Legend tells that Kerala was created when some dude called Parsurama, an incarnation of Lord Vishna, threw his battle axe into the Arabian sea. Why he did this isn't clear and equally unclear is why this should turn the sea into fertile land, nevertheless this is the legend and the state of Kerala has officially been a state of India since 1956. The place I'm staying in for the first part of my tour around southern India is the Kerelan city of Cochin. This morning we are taken on a tour of Fort Cochin by our guide Sadjit. Fort Cochin is the colonial part of the city with influences from the Portuguese, Dutch, Chinese, Arabs and not forgetting the Empire building Brits! We start off in a square with massive trees we find out are rain ... read more

Sadly this is my last day in Norway but I have one more fjord cruise before I leave; this one taking me from Bergen along the Osterfjord all the way to Maostraumen and back. Unfortunately the Bergen proclivity for rain has not let me down and I am yet again faced with jumping puddles and poking out eyes of unsuspecting passers by with the wayward spokes of my brolly. Before I came to Norway I'd booked quite a few activities in advance as I realise how quickly these tours book up and don't like to miss out just because of bad planning. This tactic obviously backfires when the weather isn't so great as I have to go on the trip regardless how rubbish it might be as a result of pouring rain. I join people standing ... read more

So the YMCA turned out to be 'non eventful' rather than 'fun' to stay at, but as this doesn't span very well and doesn't fit the chorus line I pretend it was fun after all and all is well in the world of cheesy Village People land. I'd found myself sharing a 6 bed mixed dorm with a group of 5 Spanish friends, older than the usual youth hostel demographic, probably due to the horrendously high cost of literally EVERYTHING in Norway making hostels an accommodation choice that some wouldn't otherwise pick! They didn't speak much English, which since I speak about 3 words of Spanish I found pretty impressive. They were really apologetic in advance about the early time they'd be leaving in the morning and hoped they wouldn't disturb me too much. As it ... read more

Another sunny day dawns and I check out of my hostel ready for a move to Bergen in the afternoon. Luckily the hostel can store my main bag so I set off to the harbour area for the start of what I think is a long mountain walk. The walk is lovely, taking me up high with views looking down on the boats below, but it takes about half an hour tops, the scale of the illustrated map being somewhat deceptive. I decide to head off out of Flåm to explore the track used by cyclists doing the one way rail trip and then cycling back down, only I’m doing it in reverse obviously. The sun is baking hot and most unexpected. I’d thought there would be quite a few days of rain it being so ... read more

I find the beach area where I'm supposed to meet for my kayaking session but I'm a little early so decide to check out the Flåm Railway Museum while I wait. I'll be travelling on this line later in the day so it will be good to find out a little about its history before I go. Inside the museum are displays and old photos. Many of the photos show groups of men holding shovels and picks. Surely not! But yes they did indeed make the entire line, including digging through twenty tunnels, BY HAND!!! The work started in 1924 and wasn't finished until a whole twenty years later. It was nick named 'The Twenty Line' as it was 20km long, had twenty tunnels and took twenty years to complete. This mammoth task was pretty essential ... read more