Well….. what a strange time it’s been between Budapest and India. We had so much planned…. but the best laid plans of mice and men…. as they say….. I realised I wasn’t really well on Xmas Day in Budapest, was sure I wasn’t well on Boxing Day and then…. travelling home on the 27th, I was a sneezing, snuffling cold laden wreck. Except it wasn’t a cold! I did a covid test on the 28th and for the first time in my life saw the dreaded 2 lines. Yikes. There followed 4 days of heavy cold symptoms (but no worse) and then 5 more days waiting to test negative again. All our dinner plans with friends went up in smoke, likewise New Year’s Eve celebrations, visits to the sales, ……. It wasn’t until Wednesday, 3rd January that my test became clear. 

Anyway, we depart for India on the evening of 9th January and we are really excited to escape the hideous wind and wet of a southern English winter. Will miss our friends here and our girls but some of them are joining us together with our usual big gang of Patnem folk, so there are compensations.

This winter we are flying directly into Goa from the UK and we are staying in Patnem – with some short side trips – until mid March. Then, we are taking the train south to Cochin in Kerala and exploring there for 5 days. We’ve been to Kerala, to the tea and coffee plantations and hill stations before and the jungle game reserves as part of a trip that included Mysore. Fabulous places. But this time we are concentrating on Fort Cochin and the backwater area around there. 

Right at the end of our trip we are flying to the UAE for a week and then picking up a cruise ship to sail back to Southampton. At this point, we do wonder if that latter part will happen because the cruise route is up through the Red Sea and to Suez and it’s a bit dodgy there at the moment. Shan’t be surprised if it’s cancelled in which case we will fly home instead. Hope you enjoy my ramblings of our travels to the sun.