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Poovar & The Ayurveda Hospital
At last, right in the final knockings of this 8-week Indian odyssey, the stars finally align sufficiently for us to make a journey by train. It’s fifty odd minutes late pulling into Varkala, then trundles its way slowly through tropical scenery and past the bustling city with the commendably long name of Thiruvananthapuram, until we reach our stop at Neyyattinkara. It’s not just the place names which are longer than in England either: the train has many, many more coaches than you will ever see back home, consequently the station platforms are much longer – and so are the journeys. This train, number 16526, began its journey in Bangalore (Bengaluru)…
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On Holiday In Varkala
Red dust blows in flurries between the buses which sit with doors wide open waiting for departure time, street dogs using the shade of the big vehicles to sleep out of the glare of the raging sun. It’s H-O-T hot. So intensely hot. There’s probably a few mad dogs out there somewhere in the midday sun; certainly there’s a couple of English(men), humping backpacks across the “bus stand”, kicking up red dust, sweating as they seek out their next temporary home. Our host arrives, shows us around our apartment, and demonstrates how to switch on the washing machine which, much to his horror, sprays water right across the room from…
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Messing About On The Backwater: 48 Hours On A Houseboat
Shaking off the curse of Montezuma has taken far too long. On our previous visits to India we’ve avoided the worst of the Delhi belly, but not this time. Everywhere we go in the world we always try to eat like the locals, try every local food, do the “authentic” thing, so much so that we felt we’d both got pretty good constitutions and could deal comfortably with the consequences of unusual food. But after a quick to-be-expected bout around Udaipur, things recovered like they normally do, only to then dive backwards with what we think were bad prawns on Christmas Eve. Nearly three weeks later we’re still not firing…
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Over The Hills To The Tea: Days In Munnar
“Welcome to misty Munnar” announces the road sign as we approach the mountainside town surrounded by lush greenery. There’s no hint of mist this afternoon and it’s anticipation rather than precipitation in the air as far as we’re concerned: this is going to be yet another different experience of India. The 4-hour journey from Fort Kochi in the company of our driver Joseph has been very different from our journey earlier this week to the waterfalls at Athirappilly which took an age to shake off the sprawling metropolis which is Cochin. This time we are soon into Kerala’s renowned lush countryside, passing mango and pineapple farms in low lying pastures…
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Fort Kochi, Town Of Rich Cultural Heritage
Our journey through Kerala is set to take us to ancient coastal cities, up into the misty mountains, through tea plantations, into the backwaters then down to red cliffs, a seaside holiday resort and even a specialist ayurvedic retreat. But we start here at Fort Kochi, which soon shows itself to be an utterly absorbing, multi faceted city with so many elements to its character and so many different aspects that it’s difficult to know where to start. So we’ll start with its rather unique geographical setting. Fort Kochi, its neighbouring towns and cities and even the giant sprawling Cochin city sit on what you might term a broken coastline,…
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Kerala Calling
It’s one of those strange days of travel, one on which we have no base for most of the day: checkout is 11am and our flight to Cochin leaves so late that we don’t even need to head to the airport till after 5. Consequently a sun bed on the beach is our home for more than 6 hours, the backpacks left near the security gate back at the digs. It goes surprisingly quickly, then suddenly it’s time to say farewell to the friendly guy at Roger’s, goodbye to our favourite beach dog who claims one last tummy rub, and finally goodbye to the lovely trinket seller Karina with whom…
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From North Goa To South: Chilling In Benaulim
It feels a bit like we’re cheating. Public transport – trains, buses, ferries – and the occasional rental car, are our normal ways of making it from A to B, getting into the local spirit by travelling the way they do, rather than what we’re doing here, finding a driver to take us all the way to our next destination. Trouble is, here in India, public transport can be very time consuming with its regular delays and slow progress, plus also the cost of car and driver for long journeys is ridiculously low, which makes it just too easy to say yes. To our spirit of adventure though it still…
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That Was 2025
As has become our custom since retirement, the closing of the year signals a retrospective look at everywhere we travelled to and through, and how the year unfolded. 2025 saw us travelling for a total of 262 days during which we visited 12 countries, 6 of which were new ground for us. 262 days isn’t a new record, falling short of the 270 we travelled in 2023, but we did equal our bed record, sleeping in 92 different beds through the year. We also travelled on more than 35 trains, drove rental cars in 4 countries and caught 30 flights (easily a record) with 14 different airlines. It’s 6 years…
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To The Beach: Arrival In The Wrong Part Of Goa
Well. It just goes to show, even grounded and experienced travellers like us can mess up, although we’re mystified as to how we of all people made this error. In trying to work out the best places to stay in Goa to get a decent coastal fix but steer clear of the overblown party towns, we spent ages poring over the merits and demerits of just about everywhere until we settled on two locations in South Goa, missing out North Goa and its party scene completely. It’s not until we leave Goa International Airport that it dawns on us that something is amiss, when the hotel driver (we’d pre-arranged collection)…
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A Different India: The City Of Mumbai
Udaipur. Thursday, 6.30am. Chilly. Dark. Not many people about, those that are, are wrapped in quilted coats, caps and scarves. We’re in T-shirts. Taxi to airport, flight to Mumbai. Disembark Mumbai a short time later. Just gone 10am and it’s already a sweaty 27 degrees. How is that even possible? Baggage tags have the 3-letter airport code on – you know, like LHR for Heathrow or LGW for Gatwick. Except that if you’re heading to Mumbai then you now have a bag with a label clearly stating “BOM”. Got to see the dark humour in that, yeah? Brand new metro system, Line 3, the Aqua Line. All the way to…
