Final thoughts on India: Laura: I had some ideas of what India might be like but nothing really prepares you for it. And when people ask about what it is like I instantly think of Delhi and touts and hassle and being treated like a bank, beggars and shop owners and rickshaw drivers, all assuming westerners = wealth. Which, to an extent, is true, relatively speaking. But there is so much more to India and so much that we haven't mentioned, the things that wer...

Our final night in Chennai was interesting. And not in a good way. We arrived and were hassled off the bus before it had even stopped. Being highly adept at the uninterested look we haggled our crowd down until only one man was willing to take us for the price we wanted to pay. So we headed to our reservation, but weren't expecting to have to cross a river to get into the place. Rainy season. We met one guy leaving the hotel who told us that his bed had fleas. ...

Our last stop in India is Pondicherry which is the most un-India-like place so far. It's an old French town and lots of the colonial buildings, and the people, still remain. It was an odd place to be for our last few days and they were spent in patisseries and cafes eating pastries, croissants and drinking good coffee! In true Pondicherry style we stayed at a guesthouse owned by a Frenchman, known by the locals as the 'Frenchie's place'. He spent his days like...

To break up the looong bus journey from Ooty to Pondicherry, we decided to stop in Mysore quickly. Having heard from our friends in Kochi that the town was nothing special, but still wanting to see Mysore Palace and the seat of the Raj in the old capital we thought a few hours would suffice here. We hopped off the train, which was a much pleasanter trip than our previous, which made us more optimistic for the onward overnight trip. We left our bags in the cloak...

Our bus ride into Ooty was...not pleasant. We had reclining seats for a comfortable night's sleep. The only problem being that if your feet were not propped up on the seat in front, when the bus braked hard (which happens very frequently on Indian roads) your whole body slides forward and almost underneath the seat in front. As Sean discovered. Rude awakening. Okay, so back to sleep. Mr. Snorer starts up behind, louder than the bus engine. We put in the earplug...