Lots better in Bangalore

Well my little moan worked a treat and lots of you emailed me - thanks, it was great and i will try to reply to all - though it might take some time. The antibiotics and/or the ayuvedic medicine worked a treat and I have made a miraculous recovery, Rosa and Melissa are also well so its back to full functioning although a little tired after our overnight train journey here. I really love travelling on the overnight trains, its exciting and fun, also we don't have to pay for a night's accomodation - which is great when we are counting the pennies! Last night the train was packed though with families travelling home for Diwali and Eid - first time that we've travelled with so many small children and women. We shared a compartment with a mother, grandmother and 2 year old twins (so cute) and a baby in the next compartment kept me and Mark awake for quite a few hours crying in the night - I didn't mind though as it was nice to be around small children.

We arrived in Bangalore having booked a hotel on the phone from the Lonely Planet - when we got there it was very smelly and horrible so then we had a long and difficult job of locating a suitable hotel. It's definately much more expensive here than in the other places we've been (except Mumbai) and it was hard to find somewhere we liked in our price bracket. Finally we got a nice double room and managed to squeeze two extra beds into it for just above our daily allowance - let's see how long we can bear being so confined together in such a small space! We then had a fantastic lunch in the ajoining restaurant and it was lovely to eat real food again rather than rice and yogurt and bananas - which was all that I was allowed yesterday. We then took a rest and went to Baristas - the coffee bar chain that we discovered in Mumbai - had my first coffee for ages and a sickly chocolate cake - and guess what? I didn't like it! So won't be doing that again - hooray.

We haven't posted anything about Periyar, the houseboat or Munnar as I want Mark to put up the photos at the same time - they speak louder than words. However just to say that we did see wild elephant, monkeys, amazing birds, otters (who were so funny and great to watch), antelopes, wild pigs and langaars (monkey type things). There were the normal Indian monkeys around and one stole my food from under my nose - so fast we couldn't believe it - it swung down from the tree, dashed across the table, swipped my parotta and swung back into the tree before the monkey guard (with stick) could get there - me and Rosa were gob smacked and very amused, the Indians were very amused at our amusement. Anyway we have some great pictures of playing baby monkeys - so watch out for them!

I'm trying to encourage one of the others to write a blog so it's not just Heather's tour of the world, but they prefer to MSN their friends (Rosa and Melissa) and read the news (Mark)

Cochi was also an amazing place very inadequately explored by us because of sickness. Fort Cochin, where our hotel was seemed very unlike India - I think it has a lot of Portuguese influence and was entirely made over to the tourist trade - if we'd stayed longer we would have moved into the proper Indian bit - still it was nice to be there in our weakened state as I was able to see a doctor who was used to dealing with foreigners, phone and internet and buy books! Finally got an Indian bird book - which is great, now I can bore you with the names of the birds we see! Mark and Melissa went off to visit the synagogue (250 years old) which serves the now tiny Jewish community that have been there since the diaspora and used to have its own principality, they also went to the palace - hope they write about them later

That's enough for now, must try to reply to some emails and then go off and look at Diwali lights - Happy Diwali to you all

- Heather