Day 8 continued.                      The Zuri at Kumarakom.

9 am, on a warm morning, what a lovely place.  My ‘Superior Lagoon View Room’ isn't quite ready so I sit on the restaurant patio and have another breakfast. Delicious little spicy, crispy doughnuts and some steamed sweet fruit with cloves. I ask for more tea which comes in a coffee pot and tastes of coffee. Ah well, can’t have everything. Landscaped for privacy, small houses appear and disappear between palms by the lake. It is a hot, humid, sunny day, the mist melting where the hotel lake meets the Vembanad lake, under the bridge.Tranquil and very beautiful, I’d like to come back here.

My room is almost as big as my house in UK. The bathroom has everything, including a phone by the toilet. It has its own enclosed, small pebbled yard, sauna and outside shower and a secluded wooden balcony overlooking the lake. The bed is big enough for four. I spend the morning reading the paper by the pool and have a toasted snack and a very cold beer for lunch. It is too hot to sit in the sun but a smiley bar, cook, pool attendant brings me soft, soft towels and adjusts the umbrella for perfect shade. 

As evening begins the mist returns and I walk around the whole resort. It has lots of detached residences inside a perimeter wall. Outside are marshes and paddy fields. Three more secluded houses at the back have their own gardens and I see the guests are Moslem families. Full black burkas outside and brightly coloured outfits glimpsed through the fence in their sheltered back garden, playing with the children. All tastes catered for. The hotel has Ayurvedic massage, its own speed boat for lake trips, a gym, a couple more bars and a dedicated fish restaurant. Back at the landing stage a lone houseboat rocks in the dusk. I wonder how my three men are and who is sailing with them.

The day drifts away, back in my room I’ll have room service tonight. Why be unsociable? Because it’s a great menu delivered by a minion in a golf cart and I can sit on my balcony in my pyjamas instead of getting dressed up for the restaurant. 

The view from my balcony.

A ‘Question Time’ debate on TV is discussing a recent Pakistani attack on the border where a captured Indian soldier was beheaded and his body returned. A politician, a journalist, an actor and a wise man are putting viewpoints to the Indian Dimbleby who just keeps looking straight down the camera lens. His guests sit behind him and although he asks them questions and responds to their comments, he doesn't actually look at them. Weird. Their answers ranged from, 'this will not affect the ongoing negotiations for peace with Pakistan - to - the soldiers must respond and behead twelve Pakistanis for blood revenge.' The audience cheer and boo and it holds my interest. Then I watch Rowan Martin in ‘Johnny English Reborn’ It holds my interest too. I tried Indian film programmes but they seem to be stuck in the 60s. All tight courtelle trouser suits, singing and couples suggesting just about everything with each other, in and out of drenching waterfalls, lots of ear, throat and hand caressing but no kissing, very frustrating.

I sleep well again and no mozzys dare invade my palace.

Up quite early and have a light breakfast while I wait for Kieran. We're going up the mountains to Thekkady.