Back to the beach

Well, we've been having a great time out here. We've left Munnar after buying more tea and spices! my bag is stuffed and I haven't even began shopping yet! We took a 5 hour bus to Thekkady. I forgot to mention that there so far in every bus we've been in I have been surprised that we haven't hit someone or something. The roads are super windy and narrow, and they are up in the mountains. Its not like they go fast, but everytime they go around the corner they honk and I pray that there will be nothing on the other side. Sometimes my prayers are answered and other times, not, but at those times, i pray for brakes that work... so far so good!

Chris standing by a neat looking tree on the way to the park.

Anyways, we went to Thekkady. There is a national game park there and thats about it. We woke up early and went on a 7:00 2 hour boat ride through the park. It was very pretty, although we didn't spot many animals. Lots of birds, and wild pigs, some deer and an otter!
After that we napped, well, Chris did, as I refused to lay in the bed. Let me tell you why.
After searching for a room I stumbled upon a nice spotless room, probably the nicest we had been in up to that point. We took the room. I woke up about 12:30 am an noticed that there were ants (many many ants) crawling by our heads. We exterminated the ants and Chris fell asleep no problem, but needless to say I had a shitty sleep as I didn't particularily want to share my bed with ants. Anyways, Chris had an afternoon nap, I didn't.
We walked to the park and saw lots of monkeys, and pigs and a barking deer (small deer the size of a dog, with horns) and then bought tickets to go on the boat again for 4:00. This boa trip we saw bison, lots of deer, pigs and my favorite was elepants. Thats the first time I've seen elephants in the wild. Very awesome. 2 big ones and 2 babies....


the babies are hidden between the big ones in this picture!

After our boat ride we went for supper. I've been doing so good. (knock on wood) eating at local restaurants and not having any stomach problems. The food is great. Sometimes spicy and sometimes we're not sure what we've ordered, but always tasty.
We took another death trap bus that evening for a 4 hour ride and we got a room in a yucky dirty hole. It was for sleeping only so I didn't care as we were leaving in 6 hours. But not only was it dirty, it was so small.

Chris in our small room. yes, we both slept on that bed!

We left early in the morning for Alleppy. We took a bus... again.. its our only choice! They really aren't that bad. Its funny actually. No one ever wants to sit with me, so I usually get a seat to myself! I don't know why, but its fine by me!
We got to Alleppy and had just enough time for a spicy local breakfast and to catch the 10:30 backwater cruise to Kollam. It was beautiful, although about 8 hours, but worth it. Its so pretty, almost hard to believe we're in India!

Us on the boat.

Our boat and the scenery!

So, after the boat ride, we hopped on (you guessed it) 2 more buses, and now, we're back to the beach. We're slowing our pace down considerably now, since we only have a week or so left. I'm so not ready to go back to work. We'll probably spend a couple days here and there on different beaches while making our way back to Bombay.

Me this morning on a cliff overlooking the beach.

Its so hot here, that we're not even sitting on the beach right now, its 3:00 pm. We'll head back to the beach in about 1 hour. We have a nice room with a nice balcony about 40 steps to the beach. No ants so far! haha.

Well, I'm gonna head off now. Enjoy the pictures!