Alright, I am sorry that it has been awhile since I have updated but I have been going here and there as hopefully you will realize from the following!
To begin Kerala is a state in South-west India and I spent about a week and half wandering through its beauty. We got two weeks off of college to study for our final exams. If you know me well you know that I hardly study anyway, let alone when I am in an amazing place with millions of things to see. Yeah right like I was going to sit home and study for two whole weeks when I could be out doing and seeing! Stacy and I had a hard time finding a train(our preferred mode of transport) to Kochin, Kerala but with the help of our friend Gabe we got a night bus to Kochin. We were on the bus for over 16 hours, 5 more than we were told it would be and I think I slept a total of two hours. Think of trying to sleep in an airplane with the added comfort of honking horns, passing street lights, and bumping over potholed roads. Lovely, just lovely. So, as you can imagine that first day was pretty difficult for me. I followed Gabe and Stacy around in a semi-lucid state so I don't really remember what we did that first day in Kochin. Kochin is made up of several small towns and it is right on the coast of the Arabian sea. We spent our first day in Ernakulum and then headed over to Fort Kochi, we took a crowded ferry over to the island that Fort Kochi was located on. Fort Kochi was really wonderful, though a little touristy. They eat a lot of fish in Keralan cooking and it was wonderfully fresh because all the fish is caught right there in Fort Kochi in these radical Chinese fishing nets that they let down on a pully system into the water from the beach.
There are these stalls next to the nets that say, 'You buy the fish, We Cook it'. And its true, you can go up to a fish vendor and buy a whole fish that they have just caught and than take it to the stall and they'll fry it, or curry it, or do what ever you want. Yummy!
Later that night we watched a traditional Keralan dance called Kathakali. It was interesting and kind of gave me the heebie-jeebies but I was glad we saw it. The costumes that are worn are so outrageous and ornate that I had a hard time not staring at them in a car-crash sort of way.
We looked in our handy Lonely Planet book and decided where to go from Kochin and decided to find a good beech to hang out at. The book sayed that a city called Allepey had a good beech so we took a sooped up auto-rickshaw for the equivilent of 5 dollars but when we got to Allepey we didn't like it so as we were living the transient life, we walked to the bus stand and got a very crowded bus to the town of Kollom. Kollom was nicer and smaller but it took us a a long while to find a hotel to stay in. We ended up staying in a rather overpriced hotel but it was big and clean enough for the dirty hippie/trekkers that we had become. It was twilight time but we wanted to watch the sunset on the beech that we were told was close by. We started walking in the direction that some kind soul pointed us in and we just ket walking and walking and asking and getting pointed in different directions each time. But we had fun anyway and everyone was very friendly, though a little misdirecting. We never did find the beech but we did eat some really good Shawarma roles that are these chicken/pork/onion/spices/lots of other things roled up in a pita things that are amazing!
The next day we took a tour through what are called the backwaters of Kerala. It is a system of lakes, streams, rivers and irrigation ditches that run all through Kerala. We took a canoe through the rural areas and saw some amazing things like how they built the boats, coconuts drying for their oil, and men diving down to the bottom of the rivers to collect dirt that they loaded onto big versions of the boat that we were on. Don't ask me why they collected dirt, I suppose it was better than regular dirt but I have always figured that dirt was dirt so why put yourself out to collect special wet dirt?!
That night Anna (another friend) met up with us and in the morning we were off again. Having been unsuccesful in finding a suitable beech we made our way to Varkala Beech, thinking that the 'beech' in its name was a good sign. It proved true to its name and we were finally able to sit on the beech as we liked. Gabe had to leave us at this point and then it was just us girls. We got this lovely cottage that was right on the beech but back far enough that we weren't in the public view. We were able to go wading in the ocean but I was hesitant to because I am already a self-concious person when it comes to being scantily clad in a bathingsuit but when you have all the male eyes of the beech looking at you, it is ten times worse. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying this to brag or proclaim my own vainity but take it as a fact that if you are a rare fair skinned and fair haired person, you will be stared at no matter where you go in India. I have resigned myself to this fact but it is still difficult when I want to swim in peace.
All the previous adventures were amazing but what I enjoyed the most was the fantastic last two days. Stacy, Anna, and I took a bus up to the Periyar Tiger Reserve located up in the Western Ghats Mountain range. The bus ride up the reserve was in an area of the most beautiful scenery, reminiscent of the Northern Californian coast, but the road up there was filled with switchbacks and potholes, a common ailment of Indian roadways. My face was so dirty from sticking my head out the window and looking at the beauty that it still hasn't recovered and it is quite blemishy even a few weeks after.
We stayed in a lovely little guest house and everyone was very kind and very willing to help us while there. The next morning we woke up very early (4:30! And if you know me well you'll know what a morning person isn't) and started our 'safari' through the perserve. We had a little jeep wrangler and the morning coolness brought in a low mist all around us.
We drove quietly through the jungle and our driver pointed out different animals and plants, very enlightening. We got to a lake about 2 hours into the park and had a traditional South Indian breakfast (which is my favorite food ever!) at a little jungle villa like place. After breakfast we geared up for a trek through the jungle, hoping to spot the illusive feline beast. We had to wear these very becoming (note: sarcasm) leech gaurds around our feet and calves. 
Now as beautiful as these gaurds were I was happy to give up style for leechlessness. And I tell you what, leeches are now one of my new fears and though I didn't get one suckin' my life juices, I had plenty try. I got very good at flicking them off with sticks.
We traipsed around the jungle for four hours and ended up on top of one of the many hills. The view was outstanding and its peacefullness and beauty made me forget that there were places as noisy as Bangalore in this world. We made our way back to the villa and ate lunch. We then got into a little row boat with the same guide that took us through the jungle and he paddled us around the lake. I tried my hand at rowing and I tell you now that if you and I are stranded at sea in a row boat, I'll be the moral support and you can be the rower because I was terrible at it!
