We finally made it to Hyderabad (or Cyberadad as some call it), one of the large IT centres of India. Its a lovely city, and a lot more modern than most. For the first time on the trip we stayed in a fairly nice hotel where we got room service and relaxed heaps. There is a large muslim population there too, so many muslim men with caps and women with the full length black head to toe, covering face, walking around. Much of the architecture also has a Muslim feel ...

We arrived at Puri a few days before new years. The beach here was more busy with Indian holidaymakers, and again it was hard finding accomodation near thebeach. We managed to find a lovely guesthouse/home stay type place though, run by a lovely Indian family with 3 kids, which was definately the highlight of Puri. ON the second day there I almost cracked. INdia almost broke me right there and then. All the habits - unecessary horn blowing, traffic, pollution, ru...

CHandipur is a tiny beachtownabout 300kmsouth of calcutta. We were eager to see what the beaches in inDIA WERELIKE AND OUR FIRST IMPRESSION WASNT THAT GREAT. while the beach itself isnice,thepiles ofrubbish everywhere just ruin it. CHandipur beach is 5km wide,so you can walk for 5kmin ankle deepwater and only then you reach the properocean.its definately unique. the pros are that its quiet and smalland quaint. lots of indian holidaymakers around at themoment and ...

ahhh, going back so many days now, where to begin... ah yes, the train ride from varanasi. well it was an ordinary train ride, sleeping in the little blue fold down beds stacked 3 high per side, until i woke in the middle of the night to screaming, glass smashing and 3 small indian women sharing my bed with me (which is already too small for any normal western person, so you can only imagine how annoyed i when i discovered both legs had gone numb from the weight...

We spent a few days in Varanasi. The ghats along the ganges are pretty special and you see everything from people washing, cows, goats, people playing cards, boats coming in, kids playin cricket, people eating, selling stuff, fishing, cooking, doing laundry and tons more! the most fascinating was the bodies being cremated. yep, you can actually see the cremations live, they carry the body down to the river wrapped up, unwrap them to reveal a sticky gooey body und...