We experienced people, very poor 2 year old, to millionaire cricket players, about sums it up.

We experienced people, very poor 2 year old, to millionaire cricket players, about sums it up.

Travelling to various locations in india with excursions booked around them

January 2024 we flew from London to Cambodia via Bangkok arriving first in Siem Reap. Lucky enough to have Visal Phok there who was a superb tour guide. So many varied experiences there including Angkor Wat and sunrise on Tonle Sap lake and stayed 4 nights at the superb Jaya River House Hotel (see our trip advisor review). Off to Phnom Penh for 3 nights at Raffles (great as you would expect) to experience the S21 ‘detention centre’ and the nearby Killing Field. Great foodie tour with Yi to experience local cuisine as the Cambodians eat. Great view from the Harmony sky bar in the Rosewood Hotel and meal after at the 37th floor Brasserie Louis. Six hour private car trip to the wonderful Canvas and Orchids floating tents on the river in the Cardomom mountains. What a great place to chill but also to experience great value local trips such as sunset and a brilliant trip to the local village. Highly recommended and a superb setting for meals and drinks, swimming in the river and just enjoying the tranquility of nature after busy Phnom Penh. Final stop was at Koh Russey hotel on Bamboo Island.

Our trip to Sri Lanka could not have been improved.

We started in magical Mysore where we saw the sumptuous Royal Palace, Tipu Sultan’s Palace that for a time was occupied by the Duke of Wellington and the bustling, leafy city with architectural evidence of the Raj, and it’s fabulous flower and vegetable market. We then trickled down through Karnataka, taking in a bit of Tamil Nadu with it’s verdant tea plantations, glorious mountain scenery and impressive Eucalyptus forests, stopping off at the historic hill station of Ooty before travelling south the the green paradise that is Kerala. We saw palaces, temples, churches and colourful families and groups of friends on pilgrimages to Hindu shrines - you are never far away from the sacred in South India. We saw nine elaborately decorated elephants at a village festival, we sat at the edge of a Syrian Catholic engagement service, with bride, groom, bridesmaids family and neighbours all dressed up sumptuously to be prepared for the real wedding scheduled for thee weeks ahead, with three priests in full vestments celebrating, and every moment being photographed and filmed for posterity. We relaxed on a houseboat on the amazingly peaceful and beautiful backwaters at Allepey, visited the first synagogues in Kerala and probably the first Christian Church in India allegedly founded by St Thomas the apostle in 62AD. We swam in lovely pools in leafy, florally-perfumed gardens, we climbed craggy mountains ( over-am itiously) to see prehistoric cave drawings. We saw urban and village crafts and marvelled at the dexterity of the skilled people who demonstrated these almost-certainly archaic activities that cannot continue to be viable for much longer. We were able to visit protected tribe forest people living virtually entirely apart from 21st century civilisation, with their own language, herbal medicines and completely non-materialistic pace of subsistence life in their bamboo houses in the beautiful Keralan forest. We saw SO much, yet slowed down and had both an extraordinary stimulating and relaxing holiday. We ate delicious vegetarian food, seafood and very occasionally chicken or mutton and scarcely drank any alcohol at all! If it wasn’t for my children and grandchildren in the UK, I would be seeking out the Best Marigold Hotel.