JaJaJeEv

Yes, they are truly beautiful.

It’s one of those places in India that everyone is supposed to go – and the idea is that you hop in a houseboat or launch and cruise about in the quiet, lush canals, whilst the good people of Kerala make their livings on, by, and in the water.

So… we did just that.

Distributed across this huge area of lagoons and waterways are thousands of Chinese fishing nets. We spent the day drifting past these elaborate skeletal contraptions that are designed to lift the catch straight out of the water.

But most of the nets we saw seemed rather deserted – presumably the stocks are falling – and the only working nets we saw were those on show in the main, tourist-friendly port of Kochi.

(Of which more to come. As you can see I’m desperately trying to whittle down our Flickr holiday backlog before we dash off again.)

After leaving Trivandrum, we headed inland to get up (very) close with lions…

…across Neyyar Dam to find some reptiles…

…north a bit to hop on a ride with Duba the elephant..

…finally ending up at Quilon, a town at the southern end of the main section of the Keralan backwaters.

You might notice that our homestead for the night had a curious statue in the garden.

Sorry… this is a bit chronologically disjointed, but we were a bit lazy when we got back from travelling around India, so now I’m trying to catch up.

We started May by flying down to the very south-west of India, a state called Kerala, and hitting the beaches immediately.

Our first port of call was the very laid back ‘Coconut Bay’ hotel. Yes it was on a bay, and they had coconuts, but it more than lived up to all the Keralan beach resort clichés.

It’s only a few hours away from Nashik, but as you can imagine, we immediately got into the holiday state of mind – (sans jetlag!) – to the sounds of birds, palm trees, and crashing waves. Paradise!

Jex had an Indo-Italian 6th bday at the local Little Italy next to Sula complete with a racetrack birthday cake.  Cool.

Back in May we had a glorious two weeks hanging out in Goa and Kerala.  Check out some of the pics that require very little explanation.

and another …. recognise the location?

The Indian train experience coming up -

My babes – on-the-road travel got a little too much for them.

I had to rush to take this pic as it was darn hot and the chocolate on the cake was already starting to melt.  I think the temperature during the last week of April exceeded 40 degrees every day.  Happy-happy bday.

Apologies for not posting for a little while. We’ve been on holiday and deliberately disconnected. Before we deluge you with all the posts from our trips to Kerala & Goa (and more to come), a few photos from a local wedding we were invited to.

Although our apartment car-park was the scene of dancing, cooking and feasting for almost 48 hours beforehand, the day itself begins with a loud dancing procession through the streets, with rolling sound-system on the back of a truck, and trumpeters and drummers doing their best to deafen the revelers.

The hoard reaches the wedding hall early in the afternoon, and, with women and men on each side of the hall, the ceremony begins, to much throwing of rice.

Most importantly, for Jex at least, the afternoon finishes with a banquet of sweets and bread. Heaven.

All the photos from the day are here. Now crank up your heating to 40 degrees and imagine you’re there in person!

We’re glad it’s not just us.

Even this morning’s Nashik Times bemoans the fact that it’s hotter than it ought to be. “The mercury is pushing 40°” as they scientifically explain. The lows this year are the same as the highs in previous years, and with at least 2-3 months to go until the relief of the monsoon, it could be a trial of stamina.

We’re so far managing without air-conditioning in our apartment. We have ceiling fans that helpfully circulate the warm air – but at least keep it ventilated.

The trick is to open the windows as soon as the outside air temperature drops below that inside (which is about 10pm) and then close them when it rises again (about 8am) – whilst trying to avoid having to listen to the wailing stray dogs and horn-tooting drivers in between. We’re becoming expert at this hysteresis.

But we’re holding up fine so far. The heat doesn’t seem to affect the kids at all. (Athletically running around caves after having climbed up a sun-parched mountain, above, for example).

Suffering most seems to be James’ computer. Apple clearly never test their equipment outside of pleasant air-conditioned offices. We need to have a huge desk fan pointed at the back of it to keep him productive, and even then its rubber feet have melted to the desk.

Ah! The joys of the Indian Summer.

The girls are slowly going native.

Evie’s gaining her Hindi teacher’s accent, Jayne’s wearing salwar kameez to work.

And now, matching hers’n'hers henna.

But this is no rebelliousness. In fact Evie is pleased now that she finally has hands like the rest of the girls in her class.

Now, if they could just do it in pink…

A couple of Saturdays ago we managed to grab the last of the harvests – in this case it was the die-hard Cabernet Sauvignon.

As both J and E were keen to find out what Mummy does exactly at Sula Vineyards besides drinking wine all day, I took them on a bite-sized tour. It started off with some grape crushing, a lot of tank fermenting, a bit of barrel ageing and sparkling wine production and finally the area they got very excited about – the bottling room.

They were captivated and I’m a proud Mum.  Maybe Sula should consider “The Sula Summer Camp” (age 4 – 94) by way of diversification…