The toy train wound its way along Hill Cart Road, the one long road that runs all the way from Siliguri to Darjeeling and beyond. The tracks snaked onto and off the road and sweeped right across it when necessary to get the most convenient path for the tight bends. This often created queues of traffic as it blocked the scores of overly packed Jeeps that were always speeding up and down the well worn road. There were also a few very steep climbs where the train had to zig-zag its way up the hill by going backwards and forwards with stops and junction point changes in-between. As Hill Cart Road is the single main thouroughfare for all of the towns from Siliguri into the mountains, it means that the train rolls along past shops, houses and schools which open out onto the road. It was quite a weird experience being on a train going up a high street, but the local people seem to love it, and all of the children like to stop and wave at the passengers as it travels by. As the train took us up into the mist and clouds the sky turned grey but stayed bright which made the vegetation seem so green against the colourless backdrop. I was even quite happy to see a few drops of rain, something I’d not seen since I was sitting on a Suzuki at Phillip Island Racing Circuit back in January!

Once we’d stepped off the train at Darjeeling Station, something happened that once might have seemed normal to us, but 7 weeks in India made it extra special. We were approached by a taxi driver (as there are no auto-rickshaws in Darjeeing) and were asked where we wanted to go. ‘Dekeling Hotel’ we replied. ‘Ah! You don’t need a taxi, it’s only 5 minutes walk from here’ he said, and proceeded to give us directions. We were stunned. An Indian cabbie had just turned down the opportunity to overcharge some tourists to take them on a very short journey. This place, we thought, was an Indian anomoly. We thanked him and happily walked the 5 minute walk to our hotel.

That walk was the beginning of a realisation that it wasn’t just the cabbie who was a little bit different. There were shops along the way, but not a single shopkeeper shouted at us to come in and buy something; noone cleared their throat loudly and spat as we walked past; we didn’t have to keep an eye out for any cow shit, because there weren’t any cows; there was hardly any staring; I wasn’t sweating carrying my packs because the temperature was comfortably mild; and all along the hilly streets there were inviting tea shops and cake shops, restaurants, bookshops and handicrafts shops that looked distinctively less tacky than we’d become accustomed to. The locals seemed so laid back and happy, and there was a general vibe of relaxation. I liked it a lot.

We arrived at our hotel and the friendly staff welcomed us with a nice pot of local tea brought to our room. We settled in, enjoyed our first taste of Darjeeling tea in Darjeeling, and had a little look around the place. The hotel was great, with wood-panelled walls and stairs at odd heights, the place was really interesting. It had a great lounge with hundreds of books and a wood burner in the middle of all of the couches. This is where the guests tended to congregate in the evenings (as much of Darjeeling closes quite early), while the staff would quietly go about the place putting hot water bottles into all of the beds to get them warmed up before you turned in. We soon decided that it was a good thing to spend 5 nights here.

Our first full day was spent getting to know the town, we visited the local botanic gardens and had a fantastic afternoon having ‘high tea’ at the Windermere Hotel, an old colonial building north of town. It started raining about half an hour before we arrived so it was so great to sit in a nice old lounge with an open fire with the rain and wind shut outside. We read the papers and the old letters framed on the walls, while being plied with fresh local tea, cakes, biscuits and of course little triangles of cucumber and cheese and pickle sandwiches (with the crusts cut off). Despite being painfully full, we had already planned where to have dinner. So with that convenient excuse, and after a little digestion, we went to the guest house restaurant and had our first taste of momos since we were in China a couple of years ago. They were as good as we remembered, and we started to look forward to being in Nepal!

The next morning at breakfast Alexandra was excitedly beckoned into the room of a lady we had ended up chatting to in the hotel lounge the evening before. I followed curiously and found them both leaning out of the window of her room, so I had a look too. We were on the 5th floor of the building so we had a good view across the town and I leaned out to see that above the town was a thick stripe of grey mist, and above that was the huge mountain of Kanchenjunga – the tallest mountain in India and the third highest peak in the world – beautifully lit by the morning sun. We immediately decided to change our plans for the day. We arranged a taxi and headed out to Tiger Hill which is where the best view of the mountain is (and from where you can sometimes even see Mount Everest). Crowds of people usually get up at 4am to see the mountain at dawn so having left at 9.30, by the time we got there it was blissfully empty. We got an odd look from the guy at the ticket desk, which suggested we were wasting our money. But once we got to the top of the hill, there it was poking majestically out of the top of a row of clouds, with Darjeeling sitting on the hillside below. From here we decided to walk all the way back to Darjeeling, passing through a couple of towns and visiting a few monastaries along the way. It was a really beautiful walk, and helped partly set us up for the high altitude trekking we have planned in Nepal. We ended up having a great meal at a little place called Sonam’s Kitchen. It’s a family-run place (they live upstairs), there are only 3 tables and you have to order your food an hour in advance so that they have time to pop over to the local market stalls and buy the fruit and veg needed to make your order. Everything is so fresh and tasted wonderful. It quickly became our favourite place to eat in Darjeeling.

After a day of pretty much doing nothing but eating lovely food and drinking excessive quantities of tea, we spent the next day being a little more active again. We visited the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute and Darjeeling Zoo (the highest altitude zoo in India) and saw, amongst other things, a black bear, an Indian tiger and a snow leopard. Afterwards we walked to the Happy Valley tea plantation where we had a tour of the factory and found out all about the various types of tea and how they’re made. Then we popped into a tiny house on the grounds of the estate and tried and bought some of their best tea. It’s called Super Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Picko One, and it definitely was super. The Happy Valley tea garden is the highest altitude tea garden in Darjeeling and the only one to be completely organic. They only sell their top quality tea to Harrods, and it’s apparently sold there for about US$58 per 100g! So we bought some for the local price of Rs250 per 100g (about £3.50)!

We got up early the next morning for the 3 hour drive to Bagdogra Airport, from where we flew back to Delhi (unfortunately), and then to Kathmandu. So after 8 weeks we’ve finally left India. It’s been full of memories for us, so many more than we could possibly write here. There’s simply no other place quite like it.

On to Nepal!

Here are a few pictures from Darjeeling.

We had a bad start to our time in Varanasi. Unfortunately we didn’t sleep much on the overnight train from Agra, so we arrived tired and in need of a shower at midday on Thursday. We had a free pick up from the train station to our guest house and when we arrived at our destination the driver asked for a tip. Anthony and I were discussing between ourselves how much to pay and confirming that it was a free pick up. The manager overheard us talking and confirmed that it was free. Anthony wanted to make sure that the driver was being paid by the hotel and accidentally used the word ‘commission’. This sent the manager into an uncontrollable rage, it was really quite extraordinary. We tried to explain what we meant, but he wouldn’t listen to us and yelled at us to go to our room. After 10 mins Anthony went downstairs to apologise for the misunderstanding, the manager told him that he didn’t want to speak to us while we were staying there and that he did not accept the apology… needless to say, we left! This was the first time that someone had been so outrageously rude to us and we were pretty shocked.

We found another guest house which actually turned out to be closer to the action and had a fantastic view from the eating area. So we were happy! We got our bearings that afternoon and basically just chilled out.

The next day we took a long walk the whole way along the ghats, stopping to chat to people and just sitting by the river watching people bathing and performing puja. It was an incredibly serene experience and makes you nearly want to jump into the Ganges too, until you see massive drains depositing raw sewerage in right next to the people. In the evening we sat at Assi Ghat, wrote some post cards and chatted to some of the locals. As I was writing the postcards a crowd of people gathered to watch me. One man sat down next to me and took the postcards (including the pile that we had written in Agra) from me and proceeded to say ‘who is Linda? And Ben, and who is Eva? Who is Suzanne?’ It was pretty funny. Then he read the postcards and quizzed me about the pictures on front ‘Who built the Taj Mahal? Who did he build it for? Who is the god on front of this one?’. It was something that would simply never happen in London! On the way back we stopped at Dasaswamedh Ghat to watch the elaborate daily Ganga Aarti ceremony along with hundreds of other locals and tourists both lining the shore and sitting in boats packed from the ghat to halfway across the river.

On Saturday we got up at dawn for a boat ride along the river. The river is busiest in the mornings and evenings and it was absolutely beautiful bathed in the morning sunlight. We spent two hours relaxing in the boat, disturbed only by our boat man spitting out his paan and drinking the water from the river! We were pretty alarmed to go past the washing ghats (two of which were literally right next to an open sewer) and to be told that that’s where all the washing from the hotels is done… we’d deposited a big bag of laundry the night before! This got us thinking about how close to the river our guest house was and where the water for our showers came from, we came to the frightening conclusion that we were probably showering in Ganges water!!

We spent some time in the afternoon sitting by Manikarnika Ghat, the main burning ghat and the most auspicious place for a Hindu to be cremated. It’s a pretty sobering place. Behind the ghat are two hospices where people come to die. As a Hindu, if you die here you are offered moksha (liberation from the cycle of birth and death) which is the ultimate desire of every Hindu (apparently!). We saw many bodies being brought down to the river and placed carefully on the huge piles of firewood. A ceremony is performed and the fires are lit. I never realised that it would take a body so long to burn. It’s certainly not an experience for the faint hearted, but I didn’t find it awful, the people who were being cremated there were being given their final wish and would have been happy.

The next morning we were up at 4am for our 17hr train journey to New Jalpaiguri where we were stopping overnight before taking the toy train up the mountain to Darjeeling.

Our journey to Agra started with us being ready for breakfast with plenty of time to eat and get to the station for our train. So we sat in the garden of our guest house in Jaipur and ordered some food. The staff in the kitchen, all 4 of them, then proceeded to take almost 40 minutes to fry two eggs which left us with no option but to take the first auto-rickshaw we could find otherwise we’d miss our train. Being two tourists with huge packs on our backs (and fronts), asking to be taken to the station and looking like we were in a rush, we were prime targets for an absolute ripping off. We decided to take this one on the chin and pass on our frustration with a bad review of the kitchen staff at the hotel on Trip Advisor!

After a problem free train journey, we actually arrived in Agra half an hour early and almost missed getting off at our stop. We got to our guest house to find our room was damp, full of mosquitos and had no hot shower! After finding out that we wouldn’t be able to upgrade to a decent room until the following morning we decided to relax in the lovely communal garden and then head out into the small city to find ourselves some dinner. We ended up having one of the best thalis in India so far at a little place called Taj Cafe, a family run small restaurant which is set up on the two balconies of the family’s house. Two amazing veg thalis, a lovely masala dosa and teas all for about £2.40. Such good value, that we decided to come back on our last evening in Agra. After that meal we headed back to the room, charged the camera batteries, set up our mosquito net and had an early night to make sure we’d be ready to be up well before dawn for the main event, the Taj Mahal!

We had intentionally booked ourselves a room at a guest house that is situated right next door to the east gate of the grounds of the Taj Mahal. It’s apparently the least busy of the three gates and we intended to be at the front of the queue before 6am to be able to get inside the grounds first. We were up at 5.30am and everything went to plan, except for two things. Firstly, we arrived at the gate to find 6 people already queueing. Secondly, we joined the queue at positions 7 and 8 and were promptly told that the ticket office was a kilometre away – even further up the road than our guest house was! It had been moved there from just outside the gate since the publication of our guide book so we had no idea about the new position. I had a nice 2km morning jog to wake me up and by the time I returned with the tickets the queue of 6 had turned to about 60. Shit.

It didn’t matter too much, we realised that by the time we turned the corner to see the Taj in all of its glory, we wouldn’t have got that elusive photograph that’s completely void of people anyway. It was very busy with tourists, but it didn’t matter. There’s just something about walking around the grounds while the sun is rising with the beautiful Taj always in view that just makes everyone that little bit more relaxed. Except around one little spot… that single bench where Diana had her photo taken in front of the Taj. Now that was a spot with a queue and there were certainly a few people getting pissed off with tour guides who seemed to love taking photos of every single member of their tour group, one at a time, in various positions, sitting on that bench. We moved on.

The Taj Mahal is simply awe inspiring and is by far the most impressive building I’ve ever seen, not only for its skilful level of construction but for its sheer artistic quality. It was a pleasure to wander around it as the sun rose and appreciate how the sunlight bounced around and lit up areas of its surface to made them look almost unreal. The way the light is scattered within the milky marble makes the mausoleum’s interior feel appropriately ghostly and beautiful. I’m sure everyone thinks this, but the building is much bigger than I thought and its scale makes it so much more impressive as a structure when you try and comprehend the techniques that must’ve been employed to build it using marble, such a heavy and expensive material for the time. Once you get up close you can see the amount of intricate detail that adorns its surfaces all around. It was built by the Mughal emporer Shah Jahan as a memorial to his 2nd wife Mumtaz. As a building at that time its scale serves to highlight how obsessively in love he must’ve been with her to have ordered its construction when she died giving birth to their 14th child in 1631, and to see it through to completion in 1653.

After our morning hanging out at the Taj, we headed back to our guest house for breakfast and to upgrade to a non mosquito infested room. Once we’d moved, we left for the 2km walk through Shah Jahan Park to Agra Fort, one of the finest Mughal forts in India. Including the section, built by Shah Jahan, in which he was imprisoned by his own son Aurangzeb and left to gaze out at his own creation, the Taj Mahal, for the rest of his life.

The following morning after breakfast we hired an auto-rickshaw for the day (which was such an easy haggle after Delhi!) to take us to some of the more distant but less visited sights in Agra. We spent the next few hours at Mehtab Bagh – the lovely floral park across the river from the back of the Taj Mahal, Chini-Ka-Rauza – a Persian-style riverside tomb, and Itimad-Ud-Daulah – a marble tomb known as ‘The Baby Taj’ which, while not as impressive as its big brother in terms of scale, is arguably more delicate in appearance thanks to its intricatly carved marble lattice screens and colourful inlays.

That evening we chilled out at a rooftop restaurant with a beer and some pakoras while we wrote a few cheesy Taj postcards that we picked up earlier in the day and watched the shadows climb up the Taj as the sun set over Agra. The kite flyers came out in force to fly their little paper kites from the rooftops of their homes which was pretty entertaining, especially when they flew close by and the string threatened to knock over a beer or two. We had the best seat on the rooftop with nothing blocking our view to the Taj, which was beautiful. After that we moved restaurants to return to Taj Cafe for our final thali in Agra, and to watch the Taj finally disappear into the darkness.

Later that night, we caught our 11.30pm sleeper train for the 12 hour journey to Varanasi.

Here are a few pictures from our time in Agra.

We were staying a couple of km out of town and it was a great decision. Our room was massive, there was a lovely communal living room with the daily papers and a gorgeous garden. Wifi was practically free and worked pretty well. So we were happy! Unfortunately the food let the place down a little, as did the incredibly friendly restaurant staff who spoke practically no English. I don’t know how many times I said ’scrambled eggs’ and heard ‘boiled eggs’ repeated back to me! We didn’t do much on our first afternoon, just sat in the garden reading and relaxing. In the evening we decided to try an Italian restaurant and again, much to our surprise it was excellent! I would have been happy eating the pizza in New York or London.

On Saturday morning we got up reasonably early, but had a slow breakfast and read the papers before heading into town for a walking tour of the old city. Jaipur was very carefully designed by Maharaja Jai Singh II in 1727 when he moved his capital here from Amber. The city was laid out according to an ancient Hindu architectural treatise called the Shilpa-Shastra and is remarkably well planned. Wide avenues divide the city into neat rectangles, each one specialising in different crafts. It was a joy to walk around an old city that not only had footpaths but was fragrant with the delicious scent of spice and rose water stalls as opposed to the more common human urine and cow shit. The tour took us to the Iswari Minar Swarga Sal, a tower that overlooks the city. As we’re spending more time here we’re learning how to deal with ‘tip’ situations. This time I requested that we walk to the top alone, no, we didn’t need someone to take our photographs or to make sure we didn’t get lost on the single path to the summit. Then we made our way to the City Palace, not really all that great after the spectacular Mehrangarh Fort in Jodphur, but worth the visit nonetheless.

On our way out of the old city we were stopped by a young man on a scooter who wanted to talk to us about why tourists are always shopping (we weren’t) and why they didn’t really make much of an effort to talk to Indian people. We were pleasantly surprised to enter into a decent conversation with a local and spoke about how we found it really difficult, because at first we talked to everyone and really tried to get to know people, but the longer we travelled here the more we realised that the majority of people who approach you and start a seemingly innocuous conversation end up wanting to sell you something or to take you to their shop. We explained that you can’t really blame people, but it made it a bit hard to ‘get to know’ local people. So we chatted for a while, then he asked for our ‘help’. He said he had an uncle with a gem shop in London and that they have to pay 280% tax on everything they ship, and would we go with him to the post office and send the gems as ‘gifts’ to someone in London and then they’d pay us 100% of the cost as an thank you. So Anthony read him the ‘gem scam’ section of the Lonely Planet, I told him I was a lawyer and that what he was doing was illegal and that if we were to help we would be commiting a crime. I told him the reason he was probably being taxed so much is that the goods are cheap in India and are sold at a huge profit in the UK, and that if the gem dealers have a problem with it then they should petition the governments of the UK and India and not ask tourists to take part in illegal activity (obviously at some point we would have been asked for money and we would have never seen any cash or gems). Finally we told him that obviously we were right about noone wanting to talk to us just for the conversation, but only because they wanted something from us, highlighting to him that he was just like all the other people who wanted something from us! All in all, we think we dealt with it quite well!

On Sunday we took an auto-rickshaw to the lovely Hawa Mahal in the old city. The Hawa Mahal, or Palace of the Winds, is a 5 storey, delicately honeycombed, pink sandstone structure constructed in 1799 to enable the ladies of the royal household to watch the life and processions of the city (at the time they were all under strict purdah, meaning they were not allowed to be seen in public). After this we went out to the Amber Fort. Much more impressive than the City Palace, we spent a couple of hours wandering around, listening to the slightly odd audio tour. Then we headed home and had a fantastic (for me… Anthony’s person didn’t sound too great!) ayurvedic massage.

All in all Jaipur was a very relaxing and lovely place to be. Only minor annoyances were the auto-rickshaw drivers who, like in Delhi, seem to delight at the prospect of ripping tourists off! I suppose the other disappointing thing is that there wasn’t all that much pink! Probably more blue really.

Up until our arrival in Delhi, India had been amazing. Of course, before we left to come to India we had read about how challenging and frustrating it can be, but we’d also read that the rewards for coping with the challenges are greater than at most places a traveller can go. Up until Delhi we’d had the energy to cope with the frustrations and setbacks it had thrown at us. But we’d never come up against The Delhi Evil Army of Auto-rickshaw Drivers (probably their official title). Sometimes in our 5 days in the capital these people made us angry enough to hate everything about Delhi and made the thought of heading right to the international terminal at the city’s airport oh-so-attractive.

The train journey to Delhi was surprisingly easy for us – I think we’re getting used to the long journeys now. It was pretty depressing to see the state of the suburbs of the city as we rolled past. They are totally strewn with rubbish and some of the houses of the residents back directly onto, or are even built on top of, huge mounds of rubbish. We also had an unexpected guest in our carriage that morning. Across from our beds, as we sat waiting to pull into the station, one of the snoring guys (there are always lots of them) across from us jumped up from his bed rubbing his face. Yes indeed, the poor chap had a small rat perched on his face while he was asleep! We were grateful that this was at the end of our journey and I kept an eye on where it was for the rest of the trip.

Our introduction to the city was to find that despite having booked a train that arrived at New Delhi Station (and consequently booked a hotel within walking distance of that station), it arrived at Old Delhi Station. Fantastic. So our next task was to check the map, figure out how much we thought we should be paying to get to the hotel, and find ourselves an auto-rickshaw driver to start the haggling. Little did we know that the first one that approached us would set the tone for our dealings with the rest of them in Delhi. We knew that the journey should’ve cost about Rs30 but we were expecting him to offer Rs80-100 and we’d haggle him down to about Rs50. We had to laugh in his face when he suggested a price of Rs250! It wasn’t the value of the money – a small amount in GBP, it was the principle of the situation that bothered us. I realised after I shouted ‘do you think I’m stupid?!’ back at him as we walked away that yes, he probably thought I was. Luckily for us Old Delhi Station was one of the few places in Delhi which had a pre-pay booth for auto-rickshaws (still overpriced at Rs50, but no haggling required). We didn’t venture far from the hotel on our first afternoon other than to head to Main Bazaar, a very touristy road full of tacky market stalls, to look for a restaurant for dinner.

Our second day in Delhi was on the day of Holi, when we spent the morning out and about getting pelted with colour, and the afternoon hiding out in our hotel with the rest of the tourists who weren’t brave enough to head out into the vibrant war zone. You can read more about our Holi experience and look at some photos here.

By the next day we felt like we hadn’t seen much of Delhi at all, and rightly so. So we planned to head over to the Old City and then to see Connaught Place. We left the hotel and hailed an auto-rickshaw, only to be hit once more with an outrageous fee to take us there. We politely refused and decided that the way to not be completely ripped off by these guys was to try not to be touristy – as it was understandable that they charge these inflated prices because there are so many tourists who are stupid enough to pay them. We had already been doing our part by trying to dress appropriately, something which we were disappointed to see that many tourists don’t even consider. We also put the guide book away, tried to catch rickshaws well away from train stations, and avoided going directly to or from major tourist spots or hotels. Did any of this help at all? No, of course it didn’t. In every small town and city so far where we’ve been able to get to places on foot, we’ve walked. It’s meant seeing things, eating foods and meeting people we’d otherwise have missed, and we’re convinced that it’s absolutely the best way to get to know a place. We even covered a huge amount of Mumbai on foot. But the difference between Delhi and Mumbai is that in Mumbai, when we did need to catch a taxi, the driver would happily put the meter on if you asked him to (and we’d be happy to give a tip), no hassle, no stress. Anyway… we stubbornly ended up walking to the Old City, walked up Chandni Chowk to the Red Fort and paid the biggest Indian World Heritage Site entry fee so far to see the most disappointing Indian World Heritage Site so far. So, already exhausted and disappointed, another haggling battle for yet another ultimately overpriced ride to Connaught Place (to have a look around the more modern end of Delhi) didn’t help things, and we arrived there to find the area was predominantly under construction for the Commonwealth Games in October. Good luck to them for getting the place finished in time, because most of the pavements and buildings were dangerously unfinished. We managed to find a decent goverment-run handicrafts emporium for some shoppng, but our preferred dinner option had disappeared in the construction work and we ended up having to find an alternative by traversing the incomplete rocky dust tracks that were supposed to be pavements, mostly in the dark. Yes… by the end of our third day in Delhi, I wanted to be anywhere else and as far as I could tell, Delhi didn’t want us to be there anyway.

A good night’s sleep meant that we felt a little more prepared for another day of being overcharged for being taken to overpriced and unimpressive sights on noisy roads while breathing smoggy air. Hmm, yes we were just a little more prepared, but not much, as we walked out of the hotel doors and straight past the shouting auto-rickshaw drivers waiting outside. ‘Hello! Hello! Where you going?’ I heard… ‘Fuck off!’ I thought.

We were happy to have managed to get a Rs40 ride for Rs100 after about 10 minutes of walking about and haggling with quite a few different drivers away from our hotel (argh… were we actually beginning to accept this shit?!), and we went to Humayun’s Tomb. We had a really pleasant morning wandering about the gardens and exploring the beautiful early Mughal architecture, and I actually started to think that the city might have had something to offer that made all of the other crap worth putting up with after all. After too much curry, we thought we’d treat ourselves to lunch at the ‘All American Diner’ and after the the long walk there (yes of course we walked!) we were very pleased to see a really convincing 50s diner complete with black and white floor tiles, neon lights, red seats and lots of chrome. We had some excellent milkshakes, then I went for the french toast breakfast and Alexandra ordered a cheeseburger. Unfortunately we seemed to be at the only ‘All American Diner’ in the world where a standard cheeseburger comes with a processed, minced chicken patty instead of minced beef. Having had a beefburger at a very good restaurant in Mumbai, we thought this place would have had no problem serving one up. After the burger was left aside, it turned out that my french toast didn’t stretch too far once it had to be shared between us, so some huge desserts were in order, and they weren’t too bad at all. (Although that lunchtime, we really wanted to be back in New York!) We spent the afternoon, visiting Safdarjung’s Tomb and Gandhi Smriti – in the gardens of which, Gandhi took his final steps before being assassinated in 1948 – and did a bit more shopping, including buying some snacks to eat back at the hotel. Although we were severely overcharged yet again to get back to the hotel from south Delhi we overlooked the annoyance because our time in Delhi finally had some positive things to look back on.

Our last day started with a visit to New Delhi Station to confirm which station our train to Jaipur left from the following morning. Yes of course, the booking said New Delhi, but the train would leave from Old Delhi. Glad we checked. Then we walked back to the Old City to visit Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in India which can hold a massive 25,000 people. Then after catching a cycle rickshaw towards Connaught Place (and having to get off because 10 minutes into the journey the driver just stopped because he didn’t actually know where it was), we were pointed towards the metro. Aaah! The Delhi metro! This is what will save the city from critical tourist eyes if they can get it finished in time for the Commonwealth Games. It’s almost as good as Shanghai’s metro and although nowhere near as comprehensive, puts the London Underground to shame. Not least because it cost us an amazing Rs8 (11p!) for our trip to Connaught Place. Leaving the metro station we were approached by a guy who after a friendly chat during which we told him we were shopping and how much we hate the Delhi auto-rickshaw drivers he responded by asking us which shop we wanted to go to, grabbed a driver and ordered him to turn on his meter before telling him to take us to the shop. Thinking that they’re not all bad after all turned out to be a silly thing to do as this driver ended up taking us to a different shop, one presumably connected to the guy outside the station. Another scam… We were starting to learn to assume that no-one approaches you in India unles they want something from you. Which is a shame for the few who just want a genuine chat. Frustrated again, we managed to find the shops we wanted to visit about an hour later because yet another driver tried to take us to a shop where he could get an extra bit of commission. After a little more shopping and a rush to get to the post office to get stuff posted out to friends before it closed, we visited a Muslim shrine called Harzat Nizam-Ud-Din Dargargh. We handed in our shoes (and the shoe bearer handed me a taqiyah to wear) and headed into the shrine which was packed with people. We sat amongst them and at sunset the Sufis began singing qawwali. It was hugely atmospheric and a really great experience.

We finished our last night with an awesome dinner at a restaurant in Lodi Garden, and on the walk back to the hotel we started to be followed by a friendly dog. It seemed to be happy to accompany us for about 15 minutes until we had to cross a major road. Once Alexandra and I had managed to cross the dual carriageway I looked back at the very moment that the dog was hit by a skidding car. It bounced and rolled away down the road but surprisingly managed to clamber to its feet and run, clearly shocked, back across the road, almost causing another pile up on the other side. We couldn’t help feeling a bit guilty after that as we made our way back to the hotel.

The next morning we were up at 3.15am for our train and our final hours in Delhi were punctuated in the same way as our first had been, with a huge rip off from a taxi driver. Only this time it was by the driver of the very hotel that we’d been staying with (and spending plenty of money with), taking advantage of our need for a taxi so early in the morning and not giving a shit about sending their customers away unhappy. Hopefully Jaipur is a little more welcoming!

Goodbye Delhi… you’ve got a few positives, and I can see that you might improve in the years to come, but I don’t think I’ll be coming back.

After making our way along Main Bazaar we headed back towards our hotel via some back alleys, thinking that less crowds meant less paint and water. We were proved very wrong as the local kids seemed to enjoy pouring buckets of water from the rooftops down into the narrow alleys where we couldn’t escape!

We made it back to our hotel where the reception staff, as well as quite a few other tourists who weren’t brave enough to leave the place found our entrance pretty amusing and asked to take our photo. We finally got to see the state we’d got ourselves into when we got into the lift, and then we had a tense hour trying to get ourselves looking human again without staining our hotel room pink and blue!

Here are a few more photos.

We’ve been in Pushkar since lunchtime on Wednesday and we’ve had a really chilled out few days. Pushkar is apparently usually one of the most picturesque places in India, but unfortunately at the moment the lake has dried up, so it isn’t quite what we were expecting. The story goes that Brahma dropped a lotus flower on the earth and Pushkar appeared. It’s a weird place, incredibly holy for the Hindus, but also jam packed full of hippy tourists and shops selling your typical ‘hippy’ clothing. There are signs up everywhere explaining that you should dress conservatively, and not embrace in public, so it’s pretty upsetting to see so many tourists paying no respect to what the town is about.

We stayed at a place 10 mins walk out of town, so have had the most relaxing sleep since we got to India, no cars, no people spitting and no dogs howling at unusual hours of the night. Aside from relaxing we’ve wandered around town, taken a walk up to the Savitri Temple on one of the highest hills surrounding the town and tried to find a decent meal!

All in all, it’s been an uneventful couple of days. I’ve nearly managed to get over the cold that’s been plaguing me for coming up to two weeks and we’ve rejuvenated ourselves a bit for Delhi. But we’ve also been frustrated by the the sheer volume of tourists and the tourist trade here, something we, perhaps naively, weren’t expecting.

Delhi here we come!

Udaipur is very proud of two things. Firstly, that it has some huge palaces set against the lovely Lake Pichola with a fine backdrop of the Aravilli Hills. And secondly, that its palaces were used as locations for the James Bond film Octopussy. The most amusing thing about these two things was that, despite the 450 year history of the city, Octopussy is the thing that the residents are most proud of (on the surface at least). Guest houses all over the city show the film every night in their rooftop restaurants, and at about 8pm you don’t have to walk far before you hear Monty Norman’s theme punctuated by the sound of gunshots twanging around Bond, eminating from an old TV somewhere nearby. We bought some nice things from a Rajastani textile shop on one of our days there and as we were paying for our well-haggled-for purchases, I spotted a black and white photo on the wall. In the middle of the shot was a handsome-looking Roger Moore standing in the perfect pose, side on to the camera, head turned towards it, eyebrow raised, in full tuxedo attire but with his jacket off. At that very moment in time, he was Bond. It could have been a well set up studio photograph, except, all around him were the grinning faces of about 15 Indian men, all with big 80s hair and moustaches. As I laughed the shop owner pointed out his brother next to Roger and told us that it was taken in the very shop we were in. I do hope Roger got a good deal on bed covers too.

We only did a little sightseeing, covering the things we could get to on foot, as a few of the hilltop palaces are 8-10km away. But the old city of Udaipur is small, and it’s possible to get a good feel for most of the place with an afternoon of walking. We did manage to visit the City Palace and its museum, Bangore-ki-Haveli and the Jagdish Temple, and as it’s an easy place to shop with relatively little hassle from shopkeepers we did a fair amount of that too!

We’re now on the train, the sun has just started to rise and we’re already 45 minutes into our 5 1/2 hour journey north to Ajmer where we’ll catch a bus for the short ride to Pushkar, where hopefully it’ll be even more relaxing than it was in Udaipur.

Here are a few photos from Udaipur.

After a quick lunch of pancakes we headed for the fort. The Jaisalmer Fort was built in 1156 and the area surrounding it is still very much lived in by a large number of people. It’s easy to get lost wandering through the tiny meandering lanes surrounding the Maharaja’s Palace within the fort walls. Unfortunately as the city has modernised and running water has come to the old city the foundations are faltering and the fort is slowly sinking into the hillside. Because of this it’s recommended that you stay outside the fort walls and don’t use any restaurants within it. We didn’t find the fort as impressive as Jodphur, but it was spectacular nonetheless, we just wished we’d gone there first! After exploring the old city and the Maharaja’s Palace we headed back into town via a couple of handcraft shops (nope, we didn’t end up buying anything).

We spent the next few hours getting lost in the equally maze-like streets of the new town, exploring some havelis, the most amazing of which was Patwa-ki-Haveli – a towering Jain residence built between 1800-1860. We stopped to swap some books and then headed to a beautiful rooftop restaurant called Saffron for dinner. One of the best meals yet!

The next morning we were up at 6am for pancakes before heading out in the jeep to the start of our camel safari. On the way to the start point we stopped off at some memorials built for the Jaisalmer rulers over the years – it was pretty beautiful early in the morning. We finally got on the camels around 9.30am. We had a very entertaining group of people, 4 young French guys travelling together, one French guy our age and two Japanese girls, also the same age as us. After about 30 mins on the camel I was starting to feel pain, not pleasant when you know you have a day and a half to go! Fortunately we had an early lunch (simple, yet great food… and we made use of the sporks for the first time!) and spent a couple of hours resting under the trees. A few more hours on the camels in the afternoon saw us reach the sand dunes where we jumped around (well, watched the French guys jump around!) and set up camp.

In the evenings it’s traditional for the camel drivers to sing songs and talk a little about their lives. Much to our amusement and I think also to the drivers, our young French companions decided that they would like to sing too, and entertained us with almost the entire Lion King soundtrack in French, but even better were their versions of ‘I Will Survive’ and ‘We Will Rock You’. Anthony and I were in tears rolling around on the ground laughing at the lyrics they managed to come up with. Special thanks must go to Morgan for ‘I Will Survive’.

Sleeping under the stars was spectacular, if a little cold. I’ve never seen a sky so filled with stars – and lucky Anthony managed to spot a shooting star (or as the French guys called it a ‘moving star’). We were up early for sunrise the next morning and a painful, yet uneventful couple of hours ride to the point where we met the jeep to take us back.

We had a fantastic Thali at our guest house for lunch before jumping on the 2pm bus back to Jodphur. We decided to break the journey from Jaisalmer to Udaipur with a night in Jodphur which was a good decision. We had a relaxing evening and were up again at 6 for an early bus ride to Udaipur. Unfortunately our bus had two front tyre punctures along the way so we were slightly delayed. On the positive side, they had enough spare tyres and managed to fix the problem pretty quickly!

Here are a few photos from Jaisalmer and our camel safari.

Unfortunately on our first night we were unable to get into our guest house of choice in the old town and we were stuck in one of the new areas of the city which meant loud traffic noise and lots of smog. Fortunately the ‘rooftop restaurant’ is about as common as a dodgy bathroom in guest houses across Rajasthan. So we spent the evening relaxing and enjoying the view while having dinner on the roof.

The next morning we made some pathetic excuses to the enquiring manager about why we were only staying in Jodhpur for one night without even bothering to see the sights, ran around the corner and hopped into a rickshaw for the quick ride to the place we actually wanted to be at the night before. Once we’d made it into the old town the difference was striking. I gave up on my map within 5 minutes of us entering the tiny maze-like streets, which even Lonely Planet couldn’t mark out properly. Soon enough we’d arrived at our new guest house, Singhvi’s Haveli, a beautiful little place with lots of character and an amazing view of the most dominant feature on the Jodhpur cityscape, Mehrangarh Fort. We settled into our great little room (and settling into a room is something that is a rarity when you’re backpacking on a budget!) and had a brief look around the place before heading back out. That afternoon we visited Jaswant Thada – a beautiful marble memorial building, and Umaid Bhawan Palace – the current residence of the Maharaja of Jodhpur, before heading back to our haveli and spending the rest of the day researching and organising guest houses and buses for the coming days and weeks. Something which seems to take up a huge amount of time when we’re only staying in each place for 2 or 3 days. We then got some rest, knowing that the next morning we’d be climbing to the top of the huge fort that had been looming over us for most of the day.

It was the first morning so far in India that we actually felt a bit cold (apologies to friends back in London and New York, I know you’re probably still suffering!) so we filled up with the required breakfast of pancakes and tea, and headed out on foot to the base of Mehrangarh Fort. Just this first walk on foot, following arrows and ‘way to fort’ signs painted sporadically on walls, gave us our first real impression of why Jodhpur is called the ‘blue city’. As we headed through the labyrinth of houses toward the Fort, the lack of tiny shops and stalls in this area revealed that most of the buildings were painted a vibrant sky blue colour which looked amazing in the morning light against the clear sky of an almost identical hue. After a 15 minute walk we hit a fork in the road. We were right next to the Fort’s walls but couldn’t find the gate and without any arrows to be seen, pulled out the map and tried to guess where we were. Just then the front door of one of the blue houses in front of us opened slightly and an old hand slid through the gap pointing us to the right. No face, no words… just a hand. Very odd. Supposing that this must be a common junction for tourists to get lost, we followed the hand’s direction and lo and behold, right around the next corner was the giant gateway to the Fort. Looking back at the door where the hand had been I thought that it’s owner could save themselves a lot of time by just painting one on the door. Still, everyone needs a job.

We spent the rest of the morning wandering all around the spectacular Mehrangarh Fort with views of the blue city that put the rooftop restaurants’ in the shade (sometimes literally). We completed our time there by having our palms read by the Maharaja’s own astrologer!

After leaving the Fort we headed for the city’s one and only clock tower, to find a nearby travel agent for yet more travel arrangements. On the way we came across a small band playing trumpets and drums followed by a colourful procession of people, many throwing petals up into the air and over a flower decorated palanquin. It’s not uncommon to come across weddings being celebrated in the streets and before then I’d not managed to get a nice photograph of one so I pulled out the camera. Just as I did, I noticed that the first members of the crowd to pass me were a group of women all of whom had tears streaming down their faces as they walked together at the front of the group. I tucked the camera away as the realisation hit me that we were witnessing a funeral procession, and as the palanquin passed we saw the body of an old bearded man, made to sit upright with his legs crossed and covered from head to toe in flowers, with only his face exposed. I had to admire the fact that this man’s life was being celebrated in such a grand and happy way that it made me think it was a wedding procession.

We decided to walk back to the haveli through the markets, saving the haggling energy that we would have used on a rickshaw driver in case we came across something we wanted to buy along the way. The fumes from the rickshaws and motorbikes (not to mention the cow’s arses) became a bit overwhelming in the tiny market streets and we were relieved to finally find our way back to our room.

The next morning we were up before dawn and headed out to find a rickshaw to take us to where we had to catch a bus to Jaisalmer. Although we were promised that we’d find lots of rickshaws to choose from at the square near the haveli at that time of the morning, there were none to be seen. We had a worrying 20 minutes of wandering about the nearby streets, dodging cow shit and hoping to hear the sound of an engine approaching, before one finally did and took us to the bus stop. We were lucky to have got up extra early that morning because having booked a 7am bus, and with many other people telling us it wouldn’t leave until 7.30am, of course it actually left the bus stop at 6.40am! It was another thing that has made us realise that you simply can’t make any reliable plans in India if any aspect of them is dependant on public transport, but I suppose that’s all part of the experience! So there we were, on the bus, tired but relieved and ready for the 6 1/2 hour trip to Jaisalmer.

Here’s a few pictures from our time in Jodhpur.

When we got to Jalgaon we jumped on a local bus to Fardapur (aka middle of nowhere) which is the town closest to the Ajanta caves. We only had the day planned for Ajanta and had to be on a bus at 7am the next day, so despite our lack of sleep we jumped in a car and headed for the caves.

We’re both continually surprised about the places that we’ve visited and how incredibly old and beautiful they are. I can’t believe that we’d never heard of most of them, and probably never would have if we didn’t come to India. The buddhist caves at Ajanta are less immediately striking than those at Ellora, because they are less about structure than design, and more about painting. They date from around 2nd century BC to 6th century AD and whilst most of the paintings are only partially visible they are truly beautiful.

We got up at 6am Saturday morning to pack and get ready for the 7am bus to Aurangabad. Unfortunately our guest house didn’t mention they turn the electricity off from 6am-12pm so we had to pack by torchlight. We got to Aurangabad, checked in and jumped on the bus to Ellora. Once you get out of the big cities and the really touristy areas the English signage and tourist info disappears. It took us a while to get on the right local bus, but eventually we did and arrived at Ellora about 45 mins later.

The Ellora caves are spectacular, they’re not as old as Ajanta (earliest is AD 600) but were chipped out of the rocks over 5 centuries by Buddhist, Hindu and Jain monks. The Hindu caves are definitely the most grand, the Jain caves incredibly detailed, and the Buddhist caves the most simple and somehow the most calm. As we walked in the unforgettable Kailasa Temple, the most impressive of the Hindu ‘caves’ I decided to climb some steps to check out a balcony area. As I stepped off the top step, I trod in a hole and had a pretty spectacular (and thoroughly embarrassing) fall, twisting my ankle. After a few minutes it felt ok so we carried on with the day. The caves cover an area of approx 2.5 km up and down roughly hewn staircases and paths. By the end of the day my foot had swollen up and was quite painful so we decided to catch a jeep which depart when ‘full’ rather than a local bus where I may have had to stand. So when all 19 people were in we left for Aurangabad… yes 19 people! Not the most pleasant 45 minutes back into town.

Next morning was another early start, a taxi picked us up at 7am to take us to the airport where we were due to fly to Delhi and then on to Jodhpur. Unfortunately our flight was delayed by 2.5 hours due to bad visibilty (ie. smog) so we missed our connecting flight to Jodhpur. It is notoriously hard to book accommodation in Delhi and as I could barely walk, let alone carry a pack, we decided to treat ourselves to a night in a big hotel. We arrived at lunch, ordered room service, ice for my foot and dvds. More room service for dinner and great night’s sleep left us feeling refreshed and ready for the flight to Jodhpur the next day. The highlight of the stay had to be when the dvd arrived on a silver tray with a small bucket of popcorn and a can of Pepsi! Classic.

Here are the pictures!

Our overnight train from Margao arrived exactly on time, which was unfortunate because that time happened to be 4.05am and we soon found out that Mumbai before dawn is quite a contrast to the Mumbai we’d be battling with later that day.

We met a fellow traveller (another Alex) in Margao before we boarded our train and we decided to meet up again at Mumbai’s CST Station to see if he could get a room at the same hotel we’d booked ourselves into. It was a short walk from the station to the hotel so we waved away the few taxi drivers that were hanging around outside and set off, map in hand. Unfortunately there were a few unexpected obstacles between the deserted station and the hotel, namely people – lots of people – sleeping across the entire pavement. With me concentrating on the map, a well timed shout from Alexandra stopped me from introducing myself to the first Mumbai residents I’d come across by falling onto them with a 20kg bag on my back! After that near miss, and one wrong turn, it took us slightly longer to find the hotel than we’d hoped, and I (being the map reader) was feeling the pressure to get us to the hotel as the nocturnal wildlife of rats and overly territorial dogs seemed to be closing around us. Luckily for us it was only one wrong turn and we were able to regain our bearings and get to the hotel where, after a minor argument with the ‘cheerful’ (Lonely Planet’s description) reception staff about our very early check in, we finally made it to our room.

After a short sleep we were woken by the usual morning noises of throats being cleared (repeatedly) and dogs howling, but what was more obvious than everything else was the relentless sound of hundreds of car horns all being used at once… Mumbai was calling, loudly, and (because we didn’t have double glazing in our room) we had to go and see what the hell it was shouting about.

I don’t think I’ve used as many expletives in one day as I did on our first day walking around the streets of Mumbai. I thought Bangkok was crazy but this was on another level entirely. Alexandra pointed out that Mumbai has about the same population as the whole of Australia, which put things into a certain perspective. The place is simply crammed with humanity (oh, and dogs and rats, mustn’t forget them). It’s because of this that Mumbai has a different feel to most other major cities. When tourists go to major cities around the world, they often go to see the sights. But I got the impression that Mumbai wasn’t really about that. Yes, it has sights… The Gateway of India, The Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, Elephanta Island’s caves, and lots more, all punctuating points in Mumbai’s extensive history. But it’s the experience of being there amongst the millions of people that is the real sight. Doing things like strolling through the parks, where every corner is filled with a cricket match; dropping our clothes at the laundry and then popping by the massive Dhobi Ghat (where pretty much all of Mumbai’s clothes go to be washed by hand) the next afternoon to see if we could spot ours; heading to the Chor Bazaar markets to buy some gorgeous old 70s lithograph printed Bollywood posters and rusty old steel signs from a hidden room of treasures at the back of an old antiques shop, then heading to the huge old post office to have them packaged up by some guy on the street who wraps them in cloth and stitches it up, before getting you to write the address on the cloth and escorting you inside to pay; strolling into the grand old building of the High Court of Maharashtra, walking uncomfortably amongst cabinets and bookcases filled with thousands of dusty old string tied case files, hoping not to be stopped and questioned by a guard with a machine gun, and slipping quietly into the back of one of the courtrooms to hear a case (fortunately the judicial system only uses English); finding the Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue, glowing with its coat of bright blue paint amongst the surrounding dirty buildings, and heading inside to find it empty but for one member of Mumbai’s small Jewish community (of about 4000 people) who told us all about the building and about his experiences of being a Jew in India; or randomly hearing the noise of a big crowd at the end of a street when we were walking home at night to find the street had been overtaken by an amateur cricket match. The list goes on…

Sitting on Chowpatty Beach eating panipuri and bhelpuri while watching the sunset with the crowds wasn’t the sort of beach experience we’d become used to so far on our travels, with bikinis and boardshorts replaced by salwar kameez and shoes, trousers and shirts. It was the most formally dressed time spent relaxing on the beach so far, made all the more odd because while we were watching the sunset, everyone else was watching us!

We were also fortunate to be in Mumbai at the same time as the Kala Ghoda (‘Black Horse’) festival which was a big cultural gathering of arts and crafts, dance and food stalls. We had a great evening eating street food (where I ended up spending far too long at the panipuri stall… thanks Raj for introducing them to us!), including our first taste of jalebis in India, and watching some great dance shows.

We’ve had so many great experiences in such a short time. It has been exhausting, very very frustrating and quite confronting at times, but I found that I’ve had to just take a deep breath (not too deep though, because of the smog) and go with the flow of the place, or else I’d drown while trying to swim against the current!

The excitement turned to nervousness on our last day in Mumbai as we didn’t have a completely confirmed booking on our 12.10am overnight train to Jalgaon, where we would travel onward to Ajanta. We’d bought ‘waitlisted’ tickets as the train was fully booked, which meant we’d only find out about an hour before the train was due to leave whether we’d actually get seats, and we were relying on other people cancelling to get them. Not getting them would mean another night of walking around the streets searching for a hotel with a free room. But fortunately we were lucky and we had a disturbed night of being woken over and over by some particularly weird snoring from a few others in our carriage. Still, at least we were on the train!

On a side note, cheers to Alex (the bloke we met at Margao station, not Alexandra) for a great night out at Leopolds, and for all of the South America advice. All the best for the rest of your trip!

Here’s a few more pictures from our time in Mumbai.

We arrived in Hampi and Alexandra guarded the bags as I ran from place to place checking out the rooms and haggling as much as I could. I’d planned on checking three places recommended in the Lonely Planet but simply walking from one to the next attracted other people who were trying to get me to check their rooms out too. I ended up looking at about eight rooms and by the time I’d decided on one of them it turned out to be full. Yes, the hordes of other tourists had already arrived (armed with their own copies of the Lonely Planet, damn them!) and were swiping decent rooms out from under our feet! We had to act fast and ended up paying a little more than we could’ve, even after a bit of haggling, but it was clean and comfortable so we were satisfied.

We’d challenged ourselves to see Hampi in a day and despite the exhausting journey the day before, we were up early and filled up with fuel (pancakes) ready for the day ahead. Hampi is a naturally stunning part of the world, with single giant boulders and huge mountains of slightly smaller ones scattered all over the dusty landscape. But what makes it even more spectacular are the 15th century ruins of temples and spacious bazaars from one of India’s largest Hindu empires that have been built on top of and in amongst the boulders. We spent the day covering a large area of Hampi completely on foot, exploring most of the ruins, and visiting a temple where we were both ‘blessed’ by Lakshmi the resident elephant (who has been hilariously trained not to bless – by touching the person’s head with her trunk – a foreigner if they give her a coin, but to do so for a note). Alexandra also spent quite a bit of time trying to avoid attracting school children, who seemed to love approaching her to ask her name and nationality from before letting off a collective giggle and offering their hands (yes, all of them) for a handshake. We also accidently took a wrong turn which led us on a twenty minute steep climb up to the summit of one of the mountains of boulders. The guide book said ’stairs’, but we took the ones up the mountain, not the ones that go around it, which we only spotted once we were at the top looking down at them. It was a happy accident though, because the views from the summit were amazing. We ended the day by rewarding ourselves with a curry (surprisingly). The fingernails on my right hand are getting yellower by the day!

And I’m writing this post the following day, sitting on the first of two trains to get to Mumbai. This one was an hour and fifteen minutes late just leaving Hospet, so I’m starting to sense a recurring theme of lateness with the trains. Nobody here seems to care though. We should get to Mumbai early tomorrow morning, but I’m just hoping to make it there before Christmas!

We had a pretty lengthy journey to India, we drove to Melbourne from Phillip Island, narrowly made our flight to Sydney (we were held up by road works through Melbourne), then to Singapore, overnight in Singapore (we stayed inside the terminal and had to trust that Air India would collect our bags from BA lost property and get them on the flight!!), Mumbai, Goa and then a taxi journey to the capital city, Panjim. All in all it was pretty tiring but basically uneventful. We arrived with all our luggage, in one piece!

We spent a couple of days based in Panjim, wandering around town, doing a bit of clothes shopping (trying to make sure we dress properly, ie. cover up!) and getting over our jet lag. We spent a day exploring Old Goa which used to be the capital of Goa. A beautiful place, and not at all what we were really expecting from India, old Portuguese churches and monasteries set in beautiful palm tree surrounds.

Next we headed for the beach. We decided to go north first so got on the bus to Candolim beach. We were drawn by the description of the old Portuguese fort and the relatively new ship which had ran aground just off the beach. We spent 4 days in Candolim, enjoying the time to relax but put off by the other tourists we saw there! It seemed to be full of a mixture of package tourists and people who must have been going there since the 60s. Most of them didn’t wear so much on the beach… I’ve never seen so many thongs in one place in my life!!! We saw one rather large middle aged lady get up from her seat in a beachside restaurant to be confronted by thonged buttocks with an eye tattooed on each cheek! We had a hard time keeping that meal down.

After 4 days in Candolim we went to Margao which is the capital of south Goa. We liked it a lot more than Panjim, but maybe that’s just because we were slowly getting used to being in India! We had a trip out to Ponda to visit a spice plantation which was pretty interesting and then just wandered around the old quarter and the bustling markets. We’d been taking buses for a while by this stage and figured out how to deal with the fare collectors who inevitably try and charge you too much. Give them the right amount and ignore them, they just leave you alone, can’t really blame them for trying!

From Margao we went to Patnem beach in the south. We loved it! Much more our type of place and we found ourselves wishing that we had 4 days in Patnem and had only spent 2 in Candolim! We had a hut directly on the beach and there were plenty of places to get great food! After 2 days we took what we’ve dubbed the ‘Disco Bus’ back to Margao. The bus was probably the calmest we’ve been on so far, but it was all chrome with flashing disco lights and had dance music blaring from the speakers!

We headed out to the train station at about 7am for our 8am train, we were a bit unsure about how it was all going to work! The platforms didn’t have any numbering so we had to trust what we were told. We figured out where we were supposed to stand on the platform for our car, but unfortunately the info was wrong so when the train arrived we had to sprint down the platform, packs on backs, to our car. Even though Margao isn’t the biggest station in the world it was pretty hectic, children begging, tourists (like us) trying to work out what the hell was going on, Indian travellers with bags stacked high on the platform. But here we are, we made it onto the train and we have seats and our luggage in view. 5 hours to go of our 6.5 hour journey…