Well the 10hr sleeper bus was defintely not a sleeping experience, unless your name is Steve and you sleep so deeply you proceed to snore in my face for a few hours!!

It was quite an effort to get into the upper sleeper without treading on the person below and the area to sleep in is only a little biger then a single bed. That said it coiuld have been alot worse and we got here safe and sound at 7.30am.

There's a festival going on so we were dropped about 1.5k away from the main bazaar so had to take a stroll with the back packs to get there. We'd already decided to stay the other side of the river as we'd heard it was more chilled out, to get there we had to cross the river in a farely small motor boat which is more often then not packed out to nearly capsizing.

Had it not been during the festival i think it would have been pretty relaxing strolling around the temples but it's absolutely bloody manic!! there is thousands apon thousands of Indians here and there's no order in anything.

To get away for a bit we rented some bikes which i will never do again because it was the most uncomfortable and dangerous piece of s*&t i've ever had the pleasure of using! That said we made our way to the monkey temple and had to climb up what felt like thousands of steps, it took us seriously about half hour which was painful in the midday sun. There were loads of monkeys all who were quite cheeky and we were told to keep an eye on them because they will stela from you if your not careful. We were invited to have some chai with a hippy fella and his pet monkey, whilst we were sat there talking on of the monkeys came and sat on my knee, moved ot my shoulder then my head, quite unsure what to do with a wild monkey randomly climbing all over me the natural reaction is to sit still untill we realised that it was undoing the zip of the ruck sack i was wearing and about to thieve stuff!! I definitely know where the saying cheeky monkey comes from now!!

After the trek back down the steps we cycled another 5k to the reservior where Steve, Roger and Rachel (our Ozzy friend whose travelling with us for a bit) all took a dip regardless of the hearsay that there were crocodiles in there....

We planned to go across the river that night to see the festival and dancers but the boat stopped at 6pm, crap we're stranded! The only option to get there which was 50m across was a 3hr, 50k rickshaw ride, JUST TO GET TO THE OTHER SIDE!!! We didn't want to miss the last night of the festival so agreed a price to get us there and back. 1st thing to happen was that we run out of petrol, that traffic was so bad to get in that we walked the last 2k in smog and hundreds of other Indians all pushing a nd shuving to get passed, and alos taking the odd grope as they went, great!

We only managed to have dinner before we were due to get back in the rickshaw and head another 3hrs back to cross the river. Apparently they built a bridge but it obscured a temple so knowcked it down again!! There is seriously no logic, planning or organisation at all!! Anyhow we got back in the rickshaw and proceeeded to cut in and out of traffic to get back out, saw a few buses completely packed to the brim of people with others on the roof and some even clinging to the sides and apparently you can get 20 people in a rickshaw how i'm not sure but we've seen it with our own eyes!!

The rickshaw driver stopped for food twice on the way back, didn't know where he was going and then feel asleep at the handlebars driving directly for some boulders!!! If it wasn't for Roger's quick moves.... well lets not go there...After Roger swiftly told him what for and told him to get out cos he was going to drive back we had quite an uneventful and ride back.

Off to Bangalore tonight on another sleep bus, if Steve snores he's getting the elbow.....

Dee xx