SET THE SCENE:

I'm in Varkala. It's a beach in Kerala. Relatively secluded. The restaurants, hotels and shops are all on a cliff facing the Arabian sea. The beach is below with white sand. The waves break early and there's a wide stretch of flat sand where the water kind of wafts across. The sun sets directly over the water.

WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING?

I mentioned that I was going to Mysore. Well I WENT to Mysore.
Now I know you devoted fans want the truth, so I'm gonna give it. Traveling alone to Mysore was NOT easy.
Firstly - Mysore = MY SORE NECK.
This is simply because I took a FOURTEEN HOUR LOCAL BUS from Gokarna to Mysore. Anyone been to India should LOATHE the local buses. LOATHE them. They are truly horrible - I just can't say enough bad things about them. I was literally FLYING off my seat. In fact the trauma is affecting me so much right now that I am going to move on.

Well I arrived at 21:20 into Mysore. I am was too proud to get a rickshaw so I set off with my Turtle Bag (reference to how I look with it on - a turtle). Well baby, it was HARD but I managed. And I managed with minimal harassment as well. Got a room (cheap!) and was decidedly hungry. SO, and this is a recommendation to anyone going to Mysore, I went to a restaurant called RRR where, get this, THEY SERVE THALI on Banana leaves.
Thali (n.) - Indian meal consisting of rice, chapati, papadam, dhal and two vegetable curry dishes.
BUT it was ALL YOU CAN EAT for $1 AUD. You just keep getting more. There were no Westerners there. AND down here you get coconut chutney. OMG YUM!
Okay Okay, enough about the food.

Now I won't go into all the details but the next two days were a bit of a hastle. People just lied, cheated and leered (word?) at me. BUT it was all made better by the following:

1. It was a festival the day I went. People go to Mysore for the palace - it's this AMAZING palace of elaborate and lavish intricacies. Basically it was a British architect with an Indian vision. But yeh, so that night the whole palace was LIT UP in thousands of light bulbs. They only do it like oncea month b/c its expensive but it looked BRILLIANT! (pics are coming... one day)

2. I met some Indian people who took me (on motorcycles) across town to have chai. Yum! (Okay I kept this point minimal because I don't want to alert anyone to the utter stupidity of this action - me being female, white and 21 going off with unkown Indians on motorcycles)

3. I accidentally stumbled upon a school where a group of boys were having band practice and then they showed me around the school.. really fun.

4. I met an Indian girl - about my age - named Gheeta. She is 4 months married. Anyways we got to chatting on the local bus and she invited me to come with her family to the Mysore Zoo. So I went and it was really lovely. THen she wanted me to come to her home to eat but ALAS (and truly sorry) I was leaving that afternoon. That's life hey.

5. I met a French couple who were LOVELY and we ate together. Then we went in search of fantastic lassis but ended up with outrageous chocolate sundaes.

6. I went to the train station early in the morning and saw a MASSIVE hoverment (new word) of Indians. I went to check it out and found a food stall. (Street Food). I had chai and breakfast with all these local Mysorians - was SO YUM. yyyuuummmm. Excellent food. Mouth watering right now can't think... okay no I'm fine.

Okay well Mysore was actually quite good, now that I look at the facts. I just think it took some getting used to.

WHAT DID I DO NEXT?

I went to Kerala, to Alappy. I met up with all my friends - the British trio (Anna, Ross and BJ), an English couple, another English girl and an Irishman. We hired a houseboat and sailed the backwaters for two nights. We ate fresh fish and just relaxed. Each day we stopped off at little towns on the backwaters. I found Khol for rs. 2. YAY!

the trio left yesterday and it was REALLY sad. I will sorely miss them. But I moved on with the English couple and the Irishman.

That brings me to Varkala.

In other exciting news, Sarah is coming back! YaY!~! So I will see her VERY shortly.

HOW WILL I END THIS POST?

With a mental pat on the back for description. I'll also tell you about my dinner last night. I had a Coke. This is amazing because coke was banned in Kerala because of supposed pesticides. The ban has been lifted because it apparently wasn't true but because Kerala is a little.. slow.. coke/pepsi has not been available. So yes. I had COKE!
And then we went downstairs to check out the FISH. Fresh fish. Dave, the Irishman, and I chose a tuna to share. We had it done tandoori style with chilli masala paste. OMG. yum! It came with Salad and chips. And then I got a bloody Mary with FRESH tomato juice.

Such a good meal man.