We left Jaipur and headed to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, stopping at Fatehpur Sikri on the way. Fatehpur Sikri is a ghost city that was the capital of the Mughal empire between 1571 and 1585, but was abandoned after water shortages left a lot of the city dead! It was built to be the 'perfect city', designed to reflect all religions. The city was good, and we found it quite interesting, until we found, and got distracted by, some little puppies... ahh! When w...

We arrived in Jaipur and checked into a lovely heritage hotel (Shahpura House). That evening we visited the Birla Lakshmi Narayan Temple, at the foot of the Moti Dungri Fort, at sunset (don't worry no more sunset photos!). The next day, we overslept, as Laura set the alarm wrong - oops! So we had to rush up to the Amber Fort, to join the growing hoards of tourists for our elephant ride to the top. The Amber Fort, built in 1592 by Maharaja Man Singh, was fantas...

Well we arrived in Delhi and after checking into our Hotel (Broadway) we had a walk round, heading to the Red Fort (we obviously got lost!!) and ended up in HELL!! Well that was our first impressions anyway (they haven't changed much!!). The Old city was extremely dirty and smelly and the people were quite hostile! We didn't feel at all welcome and so opted for a Rickshaw on the way back!! We decided to eat at the hotel (which is home to the famous Chor Biz...

We headed to Alleppy to spend some time on a houseboat. On the way, we called into one of the many spice gardens in the area and had a tour of the gardens and all of its plants and trees. The guide explained how all the plants can be used; to cure illness, flavour food, scare snakes and even for shampoo and dye hair! The garden could pretty much cure any problem you could possibly have! It was very interesting and we got to taste some of the spices too! We ar...

We we up early (again!), to leave for Periyar Tiger Reserve. We arrived ahead of schedule and checked into Mickey Cottage (another home stay with a really friendly family), then went straight into the park. We went on a boat ride around the reserve to animal spot - we were lucky enough to see elephants, deer, water buffalo, bison, wild boar, although we think the boar could have been a rock! We also saw lots of birds, but unfortunately there aren't many photos...