Ok, I'm writing the blog about Kerala.

Although I know it won't be, I will try to keep these blogs rather to the point, and really only about the trip. I don't really like merely recounting my days and experiences, but rather talking about them... Since that is rather impossible when we were gone for 10 days, I'll just give you the rundown, instead of life. Maybe add a few thoughts here and there.

The downlow:
Riane and I took off, just the two of us, to travel India's most southern state, Kerala. Kerala is a communist state, originally founded by the Portuguese, so it is super Christian-ish and has a cute European feel in a lot of its places, which was a little unexpected.
Kerala is known as "God's own country" and we had to explore it!


Destination 1 - Cochin
We get to airport and our flight is canceled. We hop aboard another plane.
We like planes and small bottles of water, so it's all good.

Behind us is a group of creeper guys that all took turns going to the bathroom to really relocate to the seats across from us so they can stare and take pictures of us. In the airport and on the plane.

We arrive in Fort Cochin, Kerala and put our bags down at a super cute homestay- i-one's (the big draw was the BIG BALCONY) - owned by an Indian man - Ivan Joseph - and his family.
Such an Indian name...

A few pics of what we found in Fort Cochin:

Sunset. Which is strange because thinking about this picture... The sunset should have been behind me, not east, the direction I am looking in.

Men catch fish and then sell them on the street. They let you pick your fish, then they take it to a restaurant and cook it for you. Riane tried this.

She's gross.

Then we went back to our cute homestay and slept in the billion degree weather.

And got up for a bike ride and day of touring Cochin - Chinese fishing nets, trees, restaurants, Jew Town, the Basilica and St. Francis Church, martial arts, coffee with a bunch of Europeans and Kathakali, the dance of Kerala (that one rickshaw driver told us all Keralans hate because it is all hand and face movements and super long. They go see Kathakali performances when they want to go to sleep. He was right. We got pretty bored, and as a dancer and supporter of traditional arts and forms of self expression, I really do not like saying that. But yea, sanskrit epics (6 hours long) are not very active and therefore, not the best source of entertainment.

 We found a bright purple wall while eating our breakfast of fresh cut pineapple.

The Basilica. Our homestay was behind here.

It was a beautiful place, but there was a woman sobbing inside and it broke my heart to hear her. I don't know what she was saying, but she was hurting, badly. And I just stood there snapping pictures.

And it never fails. Even if this woman hadn't been crying, I would have been crying. Every time I step into a sacred place, I just can't help but tear up for reasons unknown. It must be very startling for the people around me to turn around and see me crying for no apparent reasons.

St. Francis Church. The Gideons gave us the New Testament in Hindi.

This was a very awkward moment in our lives - we were two of the 4 females in the entire room watching this show. These outfits wrapped around the guys crotches and every time they stood at the end of the stage to bow to us before they did anything, their crotch was always directly eye level.

Awkward. but the stuff they showed was pretty cool.

Coffee and Lonely Planet consultation time at a restaurant Lonely Planet suggested. 

(i-one, our homestay owner, really wanted us to recommend him as a good homestay. good enough to be in the "tour books you look" which meant Lonely Planet. Nobody goes anywhere without Lonely Planet. We said we would recommend him, and we can! Because Riane is friends with the India Lonely Planet writer over Twitter.)

This baby's mother kept putting him really far away for no apparent reason.

Kathakali performance - elaborate. They spent an hour doing makeup on stage.

I am taking this picture from one of these! Backwater tour in Cochin.

Canals we traveled through.

Kerala is HOT. In Hyderabad, it gets up to like 103 degrees in the afternoon. It's so hot that our bike stands create little melted cement holes in the parking lot. Now add 50% more humidity and that is Kerala, especially Kerala's coast.

We loved Cochin (we wondered if it was because it was European-esq and so put it out of mind with the promise we would head to Europe soon) but our next destination was in the Western Ghats of India, where it was cool and beautiful - Munnar, a beautiful bustling little mountain town.

Ugh, I'm tired. I started this at 10 at night, rather than spend all Sunday doing it and so I will do it tomorrow.

I hope it will get more interesting, but that just depends on how much time in the world I think I have to share every moment, every detail, every thought that I can recount.