But a shed load of buses recently to get us out of Mysore (before James got any grumpier) and down to Kerala. The journey between Mysore and Kochi was 14 hours by bus which did not fill us with joy, so we decided to have a pit stop in Ootacamund, playground of the British Colonials (snooker was invented in the Ooty club while Lloyd George was getting smashed on gin and shouted ’snooker’ at a local). Before we even got there the detour was worthwhile thanks to a truly beautiful ride through the Nilgiri mountains – the little road ascended through mile after mile of tall bamboo forest before the landscape opened out to reveal steep, rolling mountains faces covered by acres of tea bushes. No wonder the British liked it up there, it’s 10 degrees cooler and there’s enough tea to sink an army of elephants.  We aso learnt an intersting fact: 30 seater buses with 48 people on board can overtake Land Rovers, in second gear, on hair pin bends.

Ooty itself seems to have gone to the dogs a bit recently (what ho, old chap) although we found a great curry house full of middle class Indians on their holidays and stayed at a very cheap hostel. The following morning we decided it didn’t have much else to offer and hopped on a 3 hour bus through equally beautiful scenery to Coimbatore. I have nothing to say about Combiatiore except that it made Ooty look like Florence, so we swiftly hopped on another bus which took us out of Tamil Nadu and into Kerala. 

Kerala is very different from most of the other states we’ve passed through. To begin with,  the elected state goverment is communist and there are Soviet hammer and sickles everywhere you look. Secondly, there seems to be less poverty, more employment and a higher literacy rate than anywhere else we’ve been (no doubt the diehard  Reds amongst you (mother) would attribute this to the Communist goverance, but the tourist attractions can’t hurt its economy either). Thirdly, and best of all, they serve beer out of tea pots into china cups. The state goverment places very tight restrictions on alcohol but they also know that a beer helps to loosen tourist purse strings so, in true communist style, they turn a blind eye as long as a) it doesn’t appear on menus and b) comes out of teapots.

We spent two days in Kochi, which is my favourite city so far: a network of cheap and regular ferries link the various parts of the city which meant we could stay in the industrial, commercial (kind to the budget) area of Ernakulem, then hop over to Fort Kochi where the Portugese and Dutch made everything pretty, before heading to the brilliantly named Jew Town, where all the expensive shops are.  Here’s a conversation I heard in a bookshop:

Shopkeeper (to a group of earnest Americans): “Here we have a section on Kerala’s History – I would recommend this book about Kochin’s Jewish population. It is very controversial.”

American: “Why is it controversial?’

Shopkeeper (long pause): “Because it is about Jews”

American (knowingly): “I see…how much?”

All in all Kochin is great, but it does share one feature with every other urban area we’ve been to – it smells.  Sweat, diesel fumes, sandal wood, spicey fried street food, cardamon, cow dung, raw (sometime rotting) fish, varnish, shampoo, jasmine flowers, human effluence, scorched tyre rubber, woodsmoke, vomit, sulphur, sugar, ghee: I smelled every one of these things on the way from Kochin down the coast yesterday…not all bad smells (although the effluence and diesel fumes are probably the most common in the cities) but put them together and they can result in complete sensory overload even if you keep your eyes and ears closed for the day (impossible unless you want to fall under a bus/train/cow/rickshaw/motorbike).  It keeps taking me by surprise – I feel totally acclimatised then get another weird moment of India-induced disorientation.

 Since Kochin we have survived 4 more buses got us to Karvala, a lovely little village in South Kerala, to recuperate from a week of sweaty travel. In other news, over the past few days I have managed to get a cold (how? HOW?), a hangover (I know how – stupid tea pots) and a sharp dose of Delhi Belly (I have a few suspects). James is as fit as a fiddle, which has put me into a black, black mood. I intend to poison his Masala tonight.

N.B. James has temporarily suspended camera duties as we are revisiting Kochin and Karvala with Matt.