Well the time has come to say goodbye to India ... with only a few hours remaining before I board a plane here in Mumbai (Bombay) for Bangkok. Even though I feel ready to leave after 6 months in this magnificent country, I'm surprised at how sad I've been the past 2 days leading up to it. Just this morning I was talking to an Indian guy at the ATM about how today was my last day and my eyes welled up with tears. I was asked the other day if India had changed me and I guess in a way [View Full Entry]

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It's tourist season - but not for foreigners. Rishekesh is teaming with orange clad 18 - 25 year old boys, who travel in packs and don’t appear to have much to do. Its festival time and a part from collecting the Ganga in plastic bottles and embarking on a 17km walk, these pilgrims hang around the towns of Rishekesh and Haridwar and swim in the Ganga in very poor fitting underwear (India definitely has the ugliest underwear for men I’ve ever seen!). It’s amazing to see thousands of people (mainly male) dressed in orange and walking along the main road carrying [View Full Entry]

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Since arriving in India I've been told by a few Indian's that I shouldn't travel to Leh on my own. Now that I've done it I'm not really sure why. Sure it's a long journey (17 hours if all goes well) but no real danger that I could see. The drive up to Leh was unbelievable. I've never seen landscape like it. Desert mountains and plains, raging muddy brown rivers, snow capped mountains, teal green lakes, electric blue skies, unimaginable colours everywhere you look… yet so desolate. Most of the time I felt like I was in a Mad Max movie. [View Full Entry]

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Ahhhh I love the hill country in India and here in McLeod Gange you can actually see snow capped mountains most days. My timing was perfect, ‘cause the Dalai Lama was actually teaching the week I was there … and unbelievable to me, it was free - nothing is free in India! Due to the teachings, the town was packed and it was really difficult to find accommodation ... well a decent room, at a decent price, that wasn’t a 10km hike from the town. I came up on the bus with a lovely German couple (Jan and Simone) and on [View Full Entry]

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Arrived in Amritsar late at night (home to the Sikh religion) ... so glad I planned ahead and booked my guesthouse ‘cause I arrived to a really nice room with TV and air cooling (yay!). My main reason for coming here was to see the Golden Temple and the Indian and Pakistan border ceremony ... plus I love the Sikhs! Sikh's are the Indians who don't ever cut their hair and wear the turban. I think of them as the gentle giants ... well in comparison to most Indians they are huge. The majority of them are the same build as [View Full Entry]

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Hmnnn .. made the mistake of stopping in Allahabad instead of going direct to Satna and as a result got stuck there for two days as the trains were all booked. In the end I just bought a general ticket which means "every man and woman for themselves" - everyone pushing and shoving like it's life and death - and when you're carrying 25 kilos on your back, that means no seat for you! So me and about 20 other people were crammed into the doorway and what was meant to be 3 and a half hours turned into 6. Without [View Full Entry]

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I have to say that Patna is a bit of a "nothing town" (nothing much to see and nothing much to do), but it does have The Ganges. I should also mention that the hotel I stayed in was the cleanest I've been in since traveling in India ... what a gift! Since arriving in India I've been looking forward to seeing The Ganga. My first sight of it was from the top of the Golghar. A very unusual dome shaped building that was used by the British Army to store grain (1786). From there I could see a pathway to [View Full Entry]

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My mission in coming to the North of India was to escape the suffocating heat of the south and see some mountains. All good in theory, however it really wasn't the right time of year to be trekking through the mountains. In 2 weeks, I only saw one clear glymse of the magnificent Himalayan mountain ranges - the only time I didn't have my camera with me - and it only lasted 1 hour before the fog rolled in yet again. But I still had a great time!!! Darjeeling Hill stations are among my favourite places to just hang out in [View Full Entry]

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What can I say about Kolkatta ... It's definitley one of my favourite Indian cities ... very liveable. We didn't really do a lot (although there's plenty to see) but mostly we just spent our time walking around taking it all in. The first thing you notice is the beautiful architecture ... the second is the poverty. I think I've really toughened up in the past 7 months, but I know that An found it very difficult and heart wrenching. Whilst there we also had a 'night out'... which was very exciting to go out with a group of people [View Full Entry]

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Arrived in the state of Orissa - which is now closer to Kolkatta (North) than Chennai (South). Originally I wasn't going to come here, but An and I were having so much fun travelling together and she wanted to come that I decided to come with her ... and I'm so glad that I did! Bhubaneswar Day one we jumped on a bus and headed to Konark. It took a lot longer to get there than expected, but it was well worth it. The Sun Temple is exquisite. We hired ourselves a guide who really new his stuff ... but took [View Full Entry]

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