elvis got married

Lighthouse

Storm drift

Wailua Falls

Larry Rivero

Pearl fisher

Sunset palms

Jurrasic Park

Tiki Jane

Another beach

Taki Julie

Well thankyou to our guest blogger yesterday. You’re now back in the hands of moi. Today, we needed to be up v early (again) but there would be no time for turtles this morning. We were off on our movie tour of Kauai with Roberts of Hawaii. Jane and I like a good movie tour and generally the quirkier the better.

We were picked up by our shuttle bus at 7-15am and transported to our main bus at Lihue. I say ‘main’ bus but actually it was exactly the same as the other one except that this one had a TV screen at the front and Andy the tour guide to greet us with an Aloha!

We were handed an ancient photocopy of a map with various filming locations listed and also a list of 100 films that had been filmed in Kauai. Andy assured us that there would not be a test at the end of the day but swat that I am , I proceeded to take copious notes for the rest of the day just in case. I think my Mastermind speciality subject could now be ‘Film and other trivia relating to the island of Kauai’.

The little tour bus was filled with a quirky bunch of folk as you’d expect -from the two large and quite immobile American ladies who failed to get out of the bus at most stops, to a Japanese lady with her 103 year old Mum and weird looking American boyfriend. Then there was a family with a little girl , Ava, who was a whiney little thing all day long. There was apparently only one real film enthusiast, the man with a Jurrasic a Park t-shirt on.

Well off we went and Andy , to be fair, was a good tour guide. Very knowledgeable and witty and during the day we stopped at about 8 film locations and learned what had been filmed there. We watched old (mostly) black and white video clips so we could compare film with reality. There were some really lovely locations such as Wailua Falls (Castaway Cowboy, Firefly), Moloaa Bay (Pirates of the Caribbean, Gilligan’s Island), Hanamaula Bay (Voodoo Island, Donovan’s Reef)and of course Opaekaa Falls (Seven Women from Hell). So, yes I think you will generally get the picture here! Not all the films are recent and they’re certainly not all good!

The particular highlight of this tour is that you get to visit the Coco Palms Hotel which was the first major resort style hotel in Hawaii back in the day. It’s the only bus tour that allows this. It was also where Elvis Presley filmed Blue Hawaii. I have always loved this film since I was about 13 and all its exotiqueness. But the hotel itself was totally destroyed during the 1992 Hurricane Inniki and whilst there are plans to redevelop it, it hadn’t happened yet. We had to sign a waiver here to be let out of the bus as it is basically a building site. Some of our fellow guests would not sign the waiver so they had to stay on the bus and watch a clip of the film Dinocroc v SuperGator where a giant alligator sneaked up, and ate a Movie tour bus and its occupantsat Coco Palms hotel!

It was rather sad wandering around looking at the canal where the canoes delivered Elvis on his wedding day. Such a shame , let’s hope someone can restore it to its former glory.

As we were leaving we were entertained by Larry Rivero who had actually played music alongside Elvis in the film. He then went on to be the resident entertainment at the Coco Palms for the next 10 years. He is now 88 years old and still plays and sings in the bars near here 4 nights a week. He played his ukulele and made us join in singing his gentle songs. Larry handed out his business card which described him as Kauai Living Legend of Music. If you ask Larry ‘Did you know Elvis ? ‘ he replies ‘Elvis knew me!’ It was all a bit scary as he had an array of CDs ready for us to buy but we escaped leaving Jurrasic Park boy to do the honours!

Talking of which, another ‘highlight’ was seeing the fields where Jurrasic Park was filmed and we watched the movie , listening to the music as we drove past the fields where Sam Neill and Laura Dern first see the dinosaurs.

I also learned a lot of trivia about the island of Kauai. I won’t bore you with that now but please do just ask if there is anything you’d like to know. Oh one thing though…they don’t like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame much. He bought a $100million plot of land and built a lava stone wall all around it and just one house. They don’t like this…as it was originally thought that it could be two whole neighbourhoods.

Along the way we had a very pleasant lunch at a resort and chatted to a couple from South Carolina. Our final stop was the lighthouse at Kilauea (Lilo and Stich) before we made our way back to our sunny side of the island whilst watching Blue Hawaii.

By the time we got back we were both tired and a bit crotchety. All this having a lovely time is exhausting you know. But we did manage to drag ourselves out to the Beach House restaurant for a tasty meal watching the sun go down.

When we went to Northern India one of my blog posts was about the three people you meet when you go to Varannasi. On that occasion they were all local Indian people we came across and who made a strong impression on me.
This time around I want to tell you about the different people we met at our Homestay in the Backwaters of Kerala because they were fascinating and we found it bizarre, the mix of people who rock up at this basic Homestay.
Firstly, we met a young Indian couple (Varun and Amrita) who now lived and worked in New York, USA. He was a Sikh and she was half Sikh, half Hindu. They helped run the family garment manufacturing business out of NY and were clearly from a very wealthy family. They owned and lived in an apartment near Grand Central Station in Manhattan. They were really sweet and funny and desperate to open their bottle of wine but didn’t have a corkscrew. As the Homestay didn’t have one either they had resorted to drinking the toddy complete with insects. They contemplated several alternatives but in the end we agreed to open ours and we all shared that. We chatted a lot about politics (American, UK and Indian) and travels and I particularly liked their wicked sense of humour. We’ve exchanged email addresses so I hope we will get to meet them again, maybe in NY
Next up was the tall skinny girl who was travelling by herself. It turned out that she was an International model , Ekaterina who was 35 and originated from Vladivostok in Russia. She was ‘spotted’ when she was just 16 and had then lived and worked in Japan, Paris and New York. She’d been partying pretty hard and had been travelling to India regularly in the last year to try and sort her life out. She was doing lots of yoga, Vipassana practice (hours sat in silence) and now exploring Ayurvedic healing with her ‘doctor’. She was also really good company and had been at the Homestay for about five days so was useful in terms of ‘the knowledge’. For example, she explained to us that, at this place you only have to ask and they’ll get you something, but if you don’t ask very specifically, then they’re unlikely to make an assumption. For example, if you BOTH want a banana dosa for breakfast, then you have to specify that or you’ll just get one. Ekaterina was largely travelling on her own and would be here until Jan when she had to return to Paris to work for US designer, Thom Browne. She seemed very chilled out here in Kerala so I hope she continues to travel safely and find herself, as that seemed to be what she was doing.
Finally, on our last night at the homestay we had a new guest who arrived in a taxi. She was a lovely American lady in her 60s and her name was Linda and she was an award winning children’s author and illustrator, who lived in The Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina with her husband. She again was travelling by herself round India for a month. Her reason for travelling was that she’d had a bad accident about a year ago and clearly it had been very serious and she took time to recover. As a result she’d clearly decided it was time to get out there and see some more of the world, even if her husband didn’t want to go with her. She was great to talk to about writing, art and of course travels. She was having the most amazing, scary adventures. For example on day 1 of her arrival in India, she found herself being deposited by the busy roadside in Mumbai, expected to find her way onto her bus to Mysore. It sounded horrendous but she was adopted by some kindly Indian ladies who made sure she got safely on board. It was a sleeper and she had to spend the next 14 hours on there with no toilet. ‘How does that work?’ she asked herself and to be honest, we never did find out the answer to that. I loved Linda’s attitude when, having woken up on the bus the next morning she said to herself ‘Well, I survived that so everything else is gong to be ok!’ I hope that Linda again continues to travel safely and enjoy the wonderful encounters with other people that India serves up daily.
Namaste, one and all xxxx

After our two nights in Periyar we were on the move again and off to one of the stops I’d most been looking forward to. We were on our way to the Keralan backwaters. First we’d be stopping in the Backwater Heritage Homestay for two nights and then we’d be on a houseboat for one night.
The drive down from Periyar was again a really long, bendy, precarious route and we seemed to be heading downhill for most of the four hours it took. Once again we passed through some splendid scenery and by now we were able to point out the various different plantations (tea, coffee, cardamon, rubber etc) as we passed through. The road was incredibly busy with folk coming and going to the two and a half month long Hindu festival at Sabarimala. They might have been pilgrims but they weren’t very good drivers.
We had a few stops along the way. First of all at a quirky old fashioned cafe for a cuppa coffee and a loo break, then Jane wanted to stop in a ‘real town’ and have a look at their shops. Vaiju pulled up in just such a place and out we got. The temperature down here was incredibly hot in the sunshine so it seemed a little incongruous that we were visiting their local Christmas shops trying to find the best giant hanging star! We’d seen these all around Kerala and we needed our own. We also found that we needed to visit a local hardware store where we once again bought presents for the lucky people back home. We finished our Xmas shopping trip with a very acceptable cornetto.
The next stop involved the purchase of alcohol from a Government store. This one was in a very busy city called Kottayam. They are exceedingly seedy places only frequented by men, but they do sell their beer and wine very cheap (compared to hotels) and something was telling us that we’d need this to get through the next few days….
We also needed to exchange some money as we were by now running out of rupees. Vaiju found the place down the back streets of Kumarakom which is itself in the backwaters and Jane got excellent service from the three ladies who served her.
Finally, after much driving round some really tiny lanes and over bridges over the narrow waterways and asking for directions several times, we found ourself at the Backwater Heritage Homestay. The place looked really lovely from the outside and Xavier greeted us warmly, although with limited English.
Vaiju left us to it as he was off to stay with his sister for the next couple of nights so we were on our own. As he left, we were being distracted by some duck herding that was going on in the backwater river just by the garden. Basically, two guys in canoes herding about one hundred noisy ducks up river.
Well, when we were shown our room it was the hottest little box I’d ever had the pleasure of sleeping in. It is a really old traditional house but this room was like a cell. It was small, dark, humid and had no windows. In addition there was a welcome party of at least 3 mosquitos that we could see. Oh gawd.
Anyway, before we had to put up with that we went for a short walk with the other guests who we’d get to know better later. We walked along to the local fish farm and watched a man climb a coconut tree to tap toddy. Then we brought some back to taste. You have got to me kidding me. The stuff looked revolting. It’s basically coconut water/sap which ferments but the stuff in the bottle had brown sediment at the bottom and a variety of insects floating on the top. Er, no thanks, we will open one of our cold beers.
When we got back we ate our dinner on the verandah of the other part of the property where the other guests were sleeping. The food was good, simple, plentiful and definitely local with a mix of fish and veggie dishes. Bananas for pudding were by now starting to take their toll on my tummy.
We had an excellent night talking with the other guests putting off the inevitable of having to go to our cell to sleep.
By the time we did, Jane was completely paranoid about the mosquitos and she had completely covered herself in Deet, said she was wearing all her clothes to bed and turned the air conditioning (oh yes) down to 17 degrees. The room was absolutely freezing and so I too had to put my fleece and tracky trousers on but still couldn’t get warm as we only had a sheet for cover. It was horrendous and in the middle of the night (4am) I’d had no sleep and had developed both a cold and a serious sense of humour failure when Jane asked if I was ok. The air con went off but the temperature barely lifted. Not good. The scenery on these backwaters had better make up for it.

We only had one night at Mundackal Estate so after a delicious breakfast of Dosas (crispy pancake), the sweetest, best tasting bananas in the world and honey we said our farewells to both Jose and Daisy and our new best friends, Cynthia and Janet.
We’d really enjoyed our stay here but it was time to move on and Vaiju then started driving the one hour 30mins drive up to Munnar. Munnar is high in the West Ghats (hills) and it wasn’t long before we commenced the climb. Early on we passed through several towns where the local Communist Party are very popular as evidenced by all the little red flags with the hammer and sickle on them and lots of bunting along the streets. The road bends and winds for miles and miles as we climbed ever higher. We had a couple of stops to look at waterfalls along the way along with lots and lots of Indian tourists who make a colourful scene in their splendid saris.
Eventually we arrived at our next homestay where we’d be for the next two nights. This was the one I’d been really looking forward to as it looked really sweet and was called The Rose Garden Homestay. It was in fact about 20kms down from Munnar.
We were greeted this time by Tommy, his wife Raji and their son Dilip. They were lovely and smiley and welcomed us in.
Up here the temperature had dropped considerably and I’d go as far to say that it was cold. They served us a simple, tasty lunch on the balcony where we sat and admired the view through the trees. After this I decided to do a little painting sketch of the view. Unfortunately there was no electricity but just one light in our room powered by battery back up when we arrived and as a result no wifi. They thought it would be back on quite soon.
At 4pm we agreed we’d like to do Tommy’s tour of his garden. Compared to Mundackal it’s only small but he operates a little nursery growing and selling plants to local people and hotels. He had lots of lovely flowers and his garden was very pretty and he enjoyed taking us around and showing us all the different plants and especially his bats! He also took great pride in showing us his tank where he used kitchen and garden waste to produce enough gas for the household! You were left wondering ‘why don’t we all have one of these?’. Once again he grew lots of fruit, veg and spices and it was interesting to see where cardamon comes from. Basically, a very large (6ft) leafy plant in the same family as ginger and turmeric where the nodule seeds just grow at the base and can be picked every 45 days. He also had a very impressive vanilla plant which had about 100 pods growing on it. I’m not sure how much he gets for them though compared to how much Waitrose charge!
After our tour he suggested we walk upto the viewpoint just up the road which we did along with other guests Pamela and Ian from Yorkshire. It was getting a bit late and it was cloudy but the views back down and across the Ghats are excellent.
That night we all dined together so we also met a nice couple from Leeds and we enjoyed exchanging tales of our various travels. Remind me never to go camping in the Argentine Pampas looking for Anaconda. Apparently you get eaten to death by mosquitos! Talking of which, unusually it is me that has had a few bites here…Jane has remained unscathed. Touch wood.
That night everyone was warning that a storm was coming in and Dilip even told Jane that ‘this sort of weather normally means there is going to be a tsunami.’ Thank god then that we were high up in the hills. However, that night a storm did indeed hit. Before it went dark it became really, really windy and we saw some branches come down even from our balcony. We went to bed and listened to the sound of the wind and rain pelting down on the house’s tin roof. I must admit I was wondering why on earth we had travelled all this way to this place and its English weather and unreliable electricity supply which was still off and on every five minutes.

Ps In da Bundu is a reference to a trip to S Africa with Laura H. It means you are in the back of beyond. Or at least that’s what we said it meant and have done ever since.

Our itinerary for the second day in Fort Cochin was much more relaxed and after a lovely breakfast in the hotel Vaiju collected us at 11.30 to take us to our cookery lesson. We drove out along the Beach Road and gradually the houses along here got smarter and smarter. Eventually our driver found the right house which said on the outside that it belonged to Nimmy and Paul. It’s funny, lots of the nice houses here have the owners names outside and I can tell you that Shiny Mathew (MP) has one of the finest houses in Fort Cochin!
So Nimmy is an Indian lady, she was 57 and very slim and sophisticated looking. She welcomed us into her home and kitchen and explained that we were going to make four dishes today, two vegetable and two fish dishes. She gave us a little booklet with several recipes printed in there including these.
Then we got to work, heating the oil in clay pots over a gas ring and then frying things off . All of the chopping had been done by her two assistants who worked outside in the huge extended kitchen area.
The dishes we cooked were
1. Meenmolee (Kingfish in coconut milk)
2. Thoren (vegetable stir fry in fresh coconut)
3. Mezukuperatty (vegetable stir fried in garlic seasoning)
4. Prawn Ularthu (sautéed prawns)
It was all quite easy and Nimmy did a lot of the work , we just tickled the pan every now and then! The aromas were incredible and it was nice chatting to Nimmy about her 13 years running the cookery classes.
After our time slaving in the hot kitchen we got to sit outside on her lovely patio and eat the food which was then served to us. It was all delicious although I have to say the prawns were my favourite. This was only the second time in my life that I have eaten prawns and both this year in cookery classes!
We got on very well with Nimmy who was interested in us and also told us about her family. I must admit it was a bit disconcerting though when she asked what jobs we both did. Jane explained she worked for the Legal Ombudsman and got a respectful nod. But when I explained that I was a banker she seemed to audibly let out a snort. Rude.
Before we left we met her husband Paul , a retired stockbroker, he was very nice too and we were by now getting on famously. Nimmy admired both my flip flops and my Fitbit and she immediately got in touch with her son in Singapore to ask him to get her one. Just before we left she told us she’d let us into a secret. She was a little tired today because she’d been sleeping very deeply when her husband woke her up at 6am. She wasn’t ready to be woken up so she told us she hit him and told him he was a ‘terrible dirty old man’. This made us snort out loud too!
With that we were back into the car and back to the hotel.
After a short rest we were then on the go again. We set off in the car the very short distance to the harbour by the Chinese fishing nets where we were to catch our harbour cruise boat. It was very busy around here but Vaiju lead us through to the front where lots of people were waiting for a ferry. We marched right through and our boat was waiting for us. And just us! We sat on the plastic chairs on the top and off we went. The cruise takes place around the big lake area and we had a chap who explained everything to us. The only slight problem was that Jane couldn’t understand anything he was saying so this left me trying to pay attention. And I could only understand one in twenty words. It went something like this……mnar, mnar , mnar 360 rupees for a coffee, mnar mnar mnar 650 thousand rupees, Government building (rubbish), private building (v good). So I can’t say we came back particularly well informed. But it was rather lovely seeing both old Cochin, new Cochin (lots of tower blocks going up fast) and then our favourite bit- the fishing harbour where the colours and reflections were amazing.
We got lots of friendly waves and ‘hellos’ from the other boats we passed as well as the fishermen as we watched the sun go down. As we approach our get-off-point we were told to put on the life jackets that we’d been given at the start (and which until this point, had sat on the chairs beside us).This was so that we could go across the channel back to the harbour. It did get a bit choppy so it was a really convenient place for the Police boat to pull alongside us and ask to see the boats captain’s papers. We sat on our plastic chairs holding tightly onto our life vests and tried not to look too guilty for not wearing them earlier. After a bit of bumping of the two boats all was good and even the Police went on their way with a wave.
It was a very good trip and afterwards we went back to our hotel and made use of the wine and beer lounge again and had some tapas at the bar. What a great day.

After our day tour of old Cochin and my swim in the rain, it was time to go out again as we were going to the Kathakali performance. We left in the pouring rain but luckily Vaiju and the car were waiting for us. The Kathakali hall is down some narrow alleys and when we went in the make up application was already underway.
For the first hour we sat and watched the men apply their make up. No, we weren’t just early , this is the best part. One big chap lay down on the floor whilst and older man applied lots of green, black and white makeup to him. He also used quite a lot of glue and attached several carefully cut paper strips to him. Meanwhile another fellow sat there and applied his own orange make up. Then they swapped places and were joined by a third fellow who applied a more natural looking (well that’s what the blurb said)yellow make up to his face. It was all very fascinating but there was also quite a bit of prima Dona behaviour mainly from the make up applicator who seemed to think he was in charge and got very annoyed when his make up sponge wasn’t in the right spot.
After this some band members arrived and a man who was in charge of cymbals explained what was going to happen next. So we had a little demonstration of cymbals and drum playing followed by an excellent demo of one of the main aspects of Kathakali which is the use of the eyes and face to portray various emotions. This varied from the waggly eyebrow look which represented ‘love’ to the nasty smell under the nose look which represented ‘sarcasm’. All very good and fun.
Next up was the main performance and here we were in for a treat. The blurb said we’d be seeing a story from the Maharabat. This seemed to involve a peasant , a prince and a monster from the forest who was generally being annoying and needed to be killed. It was all very gripping although there was an awful lot of flouncing about in over sized skirts. I found it very off putting that the peasant bore a very close resemblance to Joseph in a kids nativity play back home. Complete with very poor beard and t cloths for a headdress.
The monster did quite a bit of growling and the prince flounced about stamping his feet and waving with his red truncheon whilst Joseph just sort of meowed at the back and stroked his beard. It all came to a climatic end when the Prince poked the monster in his stomach with the truncheon and then followed a Shakespearean death scene surpassing anything we’ve seen at the RSC.
Marvellous, the crowd rose as one in rupturous applause. Well maybe not quite…but we did get up and leave thinking it was time for dinner.
Tonight we’d decided to eat at the Old Harbour Hotel as Joyce and Enid had stayed here I think and Sam F had recommended it too. The meal was really good. I had a keralan chicken curry and Jane had Masala Fish and orange prawn and we shared a couple of Kingfisher beers. We were too chicken to walk the 200 years back to our hotel as it was very dark and a little bit scary so Vaiju had waited for us and drove us back to the hotel. Bless. All was well with the world.