We arrived into New jailpuguri train station 8 hours later than expected. We are sick of indian trains. Got a jeep taxi to take us from this low lying city to the mountain city of Darjeeling situated 80 km along and 2 km up. As we approached the base of the mountains, we encountered a large police presence and discovered that someone had just been killed there by a wild elephant. As we went up, the temperature went down. The views were amazing and the gradient v...

Namaste (hindi for "hello", if only we knew how to say "no we don't want a taxi, go away, leave us alone"). After a night sleeper train from Delhi, we arrived into Varanasi early in the morning. Varanasi is the oldest city in India and the holy capital of India. The river Ganges is where Indians bathe to wash away their sins and they cremate their loved ones here before putting the remains in the river. For both Buddha's and Hindus it is one of the holiest plac...

The bad (written by Dom): And I thought Bangalore was sh#?. We read the books, we knew the scams, our BS radars were finely tuned and we had our tout free armour on. Within an hour of venturing from our hotel we were duped 4 times. Firstly, we were walking to the train station when a helpful local who was concerned for our safety suggested we get out of that area asap. He kindly escorted us to a rickshaw who drove us to the "official" tourist centre. Th...

Kollam : If someone recommends visiting Kovalam, it is worth writing this down as it sounds similar to kollam. Got night train here from Bangalore, so it had little to improve upon. Kollam is a town where you come to see the backwaters. The main income earner here is riverboat tours and cruises. the town is not a big tourist town and so no one spoke any english and finding anywhere to eat or even get a coffee was impossible. Picked the accommodation that was t...

And I thought Mumbai was sh#!. This is mumbai madness minus anything remotely intersting to see. like, nothing. There are no photos, our camera never saw daylight, no need. Got first class sleeper train here and thought we'd get our own berth, but got to share with a fat, snoring, farting Indian man who thought it was ok to speak on his phone throughout. we stopped in this city for just one night (Thank God ) on our way to kollam. Best thing we found here was a c...