After leaving Amrutham Ayurvedic Village Resort refreshed, revived and rejuvenated, I was getting ready to head back up the continent with the view to visiting Hampi, Goa and Mumbai.  But before I made my way there I wanted to visit Madurai and Thanjuvar for their magnificent temples. Logistically it was a large area to cover on my own and I was having a dilemma of how to travel to each destination as I didn’t want to miss anything.

But because I had diverted slightly at the start of my trip to meet a friend in Bengularu, I was going to have to zigzag my way back up which was proving to be difficult due to long train journeys, and flights weren’t flying directly to where I wanted to be.  In the end with another recommendation from a friend, I hired a taxi and looped from Kovalam down to the very bottom tip of India to Cape Comorin and then on to Madurai.

Kovalam was my least favourite place and I couldn’t wait to leave.  I felt like I was on set of the programme Benidorm.  I spent just two nights there and would far rather have spent them in Varkala.

From Kovalam I headed down to the very bottom of India to Cape Comorin, Kanyakumari, and I’m glad I ventured there to see this vibrant fishing village. Because of it’s geographical location, you can watch the sunset and sunrise literally within walking distance of each other.  It’s also where the Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea all meet.  A spiritual place for worship, there is plenty to see on an overnight stop-over.

Then it was time to started heading up!  A 300km drive past an extensive wind farm which was encouraging to see, I arrived in Madurai.  Madurai is famous for it’s temple Meenakshi Amman. An impressive site and well worth the visit.

Unfortunately I didn’t make it to Thanjuvar to visit Brihadishwara Temple, it was proving too difficult on my own to get there and I opted to fly instead from Madurai to Goa.  I was trying to get to Hampi on the way to Goa, but again is was a struggle to get there, so I decided to go to Goa first and then make my way to Hampi from there. Frustrating! If I had a companion I would have taken the long train journeys ahead, but alas it wasn’t meant to be this time.  And in true Indian style, the only way I could fly to Goa from Madurai was to go in the opposite direction flying back to Chennai having to catch two flights!