It is said that an army marches on its stomach; well, we travel on ours. Without wishing to demystify the romance of life on the road for any armchair travellers browsing this page at the office, or at home with a nice cup of tea and Eastenders on the telly, often is the time that lunch ends up being the standout highlight of the day and, whilst happily digesting whatever tasty Thai treat we recently enjoyed, we often struggle to find sufficient motivation to fill the interminable hours that loom before us like a gaping chasm that separates the past pleasure of lunch from the future one of dinner. It can sometimes be a hard gap to bridge, especially when stuck on a small island suffering the 5th day of rain in a row. Which, for ... read more

Roads India has these, many of them; ranging from simple red dust tracks to multi-lane highways: the former are far preferable to the latter, but they will not, unfortunately, be able to transport you any great distances. For this, you will need to use the highways. These can range in quality from the really quite abysmal, to the vaguely serviceable. Most journeys of any length will provide the interested traveller with ample opportunity for experiencing both of these extremes and all the fascinating gradations between. A fairly common but uniquely Indian road surface to look out for is the "sudden gravel transition". These can mostly be found on otherwise quite decent stretches of macadam, they appear suddenly, last for half a kilometre, then disappear as quickly as they arrived. An interesting point being that they seem ... read more

After having somewhat fortuitously made it back to India from Nepal, it could be said that this is now my third visit to the country. Regardless of semantics, I have now spent many months in this most beguiling of countries without yet having had to stay in the infamous tourist ghetto of Pahar Ganj. On my travels in India I usually try and spend as little time as possible in her megacities, visiting them only when circumstance dictates that I should; in this case it was the arrival of my brother Miles from Hyderabad that necessitated my coming to Delhi. I have been here before, briefly, at the end of my last visit, but I did not stay the night and so I was unsure of what to expect. I suppose, from all I have read ... read more

Pokhara Of Nepal's two main tourist towns, Pokhara is by far the more pleasant place to stay. Unlike Kathmandu it has no problems with noise, overcrowding, hassle or pollution, but also unlike Kathmandu it lacks any significant history, or at least significant historical sights. Whereas Kathmandu would be a far less attractive proposition without its Durbar Square or Boudnath, Pokhara's appeal could only be diminished if the Himalaya themselves were to suddenly disappear. Pokhara is in the enviable position of being able to successfully market itself as a premier tourist destination, without having a single tourist attraction of note. The big draw in Pokhara is not its history, its buildings, culture or shops, but in the countryside which surrounds it. People come to Kathmandu to stay; they come to Pokhara to leave. Pokhara serves as an ... read more

Having successfully completed the trek to Chitwan National Park, we decided we had better take a walk within it. In truth, the park was always the objective and the trek just an interesting way of getting there. This is not to disparage the trek, which turned out to be a most serendipitous little walk, but more to highlight how much I've been looking forward to spending some time in one of Asia's premier national parks. I only hoped that the means did not end up trumping the objective. What appealed most about Chitwan was that here, unlike almost all other national parks in Asia, they still allow visitors to enter the park on foot, giving anyone who wishes to do so the opportunity of having a close encounter with some potentially very dangerous creatures. We wished ... read more