India - All kinds of wild life-Day 295 (22,474 miles)

“No please, feel free, take our side of the road. We only need this tiny weenie bit! Oh how we laughed!


Either a touch overloaded or he drives like this to save his front tyres wearing out.



Our last extended stop in India was at the Corbett Tiger Reserve. It’s set in lovely countryside and contains lots of different species, but for us like many people it was the hope of seeing the big stripy felines in the wild that took us there.


We had a brilliant guide who could spot and identify the tiniest and best camouflaged animals from miles away sadly neither of us can remember the name of this pretty bird.


Monitor Lizard


Hog Deer


Spot the Croc, he may not be huge but he’s there somewhere.






The wild elephants were beautiful to watch. It was however mating season and hormones were running high, we were charged at by a rather large bull, luckily our driver had quick reactions.


We know it’s a pretty grainy photo and not exactly National Geographic quality but our only tiger sighting was from quite a distance, still it was amazing to see and we sat and watched this big boy for quite a while.


We’re available for Out of Africa 2 (can’t remember, did they both die in the first film?)


We wanted to stay a couple of nights in the reserve and the only accommodation available was the 12 bed dormitory. No problem we thought, it’s only 2 nights, it’ll be fine. Unfortunately the extortionate fees charged to visit and stay in the park obviously are not enough to employ any cleaning staff! Dusty bunks and floor, dirty bed linen and rat droppings in the lockers, oh joy. I chose a bottom bunk and John shoved a plastic bottle in the hole in the wall under the bed which we thought was the rat’s route in.

It was an “eventful” night, we haven’t used overnight trains in India but based on the experiences of others this was pretty similar. Our 12 bunk room ended up with 14 occupants, me, John and 12 young Indian men! Those that couldn’t get a bunk slept on the floor, well I say slept but for most of the night somebody was either talking, getting up, switching the light on, answering their phone or leaving the door open to let the mosquitoes and monkeys in!

As John and I were the first to go to bed I had put on my pyjamas and got into my sleeping bag liner (no way were we using that minging bedding). By the time the rest of the slumber party had arrived I needed the loo and felt a bit self conscious getting out of bed in my pj’s so wriggled into my shirt and trousers inside my bag. I thought I’d done Ok and set off out of the room and across to the toilet block only to hear one of the young men shouting after me “Madam, your sheet!” I had managed to tuck my bag liner into the back of my trousers and had dragged it behind me across the dirty floor and outside through God knows what!

At around 4am having slept for what felt like a total of 10 minutes I thought I felt something tug at my bedding, I was lying on my side facing into the room so could see the floor and was convinced I then saw something rat size run across the floor away from my bed. Maybe I was imagining it, I closed my eyes and went back to sleep.


Some of the boys from our safari sleep over, a nice bunch! While chatting I mentioned that I thought I saw a rat in the night, “yes” said one of them, “I was in the bunk opposite you and I saw it too.” So I’d spent the night with 13 men and a rodent!


Spotless facilities! It got worse, there was a rubbish tip behind the loo’s frequented by the boldest monkeys we’ve met!

Poor John has had a reoccurring tummy bug since SE Asia and he was not feeling good at all. Needless to say we cut our visit short, left that morning for a nice clean guesthouse outside the reserve and wrote a strong letter of complaint!

Next stop Nepal!

India - Along the Ganges-Day 290 (22,354 miles)

Rishikesh, the Lonely Planet calls it the Yoga capital of the Universe so I quite fancied a few days there and we were both interested in it’s history as an important pilgrim town close to the source of the Ganges.

We fell into a pattern of early morning yoga(for me), lazy mornings and a wander round the colourful Swarg Ashram in the afternoons and evenings. This was energetic enough for us as we had now come down from the mountains and temperatures where in the mid 30’s everyday.

Swarg Ashram it on the bank of the Ganges and as the name suggests is the location of Ashrams, bathing ghats and many items bearing the OM symbol. There were many Hindu pilgrims and sadhus but also a large percentage of Westerners some of whom wanted to very loudly tell anyone in earshot how spiritually fulfilled and enlightened they felt after 3 days at the ashram, we were very happy for them if not a little sceptical!


The river Ganges. From what we’ve heard of Varanasi it’s a whole lot cleaner up here closer to the source.


Footbridge over the river, also for the use of cows, bicycles and horn honking motorbikes (of course!)


Bathing at the ghat.





An interesting place to people watch.



The pilgrims give Puja (prayers or offerings) at the Ganga Aarti, a ceremony held each evening at sunset.


Hopefully this isn’t the biggest fire engine in town.



Rishikesh got a real notoriety leg up when the Beatles stayed at the Maharishi Mahesh Yoga Ashram and wrote some of the White Album. It’s been closed since 2007 but we thought it was possible to look around, unfortunately it was firmly closed.


Our next stop was Hariidwar around 80km further north, this is considered the actual source of the Ganges as it flows from the Himalayas and the ashrams and ceremonies are attended by alot more Indian Hindus than foreign tourists.






As we finished dinner a procession started in the street making it’s way through the bazaar to the Har-Ki-Pari Ghat.





Down at the ghat there was an amazing atmosphere, the river in very fast flowing here but this doesn’t deter the hardcore pilgrims who still risk a quick dip in the river while hanging on to the bank.

We spoke to a family of 14 (3 generations) on holiday from Gujarat who told us that we had chosen to come on the most holy day of the month so it was extra busy. We’re glad we did it was a great event to witness.


Well done samosa anyone?

India - Shimla Day 285 (22,234 miles)

Riding in India does wonders for your complexion, the dust and pollution are extreme!

We arrived in the hill station town of Shimla after a very slow days riding, pretty scenery but quite a lot of rain.








The town is now pretty big but has a lot of character it’s a real mix of ramshackle traditional Indian style buildings that look like they could fall of the side of the hill at anytime and some colonial buildings reminiscent of an English market town.


Modelled on Tunbridge Wells!






I will never moan about carrying a few bags of shopping again (well I‘ll try not to.)




We took a ride on the Shimla narrow gauge railway (known as the toy train) we only went along the route for a couple of hours and turned around and came back just to get an flavour of it but it is still a fully working railway linked to national routes so forms part of many locals and tourists journeys. This section was opened in 1903 to transport the government employees from Delhi into the hills for the summer months.






We were told the train back to Shimla left this station at 13.50 and we couldn’t buy our ticket until just before the train arrived (another example of strange rules and bureaucracy here). 13.50 came and went and there was no sign of a train, eventually it arrived at 14.45 and we couldn’t get any explanation as to why. We had been told by others who have used the trains alot that the service was usually pretty reliable so it seemed strange until we read the papers the next day and learnt that a station further back up the line had burnt to the ground about 12 hours previous to our trains scheduled time. So good on the Indians for keeping the line open but strange that they didn’t want to share the information with passengers!

Still we quite enjoyed sitting on this shaded old fashioned platform, it was like set of the Railway Children.

View from the train.

This is the Viceregal Lodge, built by the Brits in Scottish Baronial style (so in keeping with it's surroundings!) in 1888. After independence it remained as the summer home of the Indian President until the 1960's when it became a college and that's what it is today.


Nominee for cutest monkey of the week, they are everywhere!