Well our Swiss trip has come to an end but I do not think that we could have possibly found a better way to spend our three last night’s than with our host family up in a little village called Zweisimmen up in the Alps. We were greeted by Andy at the train station and whizzed up to their home overlooking the village and the Alps on the other side of the valley. For the next three days were treated for nonstop awesome views, laughs and conversations to the early hours of each evening, delicious food and so much more. We got to see the Alps in all four season pretty much in the three days. On our arrival it was a pleasant afternoon with not much snow about so we went for a hike up ... read more

We headed into Switzerland from Frankfurt after a couple of hours train trip. Basel is a wonderful city with a great old city with tiny little alley ways and a couple of big churches dominating the skyline. We soon found out that Switzerland is extremely expensive so it was finding the nearest supermarkets for us, getting our brekki, lunch and dinners organised to cook at our hosts place. Now our host, Angela, lives with a two other students and it was a wonderful place to be stay! The student flat has so much character, for example the shower and bath in the kitchen so when someone is having a shower it is possible to wash the dishes at the same time also. The three living there were wonderful and we had such a wonderful time staying ... read more

Since we arrived back from India it has been head down ass up in our books trying to catch up with studies. We have had a fair amount of people coming and going from us over the past two months and at one stage we had four extra people in our flat, cramped but great fun! Diana’s family were over to visit for a week whilst the largest market in Lithuania was on. So that week was pretty was very busy doing things, eating and drinking way to much but that cannot seem to be stopped when visiting the locals here. We went for a day trip to visit some family friends and at 2pm on a Tuesday out come a bottle of whiskey and within one hour it was gone (also a bottle of champagne). ... read more

First of we are very lucky to have made it to Haridwar, we take back all the bad things we have said about the train system and that it is NEVER on time. For once it worked in our advantage :) We had booked tickets a few weeks ago to go to Haridwar for the Kumba Mella festival but we were on the waiting list right up to the last night, but lucky for us we were the previous night at the function for the CEO of trains for northern India (see previous blog) and we used our charm and next thing we knew we had tickets to Haridwar and even upgraded. Why we were so grateful that the trains we late, I didn’t realise that they put us on a complete new train and it ... read more

What a place Varanasi is! Extreme in everything here, smells, sights and taste (the taste in the air!) you get hit hard when there. The life of the city is around the river Ganges and seeing the burning ghats is something that both us are never going to forget. It really is in your face here and not for the faint hearted. Just for us to be seeing the daily life and death ritual seriously within ten meters apart from each other was amazing. From the burning of people on the banks of the Ganges and other people been sunk into the Ganges and then walking for a couple of seconds and seeing people drinking the Ganges, bathing in the Ganges and washing in the Ganges. It is all in full viewing, for everyone to see. ... read more