Blissful beaches and motorway madness

Today we cycled 60 km from last night’s accommodation, along the back roads. We hadn’t long left the hotel and the heavens opened (so not many photos). It was quite nice cycling in warm rain.

Once again we made our way through the towering coconut trees, weaving through the windy roads, with colourful impressive houses on either side, intermingled with tiny shacks right next door.

There were numerous roadside shops selling cheap plastic buckets, swings, brooms or all sorts of fruit. Then, as we made our way towards the coast it was not uncommon to see people selling fish, covered with flies, just on the floor on the side of the road.

We turned a corner and I smelt it before I saw it; there was the Arabian sea again! Waves gently crashing in on the sandy beach. Idyllic. After a short stop to take a few photos we continued on. We came across a street practically closed because there were so many women with signs – Someone said they were protesting to “clean up Kerala”. The amount of rubbish lying around has surprised me since we arrived.

A little while later we stopped outside a very impressive house to regroup. The owner of the house came out and invited us all inside. We were on a rather tight schedule to get to the ferry on time, so unfortunately we had to decline.

After catching a ferry we cycled on to an amazing sandy beach and had some lunch (curry/rice/probata bread) overlooking the sea, with the breeze cooling us down. We had almost a couple of hours relaxing there before we had to continue our ride. Those of us who had taken swimming costumes spent a while in the sea. It was DIVINE – perfect temperature, and just enough of a wave to have a splash. I could have stayed in there for hours!

We cycled alongside the beach for another 10km or so, but for much of it we were behind the levees; they need the defences as in monsoon season it often floods. The roads were terrible, more pothole than road on some places. Through sections there was so much sand that had washed up that it made it difficult to cycle.

We then had 15km of motorway cycling. Let’s just say its nothing like motorways in the UK! You still get people on the road. Anything goes. A lady from the team was cycling behind me and said called out, “Gosh Candy, That was SO close! Not even inches, more like centimeters!” A tuctuc had over taken me RATHER close by. I have been constantly reminding myself that I have angels at my side on this journey.

Another ferry ride brought us to Fort Kochi, where we saw our first white tourists. It felt odd seeing white faces other than those in our group!

We are now at our hotel for the night – we had to get inside quick because the place was teaming with mozzies, and its currently feeding time.

Our team is now down by 5 as we said goodbye to the Benenden crew at lunchtime. They are off to Goa to visit El Shaddai. We are currently waiting for our bags to arrive; the coach couldn’t get on the ferry, so had an extra 15km diversion. In India that has the potential to take hours!

So, I’ve a little time to kill, then it will be dinner and then time to head to bed in preparation for another day….

Total cycling distance today was approx 96km