Gogola (tm)

Only possible in 'Incredible India'

Melissa in Florida

A picture of Melissa (with Max, a friend also playing tennis) in Florida (we are still waiting for all the other pictures, especially those of Haloween). Nice tan they have, haven't they? Christmas Melissa will spend (with us) in India! Great, we look very much forward to it. Especially as she can correct my Dutch English in these blog entries ... English is one of her best subjects!

Ain't she sweet?!

(and yes, indeed, it looks like the North of Portugal,

but it is in the South of India!)

Home, sweet home (2)

Later I will post more photos of the interior - this time a bit more of the flora and fauna around the house.

Home, sweet home

Sometimes you don't have to travel far for a nice view!

Kumarakom

From Munnar we travelled to Kumarakom, as the bird flies only a few kilometers, but as there is only one road it's a five hour (!) drive. We stayed in a Taj Garden Resort, the photograph above is the view from our bungalow. Not bad at all!

Kerala's backwaters are lakes linked with the sea, all together you can travel around 200 km over rivers and lakes from Cochin land inwards. It's a state where you meet beautiful women and where men wear skirts.

Munnar

This weekend we enjoyed the rest and freshness of the tea gardens in Munnar (Kerala - one of the Southern states of India). Ivone flew from Mumbai to Cochin with Mike and Elain Wood (Mike is the actuary of IDBI Fortis), and I joined via Hong Kong - Bangkok - Singapore in Munnar. We stayed in a nice bungalow (former housing of the managers of these Tata tea gardens, our bungalow was Seven Mallay) overlooking the hills. It is in Munnar much cooler as it is much higher; our bungalow was at an altitude of about 1,550m. We also visited the nearby (two hour drive ...) Top Station (~1,900m), but everything was in the clouds. Anyway, the trip up and down was great. We saw monkeys and elephants, but still no tigers ... Ever eaten a tree-tomato, we did!