20 November - Jen's birthday! We left our Keralan cooking course early in the morning for our backwaters cruise. The boat was full of other non-Indian tourists which was quite a novelty for us, but it soon wore off. It was amazing seeing the backwater life, the villagers working away. We saw some rope being made from twisting coconut shell twine. We stopped on one of the 'islands' where our guide promptly disappeared up a tree and started throwin...

The trip back to Delhi was fine. We found our way by taxi to the YWCA Internation Guest House on Parliament Road. It was a fantastic place with friendly staff and clean rooms. Typical, because we only have about 7 hours before we have to get up to goto the airport and fly to Cochin. Well we've had 6 days in beautiful Kerala, it is amazing here, so lush and green, and the people are friendly with big smiles. We are eating and cooking s...

Hi again - after leaving Lucknow at about 1am we arrived at Nainital later in the morning. Sadly, we didn't survive the mosquito and cockroach bites which seemed to be infesting the train. Several Indians were complaining about the same, lucky I bought those antihistamines, Zirtek is Okacet in India, we discovered. Anyway, Nainital was beuatiful, and so much more peaceful than Delhi. Our hotel, although a little cold and damp, had friendly staff (Mr Shah), an...

Arrived Delhi 29th October 2006; unfortunately our transfer didn't show so we were parted with our money at the phone booth into arranging another! Amit took us through Delhi to our hotel (in Karol Bagh). Very hot, very poor, quite a shock in many ways of course. Hotel was a good standard, with excellent food, served in their rooftop restaurant, plenty of Kingfisher. Downsides were location (Karol Bagh is not a nice place) and the pool which was undergoing ma...