March 15 - End of Intrepid's Southern India Adventure

We left our "home-stay" after breakfast of cooked rice, curry, vegetables, bananas and masala chai...I'm becoming more Indian each day. We say good-bye to our hosts and head down river for a one-hour trip to meet our local bus.

Good-Bye Home-Stay

Fading Backwater

Reflections

Kerala's House-Boats

Perfect timing...the bus arrives within minutes and we have speedy ride back to Fort Cochin. The Indians pride themselves on the timeliness of their train and bus systems. The bus pulls into the station...every one jumps off with their personal bags except Chandra. He proceeds to literally throw our bags out the window...just in time because the bus was beginning to pull-out.

I'm sitting here at an Internet cafe trying to catch-up on this BLOG. Tonight, we are having a cooking lesson at our Intrepid residence followed my our last meal together as a group. Tomorrow, everyone will be going their own way...Kiki and Jessie travel to Delphi to join Intrepid's Northern India tour....Mary heads for a 2 week stay in Goa.....Frank heads to Holland to visit family before heading back to Ontario,Canada....Monica and Theresa head south for a few days at a beach before heading home to Austria....Pip heads to Delhi to meet friends for Intrepid's "Rajasthan Experience" which begins on Monday, March 19. I fly to Amritsar, Sikh's religious holy city, located in Northern India for the weekend. I will be joining Pip and friends on the "Rajasthan Experience"  on March 19.

Our last night together was spent at Intrepid's sleeping facilities in Fort Cochin. Rather than go out for dinner, Intrepid had a superb cook that created a culinary masterpiece of King-fish filets in a superb curry marinade, chicken marinated, cooked, placed in a a white sauce and covered in bread crumbs and cooked again, rice with tons of different herbs, dahl and a chocolate dessert to die for......a slow death by a thousand calories. What was special was that we spent 2 +hours watching the chef create his masterpiece...Pip took tons of notes while Monica and Theresa kept saying ...huuummm....yyaaaa! A perfect end to a 15 day adventure.