Went to Goa first, to get some peace of mind, enjoy the beach and meet some friends. After a week we took a sleeper train down to the most southern state, Kerala. Visited Fort Cochin (with no fort
) but this is an old town that used to be the centre of Indian rice & spice trade and on a small scale this trade is still going on. It's also the place where you can find the famous Chinese fishing nets and we got to help out with operating one of those.From there we went to Alleppey to rent a houseboat for 24 hours and make a tour of the Kerala Backwaters, some call it the Venice of India. No roads, everyone and everything is moved over water. Beautiful nature!
Taking some inside roads (in horrible condition, we needed 10 hours to cover 300 kms!) we had some spectacular views, rubber and tea plantations, waterfalls, wild elephant dung everywhere around us (perhaps they were watching), Cobra's crossing the road. Finally we arrived in Coimbatore. Not a very special town but it was the only way to get to Mettupalayam where we had a special train ride: a 1918 steam train that took us up in the mountains to an elevation of abt 3.000 mtrs, to the town of Ooty. More brilliant views!
Close to Ooty is the Mudumalay National Park, a tiger and elephant reserve. Had a great guide there that showed us around. 'Tame' elephants are sheltered there but above all this huge place offers many different kinds of terrain hosting many wild animals like elephants, deer, porcupines, boars, bears, monkeys, snakes, many different birds, giant squirrels, leopards, you name it. Went trekking mornings and evenings and saw so much that we got bored and we were taken by surprise by a group of wild elephants that showed up without a noise 5 metres from us. That was a scare but luckily they were in a good mood.
After a few days we moved to Mysore, sofar it's my favourite Indian city and that means a lot since I'm not a city person. Great food, cheap shopping, gorgeous palace, et cetera. From there we went back to Goa for a relaxing week on and around the beach before heading back home. During our stay in Goa we rented a bike and drove it like you should in India... shorts, slippers, no helmet and drive like there's no tomorrow
Another great holiday, more than affordable, no dissonants, and fantastic weather while Holland was suffering from a lot of cold winter weather!
Made a little slide showto give you an impression, enjoy!
so it'll have to wait. Would like to see if I can combine things with the usual places like Delhi, Agra, Jaipur and Shimla. Well, perhaps next year.