Varanasi - well, firstly I must apologise to Themel and Kathmandu, where the hectic streets and hawkers are nothing compared to this mad house!

The Ganges; the great mother of India - Mum needs some new perfume for Divali.

People, cows, goats all live, eat and s**t together on the great ghats/steps that lead down into the Ganges and in the tiny maze of cobbled streets that make up the old town of the city.

This is the real thing, the real India; it's hot and it smells and it's dirty.

On first impression most seem rude and want to rob me.; boat ride sir, hand massage sir, shave sir, hash & opium sir! (that I have to say is a first!) But very quickly you grow used to the pissy smell whilst you're deciding what delight to eat and avoiding the dung on the ground in the streets and begin to take to the odd local as they ask where you're from and want to know how you ended up with your Indian wife, they want to tell you they have an uncle that owns a factory round the corner selling pants and silk scarf's which I must see because they all sell their tat to Harrods!

Varanasi is the Jerusalem of the Hindu world. All manner of people clamber into rowing boats to get a view of the prayers performed onshore - or to send away their prayers for their loved ones with candles that drift off with the hundreds of others into the darkness; bobbing chains of fairly lights with the current.

We hired a rowing boat at night to send away our own candles and once again were up at 5 to catch the sunrise on the great river; to glimpse the morning prayers and the many bathing away their sins or simply washing their dirty undies in the septic water.

There is a magic, almost voodoo quality of the funeral pyres on the main burning gnat. The wood is collected and weighed perfectly to ensure the exact cost is paid - the smoking reeds and rituals and the body wrapped in gold and silver fabrics carried in procession to the riverbank. The smoke from the bonfires fills the air whilst the goats, dogs, monkeys and of course the cows wander, forage and sleep.

This city has been the same for years; kids run past naked, the cricket games are played on the steps, the beggers beg and the holy men cast spells with their eyes.

In Nepal we laughed at the hippies that wear the locally made, ridiculous Ju-Jitsu pants and grubby smock like hemp outfits but something must happen to you after time (Sheena is turning her back on primarni and topshop and turning into one of those traveller types - in the last two days she has bought 2 pairs of baggy clown pants and several t-shirts - all bartered down to 10p a garment. (…and the strengtheners were sent home to make way for the unkempt matted dreads!)

I'm fighting off the urge to join in - is it really so uncool to wear a beaded necklace and platted bracelets?! Could traveller bohem be chic for SS10?

We got what we came for; a slice of real India - and amazing pictures of course! Now it's down south to the coast onto Pondicherry and the Ashram via a night in a cheap and very possibly nasty (Delhi) airport hotel - should be nice!