Posting photos

After 2 hours yesterday, and another half hour or so today, I've only managed to post 4 photos of fishermen to one of the posts below. The pix come off the camera easily and onto a folder on the desktop, but it takes forever to upload to Blogger, so I don't know if I'm gonna try again on this trip. I think we'll just start throwing 'em up on Flickr after we get back, and maybe retroactively illustrate the blog then.

You can see our Flickr set from Laos 2 years ago here, if you like.

It looks like we may leave Varkala tomorrow morning and head for Alleppey. We've been talked out of trying to rent a houseboat from Kollam for the journey to Alleppey, and instead to take a train there, then tool around the canals of the immediate area by boat from there. It also seems very difficult to get a houseboat for longer than a single night. The impression I'm being given is that a lot of locals have been coming back from temp jobs in the Persian Gulf, construction in the Emirates; and besides building enormous McMansions here (of which we hope to post a photo or two), they have been renting up all the houseboats without the faintest quibble over price. Thus, they're exorbitant, even in the off season, or so we're told. We've yet to actually meet anyone who's been on one.

Something you might do with Persian Gulf money.

Oh, no -- that's right: there were those two retirees in Trivandrum, celebrating their 30th anniversary. They said we must go for air conditioning; at night, the windows are closed to keep out the mozzies, and all a fan does is push around hot air. For air con, we should expect Rs14,000 - 22,000 for a 22 hour trip, I'm told. Although, some rudimentary research online just now suggests there are options available at half that. I dunno, we'll soon see. I can feel the "centerpiece" of our trip moving slightly uphill, to the wildlife preserves in the Western Ghats, perhaps. Or maybe we're in it right now! My sunburn is pretty well healed -- I think I'll head back to the beach this afternoon, take a dip in the waves, and watch the yoga people do their synchronized salutations to the sunset... from the right angle, that could be the picture of Kerala that stays with me. I don't think so, though. We've got a lot of winners already. I just wish I could post a few more.