Life's a beach........

…. and then you have to go back to work. Yes, we are back in chilly Kathmandu after 2 gloriously hot weeks in Kerala. Josie keeps telling me to stop whining about the cold because its colder in the UK but what she doesn't understand is that we get no warmth even when we are in the house or office, the only place that's warm is in bed which is where I am now at 7.15pm. It will be slow typing by torch and my laptop battery now only lasts about 45 mins on full charge so I probably won't finish this until after the power comes back on at 8.30pm.

Our itinerary for India was:

Flight to Delhi, with a day there to have a look at how much it has changed

And it has changed a lot! There is building work everywhere. They are extending the Metro to South Delhi and building lots of flyovers and roads so it is one big construction site. Surprisingly modern sites as well, gone is the bamboo scaffolding and labourers with shovels and buckets the place was full of very modern equipment (apparently JCB sell more excavators in India than in the UK) and men wearing hard hats. We visited Khan Market which 10 years ago was a very basic shopping area and is now full of incredibly expensive clothes boutiques, trendy home furnishing shops and upmarket coffee bars. The Red Fort hasn't changed

nor has my old office

but transport at that end of the city has – a modern, clean and smart Metro (although slight disconcerting to have security personnel join you in the carriages complete with sub-machine guns – India has become very security conscious), I apologise for believing that it would be covered in red betel nut spit, this and chewing gum is banned).

Fly to Trivandrum (capital of Kerala state, which has adopted its original Indian name but I can't spell it)

Just overnight there but long enough to take a bus ride out to Kovalum beach which was completely undeveloped when I last visited aged 11 years. There are now plenty of tourist hotels, shops and restaurants although not over the top.

Train and bus frequencies were not quite so often as we'd been led to believe by the Lonely Planet so it was at 4.30am that we took a…

Bus to Kanyakumari (in Tamil Nadu state, the southern most tip of India)

A bit of a fright when we got to the bus station and, contrary to what they'd said the previous afternoon, there was no bus to K'kumari at 4.30am. But don't worry you can get a local bus to a place beginning with N where you can get a connection. Sounded good until the bus came in; it was packed when it arrived and there was no way that we were going to fight with the crowd trying to get on so we were resigned to Plan B (wait for the 12.30 train). Then the nice official who had told us which bus to get saw us, said there will be another one running soon and grabbed a driver to take us over to the yard where it was parked and put us on it before it pulled into the main bus park where the masses awaited. Fantastic, we had seats for what was to be a 2 hour ride. Thank you Kerala State Transport Co, very tourist friendly. Connection worked fine and we were in Kanyakumari at 7.30am. Now this was the one and only place we had reserved a hotel for what good it did us. We hadn’t thought to check festival dates and we had arrived on the first day of Pongal, a Tamil harvest festival. The town was packed with jeeps and buses full of people

making a pilgrimage to the famous island temple at Kanyakumari.

So the hotel had let our room. So across the road to a slightly more expensive looking place and much to our relief we got a room. We had an afternoon of wandering around, nice to see a fishing beach again but it was very windy and you got sand blasted. Off the next morning by….

Train to Varkala (beach resort in Kerala)

This really was a resort, masses of hotels, bars, restaurants, shops and touts. It is perched on a cliff with the main beach reached by some precipitous steps. The small place we had hoped to stay at was fully booked but after walking all the way along the front rejecting the ridiculous prices being offered by the touts we managed to get a room for Rs400 (about £5) with a sea view balcony and behind a nice family run restaurant. Two days there lazing on the beach (North beach slightly easier to get to!) and pigging out on sea food. A beautiful place but very touristy.

Train to Allupuzha (otherwise known as Alleppey, the start of the Kerala backwaters)

Got a room at our first choice place, more of a home stay than a hotel; very friendly and complete with a litter of very small kittens in the bottom of our wardrobe (sorry, picture didn't come out). The owner also ran a houseboat and looking through his brochure we wished we had allowed time for 24 hours on this – another time maybe. The guide book was disparaging of the beach so we were surprised to discover it was miles of glorious white sand, alright nothing in the way of bars but beautiful.

In the middle of the beach was a decrepit old pier which was slightly puzzling.

On investigation this turned out to be the pier for the Port of Alleppey; I think of ports as having some shelter for ships rather than just a pier which might explain why it is no longer operating. Although in true Indian bureaucratic style it still has Customs and Port Offices, no doubt fully manned. I should not mock the Port of Alleppey because I learnt later that my grandfather used to work there as the Chamber of Commerce Official Measurer, I guess he would have retired about 50 years ago so maybe it was still a thriving port then. Our host also introduced us to his "Secret Beach". A real picture postcard place with absolute nothing other than sand, coconut trees and fishing boats

One night there, thankfully under a mozzie net because they were big and hungry, before…

Train to Kochi/Ernakulum (the commercial centre of Kerala developed around a large harbour by the Portugese, the Dutch and then the Brits who called it Cochin)

We had intended to stay with my stepmother who lives just outside the city but she had very kindly booked us into a hotel in the city and came to stay there with us. I had been here twice before, once when I was 11 yrs old and then 10 years ago. I remember nothing of the first trip and recognised little from the second. In 10 years it has got a new international airport which makes it easily accessible for the huge numbers of Keralans who work overseas; from labourers in the Gulf to brain surgeons in the US. As a result property development is booming with apartment blocks and shopping centres springing up everywhere. It has also become popular with tourists, both backpackers and more up-market types. Fort Cochin, which is the old colonial centre, has some beautiful historic buildings many of which have been renovated to make top of the range boutique hotels where guests are pampered with ayurvedic massages and seafood cuisine before strolling out to see the traditional Chinese fishing nets on the beach. These are still operating commercially although apparently this is becoming more difficult as big trawlers are now landing catches – hopefully they will work out a way of getting some income out of the tourists rather than pack up completely. Kerala (motto "God's own country") is really pushing tourism in a big way and I'd just read that Kochi had been made a stopover port for the Volvo Round the World Race next year so it wasn't a total surprise to see Ericsson, a Volvo yacht,

coming in as we crossed on the ferry. To host this they have promised to develop a dockside area so maybe Kochi will finally get the marina that has been talked about for years. The sponsors want an India stopover for commercial reasons and I'm sure the Volvo race management are aware that this will be slightly more challenging to organise than Sydney. A good reason to visit again next year.

Apart from looking around Fort Cochin, eating and shopping we also had an afternoon at yet another gorgeous beach just north of the city. On the way back, more festivals, not sure what it was but it involved a lot of elephants

Flight to Delhi

I forgot to mention that our internal flights were on cut price airlines, brilliant and half the price of the much shorter Ktm-Del flight. Just one night in Delhi staying with my old Delhi Rugby Club mate, Robin, and his girlfriend, Annelise. The shock of returning to chillier climes was eased by a boozy evening and delicious food (he's an artist but also a great cook) with them.

Flight to Kathmandu

Where we discovered we had missed a couple of days of bandhs (strikes) and tyre burning in protest against the government having increased diesel and kerosene prices. Same as last year, 2 days of protests and the price rise was cancelled. Although I don't think the price rise would have solved the problem, there is now a chronic shortage of diesel so the buses, lorries and diesel generators (essential for major businesses now we are up to 36 hours per week load shedding) will grind to a halt shortly. Not an ideal lead up to an election on 10 April. The question is whether the electorate will take revenge on any particular party. I'm sure I'll be writing more about fuel shortages, load shedding, politics and election preparations in the next few weeks. I bet you can't wait.

Cheers
Roshan