Diana and John visit South India Feb 2025
So OK first time in India for us both and after lots of research we ended up favouring South India. We organised our own 3 week tour but it couldn't really be said that we went off the tourist trail we just went about it slightly differently. We booked all our accommodation through booking.com except the Kabini River Jungle Lodge which has to be booked direct with the Government of Karnataka.
We didn't realise in advance that the 3 states we were visiting were governed differently and indeed have different languages: Malayalam in Kerala, Tamil in Tamil Nadu and Kannada in Karnataka. All the people that we met were lovely, friendly and helpful and not just people in the hospitality industry - Everyone.
We stayed in 7 centres so the pages of photos are organised by place however as the Nilgiri Mountain Railway took 5 hours and generated quite a few pictures it has its own separate page. Accommodation is described under each centre. The weather was hot and dry all the time although cooler in Ooty.
Modes of transport and detail are explained on a separate page, normally for a touring holiday John would hire a car and drive us around but all the advice says IN INDIA DON'T TRY. And when we got there we realised that trying to drive UK style in India would be impossible. Everyone drives too fast, too close, push in, swerve and overtake on blind corners all on roads full of potholes and other random hazards in what seems a reckless and suicidal way although miraculously everyone seems to survive!
Our 7 centres plus the Nilgiri Mountain Railway
