Karnataka - Mysore, Bangalore, Hampi and Vijayanagar Kingdom Mysore - An amazing Raj Palace and colourful market of powder paints, perfume, spices, woodworking and ghee (Indian sweets) was sampled during our first Indian city. Bangalore - Heading inland, we made a brief stop in Bangalore to get a taste of an Indian modern city. Dubbed the second Silicon Valley, it is home to 1200 I.T. firms and is the world's second largest software producer. Hampi - Marvell...

Kerala - Varkala, The Backwaters, Fort CochinThe state of Kerala lies on the South-West Coast of India and is made up of tropical landscapes sandwiched between the Arabian Sea and the forested Western Ghats. Varkala - Red cliffs overlooking the sea provided a back-drop to this quiet beach. Watching the sun melt into the sea, as the fishing boats sailed out at sunset, was a beautiful way to end each day. Backwaters - A day trip in a gondola-type boat throughou...

Tamil Nadu - Mamallapuram, Pondicherry, Auroville, KodaikanalA friend of mine kindly gave me The Rough Guide to India and subtitled it with "Over Crowded, Over Whelming and Over Rated" - this has not been the case during our first encounter of this ancient and vibrant land - no doubt it is because we started in the South in the state of Tamil Nadu exploring the small beach towns, French colonial cities and mountainous tea plantations. Mamallapuram - B...

Chennai After a 20 hour flight, we arrived at 2:00am in Chennai, hopped into a 1930's white taxi and made our way to our guest house. We really had no desire to hang out in the city so we headed out the next day to a smaller, beach town, to recover from the flight and start our trip off right.