last day on the islands... the morning taking a path up and along the hills beyond the airstrip, narrow and winding, one point a rope guided mini scramble, never one of my favourite things but managed it eventually and then onwards... another blowy day, rain arriving as spits in the late morning and by lunchtime windier and heavier, thoughts drifting as to whether the plane is going to take off today... the afternoon spent watching the tide roll out from what would have been a shelter without the wind, but it did okay and there are many worse places to find yourself... but it's colder today, wishing for a pair of gloves and grateful for the wooly hat and socks... and then the sight and sound of a plane approaching and landing on the runway... you can see it in the photo, it's the raised embankment behind the boats... and then we were off again, rising into the cloud and 45 minutes later descending through them towards the endless points of light, huddles of streets and alleys and stationary cars caught up in rush hour, the dominion of the cityscape stretching out towards the dark rising boundary hills, the curving rivers spotted with occasional boats and stretching out towards the surrounding ocean... stepping off the plane, warmer here but still raining and with a cold weather warning hanging over the next couple of days... and then there's something else, a feeling of something left behind or, maybe, something which just can't exist in the city, a fragment of the self which has reasserted itself over the last month of wandering through small villages and expanses of, almost, unpopulated landscapes with this other place... those feelings, or maybe thoughts, reinforced by being unable to get a space on the first three arriving metros, having to ride a few stations in the opposite direction in order to board, such a different world... the rabbithole doubling up again, back in kochi and then the earliest of the unearthed photo's...