12 months, 11 countries, 0 flights 🌏

Our days of rest and relaxation in Wayanad had come to an end and with it our time in the state of Kerala was over. I was sad to say goodbye to Kerala, the people in this part of India are so laid back and friendly, and the food is amazing; Kerala parathas are our favourite Indian flatbreads so far. The meat here is also delicious and a lot more accessible than in much of India, especially b**f (beef is often spelt like this on menus). This is down to their more relaxed following of Hinduism and there being a higher percentage of Christians. 

With each new state in India comes different languages, cultural differences, different religions, and different state laws. We have struggled to learn much of the many languages spoken in India as each time we have a few phrases down, we have to start again. So far we have come across Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malalayam and Kananda and we have only been to 3/28 states in India!! 

We caught a very early bus from 4am - 9am onwards to our next destination, the ancient royal city of Mysore in the state of Karnataka. By some miracle I managed to sleep quite well on this windy bus while Alice spent the time tossing and turning and looking for tigers out the window. Mysore was once the home of a royal dynasty which ruled the Kingdom of Mysore from the 14th century until the 20th century. During their reign, the Wadiyar family built several palaces including the grand Mysore Palace which is now one of the most famous tourist attractions in India, after the Taj Mahal, attracting around 2-3 million visitors per year.

Although we had an average sleep, we were very excited to be in a new state and to explore this ancient city. Along with being rich with royal history, it is also famous for being the origin of the Ashtanga style of yoga which has been hugely influential on yoga in the west. This was another one of the “cow cities” in India, and cows ruled the streets, with even buses giving way to them. We were vibing this city immediately, the streets were dotted with palm trees and outside of the yoga area we were staying in, the city seemed to be full of friendly locals.

While eating some of the best dosa of our lives (I will talk about the food soon), we were invited for dinner with a local family (we didn’t end up taking up this offer as we ran out of time). There was an extremely chaotic photoshoot situation with some of the vendors in the local market who had their first experience using a real camera. Sanjay (age 14), who was the most excited to use our camera, insisted I send him the photos on WhatsApp immediately, and I had to explain to him that I can’t access them on the SD card from my phone. When I did eventually send him the photos on WhatsApp, he excitedly called me to say thanks.

The food we ate in Mysore was truly exceptional, and we planned our eating well here. When you only have 2 days in a place, there are limited meal opportunities and without proper planning it can be easy to squander these. We had done some reasonably thorough research before reaching Mysore and it paid off big time here. The dosa place I mentioned earlier served the most incredible dosa, crunchy on the outside and deliciously soft and fluffy on the inside, along with south indian style filter coffees of course. We’re not sure how we will cope once we head north and the coffee and dosas disappear.

After this breakfast experience, we went for lunch at another local spot famous for samosas. We didn't expect it to top our breakfast, and we were in for a big surprise. This place was on another level. There was a constant queue of locals lining up here at this hole in the wall samosa shop (also serving varieties of chaat and puri)  tucked into a busy alleyway. Behind the counter there were three guys, one was filling the samosas at lightning speed, while the other guy prepared and cooked them in a pan filled with oil, and the third guy skillfully popped the Panipuri open with his thumb. We sat down behind the counter and began a five course meal of Indian delicacies. I can’t really find the words to describe the food here, so I will let the pictures do the talking. The man cooking the samosas explained each dish to us and he smiled when he saw our reactions eating his food. Afterwards we tried to tip by leaving without change, but they wouldn’t let us and quite literally forced us to take our change. In total, this five course eating extravaganza cost us 170₹ (about $3NZD).

We really loved our time in Mysore and I wish we could have stayed a bit longer. It was a great introduction to the friendly people and amazing food we would encounter throughout the rest of Karnataka. However, we were very excited for our next stop and our first major Indian city, the Silicon Valley of India - Bangalore.

Some of you may have seen my mum’s comment on our post about Kochi. She asked; 

“Hey, a curious question. India always seems to be so divisive - it’s like people love it or hate it. Where do you both sit on that fence? Your posts are always so positive I get the feeling that you’re enjoying it, but is that the case? So many people seem to have horror stories about travelling in India, but that totally doesn’t seem like your experience at all.”

I started drafting a response in an auto across town yesterday (we’re in Bangalore at the moment, so across town can easily mean 30 minutes), and I handed my draft to Josh to read. It took him a good five minutes to get through and I realized this could easily be a blog post of its own. After nearly a month in the country, I was interested in memorializing my thoughts on this as well, to reflect on if and how this has changed by the end of our time in this country. 

It’s a question that I have been thinking about a lot. I too have heard a lot of contrasting views of peoples experiences in this country. So far, we absolutely love it here. It’s also important to say that we have only been in the south so far. India is so diverse and I don’t want to come across like I’m commenting on the whole country based on the three states we have visited. As with any trip, there have been highs and lows, but to answer mums questions I want to touch on five main points that I think are essential to enjoying your time here. 

At this point, India is my favourite country I have ever visited purely because of the diversity. India has 28 states and eight union territories, speaks 20,000 dialects of 120 different languages, and is home to a wide range of different religions. We have visited Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka, and the experiences in each could have been totally different countries. I’ve always enjoyed places that have a lot of chaotic energy and are generally busy and buzzy, so it totally scratches that itch for me. I also love that amongst the chaos there are so many beautiful, peaceful places to be found. In general India seems to toe an interesting line between deep spirituality and a real hustle culture, and seeing these play out in real time is fascinating. Haggling hard with a tour guide for five minutes to then have him explain the ancient rituals of Hinduism and their role in modern India is a fascinating experience. People could find this duality challenging, but I feel like I can thrive in that space between. There’s no and/or here, it's always both. What a treat. Embracing diversity here is a truly rewarding experience. 

In terms of travel style, in my opinion you can’t be too passive here or you’ll get caught up in shit tours, scams, boring western food and average accommodation. You have to do some thoughtful planning. India seems to reward those who seek out interesting places, put some work into their plans and aren’t afraid to just try things. The best experiences we’ve had are when we have planned a day and been quite specific about what we want to see and do. Of course we have allowed for spontaneity, but I don’t think it’s most effective here to just roam neighbourgoods waiting for magical experiences to fall upon you, or show up at the airport and see where the wind takes you. 

I think it’s also important to talk about expectations (the destroyer of all joy as the Buddhists would say). There are people who come to places like India on a two star budget, and want to have a five star experience. Yes, when you’re spending in Dollars or Euros your money is going to go a lot further, but only spending $20 a day is going to get you gross rooms, unhygienic food and not many experiences.This would be the same in any country. Close your eyes and picture that budget motel in your home town that you couldn’t be paid to stay at. Now imagine if an international traveler was staying there and complaining to you that the service in your country wasn’t good. Bizzare, right?  I saw a Tik Tok the other day that said ‘come and travel India with the same budget you travel Europe with and I guarantee you won’t end up overwhelmed, sick and burnt out’. For us, we are backpacking and on a budget, and this means we aren’t expecting to stay in a room with a butler and room service! We’ve managed our expectations, and don’t expect that. I think some people come in with the idea of a place being “cheap” and then are surprised when they get what they pay for. Let’s remember that prior to being invaded and brutally extorted by the British, India was one of the richest countries in the world, contributing 25% of the world's GDP. This country knows how to do luxury, but yes you will have to pay for it. Tik tok and Instagram doesn’t help with this, expectations vs reality get seriously mixed up and people seek out the aesthetics as opposed to the experience. This is late stage capitalism, you will get what you pay for. That doesn’t mean it's bad, it just means it’s a (delicious) street dosa and filter coffee, not served on a silver platter in a palace. 

Josh has seen me get excruciatingly angry at travel vloggers who show up on my Instagram feed throwing criticism at this country. You need to park your cristsism and come in with an open mind to truly appreciate what this country has to offer. Seeing vloggers shoving their cameras in people's faces and asking why there are flies on the street food stall, or cosplaying throwing their rubbish out of the auto to make a point about the pollution here makes me feel sick. I strongly believe that as a visitor, it is not your place to comment or critique this publically. Yes, of course Josh and I have noticed the rubbish - it can be confronting and it’s really overwhelming. But I don't think it's our place to publically critique that. In New Zealand, 25% of our ‘recycling’ gets shipped to landfills in Indonesia and Malaysia. We have the exact same problem, we just hide it better. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. It’s the same with child labour VS. school shootings, or scams VS. health insurance or corruption VS. oh wait, corruption. None of these things are good!! But there are bad things happening everywhere, and I think that we have a tendency to be harsher in our judgments here, and I don’t think it’s our place to do so. Stop, listen, observe and focus on yourself. Try and have a helpful instead of a harmful impact on the communities and environments you have the privilege of visiting. 

And finally, he tangata. It is people. So far we have had the most incredible interactions with the people we have met here. Generally, the people of India are friendly, interested in where we are from and what we do, and they want to share their country, culture, language and food with us. There are at times language barriers, but what you can achieve through google translate and body language is amazing. For this to work, you have to be trusting, open, friendly and patient. You have to put yourself out there, smile at people and try to talk even when it’s hard. Nine out of ten times I am sure it will be worth it. You have to keep your wits about you of course, but to have a special, rewarding experience you must also put in the work to build trust and relationships.

It’s important to remember that this is not our home. Everything is different and it isn’t easy. But we didn’t sign up for easy. We are learning patience, resilience, confidence, open mindedness and tolerance, and having the best time while doing so. So mum, to answer your question, yes, we are loving it. I cried the other day after getting into an argument with a tour guide trying to get us to pay absolutely extortionate prices for a tour I desperately wanted to do, but I also looked up working visas because I’m loving Bangalore so much I feel like I could live here. I have slept in rooms where my sleeping sheet, mosquito net and pillow case feel essential to stay anywhere near clean, but I also drank the best flat white of my life yesterday on a tree lined street in the hip neighbourhood of Indirangager. It’s a game of duality, one that I don’t want to finish playing. 

I hope you enjoyed this rather long train of thought, please do let me know if you agree, disagree or have anything to add or discuss in the comments. The photos on this post are some of my highlights so far in this amazing country. Thank you for reading!

I have a secret. One I’m not particularly proud of. Throughout this trip we have been getting lots of travel advice from ChatGPT. Yes, the water guzzling privacy concerning carbon consuming large language model. And yes, I am aware it seriously doesn’t align with our values from an environmental perspective. Usually, our “friend” as we call it, gives us great ideas of places to stay, helps us understand the history of sites we are visiting and outlines the most efficient travel routes between places. We don’t rely on it for precise details, but to give us ideas, it’s perfect. When we consulted our friend about hill stations in Kerala, we included in our prompt that we wanted to avoid the tourist hot spots of Ooty or Munnar. We were nervous about finding another town like Ella in Sri Lanka - we wanted somewhere a little more off the beaten track.

Enter Wayanad. The area was described to us as quieter than its well known counterparts, and famed for its tea estates, forests, waterfalls and walks. Everyone we talked to was surprised to hear we were heading there, but we took it in our stride and felt even a little boastful that we had found somewhere more off the beaten track. 

Over the last few weeks I had started to feel a bit run down, I had a pretty constant sore throat and was more tired than usual. I was dreading the overnight bus, as there’s nothing like a broken sleep to catapult that kind of run down into a full on cold. We boarded the bus in Kochi at 1 AM after an hour of delays, and both fell asleep quite easily in our double berth. The road to Wayanad was windy with hairpin bends and steep hills, not exactly conducive to a good sleep. On arrival we got an auto to our hostel, and a stroke of luck meant that our room was actually available so we could happily tuck up for another few hours of sleep, then I kept resting for most of the day. Our hostel had a pool, so we spent a few hours down there, before a wild rainstorm pushed us up to the hostel communal area to write, read, nap and play table tennis. 

This is the part where I would love to tell you that the next day we were up at 5 AM hiking to the top of Chembra Peak, but in reality the next few days passed with much of the same. We spent a lot of time on a particular couch in the common area, and I enjoyed a few 10+ hour sleeps in a row. We swam, did a few short workouts (including the therabands for all those invested), planned more of our trip and met some really great people. I especially needed the rest and although it was hard not to feel guilty about “wasting” our time in the hills, I felt much better for it. 

The lack of access to amenities here was pretty tricky. We were staying outside of the small town of Vythiri, and although we had chosen this place as it was quieter, we still struggled to find things to do or places to see. It was quite spread out, meaning that we had about an hour and a half on the bike to reach different places. We just didn’t really have the energy required to make the most of this destination. 

We rented a bike one day and spent a couple of hours riding around the picture perfect tea plantations, finding ourselves accidentally at a very fancy resort for a coffee. Usually they don’t let in ‘outsiders’ but they kindly welcomed us in for a coffee with a view. There were also a number of walks in the area, but unfortunately most of them were out of our price range. I understand charging tourists to access these places, but it’s hard to swallow when the cost is double that of our nightly accommodation budget. This paired with my sickness meant our longest walk was an hour-long joint around a local lake, which was very developed and not exactly the serene nature experience we were hoping for. One of the highlights was when a fellow guest at the hostel ordered us dinner (delivered) from a local restaurant, and we had our final taste of the famed Kerala beef curry and Parotta. Here in Kerala they are much less strict about not eating beef. We also washed this meal down with a bottle of fresh toddy - local palm wine made from the fermented sap of palm trees. It was surprisingly good, and great to try this before we head further north where it is less common. In the end, we left Wayanad a day earlier than we had planned, adding a stop in Mysore on our way to Bangalore. 

So - what was my final verdict on our Chat GPT suggested stop? I think that touristy places are touristy for a reason. If we went to Munnar or Ooty, we would have had coffee, walks and views on our doorstep. Somewhere like Wayanad requires more effort, and at this specific point, we just didn’t have the energy for that. It probably also required a bit more money - being able to easily pay for the walks, nice accommodation and the luxury of a driver would have totally changed the game. I think Chat GPT knew what we wanted and gave us a good suggestion, but it was an important reminder that we need to research well and work out how we are going to spend our time at these off the beaten track locations, and if they are within our budget. 

P.S I also want to say…  we are not using ‘our friend’ for these blogs! I think with writing once you start using AI it can be very hard to go back, so we’ve been pretty strict on ourselves with this!!

It was a busy morning of travel starting with a short tuk tuk to the train station where we hopped on a train to Kochi (which only cost us $1.40NZD for a comfortable 3.5 hour train ride). Once we arrived at the railway station in Kochi, we jumped on the metro line for one stop, then after a 10 minute walk with all our bags we jumped on a ferry for about 20 minutes, arriving at our final destination for the day around lunchtime. 

Fort Kochi is a region in Kochi, which is a city and the largest metropolitan area in the southern state of Kerala. This place was reminiscent of Galle in Sri Lanka (we wrote a blog post about Galle previously), in the sense that it was colonised by the Portuguese, Dutch, and finally the British. Much of the architecture here is colonial and includes some of the oldest churches in India, built by the Portuguese in the 1500s.

Fort Kochi has a long messy history, however in modern times it has become a haven for tourists looking for yoga classes, boutique shopping, art galleries, and artsy cafes all within reach of small sandy beaches. Most of these things are right up our alley (maybe not the boutique shopping, but we can window shop). It is also an important centre of Keralan arts (traditional and contemporary) and a standout place to see Kathakali and Kalaripayattu.

Kathakali is a traditional form of Indian Classical Dance. It is usually based on the Hindu epics the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Puranas. Drummers and singers accompany the actors, who tell the story through their precise movements, particularly mudras (hand gestures) and facial expressions. We went to see a show in the evening and it is a unique experience. The performers are all men taking on both male and female roles, and they are precisely painted with beautiful makeup so that their many facial expressions during the performance look otherworldly.

After the Kathakali show we stayed in the theatre to watch a Kalaripayattu performance. This is an ancient form of martial arts taught in Kerala, and is thought to be the forerunner of all martial arts and as ancient as 3000 years old. We had no idea what to expect from this performance, and were shocked when we saw two of the masters engage in an intense sword fight including flips and spins using real swords (although they were blunted). Many of their techniques are inspired by animal movements, and also seem to borrow from yoga poses. One of the performers was a young boy of about 9 years old who was spinning a stick very proficiently and doing some of the simpler movements. They would send him out to show some of the more basic techniques, and then one of the masters would come out to show the advanced techniques. It was really cool to see the progression from a child to a master who has trained their whole life in this ancient martial art. After the show, they asked if anyone wanted to come up on stage to learn some moves, so up I went. They taught me some basic grappling defense techniques such as how to defend when someone headlocks you from behind. I was in for a surprise when he demoed this on me, as it consists of a punch to the balls (very effective technique 😂).

We managed to find a local yoga instructor who offered private classes. His price for a private class was out of our budget, and when we told him this he said he would do it for about 1/5th of the price as “Money shouldn’t be a barrier to Yoga”. He was a young guy and was incredibly strong and flexible. The class was hard, but very rewarding and he gave me some tips on how to do a headstand (now I can finally be that cringy tourist doing headstands on the beach). He also gave us some great recommendations on where we should go after Kochi.

At one of the local art cafes (literally art galleries which are also cafes), we saw a painting that really caught our eyes, particularly Alice’s eyes as she teared up when she first saw it. A gorgeous portrait of five women wearing sarees painted by someone called Ramani. It was out of our budget by a lot, but Alice asked the gallery manager for this mysterious Ramani’s contact details and sent a lovely message. After five minutes Alice got a phone call from the artist who turned out to be a local grandmother in her eighties. She invited us to her penthouse suite in a building looking out over the harbour to see more of her art, and discuss purchasing the painting. We were given a full tour of her penthouse suite to see her paintings, and then driven by her driver in an actual car to see her gallery. Sidenote, being in a car is a real rarity for us these days. In the last two months I think we have been in about two cars. 

Anyway back to the art story, it turns out she was the matriarch of a wealthy family in Kochi and her children are spread out around the world working important jobs. She spends her days painting now and her art is amazing. We were seriously considering splashing out and buying this painting to send back home. She did also lower the price for us and it would have cost around $950NZD, which is way more than we could afford to spend. But we both loved it and really want to bring some art home with us to fill the house we don’t own yet. We did go back to the gallery the next day to look at it one more time, and eventually decided it was too expensive and we couldn’t really justify spending the money sadly. I’m sure we will find some more amazing art on this trip which will be a bit more affordable.

It is a real struggle when visiting a city to get a sense of what it is like when you only have a few days there. We only really spent time in Fort Kochi which is a tiny part of Kochi, and I would have loved to explore further afield but we didn’t have time. From what I saw though, I definitely liked Kochi as a city and would love to go back there one day. Now it was time to leave the coast behind and head into the rolling hills of tea plantations and waterfalls where we could hopefully find some trekking.

Kerala is famed for its varied, beautiful nature. We’d already been lucky enough to experience the palm tree fringed train tracks, cliff lined beaches and vivid sunsets, and we were excited to venture deeper into the backwaters of this special state. ‘God’s Own Country’ is the motto of Kerala, and as our train got closer to Munroe Island it was easy to see why. The Kerala backwaters are a network of canals, rivers, lakes and lagoons that stretch for over 900 kilometres through the coastal areas of the state. Lots of visitors experience these on a houseboat, but that was slightly out of the budget for this trip. Instead, we were heading to a quiet place called Munroe Island, at the top of Lake Ashtamudi. From Varkala, it was a short 45 minute train journey to a local station where we hopped in an auto rickshaw to get to our home stay. The first special touch of this island (and there were a few!) was finding the father of the family we were staying with waiting at the roadside with his canoe, ready to take us over the river to the accommodation. The place was accessible by road, but it was so nice of them to make sure we had a shorter and much more scenic arrival! The home stay was a small family affair with a few rooms above the main house. The place was run by the wonderful Vijeesh, with boat trips by his father and cooking by his mother. 

On our first night we had a shared dinner with the other guests, before being asked if we wanted to attend a concert at a local school. Of course we all said yes! We walked as a group down the road to the local school where we could hear the music blaring through the speakers from a few hundred meters away. It was very cute watching the primary aged students all dressed up doing their versions of traditional dances. Everyone was involved and it was very special to be included in the local village community this way. When we got back, Vijeesh very proudly told us that it was his niece who had been front and center, definitely one of the stars of the show!

The main attraction on the island is a tour of the backwaters and at 5 AM the next morning we were up and into the canoe with Vijeesh’s Dad. Vijeesh had the genius idea of putting thin mattresses into the canoe so people can sit sideways (perpendicular to the boat) and relax, as opposed to having to sit up on the raised seats with no back support the entire time. This worked a treat and we were both totally relaxed, just enjoying watching the world go by. Rumour has it that I may have fallen asleep, but I will deny that one… I was just resting my eyes! We rode through small canals and waterways out to Ashtamudi Lake, where of course we went through the compulsory mangrove tunnel. It was interesting to hear how the area used to be primarily used for rice production, but due to climate change and increased salinization, they can no longer grow rice here. We saw a lot of prawn farms on our boat trip, which is now the primary export of the area. The boat trip was very scenic and beautiful and it's clear to see why this part of the state is so world famous. Spending a few days on these canals in a house boat would be pretty special, but it was equally cool to get to travel through some of the tiny waterways that went through local villages. 

That evening we decided we should really see a little more of the island, so we borrowed the push bikes from the home stay to head to a dinner spot Josh had found on google maps. On the way we could see that sunset was fast approaching, and we saw a sign that said “view point”. So of course, we grabbed a warm 7 Up from the small store we were next to, and ventured to find the view point and hopefully catch the sunset! We biked down a series of big hills which seemed a little counter productive, and didn’t find a viewpoint. We had enjoyed the ride though, and the 7 Up was appreciated on the bike back up! It added a few extra kilometers to our ride, and with darkness basically upon us, we found a different spot for dinner. We got our bikes under cover, and then it absolutely started bucketing down. Some of the heaviest rain I have ever seen in my life! The restaurant kindly obliged our request to sit in a covered area outside, so we could really take in the storm. The rain came and went, and there was some incredibly impressive thunder and lightning! Now we are into March we are experiencing the summer rains, which occur in the months before monsoon. It stays hot, and the rain usually passes in half an hour or so. Once we had finished eating we took a break in the rain to bike home, and somehow made it back to our accommodation dry! 

The next day we hopped on the local train for the three and a half hour ride down to the coastal city of Kochi, which cost us all of 70 rupee, or $1.41 NZD!! Munroe Island was a great antidote to the development and intense tourism of Varkala, and it was nice to have a quiet day enjoying this beautiful corner of the state.