Just a quick entry for Bhaktapur - a medieval type city in the Kathmandu Valley, with some amazing religious architecture, numerous large ponds full of fish and famous for its pottery, narrow cobblestone streets, and a range of artisan culture on show wherever you walk. We made a specific visit here for one night to try and take it all in, and stayed at the Nyatapola Guesthouse run by a family of woodcarvers which was lovely. The photos themselves explain our d...

Kathmandu (Namaste Nepal)! Our sleeper train to Gorakhpur, a town near the India-Nepal border, passed by without too much trouble, although there was some confusion at the station when everyone suddenly ran across the train tracks to another platform and we realised we had to follow them, albeit using the overpass!! After running up and down the length of the train shouting our carriage number we finally located our seats and shared an upper side berth which w...

In your face Varanasi On arrival at the train station in Varanasi we were once again mobbed by rickshaw drivers. Eventually we managed to scrape a deal with one driver who was intent on piling as many locals as possible into the front of the rickshaw (5 people including the driver) while we refused to have anyone else sitting in the back with us (we probably did pay for their fare also)! It turned out that he wasn't licensed to take us into the centre of the cit...

Agra - AKA Taj Mahal So the bus journey to Agra was marginally better than the last, with a sincere lack of goats and emergency toilet stops this time. We got a rickshaw straight to our Hotel Taj Plaza on arrival in Agra, about 1km from the Taj Mahal - we went straight up to the rooftop to get a better view. That evening we succumbed to the temptation of Western food and ordered a chicken Dominos pizza direct to the hotel, much to the amusement of the receptio...

Jaisalmer - Sore bums, no sleep, and goats on a bus Sitting outside the travel agent at 8pm we laughed and breathed a sigh of relief as a parked, beat up old bus that we had thought was ours pulled away....only to be replaced by an equally decrepid tin can. Getting on the bus Joe got into his single berth and we kicked off our hiking boots, laid back and settled down to enjoy the "sleeper" bus journey. Our first mistake was booking seats at the back of the bus...