Fancy food...
While we were there it was quiet and the staff were celebrating the holiday with games including tug of war...
In this area there are more spice plantations so everywhere in town spices were for sale...
And these are my favourite treat, either banana or potato chips fried in hot oil, yummy...
One evening we decided to take in a traditional dance performance called Kathakali...
Kathakali is one of the major forms of classical Indian dance. It is a "story play" genre of art, but one distinguished by the elaborately colorful make-up, costumes and facemasks that the traditionally male actor-dancers wear.
The performance is all in mime and there are elaborate head, eye and body movements to tell the story, very different performance...
There is a drummer and cymbal player whose beat controls the body movements that tell the story...
Another glimpse of the culture...
Even though we didn’t get our trek done we did visit the park and spent the day there with lots of locals...
Most people come for the boat trip on the lake which we did as well...
While we were waiting the monkeys were quite active, this one stole a woman’s bag of nuts and enjoyed a snack in the trees...
Very cute but I don’t like them...
Some scenes from the boat trip...
We didn’t see much wildlife but some birds were evident...
Since we couldn’t trek without a guide we decided to walk back through the park instead of getting the bus back to town...
These flowers were in bloom everywhere...
Lots of the trees were signed indicating their use...
This park is also a tiger reserve hoping to grow the numbers of the endangered species in this area...
A quiet path...
Kumily was one of the least interesting stops we have had in India but we still enjoyed the small town atmosphere and the opportunity to live among the locals....
Our last stop in India was Kovalam Beach which we reached by an 8 hour bus ride that we found to be quite enjoyable. We were given the front seats and Don was the only man sitting in the front of the bus with all the ladies. No air conditioning here but windows wide open to enjoy the breeze...
We stayed here in a lovely home stay just up the hill from the beach with a wonderful host named Joseph who was a retired Professor of Social Work...
Kovalam Beach was quite different from our lovely stay on Agonda Beach...
Even though there were few tourists around the place was full of Indian families enjoying the holidays...
The beach is lined with shops, restaurants and lots of vendors...
Even Ghandi made it to the beach...
The waves were really high so it is more of a surfing beach than a swimming one...
It is also a fishing village so lots of boats and nets...
Here the men were hauling up a boat and singing as they did it...
We enjoyed some quiet time here...
A few beers wrapped in brown paper bags and served in large coffee mugs since we were still in the state of Kerala where the liquor laws are strict.
And then off to catch a flight to Sri Lanka...
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