Kerala & Goa, India...

Talk about feeling like you're in a different country. The difference between Kerala and Goa in the South of India, and the big cities of the North, is like the difference between night and day. Not only does the pace of life slow down to something that is mildly familiar, but the infrastructure (especially in Kerala) is far more successful. It's cleaner, quieter, land and income are more equally distributed, and the state has health and education record is excellent in comparison to the rest of India. I call the south 'India lite.'

We spent the day on a canoe, and a houseboat lazily travelling down 900km of Keralan 'backwaters,' or inland rivers which have been used by locals since long before there were roads, and which they still ply today. Lazily floating along the shady, palm fringed inlets in a canoe, watching kids playing in the waters and women knee deep in the water scrubbing their clothes against the rocks, or making coir (rope from the fibre inside coconuts) was one of the most relaxing things I'd done in six months. We also took a houseboat out into the Arabian sea where we sailed over to the islands of Appeley and Kollam, and docked there to see traditional 'toddy tappers' extracting palm feni from flowers high up in coconut trees. It tasted fantastic, and apparently the longer you leave the liquid the more alcoholic it gets, so after 6 hours it is 3% and after 6 weeks it's 40%.

Next, we took an overnight train ride to Goa. We were ready to just kick back and relax, and had heard that Palolem was a pretty, chilled out beach so after an early cup of chai we hopped off the train in darkness at the little station of Canacona (at 5am, ouch). Instead of the usual insane crush of rickshaw drivers vying for our business there was one guy who said he knew some beach huts on stilts that had room, so we hopped in with another Indian guy and shared the 3km drive to Palolem beach.

It was still dark when we arrived, and not really knowing what our surroundings were (we just knew we could feel sand beneath our feet and hear the sea) we checked out our little wooden coco hut, which cost 350 rupees a nigh (£2.50 each). It had everything we needed. A bed, mosquito net, power point, bathroom and a little balcony out front. Then we took cold water showers and fell into exhausted sleep after the long journey, lulled by the sound sea.

When we woke up we strolled out of the hut and onto the perfect, palm tree shaded sandy crescent of Palolem beach which was our home for the next ten days. There's not much to say about those ten days other than that we spent most of our time sunbathing and playing beach sports (I literally AM the world champion at beach bat and ball) and shooting the breeze in the evenings, watching movies on the outdoor beach cinema, eating tandoori food and enjoying a glass (or two) of feni while gazing out to sea. Oh and watching the stars (we even saw shooting stars) from our blanket on the beach at night. They were so clear and made me feel so small and insignificant.

Sounds idyllic, and it was. Until two days before we were due to leave and I got my third and final bout of food poisoning in six months, which put me out of action for about a day and a half. Fortunately we'd picked up some antibiotics in Bangkok which helped me along. Horrible, but I was so used to getting sick by that point (and so shocked that it hadn't yet happened in India) that my first thought was a resigned 'Ok, here we go again. Just deal with it.' It's just one of the cons that you have to put up with if you want to travel.

On our final night we met a very nice couple from Cornwall who had been travelling for two and a half months in India and spent the evening chatting to them. They had decided against going to Northern India (as they thought it would be too hectic) and had stayed in Goa, Hampi and Kerala. They had flown everywhere, as they took the train once and found it too unsettling. And when they said that they were ready to go home and just looking forward to a normal life again, I wasn't surprised. To get the most out of India you have to hold your nose and dig right in, jump in the river, stay relaxed and let the flow carry you along, no matter how alien it seems to you. And just trust that everything will turn out ok. It was always more than ok for us.