15/2/10 Kollum to Trichy (Monday) We woke up and got showered and Liz went to see what time was check out. The receptionist kept asking the room number which seemed irrelevent but then he announced that we owed another nights money as the rate was for twenty four hours and therefore we needed to have checked out by 5am!!!! We hadn't been told that the nioght before as we'd have thought twice about checking in so Liz said there was no way we would be paying more ...

14/2/10 Quilom to Madurai (Sunday) We arrived in Madurai at the awful time of 4.45am!! We hadn't had alot of sleep as the train was quite a bumpy one and we were both lying on our small bags as pillows to keep our stuff safe. We went by autorickshaw to the KT lodge recommended by Lonely planet . we were pleased that they let us have a room straight away but it was a real hole. The room was big but every surface was dirty and the bathroom was minging. It is the w...

12/2/10 Cherthala to Kollam (Friday) Liz had an awful night sleep witrh her guts burning and churning with a bit of 'Ghandis Revenge'. She spent the morning making good acquaintance with the toilet and generally feeling pretty rough. We have both been suprisingly well on this trip through India though, despite eating at all sorts of places we shouldn't have...especially the temple foods we've eaten. We went for breakfast and Liz asked just to have toast but the ...

9/2/10 Munnar to Cherthala (Tuesday) We woke up to the lovely view across the valley and the tea plantations, had breakfast, than left with Rajul to head towards the Keralan backwaters homestay. On the way we stopped just outside Munnar town to visit the Tata Tea Museum. Tata is a huge company here producing and sponsoring all kinds of goods from tea to cars. Tata still distribute and sell the teas but the local workers now own the production and processing side...

7/2/10 Munnar Sunday We woke up at 5.30 to be ready to meet our driver for the next few days. Rajul and Mr Wilson arrived to meet us with the big Ambassador car one of Indias staple tourists cars which feels like an old classic but is actually a modern car. Once we loaded the car up we left waved off by Mr Wilson and Jackson which was really lovely and unexpected. We drove off through Fort Cochin back over the bridge and through Ernakulam towards Munnar. It was ...