India Part 6 - Alleppey, Kollam, Varkala, Trivandrum and Kanyakumari

We saw hundreds of wet land birds, including cormorants and herons

We continued our travels in Kerala and had a few days floating around the backwaters in Alleppey and Kollam.  We decided not to go on one of the famous rice barges but instead spent a day on the local ferries and 2 days on canoes.  The latter was very peaceful (no engine noise and no pollution) and luckily we had great weather.

Friendly villagers

An example of the famous rice barges which tourists love to stay overnight on

School trip

Tame hand-reared raptor - totally gorgeous

Local fisherman

Friendly tourists

Umbrella hats are very popular in Kerala and in my opinion they should be popular everywhere!

Chilling out in our canoe

Traditional banana leaf meal

We left the beautiful back waters and had a few days hanging out on the beach in Varkala with the Indian tourists, friendly stray dogs and Swamis.

Bringing in the catch

Playing on the beach

Our hut is on top of the cliff

Brothers or lovers?

We then headed to the capital of Kerala, Trivandrum, yet another big, dirty, smelly, polluted but very friendly city.  Then we entered the state of Tamil Nadu and had a few days in the most southern place in India, Kanyakumari, where the bay of Bengal meets the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea.  We went on a packed ferry to visit 2 small rocky islands 400m off shore.  We were the only westerners on board and all the Indian people were either wearing or clutching their life vests.  There was a party atmosphere on board and we felt like celebrities.  One of the islands has the memorial of Swami Vivekananda who meditated here in 1892 before setting out to become one of India's most important religious crusaders.  The other island has a huge statue of a Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar.

Kanyakumari islands

Normal Indian chaos

Meeting the happy tourists

Huge church that blasted music all day long for no apparent reason

Gandhi memorial - don't know why it looks like a cake!

Having fun Indian-style