Trivandrum

Date arrived: 13th January  2024

Date Departed: 15th January 2024 

Favourite sight: Napier Museum

Average Cost: £27.77 PPPD

Trivandrum, also known as Thiravunanthapuram (but not by us for obvious reasons) is a small city in Southern Kerala. We stopped here to see a bit more city life, and to break the journey down to the Cape.

13th January 2024

Arriving into Trivandrum railway station mid-afternoon, we were quite grateful to have found a hotel that was only a ten minute walk from the station. It was also very nice, so we were quite happy to collapse in the room for a bit. As darkness settled, we braved the city in order to get some basic shopping, before finding somewhere for dinner. Julie had spotted a restaurant that promised authentic English Fish 'n' Chips, so in the spirit of exploring another country's culture fully, I obviously had to try these! I have to say they were excellent, as was the whole crab that Julie ordered.

The route to and from the restaurant was  bit hairy, as there is clearly a lot of construction work taking place in Trivandrum at the moment, but we managed to find a slightly better route back and settled down to sleep in a very comfy bed!

14th January

With one full day to spend in Trivandrum, we chose to visit the main museums of the city in the morning. The Napier Museum was really good, with lots of religious sculptures and a very impressive temple kart, although the building itself was perhaps the most impressive thing about it.

After visiting the Napier Mueseum and the neighbouring Keralam Museum of Culture and Heritage, we looked for some lunch and I found a link to a funky looking place named Error 404 Cafe. I was, of course, immediately nervous that this was some kind of scam Google link, but we set out for it anyway.

When we got there, the listed cafe part of the experience didn't seem to exist - although there was a little coffee shop serving jsut drinks. We ended up at the Thali restaurant upstairs where Julie had a cracking Thali and I had a prett ygood Biryani. I am just entertained that Error 404 Cafe was not found!

Heading back to the hotel as the heat built, we were glad for an hour's lie down in air conditioned comfort, as we'd walked a good few miles in the 35 degree sunshine. We did, however, manage to get to the on-site gym for a pretty decent workout later in the afternoon. Fortunately it was air-conditioned! We wrapped up the day with dinner in the hotel restaurant - and a cheeky beer in our room before turning in for the night.

15th January

Our short stay in Trivandrum finished with a morning march to the railway station, to catch our train to Kanyakumari, right at the southern tip of the country. As the train had been travelling for over 36 hours before it reaches our stop, I was pleasantly suprised to find it was on time. Onwards, then, until there is no more south!