Well, we've reached our southerly most point in India at Varkala beach, and are heading back up north tonight. We're off to Chennai (Madras) for a day before continuing up to Calcutta. It's probably about time too as the heat and humidity are starting to get oppressive down here (38 yesterday!).

In Aleppy we met up with an English guy and decided to share a 24 hour backwater cruise. These aren't cheap, but was probably the most pleasant thing we've done in india - floating down palm lined waterways, eating superb fresh food with cold kingfishers to hand. The guy who owned the boat was also from england - he'd emigrated here with almost no money to build an eco friendly boat in return for visa support from the keralan govenment. The boat wasn't quite finished but he's running it to raise the cash to complete the project at which point he gets to sell all the designs. All this talk got me thinking - the diesel engine powering the boat was too noisy I thought. Hmmm, what if you could build an internal combustion engine that ran off continuous combustion? It would need a compression, combustion and exhaust stage. Well you can achieve that with a supercharger and combustion chamber and you could power the supercharger off the exhaust turbine blah blah blah etc etc shit i've just invented the gas turbine! Damn I'm clever. Shame it's 80 years too late...

After the boat we got another boat down to Kollam, a pretty dull backwater town in the middle of the backwaters. We stopped a night before heading down to Varkala. Getting the bus almost caused Grapes to burst a blood vessel - I asked the bus driver if he was going to Varkala to which he said he was, but even before we could get on he'd started driving off. Grapes got him to stop by hammering on the side of the bus. Once on the conductor told us that actually the bus didn't go to Varkala at all and we'd have to change (which was actually no problem at all). Thankfully Varkala has proved nice and relaxing but I think India is getting to Grapes and she needs a change!

Varkala itself is a string of restaurants and hotels along the top of a cliff with a smallish beach below. It is very picturesque but the beach has a reputation as being one of the most dangerous in India! Having been for a few swims I can probably agree. The waves are massive - a bit like being in a washing machine and the rips are really strong. They have full time lifeguards here and the day before we arrived a couple of people got swept out (but rescued).

We met loads of cool people here (it has one of the best so called "traveller vibes" I've experienced) and I even met a guy from Burnham-on-Sea! Poor chap. Possibly the funniest guy we met was the 40something alcoholic stoner who's ambition is to build a shed. The food here is pretty good too - plenty of cheap seafood and even some Thai approximations which aren't too wide of the mark. Like most places in Kerala no bars are licensed so beer is served in a teapot with a couple of mugs and they shut when the last person leaves. Having said that I'm starting to get a little tired of rapidly warming Kingfisher with all the rubbish that they put in. The stuff they have here would probably be illegal in the UK!