Dubai (Tues 31st March - Saturday 4th April) Arrived in Dubai after a short one hour Gulf Air flight from Bahrain. We have been staying at the Novotel in the Sheikh Zayed Road part of the city. This is the last leg of our trip and we could not have picked a more extraordinary place to finish our journey. Although it has suffered quite a lot from the recent recession it still gives the impression of being one big construction site. There are developments going on...

Bahrain(Fri 27th -Mon 30th March 2009) Arrived in the Kingdom of Bahrain after a bumpy 4 hour Gulf Air flight from Mumbai. The main reason we have come here is because it was Gwen's home for 5 years in the early nineties and she wanted to see some old friends and re-visit some of her old haunts. We have been staying with her friends Yvonne and Kees Kemp who have lived in Bahrain for over 30 years. We were met at the airport by Anne and Bill McKelvey, some other...

Mumbai (Fri 20th - Thurs 26th March) Indian Railways is the biggest employer in the world with 1.6 million staff and you cannot come to India without experiencing at least one train journey. Our hotel in Delhi booked us on the Friday 16 hour overnight express train to Mumbai. We were under the impression that we would be travelling first or at the very least second class with our own sleeper. When we boarded the train we realised that the hotel had been less tha...

The Golden Triangle(Thurs 12th - Thurs 19th March) For the past week we have been travelling along the most popular tourist route in India, Delhi to Jaipur to Agra and back to Delhi (commonly known as the Golden Triangle). We did consider going by train or joining a group tour but the best way is to hire a private car and driver and let him do all the hard work. Our driver Puran (yes him again) took us first to Jaipur about a 5 hour drive west of Delhi. Jaipur w...

Delhi (Sun 8th - Wed 11th March) Arrived in Delhi after a 6 hour flight from Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific. Time in India is 2.5 hours behind HK and we are now only 5.5 hours ahead of UK time.We were picked up at IRI (Indira Ghandi International) airport by our hotel taxi. Early impressions of India were not promising. The airport itself is a bit shabby but it is not until you get outside the terminal that you realise what a dump the place is. Although you read a...