Well we left Udaipur on the 14th and boarded our train to Ahmedabad, we were slightly dubious as to exactly what the Indian Railway was going to be like but we had a sleeper cabin and it was just us 3 in there so wasnt too bad.

The first part of the Journey from Udaipur to Ahmedabad was 8 hours in which we all slept pretty much all of it, this was ok we then arrived in Ahmedabad at 4.30am and had to wait until 7.30am for our next train to Mumbai, this was not so nice.

We were the only westerners in the train station, there was nowhere to sit and the place stank like raw sewage, probably something to do with all the human waste the trains dump out straight onto the tracks!

We boarded the train at 7.15 and we were sat in 1st class you would think it was pretty nice but this is not the case firstly Ricky sat us in the wrong seats this was to be expected i suppose, when we did finally get the right seat it was with 3 other Indian males they were clean so wasnt too bad, the problem was there were 6 seats in the cabin and 6 people including ourselves this doesnt seem to matter to the people of india as wherever we stopped more people just came and sat next to us cramming 12 people in there at times, Nick lost the plot and a few Indians got scared i found it all quite funny!

The journey took us until 5pm and was the most uncomfortable experience of my life i never want to use the Indian Trains again it was a nightmare.

When we finally got to Mumbai we found a taxi who took us into the city centre, first impressions of Mumbai is that it has a lot of poverty more than we have seen anywhere else in India, people just line the railway tracks, you have children playing and women washing clothes its quite disturbing really.

We found ourselves a room after all the ones in the Lonely Planet were booked up some local lad took us round the city on foot showing us some of the worst rooms i have ever seen and we all had our rucksacks on which didnt help, we finally found a room which was scabby as hell had to share the bathroom with 10 other rooms which wasnt too nice!

We chucked our bags down and headed out for some much needed food first place we came to........McDonalds so we all had 2 meals each and left feeling bloated! Went to a bar in the Lonely Planet called Leopalds its also written about in the book Shantaram, sat down had a few beers with some aAussie lads who havent been home in 4 years they have just worked and travelled Europe which got us all thinking!!!

i didnt feel good and it got worse that night i didnt sleep a wink as i had the worst Diarrhoea ever literally water coming out of me and to top that all off i was being violently sick at the same time into a bucket! Ace night!

When the boys woke in the morning it was the same story for Ricky who Vomitted all over the floor of the bedroom and didnt get out of bed all day, bad times!

Nick and I decided we would go out and try and sort a train to Goa this was unsuccessful so we ended up booking a coach, we didnt know what to expect but were told it was a modern coach with reclining seats!

Mumbai was so different to any place in India it was so liberal, you had young hot Indian girls out drinking, people out on dates it was really weird as we havent seen that anywhere i India but we liked the Girls. A lot.

on the 16th we booked a taxi ride around the slums of Mumbai to get a real picture of how bad things were, our driver was 74 and called himself Sammey Davis he was quite the guide as we only wanted to see the slums but ended up getting a complete tour of Mumbai, the Hanging Gardens, Ghandis huse which was really special saw his life in Pictures, some letters he wrote to Hitler and Roosevelt really interesting place then finally we got to the slums after 3 hours of driving round in Sammeys car with him falling asleep at the wheel and knocking a cyclist over funniest thing ever.

as bad as the slums were people seemed really happy with there lives children playing women washing and men crouching and smoking playing some stone throwing game it wasnt as bad as expected but wasnt anywhere like i hve ever experienced before.

Boarded our bus that evening and it was alright comfortable big seats and air con we were hopeful, we set off about an hour late at 8.30pm and began the journey south, we are sure our driver was trying to kill us though, he was overtaking on blind bends going uphill so no way he could have seen what was coming. We arrived in Goa at 6.30am where about 20 taxi drivers jumped on the bus and started grabbing us and trying to get us in there taxis this was not fun and once again Nick lost it at someone taking his bag, what he didnt know was that i had agreed a taxi fare and he was helping, the only reason i chose this certain taxi driver was because he had a Chelsea shirt on!

Arambol Beach next people

Hold Tight

Josh, Nick and Ricky

love x x x x x