Month: March 2026

On the 26th we arrived in Kochi, about hours drive north of Alapuzha on the Malabar coast. Kochi is relatively new compared with other major cities in India, with the … Read more

There is not much to see in Varkala apart from the Janardasaswamy temple, dedicated to Vishnu, which is said to be “thousands of years old” and connected with some interesting … Read more

The 22nd was the worst day of the trip. It started well with the taxi coming early and I discovered that the train over the 300 miles to Varkala on … Read more

We travelled Executive Class by train for the 7-hour journey over 305 miles to Madurai, still in Tamil Nadu State. The people here are very dark and are more likely … Read more

We spent 3 hours in Bhubaneshwar station with a huge number of other people who were mostly lying on their plastic blankets on the floor. Every time the police moved … Read more

We went to see the Khandagiri and Udaygiri caves about 5 miles east of Bhubanshwar in a taxi provided by the hotel. They were cut in the 1st century BC … Read more

The brilliant La Franklin hotel arranged a taxi driver (the same grumpy one from yesterday) to take us to Konark to see the Sun Temple, and he was quite polite … Read more

On Saturday we had a relaxing day. There is nothing to do in Puri if you can’t visit the temples. There are sandy beaches which I thought Jennifer might to … Read more

A rubbish day. The sleeper train to Puri was supposed to leave at 9 pm; it actually left at 12.23. We sat in a dark virtually uninhabited station being eaten … Read more