Trip to South India

yogibogi

Hi

I am travelling to India on 9 days trip. from 10th Feb to 17th FEb08

I have flight booked from Hyderabad to Bangalore

Banglore to Kochi

Kochi to Hyderabad where i take my flight back to UK..


I wanted to See Goa for day, however there is no direct flight to GOA or train.
I am staying in Kerala for 4 days of which I can easily spend a day in GOA .. only day time.. can someone advise on that please..

secondly, can someone advise how i plan my sight seeing:
in Kerala,Hyderabad- places to visit and shopping..

Thanks in advance
yogibogi

dhans

Forget about combining Goa with Kerala. Spend four days around Bangalore (Mysore, Belur, Halebid,Sravanabelagola). Then on to Cochin, stay on a houseboat etc. for four days (look in the hotelsection for my recommendation...(not bad eh mods?)).

Have Fun,

Hans

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wonderwomanusa

In Hyderabad, see the "imambaras" (tombs ... they are very impressive), Charminar, and Golconda Fort. Great bazaar is located around the Charminar, and just wandering around the Old City is fascinating.

Nine days just doesn't give you enough time to include Goa, so save it for another visit.

iloveindia1234

Choose between goa and kerala since you just have 9 days time. If you like the sun and sand goa is good. If you like more of trees and a houseboat etc choose kerala. Both are good options.
As dhans mentioned you can first travel around bangalore .. mysore, belur, halebid, shravanabelagola, hampi, badami etc and then move towards Goa and stay there for some time.

machadinha

Hmm... In addition to the above, my standard advice:

Try to look up India on a map that shows it on the same scale as your home country. And bear in mind the infrastructure and speed of transport may not be what you're used to.

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yogibogi

Thank you very much for all the wonderful replied.

I have quick question - Is it safe for female to travel in Kerala. As you all suggested, i might spend four days Kerala, to see backwaters, Munnars, Kathakali performance and shopping.

i heard from a lot of people that kerala is not safe for woman travelling alone..

I have few more questions:

Hyderabad - Charminar, Fort and shopping? I am free on 11.30 am till 6.00pm.. Will I am be able to see all these 3 things.. I can leave the shopping till Sunday i fly back to UK..
I want to buy bangles, pearls and Cotton dresses ifhandmade ..

any suggestions on that..

Banglore - I have booked the Mysore Trip by trip company..

Kerala

Can someone suggest me best place to do shopping for clothes dresses,..

Kanchiwaram Sarees, jewellery..or so on.

Kerala - i arrived on Wednesday 12.00am and my flight back to Hyderabad is Saturday evening so I got

Thursday, friday, Saturday - full days and Wednesday half day..
I want to do backwaters, Munnar and Kathakali performance..
can someone suggest me how to plan my days..

is it safe for me to hire houseboat for backwates.

any place where kathakali performance is available..

thanks in advance.
anita

vandy

Hi there, I know of quite a few women who have travelled in Kerala Without any problems at all.

As you have very little time I suggest the following,I don't
think you will have enough time to do Munnar and an O'night
houseboat cruise.

I reccomend staying in and around Cochin area,experience Kathkali, shopping, and you could possibly do a half day canal cruise out of Kochi area.There's plenty to see and do around Fort Cochin.
you could also do a Half day excursion to Kodanand Elephant centre and also help wash an elephant or 2 down by the river, this place is only about 1& half hours out of Kochi,you go in the
morning and can be back by Lunchtime.As far as I am aware Kathkali performances are at night time.

If you happen to like Kerala, you can always return in the future & do some more exploring,ie; munnar, backwater houseboat.

Munnar is a good 4-5 hrs by car, you will be very rushed,Munnar
deserves at least 2 days to have a good look around.

Happy travelling.

rgds - vandy

wonderwomanusa

I don't know if half a day is enough for all that! There's a lot to see at Golkonda. We were there for two or three hours before I had to quit (I was not walking very well at that time) and I missed quite a lot of it.

You can only look at Charminar from the outside (unless there are "community problems in Hyderabad -- in that case, you will not see that area of the city) and the bazaar is in that area. How long can you shop? I spent a day there and wanted more!

There's a thread about Hyderabadi pearls here, so you might want to search for that.

I never saw any ready-made dresses, but I wasn't looking for them.

machadinha

Shopping for Hyderabadi Pearls

I reckon all these sub-forums would be worth digging through anyway, you'll find a lot of stuff already answered:
http://www.indiamike.com/india/andhra-pradesh-f92/
http://www.indiamike.com/india/karnataka-f38/
http://www.indiamike.com/india/bangalore-f25/
http://www.indiamike.com/india/movin...angalore-f100/
http://www.indiamike.com/india/kerala-f39/
http://www.indiamike.com/india/goa-f23/

Have fun with it

Nick-H

Hyderabad has some very modern shops, much more so than Chennai, or the two main Kerala cities. I could feel that I was in London again from one store that I visited.

Plenty of ready-made dresses, both Indian and that ethnic Western stuff.

I'm being cheeky... I mean modern Western dress, which you will see a lot of women wearing.

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pundabee

Wonder what they base this on? There are some crime statistics floating around on the Internet claiming that Kerala is the Indian state with the highest crime rate. Problem is not only that most people don't understand statistics, but most people also fail to take into account that Kerala is a highly organised state where any crime reported is registered. Additionally, the Kerala police registers a disproportionately large number of traffic offences and political demonstrations, which tend to unbalance statistics.

Concerning women and safety, I would say that a woman travelling alone is more likely to feel comfortable and not threatened in Kerala than in most other states.

However, it does help if you dress appropriately and avoid areas where men will be more likely to approach single women, e.g Kovalam and Varkala.

safari vala

just stick to karanataka