After a day spent in Bangalore (we saw 'Memoirs of a Geisha' at a really flashy cinema and hung out in a lovely colourful park) we got on the Hampi express and met up with some really nice people at the train station in Bangalore all on their way to Hampi. We arrived into Hospet and rickshawed to the river bank in Hampi to take our boat to the Heart of Darkness on North side of the river. Straight away I think everybody is struck by the landscape. It's kind of primal like the Himalayas. You never tire of looking at it. Add to that the fact that there are interesting and ancient religious and cultural monuments everywhere and you have somewhere that people can and do spend a lot of time in. We sayed at ... read more

Arriving into Kochin Overnight from Bombay by train to Kochin with a lovely young Bombayite couple, Amit and Renu, we arrived into the Keralan state refreshed and covered in Mehndi patterns (henna). Fort Kochin is on an island and is best accessed by a local ferry - a great way to arrive anywhere. We spent a few days hanging around at the beach and watching the local fishermen coming in with some impressive catches. The Chinese fishing nets here are beautiful at sunset but are now a dying tradition. Most fishermen were only 'catching tourists' by asking a few rupees or a rum for the experience of pulling up the heavy nets. Kochi is also a great place to enjoy coffee, cake and culture - the first good press coffee we had in India - the ... read more

So we are heading South. Originally we were trying to get to the former Portugese colony of Diu but due to the extortionate prices being demanded for accommodation over Christmas we changed tack and ventured out into the Kuutch area of North-Western Gujurat. We passed through Ahmedabad and after visiting Gandhi's famous Sagarmati Ashram made our way west towards Bhuj which was so horrifically destroyed by a huge earthquake back in 2001. We stopped at Mandvi for a few days before going to a Nature Cure centre called 'Navjivan' for 10 days. Yes, we are really slowing our pace of travel down after Nepal where we were constantly on the move. Mandvi was just lovely. We met so many really genuine and friendly people there and enjoyed just hanging out on the uncrowded beaches and walking ... read more

We crossed the land border at Sunauli at the start of December and after a couple of days in Kushinigar (the site where Buddha Gottama died) we headed to Rajasthan. We spent a couple of days in Jaipur. It was certainly not my favourite place. Dusty. Loud. Expensive (relatively). After Jaipur we took the desert train to Bikaner to start a camel safari through to Jodhpur. Bikaner is a nice little city - a bit of the main trail which goes straight to Jodhpur from Jaipur but with it's own charms: the obligatory Fort with Military Museum, markets and chai-wallahs. Our main reason to come here was to find a tour through the desert. It was easy to organise this... The camel trip was bumpy, basic and brilliant. We really enjoyed the company of the three ... read more

We spent the descent sliding on our backsides in the thick snow! After the dizzy heights of Thorung La we expected the rest of the Circuit to be less impressive. How wrong we were! The scenery changed from icy frozen tundra, valleys and peaks to dusty, rocky wasteland. If anything it was even more impressive passing through the old kingdom of Mustang with it's squat stone houses and villages, the Kali Gandaki (deepest canyon in the world), Muktinath temple complex, Poon Hill and the last days to Pokhara. No time to write more. It is something you just have to experience for yourself. ... read more