Arrived at a station in south of city so we had a long ride through the new part of Delhi into Old Delhi where our hotel was.The contrast is quite marked, New Delhi with colonial architecture and broad streets with trees and parks - Old Delhi with all the chaos that is typical of India - cows, rickshaws, old buses and lots of people everywhere.Spent the afternoon sorting out the train journeys in the booking office - they have a special one here for foreigners th...

After a quick taxi ride, found our hotel which was modern and OK.We picked a place to eat and started off walking down the road - not a good idea as it was dark and full of potholes and my torch was in my rucksack.Got a cycle rickshaw (Lucky the driver) who couldn't do enough for the 20p ride. Up at 5:00 to see the Taj at dawn - Lucky didn't show so grabbed a tuk-tuk and just made it in time.The Taj at this time was spectacular - different shades of pink as th...

Next day it was onto the next set of caves - a set of Buddhist caves at Ajanta.We left the hotel a 6:55 - thought we would get breakfast on the road - waited for the bus into town - supposed to be frequent - didn't show for 40 minutes.Go to the bus station - changed buses and straight on to Ajanta - still no breakfast - Fran is getting anxious!After 3 hours, the bus dropped at a cross roads where you had to get special tourist buses to the caves.We decided to eat...

We left early to get train to Aurangabad - we had pre booked over the internet.It was an early start - at the station by 5:45 for 6:10 train.We were in Chair Class which was air conditioned and reasonably comfortable.This is the way the Indian middle class travel and is quite civilized - free tea, breakfast bought to your seat - breakfast was good (omlette) but we had to use our fingers as no cutlery was supplied. Train arrived about 20 mins late - the trip to...

The trip is going well and we have acclimatized to the local way of doing things.Flight over was fine but once we left Mumbai airport the culture shock hit us- descended on by Touts of every description. Negotiated a taxi ride to the hotel - which was an hour away in downtown Mumbai. The taxi was supposed to by air conditioned but it didn't work - no surprise.Went through a maze of suburbs - some of which were pretty depressing.We spent the next day having a look...