We arrived in Hospete pretty much on time (only 1 hour late) - I had found the slightly larger 1st class beds on the train much easier to sleep on. Unfortunately Stephens was wonky so he hadn’t got much sleep. Overall there isn’t much difference between the 1st & 2nd AC classes so its probably not worth the extra money. There wasn’t a food cart on this train either, and we didn’t even get any tea! We did, however, get a steady stream of staff wanting a ‘selfie’ with us. Trying to find a tuktuk to the boat crossing to Anegundi, where we were supposed to be staying, we discovered that the river crossings were shut. They had been shut for over a week, so our accommodation knew that before taking our booking & offering to ... read more

Today we wanted to go and see the fort town of Srirangapatnam, built on an island 16km out of Mysore. According to the lonely planet you can easily get a train there (you can’t - most of the trains to Bangalore no longer stop there), or a bus taking 30mins (only it takes over an hour these days!). Bored of tuk tuks we decided to hire a bike each from the hostel and cycle over. Possibly not the most sensible idea in monsoon season and given this meant cycling down a main highway... Getting there was actually quite easy, after successfully navigating a couple of terrifying junctions we hit the highway and it was pretty much a straight line from there. Just off the highway we could see a farmer ploughing with oxen. We turned off ... read more

Top of the list of things to see in Mysore has to be its palace. Built in 1912 by British architect Henry Irvin to replace the previous palace which had burnt down. It’s on the sight of a fort which was first constructed in the 14th century. It’s relatively cheap at 50 ruppees to enter. The outer grounds open from 10am and the residential part from 11am. The crowds definitely got heavier later on so I’d recommend getting there early. We started by wondering around the grounds, going into the Hindu temples flanking either side of the palace, along the walls, and into the palace elephant stables (where you can say hello to them for free). We decided that if we weren’t told off then it was probably ok to go to, in this way we ... read more

It was very peaceful on the houseboat in Alleppey and we slept very well in the air conditioned room, in our sleeping bag liners under our mosquito net (the sheets were a little dubious...). Unfortunately there had been more rain overnight and the water level had risen noticeably. We were pleased to be leaving the area today. Breakfast was amazing. Chef had made us sweet coconut dosa, fresh pineapple, toast and traditional igli. We sailed back to the mainland for a 9am finish. We were picked up by our tuk tuk driver and taken to Cochi (our original plan had been a bus or train but being a Sunday there weren’t any running at the right time). The advantage of this method of transport was that we went along the coastal road as oppose to the ... read more

Having spent an extra unscheduled day in Munnar due to the heavy rain fall we weren’t optimistic about getting out to Alleppey today either. We had another night of thunder storms and heavy torrential rain. The news reports in the morning were of further land slips, new dams having to open, red flood warnings in Alleppey and Kochin and of the US embassy telling its tourists to avoid Kerala completely. Despite this, and much to our surprise our taxi managed to get to us first thing in the morning. We decided being out of the area worst affected by land slides was probably a good thing, although going to an area below sea level didn’t seem the most sensible idea... Almost as soon as we left the hotel we saw our first signs of the issues ... read more