WanderLeefy

11/12/2023

Happy birthday to my mum
Lovely meal tonight at the

09/12/2023

We took both our mums to tonight- it was absolutely spectacular- seriously one of the best we’ve done, and we’ve done a few! It was their first time and they LOVED it too!
Amazing that we seemed to be in a pocket of no winds considering how we’re home and it’s proper gale force! A really terrific night

26/11/2023

Exploring Mahaballipuram was one of the highlights of entire trip to South India. It’s only 1.5 hours south of Chennai and dates from the 6th Century. It’s and we can see why. Just fabulous and a great end to our wonderful trip

26/11/2023

Dipping our toes in the Bay of Bengal

Did you know that Marina Beach in Chennai, is the longest beach in Asia and the second longest urban beach in the world!

18/11/2023

Just over 24 hours In Chennai 🇮🇳
Another cracking place to visit! We enjoyed a dip of the feet into the Bay of Bengal, saw the fishermen’s area, lots of colonial buildings and Fort George.
Then today we took a drive a couple of hours south to Mahabalipuram, which has some incredible 7th century ruins which we adored exploring. Worth the visit alone! Another UNESCO ticked off ✔️

16/11/2023

We’ve very much enjoyed our time here in Madurai, South India.

Yesterday we visited Meenakshi Amman Temple, which is an absolutely stunning Hindu Temple dating from the 13th century.

This morning we visited Thirumalai Nayak Palace which is a 17th-century palace erected in 1636 AD by King Thirumalai Nayak. The building, was the main Palace, in which the king lived. The original Palace Complex was four times bigger than what remains today.

We then visited the Gandhi museum and after lunch we visited a local village which makes hand painted clay dolls

Such a lot to see here. We’re loving the chaos of the city!

15/11/2023

Absolutely staggeringly beautiful

This is Meenakshi temple which dates back to
The 13th century. It’s a Hindu temple and we were lucky enough to receive a blessing by an elephant and also watch some blessings inside including with some music played on the Shenai. No photos were allowed inside, in fact devices and even smart watches weren’t allowed inside- but we grabbed interior ones off google.

It really blew us away and we would say it was as awesome as Angkor Watt

Particularly enjoyed the view from the carpet shop roof where we left our shoes and cameras

15/11/2023

15/11/2023

Travelling between Thekkady and Madurai provided plenty of interesting things to look at!

15/11/2023

There is nothing we love more than getting to experience the locals doing their thing wherever we are in the world. Today on our journey North, our wonderful guide Biju took us for a wander through a very traditional market and showed us so many different fruit and veg varieties that we have never seen before. The sights, sounds and smells will stay with us for ever and absolutely epitomise our sheer LOVE for India. It’s chaos but it’s just irresistible!

14/11/2023

Having fun in the mountains of Kerala
Travelling to Tekkady
And fun learning about the spices grown here and a wildlife cruise on a boat

Plus more delicious Food and drink

13/11/2023

Celebrating Diwali in Kerala

Our lovely guide Biju treated us to some traditional Indian sweeties to enjoy on the coach
And images from Coconut Lagoon

13/11/2023

Today on our journey into the mountains we saw miles upon miles of pineapples growing, so it was wonderful to enjoy a freshly squeezed Pineapple juice half way through our journey

13/11/2023

Exploring the Jewish area in Kochin

13/11/2023

We had an exceptional 24 hours exploring the backwaters in Kerala

Complete with a houseboat journey and a stay at the wonderful Coconut Lagoon

11/11/2023

Our evening was spent watching the local dance performance- it’s specialist to the area of Kerala, and involves physical theatre and emotion using eyes and eyebrows particularly. The two actors wore make up from natural colours such as spices, coconut shell etc mixed with coconut oil and the performance was accompanied by a live drummer who also sang. We really enjoyed it!

11/11/2023

We had an afternoon chilling in our very lovely hotel, in the pool and a walk along the backwaters

11/11/2023

We had a lovely morning exploring Kochi, in Kerala

We visited:

Dhobi Khana, a traditional public laundry

St Francis’ church, the first European church in India built in the early 1500s

The waterfront area to see the fishing nets and fish market (plus buy some souvenirs)

A ladies coop which King Charles and Queen Camilla visited in 2016 where we brought two new masks for our worldwide mask collection

And the Palace which had a tremendous teak wood roof and stunning wall paintings that were 600 years old, along with lots of other historical artefacts to look at

A great morning!

10/11/2023

Travelling on Indian trains from Coimbatore to Kochi

10/11/2023

Some pics from our train travel today
We travelled 4 hours in the Indian railway to get from Coimbatore to Kochi, which is in Kerala

10/11/2023

Exploring Coimbatore in Southern India

10/11/2023

Travelling from Ooty to Coondoor on the Nilgiri Mountian railway

10/11/2023

Some incredible food and drink here in Coimbatore

10/11/2023

Sharing some pics from our train journey yesterday
Travelling from Ooty to Coonoor on the Nilgiri mountain railway

09/11/2023

Today was a lovely day exploring the Nilgiri hills. Sadly a landslide overnight prevented our trip on the second programmed train journey of the day, the UNESCO mountain railway, but we did manage journey number 1 from Ooty to Coonoor.

We visited a tea plantation in the hills and ate a delicious lunch, before a hair raising but spectacular journey back down the mountain and to our overnight stop at Coimbatore.

Masala cocktails as aperitif was one of the highlights today! 🍸
- vodka, curry leaves, spices, cranberry juice
😋

08/11/2023

Famous in Ooty! We made the news!
Watch to the end for a familiar face or two 🤣

https://fb.watch/oboNP0xSgR/

08/11/2023

After an exciting morning, we headed to the Palace for lunch. Yes that’s right!

Fernhills Royal Palace was the residence of quondam king of Mysore. Built in 1844, the palace resembles a Swiss chalet, and is superbly finished with Burmese teak and features a magnificent ballroom with a high vaulted ornamental Papier-mâché ceiling. The lobby of the palace has beautiful artifacts and handmade paintings of all the yesteryear rulers. Interestingly, all the rooms of the palace are addressed as suites due to its opulence and grandeur. Standing against the beautiful Nilgiri Hills, enveloped with the tea gardens and cardamom plantation, the palace was once stamping ground for the British elites. To escape the scorching summers of South India, high rank Britishers undertook Fernhills as their retreat. This quaint scenery of Ooty was widely enjoyed by the Indian and British nonpareils. It also once served as the earliest club hotels during the times of British Raj.

08/11/2023

A visit to Ooty Botanical Gardens - established in 1848 by the British who were here.

Followed by a walk through the bustling town of Ooty and a visit to St Stephen’s - a wooden Anglican church built by the Brits. Whilst here we ended up having some pictures taken by the local newspaper and an interview with the local news channel on camera! 😂
They were fascinated by our visit and we will be in the papers tomorrow and tonight’s evening news apparently 😳

08/11/2023

Exploring the highest peaks of Southern India today- the Nigiri Hills

07/11/2023

Today our journey took us through Rural Southern India into the hills. It was a long but absolutely outstanding journey full of variation. We passed through agricultural land growing Cotton, Tumeric, Bananas, Coconuts, coffee, Tea, Eucalyptus and more. Our guide kept jumping off the coach to bring us various items to see. Cotton, Tumeric and Coffee plants were so interesting as we’ve not seen these up close before.

We tried Masala Tea, Red Bananas, Handmade chocolate, Southern Indian Coffee.

We also passed through 2 National Parks and saw 3 types of Monkeys, spotted Deer, Elephants, and some beautiful scenery.

We’re now at 7000 feet at the small town of Ooty. Looking forward to more adventures from here tomorrow!

06/11/2023

Tipu Sultan Summer Palace

06/11/2023

Mysore Palace, the second most visited place in India (below of course the Taj Mahal)

06/11/2023

The Chamundeshwari Temple on the outskirts of Mysore in the Chamundi Hills

06/11/2023

Our first night in India was spent in Mysore. We were really lucky to arrive on a Sunday because on Sundays they light up the Palace, so we were taken to enjoy the lights. It was stunning. We also are loving being back in India. The people are just the nicest out there even if we can’t walk down the street being accosted for selfies. It’s very good for our egos! 😂

05/11/2023

Hello India!
We made it to our very lovely hotel here in Mysore, in Southern India (via a flight to Bangalore)
And have spent a nice afternoon swimming and resting- waiting for the bar to open 😉)and now we’re off out to see a light show at the Palace

Feeling very relaxed and happy to be back in India

04/11/2023

If everyday could start with a traditional Arabic breakfast, I’d be fine with that!

04/11/2023

An enormous tick off our bucket list today! A trip up

Speechless!

04/11/2023

More Burj Kalifa

Simply awesome to be here!

04/11/2023

A HUGE tick off our bucket list
The worlds tallest building - The mighty Burj Kalifa

04/11/2023

Sightseeing in Dubai

📌 the Largest frame in the world- Dubai Frame
📌the Museum of the future
📌 the World’s tallest observation wheel
📌 Dubai views - from Bluewater