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Lonely Planet has this down as a must-do before you die, and having spent a couple of days on the backwaters of Allepey, we concur. This is a bird-watchers and fish-eaters paradise. We take a gentle motor through the backwaters, viewing sunken rice fields and people-watching the locals as they go about their business on the famous river banks of Kerala.

Finally, after a year’s absence! Welcome to the brand new followtheboat podcasts!
Podcasts, for those who don’t know, are free mp3 audio files that you may download and listen to on your stereo, ipod etc. They’re the equivalent to a radio show, and we produce weekly radio shows of our adventures. This entire series is dedicated to our travels around the Indian sub-continent. We aim to get under the skin of India, the people and the culture. We’ve got a ton of adventures that take us from the very north in Sikkim to the very south of Tamil Nadu.
In this first episode we take a nice, gentle stroll around Fort Cochin, the area in Kochi where the European adventurers settled after opening up trade routes between Asia and Europe. It’s a typically warm day so Liz hides under the shade of the tree-lined avenues, forever surrounded by the cawing of crows.

This is the last podcast from our first series, but don’t worry, we return summer 2011. This podcast started off as an exclusive interview with Lo Brust, the organiser of the Vasco Da Gama rally. Recorded a few months ago before the Chandlers were released by their Somali pirate captors Jamie and Lo disucss piracy, sailing tactics and whether there will ever be another Vasco Da Gama rally. That interview concludes with a catch-up, the day before Lo left Cochin marina last week with the fifth Vasco Da Gama rally.
In addition to this we managed to have a quick chat with Richard, one of the world circumnavigation Blue Water Rally organisers, and Jeremy, a skipper taking part. Currently they are having to think hard about their sailing route. The situation in Egypt may force them to spend more time in India.
All these interviews give a great insight into rallies, their organisation and, more seriously, the political and economic situations that have a direct impact on sailing through the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea.
This podcast is also a special one as it is the last in our current series. Fear not, we will return in a couple of months with some exclusive insights into our travels around India, but we’re going to take a short break and discover a bit more about this incredible country and the Indian people.

This is the podcast you’ve been waiting for! We finally get to visit the slums of Mumbai, taking in Dharavi, where parts of Slumdog Millionaire was filmed, as well as the poorer central Mumbai slums where we take in street dwellers living in wendy houses and glorified bunk beds. Despite this, we were almost always welcomed with open arms. Click on the link where you can play the podcast in your browser, or download it to your computer to listen to at your convenience.

This week sees our first podcast from India! Mumbai is an incredible city and we were keen to explore as soon as we moored up. In this week’s podcast you’ll be pleased to know that Liz takes the helm and navigates around a wonderful little guided tour of just a small part of Mumbai. In the searing midday sun we begin at the Hanging Gardens…

Once again Jamie gets confused as to what day it is in this podcast, but a sharp knock by a fishing boat against Esper’s hull soon brings him back to the real world.
It seems we are not the only boat to suffer damage, however, as other vessels on the rally have their own problems. Still, let’s not let this mar the celebration of a wonderful crossing of the Arabian Sea. Eight days and 960 miles later Mumbai’s hazy skyline makes herself known to a tired but elated Vasco Da Gama Rally.

In our penultimate Arabian Sea crossing podcast Jamie decides to erect something very big that scares Liz. Meanwhile back at Wynbury Delves Primary School the kids send the Esper gang a message. It feels great to know that we’ve done something good, especially after a day of no wind, sunburn and cursing.

Coinciding with the Chandler’s release from Somalia by pirates this week we return to the high seas, now entering the middle of the Arabian Sea. We are in the same area the Chandlers were two years ago.
What was a great sail is now turning into a bit of a nightmare with steering problems and no wind. And then there are the freaks on the VHF radio…

The second of our two-part podcast is here. This is the primary school project we’ve been working on with Nance Lake of Wybunbury Delves Primary School in Cheshire. The children are reading Kensuke’s Kingdom and wanted to learn about life at sea so they send us recordings of them asking us questions. This week we discuss the weather, getting lost and what the worst thing that’s ever happened to us.