The first thing I did on arriving in Dhaka was throw up against a wall. Considering I’ve been wanting to visit this city for eight years, it wasn’t really the entrance I was expecting to make. The bus from Kuakata had taken eleven hours, and we had travelled through the night. It was a great journey. All of the stars were out. ‘The Plough’ - that great saucepan of the sky - was the most prominent (quite appropriate for the subcontinent, I think.) The headlights lit up the endless rows of bushy trees, which appeared bright green momentarily then whooshed out of sight. Big grasshoppers kept jumping in through the window and landing on me. I know they bite (a bad experience in Agra four years back…) so I always just wait for them to move. ... read more

Heading from Kolkata towards the India/Bangladesh border, I kept asking myself what could go wrong. It was a morose way to be thinking, granted, but this was the third time i've planned to come to the country, and both of the previous times, something fell through. I started examining my visa in the back of the car, thinking it might have some kind of expiry problem. Meanwhile Seth snoozed next to me. He falls asleep in any moving vehicle. It's a gift, especially on this occasion, when it took us an hour and a half to get out of Kolkata; a city which, as much as i love it, has serious traffic issues. Our driver turned out to be slightly insane, which kept the journey interesting. He insisted on stopping for lunch at a small dhaba, ... read more

Plans change, even if you don't want them to. We were waitlisted for train tickets on an express service between Bangalore and Vijayawada. Vijaywada sounds like a great city, with cave temples, pretty ghats and an old fort close by, and it also sounds untourited and quintessentially Andhra Pradeshi; great! Sadly, we never got there. When you're waitlisted for an Indian train, it means the train is fully booked and you're in a queue to get tickets should anyone else cancel. Oddly, you almost always do get a seat in these situations but you only find out on the day of travel. Thus, we found ourselves on a bus from Chitradurga to Bangalore, then pushing our way to Bangalore's city train station, through a charismatic but stinking fish market and a dark, wet underpass where sad, ... read more

The banality of the human condition is bizarre and it catches up with you at the wrong moments. I remember standing in front of the Taj Mahal for the first time and thinking, of course, that it was beautiful/ glowing/ surprising despite the hype, yet another part of me was thinking simply: I'm hungry. Likewise, in the World Heritage site of Hampi, on approaching the Vittala Temple - an architectural wonder, hundreds of years old, with elaborate carvings, musical pillars, a stone chariot and a gopuram alive with monkeys - i was distracted by mangoes. Now let's be fair, mangoes are pretty special. But still, you'd think i'd have more discipline. I bought three from a little old lady sat under a tree, and whilst the walk around the temple compound afterwards was lovely, the thought ... read more

From Panchgani, we came to Kolhapur by bus. My mp3 player has a pleasingly bizarre mixture of Roy Orbison, Frank Sinatra and Bollywood soundtracks, and nothing beats watching Indian life racing by with the sound of 'Chicago is My Kinda Town' in your ears. It's greatly weird. Kolhapur was a typically busy Indian town, with a nice Mahalaxmi temple (she's the Goddess of wealth) which had a pretty black, carved base (10th century) and a modern, painted roof and spire. (As eclectic as my music taste, really.) Lots of the locals wanted to shake hands and talk, and there was a great atmosphere plus the best damn mango lassi i have ever tasted. It rained hard and we managed to find the city's wrestling pit and watch young trainees grapple in the mud. Personally, i have ... read more