Right, it's been ages since we did one of these and we're home in a couple of weeks so not sure it's worth it anymore. That said, Chrissie's got a bad head and is snoozing and I'm bored, so here goes. Kerala is the state at the very south of India and despite it getting even hotter (we read that it got to 120F!!!) we had a lovely time there. We headed straight for Kochi, the capital, which is largely a big port, but has a sweet colonial district which is superbly looked after and preserved. It was colonised by the [View Full Entry]

---

---

Oops just realised I published Kerala and forgot to finish this one! This belongs between Goa and Kerala. It's not easy to leave an idyllic beach, so it was with our bottom lips poking out a little that we headed into the state of Karnataka and towards Hampi. By the middle of the afternoon we were happy again, realising that we had swapped paradise for paradise. The village of Hampi sits in a boulder strewn landscape that has seemingly randomly piled up rock in strange arrangements and shapes. The rest of the landscape is rolling paddy fields, with a picture perfect [View Full Entry]

---

---

Having completed our circuit of Rajasthan we headed off to the state of Uttar Pradesh, deep in the interior of India. Although the states share a border, they are vast and our journey covered several thousand kms using bus and train and took 23 hours. The part on the bus was very hot as it was through the day, but we were encouraged by the knowledge that our connecting overnight train was going to be lovely. The more expensive beds on the overnight trains have air conditioned coaches, beds with clean linen and food and drink services. We had several reports [View Full Entry]

---

---

After Chrissie's few days of sickness and the accompanying requirement to stay in the hotel room, it felt fantastic to get to Goa, with its beaches and wide open spaces. We spent 8 days in Goa, but for 6 of these we, to all intents and purposes, did exactly the same thing - relaxed at the beach. India is so hot, busy and hectic, that it was wonderful to get to a couple of beach resorts and just kick back for a while. We visited two villages, called Anjuna and Arambol, the former for 2 days and the latter for 4. [View Full Entry]

---

---

Leaving hassle filled Agra behind us, we got a bus for about 6 hours to Jaipur - the Pink City. It is known as the pink city as a huge section of it is painted pink (clever name!), although it’s more a peachy orange colour (not such a clever name then after all!). It’s the capital of Rajasthan and has about 2.6 million residents, but feels remarkably calmer than Agra despite its size. Our hotel was sweet and relaxed and after a lazy lunch, we were ready to explore. We found ourselves a tuk-tuk driver and hired him for a couple [View Full Entry]

---

---

Jodhpur, not just crap trousers, but a splendid city too! The ‘blue city’ (unlike Jaipur it is actually the colour it’s supposed to be) sits deep in the desert in Rajasthan and is hot and dry, so we were over the moon we’d picked a guesthouse that meant we had to climb up an enormous hill. On arrival the climb was worth it, as from the rooftop restaurant the view of the blue town and the fort was spectacular. No need to go trekking off to find a sunset point here, we were staying at it. Our first day we hid [View Full Entry]

---

---

Morning and welcome to our shiny and spanking new blog. South America was just like soooo last year that we felt we needed a fresh blog for our new travels. This season's in thing is India - I hear it's a quiet little place with a pleasant cool climate and barely a spot of dust in sight. Okay, enough silliness, we left Bexleyheath on a warm afternoon and headed to the airport. The flight was passable, the dinner curry of course (which was yummy) and we got to watch Slumdog Millionaire. For those who haven't seen it, we both thought it [View Full Entry]

---

---