Dear everyone,

At the moment we are in Ahmedabad in Gujarat, to the north-west. Its really busy here and so noisy and the traffic is as mad as ever, but to make up for it we're in a nice hotel!

We had a really nice time in Goa, meeting up with Jamie and Ruben in Palolem and also Justine and Andy, so it was a little reunion! There were a few allnight bars but we mainly just chilled and soaked up the sun. Time passed so quickly and we ended up staying there for a week, then we moved on to Arambol. Arambol is meant to be where the old hippy scene is where all the old time hippys go to re-live their youth. We certainly saw some of this malarkey, a lot of people there were quite old but there was definitely a little 'scene' there. Most nights there were live music performances on the beach or in a bar and we saw a few. The first one we went to was on the beach and we just stumbled across it. There were a load of middle-aged people swinging their arms and heads around and trying to get in the middle of the dancing circle… it was really strange! We are pretty sure that most of them were on something because they were all in their own little worlds. Just before we left we heard this one womens voice above the rest saying 'If youre English and ya know it clap yer hands' we were thinking Okayyyy time to leave!

We had another nice beach-hut though and it was a nice place to recouperate and recover from being ill the previous week, we think it was some dodgy fish.

We got stuck in Arambol for a week though because the train to Mumbai was fully booked. When we did finally leave though we had to get a 12 hour train (long-ting!). At the station we met this guy who actually made our night. Kate has read this book Shantaram and I am nearly finished it and it's the book that every traveler is reading over here! It's about a man (Gregory David Roberts) who escaped from prison in Australia and came to Mumbai to live in the slums (he had no money and no visa) but then joined the mafia …. Etc the story goes on andits meant to be true. So anyway this man we met, Amir, told us his story of how he left Iran in his teens because he didn't want to fight in the war against Iraq and rode through the desert into India. He then lived in Mumbai for a few years before going to Canada to seek asylum where he now lives and has a family. So we asked him if he had read 'Shantaram', he had never heard of it but he had lived in Mumbai around the same time as the author. So we decided to see if the characters in the book were true and asked Amir if he knew them. It turned out he knew many of the people including the main mafia don and the places in Mumbai where the bok was set. It was so funny! We couldn't believe Amir's story. He then told us how he had to get a fake passport (by the name of James Brown lol) to get on the plane to Canadaand that was tense! So that took up a lot of the train time and he had also brought some wine which he shared with us and so we had a really good sleep the whole way!

Mumbai itself was a great place. There was a greatWe were quite apprehensive about it but we really like the city. We saw the modern parts of Colaba, the beach at Chowpatty and the slummy parts near the airports too. We stayed in the salvation army which was an experience in itself (just see the photos) but we met some nice people there.

Next stop were the Ajanta caves which are old Buddhest caves. Now we are in Ahmedebad and did a guide yesterday with the most annoying man on earth. Firstly he tried to convert us to being vegetarianism (this is fair enough as it probably is much healthier). Then when he was showing us around some of the temples his descriptions and explanations consisted of 'this is the backside' and this stone has a different carving on it'. We were getting so annoyed and whenever we asked him what something meant he just nodded his head and smiled. He took us to his sisters house to have lunch so we had some nice Gujarati food but the women was obviously annoyed that we were there. Kate was more patient with him and so had to suffer half an hour of him showing her postcards and text messages from different tourists who he had shown around. WE DIDN'T CARE! Some of the postcards never even had stamps on for goodness sake. We thaught we were rid of him but then at 10 oclock at night he knocked on our door (he works at the hotel) and told us he had bought us a gift. We wanted to say f*** off but being the nice people that we were let him give us the presents which was a keyring and a pair of earings for kate. Then he wasn't getting the hint to leave even though I was huffing and puffing as much as possible. He had one foot out the door, turned around and said 'I just discuss with you yes..?' I was like NO 'he said 2 seconds and then put me on the phone to an Italian girl he had shown round before, she was as confused as I was. I told him that was great but we still didn't want to go on another tour and eventually he left. I've never wanted to hit someone so much! Anyway that's about the most that's happened in Ahmadabad and we are quite looking forward to leaving!

We just heard about Camden burning or something, what's going on with that..??

Hope everyone is well and the weathers not too bad, I heard it's been brightening up a bit..? Lots of love to everyone, sorry if this message sounds like a rant!

Katie and Kate xxxxxxxx