jenandcraigsworldwideadventure

I was filled with excitement and slight nerves about heading to the ashram..what would it be like?....would we leave with a new perspective on things?......how would we spend our time?....would we ever leave?....would we be allowed to leave?....what would the other people be like? I had first heard of this particular ashram from a hippy I was traveling with when I was in Sri Lanka and the place had been etched in my brain as somewhere I needed to go and see for myself at least once in my lifetime. An explanation of he ashram from Ammas website; Amritapuri (Which is the name if the ashram) is the headquarters of Amma’s worldwide mission and the spiritual home for Amma’s monastic disciples and hundreds of householder devotees. All the residents have dedicated their lives for realising God ... read more

We last minute decided to go to Hampi, we weren't going to bother as its a pain to get to but we re routed ourselves and could get from Hampi to Bangalore and from here we could continue south to Kerala, we also looked at lots of pictures on the internet and decided we had to go if we were near it. Hampi itself is a small village built as close as possible to the sights and literally there to cater for the tourists, all the locals live up the road In Hospet near the train station. Hampu itself is a UNESCO heritage site as the ruins within it are from the Vijayanagara Empire. The historical sights can be dated back to 1343 - so VERY old. There are many Hindu temples, military buildings (including an ... read more

We spent the one night in Delhi before saying our good byes to our two week travel buddies. We had a train booked from Delhi to Mumbai, this was an overnight train and lucky for us we'd splashed out on first class again!...why not!? for all of £25 pound each we had our own room and despite the steward asking for tips and trying to add on money we had a lovely sleep and were fully rested when we arrived into Mumbai the following morning. We stopped in a decent room for a couple of night to take in the sights of Mumbai. Mumbai, to us was a totally different side to India. It was modern and ld say almost had a European feel to it. There was of course LOTS of traffic and LOTs of ... read more

Day Seven...... We awoke to find Raj cleaning the car again and upon taking out our bags we were met with Ashok! A lovely friendly guy who informed us he would be with us to continue the tour. Our bags were not squashed inside the car, but on the roof rack we didn't know existed and we had even more room. Ashok sat In the front and as I was head organiser had to speak to Ashok uncomfortably about the tour so far and what the problems were....awkward!!! Ashok then told us that Raj was going though some family problems, our email had broke his heart, and he had to cancel a trip with other customers to come and see us so he was not given a bad review on trip advisor by us...so as you ... read more

Having been to India previously on my own 10 years ago, its a country which divides opinion, you either love it or hate it. l knew what to expect and l was looking forward to being there with someone else and sharing the experience as it is something like l have never experience before, l was also very much looking forward to eating, lots and lots of eating. We decided to ease our way in we would pre-arrange a taxi pickup with our hostel, which was great as we didn't have to deal with hundreds of taxi drivers all wanting our fare. The hostel is an hour from the airport and it was great for people watching from the safety of the cab, although we did make a couple of pit stops - one to pick ... read more