After a long wait at immigration at Kathmandu airport, we were finally here, looking pretty worse for wear after a night on Delhi airports floor. We headed to our hotel, The Kathmandu Grand (the name didn't really reflect the hotel here!) and had a much needed sleep. A quiet day here. We spent the early evening wandering the winding streets of Thamel which was interrupted by a thunderstorm. We had our first experience of the famous Nepalese dish, dal bat and had ...

We had a leisurely breakfast bridge checking out of Granny's and heading back to the Gange to watch some more cremations. These were sad to watch but equally as fascinating. We spoke with young guy for an hour or so as we watched some of the burnings taking place. After inhaling enough ash, we headed off to walk the streets again and find the Brown Bread Bakery for some paneer and a 'Hello to the Queen' dessert. We walked back through the crazy streets to the gue...

We were escorted off out train by a 'taxi driver' who was going to take us the 45 min journey to Varanasi in his taxi. His taxi turned out to be a tuktuk and after waiting around for 15 minutes we realised that he was waiting to take 6 people and all out luggage. We told him we would find another was so unfortunately for him, we walked off we got another guy to take us to 'Granny's Inn Guesthouse' which was great because he told us he knew exactly where he was go...

A 5am wake up to straighten the hair, put on the make up and select the wardrobe for the Taj photoshoot. Finally, I was ready. We walked down to the Main Street to meet our driver who too us the short distance to the Taj Mahal. We gave him a note from us both, and a toothbrush and shaving kit from the hotel. I'm not sure he understood why we gave them to him but we quite liked him! He waited for us in the car park while we got a rickshaw down and explored for the...

After demolishing the buffet breakfast, we went for a swim and a wonder around the hotel. Getting bored of the western world, we decided to head out to find some local food and buy our train tickets to Varanasi. We elected to go for a package station/meal combo deal with our 64 year old man who was teaching his friends sons to drive tuktuks. We got our tickets then went for a delicious dinner of paneer and mushroom mutter. On the way back we stopped off at a souv...