We don't know what story you made around the last photographs but this is the two and a half hours of typing (pretty much) which should have gone with them. New Delhi, new hotel, new day and awoke a bit disorientated to a Chinook coming in. I knew we were close to the airport but then realized it was the ceiling fan doing its stuff from the night before. Our flight to Kochi was a two-parter, a trip which we thought was going to be by road as the taxiing to the runway took 25 minutes. Now, there are many rules and regulations in India, most of which are obeyed and others, at least, acknowledged and adapted, but those relating to flight seem to be those used by Icarus and Daedulus - none. This may be ... read more

Leaving behind the mountain butterflies and bamboo, the bamboo as thick as my leg and, tapering, rising thirty feet before looping on itself and, still tapering, ending at nothing, like a horse carriage whip, we caught something of a taxi back to Pokhara. I say something as we felt sure it was a chap taking his mother back to Pokhara and we paid to ride. Still, he was a careful driver and without a word we got back in one piece. Arriving back at the cottages we found everything locked and dogs gone. No sign of life, so a new hotel was found up the road. It turned out something of a long story but a least we got our bag back. An afternoon, well half an hour was enough, rowing on the lake as thunder ... read more

Although written in Pokhara, this goes back to our last day in India. Having bought bus tckets from Varanasi to Kathmandu we found at the eleventh hour that there were border problems and that it would be better to fly into Kathmandu. Our hotel was already full so we had to look elsewhere and headed out to buy the airline tickets the office of which was just down the road from a hotel that had accommodation. By tuc tuc we headed out of town. The ride was, for us, a first. In all the tuc tuc trips we have had and all the traffic we have been in, never before have we ever made, and only once seen, contact. This ride was different, contact with at least 4 rickshaws and impact with one tuc tuc and ... read more

Whilst waiting for our train on Platform 2 out of Agra, another arrived on Platform 3 behind us to a complete mele. Everyone rushed and jumped on to the still moving train, like squeezing a cork into a champagne bottle. Three women getting off were squeezed through a mangle of peopleAnd blown out like laughing chaff. Well, they appeared to be laughing, as others, still wanting to get on, were launching their bundles, followed by themselves through the emergency exit window, in order to get at least a seat for the long journey to wherever they were going. We arrived in Varanasi and so to our hotel and room with balcony overlooking the sacred Ganga ( Ganges). I say balcony as it was more a cage on the side of a building, not as a means ... read more

The train was due to leave at 23.15 and we were deposited by hotel car at the station at 22.45. Over the bridge to platform 2, where the Jodhpur Express was awaiting departure. Or rather as indeed most of it was. That is, all but our AC3 ( air conditioned 3 tier bunk sleeper) carriage. We weren't alone in waiting for said carriage, both tourists and locals alike. There was a sleeper carriage with names posted at its entrance but not ours. 23.15 came and went . There were near empty “general” carriages but we weren't allowed in them. The reason? Because we had paid 130Rps for AC3 and not 50 Rps for general. That was the regulation. We had not bought a general ticket. We could go and buy such a ticket if we wanted ... read more