Kochi

Through university Nicole had managed to make a contact through a tutor whose parents lived in Ernakulam a short drive away from the main centre of Kochi. We decided this would be a good place to stay for a few days to relax and regather ourselves especially considering I hadn't been feeling too well. They turned out to be very nice people and welcomed us into there home. I felt a little bit restricted though as we had been on our own for so long and suddenly we had the presence of a surrogate mother and father looming over us. You can just never quite feel at ease when your in someone else's home. The feeling of freedom I had been experiencing was not there. Anyway George the father had been a professional criminal photographer and was able to take some great shots of us as we explored Kochin. The second day after we had recovered a bit we were taken to see the elephants being bathed, which Nicole was not so fond of as the elephants were held in captivity. After this we headed to a "nearby waterfall" which was actually about 3 hours away. Not so good when both of us were still feeling a bit queasy. On the way we also had a minor crash into two people on a motorbike. They went flying, but there was no damage to the motorbike only to the car. The car happened to be one George had borrowed from his friend for the day, which was unfortunate. Anyway all it took was the the slip of 200 rupees into the mans pocket and the problem miraculously disappeared. If only you could do this in NZ. The waterfall turned out to be very cool and we got some great shots. The monkeys were also highly entertaining.