Moving on to the Tharavadu Heritage homestay

another temple

Sunset in the backwaters

G'day all and thanks to my friends who have let D know they are following the blog. Tidda.
They are now further south after the visit to the beautiful Periyar rainforest district and the wildlife reserve which they say has 78 tigers (didn't see any) 1000 elephants, bison, saw them, deer, water birds, (they had a cruise on the lake)  G and D were complaining as everyone was made to wear the very bulky safety vests and then they were jammed into small seats with three people to a bench.  Lucky their friend Joana from Portugal was the 3rd person.
Their friend Joana will leave them in Kottyam as she is attending a bio-medical and nano research conference there and will present a paper.  They all had such a laugh together they will miss her.
They stayed in a gorgeous small hotel called the Coffee Inn with marvellous sculptures all in clay, statuary of amazing animals, a wonderful courtyard backyard where they breakfasted before heading to the caost and an en route visit to the Connemara tea planation and learned the difference between camellia sinensis (chinese) and camellia assamica (indian) went tasting and through the tea factory. They are playing a lot of cards and G keeps winiing - gnashing teeth from D.
They went walking along the towpath beside the Tharavadu this morning and found a gorgeous little houseboat for 2 people called Ganga.  They decided to hire it and on Sunday will be off for four days through the backwaters and across the lake to the coast at Alleppey.  G's camera has died but the other one is fine so photographs are happening.  As soon as D can get onto her own computer she'll post some on the blog.