The Trip: India

NAME Julie Wilson and Steve James, Fairfield, Victoria

THE TRIP South India

THE ITINERARY We flew Air India from Melbourne to Delhi for the night, then to Goa for four days. We then flew to Kochi in Kerala, and over two weeks made our way by car or bus to Munnar in the hills, and then Alleppey, Kollam and Trivandrum down the Arabian Sea coast (with a day trip to Kanyakumari, the southernmost tip). On to Madurai in Tamil Nadu, and then over three weeks by car we travelled to Kodaikanal, Trichy, Thanjavur and Kumbakonam, joined the Bay of Bengal coast at Pondicherry, then to Mamallapuram and finished off in Chennai. We returned home via four days in Delhi.

We stayed in a combination of guesthouses and cheap hotels, with two nights at a full-on resort in Kumbakonam as an indulgence.

BEST BITS The people of Kerala and Tamil Nadu: they are wonderfully helpful and friendly. Can you visit too many temples? Possibly, but some are unmissable, including the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Chola temples Brihadeeswarar in Thanjavur, built in 1010, and Airavatesvara at Darasuram, built in the mid-12th century; and the Pallava-era (7th and 8th century) rock temples of Mamallapuram. Travancore palace architecture: Krishnapuram (Kerala) and Padmanabhapuram (Tamil Nadu); the Tirumalai Nayak Palace in Madurai. There was gorgeous scenery in the tea plantations of Munnar, the Keralan backwaters out of Alleppey and Kollam, the blue hills of Kodaikanal. Throw in Pondicherry's French savoir faire, and the cosmopolitan ambience of Hauz Khas in Delhi.

WORST BITS The difficulties involved in getting a beer, and the accommodation and food tax regime.

BEST TIP Offline GPS is very helpful for checking routes to accommodation and sites, and working out just where the hell you are. Navigator's maps offer a small data footprint, HERE WeGo's maps are comprehensive, and downloaded sections from Google Maps, which typically cover even a big city like Delhi, are great for finding shops, restaurants and hotels.

WHERE TO NEXT Uruguay