You may think that a forty hour train ride isn't a particularly exciting thing...and you would be right, it was horrible and extremely boring. We have decided to write an entry on it however for a few reasons. One reason is that forty hours is actually longer than we have spent in some of our stops so it kind of deserves a blog of its own, also it was an important journey for us as it took us back to Mumbai which is our final stop (not including a quick side trip to the Ellora Caves) before we fly home. The final reason is that the journey was an absorbing experience and we made some interesting observations about India and its people that we wanted to write about. Our journey took us from Kochi up the ... read more

We decided to escape the heat and humidity of the backwaters and run to the hills to a place called Munnar. The bus trip there took us along a long and winding road up into the mountains and it seemed to take forever. It was dark when we arrived and with our new friend Mauritz, who had decided to join us, we went looking for a guesthouse. Unfortunately for us it was high season in Munnar, as everybody wants to escape the heat of the lowlands, and the hotel prices were high. We found one 'cheapy' but the room was so small you could touch all four of its cardboard walls from the bed. We ended up finding a nicer hotel which was way over our budget but we decided to squeeze all three of us ... read more

We decided to stop to Allepey to see some more of the world famous Keralan Backwaters. Allepey itself didn't hold much appeal but we did manage to scope out a branch of the Indian Coffee House where we could fill up on cheap dosas. We booked a six hour canoe trip on the backwaters for the very next day through our guesthouse so we didn't have to hang around. We were joined on our canoe by a nice German guy called Mauritz. The canoe had a canopy to keep us in the shade and lots of cushions for us to lie on, it was pretty luxury. The trip around the waterways surrounding Allepey was not as serene and picturesque as our trip from Kollam and if anything we were left feeling a little underwhelmed and disappointed. ... read more

From the description in our guide book we were expecting Kollam to be a tranquil and picturesque little fishing village however this wasn't the case. It was a grubby, noisy town with no asthetic appeal whatsoever. Luckily we weren't here to explore the town but rather to take a trip along the backwaters which snake their way from the sea into the surrounding countryside. We checked into a overpriced sweat-box of a room, booked our backwater trip for the following morning and then headed out to find some food. This turned out to be quite a mission, we couldn't find many restaurants and those that we did stumble across were working mens joints, packed with sweaty men shuvelling down the set meals served from buckets which are nice but we didn't fancy right then. We were ... read more

We originally wanted to fly/get a direct train from Rajasthan to Kerala but the flights were too expensive and the trains were fully booked for weeks due to the Indian holidays so we knew it was going to be a long slog all the way to the extreme south with only local buses to take us there one sweaty, cramped, smelly, mosquito ridden journey at a time. The stops we made along the way allowed for showers and horizontal sleep and broke the journeys up so that we didn't go completely mad. All in all we took nine buses to finally arrive in Kochi, our last journey from Gokhana took nearly 24 hours altogether because we had to stop in Mangalore. When we first arrived in Mangalore we were told that all the buses to Kochi ... read more

We had to take another three local buses to make the journey from Palolem to Gokhana. We were far too English when it came to boarding the first bus, we waited while everyone got on and when it came to our turn there was no room, people were hanging out of the doors. Luckily the conductor let us ride up front with the driver which worked out to be rather more comfortable than being squashed in with everyone else. The second bus we were again too polite and there was standing room only by the time we got on. By the third we had realised what needed to be done ino order to get a seat. As the bus pulled into the station we barged our way through the crowd, elbowing and shoving people out of ... read more

Having made a final, last minute decision to go to one last beach before the end of our trip we took three hot sticky buses from Panjim to a tiny beach town called Palolem. Palolem isnt meant to be one of the most idyllic beaches in Goa due to it being a little too discovered by tourists, however now that we are in May it is classed as 'out-of-season' for this part of the country so when we arrived it was quiet enough to be blissful but still busy enough that some restaurants and guesthouses remained open. Needless to say we didnt struggle to find accomodation at 'out-of-season' price, in fact we got a nice little purple beach bungalow which opened out straight onto the beach for a mere 150 rupees a night. Although this is ... read more

We had to make a stop in Mumbai on our way south to Goa. We just spent one night here before heading off as we fly home from Mumbai so will be returning to do some sightseeing. We had some problems finding affordable accomodation, one place we looked had about 30 beds crammed into a dark grubby room with half naked, sweaty Indian men lying on them. No thanks! We did eventually find somewhere that was acceptable. The area we were staying in reminded us a lot of London. Many of the bulidings here were built by the British during their rule and the wonderful architecture of the old train station, the busiest in Asia, particularly reminded us of home. We spent our day just wandering around and we found a Macdonalds which we just couldn't ... read more

The Lonely Planet describes Udaipur as '... the Venice of the East...' because the city is built around a handful of huge lakes. The centrepiece of the city is the Lake Palace which was built in the middle of one of the lakes, also known as 'the floating palace' because it appears to rise right out of the water with no island around it. With thoughts of fairytale palaces in our heads we arrived in the dark at around 5am in Udaipur. We asked our autorickshaw driver to take us to a 'cheap cheap' hotel and the best he could do was one that was 300 rupees a night, a bit out of our price range but we were too sleepy to put up much of a fight so we took the room and went straight ... read more

Jaisalmer is on the far west of India close to Pakistan. It rises out of the surounding Thar Desert and its mighty sandstone fort, built in 1156, towers over the town like a fairytale sandcastle. This is the land of turbans where the men have large, curly moustaches and look like characters from Aladdin and the women, dressed in bright sarees have faces decorated with golden piercings. Jaisalmer is an ancient and magical town with wonderfully grand old architecture, bustling bazaars selling mysterious items and at its centre is the magnificent fort which harbours a palace and various temples and havelis all hidden around the warren of narrow streets carved from the near edible sandstone. It is a 'golden city of dreams', the centre of a once powerful and wealthy desert kingdom and is now the ... read more