Our 2011 started in Bali - we had The Plan and as always with plans some of it didn’t work out and other bits were nothing like we’d expected. But all for the best. Our flight back to the UK was from Mumbai at the start of February. So at the start of Jan we flew to KL to apply for our India visas. We had places on a 10 day silent Vipassana course in Kerala, which we were very excited about and after that had booked to stay at Green Palms homestay in the Kerala backwaters. Train tickets booked, accommodation – we were all set. And then after a week of waiting in KL our India visa was declined… We had been warned this might happen – new changes in visa regulations meant that they ... read more

In August 2010 we hit our two year travel anniversary. Just 24 months since we first boarded our plane out of the UK, on the way to South Africa and the start of our wonderful adventures. However it might have been that we’d been on the road for too long, or maybe it was six months in fascinating, irritating, ‘incredible’ India, but we were feeling kinda beat up and….to be honest tired of.. well.. traveling. And we mean traveling in the constantly-on-the-alert, daily planning, visiting, haggling, exploring kind of traveling. We weren’t ready to head home just yet but we just needed something easier. With the world at our feet where would we go? Luckily Air Asia, our budget and the strong desire to see our gorgeous sister and her lovely boyfriend made the choice for ... read more

We probably should have know better that to board a night bus which had 'Oh God Save Me' written on the front, skull and crossbones on the rear brake lights and a driver with a truly manic glint in his eye. But board the bus we did and were duly rewarded with one the the most arse-spankingly, bone-shakingly exhausting AND expensive journeys that we've had in two years of travelling. So that's one for the books (funny that it was the first bus journey we've had with not one Indian on board - it was 7 of us westerners and about 2000 Tibetan school children and monks). But oh it was worth it to arrive in Ganj Mcleod. We were pretty tired after nearly 4 months of the noise, heat and dirt in India and Mcleod ... read more

Two days on a train may seem a long time but our journey from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu to Jaipur in Rajistan pretty much flew past. We were traveling next to a old couple from near Jaipur who spoke no English but were really keen to chat. Luckily they had relatives coming past and visiting them every few minutes some of these guys spoke English and so could translate what the older couple wanted to tell us. We learnt loads about the area around Jaipur and the beautiful old haldwani houses built by rich Jaipur merchants. And we were force fed snacks, given bangles and bracelets and invited to stay at their home (which due to having booked our onward train ticket, we had to regretfully decline). Stepping off the train in Jaipur at 4am we ... read more

A couple of weeks into our stay in India we had been asked to travel to the region of Ladakh, a fascinating former Buddhist kingdom in the far north, to join a luxury trek and then write an article about it for a UK magazine. We happily agreed to the commission and then settled into the beaches of Goa to wait for our instructions about when to travel north - reasoning that there was no point in travelling further south if we were to have to schlep to the northern most tip of India at short notice. During our reading about Ladakh we both became excited by the prospect of the trek but also a bit unsure about how it would come about, all our reading suggested that at this time of year the area is ... read more