A Little Bit of Luxury! Being picked up in a Mercedes from the airport was a bit of a shock. We have become so used to getting public transport or being picked up by people in clapped out old bangers more akin with a vehicle from the Flintstones that the posh car and uniformed driver was very welcomed! We slowly cruised the 5 minute journey (!) to the hotel and through the security gates to check in to our pool view room at the Leela Kempinski hotel. On first...

The Reunion! Our train journey back to Delhi was surprisingly nice, busy as we'd expected but with free water and a free curry on board we were happy. Upon our arrival back at Delhi we were met by a funny little bloke who took Liz's bag and walked us to his predictably rubbish car and drove us to the guesthouse that the tourist office guys had arrange for us. When we got there all the tourist office guys were in the sitting room relaxing with a few drinks and s...

Taj Tastic and Mendi Madness The Taj closes at 5pm so we needed to get from the station to the hotel to the Taj gates in double quick time to make sure we got in. Hotel was a bit grotty but for a night it was fine and we legged it back down to meet our tuk tuk driver to get to the Taj to get in before the guards closed the gates. With most attractions there is a general queue and a ladies queue so Liz was able to saunter off in to a much more civilised queue to...

Meeting the Godfather! On our safe but somewhat shaken arrival in Jammu after a white knuckle ride from Kashmir to Jammu we all had about 9 hours to kill before our trains that evening. With our new travel buddies we flicked through the limited pages on Jammu in the Lonely Planet and found a street that had 2 or 3 places that we figured we would go to to while away the hours. With everyone pretty hungry we headed straight to a cafe that was perfect for what we ...

Escaping Kashmir It had been so easy to get to Kashmir and Lake Dal yet leaving was going to be somewhat trickier.With local protests against the military growing and the death toll rising the only option was to be smuggled out in the middle of the night.In true style during our last day on the boat we were still waiting for our train tickets and hotel vouchers and weren't entirely sure of the plan until the last minute.For our last supper we were delighted to b...