“It’s just totally naff and non-sensical.” We were talking to San, an Indian, about religion, often a touchy subject but we felt sufficiently comfortable – and drunk – to broach it.

English clock-tower. Indian city.

San had had be-friended us on the streets of Mysore. This is not so strange, Indians be-friend us all the time. What was different about San was that he didn’t seem to want anything in return. He had a strange, Frank Spencer English accent and an endearing buck-toothed grin and used words like ‘naff’ and ‘non-sensical’. He helped us find a hotel room (took no commission) and then paid for a rickshaw to take us to bar. It took us some time to get over the natural traveler’s suspicion but it turned out that San was a massive Anglophile, just a ‘nice bloke’ (his words) with an almost tragic longing to see England. Unfortunately we were the closest he was ever likely to get.

We got roped into buying some incense sticks.

Mysore is a terrific little city. Alongside the standard fare of advertising hoardings, wandering cows, rickshaw-wallahs and grim buses are to be found overblown Raj-era palaces, pastel coloured colonial mansions and ancient Dravidian temples. We were also – having eaten nothing but curry for some weeks – ashamedly excited to see a McDonald’s there! After wolfing down a McChicken sarnie (beef is off the menu obviously) we strolled round Mysore, then left for Hampi after a couple of days.

Yep, that’s our room and, yep, that’s a temple.

Hampi, wow. This place really has to be seen to be believed. Basically a vast concentration of half-millenia-old temples and ruins, dotted haphazardly around a landcsape made up of sandy boulders, some enormous, stacked in improbable formations, juxtaposed against green banana plantations, rice paddies and coconut trees. You stay in amongst the temples, in Hampi Bazaar, and can rent push-bikes to get round and see as many as you can before getting bored (commonly known as being ‘templed out’).

Great photography from Amy. Regrettably I dropped her camera in a rock pool shortly after this.

Across the river from Hampi Bazaar, and accessible only by boat, a surreal proliferation of bungalows and restaurants, shops and bike rentals has sprung up to service the needs of the ever-growing hippy population. Vying, along with the hippies, for the title of ethnic majority, are Israelis. Some inter-breeding has inevitably caused a number of Israeli hippies. They all hang around getting stoned, juggling sticks, banging bongos, juggling sticks, getting stoned; we even caught the Israelis doing some weird Yiddish hokey-cokey type dance. A great place to people-watch and we stayed on this side of the river for a few nights.

This is the ‘other side’.

After seven nights in Hampi we are off to Goa, back to the beach.

I call this one ‘Some boulders and a woman’.

I had contracted a nasty dose of the eponymous Belly Rot and my stomach gave a cautionary groan when the cage on wheels which was to take us from Varkala to Allepey, our first Indian train journey, pulled up. Indian faces, elbows and knees protruded from the iron bars that constitute windows, and a press of people rushed toward the doors. We barged our way on, found a seat near the toilet and dug in.

Railway Managers everywhere – take heed.

In truth, the trains look a whole lot worse than they are actually are. Even in the lowest class (2nd Class Unreserved) the toilets are comparitively clean, there are ceiling fans bolted on at random angles and – the best bit – a 3 hour journey cost us about 40 pence each!
Anyway, we had come to Allepey to explore the backwaters of Kerala, a must-see when in this part of the world. Hundreds of miles of serene lakes and waterways, busy with fishing canoes and luxury tourist boats. The banks are lined with villages, huts, the odd school, the ubiquitous Keralan coconut trees and rice paddies stretching backwards; dark women in bright saris cooking, cleaning, bathing and washing; friendly children splashing and waving. A wide array of birds swoop all around – eagles, cormorants, kingfishers, geese, duck, crows and many other iridescent and strange unidentified creatures.

The tranquil backwaters.

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We took two excursions onto the backwaters: still with our new travelling companions we chartered a houseboat. A double-decker bamboo-effect luxury boat with 3 double bedrooms. We had our own on-board chefs and were waited on hand-and-foot for one extravagant night. They let us hook up the boat’s speakers to our iPods so we had our own private party, and sat up drinking rum and coke and playing cards. One of the stand-out experiences so far.

Chillaxin’ on the houseboat.

The next day we hired a smaller vessel which was able to take us into the nooks and crannies of the backwaters that were inaccessible to the large houseboat, where we got to see people going about their daily lives along the canals.

Partyin’ on the houseboat.

We next headed to Fort Cochin, a town which promised so much but delivered so little – we scurried out after a couple of nights. After that it was a train, bus, rickshaw journey to Wayanad National Park where we – after a good night’s kip – embarked on a, none-too-easy it transpired, 2000+ metre climb up nearby Chembra Peak.

Tea fields.

A tuk-tuk-took us to the starting point, then we continued on foot, above the bustling towns, above the pristine tesselated tea-fields punctured with perfectly perpendicular trees, up seven consecutive peaks, each stacked atop the previous, above even the wheeling black eagles, until we were afforded an expansive verdant panorama of the Wayanad area from the tip of the seventh peak.

Climbing. Shattered by this point.

View from Chembra Peak.

The next day we were up at 5am to go elephant spotting.
We saw our first wild elephant just as the sun was beginning to peer through the forest of Muthanga Wildlife Reserve. A fully grown bull, it observed us for some time, tail swishing. He must’ve seen something he didn’t like as, with an almighty visceral trumpeting, he decided to charge our jeep. Luckily the driver was on the ball, and we were in no danger. But what a fantastic sight!

Watching…

Charging!

After that all we saw were the backs of a couple more elephants shouldering through the forest and some tantalisingly fresh tiger footprints but alas, no tiger.

The next stop on our journey is our first outside Kerala, we head to the state of Karnataka…

More of the backwaters.

Holy cow.

Another one from the Chembra Peak trek.

Amy, Mel, and some goats.