Varanasi is just plain mad. But I loved it. I stayed in the old town, a twisting maze of narrow cobbled streets where I´d often find my way blocked by a cow, obstinately just standing there and refusing to budge without some forceful persuasion. But then in India the cow is king of the road and I´m sure they all know it. There's a hierarchy when it comes to roads here, with the sacred cow firmly entrenched at the top and pedestrians most definitely at the bottom. Between the two comes everything from cycle rickshaws to cars, camel drawn carts and the lethal auto rickshaws whose maniac drivers seem determined to bag the number two slot, even if it means taking out a cyclist or two on the way up. My first introduction to the city ... read more

Getting on the bus to Uganda to find it almost empty I was thrilled at the thought of a journey where I didn't need to fight for a seat and wasn't going to have someone near sit on my lap. Ten minutes on I was wondering if the missing passengers knew something we didn’t! Our driver was a mental, even by African standards, zooming along narrow winding roads, rounding blind corners in the middle of the road and turning almost everyone a nasty shade of green in the process. A young boy opposite held on tight as he struggled to throw up out the window, but his efforts were in vain and more ended up running down the inside than outside. The sole redeeming factor was that this was a relatively short journey and a few ... read more

We had just over 10days in Rwanda and started by visiting the genocide memorials in and around the capital, Kigali. It might sound really macabre but having read a few books about the genocide over the last couple of years it's this that drew me to come here - and I'm really glad I did as despite the short time we had all in it ended up being one of my favourite African countries. The genocide followed the death of President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, when his plane crashed at Kigali airport under suspicious circumstances on 6 April 1994. Within hours a campaign of violence spread from the capital throughout the country. In Kigali the presidential guard initiated a campaign of retribution, murdering leaders of the political opposition and beginning the slaughter of Tutsi's and moderate ... read more

The journey from Chitimba, where we were staying in Malawi, across the boarder and into Tanzania involved 3 minibuses, a shared taxi, a private taxi and a bicycle... not bad for one days travel! We were heading for Mbeya, a large town in the southern highlands, where temperatures were cooler than on the shores of Lake Malawi, the land extremely fertile and in every direction rolling green hills were covered with tea or banana plantations. As we climbed higher the roads were winding and steep, but with few potholes compared to Malawi the journey was relatively smooth (near wheelies around corners excepted!). The roads even had speed humps, although given the number of overturned trucks and buses abandoned by the roadside I'm not too sure how effective they were. Mbeya wasn't our favourite place simply because ... read more

The boarder crossing at Kazungula took us from Botswana to Zambia and was easily one of the most entertaining I've ever done. We cleared Botswanan immigration easily enough and headed on down to the ferry queue, where our truck driver Tony did a fantastic job of queue jumping us pretty much all the way to the front, much to the displeasure of all the lorries sat waiting I'm sure. Apparently they've waited to cross for over 4 hours before (lorries typically can wait days as everyone else gets priority), either because one of the ferries was 'broken' or the crew were on a lunch break...which perhaps amount to much the same thing. Fortunately though we were lucky and barely had to wait 15mins before boarding the rather rickety wooden looking vehicle 'ferry' that took us across ... read more