The 5 hour train journey took us northeast of Negombo to Anuradhapura, an ancient Buddhist city and UNESCO world heritage site. The journey was pretty uncomfortable, the train seats were as hard as concrete and were covered in plastic which ensured we sweated profusely. We were accompanied by an extended family of cockroaches, who were charming and largely kept themselves to themselves, with one exception when a small one climbed up Jan's trouser leg and gave her...

Our flight from Mumbai to Colombo, Sri Lanka was a comfortable one although at a ridiculous time (3.10am). Interestingly, we were able to take liquids, gels and pastes without any problems. Immigration and customs etc was a breeze and we were at our hotel in Negombo by 6.30am. We'd now been awake for 24 hours and we were desperate for sleep. As we lay in the bed, staring at the dubious pink and white Battenburg ceiling, we dozed off. Once refreshed, we went for...

We arrived late afternoon at Mumbai and our circle was completed. We were surrounded by a group of touts and we haggled hard with the rickshaw driver who took us for a couple of schmoes. Price agreed and we headed to the hotel, for the entire journey, the driver tried to convince us to change hotel or go shopping etc. We had had enough, the guy was a bit of an ass at the airport in front of his mates and was now trying to schmooze us and we weren't having any of ...

We arrived at Haripad station for our final rail journey in India, a two hour journey to Kochi. We got to the station 45 minutes early and we sat around waiting for the train to arrive. About five minutes before the train was due we decided that it would be prudent for us to move further down the platform to give us more chance of finding a quiet carriage. We walked about 100 meters along the platform Before we were satisfied we were in the right place. The trai...

With our preferred route to Allepey thwarted, we were starting to feel like a pair of hapless, bumbling fools. What to do?, what to do? How about a stop at an Ayurvedic spa? Nice! A short 2 hour hop by train and we would be relaxing with a juice by the pool. As the journey was short , we chose to travel in the non air conditioned sleeper class. This class tends to be pretty busy but not heaving and we had been reassured by several people in Varkala that a reserva...