The Rough Guide to Kerala
£6.35
This book made a good holiday great - OK, I love Rough Guides and always have done. But even allowing for this obvious bias this really is a superb book. All of the usual information is there, the best places to see & do, how to get around by public & private transport, maps of major towns/cities, a v useful guide to (delicious) Keralan food & drink, local customs etc. You would expect this from a guide book, of course, but Rough Guides does this better than anyone else, and Kerala is no exception. The excellent Contexts section, which fills in the history of this unique, fascinating, beautiful Indian state, and the feature text boxes of a particular aspect of Keralan culture allow for a good understanding of the state, essential when you ve passed the umpteenth poster of Lenin. All this is written in the usual crisp, concise manner, which helps keep the length of the book to an ergonomic 351 pages. Most useful were the accommodation listings. If, as it was for us, the plan is to stay at one place for a night or two and move on, this guide is a godsend. It lists, in exacting detail, hundreds of places of varying quality and expense. Read carefully and you will be rewarded. Thanks to the guide we were able to stay (at exceptionally reasonable rates) in a lakeside resort, a surprisingly comfortable YMCA, a Raj mansion, a homestay in the jungle, and an outrageously good value government hotel. Not aimed at cruse liner parties or package holidaymakers for sure, but if you want to make the most of your time in Kerala, you need this book.