Our first India Rail journey (from Mumbai to Pune) went pretty smoothly, even taking into account a small incident with a porter demanding 150 rupees (about 2 quid) for ‘helping’ (he was about 5 foot tall) Nige to lift his backpack onto the luggage rack… it was actually good it happened though, as the other passengers then explained how much to tip (10 rupees per bag – so it turned out that the 5 rupees we offered him was perhaps a little tight…) We arrived in Pune (pronounced Poona) and negotiated a relatively reasonable autorickshaw fare to our ‘too expensive’ hotel, via the 3 ‘cheaper and better’ hotels our helpful driver insisted on showing us! We’re staying in a cute cottage-like room in the old colonial part of Pune, with huge old houses set back from the river, shaded by huge poinciana trees and a few doors up from the Osho Ashram (but more about that later…) Pune is quite laid-back for an Indian city, although the pollution and heat is a bit stifling! After we got our bearings, we attempted to do the cultural thing and visit a 400 BC cave temple which the Lonely Planet assured us was amazing – so across town and dropped off by the slightly bewildered autorickshaw driver (“…you want to go here?”) and up some steps to be greeted by a little lookout girl about 3 years old, nearly wetting herself with excitement as she screamed “ING-GISH!!! ING-GISH!!!” at the top of her lungs, at which a crowd of children came tumbling over a hill behind here and swarmed around us with their hands out, chanting “please madam, please sir” and pulling on our clothes and arms…needless to say this made looking at the frankly overrated temple a tad difficult so we made a run for it and opted instead for the safety of a museum! (Which was brilliant, by the way.) The thing that we’re finding the most fascinating about Pune though (cultured pair that we are) is the Osho Ashram and the devotees wandering around town in their maroon robes. The ashram (commune) teaches an interesting method of enlightenment – through sex!! Needless to say, most followers are not Indians – largely young, glazed-eyed American women and old hippies who didn’t manage to make it out of the 60’s intact…in other words, no-one that you’d particularly like to become ‘enlightened’ with!!! Sadly their tour is on hold due to renovations at the moment so we didn’t get to have a proper look – shame, there’s even a gift-shop…the mind boggles…