Post Goa

After Goa, we headed to Hampi. Hampi is a small town and is built around ruins dating back to 1336. It was very peaceful there. We walked around the large temples surrounded by palm trees. A person could spend several days just walking around the ruins. We spent a day, it was hot, but the atmosphere was very serene, quite, and nice. From Hampi we headed to Kerala, but had to jump through hoops to get there. We took an overnight bus to Bangalore and got there at 6:00 in the morning. Turned out that we could not get a bus to Kerala until 7:00 in the evening. So we spent the day wandering around, checking internet, went to a beauty salon, and reading in a nice park. We headed to Kerala and got booted off our bus at five in the morning and we were shuffled onto another bus. It was wierd because we were sleeping, but I guess they were condensing everyone onto one bus. Our home base in Kerala was the town of Alleppey, sorta in the middle of Kerala. Again, like Goa, Kerala is a state in India, but is often referred to as one place. We took a canoe trip through small canals and on this one trip, we saw banana trees, cocunt trees, rice fields, and one cotton tree. Kerala is surround by back waters and villages lay in between the canals and lakes. The main mode of transportation for the local villagers is local ferries. We had several opportunties to walk through a few villages and to walk through rice fields. Rice and fish is the staple food here. Kayo and I spent one day and one night on a house boat. This trip was really great. Relaxing and we spent the day sitting on the boat looking at the beautiful scenery and observing village life taking place on the shore. The meals were amazing and we essentially got to live it up for one day. We don't usually travel in "style" like this, so it was a great experience. During our second day in Aellepy we took a bus to a town where we could catch a local ferry back to where we stayed. We talked with a local girl who was so much fun to converse with. She showed us pictures of her family and taught us a little about their local agriculture and the rice fields. She is Muslim and talked about Muslim weddings and described a few of the traditions. Muslim weddings are three days and the last day is the reception where all the guest are invited to celebrate with the family. The girl will also have an arranged marriage, as most Muslims do. As part of our canoe trip, we spent time in the village of our canoe guide, and his wife made us local Keralan cuisuine, and we spent some time talking with his neighbor who is a 21 year old college student home for holiday. Hindi is not spoken here, the language of the people is Malaylam. We were talking with our hostel owner and his friend and I tried to get them to teach me swear words in their langauge. They refused, I already know most swear words in Hindi and wanted to broaden my vocabulary. Now we are in Pondicherry, a cute coastal town on the Bay of Bengal. Pondicherry was a french colonial town and has a french feel. We have only been here for a half a day and we are taking a bus today to go to Chennai where we fly out to Vietnam. We only have less than ten hours left in India. It seems unreal. I have spent close to half a year, about four months and three weeks, in this country. I am going to miss Sari watching. The main dress for women. It happens to be "mother" day today, which is a festival basically celebrating their gods, and Kayo and I were able to get our last dose of people watching and mingling agmonst the locals.