Kumarakom, Kerala

No internet for two days. We are in southern India now - Kerela
State near Cochin, now Kochi - and it is a totally different world.
Here it is more like rural Thailand and much less crowded, much more
prosperous. And the sky is blue, though it wa raining when we arrived
yesterday. Went to the bird sanctuary this morning at 7 and went out
in a little boat, a man with a pole, and our guide pointed out
and named various birds. Very enjoyable and relaxing. Can't add any
more pictures now because I didn't bring the connector.

I do want to mention the other parts of the travel - getting from place to place. It took 6 hours to go the 325 km (about 200miles) from Jaipur to Delhi - about 2 hours spent on the last 50 km (30 miles) getting into Delhi.

Then yesterday we were up at 5:30am, picked up at 6 and to the airport, where our flight out was delayed an hour. Stopped in Mumbai (Bombay) and then to Kochi (Cochin). Philip Jose sat next to us on the second part of the flight, accompanying his grandfather home. He was a wonderful introduction to Kerela and gave us his cell number if we had any problems.

Nishant, as always, was fantastic. He had everything planned out. (He has the blog address now so I can ony say good things. :) ) If you read this Nishant, our phon isn't able to call out. It does seem you called.

It was raining, but we were picked up and driven to Kochin where the travel agent got out - he needed 800 more than the original price, to pay for the taxi from the Kochi hotel to the airport - and then we drove about 2.5 hours more into little back villages to Kumarakom, where our 'hotel' is a beautiful little cottage on the lake. This is where people boat back into the canals, and we have lovely little spot in a locally owned place that is not much more than someone's lot that added these first class bungalows. Dinner was made to order and brought to our porch where we ate looking over the dark lake. At less than $40 a night it is a bargain compared to the international hotels nearby that are $180 on up. Nishant, you did a great job.