We needed to break up the beach time and get a bit of culture so we hopped on the train 7 hours (ish) inland to Hampi. We seem to have a good routine when we get on long journeys now - James generally gets on the top bunk and falls asleep and I somehow manage to pass the time! However at one point in the journey, we both ended up on the top bunk after my seat got taken over by a very large family!...it was cosy to say the least. Then a guy and his old dad got k...

Stayed at; Brown Bread coco-huts - 6 more nights, Woodstock - 1 night The rest of our time in Palolem was mainly spent making the most of the beach and the good weather! Once the weekend was out of the way (because, as you can see, we've been really busy and felt like we deserved the rest!), we made the 2 hour round trip to Margao on the bus to get our train tickets to Hampi sorted out. It was worth it though as we managed to get both return tickets for around...

Stayed at; Brown Bread coco-huts - 10 nights (at the moment!) Well, time really does fly when you're having fun….or doing nothing! We were meant to leave Palolem today and go inland to Hampi, but the train we tried to book was 'full' and the guy in the travel 'agency' was trying to sell us a ticket for 3x the price. Also, as I wasn't feeling too well, we decided to stay put for a while. The next train to Hampi with any availability is on 20th of this month...

Stayed at: Good Karma Inn, 3 nights So, the day had come to drag ourselves away from the beach…as tough as it was, we knew it had to be done. Kochi was a 4 hour train ride North along the coast and it was very pretty, lots of green, palm trees and mangroves. Our guest house was quite centrally located in Fort Kochi, so once we arrived and settled in, we went for a little wonder to try and find some dinner, in the process, I got pooped on by a bird – shame we...

Stayed at: Swargam Hostel, Yoga, India, 7 nights (although, no yoga!) Points of Note: Coffee Temple became our favourite breakfast place – real baked beans and great coffee! Trains to Varkala were fairly regular, so we weren’t too concerned about getting up and out early, it was only an hour’s journey north. We knew that there were buses and trains going from Trivandrum, so the first mission was to get there. After failing to haggle with a tuk tuk driver ...