Well, Ant got to catch his first train and like a small boy - loved it! From Rishikesh we jumped on a rickety old bus to Hardiwar where we caught an overnight train to Gaya. The train was suppose to leave Hardiwar at 9pm but was 3 hours late, so we settled down on the crowded platform with all the other people waiting.

No sooner had we sat down did a little boy come up to me and start talking animately at me in Hindi, being so young he had no idea that I didn't understand a word he was saying but with my smiling, laughing and nodding we ended up 'chatting' for ages - I think he was telling me a story about him being some kind of super hero! Thankfully we were blessed to have a lovely bunch of local people sitting around us while we waited the wretched 3 hours for the train, in our broken Hindi and their broken English we managed to have chat about India, marriage, kids, our trip etc. - it was a such a nice way to pass the time. The only bad experience we had was when these moron Indian teenagers thought it would be funny to get this small child beggar to come and scare us, though he didn't just come and scare us - he came and tried to prise rings off our fingers and became quite aggressive when we wouldn't give them to him, thankfully the people we were sitting with shooed him away. We had a few stern words to say to the teenagers and they came and apologised.

During the 27 hour train journey we slept, played cards, drank one too many chai (tea), tried to keep cockroaches at bay and just watched the world pass by. As usual local people were intrigued by the Westerners travelling in their carriage, so we had numerous people come and sit across from us just to stare - initially its okay but after a while it became boring and annoying! We did manage to chat with people who didn't come just to stare and it ended up being a very educational journey. We learnt about micro-finance and how they are helping woman throughout India start businesses; we were taught yoga moves and breathing techniques, had accupressure done on our hands and feet and shown how we should sit after eating; we spoke of the philosophy, meditation and learnt about the Indian astrology - a pretty wicked trip!

At 2am we finally reached Gaya with our final destination, Bodh Gaya, being another 45km away. Gaya is in Bihar which is one of the poorest states in India, up until recently Bihar has been known widely for its lawlessness and corruption, Westerners are advised against travelling at night and not many people we spoke to were going to visit. So, knowing all of this we were a very hesitant about trying to reach Bodh Gaya that night so we settled into a grubby guest house and at dawn jumped in a rickshaw for the final leg of our journey.

Bodh Gaya is where Buddha is said to have reached enlightenment under a Bodhi tree and because this is such a spiritual place for Buddhists countries from all over the world have built temples around the town - there are temples from Thailand, Bhutan and Tibet to name a few.

We spent about 4 days in Bodh Gaya, it was all pretty relaxed and the place had a nice energy, we would have stayed longer had it not been so oppressively hot. Bodh Gaya town itself isn't aesthetically beautiful but some of the temples we visited were simply striking. We managed to wander around most of the temples paying cycle rickshaws 10RS to shuttle us around. We also spent quite a lot of time sitting by the Bodhi tree (4th generation tree) where Buddha sat in Mahabodhi Temple, it was such a wonderful place to just sit, ponder and watch as monks and worshippers came throughout the day to sit under the tree to meditate and pray.

The downside to Bodh Gaya are all the boys who want to be your 'friend', lend you their bikes and take you to their family home for lunch. The first boy that approached us seemed really genuine and wanted to practise his English - we'd even arranged to meet him the next day to visit his school, home etc. Sadly though as the day went on we were approached by countless boys firstly telling us not to trust any other boys and then giving us exactly the same story as the other (almost word for word). We soon worked out that this was just a ploy to get you to 'sponsor' them. We decided the best action was not to trust any of them we will look to donate money to a school recommended in our guide book. All this aside though, Bodh Gaya is definitely a place to visit, there is something pretty special about the place.

From Bodh Gaya we headed to Darjeeling hoping to escape from the heat and we definately got that - it has been raining most of the time here and it is quite cold (be careful what you wish for). Tomorrow we will head for Sikkim to go trekking, poor Ant isn't all that keen but of course I am and so is this Spanish girl we met, Sylvia. Until then!