This morning we got up at 8:30 and went for breakfast, which included the usual compliment of Indian dishes. Afterwards we had a canoe trip across the backwaters booked and were on our way just after 10:00. It was a really nice and relaxing 3.5 hour journey in which we saw a lot of paddy fields and water ways. We also saw countless birds including plenty of King Fisher in various sizes (generally classified as small, medium and large). I even joined in in the sailing of the canoe by pushing us along with the large bamboo stick that they use for propelling the canoe.
The hosts here are incredibly nice and they told us a lot about the area, the bird species etc during the trip - on reflection, we have been very lucky with the places we have stayed, barring the Aurangabad hotel and Shanti in Goa.
After our trip I was tired because of my gut infection - I now believe I know the nature of my stomach problems because I contacted Dr. Simon Collins, Dublin a couple of days ago with my symptoms - he is the doctor who inoculated us for the journey. He responded yesterday and told me it was most likely a gut infection and that I should start a course of Metronidazole antibiotics for 10 days, which means no (!!!) alcohol for 10 days as it will mostly likely result in projectile vomiting, which is also Claire's thoughts.
So I went off to bed for a couple of hours and then got up at 16:30 where we were booked to go to a Hindu festival on the other side of our lake by canoe again. So we went off with the other couple here (Mark & Jane and their daughter Emily) and had a nice time while watching and listening to the rituals, which included a horn, drums and an elephant at the temple there. I also managed to pick up the antibiotics there.
At 19:00 we returned and about an hour later we have a nice meal with the other family here. Afterwards fireworks on the other side of the lake started and we joined the hosts here in watching them by the lake. I also showed the family the Google Sky Map and pinpointed Mars, Jupiter and Venus for them - Emily, who is 9, was very interested and I told here to ask her dad for an Android phone and that it should be a Samsung; the iPhone she has does not offer the ability to download Google Sky Map - and naturally her parents "thanked" me very much for this ;-)
Then we went in to watch television (and saw that the King Fisher airline accounts were frozen by revenue here and loads of flights were cancelled - employees had not been paid for 3 months etc).
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| Spot the King Fisher |
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| The backwaters between Kochi and Alleppey that we traveled down |
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| The local water feature - a loo out in the open ;-) There used to be a shack surrounding it ;-) |
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| Yours truly in front of a coconut palm tree |
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| My feeble attempts at propelling and steering the boat - after about 5 minutes I had enough - and so did the owner I think ;-) |
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| The local Hindu festival's star, the bling elephant |
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| The local "band" of the Hindu festival |
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