As we near the end of our trip, it's time to reflect on what we have learned from our experience. The Roads - Everyone in India seems to drive with one hand over their horn and the road soundtrack is a chaotic symphony of beeping intermixed with musical reversing tunes such as the theme from Titanic or La Bamba. -There is a strict species pecking order on the roads. Pedestrians are at the bottom of this chain and crossing the road is not for the faint hearted...

On our last day in Pondicherry Dean made plans to take us to 'Paradise Beach' with promises of dolphins ands sea turtles and opportunities for water sports. I couldn't wait. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the beach it was practically deserted...not a sea turtle in sight. Dean pointed to signs of life about two miles down the shore. "That must be it," he says. so we set off walking. It started out as a pleasant journey. White sands. Crisp waves crash...

Hello! We've taken a detour on our trip to come to the wonderful place that is Kerala! Spent the day on a canoe sailing round the backwaters which was so beautiful and we saw many types of birds and, as always, got waved at by lots of children. Three children stopped by our boat to throw flowers inside which was really sweet. Yesterday we stayed in a lovely little hut which overlooked the sea, which was just gorgeous. The people in the resort really looked afte...

Well, the beach party was fun. A particular highlight was when a group of the girls went skinny dipping and one of them (the really posh one) lost all her clothes. She was prancing about shouting about how expensive her bra was and all the while giving the local boys an eyeful. Dean got offered a job as an extra in a film yesterday, posing as a Rusian policeman. Unfortunately we had to leave early in the morning for Pondicherry so he's not going to be a Bollywoo...

Dear friends and family, i'm not coming home. I'm loving it so much here in India that i'm staying. Here they call me Ma'am and Madam, they treat me like a superstar because of my hair colour and every stranger is just a friend you haven't met yet. We have made so many friends on this trip it's unreal, so i'm going to stay here and live with them all in a hut. We arrived in Mamallapuram yesterday and we finally found the heat that you warned us about. Had dinner...