Kerala - A south indian communist paradise

I am now backpacking with Carlos and Julien (well we left Chennai on June 2th, I just really late to post), our first stop was Kerala, a small communist province in the south of India which bares the population of Canada in probably less than 5% of the territory. Kerala is now for it's idyllic beaches, its greener than ever backwaters, its impressive tea hills, its vast wildlife, its sunset to die for and its friendly people. We took an Air Deccan flight to land in Kochi (Air Deccan being a whole lot less fashionable as KingFisher), where we slept over for the first time in an unclimatize room (for less than 10$ for 3) and ate on the corner of a backalley street with our hands since it was the only thing still open... at 10:30pm. It was quite a change, especially since we had been pampered so much in the last month. The next day, we immediately left to go to Kumily where we wanted to visit the Periyar National Wildlife Sanctuary...quite an experience. All the buses destinations were written in Marasa..something so it was impossible to understand and since no one gives the sames information, we had a hard time finding our bus (we even asked one indian and he said, I'm from Tamil Nadu, the province next door, but I don't understand their language!). On the bus, once again quite an experience... we were smushed as the bus was cracking full...for seven hours going through mountains...left, right left...many kids pucked out from the windows, how charming! Once in Kumily, it was really nice, the weather was cooler, all the hills had a lucious green color, we found a small tree house to live in for 250 ruppees with a view on vast fields animated by wildlife, very relaxing after the ride we had. Unfortunately we totaly got screw the next day as we went on a wildlife safari. We definately paid too much as the only wildlife we saw was an elephant from 2 km distance and some monkeys in tree tops, we saw more wildlife on the road! At least in the evening we went to see a traditional keralan dance called Kathakali (dance of gods) in which the music was definately stressing but it was so typical and artistic that it was well worth it. Kathakali is actually a art of the facial expressions, any emotion can be expressed by the facial expressions, and the make up is so impressive, see for yourself with my picture (well once I'll be able to upload them!).