As I said in the last blog, we have had to come in and out of Delhi a couple of times. On the first occasion we had planned to stay only one night and then go to Agra. We had booked one night in a hotel near to the train station where we would leave from. This is not the best part of the city. We had originally planned to return to Delhi and have a few nights in a posh hotel in Connaught Place, a more salubrious neighbourhood. Our plan change meant we had one n...

We left Jodhpur bound for Delhi. Delhi is our Indian Bangkok and we have to go in and out a few times. I'm therefore going to make that my last blog of the trip and wrap it all up in one. As with each stage of this trip we had listed the big sights we wanted to see. In India of course the Taj Mahal in Agra was on the list. It was to be the last big sight of the entire trip so expectations were high. We had seen the 'Mini Taj' at the start of the India leg in ...

Only a short blog.So here we are in Jodhpur home of the riding trousers. It is a big busy dusty town. In short it's an Indian town. We've booked into a hotel which was once a colonial house. It's a peaceful sanctuary from the chaos outside the door. Everything seems good then we log into the wifi and find out within seconds our house is flooded and Jill's ATM card has been cloned and her account emptied. Deep breath then scream. Emails are fired off and we hea...

India continues to confound and frustrate. I am a great advocate of airport security. Why wouldn't I be after all only the suicide bomber wants to get blown up? If I've learnt something over the years it's where safety and security are concerned you need to do it intelligently and consistently. Airport security in India is neither. When you arrive at the airport you have to queue outside the terminal building. Your passport and ticket are checked before they le...

The morning we left Darjeeling the sun came out. Typical. 3 days of mist and now the sun. At least we got a view of the Himalayas. Towering over the valley is Khangchendzonga, its peak at 8598 metres making it the highest mountain in India and the worlds third highest after Everest and K2. It was what we had come to see so we were happy as we set off down the hill to Siliguri. It was a fairly uneventful drive down in a four wheel drive jeep. As we reached the ...