Blogs from Alleppey, Kerala, India, Asia - page 19

We arrived at the bus station in Pondycherry and it went a little something like this: 'Madam- bus to Chennai?' 'No sir, Tiruvannamalai' 'Chennai?' 'No sir, Tiruvannamalai' 'You going to Chennai?' 'NO...we..want...a...bus...to...Tir-u-vanna-mal-ai' 'Oh, this is the bus to Tiruvannamalai madam' 'We know... thank you sir!' Having watched the landscape change from coast, through paddy fields to dry desert-like scrub we finally rocked up, two sceptics in the holy town of Tiruvannamalai. Shadowed by the mountain Arunachala, where a number of holy folk went to live in isolation in caves to find 'enlightenment', leaving a legacy of numerous ashrams and guru addicted followers! We met with a friend of Joelle's, Laxman, who kindly offered us his kitchen floor for the week, so we headed off around the mountain to his idyllic hideout in the sticks- which brought ... read more

An early train meant an early rise. Due to the shower still being kaput, I had to carefully feel my way back to the same room I'd used yesterday - a process that had been easy in the daylight but was more of an adventure in the dark. The journey to Allepey (aka Allapuzah) was only a couple of hours, but the hotel allowed me to check in even though it was barely 9AM. The hotel is great, with poolside dining in the evening, but it's a couple of kilometres away from anything useful (e.g. shops, Internet) so I made great inroads into my 10 rupee note collection getting autos to and from town. My main objective of the day was to finalise a backwater cruise. I decided one night on the boat would provide a ... read more