South India Tour

India 2002

This was a month long trip to India. I had not gone to India for over 7 years and it was now after my divorce that thought it was time to visit relatives again. I was not going to travel alone, so Papa and Bhaiya went with me. Since Bhaiya was also going, he wanted to do some major touring. So we decided that for one month we will see South India and end our trip in Hyderabad, where Bhaiya’s brother in law lives and then Papa and I would continue up north and he would go back to USA.

My original goal was to visit some universities and visit the chemistry departments there. I wanted to know how the female faculty get their jobs and how they survive in such a male dominated field in India.  Well all that went out the window when Bhaiya decided to go.  No problem – I am game!

The trip was all planned out. For this part we would need to get the Indrail pass or we would never make all the train connections.

Mumbai - > Coimbatore - > Ooty - > Ernakulum (Cochin) - > Thiruvanthapuram - > Kanyakumari -> Madurai -> Rameshwaram -> Trichy -> Thanjavur -> Chennai -> Tirupati -> Tirumalai -> Chennai -> Kanchipuram -> Chennai -> Bangalore -> Mysore -> Bangalore -> Hampi (Vijaynagar) -> Bangalore -> Hyderabad (Bhaiya was gone back to USA) -> Bhubaneshwar (Konark and Puri) -> Varanasi  -> Dehra Dun (rested and travelled to close by cities and then from Dehra Dun -> Haridwar -> Delhi ->  Mathura -> Agra -> Delhi

It really worked out quite well.  There were some hitches on the way, but otherwise we saw everything we planned for. We missed a few things because we did not research enough to see what else we could see in certain places. We just went with the main attractions from experience and some tour books.  But overall I would say it was a successful trip.