31 Degrees and 50% Humidity!!! Help me, I'm melting!!!!!!!!

Well, since last I wrote, we have done nothing that we planned to do!!! But I guess that is what being in India is about?? Yesterday morning, we moved out of the 'damp' Homestay over to a much drier one!!! (our third Homestay since we arrived here four days ago!)
I can't remember how the rest of the day evolved but I vaguely remember spending most of the afternoon at the Travel Agents trying to get an idea on how to spend the next five weeks in Kerala!! Then we actually made it it to the Theatre to watch some Kathakalli!!
It was amazing: traditional Keralan dance/story telling. The first hour was watching the actors (no women on stage!!!) apply their make up, each character has a specific style (reminded me of Comedia Del Arte) and then we were given examples of the different facial expressions/eye movements that mean different things as well as the hand gestures, followed by a short performance of a few scenes from a famous play with a very long name and a very, very, very, very long story!!! (No not the Mahabarata!!)

 

Basically there is the Evil Man who wants to marry the princess, even though she is already married to the Five Princes who incidentally are in exhile!!!! He doesn't seem bothered and tries to seduce her, then tries to 'violate' her, then she runs off and tells her husband (well one of them) who is obviously most displeased and hatches a plan to trick the Evil Man into meeting the Princess in her bedroom and when the Evil Man turns up all excited to see the Princess, he is confronted by the Prince (well one of them) who kills him. Very, very, very slowly! The End!

After dinner - not just ours but the Mosquitoes who had enjoyed feeding off us all night! We went back to our new room, quite pleased that we had managed a good deal and the room was still as dry as it had been before.
Claudine put her ear plugs in, (don't ask) and we both went to sleep, or at least I started to when all of a sudden I could hear a slight rustling on the floor near my back pack. My heart picked up speed as I thought I heard another strange noise, then I screamed and kicked my legs out as I thought I felt something land on my feet.
So much for the ear plugs!!! Claudine was out of her bed and the light was on and we both stood staring at each other as I quietly mumbled: " I thought I felt something on the bed, but it must have been a dream, but can we leave the light on anyway?" We didn't and settled back to sleep, but I was on high alert by this point and could't even close my eyes, my heart was beating so fast I could hear the blood rushing around my head. Then I heard the rustling again and called out to Claudine that I thought it was back.
She switched the light on, again and looked across the room then screamed as she pointed to a great big mouse (or possibly a rat) run across our bags and back into the bathroom!!
Being the true ladies that we are, we both jumped up and down on our respective beds and screamed, but no one came to our rescue!!! So I firmly shut the bathroom door, used my spare sheet to block up the gap under the door and we finally fell asleep with the light on!!
This morning we moved to another Homestay ....
Having checked into our new room and inspected for rodents, damp and Mosquitoes we then ended up spending the whole day over at the travel agents, melting into the chairs there as it was so hot no one could move!!! But we have finally made up our itinerary for the rest of our trip!
Ok the more hard core travellers out there would be screaming at us, saying that this is India and we should just see where we end up, live in the moment blah,blah,blah.....
Whatever! We have tried that but so far it has led close to mental break downs and exhaustion. So, tomorrow we spend the day on the Back waters, then in two days time we are off to a Resort North of here for cookery lessons, yoga and Ayuverdic treatments. From then I hope to be re charged and ready for the next few weeks ...
So until next time, I am off to the Homestay and pray we don't have to move again!!!