I dragged myself out of bed and headed to the airport to meet Ruth, they charge people to get into meet their loved ones but I didnt bring any money so I had to wait outside. When Ruth arrived she couldn't see me waiting out there and security wouldn't let me in so I grabbed a man entering pointed her out and asked him to send her out. We returned to my hotel so Ruth could have a wash then began the long drive to Orchha stopping a couple of times along the way, the second stop was at Datia where a child magician put on an entertaining show just for us in the shadows of the stunning hilltop palace, it reminded me of the young tightrope walker I saw a few weeks before in Bihar. ... read more

A couple of disappointments firstly after travelling all the way to Similpal national park I discovered on arrival that foreigners now need a special permit that would take four days to arrange anx I cant sit around on my arse that long. It seems a few years ago some Italian idiots went where they werent supposed to and were kidnapped by Moaists. TheI discovered ghat there were some stunning old temples in Bhubneswar that I missed. The next morning we drove for nine excruciating hours almost getting killed on more than one occasion before arriving with the dusk in Buddhism's holiest city Bodhgaya. The lord Buddha achieved enlightenment here sometime around the fourth century BC. Later I went into town for a feed good pizza and some banana choc cheese cake. Nalanda University operated from the ... read more

An early visit to the Undavalli cave temples was a highlight, carved from solid rock by Buddhists in the second century and adapted in the 7th by the Hindus the third level has a wonderful carved figure of a reclining Vishnu. The next hour or two was through rural countryside to the archeological site at Amaravathi where the remains of India's largest Buddhist stupa built at the orders of Ashoka in the 3rd century BC. Much of the carved stone that decorated the stupa are now in the British museum but a few pieces remain in the onsite museum. In the trees nearby was a fruit bat colony and some nesting birds. We traveled further north west to the Buddhist site at Nagarjunakonda which sits on an island in a lake created by the damming of ... read more

This is the last section of the coastal part of the Heysen Trail, Ruth and I left home around 6.30 am for the long drive down to the trail head at Tunkhead Rd where we left one vehicle the weather was overcast with the expected temperature being 24 degrees. We then drove on to the Deep Creek Conservation Park where we left the other vehicle on a headland overlooking the sea, the first 4 kilometres was few the lovely bushland of the conservation park before arriving at the headland near Boat Harbour Road. The views here were incredible, we then began the steep descent down to a stony beach where the footing was often precarious, we walked for about a kilometre before climbing up the side of another headland. We continued climbing up and down headlands ... read more

I am not sure where to start, I packed my bag and headed down to the harbour just a short walk through the old town. I was a few hours early so I just sat and watched people arrive an hour later it was time to board the ferry. It was a big boat so grabbed a table by the window and ate a bagel washed down with my last, ridiculously expensive beer. The journey was short, just a few hours and the ferry was moving through the islands scattered around Helsinki harbour. Helsinki is an extremely attractive city the harbour area is attractive as are the streets around the city centre. I chose to take a taxi to my hotel which wasn't far from the port or the city centre, arriving after a short time ... read more