To Cochin and onwards

Sun 3 July: We have to endure 50km of windy roads, followed by some 'normal' Indian roads before we reached Cochin 3.5hrs later. We saw a couple of cool waterfalls along the way. The hotel, Riveria Suites, was reasonably good (but nothing compared to the two best ones we'd stayed in: Travancore Heritage and Backwater Ripples). We had a short tour of a few sights in the centre of Cochin. We went to Mattancherry Dutch Palace/Museum, which used to be Portugese before the Dutch raided it. (Following that, the British arrived and took over everything until Indepedence in 1947 lol). We also went to the coast (Arabian Sea) where we saw some Chinese fishing nets...they're huge! We stopped by a department store for mum/dad to look for some vases etc, but when we went in we realised it was basically Indian Harrods. It was SO expensive! Yes, even by English standards lol.

Mon 4 July: We went to the airport to catch our flight to Mumbai (I said a while back we were getting the train, I was wrong!). During the initial luggage scan, they made us open up one bag. The toy police car set of the scanner...but because there were batteries inside lol. Afterwards, we tried going through security to get to the gates. But this time mum wasn't allowed vases in her hand luggage. So we had to check in her bag as well. Turns out huge, brass vases could be used as weapons (actually they are pretty hefty lol). The inflight entertainment didnt work for neil or me...but we found out it ran on Linux. At first Bombay felt clean/civilised, but then we reached the area of our hotel. Same as it was 6 years ago. SO noisy, dirty and smelly. The place we were staying at was a community hostel-like building. But the rooms were falling apart. Really was a bit of a craphole. To give u an indication...we paid about GBP 1.50 per room for the night.

Tues 5 July: I had a surprisingly good sleep in the dodgy room. We took a trecherous journey to the train station (people were riding their bikes ACROSS the road in the OPPOSITE direction!). The train itself was reasonably good, and air condition. We set off at around 5.30pm.

Weds 6 July: I slept really well considering it was a train. It was only a few hours left before we arrived in Jamnagar at about 10.40am. My phone keeps switching off :( I dropped it from the bed whilst I was on the train so I've probably sped up its death. Seeing my family (mum's side) was really exciting. Feels like we don't really know them. It's really hot! Mosquitos have bitten me many times already lol. All the kids want me to dance with them for some crazy reason. I have so far resisted and will continue to do so lol. Updates may be thin from now, as I doubt I'll be doing much each day. I better go before I catch malaria!