The Rough Guide to South India and Kerala

870 Pages·2017·78.82 MB·English

by  Rough Guides

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Where to go
When to go
Things not to miss
Itineraries
BASICS
Getting there
Visas
Getting around
Accommodation
Eating and drinking
Health
The media
Festivals and holidays
Sports
Outdoor activities
Yoga, meditation and ashrams
Culture and etiquette
Shopping
Travelling with children
Travel essentials
THE GUIDE
Mumbai
Maharashtra
Goa
Karnataka
Andhra Pradesh and Telangana
Kerala
Tamil Nadu
The Andaman Islands
CONTEXTS
History
Religion
Music and dance
Wildlife
Books
Language
Glossary
MAPS AND SMALL PRINT
HOW TO USE THIS ROUGH
GUIDE EBOOK
This Rough Guide is one of a new generation of informative and easy-to-use
travel-guide ebooks that guarantees you make the most of your trip. An essential
tool for pre-trip planning, it also makes a great travel companion when you’re on
the road.
From the table of contents, you can click straight to the main sections of the
ebook. Start with the Introduction, which gives you a flavour of South India and
Kerala, with details of what to see, what not to miss, itineraries and more -
everything you need to get started. This is followed by Basics, with pre-
departure tips and practical information, such as flight details and health advice.
The guide chapters offer comprehensive and in-depth coverage of the whole of
South India, including area highlights and full-colour maps featuring all the
sights and listings. Finally, Contexts fills you in on history, religion, music,
dance, wildlife and books, and includes a handy Language section.
Detailed area maps feature in the guide chapters and are also listed in the
dedicated map section, accessible from the table of contents. Depending on your
hardware, you can double-tap on the maps to see larger-scale versions, or select
different scales. There are also thumbnails below more detailed maps – in these
cases, you can opt to “zoom left/top” or “zoom right/bottom” or view the full
map. The screen-lock function on your device is recommended when viewing
enlarged maps. Make sure you have the latest software updates, too.
Throughout the guide, we’ve flagged up our favourite places – a perfectly sited
hotel, an atmospheric café, a special restaurant – with the “author pick” icon .
You can select your own favourites and create a personalized itinerary by
bookmarking the sights, venues and activities that are of interest, giving you the
quickest possible access to everything you’ll need for your time away.
INTRODUCTION TO SOUTH
INDIA & KERALA
Though its borders are uncertain, there’s no doubt that South India, the
tapering half of the country’s mighty peninsula, differs radically from the
landlocked North. In the South, the coconut groves seem a deeper green and
the rice paddies positively luminescent, the faces are a darker brown and
the vermilion marks smeared over them arrestingly red. The landscape
varies from tropical beaches that hug towering Ghats in the west, to the arid
Deccan plateau that descends into fertile plains in the east. Under a sun
whose rays feel concentrated by a giant magnifying glass, the ubiquitous
colours of South India – of silk saris, shimmering classical dance costumes,
lurid movie posters and frangipani flowers – radiate with a life of their own.
ZOOM TOP ZOOM BOTTOM
FACT FILE
South India is referred to in some of India’s oldest inscriptions as
Dravidadesa, “Land of the Dravidians”, referring to the ethnically and
linguistically distinct people of the South.
The South’s Western Ghats mountain range is one of the most biodiverse
places on earth with over 500 bird species and 139 mammals.
Three of the the five largest cities in India are found in the South –
Mumbai (12.4m), Bengaluru (8.4m) and Hyderabad (6.7m).
Goans consume 40 million coconuts per year and the fruit finds its way
into virtually every dish.
Languages spoken in the South include Tamil (Tamil Nadu), Telugu
(Andhra Pradesh and Telangana), Kannada (Karnataka) and Malayam
(Kerala).
India’s greatest sporting hero, the cricketing master Sachin Tendulkar
was born and raised in Mumbai.
The film studios of Mumbai (Bollywood) and Chennai (Kollywood)
make more movies than any other country with up to 2000 releases
annually.
Despite its recent rush to modernity and pockets of over-development, South
India remains one of the most relaxed parts of Asia to explore. It is also among
the easiest. In all but the remotest districts, accommodation is plentiful, clean
and inexpensive by Western standards. Delicious street food is available from
nearly every roadside vendor. While journey times can be long, the region’s
extensive rail network moves vast numbers of people at all times of the day and
night, and if a train isn’t heading where you want to go, a bus almost certainly
will be. Furthermore, South Indians are the most garrulous and inquisitive of
travellers, and train rides are always enlivened by conversations that invariably
begin with the refrain of “Coming from?” or “What is your native place?”
It is a credit to the region’s legendary capacity for assimilating new ideas that
the modern and traditional thrive side by side. Walking through central
Bengaluru, you could brush shoulders with an iPhone-toting software developer
one moment and a trident-wielding ascetic the next, while rickety bicycles
mingle with luxury cars. There are, of course, the usual Subcontinental travel
hassles: interminable queues, packed buses and constant encroachments on your
personal space. Yet, just when your nerves feel stretched to breaking point,
South India always offers something that makes the effort worthwhile: a glimpse
of an elephant from a train window; a sumptuous vegetarian meal delicately
arranged on a fresh banana leaf; or a hint of fragrant cardamom in your tea after
a night dancing on a Goan beach.
ANJUNA BEACH, GOA
Where to go
Your first impression of South India is likely to be Mumbai, the arrival point for
most international flights. While the city gets a pretty bad press, and most people
pass straight through, those who stay find themselves witness to the reality of
modern-day India, from the deprivations of the city’s slum-dwellings to the glitz
and glamour of Bollywood movies. The surrounding state of Maharashtra,
though not culturally or linguistically part of the South, has plenty of attractions
including the extraordinary caves of Ellora and Ajanta and the thriving city of
Pune, once a Raj-era retreat, and now a buzzing metropolis with a hip eating
scene.
The other major gateway to the region is Chennai, capital of Tamil Nadu, in
the deep South, which is a slightly less stressful place to start your trip. Although
it’s another major metropolis bursting at the seams, hidden under its surface are
artful gems such as regular public performances of classical music and dance.
With regular flights and ferries to Port Blair, Chennai is also the major
springboard for the Andaman Islands, a remote archipelago ringed by coral
reefs and crystal-clear seas, over 1000km east of the mainland in the Bay of
Bengal.
The majority of visitors’ first stop after Chennai is Mamallapuram, an ancient
port littered with weatherworn sculpture sites, including the technicolor Shore
temple. To get right off the beaten track you only have to head inland to
Kanchipuram, whose innumerable Hindu shrines span the golden age of the
illustrious Chola kingdom. Back on the coast, the former French colony of
Puducherry retains a distinctly Gallic feel, particularly in its restaurants. Most
travellers press on south to Madurai, the region’s most atmospherically charged
city, where the mighty Meenakshi-Sundareshwar temple presides over a
quintessentially Tamil swirl of life.
The two other most compelling destinations in Tamil Nadu are the island of
Rameshwaram, whose main temple features a photogenic series of pillared
corridors, and Kanyakumari, the southernmost tip of India, where the Bay of
Bengal, Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea flow together. The dark shadows visible
on the horizon from here mark the start of the Western Ghats, lush mountains
which stretch for more than 1000km in a virtually unbroken chain all the way to
Mumbai, forming a sheer barrier between Tamil Nadu and neighbouring Kerala.
The hill stations of Udhagamandalam (or Ooty, as it’s still better known) and
Kodaikanal, established by India’s former colonial rulers as retreats from the
summer heat of the plains, attract hordes of Indian visitors in the run-up to the
rains, but see plenty of foreign tourist traffic during the winter, too.