Addis Ababa. 'New Flower'. Makes one visualise expansive green parks, shrubbery, lush grass, leafy sidewalks and a profusion of colours and scents. The reality? A smoke-filled, traffic-choked, sprawling, non-descript grey twentieth century city which sadly lacks basic sanitation and is in the process of a building boom. Roads half-laid, buildings half-built, a half-baked city which doesn't ever feel like being the finished article. Has a city ever been more inapp...

Since I last wrote, I've been mountain biking to the Czech Republic, to get a bit of exercise and fresh air before school sets in for the winter. It was a lovely trip, and I managed to sqeeze in about 450km in 9 and a bit days, in the Czesky Raj and Ardspach-Teplice areas of northern Bohemia. I thought I'd go back to the India trip though and finish writing about it, since I've got a couple of days before school starts. I got to Shimla last time - we were there ...

We took a bus from Agra to Jaipur, this one 'delux' and about twice the price. This executive decision had been made following our previous bus journey, Delhi to Agra. It had been a sweaty, bumpy, noisy, cramped, painfully slow, nerve-jangling experience which made me hate life more than I ever have. When we arrived I would have jumped for joy and kissed the ground if I hadn't been trying to get away from Rickshaw drivers the moment I left the bus. (Don't know wh...

Well everything so far has gone pretty smoothly. I say so touching every piece of wood available of course, considering the things that could have gone very far from smoothly so far. We started the trip on Friday - an express train to Warsaw and a taxi to the Indian consulate to pick up the passports and visas in the generous window alloted between 4.30 and 5pm. I'd been sweating a bit that we wouldn't be granted them for some reason but we were swiftly in and ou...

We're up to Wednesday so far and still no sign of the so-called monsoon. I've seen a few fields with puddles scattered around them, but no evidence of any widespread flooding. Must have happened somewhere else. Apart from the first morning, weather's been hot and humid, but dry in terms of rain. Which is nice. Anyway, we took the opportunity to explore Delhi on day two, having acclimatised and found our Indian feet a bit. Not least working out how much taxi an...