Mumbai - home of bollywood - the largest movie industry in the world, churning out over 1000 movies a year (most of which are of debatable quality!). In the Lonely Planet guide it says that casting directors regularly hang around the streets frequented by backpackers asking if they want to star in a bollywood movie as an extra. But what would the odds be on that happening to us? The journey to Mumbai wasn't great at all - train left Ranthambhore at 11pm and arrived at 3pm the next day - that's 16 hours. Goes without saying we arrived at the hotel absolutely shattered. At 6pm we venture out on the streets looking for somewhere for dinner when we get approached by......... a casting director! "Do you want to be in a Bollywood Movie?!?!" Even though ... read more

And the journey continued - left Udaipur behind for a short bus journey, (2 hours, seems like nothing now!) to Chittorgarh. Spent about 4 hours there, got a rickshaw to take us the fort (the only thing in Chittor worth seeing!) - which was good - it has great views over the town and surrounding countryside, a few interesting palaces, the best one in the middle of a reservior, a few temples - one dating from the 8th century - a couple of very cool towers with very nice carvings which we climbed up and a holy reservior which water enters through a pipe apparently shaped like a cows mouth. At this reservoir a couple of monkeys were hanging around and so out came the biscuits! One was really impatient (or hungry!) and climbed up my ... read more

And so we left Pushkar a few days ago and travelled west to the city of Jodhpur by bus! I don't really know why we paid for a seat on this bus as we both spent more time being bounced out it and getting heads stuck in the roof! it was fun for the first hour or so but after 4 hours i couldn't feel my arse! But anyway - we arrived in Jodhpur made our way to the hotel and straight away what stuck you about the place was the Meherangarh Fort - which we visited the next day. And so we got up early(ish) in the morning and headed up to the fort. Driving up in the rickshaw the fort is very imposing even for a tourist and you can't help but think that ... read more

Thank god for small mercies. So we arrived into Jaipur and once we got through the usual rugby scrum of rickshaw drivers and settled into our hotel those small mercies revealed themselves. Firstly a running hot shower which after a week of washing from hot water in a bucket and secondly and the best of all, a colour tv with (wait for it)...... LIVE PREMIERSHIP football!! I watched Liverpool deservedly beat Everton through tears of pure joy! It was like seeing football for the first time again! But anyway, i didn't come to India for that..... things we've done so far in Jaipur.... visited the city palace, which was actually quite nice, buildings were very good and it had a few very well decorated doorways such as The Peacock Gate. We also visited the hyped up ... read more

So i've decided, the sights to see in Delhi are cool, but it's just the getting there that's the pain. Delhi seems to be all buses,cars, rickshaws (indian robin reliants),bikes,people, cows all mashed into one hectic city. I'm from london and i can't get used to how busy it is here. thats what it's like. But then you get to a sight, and all is fine, there's a break from the madness and all is good again. Spent our first full day in Delhi, in New Delhi which was more organised chaos. We visited a large park which had random tombs sitting in the middle of it! Can't imagine anything like that in England! But even better that that this park had monkeys in it! I can't even begin to explain how strange it is to ... read more