UK to India

After a 3 week sojourn in the UK to see family and friends we arrive in Kochi India (last visit 1988).

Interesting fact on arriving that the airport is the world’s first all solar airport. Great job.

Staying at a little homestay where there is a ladder to get up to the sea wall to view sunset – a very dodgy ladder.

Fort Kochi is interesting to walk around with many old buildings and varying styles, and the trees are just huge – very attractive and obviously very very old. For 2 AUD we got a tuk tuk to take us around to all the sites after exhausting ourselves walking to start with. Well worth the money as the most interesting place he took us to was the original (1720) and still working laundry which we would not have known about. Everything is still done by hand with a charcoal iron that weighed 7kg. Hard work.

 The most amazing part is that they get white clothes pristine white – cleaner than any washing machine ever does.

Up into the hills to Thattekad Bird Sanctuary. The homestay is great, started by the first female bird guide many years ago when her husband died and she had to support her family.
Now she still does some birding but her son does most – he is also a full-time lawyer so a very busy person. They are both so knowledgeable about the forest, animals and birds also passionate about preserving the environment.

Interesting fact, Gireesh told us that there has not been a single theft in the district for over 50 years and also that there is 100% literacy. We could do so well…
Kerala is a lovely state and people generally have a good lifestyle. They care about the environment and have made massive inroads into cleaning up litter and changing how people think about their surroundings.
Walking around in the evening so many people stopped us to take photos of them with us – we seem to be a novelty.
In the main forest we have never come across a place with so many leeches. Within a minute or two you have lots on your boots and have to constantly remove them.
New fact – hand sanitizer squirted on them makes them let go, who would have thought?
We are seeing so many new birds to us here, wonderful.

On the second day we were walking in the forest with Sujatha when we came across elephants in the bush about 10 metres from us, they had not yet noticed us so we were told to run – which we did. First time I have ever seen Steve run. Apparently until about a year ago (after Covid) the elephants never came out of the deep jungle but they have now been slowly encroaching on the village and ruining villagers’ crops. The villagers in turn trying to protect their crops throw firecrackers at the elephants to scare them this makes the elephants always angry.

On exiting this forest, we had to have our picture officially taken for the Forest Reserve as we had found the elephants.
There will be more pictures of us floating around India than I have of me in my entire life, I think.
The next night the elephants were at the boundary of our homestay. A real problem for the towns and villages around. The morning on leaving our door was open, we were packed but my backpack was still unzipped. in a flash a monkey came in and took a bag of lollies and a tube of heat cream from my bag – so quick and silent, very sneaky.

One thing I have noticed here is how nearly all drivers are on their phone the entire time they are driving, the driving is also crazy and almost ruleless, but they seem to manage. Next stop Nargahole National park and 4 x safari’s. Lovely place and some good birds and animals but we missed the Tigers and Leopards completely on three and on one by 1 minute. We were the 4th vehicle to arrive and the first 3 saw 5 tigers.
But we did get to see elephants charging the vehicle in front on one safari.

The only downside of shared safari’s was that on one of our safaris there were young kids in with us and kids being kids they did not sit still so all our photos are blurry. Hard to take good photos with constant movement of a vehicle. Shame as you also have to pay a big fee to take in camera’s.

Heading to Mysuru we drove past a man who was walking all the way from Southern Kerala to Bhutan – over 3000 km, apparently a common occurance, rather him than me.
Arriving at Mysuru airport at 6pm for a 10pm flight only to be told flight cancelled a month ago – we were supposedly contacted by text and email and refunded the money, but received nothing, no notification and no money. What to do now? Airport suggested continuing to Bangalore – many flights to Goa she said. Firstly it was another 3 – 4 hour drive, second when I googled flights all bar one late night flight the next day were full.
Decided to stay in Mysuru and look at the palace lights – it is spectacular but my photos from 1988 are awful so thought it would be a great opportunity to get better ones.

Well another plan down the drain, constant rain, still we braved it and went to the palace only to find they do not turn the lights on when it rains.

As we had all morning before leaving for Bangalore we went to visit inside the palace which I had not done on the last visit.  We wandered around the market and side streets first.   The markets are always great for colour of spices, dies and flowers.

We went to an area where they do wood carving, amazing workmanship which takes months to do, each person specialising in one aspect of the work.  They mostly work with Rosewood, an incredible wood with such brilliant colours and patterns.

Another area close by we saw a woman making Incense sticks, she makes thousands in a day, unbelievable.

Well a Sunday and the first day of a festival to visit the palace is best avoided. Packed out, crazy crazy inside all push and shove to get selfies and group shots etc. There is a corded off way through so once you start you can not get out but have to follow the throng. It was very impressive but would have been lovely to spend time looking properly and taking good photos. Instead it was more a case of hold phone through a gap of people and hope you pointed it at something.

Every door had different carvings and patterns, also every wall was covered in different paintings.
A long drive and then a flight had us landing in Goa at almost midnight, exhausted.  The hotel we chose close to the airport turned out to be in an industrail area and no English was spoken, not the best.
A train ride into the hills was interesting, started at a local station rather than main station as they were upgrading the line – not sure many (or any) tourists ever come to this tiny local town. Had to drag our bags up a lot of stairs and back down again to another platform -whatever happened to porters?
Train was late but only 30 mins. Supposed to be very scenic but unfortunately overcast and wet. What we were not informed is that the train is about 30 carriages long and only stops for a couple of minutes. We assumed coach 1A would be at front so went that end – no, its at back. No time to walk the platform just had to get on, then push and shove with our bags down crowded carriages. It took a long time to get through to ours only to find seats taken over by a large group of people who had paid for different ones, so our area that should sit 4 was now very crowded. Ticket inspector only got to us just before our stop to get off.
2nd Class on the train is not too bad, but third and sleepers looked like a nightmare.
We passed a couple of the most amazing waterfalls, so strong as it has been very wet.  This was the best I could do through a murky window from a train at speed (ish).  It really was far more impressive than the picture shows and is apparently used in many Bollywood films.

We would have liked to have visited the falls properly, but no time as it was quite a long way from where we got off the train.
3 nights in a fantastic nature place with so many butterflies it was great to watch.  There was plenty of other wildlife too with 4 new snakes, birds, lizards, bugs etc.

See the gallery for some beautiful moths, butterflies and insects.
Back to the coast for the last part of this journey.
Very relaxing stay on beach, although we did not swim due to jellyfish.
Off we went to old Goa to look at old Portugese Forts and Chuches.

Really impressive. Next long 11 hour train to Mumbai.

, whic