Radinja 9

The Hotel Nani has suited our purpose. Decent AC, comfortable bed and not too noisy. Breakfast is a buffet, advertised from 07.30 but this comes as a bit of a surprise to the restaurant staff. Still they switch the lights on and scurry round to assemble the buffet. While they do this we content ourselves with a couple of small Indian bananas. The buffet is not too bad and the hard boiled eggs look like favourites to scoop R's Boiled Egg of the trip awards. Amazing what subjects arise when one shares a breakfast table every day for five weeks. Today is the last planned train ride for this trip, although D does have his eyes on a Kochi Metro outing. In years gone by we have usually finished off with an overnighter to the capital, or on one occasion a steam hauled trip out of Delhi. This year it will be a bit more low profile, a three hour trip from Kollam to Ernakulam Junction. The auto from the hotel drops us in good time and we learn that we need to be on platform 2, across the o...

The Kuttalum Herittage is, to our eyes, a slightly odd hotel. In some ways it is top end, with a swimming pool and extensive grounds. But the rooms, while clean enough, are a bit basic and the dining hall is very institutionalised. It has notices extolling the virtues of Ayurvedic health treatments, but operates a dive bar. The food choices are limited but what is served is good and very reasonably priced. As far as we can see there are only a couple of other guests. Nevertheless we are grateful for their ability to accommodate us. Sengottai, a town which occasionally aspires to borrowing a horse, is in the far south west of Tamil Nadu, almost at the border with Kerala. We have come here in order to travel the railway to Kollam, on the Kerala coast. This originally formed part of the metre gauge line from Quillon, as it was then known, to Madras (Chennai). The metre gauge line closed in 2010 and the line was converted to Indian Broad Gauge, reopening in 2018. To think that we co...

D sets a 6 am alarm as he hopes to get pictures of the temple gopurams before the sun gets too fierce. R opts for an extra hour in bed. The streets are dark, but not deserted, and around the temple there are already a lot of worshippers. The sun rises quite quickly, but D manages to get some of the shots that he wanted, which display the colours of the carvings as they reflect the early sun. Back at the hotel a distance shot of the temple complex, over the rooftops of the city, already suffers from over exposure and it is only 7 a.m. Breakfast is busy again but D manages to place an order for a masala omelette. Two are delivered to the table, so R does the decent thing and eats one of them. Then a third one arrives and we have to pass. We have plenty of time to pack and check out before taking the short walk to Madurai Junction for our next train. By a fluke we enter the station right by the Unreserved Ticket counter. D drops the hand bags and heads for the counter, which provo...

There is an early breakfast rush as everybody wants to get out and do things before it gets really hot. Our digs recently have spoiled us for the first meal of the day and it is a bit of a come down being back to the chafing dishes and make your own tea of a buffet. We pass on the large vat of strawberry milkshake. The hard boiled eggs could have come from Bangladesh but they do a tasty wada, so we get by. The main temple, Meenakshi Amman, is the big attraction in the city and it is only a few blocks away. As we turn the corner at the end of the street we see a couple of imposing towers, known as gopurams, looming up above the streets to the east. The traffic is quiet and, in the streets immediately around the temple, almost totally prohibited. Our route selects itself based on following the shade and leads us to the West Gate, a towering structure, covered in ornate painted carvings. Here a helpful chap shows us where to find the entrance and explains that phones, cameras, shoes...

We have been at the Bull for so long that it has started to feel like home. The staff are excellent and we have forgiven the lack of a laundry list. If you come to Pondy it's worth having a look at it. Today's breakfast treats include a dosa. The packing was done last night so it is just the last minute things to go in the bag. The car arrives about 15 minutes early. Cheapskate D had ordered the Economy car which comes at 100 rupees less than the Luxury. In the event the Luxury model arrives and the driver's docket confirms the Economy price. Being a Yorkshireman definitely has an upside. On the drive out of town we realise that Pondicherry is much, much bigger than the Heritage Town at its heart. The roads are busy with buses and two wheelers. Once we clear the built up area the road is four lanes with a double white line down the middle. Our driver spends most of the time on the wrong side of the white lines, at one point overtaking someone who was well over themsel...

We have set the alarm for 06.00 as we want to look at Bharathi Park, a couple of blocks in from the sea front, and see if there are any interesting feathered friends. The sun is just rising and there is not much traffic, but a surprising number of people are walking purposefully down towards the promenade. We choose a route that takes us across the front of the Sri MV Temple, which is already quite busy. The doors are thrown back and it is possible to see the lines of worshippers waiting for their turn. No sighting of the elephant that apparently blesses visitors by tapping them on the head with her   trunk. Bharathi Park used to be the parade ground for the French Military Garrison and conversion only started in 1946, when trees were planted. There are quite a few power walkers and a lesser number of amblers taking an early morning outing. We walk the perimeter noting crows and palm squirrels, but nothing exciting. At the east gate we get a great view of the sun break...