Gangtok is in the Indian state of Sikkim right in the north of the country bordering Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan. We are still up in the mountains and the weather is still on the chilly side. However as this is such a wonderful place I am not in any hurry to leave and return to lower, warmer ground. The main high street here is weirdly westernised; it is a pedestrianised cobbled street with lots of shops on both sides and islands down the middle filled with flowers...

We are spending the next 3 days at Karmi Farm, a beautiful home stay situated on the side of the mountain. We walked part of the way here, it took over 4 hours to walk down to the bottom of the valley, down 5000ft. It certainly took its toll on the knees which were a pretty sore by the end. On the walk we saw such a different side of India I had not seen before. The houses along the walk were situated on the side of the mountains and were painted lovely colours a...

Darjeeling is such a wonderful place, instantly from the drive over the mountain and down into the city I knew that I was going to love it here. The people here have changed physically; it almost feels as if we have left India completely and entered the Himalayas. The people have a more Chinese/Nepalese/Tibetan look to them and they are so friendly. Darjeeling is situated on the side of a mountain with breathtaking views in all directions. The main street is f...

We leave Calcutta and start to head further north, we have left James and Andre and picked up 5 new people including Sarah which is brilliant. It is so great to see her when she finally arrives after her nightmare of a journey. It is really fun meeting lots of new people all the time but nothing compares to meeting up with friends from home and seeing people who are just as excited to see you as you are to see them. So we head off for Siliguri and the plan is ...

Instead of driving the 500km from Puri to Calcuatta which would have taken 2 days, we took the train which made the journey only 7 and half hours. This worked really well as it meant we managed to have an extra day in Puri and didn't spend another whole day travelling in the truck. Our train tickets included food which was a nice bonus, we had what appeared to be vegetable burgers and bread and jam for breakfast, very hard breadsticks with soup for a snack and ...