22nd Feb: We arrived in Kumily today to visit the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary in Kerela. The drive on the bus was beautiful, this state is so much greener and lush than anwhere else we have visited. The next day for some strage reason we arrrange a hike into the park which started at 5am!! A jeep took us part of the way into the park stopping to see black monkeys malabar giant squirrels, deer and some birds. At the hiking lodge we had a very strage breakfast o...

On the 20th Feb we left Ooty for Madurai, we got a bus to Coimbatore which was a four hour (smooth) bus journey down through the hills. It really is a lovely way to see the country, passing everyday life; women in brightly coloured saris building roads, children running along side the buses saying 'one pen! one pen!', bus hawkers jumping on at every stop selling fruits, nuts, toys and an array of snacks. Even though they are uncomfortable it never gets boring. W...

We arrived in Ooty in a new state, Tamil Nadu on the 17th Feb. Again this was not quite what we expected, i though it would be more colonial but in fact was just a very busy Indian town, set in beautiful hillsides. It was also much cooler here which was a nice change from the heat of Mysore. We arranged to do a guided trek of the sourrounding area which was about an 8k walk. The morning was a really pleasant walk through all this very English coutryside, tea pla...

Mysore, Karnataka State, 16th Feb: We arrived after the night bus to a really hectic city and not at all what we expected from Mysore. Here we again recovered from the bus journey and booked onward train (thank god!!) tickets to Ooty. In mysore we visted the Maharaja's Palace which was amazing, it was redesigned by a Brit in 1912 and it totally opulent but beautiful, unfortunatly you can't take pictures inside so i can't show you but, gold carved doors, mahogany...

So we arrived in Hampi in Karnataka on the 13th Feb after another crazy 10 hour bus journey, i slept pretty well this time so must be getting used to the smooth (??!!) driving. We found a nice guest house and spent the day chilling out and massaging our bruised bones! Hampi is a small holy town full of ancient temples that are dotted around the town itself and also further a field. So the next day we hired bikes and set off on our own Tour de Hampi. The day was ...