The over night train journey from Hospet to Bangalore was pretty uncomfortable albeit down to our own making. We had two side berths which during the day the lower berth converted to two single chairs opposite each other, then at night the backs fold down to make the lower bunk. One of us didn't fancy sleeping in the top bunk alone and so the two of us shoehorned ourselves into the bottom bunk and fidgeted for the next 8 hours, sleepless. Upon arrival at Bangalo...

Hospet is a 7 hour train journey from Vasco Da Gama, we shared the berth with another traveller and a Goan businessman. Janet and I spoke in hushed tones about the scenery and our plans for the next few days and our berth-buddies dozed. An hour in to the journey the Indian guy sits up and proclaims "I'm bored, where do you come from?" a great ice breaker, that got the ball rolling for a steady flow of interesting conversation for the next few hours. We got some g...

We have now been away for just over a month now and we're just waiting for things to slow down. Yes, we have had a lot of days cut short due to the weather but it's just so exciting being here and every venture out and feels like full on expedition. Thanks to everyone who has left us comments and messages, it really means so much to us and shame on all of you who haven't :-) We had a great time in south Goa, it was very much the plan to do almost nothing but sit...

Our first Goan sunset.We left the hotel around 17.30 and headed to down town Calangute which is a leisurely 30 minute stroll passed a variety of rag-tag shops, stalls and houses. Small clusters of cows amble down the road in their own good time, grazing on green plants at the roadside or on small piles of dumped rubbish.The hot, sunny day had and become a cloudy and muggy afternoon. We weren't especially hopeful for much of a sunset down at the beach. Town was b...

As we were checking out of the hotel in Pune, the staff presented Jan with a yellow rose, at which point she got all flustered and embarrassed and wanted to know why. I suspect it was because she always made an effort to talk to them and was genuinely interested in what they had to say. We said our goodbyes and White Christmas played through the lobby (a surreal feature of the hotel was their choice in piped music) and off we went to Pune station to catch our...