Sunday 26 January

Marari Beach

A busy final day at Marari Beach, beginning for Matthew with a short run. I was feeling a little stiff and sore after yesterday’s run, so I was persuaded to go to the hour-long yoga at 0700. Then it was time for breakfast – it’s quite funny, but the waiting staff have taken to bringing us a teapot full of soya milk! They obviously became fed up with our repeated requests for more! (We have it on Müsli for breakfast and I have it my coffee – we get through a lot!).

Today is India’s Republic Day that commemorates when India’s constitution came into force on January 26, 1950, completing the country’s transition toward becoming an independent republic. It’s a public holiday and the staff were wearing India flag badges.

At 11:00 Matthew had booked us in to the Ayurveda centre for massage – he’s written about that separately. For me, it felt rather wonderful to be pampered and handled so expertly. The two masseurs worked fast and in a highly choreographed way – sort of mirroring what each other was doing on each side of my body. 

We did some shopping in the Home and Colonial Store on-site shop, then we had some time in the pool before escaping from the compound to Alapuzha for a boat trip on part of the canals and lagoons that Kerala is famed for.

A taxi collected us and took us to the boat. I expected to be in a boat with others, but we were the only two apart from our skipper. The boat had some little bells hanging from the ceiling, so our whole trip was accompanied by a sweet tinkling sound. 

The canals around the Alleppey Backwaters were very crowded at first, but when we headed out on to Vembanad Lake it felt tranquil. As the sun set over the lake and dusk fell, it was warm and peaceful. A perfect end to a lovely day.

The next stage of our travels begin tomorrow. We’ll be reunited with Vaishakh in the morning for what will be another very long drive – interrupted for us, but not for Vaishakh, by a ride on the Toy Train from Coonoor to take us back to Ooty, where Vaishakh will collect us so we can continue our journey back to Mysuru.

We’re leaving very early at 4am to avoid traffic. Reception told us that they could provide a packed sandwich breakfast to take with us – yippee. Then they told us that they didn’t have any bread that was vegan 😞. Luckily we’d been to a supermarket to pick up some food for the journey!