Leaving Diu was no easy task. First of all, we had made some very good friends, Anne and Cesar, that we had become quite attached to. Second of all, its just so damn nice there! But the pull of seeing new things is very strong and we managed to leave the sedated easy going grip of this little slice of Portugal in India on the most Indian form of transport; The sleeper bus. These are buses that have, above the usual seat level, crumb-filled little cubicles with matresses where you are meant to sleep during the long hours that bus [View Full Entry]

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How we love you. Take all of that tension and stress from the past 8 weeks of travelling in this country, and just let it melt, melt, melt away. I am not ashamed to admit that, though I was not fully aware of what was happening at the time, I was most certainly functioning on my very last nerve when we arrived here in Diu. Of course the regular stresses of travelling in India had been accumulating but also for the past week we had been going along at a far quicker pace than usual and cramming more sights and activities [View Full Entry]

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Fresh out of the Aravali Hospital, Jenny and I decided to head South to the little visited state of Gujarat. If you've never heard of this place (Guja-what?) then here's a crash course on everything there is to know about it: -Its Gandhi's birthplace -booze is illegal -the last name Patel comes from here -its the state below Rajasthan -everybody's got an uncle in Toronto Our first stop was Ahmedabad, which is the economic centre of Gujarat. We had heard some dreadful comments from other travellers who had been there but our time there turned out to be quite fun. There [View Full Entry]

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Our time in Udaipur seriously took a sharp turn that we did not expect. Upon our arrival we were incredibly excited and easily convinced to try out one of the wonderfully described restaurants that was mentioned in our guidebook. And after not having eaten much on the bus that day we well deserved what we were getting ourselves into. As it turned out we walked ourselves right into one of the slickest and most beautiful hotels in town (aside from the Lake Palace, of course). The guidebook mentioned that they had delicious food on offer there but we really had not [View Full Entry]

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Oh, how sweet it is. We love Pushkar. With a slower pace than most places we have been, it gave us a perfect place to just chill out. And you know how much we love to do that. Some highlights (there are SO many); The city is set upon the seriously sacred lake where even Gandhis ashes were spread. Its a very peaceful and serene place to just sit and absorb the atmosphere. There are bathing ghats. like in Varanasi, and many holy cows wandering and plopped about the place. There are Brahman priests trying to trick us into giving them [View Full Entry]

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On the way to Jaisalmer, we had a really comfortable bus. But the curious thing that occurred was that we were cruising along and then...stopped. Not so unusual in ANY bus, but it soon turned curious. We realized that the whole road was being held up, but by what we didnt know. The line of vehicles seemed to go on for MILES. So we sat and waited, having no idea why when it soon became evident. There was something trying to ply the way, amidst all the stopped traffic, that looked something along the lines of a gigantic nuclear warhead. Of [View Full Entry]

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Hot desert sun, pale blue buildings, enormous fort rising up from a hill in the middle of the city...its just the place we hoped for to spend the christmas holidays. We had all sorts of pleasant surprises coming our way in Jodhpur. Jasmine and I discovered one of our new favorite things...Makhaniya Lassi. A lassi (yogurt drink) flavored with cardamom, saffron and rose water! Eeek! Its most enjoyable. Also, we were invited to a Christmas party hosted by a lovely english teacher who owns a guesthouse. We didnt quite understand that the christmas party was being put on by her young [View Full Entry]

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Second time around in Delhi. It was an unavoidable stop on our route. But a welcome stop, since we all had a few errands to run. We were warmly welcomed back into the city by swarms of auto-rickshaw drivers trying to seriously rip us off. Then ignoring and disappearing after we purchased a pre-paid ticket so that they would not have to settle for the REAL price of the ride. But after a traffic officer saw us in distress he demanded that someone drive us. So, off we went, to Pahar Ganj, backpackers zip code. Along the way being stopped due [View Full Entry]

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Mmmm. After having to rewire Guillaume brain to make his realize that he needed to go, we DID in fact make it to Agra. Home to the beloved Taj Mahal. I was mostly sick during our time there, unfortunately. But from what I heard, from my trustworthy travel companions, aside from the street food it aint so glorious. The Taj Mahal, on the other hand, is a completely different story. My whole life I have seen photographs and randoms bits and bites about the Taj, I have always wanted to see it. And as soon as we decided to come to [View Full Entry]

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Orccha was a really neat little place to stop over for two days. Too bad that the food wasn't better or we may have stayed a little longer. That can ALWAYS make or break a place for us. The town itself is actually a town, not a large city, like we have been visiting as of late. The journey to get there turned out to be much more complicated, and long, than we had imagined. From Lucknow, we had booked a train ticket that would take us to Jhansi, from which is would be a quick 40 minute auto-rickshaw ride to [View Full Entry]

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