Roasting HOT (over 40deg) Hampi Bazaar, a now reinhabited ancient bazaar with people running stalls and living in the old stone structures that run up and down the main wide high street. At the busy end is the awsome site of the pyramid shaped Virupaksha temple. After avoiding the many offers of a hotel, we parked up at the recommended Rama Hotel, just a stones throw from the temple. After a quick lunch we crashed out until the evening. Its very humid in Hampi an...

We arrived in Panjim (panaji) with good intentions of visiting the local area and apparrently the wonderful Portuguese architecture however Claire had a bad cold, it was just another busy city embelished in the Lonely Planet, and the hotels were expensive and dives. Naturally we booked the next sleeper bus to Hampi for the next evening. As it happens, the next morning was loads better and we bumped into another 4 brits staying in our dive. 3 Chris's and an Emma...

We actually had to stay in Mumbai for an extra day or two as we arrived for our booked train and found it was a lower class with no toilet and Ian was really ill. We spent the time getting Ian antibiotics, lying around watching tele in a nice hotel, avoiding curry and dismissing film roles from studio tauts looking for english people to play 1940s roles, ian with big sideburns riding a horse!!! oh and a guy wanting us to do some fashion shoots and modelling. ...

We sadly left Sue and Hong Kong and ventured out into the unknown. 8hrs later we arrived in Mumbai, got flustered and bamboozled by some guys in the tourist office then a while later we found ourselves hurtling through crowded streets in a taxi, past people living in shacks and under buses by the road side. It was a religios time and there were people sitting in rows watching guys preaching to them about the koran. Our driver was a good bloke, he taught us a l...

We arrived after a pretty good 8hr flight where we were plied with booze and peanuts because their inflight entertainment was iffy. As we walked through arrivals we saw Sue immediately and she took s back to her place in the very plush new train. We went out to the FCC international journalist club for a chilli and beer then chatted a while and crashed. Sues flat is really nice in the centre of happy valley. Our first full day we went for a walk around...