We had to get up really early this morning so we could go and see the sunrise on the River Ganges. This meant that we were leaving the hotel at 5:15am! Can you believe that we had to get up at this time on a holiday. We caught rickshaws from the hotel down to the river and the traffic was amazing. It was incredible to drive through the city and not fear for your life! When we go to the banks of the river we hopped on a wooden boat and headed out onto the water to watch the sunrise. Even at this time in the morning there were a lot of people up and about, in particular there were a lot of people washing themselves in the really rather manky water of the Ganges. As ... read more

We set off in the morning in our private cars once more to start our journey to Allahabad. Because the journey is quite long it was going to be broken up over a couple of days and our rest stop for the night was going to be a little town called Chitrakoot. Out hotel for the night was the only hotel in the entire town which will probably give you a bit of a feeling for the size of the town. There were however a full complement of monkeys at the hotel and Suneil told us to be very careful of them as they will go into your rooms and steal your possessions and only give them back if you offer them some food. At one stage we were sitting outside having some drinks and the ... read more

We set off from Orchha this morning in some private jeeps to undertake a mad cap journey to Khajuraho. Driving in India is always an experience and this was no exception. Although I do have to say that the driving hasn't been anywhere near as scary as I thought it might be. The trip from Orchha to Khajuraho was about 4 hours in the car. We stopped just out of Orchha to visit the Tara Paper factory. This is a project set up by a very generous gentleman who wanted to help the local village women to earn some more money to support their households (as the men were drinking and gambling the money away apparently). The factory takes offcuts of clothing from clothing factories and through a certain process breaks down the fibres in the ... read more

Today was a travel day. We had to be up bright and early to get a local bus from Chanderi to Orcha. Our guide had told us that we would have to walk for 15 minutes to get to the bus so it was a very pleasant surprise to find that the bus was waiting for us at the gate to our hotel this morning. I wasn't really looking for to a 15 minute walk with my pack on my back. The bus ride itself was relatively uneventful. Although the driving certainly wasn't uneventful. There were many times when the bus driver would break very hard to miss something completley random like a cow taking a stroll across the road, and I would go flying towards the front of the bus. We were sitting right up ... read more

Today was an interesting day. It was a day of a 5 hour train journey from Agra to Chanderi. Because I am on an intrepid trip they believe in trying out the local transport as much as possible. So we spent 5 hours in a truely authentic Indian train. And boy was it an experience. The train station at Agra was very interesting. There are just people everywhere, as well as cows, donkeys, dogs and small children. The children are actually quite sad as you feel awful when they come up to beg money from you and you have to say no to them. Our guide has told us not to give anything to the children who beg as their parents send them out to beg instead of sending them to school, so if you give ... read more