We arrived back in Delhi on the train - all looking pretty dishevelled and feeling pretty tired. The familiar stink of rubbish, tug of beggars and tuk-tuk driver hassle was all still present and correct. Nothing had changed since we left three weeks previously, although there was noticably less of a military presence than there had been following the Hyderabad bombings on the day after we arrived. We had booked into the same hotel (and room) as we had begun our...

From Bharatpur, we squeezed our curry bloated and Delhi-belly wearied selves into a small jeep, and a corsa like small car - relative comfort for India, but still requiring concertina-like leg bending skills and much breathing in, to fit our group of eight, guide, trainee guide, two drivers and the luggage of ten tigers into transport designed by the manufacturers to fit eight in comfort. On the way to Agra, we stopped to visit the deserted city of Fatepur Sikri,...

After a sleep blurry tuk tuk ride from the station to our hotel, we were due to visit Jaipur Fort that morning... we all met up again after a wash and brush up (we had found the 'small earthing problem' and resultant electric shocks from our shower taps a little worrying), but our guide advised that there was a nationwide political versus religious demonstration about the planned destruction of an underwater bridge between India and Sri Lanka. There's quite a lot...

so we continue...Still in Ranakhpur, the hotel we stayed in here was probably the most basic of the tour. This wouldn't normally be a problem (we've been to a few festivals between us!), we appeared to be greatly inconveniencing the staff just by turning up. Not really a high point, despite the beautiful scenery and amazing Jain temple. The basic rooms went a little deeper than not being too clean and having no air con - they were also resplendent with a 'challen...

Hi Everyone, Sorry about the gap from the first update but while were on the tour it was quite difficult to spend a few hours on the "steam powered" internet connections trying to write an update. Anyway here is the next one... hope it's been worth the wait. As Jemma put, the first blog was written in Jaiselmer. What she didn't put is that apart from upsetting some grumpy scottish bloke sitting next to us by asking him to move his bag (how dare we), w...