It’s a colourful life…

Our last day in Jaipur was all about Holi, the Indian festival of colour. And coloured we were. The warm up started the night before with a ritual lighting of fires in the streets, signifying the burning of evil spirits. Holi celebrates the victory of good over evil, the start of spring as well as thanksgiving for a good harvest. The following day is when everybody goes mad with coloured powders and water. Normal boundaries are disregarded with the police turning a blind eye to things. Everybody and everything is fair game for full on colour bomb explosions…that includes the cows and dogs too.

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From the Raj to the Taj

So we headed to our most northerly point in India, Amritsar, close to the border with Pakistan. What a contrast compared to Varanasi, it couldn’t have been more different. We stayed in a lovely homestay on the outskirts of the city. The landlady was a typical proud Indian mother, who after enquiring what our jobs were she then proceeded to spend the next 20 minutes describing in quite some detail how successful her own children were. Once we admired their photos on her wall, we were released to relax and settle in….

Mishaps in Madurai. Death in Varanasi.

So we travelled onwards through Trichy, a small Tamil city. The highlight being Rock Fort Temple and rather impressive Ranganathaswamy temple. We soaked up the sights in two dust filled days before heading southwards to Madurai, our last destination in Tamil Nadu. We booked a driver through our hotel to take us on the two hour drive to Madurai.

Our passage through India…

Our passage through India!

Following a quiet month of rest and recovery in Thailand, Simon’s elbow is now well on the mend and we’ve finally made it to India. Wow! What a place India is, a vibrant riot of colour, smells, sounds (mainly horns) and noisy yet smiling people. Our first port of call on the sub continent was Chennai (or Madras if you’re old school). We were pleasantly surprised…

Southbound on the Reunification Express

So, we left Hanoi by train for our first leg of the Reunification Express that runs from Hanoi all the way to HCMC. Calling it ‘Express’ is a bit of a stretch as it takes 3 days! Our first leg is overnight from Hanoi to Dong Hoi, departing at 9pm and arriving at 7am….

Greetings comrades

We’ve landed in Hanoi and what a place! We came back somewhat apprehensively to Vietnam. Our previous experience here was 3 nights in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), looking back we spent most of those days struggling to navigate through millions of motorbikes …..

The road to Mandalay

So we survived the overnight bus to Bagan, although when we arrived at a bus station in the outskirts of town at 6AM it didn’t feel such a good idea…