Nainital apparently became popular due to the British finding it reminded them of the Lake District. It certainly reminded us of the Lakes when we stepped off the bus into the first rain we'd experienced since our arrival! The setting is fantastic, it's at 2000m with a lake spilling out of it's hanging valley, surrounded by woodland. Having said this it has become a very busy domestic holiday destination and so the fun fare, candy-floss and constant request for (...

We arrived at the reserve too late to go in to the reserve so one of the guides drove us to a posh camp site set in a mango orchard to spend the night. We had dinner by candle light on our porch, was tres romantic, til Tom got the pooooos! Next day all better we set off in our jeep to the reserve. It is absolutley massive and it took us 2 1/2 hours just to drive to the middle of it. On our way we saw Serpent Eagle, Crocodiles, 3 different types of deer and peac...

So on to Rishikesh, made famous by the Beatles visit to the Ahrams in order to practise Yoga, meditate and write the White Album. However much like Ringo Star apparently the yoga didn't appeal to us as much as the many hippies and dreadlocked vegans which Rishikesh attracts. However, The Ganges (at its cleanest, exiting the Himalayas) was fantastic for a swim, the surroundings, lack of motor vehicals and fantastic food did. The first thing Hannah wanted to do wa...

Sorry our photos and blogs are a bit out of sync, is quite hard to keepup with you know! We are gonna bust out few now... So Chandigarg, the main purpose of this visit was to go to the famous 'Rock Gardens', India's second most popular tourist attraction after the Taj Mahal. So we booked ourselves in to a room for one night then caught a rickshaw over. Chandigarh is a very different city to all the other ones we have been too. It's clean, not very busy and the ...

So another lovely ten hour bus ride and we ended up in Shimla, the fantastic countryside and a bloke who looked like a toad kept us amused though. Shimla is a busy mountain resort set along a ridge at 1700m. The bus station is conveniently at the bottom and it's a steep climb through little streets till you get to the top of the ridge and where the accomodation is. As per usual we got chatting to a guy who was a walking guide and said he'd show us the way to the ...