Hi Everyone It is my last day in India before flying to Nepal and I'm feeling a little nervous about going there as I have actually really grown to feel comfortable in India (in spite of how crazy a place it is!) Since my last entry in Dharamsala, I caught a bus to Amritsar in the Punjab region of northwest India.  Amritsar is the home of the Golden Temple, which is the Sikhs main temple.  You are actually allowed to stay in pilgrim guesthouses in the...

Hi Everyone, I am now in Dharamsala, or to be more precise, the upper town of Mcleod Ganj. This is the home of the Dalai Llama, although he is not at home at the moment, otherwise I may have been able to meet him at one of the many public talks he gives here. I will have three days here to explore the town and have spent a couple of days seeing the sights. This includes the buddhist temples, which have big bronze drums called prayer wheels that are lined up alo...

Hi Everyone,I am now in Shimla, which is a quaint old ex-colonial hill station in Himachal Pradesh, complete with old wooden beamed buildings, shops selling tweeds and 'gentleman's clubs'. It is quite high, so gets very chilly in the shade and is freezing at night. This morning the hair oil I bought here had frozen solid! I am glad of my warm clothing and is a bit of a novelty to be cold in India after the heat I have experienced for so long.It is inc...

Hi Everyone I am now in Calcutta and have spent about three days here. I had wondered if it would be as awful here as its' reputation, but to be honest I think it is a really lively city and is certainly no worse than anywhere else I have been. I took an overnight train to get here from Puri and a nice Indian family took me under their wing and bought me chai and chatted throughout the journey. I have spent the past few days exploring the sights of Calc...

Hi Everyone,I have not updated my journal for a while as I have been pretty busy over the past few weeks. Since my last entry I have travelled through Tamil Nadu, been to the Andaman Islands and I am now back again on the mainland.After Madurai I went to Kodaikanal in the western ghats (hills that run down the centre of the south of India). Kodi was a nice village with a lake and surrounded by really pretty scenery. It seems to be quite a holiday resort for India...