So have spent these 3 weeks travelling around the south, have experienced all types of transport to get to these places and all types of weather from thunder storms to hot sweaty days!

Left Chennai on Sunday 9th and headed down south to Mamallapurum -

Stayed in a really nice room by the beach and caused quite a sight for the locals in our bikini's as we took a quick dip. Scandalous! It was quiet and so we thought we were safe but the locals people have eyes of a hawk when it comes to bare flesh.

We spent the day looking at the sights, the shore temple has been around since 5AD and was amazing along with ancient cliff cavings, temples and a huge round rock named the butterball that just rests on the hill side and hasn't moved for centuries, all good stuff!

From here we took a bus to Pudicherry and bumped along all the way -

We stayed in a Ashram (a Buddha like sanctuary) which has lots of strict rules and a curfew, we were surprised they let us in but they obviously sensed my deep spiritual core. Wasn't bad for 75p a night! Spent the day wondering around, it had a nice promenade and used to be a French conlony so had some pretty buildings. We chilled out and then…. The rain came!!

Treacherous journey to the train station in the pouring rain in a car with no window wipers followed by our first overnight train journey… scary and overwhelming to say the least. I slept with one eye open clutching to my bag! (just the initial shock really, its ok. I'd do it again, well I have to!)

Arrived in Madurai and traveled to KodiKanal, a hill station very high up in the mountains, I don't know how high, just high enough to be in the clouds -

Kodi Kanal was beautiful!! Lovely and cool, breath taking views of the hills… and then it rained, and then it rained some more and then it thunder stormed, was sunny for a wee bit and then rained a lot more!! We were then informed we were experiencing the back lash of a tropical cyclone, just lovely! Didn't spoil our time though as once we got kitted out (had to buy a lot of wet weather stuff as i had stupidly left all that in Chennai, doh!), we braved the weather conditions. Walked around the hills and lakes and even had a horse ride, when it was clear the views were amazing! Luckily we were staying in Tanya's uncle's friends apartment right on the hill side, so even when we got trapped in a thunderstorm and had to seek shelter and wade through smelly water we couldn't complain! It was annoying though that we couldn't dry any washing so I did spend 3days in exactly the same thing, that's traveling for you!

After 3days of chilling on the hill we made our way back down to Madurai where we saw the sights for the day (a huge hindu temple) and then ventured to Tuticorin to stay with Tanya's uncle….

To be continued!

Much love x