India: 29th November - 21st December 2013

Saturday 21^st December 2013 – New Delhi, India to London to Dublin Athlone, Ireland

No toast was available for the breakfast, so small one had nothing except for a muffin that tall one smuggled out to him. Taxi to the airport only took half an hour compared to the hour and a half quoted by our driver. Boarded our British Airways flight 12.30pm Delhi time, and thankfully the fog was clear enough for us to take off. Before take off they announced that they had to decontaminate the cabin for bugs before take off, and a air stewardess walked up each aisle letting off a yellow spray can. She'd chosen to spray it in front as she walked, and so got a full face of it as she paced up the length of the plane (instead of spraying it behind her as she walked) – this resulted in her coughing in the toilets for the next 5 minutes.

The seats and table trays were pretty filthy, ours were both covered with loose sugar and coffee stains. An over the top Indian lady stewardess helped us to clean them and then helped us for the rest of the flight to obtain some extra main meals. A scenic 9 hour flight followed, flying over the snow topped mountain ranges over Baku, Belgrade and the Black Sea. Small one watched Mrs Brown's Boys, and infront of him he noticed an old Indian couple also watching it – and wondered what they'd make of it. Tall one watched 3 movies – Filth, White House Down and After Earth. Small one opted for the free cans of Tiger beer (his first Tiger beers since the horrific Tiger Beer sickness back in Kuala Lumphur, and his first beer since leaving Thailand).

We landed in Heathrow airport, London – was a bit bumpy with a few jolts – but not so bad as people had warned us in the high winds, though our air stewardess friends were chatting behind us about how bad the landing was? We landed about 3.30pm London Time and our next flight was not until 9.15pm. We then spent a good while just walking up and down the very busy terminal 3, small one trying to doze of and Tall one stocking up on Monster Munch, Lion Bars, Quavers and other snack foods he;d missed. We'd brought two carry on suitcases on wheels on our last day in Delhi (about 4 pounds each, and hoped they would be easier than rucksacks and checked bags in the future). The handles on the wheel bags were very short, perfect for small one, but tall one had to stoop backwards in order to pull his bag on the wheels, which just resulted in it tipping over or catching his feet – he just wanted to go back to using the rucksack. At 8.45pm Tall one finished reading Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days – which he'd spread out reading back from 2^nd October, to match the 80 days travel of Willy Fog.

Boarded our next BA flight to Dublin and took off without any incident. A short event-less flight and we were in Dublin after 10pm. Outside after a few phone calls we found our pickup, Abba – who had dropped us off at Athlone railway station back Oct 2012, and picked us up from the airport July 2011. Was an hours drive back to Athlone, with Tall one sat in the back of the car handed a roll of cellotape and instructed to fix Abba's home made Christmas jumper. The jumper consisted of a standard red sweatshirt – with tinsel and Christmas lights stapled on – the battery pack concealed inside a small dirty sock also stapled to the inside of the jumper. Tall one's job was to wrap the spikey lights with tape to prevent them from catching. Back at the Hegarty house in Athlone, there was the expected tears and welcome home from the family. We were also surprised by small one's cousin Nicola and partner Gina – who were a little worse for wear and would not stop hugging and kissing the pair of them. And that was us home, essentially for good – after 5 and a half years travelling for Tall one and 5 years for Small one. After Christmas would come the job hunt and the house hunt, hoping to move to Galway. 

We'll no doubt miss being on the move, knowing that any terrible job was only temporary and we'd be on the move again soon enough, we'd miss meeting new people in each new place and the many sights we've taken in on the road. But after so long we now are looking for more security, somewhere to call home and build upon without having to move out after a few months, and looking forward to having some money again! Travel has been fantastic, though at times exhausting. The blog alone has snow balled into a 1,000 word a day job which takes an hour to do. Then there's the photos which are loaded, filed, named, backed up, uploaded online.... the travel book to write in our dates and destinations, the map to be coloured in, then there's the planning of the trip itself, the trains, planes, buses, hotels and sight seeing – not to mention the Skype calls home....travel itself has been a full time job. I'm sure we'll return to it after a time, but perhaps in smaller measures. Next, after our wedding in October – there is a new kind of adventure to come... setting up a new life together in our home country.

Friday 20^th December 2013 – New Delhi, India

A huge all you can eat breakfast downstairs, coco pops with proper milk, toast and omlette, good coffee, juice, Danish, yoghurt, fruit. Moved rooms after 11am, and spent the day only inside the hotel never stepping outside again – think small one was so relieved to have survived India he wouldn't risk another minute on the streets. Only came down for lunch and later dinner, collected our laundry which was mostly still damp and they had taken to writing on the inside back of our clothes a reference number in black marker pen ('A6') which hadn't washed out. We had a good clear out of our bags and now both were much lighter, now all set for the journey home tomorrow – fog dependent.

That was our last full day of India – Small one was surprised to have stuck it out, and only got sick the once (ironically on a pizza slice). It's been an amazing destination, though not exactly a relaxing spot to come to – an incredible experience of all kinds. Met some very nice, genuine Indian people, as well as the one's just after you're supposed riches, seen some beautiful sights and some sickening sites, some wonderful foods and smells, and some God awful ones too. After seeing the magnificence of the Taj Mahal you can step outside on to the street and see an old man squat down having a shit in the gutter next to some pigs nosing through a heap of garbage. It's certainty one of the more intensive places we've been to – a place where our guard was nearly always up, and your senses are overloaded with a multitude of conflicting sights, smells, sounds and tastes. Tall one would love to come back, though would probably count himself lucky to get Small one here just the once.

Thursday 19^th December 2013 – Agra to Delhi, India

Our usual young Indian waiter had promised he'd be up for 7am this mornignt o take our breakfast order, but 7.10am we found him still asleep by reception. After some prompting from small one we got him up, and he slowly made his way to the rooftop cafe where he stood in the same white stripy shirt and ridiculously red flat shoes he'd had on for the last 3 days straight. We then ordered the same butter-less toast, omelette and luke warm black tea as yesterday. While we waited we chatted with an overly chirpy middle aged couple from Canada and a friednly 'rough around the edges' girl from London who has been travelling India alone since September.

At 7.45am Lally turned up outside the Hotel, for the last 9 days we'd been with him he'd had very grey hair, and now he got out of the driver's seat with a full bodied head of jet black hair. Small one immediately jumped on this and told him how handsome he looked, and wondered if this was Lally's younger brother.... now his passport photos the other day made sense. It was a stark contrast to wait for his hair to turn almost pure grey before going all out black again. We had presumed as he'd had the last 2 nights off that he drove back to his home town of Jaiour (3-4 hours away), but he claimed he hadn't.

Lally took the new Yamuna express way from Agra to Delhi – which was an amazing road and only took us just under 3 hours to get to Delhi (instead of the estimated 4-5 hours). Though the reason being there was literally no traffic – the highway was eerily deserted and shrouded in fog – we only saw a couple of cars when we got to the toll gate. The toll here cost 550 Rupees return, which went some way in explaining why locals still used the old road as most Tolls so far had been only 50 Rupees. We arrived in Delhi around 11am, and most of the City was still under fog as reported on the news (which we hoped would not stop our flight on Saturday, as it had reportedly done to others so far).

As Lally had taken us back earlier than we'd paid for we convinced him to take us to two sights in Old Delhi that we'd previously missed (Red Fort and Jama Masjid). He was a bit reluctant to do this, but we convinved him otherwise. The traffic in Old Delhi was horrendous (which explained why our day tour Delhi driver back 3 weeks ago didn't want to come here) – Lally was on edge as we had to weave through traffic that was crawling along packed roads, he didn't look happy. We finally got to Jama Masjid, and said we'd be very quick as he had to drive back to Agra for his next pickup tour. At the gate they stopped small one coming in as he wore shorts, so they made a makeshift skirt for him to wrap around his waist and hide those offensive knees and shins. The inside of the temple was very foggy, though still very impressive. Tall one paid the extra 100 Rupee to run up the inside spiral staircase inside one of the tall minaret towers. At the top were some great views of the very foggy Delhi City, and below in the courtyard Small one stood in his dressed, arms folded, shooing away begging children. Last stop before the Hotel was Red Fort – which was literally just a jump out the car and grab a photo and run back affair.

Lally then proceeded to get lost, despite the fact our Hotel was right close to New Delhi Railway Station. Finally we found it and we disembarked and had our photo with our newly dyed driver, and handed him a tip. The India By Car and Driver company welcome letter said that a tip was not an obligation, though drivers expected something for their services – the letter then recommended a tip of between 400 Rupee and 1,000 a day! The Lonely Planet in comparison had recommended between 125-150 Rupee for a full day guide / driver. We opted to give Lally 200 per day (2,000R) – and gave him a good review in the feedback form. Overall it had been a good tour, though a few teething issues with communications and some obsessing about getting his car damaged. We'd recommend the tour method and company, though advise it's good to run through what you want and where you want to go at the start of each day and not leave it to the driver as he'll opt for the easy option or the options which involve free benefits for him (i.e. lunch stops at the expensive halfway hotels).

When we had stayed in this New Delhi Hotel (Bloom Rooms) 2 weeks ago, we thought it expensive, but worth the money due to it's perfect cleanliness and safe excellent food. Before our tour started we had booked the same room again for these two nights, but now the man at reception claimed that we had booked a singe occupancy room only and that they had no double/twin rooms available. We insisted that we booked in person 2 weeks ago and asked for the same room, to which the man kept repeating that the mistake was ours and that we had booked a single occupancy room only. Tensions rose for quite a while, and in the end they gave us 2 single rooms for tonight (at the same price as one double), and a double room for the second night. We won't even use the second single room, but he would not let us book one single occupancy room only to share.

After the eventful check in we took a walk into the Pahar Ganj area where we'd stayed on arrival. Did a little shopping up the very busy, messy street. Small one brought two pairs of jeans for 1000 Rupee and then went up a side alley to have a neat looking old bearded Indian man in a turban sit methodically at an old sewing machine and sew back on the bottom of the jeans after he'd cut out a length. He'd used a measuring tape to measure Small one's leg, and Small one opted for 35cm – when he tried on the jeans after the adjustment they seemed too short, and the Indian man remeasured them to find they were actually 36cm long – he'd made them longer than required (luckily), he then adjusted the second pair to 37cm. Next small one went to a shirt stall, where a man with awful breath (who Small one told to stand back from him while he looked) told us that he would do us a special price on a shirt as he needed the money. He took down several shirts hung outside the stall, which looked nice but were coated with pigeon shit down the backs. He claimed this was not a problem as it would wash right out, small one thought otherwise and decided to buy 4 of the cleaner shirts inside the shop. On the way back to the Hotel we also purchased two cabin bag sized suitcases on wheels, to hopefully replace our small rucksacks for when we arrive home and have to start our flights between the UK and Irish families. They only had 2 colours, purple or brown – neither of us wanted purple, and we didn't want to get identical bags, so one of us opted for the shop front suitcase which was a bit dented, though a light coloured brown. Back to the Hotel to sit in our single room, prepare our bags and do our laundry.

Wednesday 18^th December 2013 – Agra and Taj Mahal, India

Last night we had headed for the roof top cafe to see the Full Moon over the Taj, to find it had completely vanished into a blanket of fog. This morning we were up again at 6.30am to see the sunrise over the Taj, to see it was again lost in fog. We sat up in the cold on the damp seats next to a trio of Greek and French people, and faced out to the hidden Taj watching only the monkeys and Mynar birds fight for the crumbs left on the rooftops. Around 9am the fog lifted a little and gradually the Taj appeared.

Breakfast was a simple affair, and we were given our set included breakfast of 4 slices of toast, a plain omelette and a black tea – we asked for butter but were told this was not included in our package? The entrance at the Southern Gate to the Taj was literally 2 minutes walk round the corner from the hotel, but despite this Tuk Tuk drivers still offered their services to take us there. The entrance fee was 750 R each, and you had to be scanned and padded down at the entrance as certain items were banned; food, water, pens, etc etc. We entered around 9.30am, and the crowds weren't too bad. You go through the large entrance gate and the Taj is bang in front of you – and is undoubtedly quite impressive. At the 'Princess Diana' bench (or 'Michael Caine' bench as we refered to it, having seen a photo of him also at the seat) – was a bit of a free for all. Guides trying to quickly usher their couples on for a photo, and we had to fight for a seat. We had taken a photo for an Indian man on the bench, and he thankfully waited for our turn to take a photo of us. Next we walked around the Taj taking some shoe covers from out of a bin to wear (lots of people were doing this, so we felt a little less like tramps). The view didn't change to much of the Taj no matter where you were in the grounds. We briefly ducked inside and saw the mausoleum, and back out again. After an hour you're kind of done, and so we left.

We brought a few final souvenirs / gifts, and our seller gave us a free Taj Mahal snow dome key ring each. Next we found a post office for small one to post his final two postcards home – this was down a side alley past a small bare bottom child squatting to have a crap in one of the little gutters. Back to the Hotel to rest and catch up on our usual admin work. Small one found a poem about the Taj Mahal, apparently written by the man who built it for his deceased wife:

Should guilty seek asylum here,
Like one pardoned, he becomes free from sin.
Should a sinner make his way to this mansion,
All his past sins are to be washed away.
The sight of this mansion creates sorrowing sighs;
And the sun and the moon shed tears from their eyes.
In this world this edifice has been made;
To display thereby the creator's glory.

Tuesday 17^th December 2013 – Jaipur to Agra, India

A good nights sleep and a hot shower. No sig of breakfast at 7am, so we descended the stairs and found downstairs deserted except for a small table laid out for the two of us. Five minutes later our cheery owner in a white chefs outfit came out with a platter of Indian food for breakfast, there was enough to feed a family of five and we ended up just eating toast. Tall one tried a couple of the deep fried ball things, which seemed to have mash in them. The little smiley chef fella than insisted on standing behind us in silence and watching us eat. We left as soon as we could and waited for Lally to collect us at 8am.

Lally arrived, still wearing his red tank top and still with the air con on full blast (we both have colds from this). Our first stop was Amber Fort about 8km outside of town. A large sand stone fort up hill, with an optional ride on an abused elephant from the bottom. It was 200 R entry, but well worth it for the view alone from the top, looking down at the hills and City covered with mist. We entered the Fort and then went up and down a variety of small staircases leading to another staircase and then another – and through narrow corridors, onto more corridors, round corner after corner, and through doorway after doorway – the place was a rat maze. When we went to leave we went up so many corridors or staircases which led to dead ends it took longer to leave than arrive.

Back into the “Pink City” past the buildings painted a brownish pink. This was Lally's home town and when we said we'd prefer to just skip the City Palace he seemed a little offended (it was 300 R each and we were all 'palaced out'). Instead we opted for Jantar Mantar, which was essentially was a garden of large outdoor modern sculptures and full of a bus loads of local tourists. The only other stop was the Hawa Mahal – which Lally didn't stop for and just told us to get a photo from the car window. It's Jaipur's iconic building, which painted pink has a large front almost resembling a stack of organ pipes.

On the road out of Jaipur Lally asked us if he could stop on the highway at an office to renew his driver's license.... this was a random request but we didn't refuse. He took out several passport sized photos of himself obviously taken at least ten years ago as his hair was jet black compared to now mostly grey (though he seemed to have the same red tank top on in the photo). He left us locked inside the car like Spaniels whilst he was gone for the twenty minutes or so, but soon we were on the road again. We had the usual lunch stop at one of those ridiculously over priced halfway Hotels. The usual lad was awaiting us in the Men's toilet to turn a tap on and hand us a towel and expect money for it. We were offended by the menu and at receiving one measly cheese sandwich for 200 Rupee and took it out on the poor waiter – asking him if that for 200 Rupee this small, thin cheese sandwich had Gold or Silver in it, the waiter (with his clam bemused manner) answered, “No sir, only cheese”. We waited in the car park by a large field of mustard for Lally who was obviously off having a full meal on the house, whilst we waited a man with a turban came over and said hello, but this soon led to the usual “you want a photo with me....you pay”.

Lally wanted to make an unscheduled stop at a large Temple just outside Agra, but we had looked this up to cost around 500 Rupee each and so had to talk him out of stopping here as well. We arrived in Agra around 3pm, and Lally was immediately complaining about how the traffic is very bad in this region (Uttarpradesh) compared to Rajasthan. His paranoid eyes darting about the bustling motorbikes and cars – and the hand coming up to give out abuse. Up some further narrow busy streets and we finally found Hotel Kamal – our home for 2 nights in Agra. It was located not far from the South Gate entrance to the Taj Mahal – and though it had lousy Trip Advisor reviews, it had a great view from the rooftop cafe. On route we had already organized with Lally to collect us at 8am tomorrow to take us to the Taj Mahal (so we would know how to get there and avoid any hustlers), but now we were at the hotel he said he'd see us in 2 days time to take us back to Delhi, as we were close enough to walk to the Taj. He was quite adament on this, despite the fact we'd paid his wages to take us sightseeing in each City, we presumed he'd probably be heading back to Jaipur to stay in his family home for the next 2 nights. In fairness when we went up to the rooftop the Taj Mahal entrance was just round the corner and we were always happy to have the day off from him. We' d also had some tension in the car when he started talking about our return to Delhi this thursday and how he'd drive us back in the morning as he has to quickly drive back to Agra for his next sight seeing tour to pick up. We objected to this as we had paid for him for the full day, and our schedule said to drive back to Delhi Thursday afternoon. We compromised that we'd drive back early morning to Delhi, but that he would take us to some sites in Old Delhi (Red Fort and Jama Misjid we'd missed out on, on our day tour of Delhi 3 weeks ago) before dropping us off at the Hotel. He reluctantly agreed, and we decided to cut his tip we'd been saving for the end down by half.

Hotel Kamal check in was easy enough, through the man at reception didn't seem to have a clue about our prepaid voucher, so will be interesting when we check out. The room was perfectly fine, and we went up and ordered veggie curry in the rooftop cafe which was excellent food (the plastic plates had a hole in it though). So far we've not had any cause for complaint, and it doesn't seem to deserve the 50% review on Trip Advisor.

Monday 16^th December 2013 – Udaipur to Chittorgarh to Jaipur, India

Breakfast in the hotel was an improvement, we were given our toast and tea within ten minutes of ordering, though the milk for the cornflakes today was not rotten – it looked like it was half milk and half water. Lally collected us at 9am and eyed suspiciously Tall one's mysterious dirty blood stained bag (that looked like it contained a severed head – but actually contained masks). Lally's driving was erratic today, aggression coming from nowhere and a couple of times the window coming down for him to give abuse to drivers for doing nothing out of the ordinary. There seems to be an offensive hand gesture he does as well, which is foreign to us – consisting of holding his hand out horizontally with his fingers in a row and his thumb slightly crooked.

At 11am stopped in Chittorgarh for another fort. This one at least had a big tower for us to climb up and the grounds were full of Langur monkeys. This fort was quite spread out and so Lally had to drive us to the different sites. When we purchased our tickets a guide approached us and when Tall one declined his services he asked Tall one if he was a movie star as he was dressed very smart? We then spent a good while climbing up the very narrow and occasionally pitch black stair case inside the Chittorgarh Tower. On the way down we met a young Irish man from Mead ho had cycled here from his hotel. Outside around some other temples in the Fort we met a middle aged UK couple from Liverpool – they were pretty rough around the edges, both of them commenting how “the whole country is covered in shit” and how “at least here they don't put a gun to your head and steal all your clothes like in South America, they may hit you with a stick but they won't shoot you....??”.

We also past the french couple we seem to see every day of our tour, didn't speak to them this time as we didn't want to scare them.

Lally stopped at a street side hell hole for us to have lunch, which we declined. Instead on the highway he found a large vegetarian cafe which was reasonably priced. We ate a decent cheese toastie, chips covered with pepper and some veggie kebabs, and were soon joined in the empty restaurant by an Indian couple – the husband of which had a throat problem and spoke like The Godfather in a low husky whisper. It was a long drive then on to Jaipur and we got into the large 'Pink' city around 5pm. Lally told us that we needed to stop off at the 'India by Car and Driver' offices to meet Ramesh – which we didn't like the sound of as we had paid everything up to date online last week and were just tired and wanted the hotel. Before we got there Lally pulled over randomly and went to the side of the road and squatted on the ground behind a bush. Small one asked what was going on and Tall one told him that “he's either having a shit or a piss I'm not sure?”.... we didn't think to ask. Arrived at the offices ten minutes later and up in an old lift to Level 5. Lally led us to the office and into a room where Ramesh shook our hands and let us take a seat. After a brief hello he then said, “so you are hear to pay the rest of your tour...”. We responded with, “No, we paid you online the other day.... you even sent us two emails to confirm”. He thought about this a while and shuffled some papers and then said he thinks we still owe him for the other half. Small one sighed, and we told him to check his emails and asked if there was anything else, and then left. Lally had meanwhile collected the folder for his next job, claiming he'd have to drop us off in Delhi quickly on Thursday and drive back to Agra. This was a bit disconcerting as we'd paid for him for the whole day of Thursday, we'll see what happens on the day.

After asking directions we found tonight's Hotel, a small 12 room family run hotel in a clean residential area. They had a rooftop seating area with a nice clean pool. A friendly husband and wife greeted us, and took a dinner order. Shame we are not here for longer, but nice to arrive somewhere obviously decent after the last hotel.

Sunday 15^th December 2013 – Udaipur, India

Upstairs for breakfast at 7.15am, there was only 1 other customer and the waiter ignored us and started pottering about, so we (like last night) helped ourselves to a menu. We ordered the set breakfast from him, juice, tea, toast and cornflakes. This order took 40 minutes to get to us (baring in mind we were his 2^nd and 3^rd customers of the day and no cooking was involved). When the cornflakes came he gave us a jug of cold milk which was rotten, there was thick floating lumps in the top – we declined the cornflakes. Despite our terse questions to the waiter, such as “where is our toast? Where is our tea?” he just looked dumb founded back at us, un-sure of what we were upset about. At 9am we met Lally and arranged for him to just drop us at City Palace and we would walk back, giving him the day off (and us a day off from him, and nicely avoiding him trying to over charge us for arranging our boat trip for us).

City Palace didn't let us in till 10am, and were asking for 115 Rupees each plus another 200 for camera fee. Thankfully we spoke with the guard whilst we waited for the doors to open, and he told us the camera and entrance fee is only for the museum and we could pay just 30 Rupees each to walk around the grounds. We opted for this to save money, and we had seen plenty of museums and insides of Palaces by now. It was a nice enough building from the outside and had some good view points over Lake Pichola out to Jag Niwas Island (and Lake Palace) where the Roger Moore James Bond movie, Octopussy was filmed (released in 1983, thirty years ago). We then booked our boat trip which was 340 each for 1 hour, though the ticket booth man short changed us by 100 Rupee, and when we question him he claimed he was just going to get the further 100 change. The boat itself was a boat for about 30 people, compared to the photo on our ticket which was a bath tub sized boat for four people. On the boat were a few middle aged couples (all french or german) we'd previously seen at other Cities, or expensive half way hotel food stops on the road. One young french lad was travelling alone and said he'd been working in Delhi for a year and was shortly on his way to China for another year.

The baot trip took us around the lake and past a Ghat where locals were washing clothes by pounding them on rocks in the river water – we looked for our clothes which we'd handed in last night. At Jag Niwas Island nobody told us how long we had or where to get back on the boat and we watched the boat leave us stranded. The island was essentially a hotel resort, with a plush garden and some nice white walled exteriors. We walked where Roger Moore had walked back in 1983, in what is still one of the worst Bond movies (though a childhood favourite).

Back in the City we finally found some embodied sew on badges for India to go on our luggage, it had taken us 3 weeks to find them, but there they were on a street stand. Next we sat down in a German Bakery and had a sausage and coleslaw roll with a Cappuccino and an apple crumble. Small one purchased two postcards for his Aunts and young cousins, they had requested a Tiger postcard, and he did not realize till afterwards that the photo was of two tigers mating. On the way back to the Hotel there was an amaziing looking hand made Mask shop by the footbridge. Small and large, simple and fancy horrific looking animal masks were for sale. Tall one could not resist buying a couple and tried some on. The very energetic, eccentric old man exhausted us running back and forth showing us masks (later we saw him sat down on the street calmly painting the lips red on the face of a cow). Once the two were purchased the man asked us both to take a seat. He wrapped the masks in newspaper and then beckoned us to watch this.... he took a very dirty (what look blood stained) see threw tea-towl like cloth and folded it over the masks, then he took a colourful ball of string and cut a length off with his teeth. Again he held it up and said, “watch this, watch!” he then tied a loop at each end of the string, saying “look...! same! Same”. Next he took newspaper and rolled up a small ball of paper, then told us to watch and did it again, telling us “same!, same!”, he did all this with the gusto of a magician, and we were convinced this was leading to a magic trick. In the end he rolled each ball of paper into a different top corner of the tea towel, and then pushed the paper ball wrapped in cloth through each noose on the rope, pulling it tight and making a handle – he'd made us a dirty bag to carry the masks home! He was thankful for our custom, and then asked if we wanted to see a picture of James Bond. At first we thought he meant a photo, but he meat a cafe which was screening the movie. The Lonely Planet and Udaipur info online had stated that this movie was screening at every other roof top cafe across the City, but later that night we struggled to find anywhere that was showing it. One place advertised it, and turned out to only be a tv set they wheeled out to show it on. The only one we find that actually projected the movie was back over by the City Palace, and so we didn't ended up seeing it. Though Tall one ended up watching it on his laptop sat in the Hotel room window – and the movie has aged about as well as Roger Moore.

Small one brought some wooden elephants and jigsaw souvenirs for presents back home, and the shop owner and his father took our 500 Rupees and then asked if we had a further 1 Rupee. Tall one gave this to him and he then told us that this was lucky for him, as the 500 was not lucky, but the extra one was. S next we went back to the hotel, passing water buffalo on the street who'd had their horns painted red, and a herd of donkeys which were laden with baskets of red bricks. Back at the hotel we got the scissors and glue out ad put together small one's contributions to a friends birthday present, which was a family and friends blanket with each person giving a personalized square of material. Small one brought his material (for a blue moon design) in Jaisalmer Fort, and now they cut and glued on their designs, we then took it to a sewing stall on the street and three ladies ran our design through the machine and stitched our cut outs in place... job done.

After dinner at a hotel uo the street (we really didn't want to eat in ours again) we watched another sunset over the lake, and then ordered some boiling water to our room to make tea – ten minutes later a jug of what was (at best) warm water from a kitchen tap turned up...another failure. Overall we'd had a very productive day, and had enjoyed Udaipur just not the hotel.

Saturday 14^th December 2013 – Jodhpur > Ranakpur > Kumbarlagh > Udaipur, India

Down for breakfast and sat on the creepy doll's house like furniture by the cabinet of miniature old bottles which had the words “I will be with you always until the end of the world” in big gold letters across the doors. We came in to the room to find the table already set and all the condiments, jams, dollies and four large baskets of very stale homemade shortbread biscuits laid out. It was a scary sight – like an old woman had died at breakfast and we'd found her dinning table untouched as she'd left it years ago. We were then served toast which had large holes in it, and a single small white boiled egg each in a large silver egg cup. Tall one was brave enough to chip his open only to find a perfectly spherical yolk, blue-grey in colour, that when he tried to dig it out it just turned around inside the boiled egg white like a marble. It looked neither healthy or appetizing. We were soon joined by two fellow guests, a middle aged Indian man (speaking German) and a German lady in an Australia t-shirt who asked us if we spoke German.We spoke briefly about the routes round India we were both taking, and they were heading to Jaisalmer. We asked where they planned to stay and the man pointed to the table and told us he is staying here... never mind. Despite not eating very much, it was an enjoyable breakfast – as we've always wanted to be served in the manner of a horror movie.

We left Jodhpur at 9am and headed south to Udiapur. Lally (in his red tank top) was in aggressive form today, the angry eyes darting side to side at any driver who was a little too close, and the horn was in regular use. He took to pointing out mango trees to us today, as well as custard apples and also the mustard seeds again. The terrain changed from flat desert to forest covered hills – and soon we saw roads covered with the large black faced Langur monkeys. Lally corrected small one when he pointed out 'Monkeys' and told us they were not monkeys but infact black faced rats? Small one asked if the Langurs attacked people, to which Lally didn't have a clue what he meant by 'Langur', and so Small one had to ask if the monkeys attacked people... “No” said Lally. At 12pm we arrived at Ranakpur, a ivory white sculptured temple in the forest. Mall one could not get in wearing shorts, though they did offer to give him some rotten pair which he declined. You could also not enter with any leather, and so all the en went in beltless. Tall one went in alone, leaving shoes outside as was the custom, only to find that somebody had thrown up all over the steps – and so had o tip toe carefully up the stairs. The temple itself was quite impressive, large carefully carved pillars and domed ceilings.

We left Ranakpur around 12.45pm and Lally told us he had somewhere for us to stop for lunch which was expensive but very good food (meaning he got free food if he dragged us there). The meals were very pricey so we opted for chips and some small veggie kebabs. Left the restaurant at 1.30pm and arrived at Kumbarlagh Fort at 2.20pm. This was quite different ot the last stop, essentially a large hill top castle with a surrounding wall which ran along and down the hillside like a mini Great Wall of China. We exhausted ourselves walking to the very top in the hot dry sun. There were some amazing views over the valleys below, and three Indian men took turns in having their photo taken with us – requesting that the photos be taken not just on their cameras but also on our own one so we could have photos of them to keep?

We left around 3.45pm, and drove through some wonderful hillside villages and farms where dry stone walls outlined small paddocks and crops. Locals walked past balancing enourmous rolls of branches of crop on their heads and on one corner a large Zebuu Ox which had had it's large horns painted rainbow colours was being walked around in circles to turn the mechanism attached to a well. We arrived in Udaipur at 5pm, and found our Hotel (Sargam Sadan) on the lakeside of Lake Pichola. Out on the lake we could see the island which had the large Palace building made famous in the Roger Moore James Bond movie, Octopussy. The man at reception told us that at night this Palace resembled a great ship like the Titanic (not the great ship I would choose to compare anything with). We took a walk down to the lake as the sunset, flocks of noisy Blossom Headed Parakeets flew over head and 4-5 Mongooses were running around the white headstones of a cemetery. After 7pm we headed to the rooftop restaurant for dinner, to find it quite busy. We took a table but nobody come to serve us so we went and found a menu ourselves. Opting for the veggie curry, rice and Roti – it then took almost an hour to come. At least the view was good, looking out at the Palace lit up in the middle of the lake as paper lanterns were being released up into the night's sky. After our main we ordered ice cream, but after twenty five minutes Small one gave up waiting and went back to the room to watch a Celtic Match. Back at the room we found it stunk of sewage very badly, and we had the unhelpful but well meaning reception lad take a look. He ran the bathroom tap for ten minutes and then said it was better, which it wasn't. We just went to bed.

Friday 13^th December 2013 – Jaisalmer to Jodhpur, India

6am start and found our shower was cold. Went up to the rooftop for breakfast to find the waiter asleep in yesterdays clothes on one of the outdoor seats. He got up and ruffled his hair and stepped into the cafe and got us a menu. We received everything we ordered, though the porridge was somewhat a wallpaper paste and the coffee rancid. There was a nice sunrise over Jaisalmer as we left. Lally was came at 8am and collected us for the 5 hour drive to Jodhpur (which turned out to be 4 hours), each mornign now he encourages to shout “challow challow!” which apparently means, “Go!”. The road seemed to have a lot more dead dogs today than usual (we counted 3), and at one point we got a shock as we had previously heard some booming sounds, and we turned a corner to find around 20 tanks lined up along the road – perhaps they had been shooting stray dogs that morning. Nearer to Jodhpur Lally pointed out the large mines and quarries to us. 

We arrived in Jodhpur at 12pm and our first stop was the large, imposing looking fort towering above the Blue City, this was Mehrangarh Fort (apparently used in the movie The Dark Knight Rises). Lally dropped us off and we found the entrance fee to be a staggering 400 Rupees each (Tall one's Lonely Planet had said 250 R each, and although it was a couple of years old it had been right with all the other fees). We ummed and arrghed for ages and finally the man gave us a student rate of 300R each. It was worth the fee as there was spectacular views of the maze of houses below which were randomly painted a sky blue colour. We waked around the inside of the Fort which contained the interior of what we had come to expect from an Indian Fort. Followed the large exterior walls around and down to many canons lined up towards to City, and a local man handed us each some small white balls (like what you;d find in a bean bag). We resumed these were for feeding something further down where there was a small shrine, but found nothing – so threw them at some pigeons which completely ignored them. We ate at the Fort cafe sat eating a bowl of chips under a large painting of one of the Maharajas. Behind us the waiter dressed in dirty linens would not stop fingering his penis, which was a little off putting when he delivered our food (we left a 10 Rupee tip only and left quickly).

Outside after small one had destroyed a local toilet, Lally collected us and started speaking about taking us to see a local spice shop as Jodhpur was very famous for spices... we said “No”. There was a brief stop to look at Jaswant Thada, a white palace over looking a lake. We saved the entrance fee and just looked from the roadside and got back in the car. Next we stopped at the very busy Clock Tower and markets in the heart of the City. Got a few photos and dodged a few horses and carts and begging children and dived back in the car to head for the Hotel.... this was cowardly sight seeing at its best. Lally was over at a Spice shop sta chatting with his friends when we got back to the car quicker than he had expected, he realized there was no point trying to get us to come look at spices and so took us to the Hotel.

Newton's Manor was the name of the Hotel, it was a disappointing fair way outside the Blue City with no view of the Fort. Tucked down in a row of houses under some large trees, we found the interior like a spooky, dusty old Antique shop. The dinning room had four chairs and a cabinet full of scary dolls and empty bottles – along the cabinet door were the words “God is Above”. The lounge had some very old sofas with cushions embroidered with the words “Christ the Head of the House” and “Lady of the Manor”, between the chairs were some small white lady statues and at the back of all this was an exhausted looking stuffed tiger. Check in was painful, with the porter twice trying to take our bags up to the room, we were so hell bent on not paying tips we clutched on to our bags for dear life and told him firmly, “no thankyou!”. Upstairs to our rooms was another room, this had a huge faded pool table, overlooked by a large gramophone, a stuffed buffalo head, a panic stricken stuff leopard head and a strange looking bears head. Despite the odd décor, the place was adequate enough and their wifi worked well so small one was happy. We'd arrived at 3pm so just spent the afternoon relaxing amongst the weirdness.

Thursday 12^th December 2013 – Jaisalmer, India

Breakfast at 8am, very wheaty cornflakes, poached eggs that came out fried and a juice that was ordered but never materialised. Downstairs for 9am and Lally took us to Gadisar Lake. Huge flocks of pigeons circled over the lake, and swarms of large mouthed catfish were slithering over each other to get bread that locals threw in. The lake was quite picturesque with the small pagodas set out in the middle, even the smell of the rotting dead dog being eaten by jackdaws didn't detract too much from the view. Lally then drove us to the entrance gate to Jaisalmer Fort and we had agreed to walk back to the Hotel at our own pace and for him to have the rest of the day. This gave us a break from each other.

We headed up inside the fort which looks huge from a distance, but wasn't too bad once inside. It consisted of lots of narrow sandstone streets, mostly of tourist shops – but also a few temples, Havelis and homes were locals were. On the outer edge there was numerous views from the high wall looking over the slightly smoggy Golden City. Small one went in to a fabric store to buy materials for a present, and the Indian fella (Kamlesh Vyas) greeted him in Irish Gaelic. Turns out he had years ago had an Irish girlfriend called Moira, but had decided to marry an Indian lady instead. At some point an Indian lady did appear off the street and handed him a few white beans and a yellow digital watch? We also priced a small carved matchbox sized ornament made out of camel bone (apparently), to which the seller told us the price was 500 Rupee, we said no thankyou and in the blink of an eye he came down to 150 R. Outside the Fort we walked back round the outside and followed the road back to the Hotel.

Back at the Hotel we ordered sweet and sour chicken with chips and lemon chicken for roast potato. The potatoes and chips were amazing (though they took over an hour), however the chicken was full of bones despite the fact they'd promised otherwise. The lemon chicken was close to being inedible, as it was coated thickly in what was virtually a purified lemon. Two new guests had arrived, one fella from Germany and an Irishman (who said Small one was the first Irishman he'd met on his travels). They had taken a 12 hour bus from Jaipur and apparently run into a truck which flipped over. The passengers got out and helped roll the van over then all got back in and carried on. Rest of the afternoon we chilled out in the room and on the rooftop in the sun. Some good down time. After a snooze headed back up to the rooftop for the sunset and a small dinner. We joined the Irishman and German from earlier. The German spoke of a tailor made Kashmir suit he had done for 12,000R! The Irish fella spoke of his travel plans for the next year or two, and we noticed he'd picked up the Indian habit of loudly snorting up his phlegm without any inhibitions when around other people. Paid are bill for all our food and headed to be after 6.30pm.

Wednesday 11^th December 2013 – Bikaner to Jaisalmer, India

Awoken at 4am by our neighbours (The Israli man and Russian woman) getting up to move plastic furniture around outside our room and go rustling through plastic bags. They then presumably went back to bed, and so did we. At 8amm we headed downstairs for breakfast, the wife (Manisha) was up diligently cooking our breakfast in the kitchen – she told us she had tried to phone our driver, Lally to pick us up here – but he was not answering his phone. As we sat at the breakfast table, behind us Manisha's husband (Anil) had got up and was using the bathroom. The door was open and we were treated to a cacophony of sounds as he first emptied his bladder into the toilet water, and then spent ten minutes hocking up snot, coughing loudly and spitting. He left the toilet and joined Manisha in the kitchen, where he continued to cough loudly and spit. He then came out to us and laid the table, taking cutlery from the rack and handling the heads of the forks and spoons with his bare hands as he set them out. As soon as he went back out of sight in the kitchen we quickly swamped all the cutlery he had handled with other ones from the rack – it was a fast operation but we got everything swapped before he came out. Manisha served us omelette, toast, tea and fruit with a creamy milk and a sugar for Tall one (Small one declined this). It was a nice enough breakfast, though we couldn't help be put off our food by Anil continuing to cough ad spit loudly in the kitchen. A good example of cultural differences of what is acceptable and what isn't. After breakfast Manisha confirmed she had now spoke with our driver ad Lally was going to collect us from the Hotel after all.

We set off with an apologetic Lally on our 6 hour drive to Jaisalmer. The road was endless arrid desert as far as the eye could see. Lally kept up his game of pointing out the obvious to us, “Michael look... see these are bees, bees for honey, honey”.... “Michael look see here is an airport”.... “Michael over there Hotel, and another Hotel....”. Occasionally he'd point out something interesting like the small Chinkara, antelope like deer that ran across the road. With 100 km to go we stopped for lunch at 12.30pm at an expensive halfway Hotel / Restaurant. We sat down in the restaurant where every table had a filthy red and white chequered cloth. Looking at the menu we saw that a 'plain rice woth nothing else was 220 Rupees, compared to Hardiwar when we had paid 45 Rupee for plain rice. We opted for a toasted sandwich. Even in the restrautn toilets there was the usual fella there who wanted a tip for turning a tap on for you, when we actually know how to do this. After the lunch stop we complained to Lally about the expensive food, and he spent the next hour or so sulking.

We stopped just outside Jaisalmer at the railway station, for our 6^th attempt at drawing out money from an ATM. We had given up hope as every ATM before this had said 'cannot complete transaction' without any further explanation. But this ATM (surrounded by military personal) happened to work, and we drew out the required 20,000 Rupees. The Hotel that was booked was very nice, named Hotel Pleasant Haveli. Like all buildings in Jaisalmer it was made out of sandstone, and so resembled a giant sand castle. Lally explained to us that 'salmer' meant 'golden' and so this was also called the Golden City. Our room was very nice and the rooftop had a cafe and courtyard which overlooked the surrounding golden buildings and the impressive, foreboding looking Jaisalmer Fort stood up on a hill above the City. The waiter told us that his family have free accommodation there as his ancestors fort for the King who gave families rights to free living in the Fort.

At 4pm Lally took us out to the Sam Sand Dunes in the Thar Desert. A very touristy affair, but we were given two goofy young Indian lads who walked us about on the back of a camel (2 of us on the one). We were led out to the actual dunes past hoards of garbage left to rot in the sand, including piles of plastic water bottles. The camel was a bit bumpy, the worst part being he ascent and the descent as he virtually threw you off in this movement. When we got off in the desert little groups of dancing Gypsy women and old men carrying tambourines saw us and closed in. We walked round in circles to avoid them, but they contnued to follow us until we told them 'NO!”. They then wondered off to a coach tour party where the 20 middle aged and old aged tourists in their bum bags and baseball caps paid dilligently and danced next to the gypsies. Other men wondered by with old sacks offering to sell us beer at 'Desert price' whatever that meant. This was the first place we'd seen alcohol sold, even the street on the way up had these little stand along bunker which were labelled 'English Wine Shop'. Another gypsy woman chased our camel on foot clutching what looked like a plastic baby, which she held up to us pleading for money, we just wished the camel would go faster. Small one tried to ask the more sensible looking boy how old the camel was, to which the boy said '8 years', he then asked how long did a camel live – the boy didn't have a clue what he meant and small one spent 5 minutes doing a mime of a camel dying and going to heaven, to which the boy then answered again, '8 years'. The sun gradually slipped down into the distant haze over the desert, changing into an orange orb and then a pin one, then it just faded away – was a pretty good sunset.

We headed back to the depot pretty smartish and got back at 6pm. Lally had told us that food and dance was included for our 750 Rupee each, so we asked how long until dinner – to which Lally told us 8pm. That was too far away and we couldn't be bothered sitting for 2 hours being hassled by more gypsies, so we said we would like to go back to Hotel. Lally told us that they had already cooked the food though, and we responded by saying, 'we have already paid for it, we just want to go'. Lally said it was okay then, and he would go and pay – which we presumed he meant he was going to get the refund to keep for himself. Back at the Hotel we sat on the rooftop cafe and waited about 45 minutes for our very nice food. We enjoyed the view over the city, and fighter jets boomed and roared past in the sky, as the Military were stationed close to here due to being so close to the Pakistan border. After dinner headed for bed.

Tuesday 10^th December 2013 – Mandawa to Bikaner, India

Awoken at 430am by the loud speakers on the tower ext door blaring out some distorted chanting. Up for breakfast and relieved to find the puppeteer had not camped outside all night waiting for us to get up. Breakfast was quite nice, omelette and mini slices of toast with Tetley tea. When we came to check out we opened the door to find an elderly Indian man with a curly moustache stood outside, he'd limped his way over to our room and now offered to take our two backpacks which weighed collectively over 20 kg. We declined as we did not want to kill the poor man and also wanted to save the tip, though we did hand him our room key – which was a strange design of a padlock key attached to a large bronze bell??

We met our driver Lally downstairs and soon set off into the heart of Rajasthan. We noticed that the scenery now distinctly changed to desert – and the roads were now pretty smooth tarmac (though there was a lot of roadworks). Driving through the dusty desert roads we had to stop to weave around many buffalos and goats wondering on the road without any kind of shepard. We past two cows which seemed to be dwarfs, the standard large sized head and body, but on legs half the length that they should be. Camels also loped past us pulling overloaded carts which had these enormous fat sacks full of cattle feed inside – these sacks were literally as big as a bus and bursting at the seems. On route we also glimpsed a white blur of a mongoose which darted across the road in front of our car. There was plenty of schools along the desert road, and we past many groups of school children – who despite being amongst all the dust clouds and roaming cattle had maintained their neat blue shirts and trousers, and their perfectly trim haircuts with a gelled side parting. There was a few little towns we past through, most of which had a little street side barbers, where we saw local men leaning back in the old fashioned barber chair having a wet shave. Outside on the streets marbles seemed to be a favourite past time on the side of the road. Lally's driving seemed more erratic today, he was getting a lot more impatient and aggressive with other drivers, he would usually cool down every hour or so when we'd get stuck at a railway crossing – which for some reason they close the barrier half an hour before the train passes.

Our first stop was in Deshnoke, at Deshnoke Temple (or Karni Mata Temple). This was the famous rat or mouse temple where people came to worship and leave gifts for the many rodents inside. Small one flat out refused to go and stayed in the car to read his book, whilst Tall one headed in alone. Outside the front he had to take his shoes off and enter just in socks – straight away he could feel his socks sticking to the ground (he binned them when he left). The temple was very busy, with quite a few tourists and Indians. The entrance was a huge carved white gate, with some mouse emblems on the door. Through the gate was a large tiled courtyard with a netted ceiling to keep more pigeons from getting in. Tall one then noticed all the rats, they were mostly in pockets or grups crowded around little food offerings. The most obvious being the large bowl of milk which they were all circled around lapping up. There was also other groups clustered in corners, strung up gates, or crawling through piles of corn put out. Children seemed un-phased, one little boy even picked one by uby the tale and dropped it on the ground. Locals also queued to go inside a further building holding offerings in their hands – Tall one did not venture in here. It was a very strange place and a surreal experience. This helped with the visit as Talll one would usually be quite squeamish when it comes to live rodents – but with the atmosphere being so surreal he did not think about ti too much, except for one moment when one rat scurried very quickly towards him and he squealed and jumped out the way like a coward.

Back to the car and we now headed in to Bikaner. Earlier in the day Lally had confused us somewhat as he started telling us how the next stop was Junagarh Fort, but that it would be better for us to take a Tuk Tuk there.... we thought this over and wondered why as we had paid for his services to drive us to these attractions. Then after Deshnoke Temple Lally said he'd now drive us to Junagarh Fort and then we would go to the Hotel, we said that was good and presumed he had changed his mind about the Tuk Tuk (whch we would have refused to pay for). Junagarh Fort was a large red stone fort, which looked a lot like Red Fort in Old Delhi (which we are actually yet to visit). Supposed built in the late 1500s, it was now a huge tourist site for locals and tourists. We entered the gate and saw two ticket counters, one on the right where locals were queuing and one on the left without a queue. An Indian man told us the one on the right was for local tickets oonly, and the one on the left for foreign tourists. So we went to the left counter, only to be told that they were closed and we had to use the other counter.

We spent about 40 minutes walking around the fort, through some very prettily decorated courtyards lined with painted ceramics. There was various levels to go through, and the top had some nice views over the City. There was a lot of little pockets of local tourists in the Fort, which we had to try and stay ahead of. After we finished we headed back to the car and Lally. Here Lally told us that now we go to the Hotel, but tat he could not take us as he did not want to drive throgh the narrow streets in the Old City, he told us we needed to take a Tuk Tuk. We asked if the price of this was included, to which he said we would have to pay, and said it was 50 Rupees. He tried stopping some Tuk Tuks to which they all laughed at the price of 50 Rupees and kept driving. We now said to Lally that we had paid for a car and driver and told the price included drop off at Hotel and that we would not pay for any Tuk Tuk transfer. We stood for a while whhile he was on the phone with the Hotel, and as we waited we watched the busy street outside the Fort. As we stood and waited a large white bull with black spots wondered aimlessley up the middle of the road past us, whilst bikes skirted round him. A large camel towing a cart also loped past us, and two Indian men walked past gently holding each other's hands – we'd seen this a few times and though that it was illegal to be Gay in India – and wondered if this was just an accepted way for two men to show affection between friends??

Fifteen minutes past and we were now baking in the desert heat by the road (very different temps to the Uttarakand region). We also had locals coming up and asking us are names and where we were from and claiming that they worked at our guesthouse and would see us later (which was all rubbish). Finally Lally got a Tuk Tuk pulled over and said he would pay the driver himself, and we could see the argument as the driver turned his nose up at the 50 Rupees, so Lally had to give him 20 more. We told Lally that this was unfair and we would tell the company owner, Ramesh to pay him – to which Lally told us that we must not mention this to Ramesh. It was then we realized that this thing he was doing putting us in a Tuk Tuk to the Hotel instead of driving us himself like wed paid for – was all his own idea.

Tuk Tuk driver with very bad teeth drove through the chaotic streets with a constant worried frown on his face. He had to ask directions a few times but got us to the Hotel in the end, and we noticed that for the whole journey we saw plenty of other (larger) cars on the roads and so Lally saying it was too narrow for him to drive was rubbish. Whilst driving a motorbike drove next to us and the driver spoke with our Tuk Tuk driver. The two people on the bike were the two locals who had tried telling us earlier they worked in the Guesthouse. One of them then climbed on board next to the driver and started trying to talk with us and asked, Small one ignored him completely, but Tall one politely chatted, the fella then asked if he could meet us later, Small and Tall both said, “No” - and he jumped off into the street (this incident underlines the whole reason why we booked a car to take us to the Hotel).

We went inside Tanisha Guesthouse, which was a family run local business. We were a little uncertain where we were at first, but then we were taken upstairs to an open courtyard area, and shown an enormous room for us, with a large bed and 3 sofas. We spoke with both the husband and wife (originally from Jaipur) who ran the guesthouse, who were both very very nice, and told us lunch was not for another 2 hours (it was now 3pm?), and dinner at 8pm. They also assured us that they would let nobody inside their guest house who claimed to be coming to meet us later. We said we had not eaten for 8 hours since breakfast and he kindly made us some good toast, onion omelette and black tea. We spoke with the wife of the business at length, and she told us she had spoken with Lally on the phone and told him it would be difficult for a large car to get to the hotel, and she had offered to pay for our Tuk Tuk. We told her our side of the story and showed her a photo of Lally's car, and she said he should have no problem coming to pick us up and would tell him to do so tomorrow morning. We ventured on to the roof top and had a look around the confusing network of narrow streets and assorted buiildigs below us. Next we relaxed in our large room, amongst the funky green walls, orange sofas and various Winnie the Pooh teddy bears put out on small shelves.

We sat out in the courtyard as the sunset and a noisy wedding with marching band and horses in fancy dress came up the narrow street past us. Dinner was downstairs inside the very nice house, and the couple cooked two vegetarian Indian dishes, and put on a large spread for us and the two other guests. The two other guests was a middle aged Israeli man with an odd sense of humour, who was travelling with his “friend”, a middle aged woman with short cropped, bleached hair who was apparently from Moscow. We of course tried out our one Russian word on her, “Spaseeba” (thankyou), which made her produce a nervous giggle, which she kept up for the rest of the night. The food was excellent and we all left for bed around 9 o'clock.

Monday 9^th December 2013 – New Delhi to Mandawa, India

After our luxurious nights sleep in Bloom Rooms we headed downstairs for their all you can eat breakfast buffet for 300 Rupees. A novelty to have coco pops in New Delhi, followed by fruit, yoghurt, museli, waffles, toast, muffin, juice and coffee. The 12% tax for 600 Rupees was somehow another 100 Rupees. Next we showered using the somewhat space age shower head the size of a tennis racket, then checked out downstairs in reception. The car and driver we had hired (to take us around Rajasthan the easy, unadventurous, but yet comfortable way) were waiting outside at 8.45am. The car had the 'India by Car and Driver' name and logo on the side, and was a very spacious, clean, new, comfortable Toyota. The driver's name was Lally, who was a very pleasant, very short, soft spoken man (with a slight speech impediment) and was dressed smartly in a light blue shirt and navy trousers and neat grey hair. We left Delhi before 9am, though it took us sometime to get out of the traffic clogged and fog covered roads. At the toll booth the car in front of us was desperate to get ahead and had his arm out the window trying to stop cars from pushing infront of him. This got one man so angry he got out his car and opened the driver's door of the car infront and made the man get out – they then squared up in the road, knocking each other's arms about, until they decided that that was enough and got back in their cars and carried on.

It was 260km to drive to Mandawa, but it took us 6 hours to get there. When we saw the roads we understood why, they were narrow country roads – full of potholes and most of the time we were stuck behind trucks full of millet. Some roads were being worked on however, as we drove past a stretch where two women dressed in pretty dressed were shovelling rocks from the road whilst four men stood next to them chatting (we've noticed women tend to do the manual work in the country whilst it's men only who work in hotels). Our driver drove well (thankfully) and his use of the horn was not as incessant as our driver to Haridwar. He also told us some information about the area, how Camels are Rajasthan's sheep (we did see lots of camels), and how most of these fields were growing mustards or ground nuts. He spoke of the approaching stops on our 11 day tour with him, and how when we arrive today in Mandawa we can take a guide with us around the famous Havelis. We said we had not asked for a guide and did not want one (as it cost extra). Later on he tried to convince us to get one, but we explained how cheap we were on our trip, and that we would not pay for any extras.

Around 1pm we stopped at a 'Halfway Hotel' for a rest stop and lunch. Our driver disappeared to the staff area, whilst we were led into the garden seating area on plastic chairs out in the sun. We were shown a menu which was very overpriced, one Roti cost 70 Rupees (in Haridwar they cost 6!!), and a Vegetable Curry cost 250 Rupee compared to the 60 we had been previously paying. The table was also swarming with flies and we were getting pissed off with the restaurant, which only seemed to have tourists eating there. We moved inside where there turned out to be even more flies, and ordered a watery cabbage soup and a vegetable kabab. When we went to use the restaurant toilets there was even a lad in there handing us paper towels to dry our hands and then asking us for ten Rupees – to which we just walked away. Ironically when we went into their shop and wanted to buy something, there was not a soul about to ask and so just had to leave.

We arrived in Mandawa around 3.30pm, and pulled up outside an amazing looking Hotel (Mandawa Haveli Heritage Hotel) – covered with Indian murials. An elderly Indian porter with an incredible moustache came to take our bags, but by now our driver Lally knew that we would not want to be paying for any extra services and stopped him from taking our bags for us. Check in was quick as they made us just sign our names, and said they would fill in everything else themselves from our details provided by the tour company and our passport photocopies. After we dumped the bags in our room we checked out the view from the Hotel rooftop and found an abandoned kite on the roof. All up in the sky was another 5-6 small square kites being flow by the local kids. The Hotel room was quite nice, though other than a mother and her teenage son (westerns) we seemed to be the only guests. Took a brief wonder up the main street in town, past many stray goats and donkeys, and past other colourfully designed Haveli buildings. We brought our usual safety snacks of 'Spanish Tomato' crisps and thin Dairy Milk chocolates and went back to settle in for the sunset at the Hotel.

Sat on the veranda overlooking the skyline of Mandawa as the sunset between two buildings. The sky lit up orange and pink, and dozens of children came out scattered across the many roof tops unwinding kites up into the sky. We then heard the sound of drums coming from the ground floor below us, which we ignored and kept using the wifi on the balcony. The drumming then stopped and an Indian man dressed in orange in an orange turban came upstairs turning all the light son above our heads, he then told us to follow him for a puppet show downstairs – we told him we were alright and busy on our computers and the man left. Five minutes later Tall one went for a walk and happened to glance over the other balcony that looks over the ground floor, directly below him was the puppeteer in orange stood with his arms folded and puppets at the ready – he looked up at Tall one and beckoned him down... Tall one left quickly. We then had the waiter from the restaurant come over to us who we had spoken to briefly earlier in the afternoon. He asked us to come with him now and he said we could eat an hour early (it was now 6pm and the restaurant wasn't supposed to open till 7pm), we said when we were finished we would come. The waiter than sat down a few chairs away from us and just waited for us. We were now being pressurized to follow either a puppeteer or a waiter and just wanted to be left alone with our laptop and the mosquitoes (though we didn't need the mosquitoes).

After 7pm we made our way down to the restaurant, sure enough the puppet man was waiting in ambush for us at the bottom of the stairs. As soon as we appeared he was waving us over to his puppets lined up like the corpses of children on the stone floor. We just smiled and nodded and said “we get food.... maybe later”, the poor bastard looked heart broken stood there in his orange getup. In the restaurant we found the mother and her teenage son at a table next to us, they were from Australia and had just home from Bikaner. Tall one had been keeping stum about the fact that the Temple in Bikaner was one for worshipping rats – as he knew small one would never go anywhere near it if he knew, but unfortunately she started talking about it and the cat (or rat) was soon out of the bag. We also asked her if she had stopped to see the man in oranges puppet show, to which she smiled and shook her head, we then exchanged stories about trying to avoid the man – and how there plan after dinner to get back to their room was to fane that the boy was ill and had to go to bed. Our waiter friend was also pleased to see us and we had a 'boneless chicken curry' which arrived full of bones, and a vegetable curry dish. The rice came out looking like a bowl of grated cheese and the currys were disappointingly bland after the amazing food we'd had over the last week in Uttarakhand. Tall one saw the teenage boy looking at the dessert menu and recommended the Gulab (red golf balls like Sticky Toffee Pudding) – he took the advice and when he tried it, you;d never seen such a disappointed face. Tall one ordered one as well and found it was nothing like the ones he;;d had previously, firstly it was stone cold and not hot, and secondly it was rock hard and very salty with barely any syrup – instead of soft and sweet with lots of syrup. We were relatively happy with the hotel, but the food and the lunatic Puppeteer had somewhat let it down. After dinner we again had to face the puppet man to get upstairs to our room, he as a little more down beat this time (I think he knew he was fighting a lost battle). As we were already walking away he was telling us how his family make the puppets and started asking for 100 Rupees, for what we do not know.... poor bastard.

Sunday 8^th December 2013 – Haridwar to New Delhi, India

Awoke at 4am for a nice hot powerful shower, and then backpacks on and downstairs into the dark reception for checkout at 5am. Handed in the key and we were also greeted by two strange men carrying large sticks. One was dressed in a black shawl with only his eyes showing, the other had a moustache – they started to lead us outside to the river walk and it was then we realized the moustached man was the Tuk Tuk driver we had arranged to take us to the train station. It was only a 5 minute ride, but the Hotel Reception had told us a taxi there would cost 500 Rupees! So we priced on the street and got this fella for 200, which is probably still too much but we were just tired. Outside walking along the river to his parked Tuk Tuk there were 5-6 mongrel stray dogs barking and snarling and running around us in the dark. It then became apparent why the moustache and the man in black had large sticks – they started snarling back at the dogs and wielding these poles in the air to hit the dogs on the back and scare them off. He managed to get us to the Tuk Tuk in one piece and we had a peaceful ride through the deserted early morning streets of Haridwar to the train station.

We were at the station just after 5am, and found our platform by 5.10am, it was then we realized how early we were and how much more sleep we could have got as our train was not due till 6.25am. So we sat down on a bench which was covered with peanut shells, surrounded by locals asleep on the floor covered with blankets and rugs. It was pretty cold and we had to get out extra clothes as we sat shivering in the dark. Around 6am the platform filled up with locals, the footways were packed and it was hard to move. We hid by the stairs and there were a few other tourist looking people standing there near us. The train pulled in late at 6.40am, we were in carriage C4, but unlike the Delhi station there was no signs on the platform saying where to stand for this carriage. When the train pulled in it took us (and an Argentian girl with us) a while to spot where on the carriages were the letters and numbers (they were pretty dirty). We noticed the running right to left the carriages counted down 'D5'...'D4'...'D3'...D2' etc etc, so presumed that after D1 it would start on C5....C4 etc etc. We walked fast down the carriages this way until we got to carriage D1, and then there was no more carriages, the C carriages must have been the otherway. Most passengers were now on the train, so we ran with our bags on back up to where we started, and literally found C4 a minute before the train set off. As we were late on the bag racks were all full, so had to squash our backpacks and day packs by our feet. The 2^nd Class AC carriages are spacious enough though, even with the chairs reclined there is a lot of room. This one even had power points which the locals were fighting over, and some old Indian man left us his IPhone to charge in our socket as our adapter would not stay in, so ours was not in use.

Arrived in New Delhi train station about 11.45am and out the station we thought we'd walk to 'Hotel the Spot' where we'd reserved a night (and who had booked our Haridwar train ticket). We went the wrong way though and ended up at Arakashan Road instead of Baba Namdev Marg / Main Bazar Road. By now we were starving (as we'd had only dairy milk bars for breakfast) and saw a fancy looking western cafe called Amici advertising pizza and pasta. Small one was 'western' starved and so we went in. Tall one then noticed that it was attached to the big yellow building called 'Bloom Rooms', which was one of the top 5 hotels rated on Trip Advisor in Delhi (we'd been looking for a nice Hotel to end our India trip on in 2 weeks time). We decided we'd cancel the Hotel the Spot booking tonight (due to their poor wifi and rats for breakfast) and booked in to Bloom Rooms which was heavenly. Small one lay on the cushion soft bed, surrounded by wall sockets, air con, TV, free mineral water, good free wifi, balcony view and all extremely clean. The cafe was great food as well and we over indulged on pizza, bruschetta, chips and aoili and milkshakes... forgetting that really we should be experiencing the locals cusine.

After check in we walked to Hotel the Spot and spoke with 'Pulkit', and informed him we no longer needed our room booking for tonight as our plans had changed butmay come back again. He was perfectly fine with that, and we paid him for the train he'd booked for us from Haridwar back to Delhi. He'd been extremely helpful, with great english speaking skills and a big help at putting our minds at rest when we arrived on the chaotic streets outside – if only he worked at a nicer Hotel. We walked back down the Main Bazaar street, the constant horns, bustling people, streets sellers asking us to come in, stepping over the stray dogs we're waiting to be bitten by, and dodging the long spittons spat from the street sellers as they just stick their head out their shop and let rip their saliva and snot onto the street in front of us. Back at the hotel and ordered two takeaway coffees which came to over 400 Rupees (almost ten New Zealand Dollars!), and then small one hid in the comfort of the blankets in the room threatening to not come out for 2 weeks.

After a long rest in the room went down to the cafe for dinner. Opted for pan seared chicken and a calzonie. Tall one's pan seared chicken arrived a small slither of meat, served on a narrow dish with 2 single wedges, 2 runner beans and a slender stick of french bread. Tall one's chicken sauce did contain chillis, and so this resulted in his usual fit of hiccups for the next five minutes. It's a strange, though appealing restaurant – with an eclectic array of pictures framed on the wall – including Homer Simpson next to a smug photo fo Bono, next to a Blue Whale, next to a poster from Spain, next to a poster for Reservoir Doogs, next to a poster for Gregory Peck movie 'Roman Holiday'?? Two other customers turned up, both Indian men – one was extremely large, wide man who had to turn sideways to get into their small bathroom, though when he sat down and ordered all they gave him was a small saucer with one small scoop of ice cream.

Saturday 7^th December 2013 – Haridwar (Vishnu Ghat), India

Small one up late with the Celtic match, that and the strange high pitch screaming coming from outside our window (we presume it was a monkey??). Tall one up at 6am for the sunrise over the River Ganges. Down stairs and through the hotel which led straight onto the Ghat and steps down into the river. Tall one sat by the riverside and dipped his toes in as the sun rouse. Back upstairs and ordered breakfast to the room, tea, juice (a strange unnamed juice) and toast (served with a dish of ketchup?). Spent the morning relaxing in the Hotel, Small one mostly sleeping, Tall one sat out on the balcony in the sun, over looking the Ganges. The river was incredibly fast flowing, and also looked relatively clear and clean, with light blue waters. A vast array of items floated past in it's water, from the ceremonial orange flowers and little green leaf boats filled with purple leafs, to an old man's black sock.

Flocks of large brown eagles soared over head and swooped down into the water and clutched out various items – some they threw back and others they ate. Large flocks of black crows also flew by early morning, and a large Hornbill landed on the telephone wires by Tall one's balcony. Down below by the Ghat stray dogs were sleeping and two mangy pups were trying to get at more milk, and when they stopped doing this they just spent their time biting each other. Just up from the hotel we had a good view from the balcony of the main Ghat walkway, where locals were in their underwear covering themselves with suds before dipping right under the Ganges water. Across the river some women were pounding their laundry on rocks and steps to wash in the water. We wondered if our laundry was being done over there.

After lunch we had a wonder round the town which was a lot quieter than the time we arrived by car. Found a post office to send some more cards and then manoeuvred are way back to the Hotel without too many people begging. Small one headed back to sleep and Tall one headed back to the balcony. Tall one then had to google all of the Indian dishes on the menu as we had not a clue what they were. So far we've managed to have the Tomato Aloo, Paneer Handi and Dal Makhani. As the hotel had no restraunt we had to eat each meal sat on our bed using their room service option – which was a bit of a novelty. We also received are laundry back, smelling suspiciously like damp river water... was expensive enough, each t-shirt had cost 60 cents each, trousers 60 cents each – total was about $15 New Zealand dollars for a wash that would have cost us about $5 back in New Zealand.

The young porter then told us to come down to pay the room bill, and we went down to be told that the bill was not ready and we would be called when it was ready, we told the reception fella that the porter had just told us to come down, he repeated that we would be called shortly. We asked him if he'd printed the train ticket that we had emailed earlier this morning and he said he would print for us – only for him to now say that he had not printed it and that they had no printer. He'd have to go across the road somewhere to print, we weren't happy as we'd have done it ourselves if he'd just said, then he was asking for it on a USB. We normally wouldn't mind all these silly mistakes and wastes of time, but we had so far not seen any other guests in the Hotel (even sat out on the balcony all day we saw no one else go out on the other ones next to us) so they weren't exactly busy. Most annoying was the young porter would just open our door to our room to pass us message or to bring food order, without knocking at all.

Friday 6^th December 2013 – Corbett Tiger Reserve > Haridwar, India

Up early for our 6.30am safari, only to awae and find no electricity, and as such no hot water for the shower – the resort runs off soloar power only as is in the middle of the jungle. Met Ali outside who seemed to have slept in the back of the jeep, along with the other drivers who each slept in their own vehicles – which must have been freezing cold. The forests were all dripping with wet caused by the thick msit that settled in over night. The mist was dispersing at 6.30am as the sky lit up orange from the sun rise. The park keepers opened up the electric fence gate for us and the jeeps (Around about ten of them) all headed off for their morning tour.

Thankfully the jeeps seemed to spread out quite fell as we pulled out into the field of elephant grass. There were a couple ahead of us which stayed just out of sight up in front. We travelled down a dirt road (same one as last night's safari) in the Khinanoli area – and at 6.45am we just went round a slight corner and stopped at a junction – when up ahead (about 40 metres away) was a huge male Tiger, stood taking up the whole width of the road. He didn't hang about and turned and sprung into the forest to the right. Ali roared the jeep into reverse and we scouted round the thicket to the road on the otherside to wait and see if he came out again – he'd been too quick for us to get any kind of video/photo. We then waited on the far road, and soon word spread through the other jeeps of the sighting and there ended up being about 9 jeeps sat spread at either end of the road. We sat there for an hour and a half and so no signs what so ever of this tiger again. It was quite nice and peaceful though sat in the dawn;;s light on the forest road, water was dripping down from the trees and a whole variety of birds were waking up and starting their dawn chorus. We saw a large Hornbill bird, as well as the small Jungle Babbler hopping from branch to branch. For the last half hour we just skirted back through the forest, and arrived back at the resort to be told that we were the only jeep with a tiger sighting that morning. Ali kept saying how lucky it was to see a tiger tomorrow, and one today.... until we realized he meant to be saying 'yesterday' and not tomorrow (hed dne this on the journey up yesterday as well, pointing out a spot where 'tomorrow' he'd seen tigers cross this road). Small one wrote up on the sightings chalk board “Irish Luck! 6.45am Khinanoli area – saw one big male tiger :-)”.

After our cold shower we went round for breakfast, which had a variety buffet (again vegetarian only) of omelette, toast, porridge, dumplings, and a curry – was excellent food. At 9.30am Ali packed us in the jeep and we started the journey back to Ramnagar. We took with us from the resort 3 Indian men who had asked for a lift to the Khinanoli area 4km away – we dropepd them off just on the dirt track where they walked the rest of the way to the buildings – this was the same dirt track we'd seen the tiger on 2 hours earlier. The jeep ride back was fairly uneventful, other than stopping to view a Yellow Throated Pine Martin – like the European Pine Martin, only more black and white in colour. The little fella was running along a vine covered tree which had fallen by the road, and darted back and forth as we watched him. Ali said it was quite rare to see one of these.

Once out of the Dhikala gate Ali had jeep trouble. The four wheel drive gear stick was violently shaking and he could not drive at high speed. So for the last half an hour we had to drive at about 10km an hour, with every car passing us beeping wildly at our speed. He dropped us back at Foodies and left without saying goodbye. Foodies Restaurant was filled with smoke, and we sat down inside in a cloud. We ordered some 'kababs' which were vegetarian little burger things, with a dipping sauce (very good). We had sat on the same table we had done a couple of days ago with Koustubh, and noticed that in the napkin holder was the paper napkin that had his biro scribblings of our tour schedule on.

The driver that Koustubh had arranged arrived half an hour late and we set off at 1pm in his small, but very clean (with actual seat belts) car to Haridwar. He lacked one finger on his right hand and also had very little english. When Tall one gave him a print out of the hotel he'd booked, he had to take it back into Foodies to get them to write it down in his Indian dialect. The car ride took us exactley four hours, and for four of those hours the driver beeped his horn non-stop down every road we took. At one point we came off the highway and took a random turn down some very narrow, unsealed, dusty back roads – and went through some fields and villages. Ploughing through locals working and herds of cows beeping his horn – we didn't have a clue where he was taking us. Thankfully after fifteen minutes we got back on to a proper road and continued without any explanation. This was the first trip we saw some real back road Indian sights – driving through many small Indian villages. Ladies in colourful shawls walked the road barefoot balancing rolls of grass the size of a body on their heads, dignified looking men with incredible beards sat cross legged on the road and played Ludo, young children in colourful dyed knitted tank tops pushed bicycles through the dust, young men in very fancy clean looking shirts stood in the muddy fields with hoes, a very elderly man with a beard the size of a dinner plate whipped a huge tired looking buffalo down the road, large black pigs were roaming the side of the road shifting through piles of garbage, five-six school children in uniform hung to the back of trucks on the way home from school, an knackered horse pulled an overloaded cart of grain – but the owner had thought to wrap tinsel around it's blinkers to cheer him up, a young lad sat on a street stall turning a pile of monkey nuts over a hot open flamed pan using a shovel, locals gathered in a nearby abandoned car park to play cricket.... there was plenty to see, and wonder what the hell is going on?It was all quite amazing to see though, just to much to take in along with our driver's beep...beep...beep.

The driver stopped for a half an hour break and dinner, when we were only ten minutes drive from our destination. When we finally got to Haridwar he ignored the map Tall one had printed and stopped to ask directions from 8 different street people. It's quite a shock arriving in Hardiwar, the streets are packed, and buildings are toppling over – one just over the river had completely collapsed and locals sat on the rubble. Small one looked at Tall one with pleading eyes, wondering wy he had been brought here. The view from the bridge as we crossed the very fast flowing River Ganges was incredible. The river lined with buildings and balconies that seemed to not have a ground floor, they just went under the water. Our hotel was finally located down a long back alley and we said goodbye to our friendly enough driver.

The hotel reception led us down some stairs to another reception at the back of the building. We were then checked in (quicker than usual) and told to order our dinner to be delivered to our rooms. We ended up ordering french fries, cheese sandwich, mushroom soup, 2 teas, steamed rice, 2 popadoms, 1 roti, Dal Makhani (vegetable curry), and hot Gulab Jamun (that red golf ball fruit desert Tall one liked from the other night) – all for 362 Rupee (around $8 New Zealand dollars). We were then shown to our room which was neat enough, with a TV, bathroom with hot water, a side window that seemed to hav a view of the neighbour's room if they opened their curtains – and a balcony leading to a front view of the River Ganges. Outside the sun had gone down spectacularly, and we stood and watched some locals on the nearest Ghat chanting and holding some ceremonious candles over the water. Our food arrived and the little man who brought the tray put it all on the bed. He then looked at small one's cheese sandwich and said “what is that on there?”, he picked up the sandwich off the plate and examined it – then took off a small piece of foil and put it back down on the tray and left. Small one ate his dinner a little perturbed, and only after he was half way through did he realize that his cheese sandwiches actually had no cheese in them (they were just toast). All in all the food was actually very very good, Tall one especially enjoyed his – gorging himself sat on the bed surrounded by little plastic plates. After dinner we were ready for bed until we got a knock at the door that reception wanted us. The fella who checked us in a few hours ago now wanted us to fill in the usual forms that we thought we'd escaped – he also felt the need to explain each line to us by reading out the english heading for each line, “this is where you put your passport number, issue date, issue office, and expiration”..... “yes I know, it says it there”). Back in the room we ordered another two black teas, and some murky light brown liquid shoed up in two glasses – which we poured down the sink.

Thursday 5^th December 2013 – Corbett Tiger Reserve, India

The hot water in the jungle bungalow turned out to only last 5 minutes and it did not run through the shower anyway, but through the stand alone taps a foot off the ground. Tall one managed to wash using a bucket and filling it with luke warm water, whilst small one was left with mostly cold buckets. Had some very wheaty cornflakes for breakfast, along with toast and eggs, and about eight extra plates we did not need. Checked out the hotel at 8am and were told we owed money for 2 cokes and 3 waters, we said it was in our package, but he produced a reciept which said drinks not included. We owed 153 Rupees, so gave him 200R – he then said he had no change, and stood clutching the 200 waiting for us to say keep the change – we insisted he got our change, and low and behold he went across to another member of staff and got some. He gave us a sheet to fill in for feedback and small one wrote: “cold room, cold shower, good food, good staff”.

We were collected in an open topped jeep by a young Indian fella, who again at least seemed to have not much english. He told us he was taking us to Dhikala, so we presume we were going to the hotel then the safari as we had our backpacks in the back of the jeep. The framework of the jeep smelt as it had been freshly painted black, which ended up getting Tall one's fleece sleeves stained. It was freezing cold at 8am in the morning, small one was wrapped up in about 5 layers – luckily we hadn't binned our winter clothes from New Zealand. Our driver pointed out a village we past on the road and told us that in 2011 a tiger had killed a woman there and had to be shot, he also produced a fancy I-Phone and played us a video he took one summer in the park of a rogue male elephant chasing the jeep down the road – and added that this elephant also had to be shot as it was a problem.

We stopped at the Dhikala gate which was much quieter than the one yesterday, and there were no extra guides to pickup – it seemed it was only our driver. He took us in to the office to register our passports – and again we had to fill in everything about ourselves and they took copies of our passport and visa (Hotels and National Parks both have an awful lot of paperwork and red tape – considering this is a country with seemingly no basic traffic regulations at all). The office clerk then started asking us what our Hotel room number was in Dhikala – we told him we hadn't got there yet so don't know what the number is. He insisted we told him our room number, we said how can we as we are on our way now (through his gate) so how can we have the number until we arrive? The clerk got a bit annoyed and insisted we give him the room number, explaining again and again he wanted the number of our room in Dhikala.... we were at a complete loss, and said again – we don't know it, we have no arrived there yet to check in!?? We suggested they phone Koustubh, but he did not answer. It was then that our driver (whose name from his sign in book seemed to be 'Ali') had the paperwork for our Hotel which already stated our room number on it, we had not been told anything about where we were going, not even the hotel name let alone the room number?? Finally that was sorted and we went through the gate.

It was another 33km from the Gate to Dhikala resort, but on the way we essentially did our morning jeep safari. It was a lot quieter than yesterday, there were another 4 jeeps about but all quite serious looking people with enormous cameras as big as cannons, who sat patiently waiting and not making any noise. We waited at a dry river bed which the driver said was a tiger crossing, but wondered what the odds were for one of the 78 known tigers in the this huge park. There was a quiet intensity as four jeeps of tourists sat staring at an empty scenery, it was almost tempting to just shout the word, “Tiger!” to see them jump with their cameras. The driver took us around the Ramganga river, to where we were shown some Gharial crocodiles basking in the sun. It took the whole morning to warm up, and for the first few hours we stayed muffled up in hats and coats, even the driver had on this bizarre shiny Gold bomber jacket with it's hood pulled firmly over his well gelled head – making it seem like our guide was a local Chav. We also past a wild pig which ran across our path in the forest.

Around 11am we stopped by a jeep who were waiting patiently by a bush on a forest track – they told us they had heard signs of a tiger just ahead. Ali drove us around the corner and parked us the otherside of the forest patch to where this tiger may hopefully come out. Another jeep with a single occupant parked next to us and we waited patiently. Tall one's camera then flashed up as SD card full, and he began to delete some old photos to make room – there was some sounds from the forest of birds being disturbed and Tall one kept his eye straight up the road where the birds had made the commotion – whilst the guides were looking back down the road to where the first jeep was. Tall one had just finished making room on his camera when about 30 metres up the road ahead of their jeep the head of a large male tiger came out of the thicket on the left side of the road. The tiger casually looked at Tall one and the jeep and then walked out into the road without making a single sound. Tall one had the camera on it and said to the driver and Small one, “There!”, and soon everyone was jumping up to look – including the other jeep way back up the road. As the first jeep and a new arrival roared up the road to catch a glimpse of the tiger, the tiger maintained his slow pace and without a glance back just slid into the jungle on the right side of the road when he was ready. The other jeeps pulled in infront of us blocking our view now, but they were too late. They stayed hoping it would come back, but Ali reversed dramatically and took us down a side road which would lead us out the otherside of this patch of forest and out onto the dry river banks of the Ramganga river.

We were the only jeep parked out there, and we sat quietly. In the distance we could see three Gharial crocodiles lying out on the stony banks (2 of them looked like logs). After half an hour we were joined by 4-5 other jeeps who sat patiently. Each time we thought about giving up a commotion came from the jungle which signified that a tiger was still present – first time a wild peacock and peahen took flight into the trees, the next time a large crashing sound came from the thicket and a Sambur deer ran out on to the plain area. The deer stood a way from the jungle edge and looking back with it's white tail flicking high in the air, made that strange, loud, trumpet honk that we had heard yesterday. Over the next half an hour the Sambur drifted cautiously to the otherside of the plain and crossed the river and disappeared. We waited 2 hours at this spot, and in the end called it a day, satisfied with what we'd seen.

Ali drove us to the Dikhala resort, which was an area of a few buildings fenced off by electric fences. We checked in going through the usual excessive forms and books to be filled in. The room was spacious, apparently with hot water, and had an air conditioning unit as big as a washing machine. At 1.30pm we had lunch, which was a buffet of vegetable curries – and was very nice. At 2.30pm we joined Ali again and headed off for the afternoon safari. By this time the sun was out and it was very warm again.

Followed the Ramganga lakeside for a while, stopping on occasion just to sit in silence and listen to the forest sounds, and scan the scenery for any movements. We only saw tiger foot prints on this safari, though we did see ample peacocks, pheasants, Cheetal and two elephants tethered out in the long grass for Elephant safaris. The last stop was a one way lane that led straight into the Ramganga Reservoir. Here we stopped and watched the sunset over the lake and hills, in the foreground small mice were runnign around in the grass, and a lapwing bird was wadding in the shallow water. Was a very tranquil spot, and we sat in silence for a good twenty minutes listening to the fish splash in the water, and watching the occasional Cheetal deer walk quietly up the road. Headed back to the resort for just after 5pm and Ali told us the mornings safari was at 6.30am, followed by breakfast at 8.30am then back to Ramnagar. We had a free cup of tea in the restaurant, and went back down at 7pm for the dinner.

Wednesday 4^th December 2013 – Nainital > Kaladhungi > Ramnagar > Corbett Tiger Reserve, India

Packed and downstairs to get breakfast at 8.30am, to be ready for our 9am pickup to Ramnagar (via Kaladhungi). Only downstairs we found the cafe closed and the shifty looking doorman (in his fancy white, gold buttoned uniform and a black baseball cap) and the 'stare-a-lot' night Manager on reception could not help us. The old Indian man who served us hot water yesterday turned up and told us cafe was closed until 9am, and then said some other things we could not understand. So for breakfast we ate a packet of orios and a bag of Walker's Spanish Tomato crisps. Some of the other local Indian hangabouts turned up in reception (we never knew if they worked there or were just locals) and all of them stood behind small one and stared at his laptop as he was online. At 9.50am our tall “welcome sir” friend from the cafe opened up, and we asked him to make us two toasted cheese sandwiches to takeaway. By 9.10am we had these and are car and driver had waited. The cafe had given us a carrier bag with three tin foil packages, two had the sandwiches and the third something squashy – it was only when we were in the car that we tentatively opened it and found they filled some tin foil with ketchup for us.

Our driver had a strong Indian accent and was hard to understand, though he was very clear every time he burped – which was often. The drive out of Nainital to Kaladhungi took about an hour, and was round some very steep hills, with lots of corners – making us both as travel sick as we'd ever been. There were however some amazing views looking out across the Kumaon hills, where some steep plains were being farmed by locals. Some of these mountain roads we past 2-3 school girls in uniform walking up the road, despite the fact we had not seen any houses for miles either side of them.

In Kaladhungi we stopped at the Jim Corbett Museum, his former Winter home. This included some nice gardens where his former dogs (including 'Robin' from his books) was buried in what would be an impressive grave even for a human. The large white house with pillars and porch had been stripped bare, and was just a walk through with various paintings and re-printed photos of Corbett. A few original letters were in frames and one room had some furniture in a corner like a closing down sale in a flea market. The museum was beside the Chotti Haldwani village that Corbett had owned and built – though it was ow private with no access. The man at the door offered to get someone to give us a guided tour for 300R each, though we had not allowed the time for this. Instead we stopped just outside of town for a quick look at the Boar Bridge and River, and the outside wall surrounding the village that Corbett had taken 10 years to build. We also made a stop at the Corbett Falls, though at the security gate Tall one had to give them his name, car registration, driver's ID number, his own passport ID, his home address, and various other details – just for a five minute look at a nice waterfall.

We arrived in Ramnagar and small one spotted the 'Foodies Restaurant' where are tour was to begin. Entering the restaurant it was in darkness and four/five staff were in the kitchen in the dark. One came out and greeted us and gave us hot tea in a glass and a bottle of water – he then spent ten minutes trying to get a nnoisy generator out n the street to work – which made the lights, fans and TV come on and off in the cafe until he got it running. It was a strange little cafe, with colourful red / green plastic chairs – and large billboard like glossy colour photos covering the wall of western girls eating large sandwiches and apples – it was liked they'd stolen décor from a food court in the UK.

Koustubh arrived around 12.10pm and introduced us to his wife and sat down at our plastic table. He told us we had a tour in the park starting at 1pm and before we did that he would drive us to the park and hotel, check us in, explain the tour, take payment and we would eat lunch (all in 40 minutes). He did not hand us a printed schedule for the tour, but instead took one of the paper napkins from the table and with a biro jotted down a couple of the stops and then gave up. We climbed in to his car, which was a small unclean car with a huge crack on the windshield – he moved voxes out the back for small one to sit in with the backpacks. He explained that he was not driving us for the 3 days but dropping us off only, and then he explained the safaris booked including one today (which was not on the schedule) so we weren't sure what to expect.

Drove into the Corbett Tiger Reserve in the Bijrani area. On the way Koustubh told us that on this road his friend on a motorbike had been chased by a tiger. He checked us in to 'United 21' resort by the river – and we were to stay in a nice bungalow. He showed us the river view which was all dried up like a quarry, and said that we could enjoy a walk along the river (we thought not after the tiger story you told us). The restaurant was set under a large dome like hut with nervous Indian waiting staff. The bulk of tourists we'd seen (the only tourists we'd seen) had been Indian – and so they did not seem quite as used to serving westerners. We opted for two chicken curries with Roti, which were both very nice, though a few little bones to avoid.

We paid Koustubh and he explained our tour driver would pick us up now at 1.30pm for a 4 hour jeep safari, then tomorrow we should have breakfast at 7.30am and be ready for the next tour at 830am when we would move to the other area of Dhikala (50km away). Koustubh left us and the waiter then gave us a dessert – which was this circular golf ball size and shaped dark red fruit – which was heated and covered with hot sticky toffee – it tasted more like cake than fruit and was like a sticky toffee pudding, very good.

Our young driver waited at Reception and took us in an open jeep to the Gate Number 2 entrance to the main park. Koustubh had told us that to help with tiger sighting to give our guide 100 R when we arrived and tell him he''d get more if we see tiger – we tried to do this with this fella, though he had no english and we gave up. At the gate we were then joined by a middle aged Indian man with well groomed hair, who joined us in the front of the jeep – it seemed too late now to give this 100R so we gave up on this. Into the park itself up dusty roads, and various forest tracks, past large 6 foot high ant hills, fields of elephant grass – we saw plenty of Chital – Spotted Deer, which stood happily by the road, as did the Langur monkeys with their white fur, black faces and long tails. We drove through a few watertracks across a shallow river, and kept our eyes out for tigers whilst our guide explained quite drolly how the park was formed and what animals they had. Our guide told us that “nobody was aloud to work inside the reserve as this helps protect the habitat”, and then we drove past 4-5 women carrying logs on their heads and he added, “these people have permission to work in the reserve”. Next he told us that “we do not have a problem with forest fires and the reason is that nobody is aloud to live inside the reserve”, we then drove past two-three small houses in the forest and he added, “these people are aloud to live in the park as they work here”. At one pointed we stopped opposite a jeep park up on the road, and they turned the engine off and sat there in silence. We waited patiently, wondering if the other jjeep were rangers who'd stopped us. Five-ten minutes went by and we had stood in silence, before small one asked what we were doing, the guide then whispered that a tigress and four cubs had been seen in this area near the watering hole and we were keeping any eye out. We left not long afterwards.

On the dusty roads we saw plenty of tiger foot prints as well as elephant dung and large elephant tracks, though we ended up seeing neither. We came close to seeing a tiger when we stopped at a large tower lookout. We climbed the tower and left the driver and guide at the bottom with a few other jeeps. After five minutes we heard a loud – short trumpet like honk coming from the jungle behind us, The guides below all went silent and listened, we heard it again. They ushered us down quickly and everyone was in their jeeps and on the road. He explaned to us that this was the sound of a large Sambur deer when it had a tiger in its sights. We pulled up on the side of the road where the sound of the deer continued just to our left in the forest – it gradually got louder and closer, and we waited in anticipation. More and more jeeps arrived and pulled in (presumably having received a call from other guides), soon there were 14 jeeps in all dotted along the road. We were the only western tourists on the jeeps, and the locals got bored pretty quickly of waiting. Soon they were all chatting loudly, making jokes, their mobile phones were ringing, children were screaming, car doors slamming – we had no hope of seeing a tiger now. The sambur stopped, and then off to the right side of the road a Barking deer started barking, and the guide said that this was the call when this deer saw a tiger. We waited another half an hour, but then left – realizing there was just too many people here who should have opted for Disney world.

We left the park about 4.30pm, happy with what we had seen so far – as (despite the tourist noise) it was an experience to wait in the jungle and listen to the sounds of animals as they alerted the surroundings of a tiger which was unseen just off the road. Back to the hotel after a brief stop at a tourists shop where we brought some filthy (as in dusty) postcards. We had asked our guide and driver if they were taking us tomorrow, but they both said no, so we hoped that somebody would show up and know where we were going at 8.30am. Back at the hotel the sun went down as large macac monkeys were jumping across the resort path through the trees. We sat in the restaurant andf had fried chicken and chips (chicken overdose today), and some more of those amazing fruit puddings. After we'd eaten, one of the waiters asked us what time we wanted to have dinner.... we pointed to our large empty plates and said 'this is it' (their dinner menu starts after 7.30pm each evening, so custom is to have a late dinner). Went to bed around 9pm, both of us frozen from the cold.

Tuesday 3^rd December 2013 – Nainital, India

Beans on toast for Tall one, and a milky looking scrambled egg on toast for Small one. Headed up to the Tallital end of the lake (the other end with the Ropeway and Fats being Mallital) to find the post office. We wanted 10 postcard stamps for our 10 postcards already written and a further 6 postcard stamps ready for another 6 postcards that we planned on buying. The Indian lady at the counter seemed to have good english and understand that we just wanted a total of 16 postcard stamps tp get mail to the UK and New Zealand. Though she thn started serving another gentleman and got an elderly Indian lady assistant to get our stamps. The elderly lady took out 3 stamps to the value of 5 Rupee each and had in her hand stamps for 1 Rupee – we realized then she was jist giving us stamps to the value of 16 Rupees instead of 16 stamps. The english speaking lady spoke back and forth with her a while without success, so we then handed the elderly lady the ten postcards and counted them each out to try and at least just get the stamps for the ten cards we already had. The elderly lady then counted out 50 stamps each with the numbers '500' on them. We did not know what the hell was going on, but thankfully an english speaking customer translated for us that we needed 5 of these '500' stamps on each card, and that these were 5 Rupee stamps not 500 Rupee stamps (500 R being bout $11 NZ dollars...!). So we paid for the 50 stamps for 10 postcards and sat down and started licking the backs of endless stamps and stuggled to get them all to fit on having already written the cards. We then asked for a further 30 stamps to use for the 6 postcards expected to buy in the future, after a bit more confusion we were given these as well. We left the ten cards with them to post, but have no idea if they'll get there. Down Mall Road we looked in the book stores and souvenir stores for Postcards to buy, but could find nowhere to buy them – as this was mostly a holiday destination for Indians, we can only presume it's not part of their habit to send postcards.

Afterwards we headed up the steep hill behind the Hotel to go to Nainital High Altitude Zoo. It certianly was high altitude, and was an endless steep concrete road, and then endless steps through some apartment blocks – we started to wonder what place a Zoo would have in the middle of all these steep roads and house. Arrived at the top both exhausted and paid the $1 each to get into the Zoo. It was a fairly rustic setup, the conditions for the animals were adequate – not exactly good, but not terrible either. Some animals definatley got the shorter straw, as some wolves seemed to be in just a small concrete kennel, whilst others had the run of a large penned area in a forest. The zoo had a variety of colourful pheasants and other local birds – all behind chicken wire which kind of diminished their beauty. There was also a large Bengal Tiger which paced his shelter roof, until he got board and jumped down with a loud, scary thud – and then paced the ground with heavy breathing and a grumble. Leopards also lay sunbathing, and Himalayan Bears sat out in the grass like circus animals – with scarily little between us and them – just a low concrete wall and a trench. One bear at out on the grass on show for everyone, sitting upright like a person – then got board and walked backwards (he only walked backwards) and down into the trench. There was also a variety of Indian species of deer, the very large Sambur, the small barking deer and the goat like Ghooral.

Headed back down the steep hill and stopped in the Hotel for Tomato soup and Naan bread. The afternoon we spent sat outdoors in the sun, on the Hotel balcony looking over the lake. It was Small one's birthday, and he was given a book on the last days of MASH, a Celtic football card, and some Barrys Tea bags Tall one had saved from 2 months ago and smuggled in to the country. Tall one surprised Small one by ordering a flask of hot water and 2 cups – which was diligently delivered by the old shambling porter who had been shuffling round fishing for a tip since we had arrived. The porter then huing around and started asking us questions we couldn't understand – he seemed to be speaking a mixture of both english and Indian – and after repeating his questions several times, we just had to shake our heads and say sorry, we don't know. By this time the tea had gone cold, but it was still pretty good.

Down for dinner at 7pm, and opted for a Chicken Korma and a Lamb Kofta. Both had some mysterious little hard pieces hidden in the meat, but both were pretty good. The same two waiter's have served us for the last 3 days, usually the bigger fellow who everytime you say 'thankyou' to him he responds in a whisper, “welcome sir”. Small one tried to tell each of them that it was his birthday today, but neither one seemed to understand – though at the end of the meal we were both given a little dish of hot water with a slice of lemon to cleanse our fingers, which we'd not had before. The restaurant has insisted on this bizarre habit of having all tables pre-set before you arrive, with cutlery and a plate – then when your food comes, it comes with it's own plate and it's own cutlery, so you're always left with all this extra plates and crockery on your table. We have also sat on the same table for each meal each day, and noticed the same stains on the paper table mat. The hotel has been quite nice (tad expensive) but a very pleasant stay all round.

Monday 2^nd December 2013 – Nainital, India

Small one had been sick during the night, he thinks it was that dodgy curry tainted pizza yesterday – he didn't eat much at dinner last night, only half a waterey soup, though Tall one enjoyed a very tasty Tandoori Chicken. This morning down for breakfast and had toast with bad eggs, and a Tetley tea (was going to ask for orange juice but yesterday at dinner they went out on to the street to get a glass of it for us??and it was rotten). After 10am we took a stroll along the side of Naini Lake, and saw a large shoal of Mahseer fish. The other end of the lake we reach the 'Flatts' where in 1880 a mud slide killed 150 people in a hotel, and is now an open playing field area. At this time there were locals dressed in their whites playing a game of cricket.

Headed up the side of the Flatts, past many a stray cow – and up some very narrow and busy back streets. Past a busy street market and finally back on to the main Mall Road. Up the hill we found the High Court and from there found the signs to Gurney House (near to Naini Retreat). Then we followed the road up and down and round tight corners through the Ayarpatta hills, getting a lot of bemused stares from locals. After a few false turns we finally found Jim Corbett's former summer home Gurney House.

We banged on the gate and pressed the doorbell and shouted in without response. In the end we went into the garden and knocked on the window (the house is privately owned, but they allow private tours). We heard a woman's voice inside, and it sounded like we'd been banging on the bathroom window. A very friendly young Indian man came out and greeted us, he had excelletn English with a slight American accent. He explained to us that Corbett's home belongs to his wife's family as her great grandfather brought the property directly from Jim Corbett. It is not a museum, but they maintain it as it was left, with most of Corbett's furniture and possessions inside. They don't actually live there, but do visit 3-4 times a year, usually it would just be the caretaker present. We had a quick tour inside, and saw the house's dinning room, Corbett's bedroom and bed, and study. The wall's had animal skulls (including a tiger skull), as well as Corbett's books, and paintings. We offered to make a donation but he thanked us and refused as they did not except them – and only do this as a public service for the joy of sharing Corbett's life and work.

On our way back down the road we past a local Indian woman standing in the road, dressed in a fine, pretty shawl – milking the piss out the back end of a cow. We stopped to watch and she gleefully showed us the plastic bowl she had half filled, and we noticed she had urine up her arms and over her face. We were not sure what she planned to do with this, but was quite interesting to see. The walk back was much easier and we stopped in a modern looking Bakery Cafe. The open kitchen looked very clean so we sat and had lunch – they as soon as we ordered he phoned up various people and runners arrived to fetch the food from other places up the street. Small one had originally asked for Orange Juice, which they did not have, so asked for a Fanta. The man then sent someone looking for a Fanta without success so Small one said tea was fine. Just as we finished our meal some other lad came running in to the cafe clutching a bottle of Fanta.... we weren't that hell bent on specifically having a Fanta, and so we left.

Down the main street we took a look at the Ropeway (Cable Cart) that led up to the Snow View lookout at the top of the hills. We brought a ticket for 150 R each and sat in a waiting room with a large group of Indian college lads. It turned out there was only 2 cable carts which ran parallel to each other back and forth, so that's why there was a wait. Small one had a nervous trip up the cart, opening his eyes only near the top. Tall one enjoyed the panoramic view of Lake Naini and the township of Nainital – whilst below us was the various shanty houses with tin roofs covered with items of clothing spread out to dry in the sun, as well as some eight foot high hay stacks which resembled 'Cousin It' from the Adam's Family.

At the top of the Snow View was also a loud amusent park, which included a paddling pool with two rubber dingys floating in it – what kind of ride that was we weren't too sure. A small walk took us to the lookout, which showed an amazing vista of the distant snow topped Himalayas. You could also pay 20 R to shoot nails out of an air rifle at various plastic coke and water bottles suspended in trees. This was a little hazardous as the path to get back down past quite close to where people were aiming at with these guns. It was pretty busy at the lookout and we soon got swamped with the Indian college lads. As we had found before they suddenly all wanted a photograph standing next to us, and once this started they all suddenly wanted one. We were then mobbed like Justin Bieber, with these young lads and girls shouting “one more photo.... photo with me!”. It was all a little surreal.

Back down the Ropeway and we booked our car transfer to Ramnager on Wednesday and did a little shopping. Back at Hotel Alka we organized our days photos while listening to the staff outside our door hocking up snot on to the floor. Headed for dinner after 5pm. The Hotel restaurant has a strange deserted feel to it, every time we go in the doorman has to go and find a waiter to come and serve us. The interior is made up of bamboo walls, with green and blue neon lights on the ceiling, a shelf running around the room covered with large cuddly toy tigers and one large gorilla teddy. The music they play is cheap synthesized, vocal-less versions of songs like 'Satisfaction' or 'Hey Jude'. We opted for 2 cheese sandwiches, chips and Tetley's tea. When your given the bill you are given a small holder of dishes, one with tooth picks, one with little white mint crystals and the other with anacide seeds – each of these with a spoon to serve yourself, though the appeal as the same as a bowl of nuts in a pub – which made you wonder how many dirty fingers had been in there before you.

Sunday 1^st December 2013 – Train Delhi to Kathgodam and Taxi to Nainital, India

Alarm woke us painfully at 3.30am. Showered and packed and downstairs for the 4.30am taxi to find the young Hotel hand lad asleep with some other reception fella on the sofas -with a blanket over them. The reception one dragged himself out of the bed and behind reception where he phoned us a taxi, he woke up the young lad even though he did not get him to do anything, he probabaly just didn't want to be the only one awake – so the other poor young lad just sat there looking dizzy. Our taxi came and a frantic 30 minute ride across town and over the river to the quieter Anand Vihar railway station in New Delhi.

We made our way in the dark to the station and found a big screen with train listings – all text was in an Indian dialect, but luckily they had the train numbers on one side, the departure times and platform number on the other. There was then easy signs showing you the way to the right platform, and electronic signs up he platform indicating where each carriage number would stop. The station (inside and out) was full of people sleeping rough on the ground, we weren't sure if they were waiting for a train or just homeless. We were the only ones in shorts, and it was a bit chilly.

The train arrived at 5.45am, and we found our seats at the front of carriage C2 – nobody was infront of us, and we were in a row of 2 so nobody was next to us. The 2^nd class AC carriage filled with respectable looking Indians, did not see any westerners. The Third class carriages looked like zoos, with people's limbs hanging out the doorways and open windows with bars on – looked like an overloaded meat truck. The train left on schedule at 6.15am an was due in Kathgodam at 11.50am.

We were served a free breakfast, a large bottle of water, a plastic thermos of hot water with a packet which said 'Meals on Wheels'. We wondered what was inside, but it turned out to be a tea bag and a bag of sugar for the hot water. Tall one was given a 'Lassi' mango milkshake, he took one sip of the sour drink and noticed the best before date was 8 days ago. The main breakfast meal was a paper bag of brown bread, a dish with some form of mash and two onion rings (which were tasteless and more like bread inside) and also two little foil dishes of dipping sauces. Tall one tried a little of each, but did not like anything, whilst small one refused everything except the bottle of water.

The scenery from the train was quite immense, the sun rose over the horizon in a red haze and was this distinct orange glowing circle. The local fields where locals were out with ox were smothered with mist in the suns rays. We past through many industrial areas, tall pylons and chimney surrounded by smog. Over many bridges looking down at locals fishing in the early morning. Tried taking photos, but a shaky picture through a dirty train window doesn't really do any of it justice. Made a few stops at stations, where locals wondered along the train tracks by the train – some were kids dressed in dusty rags, others were dressed quite respectably in smart shirts. All the young kids we saw begging at one train station all seemed in good spirits, they were running round joking and kicking a ball around in the dust.

The train arrived in Kathgodam exactly on time at 11.50am. Outside we were swarmed with taxi drivers trying to get us to use them for the 1 hour trip (35km) to Nainital – all shouting 400 Rupees! We followed one fella to his car who had told us 400 Rupees. It was not a proper taxi and only an old banged up car with no badges or ID tags. We showed him on a map where abouts in Nainital we wanted to go and the name of the Hotel on Mall Road (where most Hotels are). The man then changed his tune and said this was outside Nainital and would cost 600 Rupees. Tall one pointed at his map and said it was in Nainital. In the end small one agreed 500 Rupees to save wasting anhy more time. It was a dizzy ride through the steep hills and narrow windy roads to get there – sheer drops down the side of the road into the impressive valleys below. There was of course no seat belts as we clung on to the handles as our driver over took cars on sharp corners. Past many locals travelling in cars or buses who had stopped to vomit. Past monkeys wondering on the road, and one Langur monkey sat on a wall – this was a different kind to what we'd seen before, white fur with a black face. The driver found our hotel and left us on the street, we'd not been able to contact any hotels to make a booking but picked a likely one for a destination, and one with a view overlooking Nainital's famous lake.

We then headed up and down many steep entrance steps and spoke to 5-6 Receptions asking for room prices. Each time they got more expesnive, 1000 Rupees per night, then 1500.... all had good Lake views, but not one of the Hotel's had wifi (which would explain why we could not email to make a booking). The only one we found with wifi was Hotel Alka, which was 2500 Rupee per night. So ended up paying an extra 1500 R per night just for wifi – though it was Small one;s birthday at this destination in a couple of days and he also had a Celtic match to watch.

Check in took forever, they wanted photocopies of all documents, one large book filled in with our details including our father's names?? Then a registration sheet each filled in with every details imaginable. We were then checked in and left alone in our room, only for ten minutes later an elderly steward came knocking, let himself in and proceeded in showing us how to use the taps in the bathroom and how to turn the lights on – it was all a little bizarre, and we presume he was just fishing for a tip, so just waited for him to leave.

Went out at 3.30pm to look for food. Asked reception if they knew how to get to Jim Corbett's Gurney House in Nainital – which was a private home turned into a semi museum. They had never heard of it, so Tall one gave them his internet print out of the place, to which they both slowly read it out loud, then nodded and read what was printed out loud back to Tall one as if they had helped (when all they'd done is read what he'd given them) He pointed to a phone number on the print out and asked them to phone up and see if it would be open tomorrow, thankfully they did this without further confusion. Up the street found a book shop selling all of Jim Corbett's and Kenneth Anderson's books in new format, and also spoke with a random middle aged English woman who told us she had just moved to Delhi for 6 months. Next we found a small Indian restraunt which did pizza. We ordered one cheese pizza to share, just to tie us over until out Hotel restaurant opened at 7pm. It was a good pizza, though had a strange tang of curry. We paid and left, and the waiter watched us as we pocketed the measly 5 Rupee change, and gave a grunt under his breath as we thanked him and left, not leaving a tip.

We were both pretty cold with goose bumps up our bare legs. Even on the train we'd dug out our fleeces to wear (which we'd not worn since New Zealand). It was distinctly colder in India than South East Asia, and more so up in Nainital – as we were up in a mountainous region near the Himalayas. Think we'll retire the shorts for a while and go back to the long trousers. Went back to the hotel and did some planning for our next 2 full days here. Was a nice place to relax, a picturesque mountainous town around a large lake – lots of Indians here on holidays as well. Our main reason for coming was as it was the former home of Hunter turned Conservationist, Jim Corbett. Jim was born in Nainital in 1875 to Irish parents. Raised in India he grew up and worked for a rail road shipping firm but spent his spare time in the jungle regions of Kumaon. He became a famous local hunter and aided many villages who were being terrorised by man-eating tigers and leopards in the early 1900s (some man-eaters, such as the Champawhat Tiger claimed over 200 victims). Following the loss of animal species numbers and jungle habitat over the years, Corbett became disillusioned with hunting and changed his passion for Conservation and wildlife Photography. He retired to Kenya in the 1950's and wrote 5 books on his time in India and his hunts for Man-eaters. Corbett's summer home is here in Nainital, and his winter home in a village he built – is now a museum in Kaladhungi. Corbett Tiger Reserve National park was also renamed in his honour after his death in 1955. Tall one's father had given him a paperback of the selected writings of Corbett to read many years ago – he'd finally read this is Toronto back in 2011 and went on to buy Corbett's other books, which were the main inspiration for this trip to India.

Saturday 30^th November 2013 – Delhi, India

Took us a while to figure out the bathroom, the light switch being one of about 7 dotted around the main room (the light switch for the bedroom of course being out in the hallway). The shower was actually pretty good, powerful and hot. Small one commented how he'd been awake for hours listening to some poor bastard in the neighbouring room vomiting all night. Down for our included breakfast, we were told to wait on the two old sofas in reception – no tables or chairs or any such formalities. We asked for toast and a tea, and toast and a coffee. The same fella was on reception as last night and the same boy as a runner. The boy went up the street and ordered our food. Half an hour later we received our drinks in plastic cups – both had a lot of milk in them and a lot of sugar, neither of which we'd asked for, but presume it's the standard here. The toast was very thin slices of bread, buttered for us and had a strange zig zag pattern on it, with the shape crimped from being pressed down into some kind of toaster. As we tentatively ate, small one spotted a mouse or small rat run along the hallway. The staff were at least trying to keep the place cleaned and we watched the young lad dusting down the furniture using an old pair of underpants – what colour they used to be was hard to determine due to the dirt that had accumulated on them.

The wifi was not working and a few other friendly residents were down trying it without success. The narrow street outside was busy with locals, and also a lot of backpackers walking past which was a bit reassuring. We had to wait until 9.30am for the day staff to come in to check they'd booked our onwards train ticket, and also to book our 10am car day tour. While we waited we walked out to the main street, and dodged the busy locals, bicycles, dogs and sharp looking yellow and green Tuk Tuks, which were more charming than the Thailand ones.

After days of searching for shoes for Tall one in Thailand, a few doors up we found a shoe shop. A friendly, plump Indian man led us in and said “sit down, sit down sir, not a problem sir, I find”. He then had a ladder out and was scaling his stacks of shoe boxes and ppulling out different boxes. He found a plastic bag for Tall one to use as a temporary sock over his bare footo for trying on shoes. He didn't let us choose a design, he literally gave us a choice of 2. The first shoe was too small and cramped up at the toes, but the man insisted that, “no no, good shoe, very good size, good shoe”, Tall one had to insist that “no it's too small, you have bigger?”. Finally he gave us another, which was black with neon blue rubber soles and lining. This fitted fine and only turned out to be about $11 New Zealand Dollars. With the news shoes we walked a little further up the street where some beggar lady wanted us to sign a petition, and when we declined she called after us, “you are a bastard!”. It was then we decided to head back to the Hotel. The Pahar Ganj area were staying in is pretty manic, though it is easy enough to find our small side alley with the Hotel, as our little alley has 3 outside urinals just lined up on the street side.

At 9.30am we met the main tour operator of the Hotel, who was a young lad named 'Pulkit'. He'd been emailing us before and had booked our train ticket to Nainital, and we had a chat for a while to sort out some other things – and he was very good and helped put our mind at ease about staying here as someone seemed to know what was going on. Our driver for our Delhi tour turned up at 10am, we never did find out his name – his english was adequate at best. We headed for the main raoad, through a busy junction where a crowd had gathered in the centre of the highway in the middle of an argument. One young lad had just hit another with a crow bar, and the one hit was spitting a long line of blood onto the road.

First stop as a random place called 'Sai Temple' we had no idea we were going here and it was not on the outline of places we went through with the tour operator at the hotel.We asked how long we had here and the driver said 1 or 2 hours.... we were back in 10 minutes. To get inside there was a long messy queue to leave bags and shoes at a desk, and we didn't want to waste the time when we knew nothing about the place and would rather spend our limited time somewhere else. Looked round the garden and at a statue of an ugly tiger surrounded by chipmunk like squirrels. This was the first of a few stops today which had a security guard next to a dodgy portable metal detector (one of those airport doorway things you walk through and it beeps if you have metal on you). We found out throughout the day that even though you;d made to go through the security door, even if it beeps – nobody actually checks why it beeps or checks your pockets, your just aloud in either way.

Next stop was Parliament House and India Gate, though we use the word 'stop' lightly as the driver told us just to get photos from the car window. We approached the sights like kerb crawlers and then wound down our windows and pointed out the cameras like a drive by shooting – then headed off. From this site we noticed how many of the large brown eagles were soaring above us – and through the rest of the day we were never away from at least 4-5 of these huge birds circling over head ominously.

The driver then went to a stop we had asked for, Gandhi Smriti. This is the house and gardens where Gandhi spent the last months of his life and ended up being shot in the garden. They mark the place by turning the buildings into a museum with various articles, real life artefacts (his glasses and cane), small figurines re-enacting famous scenes from his life, and famously they have also recreated Gandhi's final 144 steps from the house to the spit he died (and became a martyr). These footstep are little raised concrete foot shaped blocks in the path – we found the start of these steps and started (naturally) walking on them – putting our feet where his had been. After a few minutes a security man shouted at us to get off them, as these were not for walking on (they were scared) and pointed to the path that had been built next to them. Up where the steps ended was a small shrine where Gandhi fell, and people stopped to pray. It was up here that 3 young Indian lads sat down next to Tall one and asked for 'photo'. First Tall one thought they wanted him to take a photo of them for them, but then realized they wanted a photo standing next to him. Tall one assured them that he was not famous, but they still insisted. They snapped away for a good few minutes and afterwards gleefully showed back the photos to him, telling him 'you look good'??

Our driver collected us from the street and took us to the next stop, Lodhi Gardens. This was a nice open park with a lake, palm trees, green areas and some small ruins. Was very picturesque, and a peaceful stroll around the clean grounds. Four school children who had been playing ball ran over to Tall one and asked for him to take a photo – this time they had seen he was carrying a photo and just wanted him to take a photo of the four of them with his own camera. He did so and showed it to them, they were delighted and then went away never asking for a copy (however that would have worked anyway) but happy that they'd had one taken by a random stranger. After 30 minutes walked back along the bridge which was lined with four unconscious dogs sprawled out in the sun, and back to our driver.

Humayun's Tomb was next, which cost us 250 Rupees entrance, which we thought was a little bit pricey , though was pretty nice. Also included viewing of Isa Kham Tomb as well as the main centre point of the Humayum's Tomb. We had to time our walks well to avoid the large groups of school children, wed avoided many at every site today – good to see the kids being taken out to these stops, but wondered why they were with the school on a Saturday.

By now it was after 2pm and we were starving. We had asked the driver about a food stop a few times without success. We had also made the mistake of not discussing with the driver where we wanted to go, as we presumed he was on the same page as us and the tour operator who had run through all the sights we'd see. Half way through the day we realized the driver didn't want to go to Old Delhi (Red Fort etc etc) as he said it was very busy and too far.... despite the fact this was a full day Delhi tour we'd paid for he had decided not to take us to one of the main attractions. After some discussion he said he take us if we wanted as it was of course are choice, despite the fact that he disagreed with us (“Old Delhi too many people and sites not as nice as New Delhi... too far too far). By the time we'd decided this, it was too late to head up there anyway as we'd come too far south of the City, so opted to skip it and go to Red Fort at the end of our India trip when we had a spare day back in Delhi before our flight.

The driver then agreed he'd take us to a restaurant after Lotus Temple. At Lotus we brought some spanish tomato flavoured Walker's crisps from a street seller, and then joined the hoards of people to the Temple (this was the busiest yet). It was a very modern temple, like a slightly the Sydney Opera House, but with the flaps closed up a bit more. We had to out our shoes into an old canvas sack at one pointed, and then join the masses in a queue to go inside. It all seemed a bit much and we weren't too interested, so were happy enough to get our shoes back out the sack, take a few photos and go. Our driver was always surprised as to how quickly we came back from every stop (usually we woke him up).

The Restaurant he took us to was an Indian restaurant (Taste of India) on the top floor of a large Market building. The food was expensive, costing us 1400 Rupees for 2 naans, 1 lamb rogan josh, 1 chicken curry and 2 cans of drink (coke and a fanta) which was about $25 NZD. The driver afterwards told us how he only earns 4500 Rupees a month, and we'd just spent a week of his wages on a lunch (he did continue on with the how much he earns and how much he has to spend story, presumably to encourage a sympathetic tip). When we left the restaurant we were directed away from the lift and told to use the stairs, this was because they wanted us to go through the shops to buy something. Soon as people saw us they were on us to buy stuff, “hello sir, how are you, where you from, you come and look at this...”. It was all textile based as well... they kept trying to show us silk scarfs, and we kept shaking our heads and kept walking till we got the hell out.

Driver said last stop was Qutub Minar (tower), though as he said it was another 250 R wntry we said we'd go but just take a photo from the outside. On route he told us there was a nice market we could stop and look at for ten minutes, we said fine to be polite (and thought we could even buy the postcards, sew on badges and magnets we usually buy in each country). When we arrived it turned out to be another one of those indoors markets, full of textile products – identical to the one we just left at the restaurant. We were greeted by a man (presumably the driver's friend) who greeted us as friends and said he'd show us around and show us what was for sale. Took us straight to those silk scarfs again... and started laying them out for us and telling us about them all. Small one shook his head and said, “it's okay we just look, just looking”, to which the man got annoyed and said, “this is a shop, why you come in just to look – we are here to sell not for you to look”. Small one told him that “We are looking first, if we see something we want we will speak with you”. This didnn't stop them though and they kept on following us around until we just told them we were going and walked out. The driver was surprised we came out so fast and we headed off in the car. The driver had a phone call on his mobile straight afterwards to which we heard someone shouting down the phone at him not very happy.

The driver pulled over on the side of the road and told uus to wait the otherside of the road for him to pick us up in 2 minutes, as from that side of the road (standing on the edge of the gutter) we could get a good view of the Qutub Minar tower (for free). We did so, and felt like snoopers, standing peeping over a fence for a free look. Took 2 photos and he picked us up and took us towards home. We asked him to stop by the large Gandhi Salt March Statue (a statue of half a dozen figures following Gandhi on his famous salt march protest) – he drove out to it though said there was nowhere to park, so we had to try and get a bad photo from the window of the moving car. He also took us to another 'market', this one he said had a miniature statue of the Taj Mahal for us to take a photo of. We did go, and did take a photo, but then the salesman came out again to greet us. One old Indian man in a mustard tank top took Tall one inside. At least this time there was no textiles and only wood carvings and bangles.... we may have been happy to browse and maybe buy a gift for back home – but they would not leave us alone. They were so in our face, opening up cases and taking out wooden elephants to tell us that this was a lucky elephant, and when we kept walking they'd point to a wooden frog and say 'this is a lucky frog', or next it was the bangles, “you want bangles for a girlfriend or wife, are you married?”. If they had just left us alone we might have brought something in our own time but we guess they are just so desperate to make a sale and get the money. We left quickly as before, as we could just not put up with anymore.

We were back in Pahar Ganj by 5.30-6pm. We gave our driver a small tip of 150R (reccomended by the Lonely Planet). There was a pizza / burger place opposite our urinal alley and we gave it a go. Sat upstairs in their balcony over looking the street which was twice as busy and noisy as this morning. Four young Indian lads stood around our table as we ordred, you'd have thought they'd never had a customer before. The youngest boy took our order, small one ordered '1 tea – black', which the boy wrote down and doubled checked, 'how many?”, “1” said small one. The tall one asked for 1 black coffee, to which the boy wrote down coffee and then doubled checked, “how many?”...”1” said Tall one... they were the only customer's and would hardly be buying more than one cup each. One of the slightly older lads sat down wiith us and struck up a conversation, he insisted on telling us he was not trying to cheat us and was just being friendly, then through all his earnestness to be friendly to us he said goodbye and got up leaving the snotty screwed up tissue on the table he'd been using to pick his nose. The coffee and the tea turned out to be the worst we'd ever drank, it tasted like they'd filled the cups just from the hot water tap in the sink. Small one disposed of his by pouring it out on the carpeted floor. This bad tea did not however stop him calling down to two middle aged tourists on the street looking at the menu, that this was the best place to eat in New Delhi (it worked and the poor bastards came in). Back at the Hotel booked our train back to Delhi (From Haridwar) with Pulkit, then went to bed after a brief stint on the working wifi (it sopped working after half an hour though). We're up at 3.30am, to get a 4.30am taxi for a 6am train.....

Friday 29^th November 2013 – Phuket, Thailand > Kuala Lumphur, Malaysia > Delhi, India

Our taxi arrived at the end of our street exactly at 6am. Within 30 minutes we were at Phuket airport, where we were told that Malaysian Airlines only opened check in 2 hours before take off (even for international). Our flight was at 10.30am and it was now 6.30am, so we had a long wait. After we checked in we moved through the immigration and security and stopped to have a bagel and huge smoothie from some miserable Thai girls in a cafe. We were at Gate 66, which was strange as the only other gate numbers were 1 through to 9, then it jumped to 66?? At Gate 66 two other flights worth of passengers joined us, most seemed Australian or Russian. Our flight then disappeared off the tv screen as the next flight, and it was only as an Australian couple with a baby knew we were in the same queue as them earlier, that they told us we had changed gate (you could not hear anything said over the intercom). So changed to Gate 5 where was sat under a leaking ceiling. Boarded at 11am, and had a short, hassle free flight up to Kuala Lumphur, Malaysia.

Took the airport train to the 'C' gates where there was a host of shops and cafes. Found 'O'Briens' where we had been sat October last year on our way to New Zealand and Tall one had taken out his 3 month old laptop to find the screen smashed. Sat in a free lounge area and watched 'Spiderman' on a LCD screen that made the movie look very cheap. Had a brief look through the 'Jungle Boardwalk' greenhouse like area in the centre of the area (an outside forest walk with an artificial waterfall). After some mushroom soup and a pizza we went to our next Gate.

Boarded the next Malaysian airlines flight quite quickly and found most passenger's heading to Delhi were Indian (not many tourists). Flight was pretty comfortable and spacious, with decent array of food, including some mini pompadoms and naans, and a strange sweet yellow noodle custard?? Watched some TV on the little chair monitors, including a documentary about strange animal couples – including the sotry of a horse that went blind but before it's owners had it put down they noticed a 16 year old Goat had started to act as its guide and was walking infront of the horse 24/7 to lead it through the forest paths to the grazing areas. The downside of the flight was the drunk Indian man a seat over from small one. He was given 3 double whiskies in a row, and was spilling booze and water all over his chest and making loud demands and jokes to the crew.

We didn't have a window seat so did not see India when we landed, other than some glimpses of orange City lights below from the nearby window. On the ground we were surprised at how cool it was, not humid at all. Went quickly through immigration as it was a seperate queue for non-residents (and there was few of us). The officer who past small one asked him if Ireland was part of the UK, small one corrected him on this of course, and the officer said that they are taught in schools that Ireland is in the UK, small one told him he;d just had a free history lesson then. Next was the bag pickup which were already coming out on to the converyor belt. The only issue with this system was the sensors that stopped bags from joining the main conveyor – so essentially once the belt was full of bags, no more bags would be added to it until someone collected on and made a space for the next one to fall off. This meant it took over 40 minutes for us to get our bags, we had started to give up on them – and it was a very painful process watching bags slowly move along and join the belt one at a time.

We had booked a package deal with 'Hotel the Spot' which included an AC room, breakfast, dinner, day tour and airport pickup. Outside the arrivals area on the street was huge crows of Indian faces waiting for arrivals. Tall one spotted a little Indian man to the side holding a sign with his name and so he ushered small one through the crowd to him. Another Indian man came forward and told small one to follow him (“be safe, come this way, this way, be safe”), and small one presumed this was the same hotel man, or at least was with him. It was only when we got out the crowd that Tall one noticed our man with the sign heading one way and small one and this stranger heading another way. He grabbed small one and they then went for a long walk to the car park for a ride in to town in the back of a seat belt free van.

Was a fast frantic ride through the streets of Delhi, cars converging on us on both sides and horns blaring. Cows and Ox wandering the streets sifting through garbage, hoards of people lining the streets. We then took a turn up a very run down street, where people were lying in lare amounts of garbage and buildings seemed to be collapsing – balconies and canopies hanging crookedly. Another few turns and he stopped on a busy street and pointed up a side alley to where our hotel was. He then asked, “tip for driver? Driver tip??”. We gave him about $2, which was probably to much. A man and a young Indian boy checked us in to the hotel, filling in all our details in an enormous book three times as big as a phone book. The room was basic, twin beds, with starchy feeling sheets. The boy showed us the room and lingered waiting for a tip he didn't get, and even turned on the TV for us and put on the movie 'Pretty Woman'. We just went to sleep pretty quickly after a long day's travel.