Monday 8 October 2012

LAST BLOG ENTRY - India Part 7 - Madurai, Thanjavur, Puducherry and Mamallapuram

Spectacular temple in Madurai

We travelled to Madurai to visit the astonishing Sri Meenakshi temple, which has an abundance of colourful, intricate carvings.  The temple was busy with pilgrims and as usual we met lots of excited Indian tourists.


Receiving a blessing


Next we travelled to Thanjavur to visit Brihadishwara temple, which was built in 1010 and is a UNESCO World Heritage site.   It was so hot here we thought we might melt!

This huge bull (Nandi) is 6m long, 3 m high and weighs 25 tonnes

Magnificent carvings


Friendly pilgrims

Nic receiving a blessing

Our final Indian train journey
Our final destination in India was lovely laid-back Mamallapuram.  We spent our days hiding from the heat in our a/c room (it was 38 degrees outside), paddling in the ocean, hanging out in the restaurants (watching 20/20 cricket) and visiting the nearby temples.

Krishna's Butter Ball - immovable but apparently balancing precariously


Stunning Arjuna's Penance, which has carved scenes of Hindu myth



Joining the school trip
On Friday 28th September 2012, 3 years and 2 days after leaving the UK, we flew from Chennai airport to Manchester. It's impossible to put into words how wonderful the last 3 years have been.  We've visited 13 countries and have had the time of our lives.  We've experienced so many incredible things and met so many inspiring people.  We spent a third of the time travelling by bicycle, a third in a motor home and a third with a backpack.  We do not have a favourite country, as they are all so different, and we fell in love with every country that we visited and had a great time everywhere we went.  The biggest disaster that occurred was me coming off my bike and breaking my elbow but luckily the accident happened in Thailand where we had access to a good hospital. 

We're now enjoying being with our wonderful family and friends and slowly getting used to being settled for a while and living in a developed country again.  The streets look so clean here and the cars drive in a straight line!  It's great to be home but we miss the chaos, the brown smiling faces and feeling like a film star wherever we go!

We hope that you have enjoyed following our escapades on the blog and that you will follow us in the future, whenever and wherever we decide to go next! 

India Part 6 - Alleppey, Kollam, Varkala, Trivandrum and Kanyakumari

We saw hundreds of wet land birds, including cormorants and herons

We continued our travels in Kerala and had a few days floating around the backwaters in Alleppey and Kollam.  We decided not to go on one of the famous rice barges but instead spent a day on the local ferries and 2 days on canoes.  The latter was very peaceful (no engine noise and no pollution) and luckily we had great weather.


Friendly villagers

An example of the famous rice barges which tourists love to stay overnight on

School trip

Tame hand-reared raptor - totally gorgeous

Local fisherman

Friendly tourists

Umbrella hats are very popular in Kerala and in my opinion they should be popular everywhere!


Chilling out in our canoe

Traditional banana leaf meal
We left the beautiful back waters and had a few days hanging out on the beach in Varkala with the Indian tourists, friendly stray dogs and Swamis.

Bringing in the catch

Playing on the beach

Our hut is on top of the cliff

Brothers or lovers?
We then headed to the capital of Kerala, Trivandrum, yet another big, dirty, smelly, polluted but very friendly city.  Then we entered the state of Tamil Nadu and had a few days in the most southern place in India, Kanyakumari, where the bay of Bengal meets the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea.  We went on a packed ferry to visit 2 small rocky islands 400m off shore.  We were the only westerners on board and all the Indian people were either wearing or clutching their life vests.  There was a party atmosphere on board and we felt like celebrities.  One of the islands has the memorial of Swami Vivekananda who meditated here in 1892 before setting out to become one of India's most important religious crusaders.  The other island has a huge statue of a Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar.

Kanyakumari islands

Normal Indian chaos

Meeting the happy tourists

Huge church that blasted music all day long for no apparent reason

Gandhi memorial - don't know why it looks like a cake!

Having fun Indian-style