Blogs from Mangalore, Karnataka, India, Asia - page 2

After a very early start at Manchester, a short trip to Heathrow and five hours in Bangalore, we have arrived in Mangalore! We were waved off this morning by District Governor David Simpson and his wife Janet, who both came to wave us goodbye. Despite some heavy suitcases and too much hand luggage, we all made it here in one piece. My nerves were nowhere near as bad as I thought they would be and I managed to say goodbye to everybody without any tears! The first things that have stuck me are the amount of adverts in Bangalore airport for green and environmental initiatives. It seems naive but I didn’t consider that this would be a priority for people in India. Being in Bangalore still felt like being in an airport at home, except for ... read more

Hellooooooooooo, After leaving Fort Kochi we made our way back up into the hills to Munnar on the Western Ghats. At around 2000 Meters it was quite chilly again but so stunningly lush. A small town literally surrounded by rolling hills of bright green tea, rivers and forest. On both the couple of days that we spent there we managed to disappear into the surrounding hills breathing in that amazing clean, crisp air. From Munnar we headed down, back into Tamil Nadu to Pollachi where we sadly had to stay a little longer that expected due to me eating some dirty rice, getting another bonus sickness for a few days. Chistof was so good to me though feeding me plenty of cheap tasting chocolate eclairs so i was soon on the mend and we on our ... read more

As we've moved down the country we've seen a big change in landscapes and crops. From cotton to rice-paddies, to hillsides of tea bushes and coffee, and crops of root veg and now the more tropical outline of banana plants and palm trees. Finally we arrived at the coast and first stop is Kochi in Kerala and we opted to head for Fort Cochin which is one of the small islands just off the mainland. It doesn't feel very much like India with it's blend of Portuguese, Dutch and English heritage. India's oldest European style church is here along with a Synagogue, a thriving Jewish community (all centred around a place called Jew Town, which doesn't sound very pc to me!) and a port with cantilevered Chinese fishing nets - it's a right old hotch-potch, but ... read more

Jamalabad -- Heaven in clouds Well, this is my travel blog, in fact first blog ever. So, bear with me.I am going to blurt out everything here. We had a long weekend ahead of us due to Independence day and my friend Sathish was going home for weekend. Sainath & I accompanied him. Ramdas who was also on his way home also joined us in the journey. On the way to his home in Venoor, we noticed in the Ujire circle that 'Jamalabad Fort' was about 9 kms away. So, our first plan of action after reaching home was to plan to go that fort the very next day. We started early the next day. Satish, his brother Praveen(Our hosts), Sainath & I started at about 9'o clock and reached Ujire at about 10'o clock. ... read more

We woke up in our 'suite' to find a monstrous spider lurking in the corner. We are talking the size of my hand!! We also found web trailing accross the rope that Mark and Dale had used to string up their mozzy nets. We went out to find breakfast, no easy task it seemed! After walking for ages we found a restaurant that served food and sat down. Looking through the menu we found to our surprise that although food was available there was nothing to drink apart from alcohol! not even a bottle of water, and it was 9 in the morning! We left and found somewhere else. We then hopped onto the 2.30 train from Mangalore to Calicut which was great, only took five hours and the views were amazing. We got off the ... read more