Waiting for the early morning train we bumped in to an american guy we had met on our first night in Delhi, he commented that we are looking a little more travelled now as we have a slight tan and dirt around the edges of our clothes! The seven hour train ride took us through a beautiful changing landscape from dense misty forests with high waterfalls to scrubland with animals grazing and finally in to the landscape of Hospet and Hampi that is dominated by rock...

We flew in to Goa's tropical airport in glorious sunshine and marvelled at the dramatic change in scenery, everywhere we looked was green, there were palm trees poking out from solid walls of green vegetation. We spent the first few days in a lively town called Calangute where there is a beautiful golden sandy beach but the waves were so strong we couldn't venture far in to the water. One by one our tour group departed, some were headed home and others like us ...

On our way down to Mumbai we briefly stopped in Ahmedabad to pay a visit to Gandhi's Ashram. The first part of the journey was by bus which had only a dozen seats on one side and the other was made up of what can only be described as reptile tanks with sliding glass doors. We were first to board and had the standard seats but as time went on the 'tanks' slowly filled with up to three people, then when these were full tickets were sold for standing in the aisl...

We travelled in to Udaipur by train, our guide HarshHodo organised a drop in the travel class to broaden our experience of the Indian railways. We sat three to a hard wooden bench facing another three, the windows had no glass, just metal bars and every 5 minutes throughout the entire journey we would listen to the call of chai, chai, chai move through the carriage from the numerous entrepreneurs who would hop on and off at each station with a fresh batch of h...

We took another jeep ride through surprisingly lush and green countryside to arrive in Pushkar, a very religious city which receives scores of Hindu pilgrims to bathe in the central lake and make offerings to Lord Brahma, god of creation. We passed many busloads of pilgrims and on entering the city we were flagged down by young men waving flags from different temples who were offering beds and food for any tired travellers. We had an afternoon tour of town wh...