Delhi, and the End of Life as we know it.....

Our flight was a smooth one dropping us in Delhi early evening, where as true to form we evaded the taxi stand and jumped straight onto the local bus, that took us almost to the doorstep (just a nice 15min walk with bags - our final ever trapse with these god damn rucsacs!). As creatures of habit we booked back into the same not-so delux hotEl we'd stayed in last time even getting the same room. Things have however taken a turn for the worse with both of us suffering from a mystery illness, easiest described as Delhi Belly and we'd only been in the city 5 mins! Our final day of Indian life was focused entirely on buying last minute presents / souvenirs, as the feasting on Indian food is currently off limits for both of us! We certainly haven't held back and we may as well let you all know there has been a new addition made to our family...congratulations is not required but we are coming home with a 6kg dark skinned elephant (Nellie the Ellie from Smelly delhi)...
If everything goes smoothly we will be catching our lunchtime flight tomorrow to arrive back in the UK at 5pm, to be kindly greeted and picked up by Dave (we really appreciate it David - you better turn up now!)

What can we say!!! The last 14 months has been absolutely amazing, seeing and doing things we never knew existed or ever dreamed of (and thats the legal stuff)!
India itself stared off a bit dubious but over the last 2months it has really grown on us, and we are actually sorry to be saying goodbye. This said some cleanliness and hygiene standards will be greatly appreciated.......
For anyone out there who thinks this sort of travel is beyond them whether it be for financial or personal reasons take it from us...
......IT IS THE BEST THING YOU COULD EVER DO WITH YOUR LIFE !!
All you got to do is try you f***ing pussies!!!!!
THE END

Bangalore

Bangalore sits at almost 1000m and we felt this on our overnight train, it's the first time in a long while we've actually been cold. A beautiful day greeted us as our on-time train (an absolute miracle in India!) pulled into the main station. Again this is another city with not a great appeal for tourists other than a multitude of shops, malls and savvy restaurants. The main centre of Bangalore is not like India at all, it feels like you have been teleported back to Europe, and the prices in the shops reflected this also! Keeping things real we bedded down in the cheap / grotty Kings Cross equivilant area of town, home to at least 76 luggage shops and a similar amount of shoe shops. Our first day was spent getting our bearings of the city and on first impressions it looked like our shopping spree would be stopped dead in it's tracks, a real shortage of normal everyday shops - we aren't after the big brands at top notch prices!
We took the bull by the horns and ventured away from the beaten path to find our type of shops, unfortunately we did have to see the poverty stricken side of Bangalore. For all this is the Silicon Valley of India with the fancy office blocks and obvious wealth it doesn't look like its been distributed very fairly...
Our mission was a sucess as we found our favourite brand of shop 'Big Bizarre' an Indian house wife's one stop shop for all Geeta's household needs - once we got in the swing of things there was no stopping us and on our final day we went to town in the swanky area of Bangalore; a certain young lady purchasing a ridiculously priced Italian Leather Handbag from a fancy boutique!
We left Bangalore having gained an extra suitcase worth of goodies (yes the 2nd suitcase of our travels!) and boarded our flight heading back to Delhi - right on the border line for luggage weight allowance!

Thrivandrum

Our final ever long distance bus journey took us to the State Capital of Kerala which has nothing to boast like the draw of other parts of Kerala, apart from a busy high street of shops which suited us fine as we are now starting shopping mode with only one week to go! Not a great deal to say about Thrivandrum but we did manage to fill in three whole days doing lots of random shopping (spices, kitchen wear, etc) and eating a shed load of food for some reason our appetites have come back with avengence!
There was also a very well stocked zoo which entertained us one sunny afternoon admiring elephants, hippos, tigers and funny looking crocodiles with long thin snouts. These crocodiles proved to be the highlight of Chris's day as while watching them basking in the sunshine we witnessed a six footer get shat on from a high by a large bird, very funny if you've got a simple mind! (women are sooo boring!).
We left Kerala on our final overnight train heading to Bangalore, apparently 2nd only to Mumbai for a real cosmopolitan experience.