Across India from coast to coast February 2023 Our route across India from Bombay, past hill stations, temples and vineyards to Hyderabad, then more temples to the seaside at Mahabalipuram and Pondicherry. Week 1 - Bombay Sunday Jan 29. We flew to Mumbai via Doha, and got a ropey old taxi to the very swish Taj Palace hotel, a one-hour 'sightseeing trip' through the hectic Bombay traffic. We decided to have a luxury week at the Taj before we set off for our more normal holiday of travelling from place to place. We slouched around the room and unpacked for a while and admired the view and noise of Bombay from the comfort and distance of our balcony on the 19th floor (I'm going back to calling it Bombay because everyone here does, even the official notices on government buildings). In the evening we went out for a walk round but only got as far as Leopold's round the corner on Colaba Causeway. Leopold's café/bar is owned by the famous cricketer Sachin Tendulkar who scored a record 100 test centuries, the first at age 17. The café was packed as always (we've been before several times), with a queue to get in. It used to be a tourist/ foreigners' hangout but most of the people today seemed to be locals, perhaps it's a weekend thing. We got a seat upstairs and had delicious chicken jalfrezi and egg masala with Kingfisher beer and very nice Sula wine (from the Nasik vineyard that we visited a few years ago). Mon 30th. We just managed to get to the extensive buffet breakfast at the Taj in time before it closed, having overslept due to jet lag and spending the previous night on an aeroplane. On the way to the restaurant each morning we were serenaded by musicians - saxophone player, pianist or a sitar player. The restaurant cooked up 'Akuri' for me, delicious spicy scrambled eggs, which I've been wanting to try since our last visit to India. The display of flowers in the foyer changes every day and is always impressive. After breakfast we had a stroll round Colaba looking in shops (how come on our first full day in Bombay Sheila can find a cushion cover that costs nearly £100? - kudos to her, she didn't buy it straight away although she was itching to), finding some of the hotels we've stayed at before and looking out for likely restaurants to try. We got a taxi to the main post office and navigated an amazing amount of good-natured bureaucracy to buy some stamps (which turned out to be the wrong value for letters to England, we would have to put about 20 of them onto one postcard) then got a taxi back (don't pay more than 60 Rupees each way everybody told us, so we managed to negotiate one journey down to 70 Rs + tip and 100 Rs for the other). The exchange rate is almost 100 Rs to the pound so that makes mental currency conversion very easy. When we got back we stopped at Mondy's (Café Mondegar, an old favourite) for a pot of tea and a sweet lime soda. It was buzzing and packed as always, the tables are still so close together that you have to climb over people to get to your seat. That evening, after another walk round spotting more potential restaurants, we went back to Mondy's for a battered sweetcorn starter and fish and egg curries, without any alcoholic drinks because today is a state-wide dry day for the elections - the first and last such day we hope! Tues 31st. We had a look at our old favourite, Bentley's Hotel, just to see if it had changed and it had, it was much smaller and on the other side of the road with no view of the gardens and besides, Sheila's got a bit more fussy about where she stays than she used to be (and how!). We walked across to the post office at Nariman Point and bought some more stamps to complement the ones we got at the main P.O. (but these also turned out to be the wrong value), then because we were already hot and tired from walking in the midday sun, we got a taxi to Horniman Circle. We squeezed through the double- and triple-parked cars to Cawasji Patel Street and along to the Yazdani Bakery, one of the historic Farsi establishments in Bombay which used to be a café but now turned out to be just a rather dusty warehouse selling bread and cakes. We walked most of the way back through Kala Ghoda district, along interesting shopping streets, beside the road works for the new metro, then gave in and got a taxi the few yards back to the hotel. I went out for lunch at the Olympia Coffee House on the Causeway and had a nice cup of tea and an egg masala, but it is not a 'coffee house' any more, just a local Indian eatery. In the evening we had a look at the menus at the Bombay Brasserie and a German bier keller then settled at the Indigo Deli across the road, where we had Mexican soup, smoked tenderloin salad and lobster risotto, with selections of their range of Sula Dindori and Fratelli Indian wines. Weds 1st Feb. We spent most of the day changing rooms, moving to one with a marvelous view of the Gateway of India and the sparkling sea. We noticed one new feature, there was an area reserved for the pigeons that people could throw food into, presumably to keep them from all the rest of the space (bottom of the picture with a tree in it). The first room they put us in had a connecting door to the next room which we don't like, so we had to wait a while longer until they moved us to an identical room but with no extra door. All the staff at the Taj were lovely, constantly bringing us roses, cakes, a box of chocolates and arranging rose petals and marigolds in a lovely pattern on our floor. In the evening we went out to find the Woodside Inn, a Colaba institution which we'd somehow missed all the times we'd been before and it was very nice, with a two-for-one happy hour which we timed perfectly, and we sat chatting about travels with a lovely couple who gave us more recommendations for restaurants in Bombay and Chennai. After a couple of drinks and a starter we went back to Leopold's for delicious prawn and egg curries with a mixed raita, always delicious in India. Thurs 2nd. We strolled along Colaba Causeway looking at the shops and markets until we reached the Madras Café where we had a refreshing masala chai and an ice cream cone. We wandered back looking at other cafés and restaurants - the nice-looking Obrama patisserie, the Churchill café that we recognised from a previous visit, the upmarket, recently-opened Neuma restaurant in the street behind the Taj, and the adjacent Mag Street café. That evening we started with pre-dinner 2-for-1 drinks and nice panko prawns with sweet chili dip at the Woodside Inn, then had delicious lobster linguini and seared rawas (Indian salmon) at the upmarket, some might say pretentious, Neuma restaurant, with a £12 small (150ml) glass of wine, our most expensive yet anywhere in the world (or so we thought, see later). As we walked back the tower of the historic Taj Palace hotel was glowing in the sky. The area in front of the Gateway of India had been set up for a concert and as we returned to the hotel we heard sitar music playing and from our balcony we could listen and see the son et lumiere show projected onto the walls of the Gateway. Fri 3rd. We went back to the shop round the corner to buy the cushion cover that Sheila's been thinking about all week - luckily it was still there, the last one in stock - they wrapped it beautifully but even with no filling it takes up a lot of room in our already bulging suitcase. We got in a taxi to go to a market that had been recommended, but soon discovered our mistake when the driver constantly tried to up-sell us to exorbitant city tours, and kept telling us how poor he was and what a big family he had to support (the number of children increased with each telling). Our suspicions were confirmed when two policemen pulled him over at some traffic lights and a long animated discussion ensued. One of the policemen flagged down another taxi for us and because the policeman was watching, the driver's meter miraculously started to work (that's never happened before or since), and we returned to our start point at a fraction of the first dodgy driver's cost. I went for an afternoon walk (Sheila of course was napping) through the crowded back streets of the Kala Ghoda district to the Flora Fountain and the nearby Kitab Khana bookshop in a heritage building with high ceilings and polished woodwork, and a café at the back to sit and browse at leisure. I bought a book of ten heritage walks in Bombay, which I should have been going on in the past days! After a bit of a walk round we went to Mondy's for dinner. Sheila had a whole bottle of sparkling Sula wine and after she'd shared one small glass with me I went on to a half-bottle of Sula red, and we had delicious butter chicken and chicken kadai. Sat 4th. We had a leisurely day of admin in the hotel, pre-packing for our departure tomorrow and doing emails and writeups in the hotel's business centre, and a nice nap for Sheila. Later we went and stood by the quayside at the Gateway of India and watched the organized chaos of the ferries, tour boats and lighters loading and unloading crowds of people. The orderly queue for the most popular ferry, the smallest of the boats coming in and out, stretched right across the square. We went to the Woodside Inn for our pre-dinner drinks and panko prawn starter, then Leopold's where we shared a tasty chicken sizzler and more drinks. Week 2, across Maharashtra and Karnataka states - A hill station, a Buddhist cave, a vineyard, a temple and a fort. Matheran, the hill station Sun 5th. After saying our goodbyes to all the lovely people at the Taj (and receiving yet another present from the cake stall, a lovely Taj tin of butter biscuits) we set off in a taxi with a nice driver for Matheran. Bombay was almost deserted at 11:30 on a Sunday morning, and we did a short tour round the Port district where several film crews were filming scenes in the colonial architecture for Bollywood movies. It should have been a two-hour drive from there but because of a festival nearby, the traffic outside Bombay was jammed solid and it took us 4½ hours to reach the road that leads up the hill to Matheran - but you can't just drive in, the locals have a monopoly and you have to switch over to a local taxi that takes you the short distance up to the entrance to the hill station for £5. There are no cars allowed in Matheran so after paying a fifty-pence entry fee you have three choices to get to your hotel - a horse for £6.50 each, a rickshaw pulled by two people for £9 each or an e-rickshaw (an electric tuk-tuk) for 35 pence per person, but in fact the e-rickshaws can only go half-way to our hotel because the road deteriorates - but the horses and e-rickshaws don't take baggage so we also had to employ porters (wizened old women probably younger than Sheila but she has had a much easier life!) for £3 each to carry our small but very heavy suitcases on their heads. We opted for the horse ride which Sheila enjoyed tremendously (it reminded her of our trek to Lo Manthang in Nepal in 2012) but I found really uncomfortable, and because our hotel was the furthest away from the start point, after half an hour I had to get off and walk the last half hour. Eventually we arrived at the Dune Barr hotel, a 'verandah in the forest', which was absolutely lovely. It was an old colonial house, mostly on one level, with a long wooden verandah stretching right across the front, with lovely views of the forest and distant hills. It was delightfully old-fashioned with lots of heavy woodwork and wrought iron. One of the 'boys' went off to a shop somewhere and bought us a couple of bottles of beer (Kingfisher strong, not our favourite) and at 6pm we sat on the verandah with a beer and a plate of veg pakora nibbles, watching a colourful sunset over the distant hills. We had dinner in the same place, a delicious chicken dish (name unknown) and egg curry, listening to the peaceful night-time sounds of the forest. It was a wonderful 'echo of the Raj'. Mon 6th. Matheran is one of the few places left in India with hand-pulled rickshaws and as I didn't fancy another horse ride that was the only option (the Toy Train timings didn't work out). Two men on each rickshaw pulled and pushed us and our bags puffing and panting (them not us) through the town to the entrance by the taxi station. We felt quite guilty but the owner of the hotel assured us 'it's their livelihood' so we sat back and enjoyed the ride. Lonavla, the Buddhist caves Rahut the taxi driver met us and we had an uneventful drive to Lonavla where we went straight to the Karla Buddhist caves a few kms outside the town. The caves were up about 300 uneven steps, with lots of stalls selling cold drinks, food and offerings along the way - Sheila's favourite was the different-flavoured fudges and she sampled plenty. The main Karla cave was most unusual, a 2000-year old huge chamber about 40m long and 15m high, carved out of the rock, with a stupa at the end and teak beams like ribs across the roof which are said to be original. Inscriptions carved on the pillars record people who had made donations to the building all those years ago. We drove 6kms or so across the main road to Bhaja caves, a similar group up another 300 steps but no sales stalls, with a slightly smaller main cave. By the time we'd finished going up and down all those steps we were hot, dusty and ready for a shower and a drink. We went to the Orchid hotel in Lonavla town where there were at least half a dozen smiling faces to greet us as we walked in, and they gave us a very nice room, and we had very nice Sula wines and tasty Amritsar fish curry and chicken tikka makhani in their dining room. Fratelli, the vineyard Tues 7th. Rahut arrived right on time at 11am and we drove east past the sprawling outskirts of Pune, then turned off on a smaller road and drove through rural India with all sorts of crops growing, tractors (heavily decorated and with blaring music in the cab) loaded with sugar cane and villages with assorted animals wandering about. We stopped for a cup of tea at a roadside tea stall where the friendly owner wanted a selfie with me. Eventually we turned off the main(ish) road down a tiny street through farming villages and then an even bumpier dirt road, we were sure he'd gone wrong but Google triumphed again and we ended up at the Fratelli Vineyard winery, where we arrived about 4:30. Fratelli have four rooms of guest accommodation and we were so lucky that one of them was free because they're booked solid from tomorrow to the end of March, so we booked the whole package - overnight stay, vineyard and factory tours, wine tasting, dinner and breakfast for £125. There's a picture of these rusty characters on the front of each bottle of Fratelli wine. Fratelli's vineyards are very spread out so 15 minutes later we set off in a pickup truck for the 20-minute bumpy drive to 'sunset point', a small hill overlooking rolling vineyards and rural landscape with utter peace and quiet except for the birds tweeting, where we had a glass of their nice sparkling rosé wine and watched the sun go down. We returned to the reception area and had a wine tasting and a pleasant chat with the Italian co-owner of the vineyard. We talked about their main competitor, Sula - he said they were very glitzy, commercial and Californian (they now have a 25-room hotel on site, they certainly didn't have accommodation when we were there in 2011), while Fratelli go for a more specialized market and (in my words) are cheerfully chaotic Italian-Indian. Then we adjourned upstairs to the restaurant for an eclectic Italian dinner (for our benefit but we'd rather have had Indian), chatting with the other guests, a retired couple from Pune who travel extensively round India, while the waiters kept topping up our plates with slices of pizza, salads, spaghetti and assorted other dishes. Ever since we left Bombay the restaurants have been toning down the spice and 'westernising' the food when they see foreigners because 'local village food is extremely spicy'. Weds 8th. After breakfast we went on more winery tours - firstly we drove out to another vineyard where ladies were picking the grapes ... ... and on to different areas to see row upon row of Chenin Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc grapes ripening in the sun. Back at base we went on a tour of the factory past huge vats, oak barrels and bottling machines while the guide explained all the technicalities of the different processes. Pandharpur, a temple in a pilgrimage town Eventually about half an hour late we checked out and the taxi driver we'd booked took us an hour or two further through rural Maharashtra to Pandharpur, a pilgrimage town. We went for darshan (a face-to-face interview with your chosen god) at the main Vithoba temple which was a strange and fascinating mixture of ancient Hindu temple and modern prison - incense-darkened walls and carvings, full of big modern metal railings and chains to keep the eager pilgrims in line as they jostled their way to see their god. We joined a queue and dutifully touched three different gods' feet in three small chambers and leaned right over to touch one of them with our foreheads, leaving Sheila's legs suspended in mid-air until she had to be pulled back to the ground by a nearby security guard. The pilgrims and temple priests greatly appreciated her efforts and we were rewarded for this with garlands of marigolds which our fellow pilgrims seemed to think was a great honour. We drove on through the countryside to Solapur, which does not have any particular sights but is a transport hub, and eventually found the Balaji Samovar hotel which the other guests at the Fratelli vineyard had recommended. The hotel looked good but we started off with a few problems - the first room was right opposite a family with kids who ran up and down the corridor shouting, definitely not what we wanted. We moved to a room two floors up with a nice view but we had to turn the A/C off because even if you set it to 38C it belted out freezing cold air, and we also had to get the maintenance man to fix the sink plug. However, everything got better when we settled in their nice bar for a Sula red wine and a Budweiser 'Magnum' beer, which was more full-bodied than normal 'Bud'. The adjacent restaurant was also very good and we had delicious prawn curry and egg curry. Thurs 9th. We were ahead of schedule so we decided to have an extra stop in Bidar, a town with a fort half-way to Hyderabad. With a plan in place, we went to the bar for drinks and to the restaurant for the extensive tasty buffet for £12. A corner of Karnataka state - Bidar city Fri 10th. The hotel's rather expensive but comfy taxi drove us the 200 kms to Bidar in Karnataka state. We went to two hotels in the centre of town that were mentioned in Lonely Planet but they were awful - one was a building site and the other was dirty and tried to charge us an outrageous price. Sheila went into a bank and asked for advice and while the older staff said the awful hotels were fine, a younger chap recommended the 'Vibe' hotel, which Google corrected to the Vybe and was universally pronounced 'Weeb'. It turned out to be really nice and with relief we checked into a nice, clean, reasonably-priced room. Immediately we went to the bar and had a tea-time pakora snack with glasses of wine and beer to celebrate. For dinner we returned to the bar and sat out by the pretty pool among the palm trees all lit up, and had lemon and coriander soup which sounds innocent but was incredibly spicy, with another glass of wine and beer. That was enough for dinner because we were already suffering from eating too much. Sat 11th. For breakfast we had spicy masala omelettes then Sheila made her Souper Soup from the buffet - a big bowl of spicy samba with potatoes, vegetables and bits and pieces from other dishes in the buffet added to it. The Indian diners may have been horrified but we enjoyed it. At 10 o'clock we set off on our tour of Bidar which the hotel arranged with their taxi driver. First stop was a nearby Sikh Gurdwara - 'residence of the guru'. As we got out of the car Sheila said we could recognize it when we came back because the registration started with 'KA' (unfortunately so does every other car in Karnataka!) We had to take off our shoes, put on head scarves and wash our feet, then we wandered round the lovely temple complex, all cool marble and mosaic picture walls. In the huge kitchen/dining hall they had the capability to provide free meals to thousands of pilgrims at a time although today it was very quiet, the next pilgrimage isn't until March. We got talking to a fierce-looking Sikh, all dressed up including a sword, who spoke good English and we mentioned that England was very cold at the moment unlike here - he replied 'I'm from Canada, minus 40 is cold!' On the wall of one of the buildings was a 'recently researched' map of the many travels of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, in the 15th-16th centuries. He clearly originated in Amritsar, and we noticed that many of the people and cars at the Gurdwara had come from Punjab, the centre of Sikhism. We had been suffering some money anxiety because the Vybe hotel only accepts Indian credit cards (a trap we've fallen into before) and none of the ATMs in Solapur yesterday seemed to be working so our cash was running low. However, round the corner from the Gurdwara we found a working ATM which relieved the stress and we proceeded with our tour. Next was the Papnash Hindu temple, quite small and peaceful and not as hectic as the big temples, where we met a friendly group of pilgrims. Then the Barid Shah gardens, a well-kept green oasis with palm trees and other foliage around a group of impressive Mughal-style tombs of the 16th-century Baridi dynasty of the Bidar Sultanate. Technically the garden was closed until 4pm but all the gardeners welcomed us in with smiles. We loitered around there cooling off a bit then went on to the main event, Bidar fort. The 15th-century fort is spread across rolling hills with a 5½ km defensive wall (second largest in India) and a triple moat hewn out of solid rock. It has a fairytale entrance with a roadway that twists through three gateways and many evocative ruins inside. We wandered round for some time and were very impressed. Hot and dusty we went to the lofty, modern, octagonal St Joseph's Catholic church for Sheila to pray for her people and me to cool off a bit and admire the high, sweeping roof. Exhausted we returned to the hotel for a shower and a soup - if it's this hot in February, what must May be like? After sunset we sat by the pool under the stars with more beer and wines and had battered pakora and crispy baby corn starters for dinner. It was all beautifully peaceful until Sheila went purple in the face and cried out 'who would batter a chili pepper without warning me?' Sun 12th was a day off, butter chicken for dinner. Week 3 - Hyderabad and Tirupati. Telangana State - Hyderabad Mon 13th. We had a restful breakfast, checked out and before 10am our taxi driver had arrived and took us to Hyderabad. The roads were quite quiet until we got to the suburbs of Hyderabad which started about 40 kms out, then it was choc-a-bloc all the way to the Marriott Hotel in the centre of town. Prakesh, the lovely Guest Experience Executive who checked us in kindly upgraded us to a lake view room which was clean, comfortable and well-appointed, with indeed an excellent view of the lake and the waterfall running off it past the hotel gardens. It was also the first room so far with a bathtub rather than shower, which Sheila declared was the ultimate luxury. Our Executive room gave us access to the Executive lounge, so we spent a pleasant evening there drinking huge glasses of Fratelli wines, eating dishes from the extensive buffet and chatting to the manager, the chef (who brought us a delicious dish of lemon chicken from the kitchen) and several of the other guests who came and went as we continued to make ourselves at home. Tues 14th. We got an auto-rickshaw (tuk tuk) down to the Chowmahalla palace in the old part of the city. It was lovely, with multiple grand 'mahals' arranged around a central garden and water tank .... .... with throne rooms where the ruling Nizams managed their domain. The best part were the large groups of well-behaved schoolchildren enthusiastically going from place to place, waving at us as we passed, and even the teachers wanted selfies with us. From the palace we tried to explore the old town but this was disappointing, the winding alleys and exotic buildings of old had been replaced by uninteresting, straight, motorcycle-infested streets full of dental surgeries (you'd have to be desparate!). Even the Charminar, the iconic four-minaretted tower mosque at the central crossroads of the old city was surrounded by markets selling cheap modern tat, although Sheila bought one of the cheap modern clips to tie her hair up with. The wandering vendors of samosas and other goodies who filled the area when we came here some years ago seem to have disappeared. The new metro system has not reached into the old city, even though it is rather optimistically shown on the map, so we got a tuk-tuk back to the hotel. We had a 'starter' drink in the executive lounge then went to the Bidri restaurant which had been set up for Valentine's day with roses on the table, heart-shaped balloons everywhere and a musical duo playing and singing. We had been invited by the chef the day before to try the famous Hyderabadi Biriyani, which was not on the normal menu but they prepared it specially for us. After an amuse-bouche then a starter of smoked broccoli with cheese sauce and something extra that gave it a wonderful flavour, we had the Biriyani. Essentially it was just rice and mutton, but the special Hyderabadi rice was fluffy and fragrant and the meat tender and tasty and it was delicious. Weds 15th. Hyderabad is a very sprawling, spread-out place with no real centre, even the Charminar in the middle of the old town is not a focal point for any hotels, restaurants or sights. Shops and shopping malls are scattered all over the city. So we set out with Suresh the tuk-tuk man again and went to a nail parlour half a hour away. While Sheila had her gel nails done very expertly for only £8, I explored a nearby mall and a few other shops trying to buy a data card for the camera with no success. However, Suresh's local knowledge came in handy and he found one for us on the way back. We started the evening in the rooftop bar and watched a nice sunset over the lake. Then we spent the rest of the evening in the lounge eating chicken tikka sandwiches and other nibbles as our nice waiter kept replenishing our wines. Thurs 16th. We had a wonderful breakfast in the Okra restaurant where Chef Kamran recommended Mysore cheese masala dosa with coriander and onion from the cooking station, and then made us Haleem, a shredded lamb stew with all sorts of spices. It was all delicious and from then on, at every buffet with a cooking station, we ordered Mysore cheese masala dosa for breakfast! At 6pm we checked out and said goodbye to Prakesh, Rugved and all the lovely people at the Marriott who lined up at the entrance to wave us off. Suresh drove us in the tuk-tuk to Kacheguda, one of Hyderabad's many railway stations. We sat on platform one and watched the world go by until 7:30 when they started announcing our train, the 20:05 Venkatadri Express to Chinnor, stopping at 19 stations along the way including Tirupati, our destination. We had booked 1A (1st A/C sleeper), the top one of about six different classes on the train, and we found the only 1A carriage right at the front of the train. There was no list of names by the door which you usually find, and no clue which was our berth, so we sat in the first compartment, a four-berth with a door to isolate us from the world, and waited to see what would happen. The train started off on time and we ate the packed dinner of chicken sandwiches and watermelon slices that the Marriott chef had very kindly arranged for us. At the second or third stop a man came into our compartment and said he was going to Tirupati, his home town. At the same time the bed-man appeared with blankets, sheets and pillows and made up the beds. He told us that we had berths 1 and 3, the two lower ones (nobody looked at our ticket at any stage, it was all done by telepathy!). So not long after 9pm we were cosily tucked up in our beds, swaying to the rhythm of the train as it went on its way. Andra Pradesh - Tirupati pilgrimage town, probably the most visited place on earth. Friday 17th. The train seemed to go along at a good pace and we slept better than expected, sleeping right through many of the intermediate station stops. It got light and we woke up just before the 6am alarm went off. We got ready for our scheduled 7am arrival but of course it wasn't that simple, and the train stopped and waited for quite a while until we pulled into Tirupati station about 8am. We stepped out of the crowded station into a maelstrom of tuk-tuks and strode past the taxi touts to the tuk-tuk stand where we got an auto-rickshaw to the Taj hotel for £2. There was a nice 'Om' display in the lobby of the hotel. We were much too early to check in so we enquired whether there would be a car available to take us to the sacred hill and temple about 18 kms away. Two minutes later the nice lady said 'your car is waiting sir'. The Sri Venkateshwara Temple in the seven sacred hills of Tirumala attracts more pilgrims than Mecca and Jerusalem, averaging 40,000 a day and reaching peaks of 100,000 a day, and darshan (daily visiting) runs 24 hours a day. It is all very well organised - there are two winding two-lane roads on the mountain, one 'up' and one 'down' and there is also a very good footpath for the devout pilgrims to walk, which takes 4 to 6 hours. Firstly at the entrance at the bottom there is a check and search point where everyone has to get out of their vehicle and they make sure that no one or their cars have any cigarettes, alcohol, meat, guns or plastic which would pollute the holy site. We were expecting a single large temple at the top of the hill but when we got there we found a whole city - accommodation and food of all standards for thousands of pilgrims at a time, including a VIP area where the president and other important folk stay. It is all set in well-maintained parks and gardens and even the traffic seems much more peaceful than normal. The approach to the temple is thronged with food stalls and offerings shops and rest areas, presumably for those who have walked all the way up, many barefooted. Many pilgrims donate their hair to the temple in gratitude for a wish fulfilled and there are barbers shops scattered around and many of the pilgrims are freshly tonsured. The big barrels of hair are sorted, washed and a lot sold for wig-making (not sure what happens to the rest of it). Non-Hindus are allowed into the temple but we couldn't go in because the queue for ordinary (free) darshan was hours long and VIP (paying) darshan was booked up days ahead, even the Taj hotel hadn't been able to 'fix' anything for us. We still enjoyed it enormously watching the crowds go by and posing for the inevitable selfies. On our way back to the car we stopped for tasty freshly-made samosas and onion bhajis at one of the stalls. That evening in the hotel bar I fell for the biggest upsell ever - I asked for a glass of the cheapest red wine at £4 but it wasn't just bad, it had gone off, so I went for a nice Fratelli at £10 but unfortunately they didn't have that one today so I agreed to have the imported Jacobs Creek which was very nice but when the bill came it turned out to be an outrageous £17 for a 120ml glass and I'd had two, which is now officially the most expensive wine we've had (thank goodness Sheila was on beer). Still smarting from this we went and indulged in the very extensive and tasty buffet at the hotel restaurant. Sat 18th. After breakfast we got a tuk-tuk to the Govindaraja Temple in the centre of town. It was colourful and crowded, we went in though the big white outer gopura (gateway) and sat in the outer courtyard watching all the people milling about or sitting around. Sheila carried on watching, being photographed in endless selfies and guarding my shoes and camera (not allowed in the temple) while I went for darshan. I joined a queue and was jostled, crushed and by-passed for 45 minutes by good-natured pilgrims who were desperate to get to their god. Every so often the crowd started chanting 'Govinda, Govinda', one of the names of Vishnu who we were about to meet, until we reached the crowded little inner sanctum and had our fleeting meeting with the reclining Vishnu there. There was a big, rough-looking temple guardian in charge of the sanctum who smiled at me and said 'say Govinda' so I did, and people seemed to appreciate it. I thought that was it but immediately we caught up with another queue for another darshan in another sanctum with another god, probably Krishna. After that there was a third queue but I bypassed that one and went back to the outer courtyard to be on my share of selfies. We left the temple and walked through the town asking travel agents the price of a car to Mahabalipuram for tomorrow, and probably made a firm arrangement with one of them who we met on the street, so we will see if it materialises. Finally we got another tuk-tuk back to the hotel. Obviously we gave the hotel bar a miss and walked across a busy dual carriageway in fear of our lives to the nearby Maaya bar and restaurant, a rather dark but friendly place with a good selection of beers and wines at very reasonable prices. We returned to the hotel for another good buffet dinner. Week 4-and-a-bit, days at the seaside. Tamil Nadu - Mamallapuram/Mahabalipuram Sun 19th. The taxi man we met on the street turned up promptly at 10am as arranged in a nice Toyota saloon that he was very proud of - during the journey as he was practicing his English with us he asked us to guess how old it was and it turned out to be 12 years old which is a remarkable age to survive India's crazy driving. He was a very good driver although the roads were awful, one continuous series of road works. When we stopped at a toll booth along the way, a monkey appeared from nowhere and dived through the open window of a car next to us before leaping out again, apparently without any booty - the occupants were presumably even more surprised than we were. We arrived at the Sea Breeze hotel in Mahabalipuram / Mamallapuram (both names seem to be in use everywhere, even on road signs) just after 2pm as expected. We've stayed here before and visited Mahabalipuram several times so it felt like coming home, although the Sea Breeze at £40 a night is rather a step down from the Taj treats we've been giving ourselves (the next step up here is the Radisson Blue, well out of town, for several hundred pounds). Once we'd adjusted to the difference in expectations and were happy in our good-sized room with a balcony overlooking the palm trees in the garden and glimpses of the sea beyond, we went out for a walk round. Mahabalipuram is very much a holiday/travellers' seaside town and the other big change we noticed was the numbers of white folk about, whereas we had only seen about four since leaving Bombay. However, this was compensated for by the wide range of restaurants, the sparkling sea, the fishing boats and the historic shore temple. A chef we met later told us that when he started work here 40 years ago there were just four restaurants in town, now there are 49. It's also noticeably hotter here now we are further south, lower altitude and three weeks on. In the evening we went to the Sea Shore Garden restaurant, a shack on the beach in a great location, also known as 'Rick Stein's restaurant' because he did one of his cooking TV shows from here. We had some deliciously cold beers and Sheila had an egg curry while I had the fish curry which was a mistake - the fish was mostly bones, skin and unidentified crunchy bits and they toned down the curry because 'Indian too spicy for foreigners' and it was rather tasteless. Sheila wanted to complain but I wouldn't let her - I bet they found a better piece for Rick Stein. Mon 20th to Weds 22nd. We fell into our seaside routine at Mahabalipuram. Breakfast at the hotel buffet wasn't that good so the next days we went to Joe's café just down the road for a banana and honey pancake with lemon and a masala omelette (not on the same plate of course). We walked around the town a bit, got a tuk-tuk to the plush Radisson Blue hotel with its extensive swimming pool (advertised as the largest in India) which snakes like a lake through their tropical garden, and back along the beach to choose a restaurant for lunch. A couple of times we tried to sit beside the pool at our hotel for a while but couldn't stand that for long so we had another walk along the beach from the Shore Temple to the Radisson hotel and back. On two occasions the Radisson was hosting weddings, accompanied by loud thumping music which must have ruined the tranquillity for the other guests, and that was just the afternoon rehearsal. Some parts of the beach were rather crowded .... .... while others were wide open and empty. Another day we had a walk out to the main monuments of Mahabalipuram, rock-hewn temples, elephants and scenes from the Hindu epics and the 'butter-ball', a giant balancing boulder. All this was free last time we visited but now it's 40 Rs for Indians and 600 Rs for foreigners, rather a steep uplift. Rock carving is still a big thing here and along the way we looked in many shops and galleries with all sorts of sculptures from tiny turtles to life-sized elephants. We went to Moonrocks for a nice lunch of two grilled jumbo prawns for Sheila (they've been on her wish-list for most of the holiday so far) and mixed veg 65, essentially fried veg pakoras, for me, and another time to Moonrocks (who shamelessly gave us a menu from the original Moonrakers across the road) for Sheila to have 'comfort food' of mashed potato with cheese and fried onions while I had a tasty egg butter masala (she didn't really need comfort food because it's all been wonderful so far). Another day we went to Le Yogi French-Indian restaurant and had a late brunch of salad nicoise and tomato soup, and another time to Taaco's seafood restaurant (odd name) and had delicious pepper prawns with rice and prawns with garlic and lemon. In the evenings we walked up and down the street a bit before choosing the original Moonrakers restaurant 'since 1985' (recommended in Lonely Planet), whose owner complained that all these Moon-lookalike restaurants were stealing his business. Sheila had two huge tiger prawns and I had a tasty prawn curry, with some wine that certainly wasn't from Sula or Fratelli. Next day we went to investigate Marmoris, a trendy new bar (just 20 days open they said) right by the beach at the bottom of the Sea Breeze's garden. We had some nice glasses of wine as the sun set and the shore temple disappeared into darkness and some decidedly tipsy girls in a birthday party group danced between the tables. Another day we went to the Seagull restaurant at the corner of our street and the main street and had tasty pepper chicken and egg curry and the last day we were rather full so we just went to Marmoris and had the same nice wines and tasty battered baby corn in sriracha sauce. Pondicherry - more days at the seaside. Thurs 23rd. We had an early breakfast at Joe's then a bit of shopping before checking out and meeting the driver as arranged for the 1½ hour drive to Pondicherry. We checked into the lovely Villa Cavi, a 200-year old heritage mansion on the seafront, and got a wonderful room with lots of space, cool marble floors and furniture .... .... and a great view of the sea from our bed and balcony. By 4pm we were unpacked and went for a walk, looking for restaurants and found some likely ones, but they didn't open till 7pm and we were starving, having had nothing since breakfast. We tried to fill the gap with a couple of ice creams from a couple of ice cream parlours but it was a very temporary fix. At 7pm we looked at the barbecue at 'The Spot', a trendy outdoor restaurant near the promenade, but settled on Les Saveurs, a favourite near the hotel (now closed) where we used to stay on our previous visits. Like many restaurants in French-influenced Pondicherry they have a good selection of wines and beers and we had a wonderful meal of spicy blackened prawns with mango and cherry dip for starter, a huge tender steak au poivre (Sheila) and luscious prawns thermidor (me). In fact it was so good I'm thinking of breaking the habit of a lifetime and having exactly the same tomorrow. Fri 24th to Mon 27th. At leisure in Pondicherry. Fried eggs or masala omelette from the breakfast menu at the hotel. At the weekend, breakfast was a buffet and Sheila made her special spicy samba soup with extra buffet ingredients again. After breakfast we attempted to go straight out for a walk in the cool of morning, but that time was long past. We went along Ananda Pillai street to the Ananda Pillai Mansion, supposedly a museum but it looked pretty permanently closed. Across the road was the main market so we wandered round there for a while, through busy and colourful fruit and veg, garlands and flowers, and fish sections. Another day we walked to the vibrant and colourful Sri Manakula Vinayagar temple just a few blocks away, where we joined the queues and did darshan and another kind of service - it wasn't clear if we were supposed to buy tickets for these but everyone was friendly and waved us through and the temple guardians put powder tilak marks on our foreheads. Not far away we visited the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and in blissful silence walked through the flower-filled meditation garden then back out into the heat and chaos of the street. On our last day we had a walk along the promenade and posted some letters from the post office. We had lunches at various cafés - a chicken and pasta baguette and a coffee at Baker Street bakery/café on the first day. Next day the Café des Arts was full with a queue outside so afternoon tea was a coffee and a cinnamon roll at Eat My Cake nearby, which was nice but the owner didn't have any change so I couldn't pay the bill and I promised to come back later. She was doubtful but let me go. That evening I managed to get change so our first stop was to pay off my debt to the owner which made us both happy. Twice we had lunch in our room at Villa Cavi, sitting with a view of the sea from our huge balcony in the sunshine - grilled tenderloin sandwich and a mezze platter for me one time and Pondicherry fish curry the next. Another day lunch was cakes and lemon soda at Coromandel Café and Earl Gray tea and Caprese sandwich at Café des Arts. A couple of times we had a pre-dinner glass of wine at the Coromandel Café, a trendy place in an art-deco mansion, sitting in the luxuriant tropical garden at a heavy old wrought-iron table beside a huge Prince of Wales palm (lots of people were queueing for tables but nobody wanted our two-person table with no fan). In the (slightly cooler) evenings we went to the beach which was really popular at that time .... .... and walked along the promenade admiring the street artwork. We had a pre-dinner drink in the garden at The Spot and another day at the rooftop bar at Le Chateau watching the sunset. But every single evening we went for dinner at Les Saveurs because it was so good. We tried various starters, delicious Boston chowder, bruschetta and spicy cheese balls, but always followed by the wonderful lobster or prawn thermidors or one occasion, big tiger prawns. Week 5 - Tamil Nadu, Chennai (formerly Madras). Tues 28th. Sheila's plan to spend the last morning sunbathing was thwarted by the first real clouds in four weeks. At midday we set off in the hotel's car for the three-hour drive to Chennai. All our other drivers so far have been very good but this one was a nightmare, he seemed to be falling asleep and drove erratically all the way. Very relieved to be in one piece we arrived at the Marriott Courtyard hotel, and went to the executive lounge for 'afternoon tea' which was some spicy crisps and coffee from the machine (not really our idea of tea). At 6pm we were back in the lounge with its good view of Chennai and the ever-clogged traffic from the top floor, for the complimentary buffet dinner and glasses of wine. Weds 1st March. We went across town by tuk-tuk to Fingertips salon for Sheila to have gel nails and a pedicure - she's so excited to have clean feet again! Then we came back to Amethyst café, a favourite from our last visit, for lunch, but it was a big disappointment. The tropical garden was still lovely to sit in but the prices have shot up and the quality and size of the portions are much reduced. Sheila was so incensed she left a review on Trip Advisor. We were back in the Marriott lounge that evening for a nice dinner of hummus and other dips, Hyderabadi chicken tikka and other dishes, and plenty of wine. Thurs 2nd. We went to the 'Pondy Bazaar' shopping district and Sheila bought some material for cushion covers, and a lady who happened to be in the shop took us to an unmarked dressmaker's little factory on the first floor of a residential street about five minutes' drive away. Sheila was so filled with confidence in the dressmaker's abilities that we went back to the shop to buy more material for extra cushions which the dressmaker said her 'man' would pick up. Flushed with success we went to the seaside - we got a tuk-tuk to Marina Beach, advertised as the longest beach in Asia (second in the world after one in Brazil) and it was indeed huge, in fact overwhelming. We couldn't see the sea from the promenade so we set out across the scorching sands but gave up long before we got to the actual shore. We struggled back and had a lemon soda and glass of tea in a tea shack on the beach edge, risking glasses washed in a bucket and ice in the soda, courting disaster but all was well. We walked along the prom a bit more before returning to the hotel. Out of five tuk-tuk rides today we had one really decent chap who charged a fair price and drove really well, even using hand signals, two so-so ones and two out-and-out crooks, including one who refused our agreed payment so Sheila folded up the money and put it in his ashtray as we walked away. Fri 3rd. Due to a misunderstanding about St Thomas we went miles out of the way via St Thomas Mount before we arrived at SanThome (St Thomas) church at the other end of Marina Beach, where we could actually see the sea. We walked along the road by the beach for a while then got a tuk-tuk to Sheila's dressmakers factory where she inspected the work on the cushions and asked the nice lady in charge to alter five more items of clothing that she'd brought with her and re-string a necklace, which the lady kindly did at no charge (she's so cheeky, but with a smile). Sat 4th. Chennai has a new clean, efficient metro system with a station right by the Marriott hotel. Last time we were here four years ago they were building it and the road was impassible, the hotel inaccessible and the traffic in chaos, but now it's finished and very useful. We got the train one stop to the office of Oman Air to check our flight for tomorrow, then another stop to Higginbotham's bookshop which is right beside another of the metro entrances. Higginbotham's has been a Chennai institution since 1844 and is India's oldest bookstore. It is housed in a nice heritage building and we browsed around happily for a while, choosing books for our journey home, then got the metro swiftly and efficiently back to the hotel. Our nice wine waiter from the Executive lounge made me a special Chennai Coffee in the restaurant as a gift, and we spent our last evening in the lounge enjoying the wine and buffet as usual, despite our forthcoming early start tomorrow. Sun 5th. We got up at 3am and had a very good flight home on Oman Airways via Muscat. If you would like to see more of our travels just click the map.