Karthick Hotel Thanjavur

... a form and take a seat, and the queue will move up a seat each time somebody moves up to the counter and gets served. So we filled in the form and slowly made our way up the slippery metal seats, until we finally managed to hand it in, train number and destination and required class and seats selected, to pay around 550 rupees for the privilege of a bed.

This was 10AM. We had 12 hours ahead of us, our stomachs were feeling woozy from too much curry in Malaysia, but we were ...

... food, in order to avoid catching a nasty diarrhea, by having my meals in establishments with minimum hygienic conditions and by avoiding meat or fish as much as possible. And that's not always trivial when one visits "off the main tourist track" cities or villages where the only possibility are the street food stalls that I don't dare to give a chance (most likely there is no problem). So a couple of days I ended up eating just a bag of crisps and some fruit.

... Vi bor paa 6 sal, rigtig go udsigt. paa fjerde er der en pool med udsigt over byen. Da vi gaar ud i byen overraskes vi endnu engang af larmen, lugtene og mylderet af mennesker. Vi finder et godt sted at spise, her spiser vi alle vores maaltider..maden er super go :) Klokken 16-18 forsvinder stroemmen hver dag. Underligt :) Torsdag morgen ser vi daarligt indisk tegnefilm inden vi ...

... not something I would go see at home. What I did find interesting was while I was waiting for the movie to begin, I was doing some people watching. There weren't too many people walking around the shopping mall, but there were people congregating around the escalators. This is not the first time I've seen escalators in India, but it seems like it was the first time for many shoppers. It would take some people up to ten ...

... flagstones were largely cool and shady. This temple, however, was a total suntrap - often with wide open sandy stretches that we somehow had to get across (cue 'ouch ouch ouch ow ow' and lots of Indians laughing at us). The temple had a very strange feel to it - there were lots of shops selling bits and bobs and lots of people sitting about eating. It felt, in places, more like a bit of the town than a temple. Once again, there was a lot of the temple we weren't allowed into - including ...

Thanjavur is not much of a town. The Brithadishwara temple, a world heritage site, didn't look all too impressive in the gloomy light of the rainy day. Positively, I managed to sneak-pick few photos of the temple elephant. My personal highlights from Thanjavur are an all-you-can-eat-vegetable-tally lunch for R20 (50 cents) and the visit to the Royal palace. The palace was a pile of old bricks, but the guys who was ...

... So far, we haven't found it anymore difficult to get around then any other place we have been. It is more intense, after a few minutes of walking down the street you really feel as though you need a break. The people have been nice, there is a little less English than we expected. It would be especially helpful if there was English on the buses. But there has always been someone around willingly to go a little out of there way and give us a hand to catch the correct ...

English - Another early start (6am) and this was going to be a very busy period for us, we plan to cover 5 cities and 700 hundred kilometers in less than a week. Traveling in India is slightly harder than in Sri lanka. Not as many people speak English and most of the bus signs are not in english. Therefore we have to rely on local information, you ask 10 different people and get 10 different answers - de jar vu! (how do you spell that?) On our way south to Thanjavur we stopped one ...

... and I'll be there for my birthday which is very exciting. I'm flying there on the 25th and can't wait!!!!! Toby - where was it you went again??? Wixley - we'll have to chat about the children...................!!!!!! Abi - Hope you found the route ok??????? and Good luck at the school! Simo - the biggest congrats, yet again!!!!!!!! Fi - don't smoke in the bathroom............... Gemma - glad all is well!! and I'm sure the celebrating will go well ...

Big tempel bezoeken met de grappige gids Raja. Alweer vroeg dag: 6.30 uur verzamelen; De dag begint traditiegetrouw met: Goeiemorgen, morgen, goeiedag. Blij dat ik je weer ontmoeten mag,... Na een uurtje bus bezochten we de Brahadeesvarar tempel. Daarna stapten we weer in ons o zo comfortabele busje (!) op weg naar Kumbakonam voor ontbijt. Na veel zoeken vonden we ...