North India and a taste of paradise

North India

Delhi

Now this was a nightmare and even as I am writing this whilst waiting for our delayed flight from Kerala, it is still due to Delhi. After driving for 7-8 hours from Agra to Delhi we finally thought that we could keep our feet up, get dinner and then sleep in our hotel beds. However we soon found out that our accommodation was given to someone else as they thought we were not coming. Do they know their own chaotic traffic? After many hours, of waiting children getting very hungry and tired, we forced them to find another accommodation place and organise the travel arrangements.
 

Bad choice too. This was a so called 5 star hotel, however the service, food, communication skills were of no stars! On the only positive note, we spend a couple of hours with my cousin Ramesh and his wife Marie, and may have even tempted them to spend Christmas with us in the South.

Kerala, known as God’s own country

This is definitely a must see and the most beautiful place that I have seen. I wish we could have stayed here longer. People seem so caring, the area is organised, cleaner and they take pride in their land. It is green with gorgeous mountains, where we stayed the first two nights. The views are amazing. We went to a tea planting museum and learnt so much about how this amazing area came to be. We also visited an spice garden where we learnt the healing properties of many plant extracts. We saw coconut trees, tea plants, coca trees, coffee bean trees and so on everywhere we looked. We also rode on elephants in the forest, which was so beautiful.  People work together here so well and it really feels at peace. Christians, Muslims, Hindus and the native people of Kerala all work and respect one another. We were amazed how many churches and how many people were on fire for Jesus in the place... nothing we have encountered to this scale anywhere else.

Now down to the biggest fresh water lake in Asia. After leaving beautiful Munnar, we travelled to the lakes and rivers of Alleppey where we stayed one night in a beautiful boat house that reminded us of Noah’s ark. This was unbelievable beautiful to  where we travelled and saw the locals, swimming, bathing and washing  close to the shore, fishermen with their nets out and we tasted the biggest and yummiest prawns and crab. Unfortunately Joe and Nikki were sick for one evening, however it was restful and peaceful (Until they got sick... for them anyway)