We have now been away for just over a month now and we're just waiting for things to slow down. Yes, we have had a lot of days cut short due to the weather but it's just so exciting being here and every venture out and feels like full on expedition. Thanks to everyone who has left us comments and messages, it really means so much to us and shame on all of you who haven't :-) We had a great time in south Goa, it was very much the plan to do almost nothing but sit...

Our first Goan sunset.We left the hotel around 17.30 and headed to down town Calangute which is a leisurely 30 minute stroll passed a variety of rag-tag shops, stalls and houses. Small clusters of cows amble down the road in their own good time, grazing on green plants at the roadside or on small piles of dumped rubbish.The hot, sunny day had and become a cloudy and muggy afternoon. We weren't especially hopeful for much of a sunset down at the beach. Town was b...

As we were checking out of the hotel in Pune, the staff presented Jan with a yellow rose, at which point she got all flustered and embarrassed and wanted to know why. I suspect it was because she always made an effort to talk to them and was genuinely interested in what they had to say. We said our goodbyes and White Christmas played through the lobby (a surreal feature of the hotel was their choice in piped music) and off we went to Pune station to catch our...

Day 3 in Pune and it was time to head a little further afield, we hired a driver (Shafiq) and a car (with seatbelts) to take us round the historical sights of Pune. We were very fortunate to have amazing staff at the hotel and Neha helped us put together an itinerary of the main points of interest. In the north of the city there are three points of 'interest', two prisons and a mental asylum. And so our tour of south Pune began. Driving around, we started to s...

Train from Mumbai to Pune. Our first mistake was getting a taxi to the station, as he turned up 20 mins late. Each time we put our packs to walk there, the bell boys at the hotel rushed over saying it would only be 5 minutes. They ended up hailing a cab that was just going passed.  Mistake no2: The taxi driver asked which platform we needed, platform 17 I pluck from somewhere. So we got dropped off at the arse end of the furthest platform to where we actually n...