Troy eats fish eyeball

Having had enough of cities we got a plane daan sarf and are now in Kovalam in Kerala, by the beach (yessss). The flight was good, changed at Mumbai, and coming in to land, saw the blue tarpaulin and corrugated iron of the slum, it covers a massive massive area, a city in itself.

It's a lot more laid back down here. There isn't the relentless cacophany of horns which dominate the city soundscape. A cab driver told us it was the music of Delhi, the drivers all honk their horns all the time, to move 'lanes' (used in the loosest sense of the word), overtake (pretty much a constant state of being for all drivers) let pedestrians / cows / dogs / monkeys know they're behind them and they need to move over or die the death of being squished. We've got a few Tuk Tuks now, and that in itself is an adventure. It's like being on the Knight bus in Harry Potter, the drivers squeeze themselves through the most inconceivably small spaces. I'm 90% sure some of the spaces we went through in Jaipur traffic were smaller than the Tuk Tuk itself. And you go so close to other drivers, you can see the minutest detail on their faces; the growing beard of a young Indian man on a motorbike next to us; the bindi on a Hindu woman's face; the snot in a sleeping child's nose.

Anyway, so so far we went from Delhi to Agra, saw the Taj Mahal, and then went on to Jaipur and saw loads and loads of monkeys (and a way cool money-fight, thjey are viscious) in an old temple and I got groped for the first and only time so far. With regards to that, I was expecting far worse from what I'd heard. Most of the bad stuff I'd been expecting I've not experienced. I thought it'd be a gropefest and I'd be shouting at and slapping men with my left flip flop (the recommended deterrent) all over the place. But it's only happened once. Maybe they just don't fancy me. What-ever, I don't care. I get groped ALL the time when I go out in England...

In Jaipur we were hassled by 2 Indian men as soon as we left the station, actually, I say hassled, they took us to the hotel we wanted to stay in, which was full (I checked myself) so they drove us to their mate's hotel, which turned out to be one of the nicest, friendlist ones we've stayed in. Tables were crap tho. As we were eating a massive thunder and lightening storm started, and the rain was coming in and soaking our food, so we tried to pick it up and the marble came off in our hands and crashed to the floor breaking on two. Me and Troy (Mike wanted a cool nickname for the trip) were left standing there with half a table in our hands. Slightly embarrassing. On apologising over and over again, the manager said "Is ok, you treat this hotel like home". Lovely. I'm always breaking stuff at home. We stayed in Jaipur just a day, and got a tuk tuk at 4am to the airport. That was one of the most beautiful experiences of the trip so far (sorry Taj Mahal). It was calm and quiet, a first in any city, and dark. There were gargantuan camels dragging carts filled with timber in the half light, men setting up their chai stalls under tarpaulin, one naked electric light bulb above them, other men asleep by the side of the road, no mattress, no pillow, just on concrete (that wasn't part of the beauty by the way, just an observation!).

We got to the airports and got a plane to Kochi, well we were supposed to, but the flight was late and we missed our connection in Mumbai so got a free lovely air conditioned car from Kochi to Kovalam. It took 6 hours, but was worth it. The coastline is just beautiful, lots of big rivers with riceboats casting their nets, palm trees and healthy looking cows. In the cities the cows may be sacred and traffic-stopping, but you can see their rib cages, I saw one eat a sheet of newspaper and some shit from a plastic bag. I'm not sure this is a good diet for a sacred being. The people look much healthier and happier here than in the cities too. In Delhi practically everyone is emaciated. A belly signals wealth. I am, therefore, extremely wealthy.

Kovalam's a massively westernised touristy place but it's off season at the moment, so there's hardly anyone here, which is nice. We went body boarding in the sea yesterday, the waves are massive and scarey and it's brilliant. Don't worry Ma, there's a life guard who blows a whistle and shouts at you if you go too far out. Today the sky is grey and its raining, and the men from the next beach, a fishing port, have filled the bay with their boats and nets. The seafood here is divine, and I'm not misusing that word. We shared a plate of the biggest prawns you've ever seen last night, and a red snapper, which came whole, face an' all, and Troy ate the eyeballs! Not even as a dare, just, for kicks! I tried, but on poking found it was far too squishy to go in my mouth. Really wanted to try the shark and the lobster, but the lobster is out of season and way too expensive, and the shark was only a babby one. Poor lamb. Tomorrow we head up the coast with our Brand New Travelling Companion wot we picked up, Viola, an Art teacher from Bristol. We're hiring a boat and travelling inland down a river which I spect'll be fecking fabulousness incarnate.