Buying tickets for train journeys in India is a strange affair. About three months ago Gemma bought some train tickets for our proposed journey on 23rd December from Cochin to Goa. Even at that stage the train was sold out and so we were placed on a waiting list numbered 11 and 12 in the queue. We'd received some local assurances that we were 99% certain to have our wait-listed tickets confirmed and be able to board our chosen train, but as we waited at the tra...

After a month in the north states of India we are now travelling to the southern state of Kerala which is a 24 hour journey away by (another!) overnight train to Mumbai followed by a flight to the city of Cochin. Our reward for this arduous journey is three nights on our own private houseboat chugging around the backwaters and lakes of Kerala. After our long journey we arrive in the evening and are whisked away to a smart city hotel. It's almost Christmas so w...

Craig probably shouldn't be trusted to book train tickets. On this occasion he had us up at 3.30am to catch yet another train, this time the destination being Jaipur. On the plus side he did manage to find a really nice hostel for us to stay in which balanced things out. On arrival in Jaipur there was no messing around, we went straight into the Pink City to see its sights. Because of the trains being fully booked we had spent more time that we had wanted in V...

Everyone has heard of the Taj Mahal and this was our next stop. Situated in the city of Agra, the Taj needs no introduction, but we were both quite ignorant as to the history behind this magnificent building. Our journey to Agra was by the now familiar overnight sleeper. These journeys were proving excellent for Gemma who could sleep easily on the train, but not such good news for Craig who could not. Time was limited and we found ourselves restricted to two d...

We faced quite a challenge getting to Varanasi and both had a feeling of trepidation before setting off as the first leg of our journey involved a 2nd class train during the day. We'd seen these trains on our travels and it looked more like 'sardine' class with 200 people in carriages designed for 70 (none on the roof though!). To our enormous relief our carriage was quite civilized; the overnight leg of the trip was a different matter as we were in the grim slee...