Hey all! Hope your all good! Well, we have survived our first week in India! Its been amazing but a massive culture shock! We arrived unknowingly into Delhi on the day of Holi Festival which is the festival of colour where people coat themselves in coloured power and water and dance round the street having water fights etc! this all sounds great fun - unless you have just arrived in Delhi..been taken up this random, busy and rather scary looking street, fully laiden with backpacks and all and soaked with blue water, then down the alleyway to your hostel attacked with pink powder and water all over your face!! Although rather shocked, we thought it was all rather amusing until we tried to wash it off and found that it wasn't going to come off! it was all over our faces, hair and clothes and turned out to be semi-permanent!!! Great! A picture of what we looked like b4 we washed will follow as it is hilarious now that its all off! we did manage to get most of it off, but were walking around with pink streaked hair and faces for a few days!! After hiding in our hostel in shock for that afternoon we ventured into Main Bazaar (the street we were staying) and it was fantastic - full of market stalls, loads of people, and cows (!!) and dogs wandering the streets!! Also lots of tuk tuks (motorised tricycles) and richshaws (bikes with a carriage) and cars beeping all the time! was such a great atmosphere and really how we thought india was! There was a little bit of hassle - some beggars but mainly people just trying to get you to come into their shop! Delhi itself was mad - and full of people from old people to small children asking you for money which isn't the nicest, but you learn to ignore it. We have booked a tour for our last 12 days in India which includes all accomodation and a car and driver, we are not sure if we have been conned yet, but we shall find out!!! This tourist agency ended up really annoying us though as we spent about 5 hours just sitting in their office which really p****d us off, and the guy was really irritating too. However, they ended up giving us a car and driver free for the day to show us the sights of delhi and all was going well, until he said that his boss had told him that we should stop at the company's guest house for us to rest b4 our bus - this was at 2pm - our bus was at 9! however we thought that this would give us time to escape the driver and look round a market...little did we know we were being driven to the outskirts of delhi in the middle of nowhere and taken to a place with no signs and looked more like a house. We were really scared, and after about 10 mins debating what to do, asked the driver to take us back to central delhi - thank god he did. I know this doesn't sound so scary, but it was us, the driver and the drivers mate in the middle of nowhere in a strange country! we were shaking so much, we went to a market and did some much needed retail therapy! We have now escaped the hustle and bustle of Delhi and are now in its total opposite - Rishikesh which is lovely! Its in the foothill of the Himalayas and is the capital of yoga and meditation - (and yes we did try it - was very amusing!!). its such a pretty town and is on the banks of the ganges! you can actually stop without being pestered and there are lots of wild monkeys!! fantastic!!! However it is a very religious place and it is strictly vegetarian and alcohol is actually illegal! (we are leaving tomoz!!!) We went white water rafting down the ganges and rockjumping!! Also did a mini trek up the hill of the himalayas!! Tomoz we are heading to Haridwar which sounds even more religious than here, and then heading to Agra, to see the taj mahal, then to an animal reserve to hopefully see tigers then round rajasthan!! Its tough and hard work but we are loving it and having a great time and experience!!! And we are sooo sick of currys already!!! Lots of love, Sarah and Becky