Two hours after leaving Jaipur we arrived in the isolated village of Sawarda, which is still in the Rajasthan Provence. The dusty streets of this town were so narrow that the assistant driver had to guide the bus through into the courtyard of Fort Sawarda, an old fort recently renovated into a ... “traveller’s experience”. After the low key arrival we got in the populated city of Jaipur we were greeted like movie stars at Sawarda. Swarming around the bus the noisy children jockeyed for position to take our hands and have their photo taken. The fort itself is the pride of the village and employment and training in and around the complex for local young people is something which they should be proud. Peregrine is the only tour company visiting this area and it’s good ... read more

There are only five of us in my Peregrine group. There were too many for one group so they spit it up and my companions are four women all from Geelong. The other group is more like the United Nations, which might have been interesting in terms of conversation but I'm not complaining. Despite travelling on a 1st class sleeper (the best of five classes of travel on India Rail) the carriage was very old, badly maintained and grimy. However I did sleep reasonably okay on the narrow top bunk but the 12hr journey typically turned into 15hrs by the time we reached Varanasi where our hotel was a welcome oasis. Being a bit of a train buff the trip was interesting though, particularly seeing working prime moving diesels that would have been obsolete in Oz ... read more

Cycling Vietnam Blog #4 Of the population of 86m people, 10,000 are killed on the roads here each year with an unknown number injured. I thought that figure sounded conservative from what we've seen and with the population growing at 1.2m per year, the fatality rate is only going to get worse; espeially as more people become affluent enough to buy cars. As a group we are all getting stronger (and braver) every day. We all still complain about the heat and humidity but we only ever cycle 20kms at a time before we pull over for drinks and rest stop. The children are by far the most inquisitive. As we ride though villages they run out to meet us, only to become shy when we stop to talk with them. English is compulsory in schools ... read more

This was supposed to be a kind of a reunion trip between a few old Scout mates; some I hadn't seen for a lot more years than I'd like to admit. However, after finding out that there was a considerable amount of physical exercise involved; ie cycling for 18 days from Ho Chi Min City (Saigon) in the south to Hanoi in the north, the participation rate dropped dramatically. What the hell, it sounded great to me so, I'm doing it anyway! I admit that it's probably not everyone's idea of the ideal asian holiday. My travel adventures usually involve a 23 hour plane trip to somewhere in Europe, so this will be my first taste of Asia. I like the odd asian take-away, so from a culinary perspective, the trip should be a dream (if ... read more

After the fantastic Dolomites, the Yorkshire Dales were totally different. Where Villabassa was Bavarian, German speaking and very busy with tourists, the Dales were (mostly) wet, quaint, reasonably quiet and the people spoke twenty different dialects of English. The walking however was just as good as the Dolomites, only different in that it is mostly exposed moors where the weather can add an element of danger at any time. Newfield Hall was an old country manor house, where we intrepid trekkers were based and from where most of the daily walks started. Getting around however was a nightmare for (in particular) bus and truck drivers. The narrow country lanes hemmed in by (often) ancient stone walls were never meant to carry two way modern traffic and passing often meant lots of backing up and manoeuvring along ... read more