tour2

Early start again – 5:30am rise to get in the Minibus ride down the Mountain to Coimabatore to take the State 'Express' Bus to Cochin. We set of in the dark and were able to see sunrise over the edge of the mountain range which was astounding, the sun rose as a large orange glow which soon became too bright to look at directly, however has it rose the colours in the valleys below changed from dark black through blues, oranges, and the then to green where visible and white where clouds filled the valleys. We got the driver to stop a couple of times to take pictures but they will never do the view any justice. A slight incident on the way down the switch back road woke every one up when we hit a local stray dog (they are everywhere in India and often run blindly in the roads) The driver Skidded to a halt and there was a lot of yelping and whining and a horrible scraping sound from under the vehicle. It turned out the dog had bounced of the front of the vehicle and ran behind u...

Ooty is a Hill Station high in the Nilgiris Mountains at about 2200 metres above sea level. The climate is very cool and when it rained the climate is not to dissimilar to Manchester in Autumn. The village was 'discovered' by a man called John Sullivan and the name of the village was changed from Udhagamandalam to Ootacamund, With the arrival of a large number of the upper crust British due to the 'pleasant' climate developed. Many of the British remained in Ooty after Indian Independence and were stoically British in their outlook and the place gained the nickname 'Snooty Ooty'. The Ooty Club has a claim to fame that this is the place that Snooker was allegedly invented, and still insists on full formal wear to be worn after 7pm each evening. The centre of the town is known as Charing Cross but most of the British have now left and the place is a typical Indian Town full of tourists and locals. A small supermarket just off Charing Cross still stocks everything...

Christmas Day started early with a hangover; well it is Christmas Day! We were on the road again at 8:30 to drive up to another Temple high on the Hill overlooking Mysore. When we got there it was packed, looks like everyone one else in Mysore had the same idea as us. A short walk around the outside of the temple then back into the Mini-bus back halfway down to find the largest stone carved Bull I've ever seen, It's a Hindu shrine and was fairly busy but nat as bad as the Temple at the top. Whilst here we had a glass of the Sugar Cane juice laced with Ginger and Lime, and an excellent hangover cure it is. The Sugar Cane stalls are every where in India and they make the Juice by passing the Cane repeatedly through mangles to extract the juice. A long Drive through then took us back out of Karnataka and back into Tamil Nadu to the Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary where we stayed at the Jungle Retreat . This is a fantastic place in the middle of nowhere at the end of dirt track and su...

We left Mallamapuram and took a Minibus to Chennai (Madras) and caught and overnight train from here to Mysore. Luckily this time we traveled AC3 and not General Class as I last did to Trivandrum. In Mysore we visited the beautiful Mysore Palace which unfortunately you are unable to take in your camera so much so you have to go through 2 x-ray bag checks to search for cameras. We had a guide here who was very good and explained many small details about the Palace and it's history. It had been built for a total cost of 50,000 Pounds and is now considered priceless. Many of the fixtures and fittings were produced in the UK , the steel columns in the central hall had been cast in Glasgow and the floor tiles had been manufactured in Ironbridge, There are amazing paintings on the walls of around the palace depicting the annual parade which takes place in the city which is lead by the Raj on an Elephant into the palace. Many of them contain clever little references to the designers and b...

We took the mini-bus up the coast to Mallampuram which is as a UNESCO World heritige site, the hotel is located on the main street and was increadibly dust when we arrived due to the fact that they were resurfacing it during the night and a man was using a compressor to air blow the dust away before laying the new tarmac. We checked in to the hotel and went of in search of a restaurant and found – Moonrakers which for some odd reason (in the middle of southern India) was basing it's self on the contra-band smugglers of Southern England! The food was good and we retired back to the room to avail ourselves of the Wifi – first of this trip. The next day we took bikes out to ride out to the various UNESCO sites which are built in the Neolithic style ( the temples were literally carved out of a single rick down in to the rock and ground rather than by building up. The Second Temple had been built by placing stones in the traditional style of building and was on the coast. Amazingly this...

Auroville is an experimental community that was started in the Late '60's by 'the Mother' who was the main follower of a /guru called Sri Aurobindo. The place was intended to develop into a community of 10,000 people of all nationalities however now the population stands at around 1,700. The ethos behind the place is that there is no religions as such practiced but that concentration is the true path. Slightly weird to follow. There are only very small areas that visitors are aloud to see and you have to watch an 'instructional video' before you can walk to the viewing area to see the central sphere called the Matri Mandir. This massive ball has a meditation area inside and apparently it has the largest glass crystal in the world at the centre, an opening at the top and computer controlled mirrors concentrate the suns light down onto the crystal to illuminate it inside, however visitors ar not aloud any where near it. The community is entirely self supporting w...

After another early start we took the Train from Madurai to Villapuram which took about 6 hours and then a Minibus for the next hour into Pondicherry. We went for a typically French meal at a restaurant in town (Pondicherry used to be French until just after the main part of India became independent from Britain then the Indians also took over this and all the other French enclaves but the area still retains a largely French feel complete with food and architecture and there are lots of French Ex-pats who live here) Dumping the bags we headed out in Auto's to a restaurant about 5mins ride from the hotel which served French and Indian food, The meal I had was excellent - French Onion Soup followed by Hashe Frites (Steak and Chips!) The steak was excellent and judging by the number of French people there who were eating the beef I figured this was the best way to go! Some of the party had the prawns - which were defiantly not good and the head waiter took them back and canceled the ...

We checked into our hotel in the town centre after a little drama when one of the autos went missing on the way from the bus stop to the hotel, Michael the tour guide went balistic at the other auto drivers to find out where the 4th one had gone and eventually after about 30 minutes he turned up, it turned out he had not listened to the instructions from his boss and just driven off and must have followed the wrong auto in front of him! We met up for lunch and then again for 3pm were we walked down to the huge temple complex in the centre of the town. It is really is huge and you enter through one of the cardinal gates each of which is below massive towers which are made up of hundreds of brightly painted statues, each in some way representing figures and stories from the Hindu scriptures. Once through the unusually very tight security (for India); and having left your shoes out side you can enter the main part of the temple, however there is a part that is so holy that only Hindu...

This is one of the few National Game reserves in India and actually comprises over 770 sq. Km of the surrounding hills. Allegedly there are tiger and leopard's sill roaming freely in the park but these are rarely seen by visitors. So to ensure we got the best visit to the park we were up at 6am to be first in there. The park opened at 8am but we could get tickets before that at the park gates and then be first in line to cross the lake to take the ranger guided tour on a short walk around the park. The first challenge on arriving at the visitor centre s to put on the leech socks. This is because the floor of the wooded areas are teeming with tiny leeches (apparently of the same kind as medical leeches but I was quite happy to put on the canvas over socks which you wear in between your shoes and normal socks and which extend up to just below your knees. Next we had to go down to the lake edge and await the bamboo raft across the lake which only took 5 people at a time. Due to a ser...

After leaving the Home stay we took a boat back out onto the waterways of the Backwaters and traveled down beautiful canals and through large open 'lakes' of water, passing though areas of wide open paddy field and then dense forest areas where many of the people lived in houses which butted right up to the canals. life just carried on as normal with barges of goods and supplies passing us often loaded to the gunnel's so that barely an inch of the boat stood proud of the water line. After about an hour or so we pulled into the shore of one of the lakes and stopped at a 'Toddy Shop' These little shacks are spread all over the Backwaters are like little bar/cafes that support the field workers with Toddy and food. Toddy is an alcoholic drink which is made from the liquid found only in the flower of the Coconut tree. The liquor is removed very early in the morning by slicing the flower head and immediately starts to ferment. By 10am they reckon the liquid is 3-4% and ...

A strange thing happened to me last night... We went to bed at around Midnight after sitting and chatting to the owns son in law about all things Indian nothing weird and with no alcohol drunk I must add. the room was warm and slightly muggy but nothing out of the ordinary and I soon fell asleep. However I was awoken after about an hour by hearing someone at the door quietly calling 'Helena!'. I actually got up and went to the door but no one was out side so I just assumed it was someone talking in their sleep and nodded of my self. After a couple of hours or so I awoke again with a sense that Les had got up, I turned over to see a strange black figure stood between our beds, at first I thought 'what is Les doing?' but then I noticed that Les was still in bed as he turned over still asleep.. The temperature in the room had changed dramatically and the figure just turned round as thigh it had noticed I was awake and then turned back walked to the end of the beds then o...

We rose the next morning early to have breakfast and to meet to get a local bus down to where we boarded a boat to take us out into the Backwaters of Kelrla. The bus took about 2 hours to get don to the drop off point and being a local bus it was crammed in and I ended up stat on the back row squashed between about 8 other Indian guys. After offloading the bags we walked a short way up to board the launch that would take us to our home stay. The launch was about 50 feet long and could probably accommodate about 50 people although we were lucky that we had it to ourselves. The boat wended its way through the myriad of canals and waterways that crisscross this huge area of man made lakes and islands. The pace of life here is defiantly much slower than anywhere else we had been. I can only describe the area as probably being similar to that of the Norfolk broads with large man made islands created to farm and live on however the area has a much greater population the The Broads. Also ply...

Today was the first day in Cochin proper with the tour group. We met last night for a meal and welcome meeting in the hotel restaurant and then retired fairly early. My room partner for the trip is a guy from Los Angeles called Less who works in the Movie Industry, and we seem to have hit it off ok. This morning we had a 'free' morning so we took our time and rose late for breakfast and then took a walk around to the local internet cafe to get our internet fix. The hotel is charging an exorbitant Rs120/ £1.80 and hour for wifi!, the internet shop at the back is Rs10/hour, work that one out?!?! Anyway part of the reason for going there was to try a usb keyboard on my Asus as the built-in keyboard has stopped working on certain keys. Anyway the internet cafe didn't have the right keyboards to try it with but we were directed to an area called Computer Bazaar where we were assured we would be able to get a keyboard to do the job. So off we set looking for a whole area of com...

My time in Trivandrum didn't go too well, My stomach upset got worse and I eventually took my self off to the local hospital for some proper medicine. At the Hospital I was worryingly 'admitted' however this was only a registration fee and I was taken to see a Surgeon who checked me over and proscribed a load of antibiotics and some tablets to repopulate my stomach with good bacteria. (medical Yakult I think) . So I spent most of my time in Trivandrum feeling very low and week. I did manage to take a bus out to Kovalam Beach one day which is about 15km down on the coast and is a an apparently popular tourist destination the beach front is lined with cafes and bars and I rented a beach lounger for the day and slept most of it on there, taking the bus back at a round 7pm to Trivandrum. The bus driver was definitely on a mission to be back in Trivandrum in record time or so it semed and drove like a bat out of hell to get back, so much so that when I got back to Trivandrum ...

I had already decided I was going to move on from Bangalore and had booked a ticket on an overnight train to Trivandrum . Unfortunately I only got as far as Wait List-2 on the booking so my ticket was canceled (and I got a refund) I tried to 'persuade' the Ticket inspector to let me have a seat but he was not for having it; my only option was to book for the next train or go General Class. So with 15 minutes to go I dashed across 4 platforms fought my way to the front of the ticket booth to find out that you can't book advance tickets; 'because it's Sunday' only tickets for trains leaving now?!? so I paid for a General Class ticket for the same train I had missed out on the AC berth and spent a grueling 17hours in a carriage with 200 other people and slept on the floor as it was the only space i could get. Never again.

The train didn't actually go all the way to Trivandrum, for reasons I could not fathom out it terminated at a small station about 8km outside the City and a large posse of autos were waiting to take people into the town. The driver I got started at Rs250 but I got him down to 100 and he sort of agreed to it, the fact I had to direct him by following my map in the Rough Guide once we were in the town proper meant he wasn't getting no more either! The hotel here is very basic – well what do you expect for Rs330/ £4.70 a night! Signing in was a mammoth job with 3 huge registration books to be completed all with virtually the same info then I had to sign the 'rules of the house' about what I can and cannot do in the hotel; which ran to 2 pages! Finally I got the room key – it was the 3rd floor and I was shattered and still feeling fairly ill. I was that bad that I had to stop at each floor get get my breath back and collapsed on the bed when I got to the room. Monday aftern...

Today I walked to the Leela Palace hotel, where I had stayed when I had been in town with work, now sadly slightly out of my price bracket (so was lunch there this time too!) Instead I bought a book from the bookshop in the attached shopping mall and then got a bus back to town. I had notices today that I had started to feel a little achy and stiff so on the return to the centre I stopped at a supermarket and grabbed some fruit, thinking perhaps I'm low on vitamins. I got a watermelon some oranges and for some reason I bought 2 bananas, why I'll never know as I know they give me indigestion; and these were no exception – horrendous indigestion for about 5 hours. After that I got diarrhoea, the hot and cold flushes and this continued through Saturday and Sunday.

Today I went to the Museum of Science and Technology, hmm I think it probably was excellent when it was built in the early 70's/80's the displays were extremely dated but after years of school kids hammering every button and prodding and pulling every exhibit it was looking very tired. And today was no exception the place was full of school kids. I managed to get a floor ahead of most of them then doubled back after and got a bit of peace, but the exhibits were still poor, probably due to funding, or lack of. On my way out of the museum a large group of about 80 primary school children had been sat down in rows on the service road outside, whilst the class prefects read out questions based on the museum for the others to answer, completely oblivious to the fact that no vehicles could get in or out of the museum!

After a good sleep and a read of the Rough Guide I decided to make the most of my time here and see some of the sights. I had seen there was an excellent typical local restaurant and a large gardens to the south so I decided to make it my mission to go to the garden first and then have a meal. I walked in the general direction south picking up road signs to to the area I needed every now and again and was amazed by the traffic congestion in this city – some of the roads were horrendously choked, and even though it was blatantly obvious that nothing was moving at all people continued to blare their horns. Eventually I fell upon Lalbagh Botanical Gardens. Set in 240 acres they were an excellent place to get out of the heat and noise. For some reason most of the specialist gardens were closed, Bonsai, Cacti, Rose gardens to name but a few with no real explanation why. The Gardens were generally well looked after though and busy – lots of couples were here, 'courting' as the usual ...

The train down to Bangalore worked out okay, again it was overnight train so after the usual seat swapping session I settled in for the long haul. In the morning the scenery had changed again becoming more greener again than Pune . Bangalore is known as the Garden City due to the number of gardens both public and private that are all over the city. Unfortunately my train only took me to station on the out-skirts of the city, however a quick check at the ticket desk there got me a Rs14 (10p) ticket on the next train to Bangalore Central. Whilst waiting on the platform I noticed an ancient 'arm scale' weighing machine. It had been manufactured in 1887 by a firm in Middleton, Manchester! I'm trying to recall the name of the company; Jepson /Jameson/Johnson? I really wanted to get a photo of it however there were 2 rather likely lads hanging round near me and I couldn't work out if the were casing my bags or just doing the common staring thing that some people here think is...

I arrived at Sangam by way of Auto, from the station just in time for tea. Sangam is one of the World Association of Girl Guides and Scouts 4 International Centre's Located around the world, The others are in London, Switzerland and Mexico. I joined the other Guiders for the evening meal which was very Western by the standards I had been used to for the last 15 days , a bit of a reverse culture shock! On chatting to the other Ladies here it turns out that they are are all here on a 10 day programme of working with local people, at an old peoples home to build a new garden for them, and at a Deaf and Dumb School to paint up the School Rooms. The event is an 'international' one however of the 50 or so participants all bar 2 are from the UK. Even more strange is that one of them knows Kyle, and Cath who I used to work with (from Swansea!) It's definitely a Small world, After a good nights sleep (and finding out there's a 'Wine Shop' just down the road th...