Outline of our trip

We bought tickets with Virgin to Mumbai for a month's stay. We considered taking a train on to Kerala, but the journey is over 30 hours; so, we bought air tickets to Kochi from Kingfisher, giving us a night in Mumbai on the way out and 2 coming home.

Juju beach in Mumbai

The previous year we'd cycled around the West of Cuba, and we thought cycling might we an interesting way of seeing Kerala. Our plan was to travel slowly over a fairly small area, taking it easy and not trying to prove anything to anyone. The itinerary was roughly: start in Kochi, because the books reckoned it was a nice place and it had good air, rail and road communications; visit Munar in the Western Gats to see some scenery and escape the heat; then to Periyar for the wild life sanctuary; Alappuzhar for the Backwaters; then back to Kochi.