Well we have finally left India! Suffice to say, Simon and I were both pretty happy about this as the constant hassling and spicy food was getting a bit much! Having said that, India was one of the most eye-opening, exciting and different places we've ever been, and I don't regret going for one second.

Before leaving India, we visited Varanasi, one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world, being about 3,000 years old. It's on the river Ganges, and every day about 60,000 people go down to take a holy dip (at the same time, 30 large sewers are continuously discharging into the river). Tasty. The Ganges is also so heavily polluted at Varanasi that the water is septic - no dissolved oxygen exists. Worse still, samples from the river show the water has 1.5 million faecal coliform bacteria per 100mL of water. In water that's safe for bathing this figure should be less than 500!

I think you get the idea. I imagine it also has something to do with the fact that dead bodies are routinely sunk into the river by tying a big rock around them, and that the local population use it as their personal toilet.

We went down to a ghat by the river where they were burning 3 or 4 bodies. From one pyre we could see an Indian man's head sticking out from the wood as the rest of his body burned, and on the river shore there were about 5 guys (the ghat owner's grandsons) sifting through the ash to find jewellery, gold teeth etc to sell. Very Schindler's List. Apparently it's used to fund the poorer people's cremations. Amy wasn't so keen to see the burnings, but the owner assured her it was "good karma" to do so, and ended up dragging her in anyway. Little did we know this was part of his plan to sell us various silk garments, lol, but he did give us an informative chat about the process so we didn't mind too much.

After getting ripped off yet again by cycle rickshaw drivers who demand double the fare after taking double the time to get to your destination as they stop off for petrol, chat to friends, or get off and walk you part of the way, we jumped on a train for New Delhi and spent the night in our seemingly luxurious 1st class cabin. It's amazing how your standards drop when you travel - for example, we jumped for joy when we found we had a room to ourselves on the train, and feel like it's luxury when we get a room with running hot water.

Back in New Delhi we were met by our old driver Kuldeep, who drove us to an American diner for breakfast which was amazing (pancakes and waffles and no curry in sight!) and then on our request drove us to a desolate spot in North Delhi where old statues from the Raj era are kept (this wasn't something listed in the guidebooks, we just found a web reference to it).

Not having the exact position, we scanned the appropriate area of Delhi looking for the landmark obelisk that marked the site and eventually happened accross it. The site was locked and quite flooded, but we forced our way through to find the Obelisk where at the 1911 coronation durbar, King George V announced to the Indian population that the capital would be changing from Calcutta to Delhi.

Just across from this was a barred area with its gates firmly locked. Inside is an overgrown compound, with a large raised stone statue of King George V at the centre, surrounded by numerous other statues of British characters that were moved from their appropriate places in Delhi after independence.

Having no way through (the gates were topped with spiked metal) Simon eventually found a small hole in the bars and managed to squeeze through to explore the area beyond. After entering, he was forced to navigate a flooded, swamp-like area before eventually reaching the long-forgotten monuments. It had a distinct Indiana Jones-like feel to it, especially given Simon's Tilley hat and the fact that the whole area was clearly out of bounds. Having carried his video camera the entire way, he started filming, only to quickly have the battery run dead. Typical.

The monumental area was entangled with (amongst the masses of vegetation) hundreds of metres of kite string that seem to stretch around every statue and through most of the undergrowth. As Simon was about to exit he found that a crow had become entangled in this thread and was attempting, to no avail, to fly away. Being the good soul that he is, he ventured into the swampland, armed with a wooden stick to fend off the circling defensive crows, and set it free.

He exited with a very un-Indiana Jones like slip onto his arse.

That evening we hopped onto a plane bound for Thailand. I think it must go to show how happy we were to leave, as Simon (who is normally a bit of a nervous flier) happily sat through the 4 hour journey in a much more relaxed state than usual!

We're now in Bangkok and are staying an amazing hotel called The Atlanta - it's decorated in its original art deco style from 1952 and the staff are wonderful (a big change from India). It's also nice and cheap. We've had a quick look around the touristy Khao San Road and are already smitten with Thai food. Tomorrow we head off to see the "Bridge over the River Kwai" (Simon promises to whistle all the way), a tiger temple (not really sure what that involves) and finally, we have VIP tickets to a Thai boxing match, ringside! Apparently we can even mingle with the boxers after (Facebook photo opportunity if I ever heard of one). We've also booked to go on the train to Chaing Mai in the north the day after, as our previous plans of going south to Malaysia and Singapore are on hold as there aren't any trains running at the moment. Maybe next week