We headed out for our 6:00AM flight to Cochin this morning along with Pradipto. It was so wonderful having him join us for a little relaxation. I was so excited to actually sit down and get to know him a little better after only getting to chat with him in bursts during the shoot and prepping for the shoot. After a week without much actual rest, everyone was just plain beat. There was a lot of sleeping on the plane and sleeping in the car ride to Hanapi, where we were getting on the houseboat. The country was so beautiful, I didn’t want to miss a thing by closing my eyes so I still didn’t manage to get a whole lot of sleep. I’ll save my sleeping for the long hours of flying home!Views from the car ride from the Cochin airport to the houseboat:
We arrived at the house of the owner of the houseboats where we met he 
and his wife before heading over to the dock. When Giju had told me we were taking a houseboat, I imagined a very modest floating structure… not the mansion on the water that we ended up on! I absolutely could not imagine a better way to unwind from the hectic days of dancing and filming. We floated down the backwaters relaxing outside on the front of the boat enjoying amazing scenery! With the calmness of the water and the quiet ride, most people took nice long naps in the sun. With all the excitement and beauty, again, I just didn’t want to close my eyes! Kerala was so green and beautiful. All I could think about was how much my parents would have loved to be on the boat.Views from the houseboat:
When we docked, it was lightly raining. They took us out onto two canoes for a nice ride in the rain. Again, I thought about my parents and how much fun they would have here. Arieh, Elena, and I were in one canoe and Giju, Kris, Jon, and Pradipto were in the other. Our boat had two extra paddles so Arieh and I got to do a little paddling to make our boat go further and faster. The other boat only had the one paddle for the host. That poor guy had to do all the rowing himself with even more people in the boat!
As with the rest of the trip, we were well taken care of and extremely well fed. They served incredible meals and snacks of fried plantains and spring rolls, but the real treats came with these enormous prawns! They brought them onto the boat from a local dock and they were the largest and bluest prawns I’d ever seen. When they came out cooked, red, and slathered in spices, I almost could contain the drool! The other incredible treat was this coconut nectar that was poured from the stem of the coconut tree where the young coconuts are growing. I’m not sure exactly how to describe it and I might be wrong about where the nectar came from. I didn’t quite understand it when it was told to me. The taste was very interesting. The nectar had certainly undergone some kind of alcoholic fermentation and tasted a little like Kombucha. It was an interesting and tasty treat in small doses!
We were provided with beautiful accommodations and three nice rooms, but Elena and I elected to sleep out on the benches in the front of the boat that had open glass to look out onto the water. It was absolutely incredible to wake up looking out over the water in the early morning sun! When we woke up they prepared another beautiful meal and we took another short ride back to the docks.
Upon arrival, we were taken back to the boat owner’s house and he arranged for us to go to his woodworking shop. Sitting in his home was pretty amazing. There were incredible amounts of intricate woodworking and details from floor to ceiling. His shop was completely filled with all kinds of lovely wood crafts. I picked up lots of fantastic souvenirs to bring home! I really enjoy purchasing art from local artists and especially from people I actually get to meet and get to know. I hope my friends and family back home enjoy the wooden gifts as much as me!
After our little shopping adventure, it was time to say good-bye to Pradipto and Elena. They were headed off to catch flights back home. It was tough to say good-bye. I really enjoyed the chance to get to know Pradipto a little better. He really is an amazing person. I’m glad he has a place in Union City so we’ll get to meet again when he comes to visit!
Giju, Arieh, Jon, Kristen, and I headed off to Thiruvananthapuram (yeah, say that 5 times fast!) to meet Giju’s family. 
We got chances to see a little more of the beautiful scenery and catch up on some more sleep on the ~3 hour car ride. We arrived at Giju’s house in the late afternoon where we got to meet his parents, brother, sister-in-law, and their two boys, Rohan and Ryan. The boys were so adorable and I really enjoyed getting to sit and chat with Giju’s sister-in-law in the evening while Kristen and Arieh went to go see the doctor. Sadly, everyone on the trip has had one ailment or another. Happily, seeing doctors and getting medications are really inexpensive!
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