On my way home on my own

Just to explain!! It was JJ's birthday and the tradition in India is to cut the birthday cake eat some and then spread it over everyone's faces IT DOES MAKE YOU LAUGH!!

Last Few Days in India 2020

Betsy wanted a sarong!!

New Year 2020 Kovalam

Hindu Wedding (Kochin)

Two days after Christmas we were in invited to a Hindu wedding in Kochi, Kochi is 500km north of Kovalam, we caught an early morning train which took 5 hours.

Trains are very busy in India!! the Indians are very friendly though.

Here we are waiting for the ceremony.

The wedding meal was served on banana leaves, all sorts of curries around the edge, rice, chapati and poppadoms, the kitchen ladies kept walking around giving more rice and curry.

Our skills at eating with our hands was improving!!

An arranged Hindu marriage the couple had only me a few times with their parents.

Hindu House warming party

On Christmas day afternoon we were invited to an Indian house warming party, the tradition is that the husband and wife of the new house invite all the village, the priest along with other people from the Church go from room to room blessing each room, this is followed by a huge feast.

Luckily we had practiced the night before eating with just one of our hands, no knives and forks, we felt pretty pleased with ourselves!

Christmas Day

Myself, Mummy, Daddy, Christian, Liz, Geoff, Sue, JJ, Sindu, Joshua and Joshna started Christmas day by walking through the village dressed in as much red as we could find wishing every one Happy Christmas, this was then followed by breakfast overlooking the Arabian Sea.

Indians do celebrate Christmas but not like we do, they have Christmas trees, lots of lights and lots of houses have home made mangers they don't give present like we do in England.

We had our own present giving time later in the day!!

Arrived in Kovalam

What a great welcome to Kovalam from our Friends Geoff, Sue, JJ and Sindu!!

Duck curry caught, prepared and cooked by JJ

Varkala (Kerala)

The plan was to catch a train from Goa to Kerala but daddy messed up the train so we had to catch a taxi the journey was 1000km and it took us 25 hours non stop  MUMMY WAS NOT PLEASED.

we arrived

Our first adventure was a trip to an island in the backwaters.  

A Hindu Temple .

Our next adventure was the Earth center.

Jatayu Earth’s Center, also known as Jatayu Nature Park or Jatayu Rock, is a park and tourism centre at Chadayamangalam in Kollam district of Kerala. It stands at an altitude of 350m (1200ft) above mean sea level. Jatayu Nature Park is holding the distinction of having the world’s largest bird sculpture (200 feet (61 m) long, 150 feet (46 m) broad, 70 feet (21 m) in height and having 15,000 square feet (1,400 m²) of floor area) of the great bird Jatayu.^[3][4] With the bird-sculpture being sculpted by Rajiv Anchal himself, this rock-theme nature park is the first PPP tourism initiative in the state of Kerala under the BOT model. The park is about 38 km (24 mi) away from the city of Kollam and 46 km (29 mi) away from the state capital, Thiruvananthapuram.

THE ABOVE IS COPIED AND PASTED FROM WIKIPEDIA 

Benaulim (Goa)

We arrived in Goa on the 14th of December.

This is what we woke up to at 2 pm

 India is famous for its wonderful spices.

fresh fruit and veg.

it is quite a shock to see cows on the road.

The local people rely on the Ocean for there food, you'll always find fishermen with their fishing boats on the beaches

We thought that it would be a good idea to hire some bikes and go for a cycle, little did we know that it would be more stressful than we thought, the Indians are crazy beeping overtaking, undertaking, there are no rules on the road in India, I was run off the road by a rickshaw (TukTuk) he was very sorry though!!

Farther Christmas does come to India!!