we stopped on route to bikaner at a rat temple. legend has it, or as the indians would tell you, it is a fact, that some fella tried to do a deal witht he god of death but was double crossed and in an effort to get his own back be turned 1500 storytellers into rats. the temple itself is one of the more shabby that i have seen, it also smells, not really suprising givne the 1000s of mangy rats that scurrey about he place. to be honest the rats didnt bother me so much as the flys. the indians [View Full Entry]

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As we have traveled through Ragastan it getting hotter, and i mean hotter. imagine making a camp fire then waiting for the embers to go red hot, then dowsing yourself in acid, before rolling around int he aforementioned embers, when a kind friend buts out the fire by throwing boiling water on you. in the days its about 45-50 it cools in the night to about 30. some of the hotels have air con, but when you turn them on it sounds like justin's old red A reg fiesta doing 70 down the A40. we were only in jodpur for a [View Full Entry]

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UDAIPUR after a 12 hour drive we arrived in udaipur as this was following a bush camp i dont want to tell you how bed i/we all smelt. the hotel was one of the nicest we have stayed in with white walls and a hot shower. before jumping in the shower i lay down on the bed for 5, when i got up i was disturbed to see a dirt outline of me on the sheets. Udaipur is beautiful with white buildings and winding streets that weave up and down hills and around the lake at its center, it reminded me [View Full Entry]

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sorry this took a while but i have finaly found a internet cafe with the right commections and appropraite internet spead to add photos!!!!!!!!!!!!! [View Full Entry]

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as we rolled into mandu there was a procession comming up the narrow road towards us, nick and adam we jesturing to the police at the front if we could go aroung the sides but they told us no and to reverse and turn down a side street. the boys did this, and true toi form the procession followed us down, we reversed some moreand found somewhere to park up. it was a hare krishna festival (we sand along harry ramsden). they dont look anything like the guys you get in oxford/queen street. again it was a two way thing, us [View Full Entry]

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after another long drive we arrived in goa, wehere we would stay for 4 days the plan was 3 days in the quiet but beautiful agonda before moving on to the more lively baga. as we checked into our little hutch on the beach i thought that doing nothing for three days would drive me insane and that i would stayone night and then go ahead to baga and meet up witht he guys there. however as doing nothing slipped into bimbling i felt perfect, and stayed. it was beautiful the beach was about 2 miles long, with a out 10 [View Full Entry]

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its a long long drive from goa to mumbai so we stopped and camped half way. it was the boys turn to cook, so we suggested a soup and listed the ingrediants the girls didnt was a soupand a disscussion broke out, i listed the same ingrediants and called it a stew which the girls were very happy with. we camped on a cliff top overlooking the sea, the only building we could see was a hotel/chef training college about a mile away. as the girls put up the tents the boys cut ap the lamb, goan sausages, veg and spices [View Full Entry]

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we left mumbai at 8.30 on the road out of the city we spotted a mcdonalds, i had seen one in mumbai but had not gone in, but hang over and tierd everyone fancied a mccmuffin. its strange in this globalised world you think that mccdonalds is known everywhere, ruth did some voluntary work in a school in madurai she said the kids had never heard of it. anyway the mccdonalds was closed, so we had some chi of the street vendor opposite - 6rs. the reason for visiting ellora was to see the cave temples, we drove out in the [View Full Entry]

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the drive from mysore to goa whould have taken 12 hours plus, so we decided to break the journey up by camping somewhere in between. we were not sure where. the plan was to wing it, or to put it another way the plan was we had no plan. this plan was going to take preparation so we stopped of and bought a crate of kingfisher beer, several bottles of rum, a botle of water and some snacks. after about 5 hours driving we tunred of into a forest. now this amazed me. we drove into the forest for about an [View Full Entry]

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from cochin to ooti we had a long long drive, the distance was so far, but the last 80 kms were through a forest up a winding road where the average speed is about 20kms. to break up the boredom we sat on the roof and looked at the beautiful scenery, the monkies and the the villagers. im not sure what they made of us, six white folks sitting on the roof of an orange truck driving through the middle of nowhere. somehting that has struk me is that usualy when you go somewhere other than you money you are not [View Full Entry]

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