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Keep Smiling - Mike Fossey

I’ve bragged, I’ve blagged, but never before had I blogged - until I discovered TravelBlog!

If you dream of travelling the globe on less than five quid a day, be warned: this blog is written by an experienced, mature traveller - not a backpacker. So, you won’t find stories here about me thumbing my way across the Sahara, slumming it in cockroach-infested hostels, or sharing a room with giant mosquitoes.

More my style are self-drive cars (or, better still, chauffeur driven ones), first-class sleeper trains, and comfortable hotels, bed-and-breakfasts, holiday cottages, villas or apartments. Having said that, I’m not made of money, so good value in everything is important, and I’ll try to include things in my blogs which even a traveller on the meanest budget may find useful.

Keep Smiling!

Smile and the world smiles with you!

Map Legend: 19%, 52 of 263 Territories

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Your map descriptionCOUNTRIES I HAVE VISITED IN MY VERY LONG LIFETIME

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Joined on: December 15th 2005
Last Login: November 23rd 2009

Blog Entries: 35
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Blogs & Travel Journals

by Keep Smiling, order by Date newest first.

By Keep Smiling
November 22nd 2009

YooHoo Juhu! ByeBye India! Asia » India » Maharashtra » Mumbai

Juhu Beach
The beach near our hotel with its coconut and ice lolly sellers. You can just spot Lajpal if you look closely.

Friday 20 to Sunday 22 November I have a theory that taxi drivers here in Mumbai are unlike other human beings. They have four pairs of eyes: one pair on either side of their heads, another pair at the back, and a fourth pair where other mere mortals have theirs, at the front. Between all of these is little in the way of grey matter. At least that's how it seems. When we arrived at Mumbai Airport on Friday afternoon, an hour behind schedule, our pre-arranged taxi was waiting for us. The driver was holding up a sign bearing my name [View Full Entry]

By Keep Smiling
November 19th 2009

Backwaters boating Asia » India » Kerala » Kollam

Cruising
An everyday scene during our journey through the backwaters

Wednesday 18 to Friday 20 November How can I best describe our experience here on Kerala’s backwaters? Umm, well, it’s rather like a cross between a luxury cruise on the Nile and a pleasure boat on the Norfolk Broads. For readers who’ve never done either, perhaps I should explain... On Egypt’s River Nile, large, luxurious, air-conditioned cruise boats glide from temple to tomb while the palms and desert are wound past your window and waiters cater to your every whim. On the Norfolk Broads of East Anglia, you can rent small, self-drive pleasure boats with s [View Full Entry]

By Keep Smiling
November 17th 2009

Special tea, and fish and chips at the top of a coconut tree Asia » India » Kerala » Varkala

Sunset on Varkala beach
Returning from a swim as the sun went down

Saturday 14 to Wednesday 18 November It rained almost non-stop during our 3½ hour journey from Kanyakumari, but it eased shortly before we reached Varkala. Little did we know that this was merely a lull before the storm! Having struggled to find a way by road into the Varkala Marine Palace and eventually coming to a halt at the foot of a steep incline by their tradesmen’s entrance, we were met by the owner, Bhasker, and shown to our room, one of three traditional Keralan style apartments on the first floor of a recent [View Full Entry]

The view from the top of the north cliff

The path along the top of the north cliff

By Keep Smiling
November 14th 2009

I want to look like a cricket bat... Asia » India » Tamil Nadu » Kanyakumari

Vivekananda Memorial and Thiruvalluvar Statue
Kanyakumari's landmarks, 400m offshore

Kanyakumari - Friday 13 November The breakfast buffet at the GRT Regency in Madurai was one of the best I’ve ever seen - fresh pineapple juice, freshly-sliced papaya and pineapple, cereals, toast, cakes, croissants and chocolate-covered doughnuts, Indian foods of almost every type - for vegetarian and non-vegetarian diets, lots of western-style things, like chicken sausages, eggs cooked to order... You name it, they had it. Today, while I made my usual half-dozen trips to reload my plate, Lajpal decided that all this good eating was damaging his waistline and opted for just fru [View Full Entry]

By Keep Smiling
November 12th 2009

Mad Madurai Asia » India » Tamil Nadu » Madurai

Sound and Light at Thirumalai Nayakar Palace
Poor sound and bad light

Wednesday 11 & Thursday 12 November The Kerala-Tamil Nadu border was just a few kilometres away and, after writing our names and addresses in duplicate on a piece of paper and paying a Rs250 interstate tax, we were allowed through the barrier. We drove, past the huge pipelines funnelling Periyar’s water to Tamil Nadu’s hydro-electric plant, down onto the plains below. The change in the character of the land became instantly obvious. We were now at the bottom of a wide valley, with distant hills on either side, on a well-maintained two-lane road. We passed fields of ca [View Full Entry]

By Keep Smiling
November 11th 2009

Pouring in Periyar Asia » India » Kerala » Periyar National Park

Lake Periyar
...and its redundant pleasure boats

Lake Periyar - Monday 9 to Wednesday 11 November Monday’s journey from Munnar took us first to the internet café in the town to upload my latest blog and to check e-mail, then onto a winding road through the tea plantations. The weather was fine at first - we even saw some blue sky for the first time in days - but, as tea gave way to cardamom plantations, the cloud returned and down came the rain. For the next three hours, the rain continued on and off (actually more on than off) and our movement along the road was hampered [View Full Entry]

By Keep Smiling
November 9th 2009

A delicious cuppa and a risky one! Asia » India » Kerala » Munnar

Cheeyappara Waterfall
One of three sets of falls, swollen by overnight rain, that we passed on our way from Thattekkad to Munnar

Munnar - Friday 6, Saturday 7 & Sunday 8 November The patter of raindrops on Hornbill’s thatched roof, the croaking of a thousand frogs and the growing stuffiness in the tent caused by a lack of electricity to power our overhead fan woke us up before 7.00a.m. As night turned into day, the rain eased and the gardening boy gathered up leaves and some coconuts that had fallen in the night. Two pied kingfishers sat in a nearby tree and a small flock of white egrets skimmed along the river on their way to who knows where. One of our waiters [View Full Entry]

By Keep Smiling
November 5th 2009

This place is a secret Asia » India » Kerala » Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary

The Periyar River
...as seen from our dining table

Thattekkad - Wednesday 4 & Thursday 5 November Our driver, with his air-conditioned Tata Indigo car, arrived promptly at 9.00a.m. We’d already had another enjoyable breakfast on the terrace at the Fort House Hotel and paid our bill, so left straight away for our 100kms drive to Thattekkad. It took almost an hour to leave the city of Kochi and emerge onto the less-busy country road. There, greenery surrounded us in the form of rubber plantations, fields of small pineapple plants, and coconut groves. The car would be with us for the next 11 days, as would our 26-year-old driver, [View Full Entry]

By Keep Smiling
November 3rd 2009

Fortunate Kochi Asia » India » Kerala » Kochi

The view from Fort House Hotel
Passing boats were interesting, day and night

Fort Kochi - Monday 2 & Tuesday 3 November An on-time Jet Konnect flight took us south in around 1½ hours to Kochi (formerly Cochin), where a pre-arranged taxi from the Fort House Hotel awaited us. It took almost as long to travel by road from the airport to Fort Kochi as it did to fly down from Mumbai. The road, through Ernakulum and across bridges connecting the outlying islands was busy and the giant advertising hoardings in an unfamiliar script made it clear that we were now in the south of the country. Our driver, like most of the peop [View Full Entry]

By Keep Smiling
November 1st 2009

Mumbai’s extremes Asia » India » Maharashtra » Mumbai

Maidan Oval
Cricket - with players in whites and hard cricket balls - was being played alongside games with guys in t-shirts and jeans, using a tennis ball.

Mumbai (formerly Bombay) - Saturday 31 October & Sunday 1 November If you saw “Slumdog Millionaire” and watched the recent terrorist drama unfold here in Mumbai, you’ll have already seen where we spent this Sunday. As we sipped our 500 Rupee (GBP6.50) beers at the luxurious Taj Mahal Hotel on Colaba’s waterfront, it wasn’t lost on Lajpal that we’d just experienced two extremes of life here in Mumbai - the Dharavi slums this morning and five-star opulence this evening. We’d actually arrived in Mumbai on Saturday morning. Lajpal had taken a [View Full Entry]

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Keep Smiling | Mike Fossey | Travel Blog

Keep Smiling - Mike Fossey

Smile and the world smiles with you!

Blogs & Travel Journals