South India 2025

We had a bit of a roundabout route to get to Hyderabad Valencia to Istanbul to Mumbai to Hyderabad. All, unfortunately, were cattle class, so no proper food en-route

Still things started to look up when we got to our hotel in Hyderabad - the Taj Palace, and a palace it really was, once owned by the richest man on earth.


Our own carriage to arrive at the Taj Palace	Family photo in front of the Palace	Some geezer up on the roof showered us with rose petals	And a decent amount of edible goodies in the room

Sitting back and relaxing before going to ..	..afternoon tea	..actually forget the tea, lets get straight on to the buns	The down to the pool..

..where we found that the padre was already there	How do you like our floral garlands	Breakfast on the terrace...	..Pembroke could probably put on a bit of weight here

One of them nice flunkeys to look after our every wish	Maybe a slide down the banisters	.. a little bit of music to accompany our meals. Nice hats too	We found a gun to play with

	Luckily we did not need to spit

Then a quick tour round Hyderabad, with lunch in ..	..Cyber City. Anyone for Curry?		And they were very sorry to see us leave. A special cake

Then on to Hampi, best known for Old Stones, so the padres liked it. But for our part, the hotel had a decent supply of cakes


Suitable hotel for young gentlemen bears ..	.. and a pool for the madre	The full turnout to greet us. These guys know how to welcome us	...And even a friend for us on the bed

Oddly, they put this on the bed days before we left	We could eat in the restaurant..	.. and be seranaded by this lot

Nearly made to take a bath	but settles for more food instead	don't know which one to choose, perhaps we should eat the lot	The people here know a thing or two about feeding small bears





Part of the deal with the padres seems to be that we accept ..	..a diet of old stones, in return for a diet of buns back at the hotel		Quite risque some of this stuff


Another suitable hotel for yound gentlemen bears	Madre liked hving her own pool too	Breakfast with a view	A chat with some ex-pats

Not bad this stuff, and it is non alcoholic	Limited ration of old stones here	We make friends with a local	No way to treat a bear. We will be complaining


Not a Palace, but still very nice	big bed	sundowners by the lake	It's them blokes again. Just as well this a warm country

Off on safari

A jeep all to ourselves, but they made us wait a bit	Looks as if the padres have become twitchers	..as well as old stoners

This was the big one - tiger and leopard in on go	We were only a little bit frightened. And the tiger looked well fed,	..so did not need to top up with two smallbears	And leopard looked to tired to punce on us

The madre looks scared as she thought that this was another tiger	But these are tiger tracks, we are on the job	Lets ignore the speed limit	and go flat out to find another tiger

Let down. Not fierce, and sleeping up a narrow creek	Looks familiar, who does he remind you of?	We are brave again, and take the padres for a ride on ..	.. a bullock cart

Leaving for the next hotel, we pass this place. Shows how potty the padres are sometimes


A villa with our own pool	Big sitting room, with a daily supply of chocolates	Nice four poster bed	Our own pool

Still had funny men stripped to the waist	But there were genuine sundowners	At sundown	She left us out of breakfast

They had us dead to rights here, a slice of cake was missing ...	..then they found our photo with us caught red handed	We are not too keen on curry ..	.. and the lady serving it was really, really odd



We visited a Tibetan Monastery, and spun the prayer wheels		See a photo of Dalai Lama,


Nothing like extra picnic in the woods		We drove the electric golf carts round the estate. The management	..turn out to see us off. Everyone seems happy when we go

On to Lotus Houseboat. Only us, the padres and one other couple. The boat was a little run down


Our cabin was quite spacious, but the windows did not work	Dinner on the top deck & the food was good	...enjoying the breeze at the front of the boat	He seems to be taking time off

This fellow needed a lot of help from us	Kerala was a communist state	Into a Tuk Tuk to visit a temple ..	.. where more blokes were stripped to the waist

and marched around and around the temple like that	Madre looks lost	We ran all the way down this row, making them spin	We supervised this man feeding fish

After a couple of nights on the houseboat, we transferred to the Hermitage Hotel on the coast


Nice location	...nice bungalow	...spacious room for two bears	and a restaurant by the sea

We gave a curry cooking lesson to the chef ..	..who was very grateful for all our little tips to improve his curry	And we sampled it at the end of our demonstration	Afternoon tea on the beach

Commies everywhere	We relaxed by the pool before hitting some local Hindu festival	It was very bright, and very noisy	And lots of blokes stripped to the waist

.. where ever you looked there were more	..some had swords	..and some painted their faces	Next morning we said goodbye to our driver at the airport


They expect us to climb this lot just to see a stark naked man at ..	.. the top. We refused, and quite right too