17/10/08 Our journey started at 7.30 when we got in a minibus with some other people who were doing the same journey. Four hours later, we arrived at the border with Cambodia. You need a visa to get in, but you can get these on the border - the cost (about 25 pounds) was twice what it said it would be in the 2007 guidebook, but nevermind! The process of getting these and then going through passport control etc. took a couple of hours, and then we split into two t...

11/10/08 Our flight from Calcutta to Bangkok was uneventful. At the airport in Bangkok we asked the private taxi firm how much it would cost to get to our area and they said 1000 baht (about 20 pounds); we went to an express bus stand nearby and got tickets for only 150 baht! Good value, considering the length of the journey was about 45 minutes. Our budget hotel is in a sidestreet off Khaosan Road, which is a lot like Camden Market in atmosphere, only with a Tha...

7/10/08 Today was quite quiet - we had to check out of our hotel at 10, so we went to the restaurant at Hotel Sheela and stayed there all afternoon until it was time for our taxi to leave for Tundla. We made a sortie out to stock up on drinks and snacks for the train as well. The station at Tundla was even more crowded than at Delhi and Agra, with hundreds of beggars and families sleeping on rugs on the platforms. I've never felt more stared at in all my life! On...

1/10/08 The day of our train journey to Agra. We arrived at New Delhi station in good time, because we had decided to book our tickets from Agra to Calcutta while we were here. It turns out that there's only one train that leaves from Agra on the right day, and that's booked up, so we're having to get a train from a place called Tunla instead, which is an hour and a half away from Agra. Again, we're going to have to go in non air-conditioned sleeper class, the c...

27/09/08 We arrived in Delhi at 12.40 am local time, and knew before we even got off the plane that we were in a foreign climate, because it registered at 28 degrees despite being in the middle of the night! We got a taxi to our hotel, Hotel Ajanta, and the journey there was quite an eye-opener - on the main roads we got our first sighting of the motor rickshaws, and the lorries we passed were very colourful but all looked in a dreadful state! As we reached the c...