After 3 days at Varkala we took another hellish train trip to Allepy, where we spent the evening at a wonderful old colonial style guest-house. OUr host, Sharif, was very attentive and made sure we had everything we needed. Our abstinence from alchohol over the past 10 days got the better of us at that Guest House. We decided we needed some wine - red wine - a rare commodity in India. The closest you get to alcohol here is Kingfisher - and it's like drinking watered down beer.
Sharif offered to drive us to the bottle store.
When we got outside and told us to hop on his bike, I was not going anywhere. Thank god julia was brave enough to go. She came back squeeling after about 20 minutes - she had the entire village of Allepy staring at her on the back of Sharif's bike!
Most Indian women ride sitting to the side. Legs closed and certainly not wrapped around a man! Julia got on the bike as would any westerner and was gawked at some more.
We got our bottle of wine. Red Indian "Zinfandel". Hmmm. Put it this way, India is probably not famous for it's wine for a reason.
We spent the evening speaking to some lovely Dutch girls we met. They were students - Dafne and Leigh. We were having dinner with them (more fish) when Sharif came running up to the table asking for our "help". He said that there were some tourists on their way from the station - 8 in total - and could we help him get them into the hotel.
I was eager to help so stood outside chatting with them until they arrived. And then it hit me. I was doing EXACTLY what the person before had done to us to get us to check in!!! I was not upset though because the hotel really was LOVELY. So as their tuk tuks arrived I just said, "hey you guys, this place has great accom too" - and of course they took it.
Unfortunately we didn't recieve any baksheesh for our doings (tip)!
After a good rest, we woke up famished as usual. Sharif suggested an Indian breakfast of Masala Dosa - a panckake stuffed with potatoe and onion mash. Sounds gross but it is delicious. We felt very smug enjoying our authentic breaky with our cup of tea.
We then took a cab for our pre-booked houseboat to begin our long awaited backwaters tour.
The first accomodation we booked, and a day and night we were really looking forward to!
1 comment:
Hi sofia
Am really enjoying your trip with you, sounds wonderful. I hope you'r taking lots of photies. We are well, back at work and trying to figure out the major trends to concentrate on for new ideas. Bailey and Arf are fine - Bailey's started talking and says mama, dada, ta, no and banananananana (doesn't know when to stop). It's all very exciting - she is close to walking too - not long now I think. My mum's coming to visit for a week in Jan, so we'll have some big sunday lunches at ours to welcome her. Thanks for your blogging, wondeful.
love Pam
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