We can't believe we have reached the end of the first stage of our trip across Asia. Our three months in India have come to an end, culminating in a few days in India's third-biggest city Bangalore. Known for its burgeoning IT industry Bangalore is considered one of the places to find young, affluent Indians. With this in mind, we weren't sure what to expect. Maybe it would be a high tech place full of expensive cars and restaurants, rather than small roadside dh...

We had hoped to move onto Agra, Varanasi, and Haridwar, before moving South to spend some time in Chennai and Pondicherry and then flying onto South East Asia. The floods in Chennai had somewhat scuppered our plans as the airport there was just getting back to normal, and trains to Varanasi and Agra from Delhi seemed to be booked for the next week. Faced with the prospect of another week in heavily polluted Delhi we had obviously no choice but to take our Christm...

Delhi was the one place in India we had no aspirations to visit. Lots of negative stories of scams and tricksters, Dengue fever mosquitoes, and general madness didn't hold much appeal. However, as with all best-laid plans, we found we needed to stop over here en route from Dharamshala. Making the most of the situation we researched the best way to get from our coach drop off and booked a comfortable room. We felt quite pleased with ourselves having managed to cir...

Dharamshala is the home in exile of the Dalai Lama, so it's an area that has become home to many Tibetans since the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959. The 14th Dalai Lama certainly knew how to recognise a great location. It's a mountainous area with stunning scenery, pine forests, Rhesus macaques, and fresh air. We've stayed in upper Dharamshala in McLeod Ganj, a town popular with travellers young and old. We came over on the night bus, so arrived in the centre...

Visiting Chandigarh I was looking forward to finally meeting my friend and Hindi teacher Apoorva Roshan in person. Knowing little about Chandigarh before we left for India we were both pleasantly surprised to arrive by train to find a town with trees and green spaces. Roads were laid out "Milton Keynes" style in straight lines, with the enclosed spaces being identified as sectors. The city was much cleaner than other places we had visited in India, and there seem...