Andaman islands

First week of vacation of december. Destination the unknown Andaman islands.
Beaches, fish, wildlife, good food, nice people... The pictures speak for themselves.
The first day we arrived by plane and went directly to Havelock island. An island with the most beautiful beach in the world (beach no 7 or "Radha Nagar" Beach), rated best beach in asia in 2004 by times ; no buildings only forest directly behind the beach, perfect water and pefect white sand. We also swam in a lagoon close to this beach (a tourist was apparantly eaten there by a salt water crocodile).
The next day we went to elephant beach to snorkel; really big fish!!!! The sad thing was that all the coral had died during the last summer due to abnormal high water temperatures....
Thus the only good coral was 20m down, which by snorkeling is quite difficult to get to...
We tried to reach another snorkel point by fisher boat. But the sea was sooo bad and there was sooo much water coming in that we decided to turn back and explore a magnificent beach on an uninhabited island.
The next day we decided to change islands and go to neil island. This island was even less touristy than havelock. The beaches were really interesting because there were trees growing in the water which was possible because of the tides. We ate a 2.5 kg fish (see picture) for 5 euros a restaurant...
Going to be travelling through the main indian cities tomorrow. Big Train trip ahead!

Munnar (tea country) to Kodaikanal Trek

Last weekend we we travelled to Munnar, town in the state Kerala in South India.
The main business is tea and everything turns around it.
When looking at the landscape the only thing one sees is tea tea tea plantations all over, it made the landscape really unreal and something never seen before.
Munnar town was not that special but we went on a tour around it to see the main tourism attractions.
There was for example a spice garden, where they had plants which closed their leaves when you touch them... We went to a tea museum where all the tea processing was explained and the different ways to make tea. There was also a propaganda movie explaining that the tea company was the best company in the world and that it's employees were the best treated ever!!!! :)
We saw a honeybee tree. There must have been a dozen colonies up in the tree and we were happy not to be too close to them.
There was an echo point where you got your echo back from the mountain 2 seconds later: impressive stuff!

Then finally on saturday we started the trek, the main reason we came to Munnar for.
The first day we walked 22 km and the second 33 km. We were really lucky with the weather and the sights were just amazing. No animals but the paths were good and we didn't see anybody on our way.

To get to Kodaikanal we had to take a bus for 45 km from our end point of our trek. It was the fullest bus i have ever seen in India. It was sooo full that when the driver went up a hill the bus was soooo heavy that the bus driver had to switch to first gear. It took us 3 hours to cover the distance.
Then from Kodaikanal a private bus to Chennai for another 12 hours....
Arrived dead tired and destroyed legs and sick in chennai having two exams this week and two next week: Going to be a lot of fun.

Nellore and Bangalore

My first semester is coming to an end. Finally!!
The real vacations can begin and can't wait till i present my parents part of India!

A few weeks ago we visited a state called Andra Pradesh which is just north of Chennai.
This state is the state with the least tourism in India.
We went to a town called Nellore, we saw that there was a beach close to this town so we decided to go there without any expectations at all.
The beach was amazing, nobody there and beautiful weather. The only problem was that there was no restaurant so we had to survive on our 8 bananas for the next 4 hours but we managed to survive.
The day after we left for Bangalore. Real modern town. A lot of international businesses have their offices there. The traffic was actually regulated and the air was a bit cooler than the one in chennai. We saw some museums and temples but nothing really special.

Sri Lanka

This country was named the pearl of the indian ocean. And when arriving we could immediately see why. White beaches like never seen before. Untouched jungles and waterfalls one could never imagine. I stayed in Sri Lanka for 4 days. This country is rich in everything one could want. Beach resorts, empty beaches, national parks as big as any, mountains, trekking possibilities and many historical monuments.
The first day we arrived at the airport at 3 am. We directly went to an old Dutch colony named Galle. This city is protected by the Unesco and one can immagine why. Its richness in architecture and historic significance is really big. This town is in the south of sri lanka and thus on the trade route from europe to asia or from asia to africa. Many ships sunk in this region trying to attack this city and that's the reason for all the artifacts found underwater.
After visiting this town we went to two different beaches: Utanawana and Weligama beach. In Utanawana I personnaly had one of the best fish ever. We had a big fresh crab which I had never eaten and a whole tuna fish which was also really delicious.
Weligama beach was also nice but we couldn't stay there much.
The evening we travelled to Deniyaya. A town close to a rain forest. I had never been to a rain forest and i think it is quite amazing. We saw trees with roots growing from the side of the trunk. We saw 2 magnificent waterfalls like in a fairytale. There were also many lizards and spiders...
The day after we set out to climb Adam's Peak. A mountain 2100 meters high. On top of this mountain there is the most beautiful view of sri lanka. We started climbing these steps at 5 am and arrived at 10 am. But on top there was only fog and we didn't see anything. We couldn't even see adam's foot because the key to the door in the temple was not available. We stayed up there for a few hours and were offered tea and a bed from the guards of the temple.
And finally the last day we went around seeing the most important monuments of Sri lanka by taxi. The only one town really worth visiting to me is Kandy. There was a wonderful Buddhist temple.

Kerala

2 weekends ago we went to Kerala. Kerala is the south eastern region in India. It is supposed to be one of the most wonderful and best preserved regions in India. The beaches are amazing and it is simply green everywhere. There was a palm-tree every 2 meters.
We went on a backwater trip, which is a boat trip through natural and some artificial canals in the wild of this state. It was quite pretty but after a while it got really boring. We stayed on the boat for the night and had some good fish but the water was a bit dirty and in the end it wasn't really worth the price.
We also visited Varkala and Kovalam beach which were nice but overdeveloped. There were some really big eagles in the sky. The people don't really hunt them there, so there are many of them.
We went to the Neyyar Dam national Park. There was a huge dam and I climbed up a mountain with beautiful view of the landscape all around.
The last day we went to a beach close to Kochi called Cherai beach. There were many indians which came there and it was a good opportunity to blend in with the crowd, although this is nearly never possible.
The trip back to the airport was one of the most stressful ever. It was 40 km by bus which took us something like 3 hours. So in the end we had to take a taxi to be able to get to the airport 40 minutes before takeoff...

Ooty and Mudumalai National Park

3-4 weeks ago we went to an old english hillstation named ooty. Supposed to be one of the most beautiful hill stations in our state. The only impressive thing was that it was incredibly cold up there. A senstation i haven't had in india since i arrived. During the nights at the hillstation we even had to wear sweaters...
During this long weekend we also went to a national park nearby this hillstation. Its name is Mudumalai national park. We saw many animals including Python, elephant, black bears, samba dear (not sure about the spelling), waterbuffalo and ofcoarse many Kingfisher.
To come back to Chennai we took a very pretty old english train back. It took 4 hours to cover 20 km but it was still worth the views.

Tirupati and Tirumala

This last weekend we left for a town called Tirupati. Never heard of it?? Anyway its the second biggest pilgrimage site in the world. There are 40000 people and more people coming each day there to get there heads shaved and to see this god. It is so crazy that before you see the god you have to wait 5-10 hours in line, what we didn't do. The temple was in the middle of the hills which was really nice. So we went walking and we saw some waterfalls and some strange animals and had a nice quite relaxing time which changes quite a lot from india. Everyone always wants a picture from you and always wants to know all about you and you never really have a moment alone unless you go into the wild.

Trichy and Tajore

Yes we keep on travelling every weekend. We always find a new place to go and this time we first left to a city, Trichy, which is the central city of our state (Tamil Nadu). In this small Indian city (650000 people) there is the biggest temple in India. Was really impressive. Had like 9 outer walls which made this temple really big. We also walked up the rock fort, which was an old defensive place for the town from which one had a spectacular view of everything.
The day after we went to Tajore. There is really a beautiful temple there. Its going to feast its 1000 years of existance. For this there is going to be a huge festival with acting, dancing eating... and we are normally going to go back there to see this.

Tiruvannamalai and Mysore

So we continued our trip on this weekend to a beautiful town with an impressive temple: Tiruvannamalai. It is where the people worship Shiva. There is a huge mountain which dominates this town. We walked up it for 3 hours and the view really was amazing.
We sweated so much when going up, and we didn't have enough drinking water, that the guide made us drink moutain water which was supposed to be holy and cure whatever sickness one has.
the day after we vistited the temple which was really extraordinary. There was an elephant in there and I got blessed by it again.
Then the day after we left for Mysore. Where the people light up the main palace at night which was really impressive. We also bought our way into a under reconstruction 5 star hotel. We just gave the two guards 3 francs. From this hotel one could see the whole town below which was quite nice.

Gingee

I had a really busy and long weekend. Missed the only class I had on friday to be able to travel 3 and a half days. Left on thursday at noon and came back on monday morning by train to miss my first class...
The three town we vistited were really amazing. In Gingee we just stayed the thursday afternoon, to walk up a hill and see an old fort with a view of the whole surroundings. The fort is incredible. It was walls 20 feet thick. There are three outposts so that the walls were protecting everything which was inside with a triangle shape. One of the outposts was the fort on the hill, where for example the grain was held and where there was also a temple. Will update the two remaining cities of the last weekend later. Have my dear aunt coming to the airport and I have to pick her up. Ciao

Madurai, Kanyakumari and Mahabalipuram2

Two weekends ago we decided to leave again to the south of india. We actually went to the southest point possible of india, where one is supposed to see the three oceans combine. The arabic, the bengal and the indian ocean. We didn't really see that but it was a beautiful part of the country. There was this huge statue in the middle of the ocean with a temple by its side and the sunrise was just amazing...
Coming and going to the southest point of india we did by train. Incredibly the trains were perfectly on time. We took the sleeper non A/C compartments which were very comfortable. We were the only Europeans in there.
Then we saw madurai which is a city with a huge huge temple. It also has some museums and a palace but the temple was just amazing. There was even an elephant inside and you could get good luck from the elephant by giving it some money and the elephant pounded it's big trunk on your head which was supposed to be for good luck. Quite funny.
I went back to Mahabalipuram too for 1 day to get out of the heat hell that Chennai can become. Had some great food, fish!! Went up a hill behind Mahabalipuram where there a beautiful view.