Having gone a little out of our way to visit the coast we headed back in land and crossed from Kerala to Karnataka. After a day spent on those lovely plastic bus seats we hopped off in the town of Kushalanagar. Probably the least pleasant place we've stayed with constant power cuts, pushy rickshaw drivers and dead rats in the road! To escape the town for a little I left Alison who wanted to laze around the hotel room to spend a couple of hours in the Namdrol...

We headed to the coast on the recommendation of a couple we had met in Wayanad and we weren't disappointed. Thottada beach where we stayed was pretty enough, very quiet and a lovely spot to watch the sunset but just a 15 minute walk along the road brought us to empty white sands and palm trees which we were able to stroll along, a really beautiful beach that we fear won't stay so untouched for long. We stayed in a homestay where we were fed royally with deli...

We were keen to come here and get into the hills and out of the heat. It's a region with a number of wildlife reserves and we picked a homestay due to the convenience of having the park gates, right outside the door. Unfortunately, this entrance to the park was closed for 3 months, for a reason we couldn't quite establish but we think they were building a bridge in there. It didn't really matter though as we had the lovely Dillip drive us just a little furt...

There really isn't a lot to say about or stay in this typically noisy Indian town as we were simply stopping over on the way to the hills from the coast. The highlight was walking into a shop and emerging a couple of minutes later to see a sketch a guy had done on the wall outside in chalk which was an amazing palm fringed beach, incredible how he had produced it so quickly.Our journey to Calicut was by train and we have now worked out the importance of gra...

Firmly on the backpacker trail, Fort Cochin is an island (i think) which has had very little development on it for many years and is a great place to wander, especially as a lot of the old buildings have retained their charm whilst housing some great shops. Lots of yummy backpackery type food too and cereal for breakfast which is great after too many curries for breakfast. It's an area known for its massive line of chinese fishing nets which are still used, thoug...