We decided to stay in a little town called Laxmanjula which is in an area of Rishikesh. We had a little quarrel with the rickshaw driver as he decided to drop us 7km short of where we'd asked and wanted 100rps more, this didn't go down well with Roger or Steve and a discussion started... this proceeded for about 40 mins with neither side backing down until a friendly Czech man who was unfortunate to share the rick shaw with us (having thought we'd saved him from being hassled at the train station) stepped in with the 50rps happy medium, a bystander has quoted Roger as saying "it's not about the money, it's the principal you twat!".

Yes we are aware 100rps is nothing but nether the less he was a robbing b******!

Back to Laxmanjula, a nice quiet, town on the banks of the Ganges, bloody freezing at night and closed by 8pm, had the comfiest beds in all India AND HOT WATER for the 1st time since Egypt!!!!

Laxmanjula was quite a weird town from our point of view, lots of dreadlocked, spiritual, mantra chanting people about. Roger had quite a headache after talking to a girl who had found her guru, when he asked how she knew he was her guru she said she didn't know but he was in her heart and sat there smiling almost giggling away to herself...Hmm maybe a bit of herbal essence there me thinks!!

Not much more to say about Rishikesh, we enjoyed it but too cold for us! The train back was nice with a meal included. Back in Delhi at 11pm another argument almost started as the hotel had double booked our room and tried to pass us off with an inferior subsitute for more money, being old hands at arguing and bartering we told them to stick it and courageously walked next door to the next hotel, having looked at the rooms which were slightly worse then the 1st hotel and realising that at 11pm our strength in haggling was waning, we took the rooms and Roger was heard muttering something about principals again...

Upon our arrival in Kolkatta we decided to watch a game of football as two of Kolkatta's local sides were playing in the league. The only good thing about it was that it was free!!! The stadium was a similar size to old Trafford but was alot to be desired as it had certainly seen better days. For the amount of people this ground could hold 9 tenths of the stadium was empty, football doesn't seem to have the same following as cricket here. The standard of football was crap, seen better Sunday league teams, but the eventual winners were Mohan Baghun by 2 goals to nil against United SC. As you can tell that was all dictated by Steve!!!

We're now stuck in Kolkatta due to the protestors in Thailand taking over the airport. Our flight out last Sunday was cancelled but we weren't told by the airline, we had to re-schedule for Thursday which was also cancelled even though the airport is now open!!! So here we are in the armpit of India having holed up in our hotel room for 4 days with another 3 to go with all our hopes pinned on this Sunday when we can finally leave!!