"Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation..." -Leonardo da Vinci

Post by: Beth

So we've done adventure (wildlife preserve), and we've done part adventure/part relaxation (houseboating)... all that's left to do in Kerala is to partake in sheer relaxation, and we've set aside 3 days to do just that. With neither Raja nor myself having visited Kerala before, we could only rely on recommendations, tripadvisor.com reviews, and our gut instincts when selecting the hotel for our "relaxation" portion of the trip. We read dozens of reviews... sifted through pages of feedback.. asked everyone we could find that had traveled to Kerala... and finally settled on Lemon Tree hotel. We were really on searching for a few elements, and on paper, Lemon Tree seemed to have them all: seclusion, a large pool, a restaurant on the property, and favorable reviews.

We made our way to Lemon Tree by rickshaw (the scenic route!), immediately after we stepped off of the houseboat. Upon our arrival at the hotel, I knew right away that we'd made the right choice on hotels, and that this was going to be my favorite part of the vacation. Here in India, things are quite a bit different, if you haven't figured that out already by the blog posts from the past 6 months. Not at Lemon Tree! It felt like I stepped into a beautiful resort that could rival anywhere I'd been on vacation from America... everything was white and sparkling clean, the bed was an old English canopy-style design, and the pool was an infinity pool that seemed to go on forever since it gave the illusion of flowing directly into an enormous lake that had no boundaries. I bounded about happily, turning on the massaging shower while still in my clothes... rapidly flipping on and off the tv that boasted MTV and several other American channels... dashing out to the pool and dipping my toes into the warm water... running back in and hugging the fluffy white towels to myself. I flipped open the room service menu and saw french fries.. ice cream sundaes.. caesar salads.. shrimp cocktail.. hamburgers.. club sandwiches.. the list of familiar favorites went on and on! I was ecstatic, and knew the trip would end with me imploring Raja to let us stay "just one more night!"

We had an amazing time... The entire first day, we essentially only left the pool area to eat and sleep. One night, we had a candlelight dinner thoughtfully put together by the staff of Lemon Tree. We lounged in the hammock by the pool and read our books under a set of huge coconut trees. We even found a recent NASCAR race on TV and happily piled up on the fluffy comforter to watch -- We haven't seen one race on TV since we left St. Louis! This portion of the vacation took so many of the comforts from home and splayed them in front of us continuously... It was the perfect end to our 6 day vacation in Kerala. I begged Raja to leave me behind there, since he insisted he had to get back to work... but he refused. :-/ I can only hope that our next vacation is as wonderful...