I wake up after an amazing night's sleep on the train. I have only woken up once, super cold, to get my fleece and socks. Whilst I'm down from the dizzying heights of my bed, I also brave the train toilet - which is the scariest thing I've encountered in India thus far!
The man who helped us find our way to our carriage last night has come back to see us this morning. He has also bought his wife who comes in and sits opposite us, smiling but not speaking. She is quickly followed by five young men, who could have been his sons, who also all shake our hands and sit on the lower tier benches of our carriage, not talking. They sit for 30 seconds smiling and looking at us before saying Goodbye and disembarking. I genuinely don't think they wanted anything from us - just the experience of sitting in our company. It's a hard notion to get our heads around.
I finish my book and shortly afterwards we arrive at our destination. After some bad directions (ironically from the tourist office) we find a rickshaw to take us to the station where we board a bus to Alleppey, a key backwater hub. It's a 1hr40 journey down, the weather is hot, sky is blue and landscape is super green. Our bus is jam packed and a man sleeps next to me, his head occasionally crashing into my shoulder with no apology. I have learned to have a different opinion of what should be considered personal space from my time in India!
We arrive in Alleppey and as promised by Lonely Planet we are quickly pounced on by someone trying to get us to his guesthouse. Having spent the night on the train, we are jaded, hungry and in need of a shower so agree to check it out. We arrive at 'Smiley Cat' guesthouse and it's not very smiley - at all. Despite the appeal of it being only 400 rupees for the night we decide to continue our search, trying another budget place (that has had to shut due to a family bereavement) before finding the gorgeous Keraleeyam. Set down a pretty walkway the accommodation is a series of thatched bungalows right beside the water with a mosquito net draped teak bed and lovely outdoor bathroom & shower (I've never had one before and I'm super excited about this little al fresco treat). All for £13.50 each for the night.
After the best shower in the world (only coming second to post Glastonbury), we enjoy a cheese toastie on our veranda watching the boats linger past and head for an Ayervedic massage which turns out to be quite some experience!!
Ayerveda is an Indian form of medicine treating the inside and outside of the body and the herbs used are traditionally grown in Kerala. We are taken to a bungalow where Erin heads left and I go right. There are two ladies in the room and they ask me to strip so I'm entirely naked. I oblige and obediently sit on a stool where oil is applied to my hair and I am given a brisk head massage to increase circulation. I am eventually upgraded to the hard wooden and ornately carved table in the room where the next 45 minutes are spent being contorted into a variety of positions with lashings of warm oil being poured over my entire body. I start to become worried about slipping off the table. I am literally soaked in the stuff and no piece of skin is left unmassaged!! The ritual is finished with a lovely facial oil being applied, the excess oil on my body is soaked up using white sheets and I am taken to a shower where I meet Erin again and we wash away the remaining oil. When I ask her if she went totally naked she tells me she was supplied with special knickers. Perhaps they only had one pair...
The rest of the afternoon is spent snoozing, reading, watching the view over the water, enjoying a Keralan dinner and avoiding the ridiculous amount of mosquitoes & insects who seem to live here and like the smell of the Ayurvedic oil.
We fall asleep under the mosquito net, listening to the cicadas and other sounds of the Indian wildlife outside, through our thinly thatched little hut.
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