Chennai was quite an experience. Traffic was hair-raising, with cars, motor-bikes, auto rickshaws, bikes, cows, oxen carts all mingling

together on pot - holed roads, hooting the whole time to make each other aware. No seat-belts, no crash helmets, several children and baby held on one bike, with saris flapping around the wheels. Everywhere we went we were followed by beggars, old and young, and it is a difficult experience to only give what is acceptable without causing disruption, or problems.

We were very relieved to get away from the city, and went for a day trip to Mamallapuram, where we saw ancient temples by the Bay of Bengal.

Rosa was offered a horse ride on the beach by a young man on a large white horse. It seemed wise to decline. There was a sign warning of dangerous swirls and whirling, which did not seem to be deterring crowds of swimmers, including women fully dressed in saris and scarves, all delighting in the waves.

Our next destination was Coimbatore, an industrial city where our friend was working in the hospital. The train journey was wonderful, with constant offers of chai, coffee, samosas, biryani, dhosa, omelettes, soup,water at least every 10 minutes. We saw beautiful rural villages, and farms with bison, cows, goats, and oxen. As it went dark we realised that there were very few lights, and if you looked out of the train door, which was flapping open - the stars were wonderful. Children a few seats ahead of us started stamping around and whooping, and we saw a mouse running down the corridor to escape. Needless to say we held on to our trouser bottoms. It was good to see our friends, and we spent the next day shopping at Fabindia, and went for a very swanky breakfast in a 5 star hotel, which cost about £2 each.

Next stop was Ooty ( Ootacamund ), a hill station in the Nilgiri hills, where our friend Suzy and children go to Hebron School, an International Christian School. Rosa and I volunteered for 2 days and were made very welcome. Many of the children are boarders, and their parents are spread all over the world, so it had a real feel of a surrogate family.

Mudumulai, and the wildlife park were our next stop. We stayed at a wonderful place called Forest Hills which was high up overlooking a wide plateau. On a trek we saw  bison carcases which had been killed by a tiger. This was a bit unnerving as we were on foot, and our guide, Ravi had sent the dogs back so that they did not attract attention. Our driver told us that the tiger walked past his car in the middle of the night. Gulp! We tried forest gooseberries, and cactus pulp, and admired the lantana bushes growing like weeds and poinsettia bushes 6 feet high. Later that day we rode on an elephant-very high up- and saw wild peacocks and spotted deer. We saw the elephants being bathed in the river, and marvelled at them being fed. I foolishly gave a monkey a banana, and he then came after me for the rest with a lot of aggressive hissing and snarling. Ravi had to threaten him with a brush to keep him off. A bit scary given that they can have rabies.

Soon we set off for Kerala, particularly Fort Cochin, a very settled old town. At the end of our road were many Chinese fishing nets - large squares which are dropped into the sea on a wooden pulley system, and our great treat was a dolphin swimming close to shore around the nets. We went on the most peaceful experience of our trip here with a backwaters trip on a rattan houseboat.

A very skilled man punted us around the Periyar river system for 4 hours, with a wonderful thali on banana leaves provided half way round. We saw people washing their hair in the river, and understood how closely they depend on it for sand excavation, fishing and fertile crops like coconuts and bananas.

Difficult to sum up our time - only that after 2 weeks we were only just beginning to understand how to conduct ourselves, and to fully appreciate what was going on  around us. My main feeling is that life is lived with much more vivacity and curiosity than we seem to have here. We are so much more constrained by health and safety measures, and being careful.  Comforting though.