West Coast Trail - Day 1. Left from Port Renfrew and headed out to Thrashers Cove. Short (4km) but tough part of the trail. Took us around 3.5 hours to get to the campsite.
We arrived in Alleppey a couple days ago to the usual touts outside the bus station after our long six hour trip tumbling down the mountain from the tea plantations of Munnar. We're comfortable now with bordering on being rude by putting our heads down, not engaging anyone and just moving through the aggressive crowds looking straight ahead.
Our plan was to relax, put our feet up and maybe take a trip in a converted rice boat through the infamous Kerala backwaters. Slow things down a bit after a pretty busy schedule for the first half of our trip.
We set off yesterday to go meet our captain and cook of our houseboat. Pretty incredible - private boat, lots of room to stretch out and soak up some sun and plenty of fresh sea food.
The boat trip hit the spot. Ridiculous amounts of time to just chill out and absorb an absolutely gorgeous setting out on the water. Time zipped by while we did nothing but eat delicious food and watch the little villages pass by.
We topped off our day when we arrived back on solid ground with an Ayurvedic massage and steam bath and spent some time on one of the most amazing beaches I have ever seen.
Pretty incredible really. As far as having a plan to relax goes I'd say we nailed it.
even for india where cars, trucks, buses, vans, tuk tuks, rickshaws, bikes, pedestrians and cows are all regularly sharing the road simultaneously, the bus was an adventure.
no guard rails, bus driver tearing off huge pieces of newspaper to wrap around the wheel (which I later found out was to absorb the sweat from his hands so that he wouldn't lose his grip on the steering wheel) and everyone bracing for a solid 6 hours was the relaxing part of the ride.
that said we've landed at the cutest place in the backwaters of alleppey and for the first time since we headed out, we're going to slow things down a notch or two and just peace out.
initially i wasn't 100% sold on doing the whole backwater houseboat float thing but after talking to the incredibly helpful matthew and then seeing the flyer for it, i figured it's about as obvious of a sign as i'm going to get (check out the name of the company who runs it).
so it's time to chill out, float on a boat, stumble into an ayervedic massage and topple out onto the beach for a few days before thinking about heading back to fort cochin en route to mumbai and then...home!
so crazy. time has gone by so fast but i'm almost to the point where i'm starting to miss a couple things from home...almost.
our guide was a young guy who knows everything possible about every plant, bird and specimen along the way. it was awesome.
when our trek was done we relocated from our cottage in the woods back into the town and had a super chill afternoon. later we rolled out into the main area of town to check things out and ate street side with some locals and an amazing daughter & dad duo that were traveling together on her break from university.
great day. climbing down the mountain tomorrow morning on what looks to be more like some kids science fair project than an actual bus, but apparently it's heading for the southern backwaters of alleppey so i'm going to be on it.