Sunday, 13th November 2005. Lahore - Wagah border - Amritsar.

A fairly leisurely start today, as it's not that far to the border. We drove out of the middle of Lahore, past Zam Zammah and the museum, then followed the canal pretty much to the border. Getting out of Pakistan was a doddle - cups of tea all round and a little bung to the customs officer to make sure that we weren't asked to unpack Hector - it worked very well and he didn't even bother to check the chassis number! Then it was the short drive across no-mans land, where we were filmed for TV, and into India. The formalities at the Indian side took much longer than in Pakistan, partly because the 2 Swiss couples we had met in Islamabad beat us to the front of the queue and were having their Land cruisers checked. After getting all the forms filled out, it was our turn for the inspection - the rather fat guard started off by climbing into the back of Hector and smashing the fluorescent light that we have on the ceiling. At this I promptly ordered him out before he broke anything else, made my displeasure known, and after that the inspection was over in about 2 minutes - he didn't even get a chance to ask for a bribe!

Having successfully arrived into another country, we headed off for Amritsar. The traffic was no different to that in Pakistan and the roads themselves were much better, which was a pleasant surprise - lets hope they continue...After about half an hour we arrived at Mrs. Bhandari's guesthouse - a colonial mansion set in its own grounds where overlanders can park up and either camp or rent one of the very cool rooms, which don't appear to have been touched since the 1930s. It was very nice to arrive at such a nice place, and even better to have a beer with our roast pork Sunday dinner - no more Muslim food restrictions for us!

India at last!                                                    Our first drink in ages...

Monday, 14th November 2005. Amritsar

A sightseeing day today. We got a rickshaw to the Golden Temple and, after removing our shoes and covering our heads joined the thousands of people walking around the pool and the temple itself...which is actually a lot smaller than we imagined it to be, but very beautiful glinting in the morning sunlight. After the temple we headed into the old town and got fairly lost as we explored the very narrow streets, looking at the cloth shops and the tailors. After lunch we walked into a more modern part of town where we bought an Indian Mobile phone- the number is 0091 987 270 1549 if anyone wants to call us! A bit more shopping and wandering, then we headed back to the guesthouse where, as we expected, the rickshaw driver tried to overcharge us. Having won arguments with cab drivers from Iran to Islamabad we weren't the push-overs he obviously expected and he had to settle for the originally agreed fare. 

As soon as we got back to the guesthouse we were off again back to the border to watch the famous ceremony of the lowering of the flags and the closing of the border. We thought that we would get there early, but unfortunately 7,000 Indians got there before us! We joined the crowds, had our photo's taken by lots of people and eventually joined the crush when the barriers opened - it was like a cross between the crowd at a football match and the first day of the Harrods sale, but we made it through ok and took our seats in the VIP area closest to the border, with the very excited 7,000 strong crowd behind us singing, chanting and generally taking the Mickey out of the much smaller and more orderly Pakistani crowd. The ceremony itself only lasts about 15 minutes, but is well worth seeing. The guards stomp up and down to the gates in a Monty Python Ministry of Silly Walks type march, getting their legs as high as their shoulders! They then eyeball the guards on the other side, growl, snort, shout and threaten before marching away again in disgust. Bugles are then blown and as the sun goes down the flags are lowered and the gates of both country's are slammed shut and the crowds go wild again before streaming home. All in all, great fun.

Golden temple, Amritsar          Indian border guard, Attari         The Indian Crowd

Tuesday, 15th November 2005. Amritsar.

Today, for the first time in ages, we actually bought some insurance for Hector - we reckon that, given the length of time that we're here for and the Indian's love of paperwork, we'd better get some. It was a bit of a bargain as well - the guy came to the guesthouse to sort it all out as we sat on the verandah, and it was £15 for third party, any driver and including Nepal. The rest of the day was spent soaking up the atmosphere in the garden, checking the Internet for hotels and places to park in India (not much luck there...) and generally enjoying ourselves before having a few beers in front of a real log fire in the evening and getting a little bit sloshed for the first time in almost 3 months!

Wednesday, 16th November 2005. Amritsar to McLeod Ganj/Dharamsala.

I drove today (Amy), as I thought it was best to get the better of my nerves before reaching Delhi in a few days.  The driving was actually pretty easy going, the Indian drivers I thought were slightly better than the Pakistanis as they actually made way for me to pass as I drove straight at them!  We were originally planning to stop at Pathankot but when we got there we couldn't find anywhere to stay (we had no map) and as it was still early at 1pm we decided to crack on to McLeod Ganj.  McLeod Ganj is where the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile are based, and it's situated high up the hills of Himachal Pradesh - not the easiest place in the world to get to as we soon found out...

We made really good time, the road was great for most of the way.  We arrived at McLeod after a long crawl up the mountain side, only to find that as there were no sign posts Mark found it almost impossible to navigate me around the very narrow steep streets - at one point we almost ended up driving up to the front door of the Dalai Lama's house!  We couldn't find any hotels with parking so after asking a westerner where we were, we decided to leave Hector parked up on the side of the road to try to find a hotel by foot.  Once a hotel with parking had been found we returned to Hector only to find a huge lorry stuck behind him, as he couldn't get past.  Mark drove Hector forward a bit to let the lorry driver past and then between us (Mark driving) we managed to perform a 12 point turn on the edge of the mountain side.  We finally made it to the lovely big roomy car park where Hector has all the space he needs - thank God. 

The good roads to McLeod Ganj.     A Monkey on the side of the road.

Thursday, 17th November 2005 - McLeod Ganj.

Today is a sightseeing and exploring day.  The weather is clear, fine and reasonably warm so we went off for a walk around the town, looking at the Buddhist temples and all of the maroon robed monks wandering around.  The scenery up here is lovely - you can see down the valley for miles and the air is so clean and fresh.  We had a lovely cup of ginger honey and lemon tea in a tea house overlooking the valley, which was very pleasant indeed.  We have spent the afternoon strolling around the town (it's not very big, more like a village really) and updating the website.  We are off to Chandigarh tomorrow.

McLeod Ganj from a Bhagsu tea house.

Friday, 18th November 2005 - McLeod Ganj to Chandigarh.

It was Marks turn to drive today and everything started off so well, we got onto the right road and the road was in good condition, then it all went wrong...

The road soon became little wider than single track, and progress was very slow as the road wound it's way up and down the mountain sides and we got stuck behind lorry after lorry. To be fair the scenery was stunning - rolling green hills covered in pine forest, monkeys by the side of the road, huge lakes and the odd hill-top palace, all very interesting but very tiring to drive through.  

more monkeys by the road            scenery en route...as usual, scenic = very slow progress...

After 9 hours of driving it was beginning to get dark and we still hadn't made it to Chandigarh. It was pitch black when we arrived at the city outskirts, and Mark had to get used to driving in the middle of the road to avoid hitting the non-stop stream of pedestrians, cyclists and donkey-carts on the left hand side of the road (however, driving at night here was no where near as bad as when we had to drive into Quetta in the dark - far fewer strobe lights here!) Navigating by the dash-board light Amy, making use of the fact that the city had been designed on a grid system just like Islamabad, was able to navigate us straight to a hotel with parking just down the road from where we wanted to be.  Not bad going!  We booked in to a rather grotty hotel, but any port in a storm.  We had a rather horrible meal followed by a beer in a rather nasty 'bar'.

At about 11pm we were distracted by the beating of drums and singing: on further inspection we discovered that our hotel had been booked for a Wedding!  As we couldn't do anything else we watched the proceedings from our window and it was interesting despite the time.

Saturday, 19th November 2005 - Chandigarh.

After a rather appalling breakfast of odd fruit juice and cold fried eggs we were off into the centre of town to look for a map of Delhi, shirts for Amy and some new Cd's for the car. Chandigarh is famous as being the only planned city in India (although we're here more because it's a handy place to stop between McLeod and Delhi) - it was designed by the European architect Le Corbusier so everything is made out of concrete - which probably looked great when it was new and glistening white, but which now looks like an inner city shopping centre in the UK. However, Chandigarh is a modern city and is full of useful shops, banks etc etc. We easily found the shopping mall and immediately found a lovely CD shop, where we should have bought some DVD's as well as some CD's.  The new Black eyed peas album and a Coral album were our buy's.  I didn't find any shirts.  We headed off to the bank and to our astonishment the ATM swallowed Marks bank card, after a rather swift call back to England we were informed that unless we could get the bank to give us the card back we would have to report it lost or stolen and wait for a replacement which could take 5-6 working days, and that's just to get it to an address in England.  It must have been our lucky day as the bank was open and they we willing to open the ATM to get our card - Thank heavens.  After we had finally drawn some money out on the Visa at another ATM we headed off for a spot of lunch at the Blue Ice Bar and restaurant, for a lovely lamb burger.  Once back at the hotel we began to look at the route down to Delhi, and promptly decided NOT to go to Delhi at all.  We were only going to go to visit Marks friend Andy, and we can't get hold of him, so there's not really any point in going - so we're not, instead we are going to visit a bird sanctuary.  In the evening we went out to dinner at Kapil Dev's restaurant (a famous Indian Cricketer) and the food was some of the best we have eaten.

Sunday, 20th November 2005 - Chandigarh to The Jungle Babbler Motel!

Today sounded so easy when we were planning it: Drive to Delhi, use our great new map to skirt round the outside, head west, then south to the nature reserve where we could have a couple of easy days looking at wildlife and drinking G&Ts. The first part went much according to plan - Amy drove us out of Chandigarh, onto the very good road to Delhi, and Mark navigated our way around the city with no bother at all. In fact, we were both surprised at how easy it was to drive around Delhi - the roads are good, there are loads of signposts, other drivers actually stop at the traffic lights and the general interaction of the traffic is OK - perhaps after our training in places like Istanbul, Shiraz and Lahore nothing shocks us anymore...We got on the right road heading West, reached the town we wanted, then got stuck. No signposts onto the little minor road that we wanted. So we stopped and asked, and asked, and asked some more. It appeared that no one knew where we wanted to go (which was a bad sign, looking back on things), so eventually after a lot of trial and error going South at every roundabout we came to, we got on the correct road which we thought would take us south to the Reserve...oh dear....The road was another single lane track with mostly very slow tractors pulling huge trailers over a non-existent surface, generating huge clouds of sand when they moved onto the side of the track to let each other pass - it was like the Taftan to Quetta road all over again...so on we trundled for about 120km, this distance taking us about 5 hours! Amy had been driving all day today, and when we reached the end of the track without seeing hide nor hair of the Reserve we decided to call it a day and stopped at the first motel that we saw, just as it was beginning to get dark - what a relief! A very long, dusty day today with no real point to it, although it was nice to get off the beaten track for  little while.

Lake and island, the middle of no-where, India.

Monday, 21st November 2005. Jungle Babbler to Jaipur. 

Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy driving day today. Great road (dual carriage-way all the way) and no chance to get lost as there are signposts everywhere. Amy drove again and we bombed it down to Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, in no time at all. Once we got to Jaipur we found the general area where the "Nana-ki-Haveli" was, then stopped so that Mark could get out and ask for directions (the Haveli is tucked away down some dinky side street which doesn't appear on any of our maps...) As he was chatting away, Hector with Amy at the wheel drew the attention of a group of kids who started the usual staring. These boys must have been part of the All-India Staring and Annoying Team, and soon they succeeded in winding Amy up so much that she tried to get out to wallop them - only to find that one of them (with more sense than we'd have credited him with) had pushed the exterior bolt shut, so she couldn't get out without first pushing the bolt away and giving the kids a chance to make a run for it. It's odd how we had very little hassle in the supposedly women-unfriendly places like Iran and Pakistan, yet here on the tourist trail in India it's quickly become a right pain- some men here are much more willing to leer and make comments (we're yet to try out Mark's suggestion of keeping a water-pistol filled with Soy Sauce, which stinks in the heat, in the cubby box...) Directions secured we were soon driving into the Haveli where we were welcomed by Mrs. Singh, the owner, with a very welcome cup of tea. Then it was a bit of a relax and a night-time walk into town for some food, past the men weeing by the side of the road, and trying not to step in the frequent piles of poo or on some poor unfortunate slumped over the pavement.

Amy relaxing on the balcony of the Nana-Ki-Haveli, Jaipur.

Tuesday, 22nd November 2005. Jaipur.

A walking around day. We started off trying to find a tailors where Amy wanted to get some shirts made - we found it after a very long walk around town, only to be told that they didn't make shirts, only suits, so it was over the road to the shopping centre and straight into a special women's shirt shop where Amy got the shirts of her dreams...Rest of the day spent pottering around the modern part of the city and trying to shake of the legions of beggars. In the evening we headed for McDonalds to try a Maharaja Mac - no beef obviously (cows being sacred animals in India), so the burger was made of Chicken, and was very nice too. On the way out Mark decided to give some cash to some of the beggar children as he'd been feeling very guilty - he realised that although he would feed a cat in Islamabad, he wouldn't feed a child in India! So when the first child came over, Mark handed over 10 rupees. Clearly this wasn't enough, as the child's mother immediately came over and demanded "paper money, England money"...couldn't have been that hungry then...It seemed as if he couldn't win, even when he offered to buy them a meal, they turn him down and kept asking for more cash...Mark gave up in the end, and leaving the original money we got into a rickshaw and headed for home.

Wednesday, 23rd November 2005. Jaipur

A proper tourist day as we headed into the old city. Jaipur is known as the "Pink City" as one of the rulers had all of the buildings in the old city painted pink! Nowadays it looks more of an ochre colour, but is still very striking as you enter the walled city through one of the many gateways. Once inside we headed to the Astrological Park, which is where Jai Singh constructed a number of huge astronomical instruments in 1728. The place is amazing as it looks like a outdoor exhibition of modernist sculpture, but all of the instruments still work and the immense sundial is accurate to 2 seconds! Whilst we were here we also became aware, pretty much for the first time, of how much we are on the tourist trail - bus loads of tourists from all over the world were being dropped off at the gates and were milling about in their hundreds enjoying their tour of India.

Huge instruments in the astrological park, including the giant sundial. Amy in front of the instrument designed to track the constellation "Libra".

After wandering around the park we walked the short distance across the road to the City Palace, once the home of Maharaja Sawai Mansingh the second. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the palace looking at the fantastic architecture and decoration. We also bumped into a British chap we had met briefly in Islamabad who was a medic and who had been helping out with the earthquake relief efforts in the mountains of Pakistan. Like us he was finding India more of a pain than Pakistan (good to know we're not the only ones...) and was planning to buy a motorbike so he could get off the tourist trail a little- hope that he got one. After our wanderings around the palace we headed for a "pure vegetarian" restaurant and had a huge veggie meal which was very tasty, vegetarianism being very common here.

Mark, huge silver urn and guard.   Amy and the Peacock door.       Brass and gold doorway.

Thursday, 24th November 2005. Jaipur

A lazy admin day today - updating our journals, working out our route up to Christmas, phoning up hotels to see if they have space to park Hector, writing a few postcards and giving Hector a check over.

Friday, 25th November 2005. Jaipur to Ajmer

We said goodbye to Mrs. Singh, and headed off in totally the wrong direction out of Jaipur, hoping to pick up the ring-road. No such luck so it was back into town as Mark drove us right through the middle of the old city and back out the other side until we were heading in the right direction. Once again the roads were a very pleasant surprise and we made good time to Ajmer where we planned to stop for the night before heading off to Jodhpur. We found the place we had booked, realised that their parking was through a very low gateway which we would have no chance of getting under, so parked Hector on the street and hoped for the best.

Saturday, 26th November 2005. Ajmer to Jodhpur

Amy drove today and we made excellent progress once again - we have vastly over-estimated the time it takes for us to get to places! Soon we were driving through semi-desert once again in temperatures of 37.6 degrees C, looking out for camels and catching the occasional glimpse of a saffron turbaned Rajasthani against the khaki of the desert. We got to Jodhpur with no bother, eventually found our guest-house (the excellent "Rattan Villas") and made ourselves at home. A journey which we thought would take about 6 hours in fact took just over 3 1/2 hours, and that was with Amy driving really slowly on the good roads so we didn't arrive too early!

in the desert again.....               sacred cow in a box.....               the courtyard of "Rattan Villas"

There's no television in our room here, but it's big enough to play tennis in- so we did!

Sunday, 27th November 2005. Jodhpur

Touristy day today and things got off to a great start when we got a decent rickshaw driver to take us through the old city and up to the absolutely immense "Mehrangarh fort" which totally dominates the skyline of the city. You really have to see the thing to appreciate its scale as it towers over the city at its feet. The old city itself is also worthy of mention as it's blue...yes, all of the buildings are painted blue and the scene looking down on the square, blue buildings from the heights of the fort ramparts is unique, like looking at a cubist painting. Once at the fort we paid for the audio tour which was superb - we walked past the place where a Rajput prince volunteered to be buried alive within the walls of the fort to keep the spirits of the hill happy, and the very sad hand-marks made by the widows of one of the Maharajahs before they performed "Sati" and threw themselves, still alive, on their husbands funeral pyre. We also got some fantastic views of the town from high up within the palace. Jodhpur really is a great place, and it's well worth the effort to get here.

Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur.                 View of the "blue city" from the palace.

Monday, 28th November 2005. Jodhpur.

Lazed around for most of the day today, and in the evening went back to the fort to have dinner on the "Mehran Terrace", which our Lonely Planet guide-book describes thus: "Dining on one of the forts terraces is unsurpassably romantic...". We must have gone on an off day. For a start we couldn't actually get up to the terrace as the man in charge of the lift had wandered off, then when we did get up there it was blowing a force 9 gale and all the other diners were sitting wrapped up in fleeces and hats like pensioners on Eastbourne beach in January. We sat down on somebody's old garden furniture and were handed our meal - a Thali (about 5 different dishes all served in individual ramekin like pots) which went stone cold in about 2 minutes. Rather than being "unsurpassably romantic" it was more like Dinner at Ice Station Zebra...things got so bad that other guests were demanding their tables be moved to where there was slightly less of a gale, and the couple who entered before us walked out after 15 minutes - wouldn't recommend it at all, and there are far better (and cheaper) restaurants in the town itself.

The highlight of the evening was returning to Rattan Villas and making friends with the resident dog, a lovely old black Labrador called "Malak" who was wearing a very smart tartan coat as he felt the cold in his old age!  We named him Rupert.

Amy and Malak.

Tuesday, 29th November 2005. Jodhpur to Jaisalmer

As we seem to be making such good progress on the roads here, we had a leisurely start today. As we were packing Hector an elderly Indian gentleman came over and said that he had been admiring Hector. He went on to explain that we were staying in his house, and that he used to have a Landrover which he used to go hunting in the desert - he was full of praise for Landrovers - even more so when we told him how far we'd come. When he heard that we were from England he shook our hands again and told us how he used to play Polo with Prince Philip at Cowdrey Park, and about the times that he was part of a polo team owned by Baron Rothschild - a very interesting chap (he was also the owner of Malak the dog, whom we had made friends with the previous evening). 

Once out of Jodhpur we decided to take the indirect route up to Phalodi and then across to Jaisalmer. This was another goodish road and soon we were passing little villages made of thatched mud houses in the middle of the desert surrounded by dunes. Soon the yellow sandstone fort of Jaisalmer came into view hovering over the desert like something out of 1001 nights. We found the RTDC motel with no problem, parked up and booked ourselves into a little thatched roundhouse like those we had been driving past all day.

Thar desert village                             deserty bit at the side of the road.

Wednesday, 30th December 2005. Jaisalmer.

We woke up to the sound of a thousand men outside our hut, so we got and had a cold shower (the Geyser was broken) before heading off to Sam.  Sam is a tiny village surrounded by golden sand dunes and is a true tourist trap.  We decided to go in the morning, as we had heard that most tourist go to Sam for a sunset camel safari.  Once we had arrived in Sam we were immediately surrounded by hundreds of children with their camels, trying to persuade us to take a trek with them.  We declined as we wanted to take a peaceful stroll along the huge dunes taking pictures.  This was almost impossible as wherever we went we were followed by the kids with camels, before I turned around and shouted at them to stay put whilst we had a walk, which they did, for about 5 minutes.  We met a young lad who walked with us just talking not really interested if we took a camel ride or not, so he was alright.  We walked back to Hector and left without doing a safari.  The journey back was stunning as Mark had decided that he was going to drive through the sand, so he did.  He took a dirt track and then drove straight onto the sand where we followed a track to be on the safe side.  Mark really enjoyed this as we were the only people there and we were able to stop and take pictures whenever we liked.  Mark wanted to drive up a sand dune but I put my foot down and stated the boring fact that without trees or anybody else around it would be very hard work winching or digging Hector out of a huge sand dune, he reluctantly agreed and we headed back to Jaisalmer.

We caught a rickshaw up to the Fort for lunch and then wandered around for a while.  The fort itself is very beautiful but its narrow streets are full of shops all selling the same stuff, clothes or camel leather.  We did get tempted though and bought a gorgeous hand made camel leather photo album and a pair of Jootis each also made of camel leather and embroidered.   

Hector in the desert.                  Jaisalmer Fort, looking up.         Our Jaisalmer Jooti's...

Thursday, 1st December 2005, Jaisalmer to Jodhpur.

I drove today, and we again made really good progress, until we reached the outskirts of Jodhpur.  We had taken a different route back, and when we arrived at the outskirts we promptly got lost, trying desperately not to accidentally drive into the old city where Hector would have defiantly got stuck down one of the bazaar alleys.  We eventually joined the by-pass and Mark suddenly saw what he thought was the back our Hotel, we followed the road round and as luck would have it we found Rattan Vilas.  The afternoon was spent updating the website and our logs, playing with Rupert the dog before dinner at the hotel.

Friday, 2nd December 2005. Jodhpur to Jaipur.

It was back the way we had come today, but without the stop at Ajmer as we could easily do the journey in a day - in fact it took us only 5 hours to get to Jaipur, which was fantastic progress. We returned to Nana Ki Haveli and made ourselves at home.

Saturday, 3rd December 2005. Jaipur.

As we didn't stop off on our way back to Jaipur we had an extra day to play with, so we decided that we would spend it tea-pot shopping! Mrs. Singh has some fantastic silver plated tea-pots which we very much liked, so we asked her where she got them from. Once we had the address we headed off to find a show-room packed full of tea-pots, candle-sticks, ashtrays, tankards etc etc - we eventually made our choices and the very pleasant and knowledgeable wife of the owner asked us to come back in a few hours so she could get them polished up for us. We pottered around Jaipur for a while, buying some more CDs for the car and DVDs for the laptop, and surfing the internet at the fantastically fast RIM Webworld shop. When we returned to pick up our purchases Mr. Owner arrived and bizarrely began asking us if we wanted to help him buy some companies in Sheffield! Rather taken aback by this, and sensing a con-job about to unfold, we made it clear that we only wanted to pick up the items which we'd picked in the morning. At this he asked us what price we had been given, and when we replied that his wife had quoted us RS1800 to RS2000 for the lot, he laughed and said that his wife would ruin him and that the tea-pot alone was RS2400. This really annoyed me - not only was this man behaving like a con-man, but he was also trying to rip us off (I should explain that the shop was a fairly up-market place where the prices are all fixed - apparently they supply Selfridges...). I had a look at the tea-pot and saw a huge scratch on it, which I pointed out whilst saying that we wouldn't be buying it for any price - so he dropped the price. At this point we couldn't have cared less - he was a very strange man who acted as if he were on drugs, and who had tried to rip us off. I said that he was wasting our time and we made to leave, when the price dropped again - but we wouldn't have bought his mankey tea-pot if he was the last tea-pot seller on earth - he had annoyed us so much, the chimp.

Sunday, 4th December 2005. Jaipur to Ranthambhore.

Left Jaipur in no particular hurry and made our way across to Ranthambhore, where there is a famous wildlife reserve which contains Tigers. On the way here we drove down the wrong road (what a surprise...) and drove past  a groovy looking temple carved into a hill side with Elephants carved all over the outside. We also saw a camel artist at work, shaving then decorating a camel for its owner, which is something we've never seen before. Eventually, one trip to the bus-station of an unknown one-camel town later, we made it to the Hotel Tiger Safari Resort and made ourselves at home. We plan to spend a couple of nights here and go on a couple of safaris in the hope that we can see some Tigers - we're booked on an early morning Jeep safari tomorrow (we did ask if we could drive ourselves around, but they said no).  On arrival we also met a charming English couple who were occupying the cottage next to us.  He had travelled a fair bit through china and Northern Pakistan.  Sorry we've forgotten your names.

Elephant gateway outside Ranthambhore, and one of the local decorated Camels.

Monday, 5th December 2005. Ranthambhore.

We were up at 0530 this morning, and it was COLD - frost on the ground and a real chill in the air. After a quick fried egg breakfast we were into our open-topped jeep and speeding through the darkness to the gates of the reserve.  We shared the jeep with another couple, who were travelling around India for their three week holiday (hope you enjoy Goa). The sun was just climbing over the palm-trees as we drove through the gates of the park and into a jungle covered ravine where we could hear the morning calls of the Langur monkeys as they started to stir in the warmth. Almost at once the jeep stopped and the guide pointed to some pug-marks in the orange dust of the track - recent Tiger tracks! We sped down the track to a lake surrounded by long, pale yellow grasses and it was here that we first saw a Tiger, watching as he lay just in front of the grass warming himself in the pale sunshine. The guide explained that what we saw was a juvenile, although he looked large to us, and that his mother and brother were around somewhere, probably in the same patch of long grass, so we went to look for them but with no luck. We spent quite a while at this location moving a little as we watched spotted dear, antelope, wild pigs and hundreds of birds all coming down to the water for their morning drink. After a while we heard some deer and monkeys making their distress call, so we headed off to a spot where we could see another Tiger clearly sitting amidst the trees. Unfortunately every other vehicle in the park arrived at the same spot and the ensuing noise was too much for the Tiger who got up and stalked back into the undergrowth. 

After seeing the second Tiger we drove to a magical spot: in front of us was a natural lake with an island in the middle containing some ruined buildings and trees. Beyond the lake was a jungle covered cliff face on top of which were the walls and towers of the old Maharaja's palace. Everything was reflected perfectly in the smooth waters of the lake, until the reflection was disturbed by some ripples as what looked like a log drifting along. The log turned out to be a crocodile, and once we got used to seeing them, we saw them all over the lake and the island...another creature that we'd never seen in the wild before. We eventually made our way back to the reserve gates by driving along the base of the fort, where there were lots of black faced Langur monkeys in the trees and even more bare-footed pilgrims on the ground, processing along the path and placing lighted incense sticks in various trees and ruined buildings - there was a Ganesh temple within the walls of the palace and the pilgrims were performing a sacred ritual. All too soon our safari was over and we were back at the hotel, booking ourselves another one for tomorrow afternoon - a sunset safari.  After a quick nap after the early morning we met an English chap who was spending a month in India with his friend Justine who had been travelling this time for 4 months, and we also met a Swedish couple - Frank who had come out to India to meet up with his girlfriend (sorry we forgot your name) who had been working for an NGO in Gujarat for 3 months.  We had a great chat and discovered that they would probably be in our Canter tomorrow afternoon.

Tiger through the trees - honest...              Crocodile filled lake.

Red spotted Deer.

Tuesday, 6th December 2005. Ranthambhore.

After a lazy morning we boarded our Canter (like an open topped lorry) and headed off to the reserve at about 15:00, with the Swedish couple, and also an English guy called Matt and an English couple who were staying at a different hotel. We took a different route from yesterday, and once again stopped to look at all the other wild-life such as the Deer and the Antelope (big things, Antelope...). As we approached the lake we had visited first yesterday, we saw a couple of other vehicles parked up, and everyone's cameras, telescopes and binoculars pointed towards the long grass, where the mother of the juvenile that we had seen yesterday was lying, watching the animals in the lake. We watched her for about 5 minutes when all of a sudden she crept forwards then made a charge along the banks of the water towards some deer - an incredible sight, seeing a Tigress hunting out in the open. But better was to come...

The Tigress, having failed to catch any dinner, returned to the long grass and disappeared from sight. We drove round to the back of the patch of grass and waited. Soon we could see the tops of the grass moving as the Tigress came towards us, and before we knew it she was out of the grass and walking along the track behind us, not 2 meters from where Amy and I were sitting in the back of the lorry! She walked along without a care in the world, making her way across the track and down to a water hole about 3.5 meters away from us, where she had a drink, then a wash and a bathe before calling to her cubs to join her. When her cubs didn't turn up she got up out of the water, stretched, crossed the road again and made her way back to the long grass to find them. Being able to watch her in the open for so long was an unforgettable experience. 

Once back at the hotel we all swapped photos over a few nice cold beers, before heading off to dinner with them.

Tigress in the road...                                    Stretching out....

Bathing beauty....                                                        Sunset over Ranthambhore.

Wednesday, 7th December 2005. Ranthambhore to Bharatpur.

We made our way to Bharatpur today, where there is a bird sanctuary which is supposed to be really good. The road here started off ok and we were batting along, but 50km from Bharatpur we were totally appalled by the National Highway 11 - absolutely atrocious; huge great pot holes which you couldn't see until it was too late, and at one point the road disappeared and became a single track with the two lanes of traffic trying to squeeze past each other - chaos.  We reached our hotel - the really nice "Birders Inn" - after a short detour through Bharatpur city, and had some lunch whilst chatting to the very friendly owner about our arrangements for tomorrow, our trip so far ("Are you human?" he asked...) and the roads ahead.

Thursday, 8th December 2005. Bharatpur.

It was into the Bird Sanctuary at 9am today, we hired a cycle rickshaw and met our guide Soran Singh.  We made our first stop after only 5 minutes, where we left the rickshaw and followed Soran into the woods, he led us to a tall tree where he showed us the rare Brown Hawk Owl.  Without the guide we would have never have found the owl, as he was well hidden in amongst the trees.  We also managed to spot a male Dusky Eagle Owl, complete with wife and nest.  We managed to take a photo by placing the cameras zoom lens inside the binoculars, and it worked fantastically well.  The rickshaw followed the guide who was riding his bike up to the wet lands area where we again left the rickshaw and went walking with Soran.  We saw some fantastic birds; White Necked stalk, Saras Cranes which are 1.56meters tall - the same height as Mark! a Hoopoe and many many more.  We must have spent the good part of 3.5 hours just walking around the wetlands, there are so many different types of wildlife including spotted deer and antelope.  We realised that the rickshaw really wasn't worth the fixed rate of Rs50 per hour as we had spent most of the time without him but still having to pay for him, so we got rid of him and hired bicycles instead.  This is a great way to get around, we followed the guide off road and saw a fantastic sight - a huge great Python, curled up in the shrubs, we watched for a while and then the snake slithered off into the undergrowth again.  We slowly made our way back to the main entrance, where we paid for the guide and headed back to the hotel to have a nice chilled beer.  Today was a truly pleasant day and really relaxing although having not ridden a bicycle for years we are both rather sore!

A Langur Monkey          A Dusky Eagle Owl                    A Python                    Us and our bikes.

Friday, 9th December 2005. Bharatpur.

We decided to stay another day here and head off to Agra tomorrow.  We spent the morning on the Internet booking a hotel in Agra and checking emails etc and the afternoon was spent cleaning Hector and screwing all the loose screws back in.

Saturday, 10th December 2005. Bharatpur to Agra.

It's not far from Bharatpur to Agra, and the road is a damn site better than the shambles up to Bharatpur so we made good time once again. Amy drove and I navigated and we found our way around Agra with no bother at all - there was far less traffic on the roads than we had imagined and there were some good signposts so the driving was easier than we had imagined having heard some scare stories before we left. On our way in we were driving along a muddy back street when a familiar looking motorbike drove past us - it was Ben, one of the 3 Australians who we had met in Islamabad and who we had last seen at the Wagah border. We had a quick chat by the side of the road and then went our separate ways. We were soon at the Hotel Atithi and checking in, before doing some banking etc and heading off to dinner at the "Only" restaurant - good food but terrible violinist.

Sunday, 11th December 2005. Agra.

First of all - Happy Birthday John! We had a sightseeing day today and we were up and out by 06:30 to go and see the sun rising over the Taj Mahal. We got there just as dawn was breaking and paid up our 1500 Rupees (£20!) to get in - a bit steep, but I suppose it is the quintessential Indian site. We were some of the first people in, and it was good to be able to walk about without the crowds, but to be honest the lack of light at that time of day made for some rubbish photos and the Taj looks cold and pale before the sun hits it. When the sun does eventually rise and burns off some of the mist, the early morning rays warm up the marble and the cold whiteness turns a lovely warm pale yellow colour - this lasts for about half an hour before the smog starts clouding things and everything becomes hazy again. For the half hour between sunrise and the smog rising the Taj Mahal looks beautiful against the pale blue of the morning sky - it was once described by an Indian writer as "A teardrop on the face of eternity" and that sums up the atmosphere of the place well - it is, after all, a tomb as well as monument to grief and lost love. 

Mark and Amy and the Taj Mahal       The Taj later in the morning            Sunlight warming the marble

The other thing that the Taj is famous for these days is the photo of Princess Diana sitting in front of it all alone on a bench, and soon there were hundreds of people queuing up to repeat the scene - one English woman had gone so far as to dress all in black and have her hair done the same...After 3 hours spent walking around the very pleasant gardens we left to go and have some breakfast on one of the roof-top restaurants nearby in Taj Ganj - it was lovely sitting up high watching people on the other roofs flying their pigeons with the Taj Mahal as a backdrop. Breakfasted and rested we headed off to Agra fort - the Red Fort. This was very similar to the fort in Lahore, being built by the same dynasty (the Moghuls) and of the same red sandstone. Once again we hired a guide, and were a little shocked when we had to stump up more cash to get in as we thought that our Taj ticket included our entry to the fort - but no, it only covers the 50 rupees "toll", not the entry fee itself...rats. We paid up and walked around, but to be honest we had seen it all before (which I know sounds a bit blase, but we're beginning to suffer from "monument fatigue" and one fort/mosque/tomb/ruin is beginning to look much the same as another) at Lahore which was a much more pleasant experience - far fewer touts and a much more knowledgeable guide who didn't try to flog us numerous souvenirs and other tat when we left, unlike our Agra guide.

Our mornings sightseeing over, we headed back to the hotel for a quick kip, then it was back out again for a late lunch and a go on the internet to sort out places to stay in Lucknow and Chitwan.

Monday, 12th December 2005. Agra.

Chilling out day in the Cantonment area, where there's a great coffee shop, some bookshops, some music shops and a photo studio where we got 16 passport photos each for £1.50 which was a bit of a bargain. We had dinner in a very pleasant vegetarian restaurant called "Zorba the Buddha" which was excellent, and then an early night in preparation for our long drive to Lucknow tomorrow.

Tuesday, 13th December 2005. Agra to Lucknow. 

It's a long way from Agra to Lucknow, so we were up and out by 06:30, and just as dawn was breaking we were driving over the Yammuna River and leaving Agra. The road East from Agra is currently being upgraded to a dual carriage way, and consequently there are very slow stretches as you grind along over the potholes behind huge queues of lorries going 40 kph. When you get to Kanpur, the roadwork's make everything very confusing and we didn't know which road to take as we don't have a map of Kanpur. We drove North up a likely looking road, but spent about an hour driving around the city getting more and more lost until we stopped at the main police station and got one of the very helpful policemen to draw us a map. We ended up driving down some really, really narrow and crowded streets until we crossed the river and turned right where we had to stop at a level crossing, as the barrier was down. This however didn't stop most of the people on bicycles and rickshaws from slipping under the barriers and making their way across. Obviously we couldn't do this so we had to sit there for about half an hour, attracting the attention of every curious teenager around. The staring is annoying, but we're used to that - what really annoyed us was one teenager banging on Amy's window, trying to open it. This was too much for me and for the first time in my life I got out of the Landy in a rage with the express intention of giving someone a slap - luckily for me the idiot took one look at me and did a runner...As if that wasn't bad enough, when we eventually got over the level crossing there was some kind of protest going on and the road was blocked by people sitting in the middle of it...great. We sat there for a while, then got out and had a look before noticing that there was a very narrow way through the market stalls at the side of the road. We decided to give it a go, and with Amy walking in front of Hector making hand signals we managed to make our way through without hitting anyone, which was excellent for us but rather annoyed the protestors who could see their road-block failing as we were followed by a stream of traffic - one irate looking chap stood in front of us demanding to know where we were going, to which we replied "through you!" as we edged past him...it had been a long, tiring day and neither of us were in the mood to be understanding or polite. Eventually we got back on the main road to Lucknow where we made good progress, and after driving through the middle of the city (without getting lost for once!) we pulled up at our hotel, checked in and crashed out after a very stressful 9 1/2 hour drive to get here. Went to a fantastic Thai restaurant for dinner.

Wednesday, 14th December 2005. Lucknow.

Spent the day pottering around the city - no sightseeing today as we can't be bothered.

Thursday, 15th December 2005. Lucknow to Gorakhpur

A truly terrible day today. Amy drove all day and the road East - the National Highway 2 - was the worst road that we've driven on our entire trip so far, and that's against some very stiff competition, but this was the winner by a country mile. If ever anyone else wants to go East from Lucknow, we would strongly advise them to find a different way (funnily enough the normal yellow and white roads seem to be ok most of the time). The NH2 was mile, after mile, after mile of huge potholes and totally broken up road-surface - at times the potholes were so deep Amy had to use low box to crawl through them and up the other side. The terrible road conditions meant that our average speed today was 30 kph (20mph)- imagine crawling along at that speed over terrible roads for 9 1/2 hours in the heat and the thick dust kicked up by the hundreds of even slower lorries in front of you...not much fun. Things didn't improve when we eventually reached Gorakhpur, which is a bit of a dump. As usual we got horribly lost and Amy ended up driving down some very narrow and congested streets before we eventually found somewhere to park Hector whilst I tried to get us into a hotel. The first place I tried just didn't want us there - me: "Is this the Hotel Shivam?" guy behind desk: "No, no hotel" me: "what about that sign above your desk that says Welcome to the Hotel Shivam?" guy behind desk: "No Hotel, No Hotel". Right then. The next place was a guesthouse which looked ok, but had no room. Luckily the owner spoke English and drew us a map to another place up near the train station which had parking. The area by the train station isn't the most salubrious place in the world, but it was a case of any port in storm, and at least we had somewhere to park Hector. At least we're off to Nepal tomorrow.