Where do I start? 11 days ago I arrived in Shimla in Himachal Pradesh, the summer capital of the state knowing I was bound for the mountains but with no plan. The journey on the train from Delhi was amazing, especially when I changed to a smaller train that ascended the mountains up to Shimla passing through 103 tunnels. Taking 5 hours the journey was amazing and full of great views of lush green hills, quaint hill stations, rice paddies and the first folds of the Himalaya's. On arrival I was approached as per usual by someone offering accomodation but for [View Full Entry]

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Since I have been Kerala for one week and have visited a lot of places I am going to write about my experience of the whole place rather than do individual entries on each. My first port of call was Ernakulam (Cochin) which is a major port and the largest city in Kerala. Arriving at 6.00am made for an enjoyable change as at first light there was no one around to hassle us and we were able to walk freely taking in the city for 2 km to catch a ferry to Fort Cochin, the best part of the city to [View Full Entry]

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Kanchipuram (Kanchi) is located about 50 km south west of Chennai and is famous for two reasons, temples and silk. There are over one thousand temples in and around Kanchi, we did not see them all (three was enough)! The second reason was the main driver for our visit. We heard of an charity organisation called the Rural Institute for Development Education (RIDE) whose aim is to take children out child labour in the silk industry and put them into education instead. RIDE give the opportunity to visit their headquarters, meet their leaders and be shown around the rural villages to [View Full Entry]

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200 km south of Pondy lies Tranquebar, a former Danish colony. As I am travelling with two Danish people it was a natural destination for us. Nothing however could have prepared us for what we saw there. 40,000 people in Tamil Nadu alone we killed in the Tsunami and it was the worst affected state in India, Tranquebar was one of the villages hit, it is very close to the sea and the land lies very low. As we stepped off the bus there was something not quite right about this place, a disturbing air set upon us. As we did [View Full Entry]

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Pondicherry (Pondy) was French colony until 1954. There is plenty to do here although no beaches in the town. The restaurants are great and there is a lot of choice including many French restaurants. The main tourist part of Pondy contains many buildings that are in French style although it is still very Indian town. It does however have a uniquely French feel similar to that of the south of France. The bus ride here from Chennai was one of the best I have taken so far in India, the views over the costal regions were particularly noteworthy, we passed kilometre [View Full Entry]

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Hampi is an incredible place, one of the most extraordinary I have ever visited in my life. The world heritage site is a small village set around a linear bazaar, with a popluation of 1,000. The surrounding area contains the ruins of an old city that at its peak had a population of 500,000 so Hampi feels very small in the shadows of it's heritage. It does have however a fantastic vibe and is so chilled out. Fortunately the night we arrived there was a festival and a procession from the main Virupaksha temple that dominates the skyline of Hampi and [View Full Entry]

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It was raining in Goa when we arrived however this is to be expected as the Monsoon is everywhere. It is the first time I have taken a long train journey but it was actually quite good and comfortable and we did not get bored, I am sure that the novelty will wear off soon though… We took a small bus crammed with 80 people to Colva where Jim arranged a very good value hotel (whilst I drank lots of beer!) in Colva, 10km west of Margao. Its ok here, as it is off season it is cheap, the downside is [View Full Entry]

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We arrived here yesterday morning and it was raining quite a bit, my first impression of India was seeing a dog run across the runway in front our plane after we had landed! The airport was very sparse and it is very humid everywhere. After filling in about 4 forms and waiting in as many queues we finally managed to work our way out of the airport only to be told that the hotel I had pre booked for us was a dump and in the middle of the red light district (Grant Road) with no places of interest nearby! We [View Full Entry]

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