Agra & Christmas at the Taj Growing tired on reaching Agra, we realised as we drove past flash looking malls and shopping centres, Pizza Hut and McDonalds, that there was plenty of money in this city and it was a great deal larger than we had anticipated. We inadvertently stumbled upon the tourist office where two men inside were vigorously competing for Lana's attention when trying to convey directions to a cheap hotel we had sinfully selected from the ...

Varanasi to Agra Smooth sailing out of Varanasi, except for a small run-in with a concrete pillar, an autorikshaw and a near death experience for a stray child running into our path, and some off-road riding across a building site, we wove our way over a paved street which eventually opened up onto a solid, tarmac, 4-lane freeway, beautiful! After a few kilometres we pulled aside for tea to celebrate a riding experience where the majority of the traffic was fol...

Back to India- Varanasi 　 Darkness descended as we inched our way through the hectic rush hour traffic in the centre of Gorakpur. We were let out in front of the main train station and thought it would be wise to go and try to organise train tickets for the following morning to Varanasi. Eek, a bit more tricky than we had hoped, signs were all in Hindi, long lines backed up behind every counter and the tourist information booth had closed and didn't o...

Lumbini to Sonauli We departed the luscious resort of Pokhara under cover of darkness by the tourist bus. Wholly disillusioned by our victory in snatching a cheap ticket, we realised at the bus park that our ticket went to an equally difficult to pronounce destination, in the opposite direction. We relented to pay the hideous asking price in order to avoid having to wait until the following day. The decent little 24 seater bus shuttled us out of town, picking up...

Annapurna Another early rise and we taxied to the bus stop on our way to Pokhara, a quieter city south west of Kathmandu in the ever popular Annapurna Mountain Ranges. The bus took the same route as if heading to Chitwan, and even stopped at the now seemingly familiar samosa bakery. At some point in the sluggish, winding journey we deviated from the Chitwan highway and spun into Pokhara and were ditched at the Tourist Bus Park. Making a deal with the head honcho...