Kadaloram Beach Resort

Vicky's parents came out to Kovalam beach on a package holiday to meet up with us and also very kindly treated us to a few nights' stay in the same hotel as them, which meant all sorts of exciting things for us like air conditioning, private balcony and a swimming pool!

We spent the first day enjoying being able to relax by the pool and filling Vicky's parents in on our travels so far. Although it looked like we could all quite happily spend the next few days relaxing in the hotel with the odd walk down to the beach, we did eventually manage to motivate ourselves to go into Trivandrum for a spot of sightseeing. First of all we went to the Napier museum which was in a fantastic traditional Keralan building set in lovely gardens. This was a lovely peaceful way to start the day. Unfortunateley, as we moved further into the town to get some lunch, we realised that a festival was being celebrated with truly horrendous screeching music coming out of extremely loud speakers on every single street. There were hundreds of the things and there was literally no escape as they thoroughly covered the whole town. We did manage to have a nice lunch (not too noisy in the restaurant). After this we took an 'exciting' rickshaw ride to see the main temple and then quickly retreated back to a taxi rank in order to escape the music and get back to the much appreciated quite swimming pool.

As well as much more relaxing by the pool, walking along the beach and browsing the souvenir shops, we all went on an overnight trip on a houseboat in the Keralan backwaters. The houseboat was very well equiped with proper bedrooms and bathrooms and a lovely open deck where you can relax and eat meals whilst the boat moves through the waters. The scenery was fantastic and it was really good fun sitting out on the deck all afternoon and evening, watching the world go by.

The whole thing was very relaxing apart from at one point, when the boat moored at the side of the river and the stern man in charge told us to get off and follow him with no explanation. We thought maybe we were going to see a local village or a shop but it turned out that he was taking us to his Catholic church in order to get some donations out of us. We all politely admired the church from the outside (an ugly 1970s building right in the middle of beatiful surroundings). We were then told to go inside, where a nun spoke to us about the church and all the miracles that had been performed there. We were then ushered into a tiny room where the nun said lots of prayers whilst holding our hands. Things got continually more surreal as the prayers continued and it emerged she was praying for a miracle that Vicky's mum should have more children as she knew she only had one!

We were brought back down to earth when she stopped and asked us to contribute some money for this service. This wasn't the end of it, though and the next thing we knew, she'd taken us around to a different side of the church and was trying to make us all go into a tiny cellar. We declined at this point, trying not to actually laugh out loud but Vicky's parents were persuaded to crawl into the cellar on their hands and knees. It emerged there was only space in there for one person and Vicky's dad was left on all fours stuck half in and half out of the doorway. At this point we escaped outside whilst Vicky's parents were taken into another room to give yet more money. Luckily, once the extra money was paid, some more tourists were being led towards the church so we were allowed to go as the nun started her 'speacial tour' with them. After this it was back to the tranquility of the houseboat as if nothing had ever happened! We spent our last day relaxing by the pool and then enjoyed a lovely lunch at the hotel before saying goodbye to Vicky's parents and making our way back to Trivandrum to catch the overnight train to Goa.