Chandra wakes us at 7:15am, Beth and I have slept for 10 hours. I'm not sure how, after the naps we had the day before. Breakfast was served on deck. Eggs, toast, butter, jam, chai and milky coffee. The captain picks up the mangos in the fruit bowl on the table and peels it with a machete, big chops, discarding the peel into the waters and then opens up the pomegranate for us too. My favourite breakfast of the trip. Coasting along the waters, eating fresh from the market fruits, sipping my coffee and waving to the kids shouting ‘hi hi hi’ and ‘bye bye bye’ as passed. The boat docks at 8:00am and we reluctantly climb off and trudge toward the bus stop (where I had bought my 7p onion bahjis, can I remind you?) to catch a local bus to Kochi. We sit at the back of our bus, Chandra explains that usually women sit at the front of a bus and men will sit at the back but since we all have big back packs it makes sense for us to sit near the door at the back to help our chances of getting off at our stop. For a moment we are the only people on the bus until an older man gets on and despite rows and rows of empty seats he sits next to JohnMiller. We all laughed thinking JohnMiller might look over and smirk, but nothing. Three hours later bags are chucked into amazingly air conditioned rooms (that we won't spend any time in :( ) and we are walking to see the sights Kochi has to offer. There is due to be a 24 hour transport strike from midnight so we only have 12 hours in Kochi, 10:00am-10:00pm. I'm going to brush over the sights (two churches and the Dutch palace) and talk about the highlight of Kochi. Two words: KATI ROLL, from Dal Roti. When I get home I am going to search high and low for somewhere that will give me a kati roll. It's not just a chicken wrap people. It’s marinated to perfection chicken, precisely chopped red onion and a divinely spicy sauce from heaven, wrapped in a god sent flakey yet fluffy paratha. (Looks like the churches made me a little religious.) If you didn't read that in the Marks and Spencer's lady voice then get off the blog. Best meal so far. It's turning into my best food day it would seem. 

That evening JohnMiller and I went to see a Kathakali performance. James had already seen it and Beth was very disinterested. Before the show you are able to watch the cast members apply their make up. An all male cast sit on the stage and do the make up themselves in their dotis and a forth man applies paper prosthetics glued to their face with rice paste. Make up done they leave the stage one by one to change into their costumes. A man lights tea lights on the stage, makes sand patterns on the floor and dresses the statues in flowers. There is a brief introduction on the musical style, how to train to perform in Kathakalis, make up and then an explanation on what it actually is. It's a performance to music with exaggerated eye movements and hand gestures. Visually it's stunning, so many colours and movements. But I had no idea what was going on and if I hadn't been given a print out of the synopsis I would never have worked it out. JohnMiller filmed the entire show on his phone, beginning to end, fair play to him if he intends to rewatch it all. Chandra met us from the show and walked us to dinner. I think Chandra was totally born in the wrong country. He hates the heat, people who litter, people who don't queue and hates hates hates mosquitos. While he was making a song and dance about the mosquitos James swapped Chandra’s and Beth’s flip flops. Chandra came back to his seat and proceeded to squeeze his feet into Beth's little flip flops, he didn't realise until James asked him what he was doing ‘I can't get my flip flops on’. I felt like we were in school again, giggling. 

The taxi from Kochi to Thekkady was horrible. Windy, stop start and loud. The driver had to stop twice for coffee and Beth suffered from terrible travel sickness. By the time the taxi pulled into the hotel complex at 2:30am we were practically zombies. The walk from the taxi from the hotel room was so far. Beth and I collapsed into bed, no childish joking and laughing like we'd had every night so far, and fell into deep deep sleep.