Kalpetta to Kannur

We double checked with hotel reception last night, and were informed there was definitely no bus service to Kannur. We would have to change half way. Also we totally failed to find an ATM which would give us any money.

Today we checked out, left the baggage at the hotel and walked round the back to the bus station. I asked a bus driver if there was a bus to Kannur and soon a gaggle of drivers were deep in discussion. Yes they said, as if they had known all along, it leaves at 10:30.

As we returned to the hotel to collect the bags, we passed another ATM and this one let us have IR10000. The trick, it seems, is to withdraw your card after a few seconds.Only then will the machine ask you what language you desire and proceed to transactions. Unfortunately the instruction to withdraw your card, if it occurs, is only in Hindi.

So now we had cash and bus arriving to take us to our destination, but there was a catch. As we waited, we realised that even if the bus displayed where it was going, and many didn't, the conductor shouting the destination at the prospective passengers, most destinations were only displayed in Hindi script.

How to find the correct bus in the melee of comings and goings? Christine had a brainwave. She went to the tourist office which was now open, and in exchange for signing his visitors book (she was the first this week), the tourist officer would indicate which bus to get on. And true to his word, at 10:30 he pointed to an anonymous vehicle as it rounded the corner, and we confirmed with the driver that he was indeed the phantom service to Kannur.

After paying the fare of IR178 (GBP1.78) for the hundred or so kilometer journey, it was obvious that the conductor wasn't happy. We couldn't work out why for some time, but eventually understood. The hand painted squiggles on the wall by the first rows of seats meant they were for ladies only. So we retired to the mixed sex section behind and the conductor cheered up considerably.

The journey was fascinating. After passing through forested foothills, we climbed over a coll and descended a mountainside via a series of hairpin bends where the bus occupied all of the road and any vehicles coming the other way had to either stop or reverse to allow it to pass.

Soon we were on the coastal plain and the temperature increased from about 30C to about 33C. When we realised what route we were taking, we worked out that travelling in a northerly direction we should in fact pass the village near which we were to stay. Irritatingly the bus turned off the coast road before we reached it in favour of a wider main road. However the driver was good enough to drop us off at a tuk-tuk stand in Kannur near the road we needed, and we proceeded southwards the final four and a half kilometers by tuk-tuk.

The Blue Mermaid Homestay is at the end of a narrow road and occupies an idyllic spot between where a river has been dammed by longshore drift to produce a lagoon frequented by cormorants, and a wide safe sandy beach, all fringed with coconut palms. Headlands render the beach almost private.

And so we finished our transit of southern India, from Pondicherry on the Bay of Bengal, to just south of Kannur on the Arabian sea.