Steve Truman

This was a very pleasant walk, City of London to City of Westminster. Most of it lay south of the river, through areas I hadn't visited before. I arrived at Bank Station at about half past twelve in the afternoon and because of visiting museums and churches along the way it was quite dark before I reached Westminster. Unfortunately I hadn't taken my camera with me so I had to use my iPhone. And even more unfortunately, I took most of the pictures using the Camera Plus app, without realising that I had to save them. So out of the many photos I took, only four were on the iPod when I got home :-) The walk started with a bit of a wander around the Bank area, walking around the Royal Exchange. Then the route ... read more

I am now in Thanjavur, which was previously called Tanjore The town is famous for a very decorative style of artwork and for a very large temple erected by Rajaraja, the Chola king who was so good they named him twice. As we drove out of Madurai we went past a painted temple elephant being led along the side of the road. This seemed like a good omen. Further along, just about as we were passing the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court (sic - the court is still that of Madras, though the city has changed its name) on the right hand side of the road, I saw an interesting looking rock on the other side. At first it seemed most like a crouching tiger or a sphinx but it was very long. And ... read more

Ooty is quite unlike any other Indian town that I have visited. I think the reason for this is that it was, from its origin, a European town. Its founder, John Sullivan - I am staying in a hotel named after him, Sullivan's Court - bought up all the land (dirt cheap of course, roughly the same terms as when Peter Minuit purchased Manhattan) and from the beginning European style houses were erected. Many of them look vaguely Swiss, although it may just be that I have Swizerland on my mimd because of the story about the woman the elephants killed. There is relatively little traffic here even through the centre of the town, which is known as Charing Cross. I couldn't see either a railway station or a cross there, though, but there is a ... read more

The city previously known as Bangalore has now been restored to its original Kannada name of Bengaluru. Unfortunately, this name cannot easily be abbreviated as copyright on Bengal has already been taken. The city's name, is said to have arisen when Veera Ballala II, a local king during the twelth century, was lost and had a dinner of boiled beans cooked for him by a peasant woman. He therefore named the area where she lived as the Place of Boiiled Beans and that's how it's been known ever since. The problem is that this can't actully be true because the place was known as Bengaluru as early as the ninth century. But if the truth and the legend differ, blog the legend. My driver insisted upon my hiring a local guide in addtion to himself as ... read more

I moved on, rather reluctantly, from Puducherry to Mamalappuram. No-one seems to have bothered to abbreviate this name (possibly because it is itself a slightly shorter version of Mahabalipuram which is its other current name (Nothing to do with Mahabali or Bali, the demon king tricked by the dwarf, whose annual return to earth is celebrated every year in Kerala). The obvious abbreviation is Mama and then Auroville could relocate a few miles north and the Matrimandir could be in Mama. So much more sensible. Anyway. I am staying at a very nice hotel called Mamallaa Heritage, which is just a short walk from the beach (the Tamil fondness for long names would not have been satisfied with Mamalla Heritage). To get to the beach, though, you have to walk down a road which is lined ... read more