We had been told we didn't need to book a ticket to Badami. The man in the office at the bus station said they go regularly, no timetable just turn up. We had to get the bus from Bijapur to Kerurl then change for Badami. Catching the bus in South America had challenges, mostly because no one spoke English. On the up side they use the same alphabet so place names were recognisable. In India English is not widely spoken and place names are all in Hindi Sanskrit. ...

As we drove into Bijapur it was different again. This is a town of 220,000 inhabitants. By Indian standards that's not big. We've seen our share of poverty on this trip. On an individual level if you are in abject poverty it doesn't matter if you are in Bolivia, Ethiopia or India. The big difference in India is numbers. There are 250 million Indians living in poverty 75 per cent of them are in rural areas. It's pretty much everywhere you look. We had now moved ...

We arrived in Kolhapur about an hour behind schedule. It's a big place but more authentic India than Mumbai. A chap on the train had said our hotel was a five minute walk from the station. Indians are confusing me. Some are clearly out to scam you. Some are very curious about us. Some are extremely polite, some stare quite hard and others are very helpful. Trouble is when someone tells you something you don't know which Indian you are dealing with. Couple that ...

We boarded the train for Aurangabad. Our seats weren't together but the young chap next to me agreed to swap so we could sit together. We had a chat with an old boy sat near us who told us about the places we were visiting. He also explained which were good banks etc. Not sure why. Once underway the guard came round and checked the tickets. This was followed by the char wallah. 'Chai, chai, special chai' was the call. Jill had a cup from his tin urn. Soon the ...

We had had a few lovely relaxing days in Bangkok and were now ready to face our final destination, India. Our flight was at 12.45pm from Bangkok to Singapore then on to Mumbai. It had all been planned back in the UK and we seemed to have plenty of time built in. As it was an international flight we had to be at the airport 3 hours early. As it was the traffic was ok and we were even earlier. As we walked through the front door alarm bells went off. The departu...