Non-stop!

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(Again, photos will be uploaded later. For now, please refer to Instagram: @ryantanna)

Morning Westerners,

It looks like I'll have to come back to India again... there's just not enough time to see everything!

For those of you who are unaware - I now have a travelling companion, Kate, who is joining me for my final two weeks in India. I picked Kate up on the 22nd from Chennai airport after my 10.5hr train ride from Madurai ('sore bum' doesn't begin to cover it!) and then we quickly got busy setting out a plan for our journey.

We decided on which places we wanted to visit and, using a map, we devised the most time-efficient route. Unsurprisingly, our chosen route includes: Chennai, Mysore, Goa, Mumbai and Delhi. This is, quite evidently, a lot of places to visit in such a short period of time. So, given the time constraints, we've only been able to spend a few days in each so far. In fact, after our first full day in Chennai, where we visited the ancient town of Mahabalipuram and spent a few hours chilling on the beach, we decided to hop on to a sleeper bus and head to Mysore. With the time pressure, we didn't feel any burning desire to visit Pondicherry or any of the neighboring tourist attractions as they were all at least 4 hours away and we really wanted to get on the move.

So off to Mysore we went. It was great for Kate to experience the roads in India which she seems very comfortable with already. She's also relishing the food (pun intended) so she's settling in to the Indian life well. Oh and she seems more than happy to call me her Indian husband in order to keep the Indian males' stray eyes at bay... In fact, it was her idea and she's even brought her own rings for her wedding finger... alarm bells are prepping...

Mysore was a great experience - we learnt that 1 hour away by taxi actually means 4 hours away and that, as huge an attraction as it is, a Safari is not as obviously signposted as expected. We eventually found it (thank goodness) and enjoyed seeing a few elephants, deer, owls, peacocks, boar and even the odd leopard; though no tigers unfortunately.

After a night in Mysore and visiting the palace in the morning, we caught a semi-sleeper bus (never again!) to Goa. We arrived yesterday at around mid-day which gave us a good amount of time to settle in and to get our bearings. After checking in to a hotel we wandered to a beach, for which Goa is famous, and spent a good 3 hours floating in the sea and walking along the almost empty beach. We then found a small restaurant/bar overlooking the sea for the evening where a G&T was the equivalent of 90p!

Today we decided it would be best to leave Goa and to travel overnight to our next destination so as to give ourselves more time in the two big cities - Mumbai and Delhi. Having spent no longer than 2 days in each place so far, it will be a welcomed break to spend 2 or 3 consecutive nights in a stationary bed. However, we couldn't leave Goa without doing some touristy stuff so we absolutely jam packed today full of activities. First, we headed an hour west of central Goa to a spice plantation. There we had an hour tour of all the different spices and plants in the 130 acre plot and were provided with a buffet lunch which was cooked with ingredients from the farm. After that, we went for an elephant ride (we obviously couldn't leave India without doing this at least once) which was comfortable for a good 5 minutes until the realisation occurred that my legs were being stretched 4 foot apart by the animal. Kate - who's used to riding horses found it a bit more natural than I.. though I'd still ride one to Mumbai if we could! After the elephant ride we stopped off at Basilica of Bom Jesus to see St . Francis in his resting place.

We're now just waiting for our bus to take us to Mumbai where we'll spend the next 3 days before taking a 21 hour sleeper train to Delhi.

* For those of you concerned about the strikes / riots that have been happening in Goa over the last 4 days - don't worry. We were warned when we arrived and avoided that area despite our original plan being to stay in the exact place they were happening! It's a shame but what can you do... *

Until next week..! x

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