Can't believe it's over so soon but here I am on my last day in India! After another couple of days soaking up the atmosphere in Rishikesh - the Ganges, waterfall walks, temples, we reluctantly headed back to the smog of Delhi. We picked our date of travel wisely - Independence Day i.e. when the roads are at their busiest: good een! Apart from a few parades of schoolchildren holding flags we saw very little evidence of this important national holiday, that is until we got back to Delhi, where the sky was full of 100s of kites being flown from [View Full Entry]

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Hello everyone! Yet again I've left it too long between blogs and have far too much to say. I'll try and keep it concise! We ended up spending 5 nights in McLeod Ganj which I think has been the highlight of the trip so far - we all loved the place itself and it was a welcome break after Surinder's non-stop drunken rampage round Rajasthan! Besides a lot of lazing about doing as little as possible, we did accomplish some things during our stay. If I start talking about it all this will turn into an epic essay so I'll give [View Full Entry]

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Alas I have tragic news to report. My camera is broken :( :( :( To Dad: I stupidly dropped it and it got slightly wet (I know, I'm sorry) and now it won't turn on. It didn't get very wet at all though so I don't think the water is what's damaged it, but there is a small dent in the top and maybe its broken something inside? Incase it is the water, I've taken the battery out (the card is ok), and I'm going to try it again later once its had a chance to dry. If that doesn't work [View Full Entry]

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Deary me, so much to catch up on! Sorry I haven't written anything in a while, I am blaming poor internet facilities and generally being incredibly busy. As you can see I'm currently in Amritsar, which is in the Punjab, North West of Delhi. We arrived here this morning after taking an overnight sleeper from Delhi - our first Indian train journey! We were in 'Sleeper Class' which is basically the 5th out of 6 Indian train classes - pretty basic but it only cost about GBP3.50!!! The windows are just bars which is actually better than the air-conditioned classes because [View Full Entry]

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Greetings all. We have now embarked on our rajasthani adventure in a rather respectable white toyota jeep with our driver, Surindar (yes, like the one in Heroes!). He is quite a character, speaks pretty good English and seems knowledgable. Despite constantly informing us 'You're the boss', he seems to get quite moody when we make suggestions about where we'd like to go or stay - thus the trip has become a balance of appeasing Surindar and being totally independent. We were quite happy to leave the constant bombarding of the senses in Delhi, even after 2 days we were exhausted. On [View Full Entry]

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jeez, a blog pretty much every day since i left?! i feel pretty tragic... just a quick'un because i'm not sure what the internet situation will be like for the next few weeks. we've booked a 12/13 day jeep tour of rajasthan which leaves tomorrow. our rough itinerary is old delhi tomorrow morning, agra in the afternoon (taj mahal at dawn the next day...i can't wait), jaipur, pushkar, udaipur, jodphur, jaisalmer and a few places i have no idea how to write in between. its costing us GBP60 a head for the 2 weeks, which gives you an indication of how [View Full Entry]

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i'm bored of airports already. bad news for a so-called backpacker methinks. currently in dubai airport, waiting for our connecting flight to delhi. i haven't slept since we left manchester on what i'm going to say was yesterday morning, although i honestly don't know anymore. i'm in that weird airport induced state because of all the artificial light where you don't know what time it is or whether you should be sleepy or awake. pete and i just ate an odd 'breakfast' courtesy of emirates - i had noodles, baked beans and apple juice & although at the time it was [View Full Entry]

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Well, here I am, 40 hours after leaving Manchester I'm finally sitting in the backpacker's district of New Delhi, India. Somebody pinch me?! The taxi here was exactly what I expected - the roads are completely mental and our taxi had one broken wing mirror and one totally missing. After about 2 minutes the reason for this became obvious, as he seemed to delight in trying to shove the car through spaces it really wasn't designed to go through. I may not have lost my life but I certainly lost my hearing thanks to the incredibly loud Bollywood tunes which were [View Full Entry]

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Ok before I start...yes, I know, I've been gone for less than 12 hours, but I really am that keen. Well, it may only be Day One, but my journey has already cocked up, albeit not drastically, courtesy of the lovely lovely British Rail Network - what a surprise. Less than 5 hours in I found myself stationary, somewhere between Durham and Darlington, trying to avoid the stares of the slightly creepy child opposite me who I can only describe as looking like Yoda if he was ginger. In other words, not the most glamorous of starts to my exotic Gap [View Full Entry]

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