We left Chandigarh on a five hour bus trip up into the cool air of the hills and the hilltop station of Shimla. We were greeted quite quickly with rising hills or more's to the point mountains, bedecked in trees, dahlias, budlieas, monkeys, dogs, cows and people everywhere. We caught glimpses of the toy train making its way back down on an equally long journey. The mountain tops dipped in and out of the clouds. En route we were subjected to some awful radio station which believe me if I could have got to my ear plugs I would have done [View Full Entry]

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We found ourselves in Chandigarh for a few days and this is a modern town built in the 60's based on a grid system. It really is like Milton Keynes. Lots of islands, green areas, two parks and laid out gardens, flower beds etc. The roads have service lanes and cycle lanes. All the suburbs are self contained with their own shops, schools, medical centres etc. It is quite revoultianary and a pleasant change. The first morning saw me decamping to have my hair done. All the works in one of the most expensive hotels saw me paying a grand total [View Full Entry]

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We took an overnight train to Delhi. We had ordered an evening meal which didn't turn up until 10.00pm by which time I had given up and gone to bed! We have established finally that the little thinga running around the carriages are mice. Oh joy, I decamped to the top bunk. Neither of us slept particularly well and having not eaten, once we got to Delhi we checked our luggage into the rat infested cloakroom and headed off into the city. We decided as we were catching an onward train to Amritsar we would order some takeaway food from the [View Full Entry]

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We took a bus from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer which was entertaining. Imagine a super duper uk coach. Now take out the overhead luggage compartments. What we have instead of luggage is people in the overheads! They can't sit upright they can only squat or lie down. There are windows that can be opened and as usual as many people are crammed in as possible. Fortunately very fortunately we had seats. These really are death traps in the sense of the amount of people that are physically squeezed in. But suffice to say, as I'm typing this, we arrived safely in Jaisalmer. [View Full Entry]

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As normal I'll finish off Udaipur. We had drinks on our first evening on the Palace Terrace watching the sunset over the Lake Palace. Not much of a sunset to report, but all the fruit bats that we had spotted in the trees earlier that day emerged from their roosts. And my what a sight it was. The sky was filled with them flying gracefully in every direction, whilst the other birds took to their night time roosts. The two islands with their hotels and the city palace were lit up accordingly but I'm afraid to say the bats stole the [View Full Entry]

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ok I still can't edit the photos so ... you have the Chinese Nets at Kochi Preparations for the Kathakali performance and some from the performance Kerala Backwaters, sailboats and fishing Pondicherry and just a few general ones! so that's it for a little bit, more to come in the future - hope you like them! [View Full Entry]

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photos! from Panjim, Old Goa and surrounding areas. For some reason I can't edit these - might be something to do with the power cut we have just had - but feel free to add your own descriptions ..... .... more en route providing no more power cuts! [View Full Entry]

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photos [View Full Entry]

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We boarded our train for Hyderabad and after settling in and making our beds the Inspector duly arrived. This is where everything started going pear shaped. Not only did we have the wrong ticket, but we had the right but wrong train and the wrong compartment. Hmm let me try and explain. The train we were on was going to Hyderabad, but it was also going somewhere else 500kms in the wrong direction of Hyderabad and our ticket had us heading that way - that is though when the train stopped at 1.30am the following morning and split in two. With [View Full Entry]

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My previous update saw us arriving in Pondy. However, Pondy failed to impress me but did have more of an impact on David. There is a european air to the french side of the town, with quieter streets, fine dining, super restaraunts and french speaking. However, there is little here to attract the visitor unless you are en route for yoga. We ate well and well ... ate well!!! I couldn't even master up the energy to take photos, but David did so I will include those in the next few days. Anyway we departed Pondy on a semi air con [View Full Entry]

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