After our 17 hour luxury train journey (food was included in the journey, every two hours they kept bringing us food) we arrived in Kolkata (Calcutta) at a decent time. We managed to find our way out of the train station but didn't have a clue where to go. We spent a while trying to find a taxi, we could see hundreds queuing in traffic but they were all full. We managed to jump in one, he started driving off as pete was half in, luckily he stopped when pete shout...

We arrived back in Delhi very early after a fairly comfortable 17 hour journey. Our coach dropped us off outside of town which was a bit unusual so we grabbed a tuk tuk to take us to our hotel and checked in. After dropping our bags off we headed straight to the Thai visa office to submit our forms. After a short wait the man told us we had to have details of a return flight or onward travel so we went to an internet cafe and booked the cheapest flight we could f...

Right, so we watched the last incredible sunset in Shimla, and headed to our hotel to collect our bags. The manager arranged a taxi to take us to the bus station which was nice. However it was a nail bitting journey! We didn't realise the station was pretty far down the mountain. The driver decided to take a short cut and drove down this very steep narrow lane (again with a shear drop down one side) and floored it all the way, Kate couldn't look and buried her he...

So after a 30 hour journey we arrived in Shimla. The journey started with a taxi ride to the train station at 5.30am to catch our train that left at 7am. We decided to go for seats in the sleeper carriage which is the cheapest option. We had traveled sleeper before but they had been shorter journeys, and we only ended up sitting there as the chair carriage was always rammed with people. The seats in sleeper are pretty uncomfortable; it's a bench that seats 3 pe...

At 6AM on Sunday morning we started our long drive to Varanasi. Once we joined the main road we saw our first accident, not just a bump. A lorry had smashed in to the back of another, the cab was crushed like a coke can and the windscreen lay on the road in front. We were on this road for about ten hours and we saw at least five different crashes. Inder said these would of all been in the night but no one seems to clear the vehicles away. They all looked rather s...