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This is an account of two trips to India in late 2008 and early 2009. The first began at Kovalam beach in Tamil Nadu and ended in Jaipur's old terracotta city. It included stops in Chennai, Bangalore, Mysore, Kabini in Karnataka, Delhi and Agra. The second trip covered Trivandrum and Kovalam in Kerala, Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu and Mumbai.

From Tiru to Tiru

Tiruvananthapuram to Tirunelveli is definitely not part of the usual tourist circuit. But I would recommend it to anyone who has an interest in the south of India even if you have no connection with the place. You start off in Kerala, a state with a higher percentage of minority religions such as Islam and Christianity compared to most other Indian states and you end up in Tamil Nadu which is almost totally Hindu.


A Cove by any other name

India usually has the NRI either amused, entertained or thoroughly confused by the way names, which you often find unique in your country of residence, suddenly appear commonplace. You see various permutations of the same name recreated in the North and South, East and West. So discovering that there were two beaches by the same name in South India - one on the east coast and one on the west coast wasn't too difficult to digest.


Cluttered Kovalam

Kovalam Beach, Kerala is now little different to Pattaya in Thailand or Kuta in Bali. Yet there is a certain happy, even brazen, mingling between the locals and tourists which isn't necessarily a bad thing.


Stating the facts

The Taj Green Cove is set in a grove of coconut trees. This is fact. The resort has been thoughtfully landscaped with a huge variety of exotic flowering shrubs and tall trees making it tick several check-boxes in any greenie's checklist. Add to this, a pool which appears to seamlessly melt into the Arabian Sea and you are close to paradise, or so it seems...


All editorial content by Malini Tambyah