Haridwar, Rishikesh & Varanasi, India...

From Amritsar we took an overnight train to the holy city of Haridwar, as usual accompanied by the little idiosyncrasies of Indian train journeys - like men sleeping on the floor/end of your bed and beggars at the windows. It's usually at about 5am that you get a visit from the eunuchs. Eunuchs are men who have been castrated (either as a child, so their families can make money) or by their own choice as an adult. They dress up as women in sarees (not very convincing as they're usually sporting stubble) and come round the carriages with their masters clapping very loudly and demanding money to make them go away. They always get it too. In Hinduism eunuchs are very bad luck. They'll often gatecrash weddings, dancing about and making a general nuisance of themselves until the families pay up to get rid of them so as not to curse the new couple. Luckily, they leave us Westerners alone, as they know we don't believe it.

So we pulled up in Haridwar, currently the site of the biggest religious festival in the world, the Kumbh Mela. It happens only every 12 years, when Sadhus (holy men who have abandoned their homes, families, possessions, everything, to wander India on a spiritual quest) descend upon Haridwar, and 3 other cities in India in their millions. It was very strange to see hundreds of similarly dishevelled, bearded men, sometimes naked, but more often in orange robes, wandering the city and its makeshift camps, collecting alms (and in the case of one chap, absolutely out of it on opium. Spiritual indeed).

The same day we pressed on to our final destination, Rishikesh, catching a rickshaw to the nearby bus station and then picking up a bus for the 30km to Rishikesh City, before taking a final rickshaw to Laxman Jhula, a beautiful town in the mountains, known for its hanging bridge and Hindu temples overlooking the beautifully blue Ganges river, which up there in the mountains is sparkling clean. We spent the next few blissful days wandering through the sandalwood incense-scented streets, where meditative Hindu music fills the air, shopping for trinkets in the Tibetan market and lounging at the Ganga beach cafe, sipping ayurvedic tea and gazing out at pilgrims taking dips in the holy waters.

Rishikesh is also known as the Yoga capital of the world, with more ashrams than you can shake an incense stick at, so we took our own pilgrimage to the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, where the Beatles once stayed and wrote the White Album. The ashram has long since been abandoned (the Maharishi moved to Switzerland before he died). The Beatles eventually became disillusioned with stories of him being a little over-friendly with young devotees (John Lennon later sang 'you made a fool out of all of us,') but it wasn't hard to see the appeal of the place. Set right on the banks of the river, the once grand building with its winding lanes through (now overgrown) gardens and forest, dotted with meditation cells and lecture halls must have been a very peaceful and pleasant place to be.

We also visited the Saint Sewa ashram to take yoga lessons, but most enjoyable of all waere the meditation classes. Led by a young Indian man who clearly felt a deep, genuine peacefulness he encouraged us to ask questions at the end of the session and patiently (long after the class had ended) told us all about how Sadhana (the quest for enlightenment through yoga and meditation) had changed his life for the better, explaining that he no longer felt any anger or envy towards others, and that it could be achieved by anyone, without a guru, no matter what religion or age they are, all the while maintaining a normal domestic life and work. And although I'm sure I was having a crazy moment, he seemed to keep answering the questions that I had in my head, just as I was about to ask them! Anyway, I've vowed to practice yoga once a week and make time for 15 minutes of meditation a day, and am reading some books on the subject by a famous Indian spiritual man named Osho. So hopefully a little of our teacher's contentedness will rub off on me.

All too soon it was time to leave the peace of Rishikesh (peacefulness in India is a very, very rare thing) and head for Varanasi, the oldest and holiest city in India. It didn't start off too well, stepping off the train still half asleep we were in the midst of a crowd of rickshaw touts clamouring for our business when I fell off a high curb, twisting my ankle, and my enormous backpack came crashing down on top of me. Then, typically, it took an age to find a bed in the intense heat and tiny, windy backstreets of the old city. But finally we dumped our bags at Eden Halt guesthouse on the banks of the (now very dirty un-blue) Ganges at Raja Ghat.

The room was very basic but fine, apart from the fact that it came with approximately 1 billion mosquitoes. But as we soon found out, there is absolutely no escaping the bugs, flies, mozzies, etc etc in Varanasi. They are everywhere. Probably because of the stillness of the Ganges here and also the many piles of litter and rubbish (and enormous cows and endless stray dogs) that line the old windy alleyways. That night we went to Dharawasmedth ghat to watch the nightly 'puja' ceremony where hundreds of Indian pilgrims place offerings of flowers and candles into the Ganges, along with lots of singing and dancing.

The following morning we rose at 4am to head down to the ghats to take a dawn boat ride, the quintessential Varanasi experience. We soon found a boatman who rowed us on his little boat all along the many ghats, including the main ghats where hundreds upon hundreds of Hindus come to wash, or take a sacred dip in the morning. It's a very, very surreal experience. Watching the women wading into the filthy river (right by the corpse of a dog), praying and then managing to wash themselves in their sarees (bearing in mind a saree is made up of a very tight cropped blouse called a choli, and 6 metres of fabric that is wrapped around them without any fastenings, and that of course they can't at any point be indecent). And the crazy thing is that these women wash this way every morning, and go to the washing ghats to scrub and thrash their clothes against the rocks, and then lay them out to dry on the cracked, dusty land, and yet somehow they always manage to look clean and elegant. It's nothing short of a miracle. Anyway, our boat guide showed us the grand buildings on the banks owned by Maharajas (who will come here to be cremated when they die) and the place where the father of legendary Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan was recently cremated, as well as Nepali and Shiva temples and more. And then it was time to visit Manikarnika, aka the major 'burning' ghat.

A guide from a 'home' by the ghat where the poor and destitute come to die (hoping to be cremated here and thus released from the endless cycle of resurrections) showed us around the rather spooky set up. (At one point a big puff of ash went into the air and landed in our hair, ugh!) Huge bundles of wood (banyan is the cheapest, and sandalwood the most expensive) are bought by the families, 85kg is enough to burn the average body, and the body is placed within it with all their clothes and most sacred possessions, so that their soul can be released from their body. The only exceptions to this, as our guide and later our boatman explained to us, are children. As their skin is deemed too soft and sacred to be burnt, they are simply wrapped in string and their bodies dropped into the lake. It's the same for lepers, as it is believed they will be reborn without leprosy. Sadhus too, go into the river whole as this is the most holy state. Strangest of all are people who have been bitten by a cobra. For some reason that I couldn't quite fathom, their bodies are placed on banana leaves and floated down the river Ganges.

And still, despite bodies melting into the water right there, a young man was in the water, scrubbing himself clean with soap. I asked our boatman if he ever washed in the water and he said 'Yes of course, and I will drink it sometimes if I get thirsty.' Water that is safe for bathing should have less than 500 faecal coliform bacteria in every one litre of water. Samples from the Ganges have shown 1.5 million, thanks to all the untreated sewage, dogs, bodies and such in the water. Finally, I asked him if he minded swimming when it was so dirty. And I will never forget his reply, 'Oh no, the Ganges is holy! And anyway, someone comes along after puja every night to clean up all the flowers.' Bless.

Delhi, Amritsar & Attari, India...

After the Taj we headed North to spend a few days in Delhi, staying in the scruffy but backpacker-friendly Paharganj area of the city, in Hotel Rak International. Sounds kind of posh... the reality was 10 million gnats living in the bathroom, but other than that not bad! My first impressions of Delhi were that in comparison with Rajasthan and Agra the wide-avenues of the city seemed very clean (and even a little bit green). Our taxi driver said this was because of the upcoming Commonwealth Games. Anyway, Delhi for us was really just a jumping off point to head into the Punjab, but we had a fun few days eating the legendary Delhi food (no, it's not legendary because of Delhi belly) and shopping in Connaught Place, Palika Bazaar and the Tibetan Market on Janpath. I've been really impressed with the religious openness of the Indian people, and we got a great example of that in Delhi. We got chatting to a Hindu optometrist while I was buying contact lenses, and he was thrilled that we were going to visit Amritsar and told us how wonderful and relaxing the (Sikh) Golden Temple is.

Soon it was time to head to Amritsar, very close to the Pakistan border in the Punjab. We took our first 'Chair Car' train seat (instead of an overnight flat bed) for the 7 hour journey, which gave us quite the insight into the scrum it is to get onto an Indian train. This being India, the seat numbers were written above the chairs with marker pen, which in the main had been completely rubbed off and were now illegible, leading to lots of fuss, pushing and shoving and confusion over whose seat was whose. Of course, as soon as everyone was happily seated everyone became their usual delightful, polite, selves. I've been reading a great book about India called Shantaram which describes a very similar situation and he explains it like this, 'I knew the scrambled fighting and the courteous deference following it were both expressions of the one philosophy: What is necessary? That is the unspoken but implied and unavoidable questions everywhere in India.' Which makes sense to me, in a country where daily life can be a struggle that people deal with admirably well. And so we shared our food with the women and children on the train and had pleasant chats in broken English with them until our arrival in the cold, rainy North. We then took a cyclo to the appropriately named Tourist Guesthouse and enjoyed a hot shower and thali before bed.

The next morning we headed to the Golden Temple of Amritsar, also known as the holiest Sikh shrine in the world. A visit there for Sikhs's is the equivalent of the pilgrimage to Mecca for Muslims. To enter you must remove your shoes and cover your head, and then wash your feet in a shallow trough outside the temple (even the foot water is deemed holy, I saw plenty of Sikh's touching it to their heads and mouths!) all of which is presided over by Khalsa guards in brightly coloured turbans holding spears outside and inside the temple. Glittering in the sunshine, the gold plated Gurdwara, surrounded by a huge tank of water full of coi, with the sounds of priests chanting broadcast from inside the temple, is simply breathtaking, and a heavenly place to quietly wander around, or sit cross legged on the Parkarma watching pilgrims bathing and praying or quietly contemplating. The temple seems to reflect what I've learnt about Sikhs as peaceful, level headed, friendly and generous types. Refreshingly, Sikhism is based on equality, and Guru Nanak's level-headed, practical philosophies such as, 'A person who makes an honest living and shares his earnings with others recognises the way to god,' strike a real chord with me. As we stood outside afterwards a kind old man came over to hand us oranges, and when I tried to give him a few rupees he simply walked away. That's the first person in India who has ever refused our money (understandably), and we were touched by his gesture.

We then bought traditional steel karra bracelets for 10 rupees (they symbolise 'fearlessness,' something you certainly need on those Indian roads) and waited for our previously arranged jeep to pick us up and take us to Attari/Wagah, the site of the India/Pakistan border. We were driven by the wonderful Upal, who also gave us oranges and hugs, teased us mercilessly and wedged four of us into the front seat, with the gearstick between one poor chap's legs.

Every night just before sunset there is an elaborate border-closing ceremony of pure theatre. Lonely Planet calls it, 'a fusion of orderly colonial-style pomp, comical goosestepping (recalling Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks sketch) and, considering the two countries' rocky relationship, a stunning demonstration in harmony.' It was fascinating, sitting on the Indian side listening to the frenzied cries from the electric, flag-waving crowd of 'Hindustan! Zindabad!' (Long live India) and looking over to the Pakistani side (where the crowd were noticeably separated into men and women, and wearing much less in the way of bright colours) to watch the guards clad in black stomping their feet and yelling 'Jia Jia Pakistan!' At the end of it all the guards shake hands and slam the gate shut for the night.

Agra, India...

Now where was I? Ah yes, Agra. Despite plenty of reports from fellow travellers that Agra was an awful city, and that a lot of people take a day trip there from Delhi rather than stay, we hopped on the train at Udaipur and headed to Agra. Four hours later, and after a rather confused journey - we bought a 'general' ticket which means you have to stand in what can only be described as chicken coops at the back of the train or pay for an upgrade once you're on board. We decided against paying the 300 rupees, feigning foreign confusion and carriage-hopping for most of the ride - until we rolled up to the Siddartha Hotel in Taj Ganj.

Taj Ganj has no luxury hotels, so is packed with fellow budget travellers and locals, and despite not being the prettiest place in the world, it's a good spot for enjoying a banana lassi at one of many rooftop bars and restaurants, and watching the sun go down behind the Taj, which was just a one-minute walk away from our front door. There's also an added benefit of staying so close to the building itself. Since the Taj got a beauty treatment in 2002 (it was cleansed with a traditional Indian beauty wash of soil, cereal milk and lime to clear away pollution), no polluting vehicles, or even cigarettes, have been allowed within 100 metres of it, making the air just that little bit cleaner than we've become used to in India.

And so we dragged ourselves up at 5am the next morning to head to the Taj for sunrise, and before the train-loads of tourists arrive from the 4-hour Taj Express train from Delhi. The milky white, turreted building, which Rudyard Kipling once described as 'the embodiment of all things pure,' looked just like a painting; and bathed in the misty morning light, really is just as breathtaking as you imagine it to be. The Taj was built by Shan Jahan in 1631 as a memorial to his wife Mumtaz Mahal who died during the birth of her 14th child, but shortly after it's completion Shan was overthrown by his son Aurangzeb and imprisoned in Agra Fort where he remained until he died, able only to look out the window at his beloved Taj. Nice son!

Anyway, we spent a lovely reflective hour wandering around the immaculate grounds and watching the colours and shadows on the beautiful marble building change as the sun rose, meanwhile Danny made friends with an Indian university professor who kindly invited us to lunch with him and his family. It wasn't the first or the last time. We've found the Indian people to be entirely friendly and fascinated by us, and apart from the intense staring (which you come to realise has no malice in it and is just their way of expressing intrigue) it's rather nice. Everywhere we go we're greeted with smiles and waves (it's a little bit like being a celebrity, which obviously we know all about) and asked by children, old men, shy groups of mothers in sarees and internet-cafe owning couples, 'What is your country?' and 'What do you think of India?' and it usually escalates into a long chat about where we are going, where we've been, the differences between Indian and English culture, and plenty of shocked faces when we tell them we're not married!

After our quiet, meditative morning we changed into old clothes to head into Agra for anything but. Holi is the Hindu's most exuberant annual festival, when the streets are alive with pounding Hindu music and dancing, and awash with bright coloured powder dyes, thrown everywhere and at everyone who dares to venture out on the streets. During our day out we learnt the Holi etiquette: that you either bomb unsuspecting people in the street (which happened to me three times during a 30 minute cycle rickshaw journey and left me blowing pink snot out of my nose) or the more civilised option of asking if your companion would 'like to play Holi,' and then wiping rainbow colours along their forehead, nose and cheeks before hugging three times, and wishing eachother 'Happy Holi!' It's a lovely day that brings everyone together, we had hugs from old policemen to sweet school kids in the street and everyone in between... And then some drunken youth bombs you right in the eye and forces three sweaty hugs upon you. (Hindu's aren't normally permitted to drink or smoke cannabis or 'bhang' so they can get a wee bit overexcited). Still, you can't have it all!

It was while we were chatting to our friendly and dry-humoured guesthouse owner that he mentioned the Indian national news channel 'The Voice of India' would be filming on the hotel rooftop that morning (as it overlooks the Taj) and asked if we wanted to be on it. Seeing as we're already rather famous in India, we thought, why the hell not, and found ourselves an hour later on the roof in front of a film crew, being interviewed, dancing, shouting 'Happy Holi!' and throwing coloured powder at an American couple. We caught ourselves on TV later that day as one of the headlines... What can I say? A-list!

Jaipur, Jodphur & Udaipur, India...

After all our fame and frolicks in Mumbai it was time to head North to a place I've always wanted to visit (well, ever since Liz Hurley married Arun Nayar there in a big pink palace) so we caught a 22 hour train to the Pink City of Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, a.k.a. the land of the Rajput kings. Now Mumbai is congested but Jaipur is something else, with rampaging rickshaws, eye watering pollution and streets littered with cows and lots and lots of lots of rubbish. It's a shame because it detracts from the beautiful architecture in the city. Built around 1730 and painted entirely pink in 1876 by Maharaja Ram Singh to welcome the Prince of Wales, it's now a decadently decaying maze of bazaars, palaces, observatories and temples, topped off by Nahargarh, or Tiger Fort.

We spent our first night showering and sleeping off our train lag at the Krishna Palace hotel, before meeting up with a good friend of Danny's the next morning who has been travelling for the past three years. So after a reunion lunch over thali and sweet lassi the three of us set out to explore the city and it's bazaars - all packed with sparkling jewellery and saris, jootis, trinkets, perfumes and shawls, and stopping for frequent chai tea breaks when the hustle and bustle got too much. We watched the sunrise from the peace and quiet Tiger Fort, high above the city walls and pink rooftops, before heading to the Peacock Rooftop restaurant for more thali and Kingfisher beer. Little did I know India was going to make me fat, I've been here three weeks now and I just can't get enough of the food. And not even a hint of Delhi belly as yet... touch wood. TOUCH WOOD.

After Jaipur we took a white-knuckle bus journey to another Rajasthani landmark, the blue city of Jodphur (founded in 1439 by a Rajput chief), which by comparison made Jaipur look relaxed... Taking an autorickshaw up the tiny windy alleyways to the Navchokiya district is akin to a kamikaze mission, but the tangle of lanes which make up the beautiful old city of crumbling Brahmin-blue houses is worth every moment. Rather than battle our way back down to the central bazaars around the Clock Tower we whiled away the days wandering the medieval alleys and sitting on the roof terrace at the Cosy Guest House (we had 6 power cuts in two days and this was the only place with candles) drinking chai tea and gazing out at mighty Mehrangarh fort which towers over the city.

Our final stop in Rajasthan was the easy, laid back city of Udaipur (which had a lot more Western tourists than Jodphur), and is known as India's most romantic city. Framed by the Aravalli hills, Udaipur is dominated by the white City Palace which lines Lake Pichola, along with ghats where a rainbow of sparkly sari-clad women wash their clothes in the sunshine. Again, we spent a lot of our time on rooftops, drinking chai and watching the world go by, and it was on one of these days that we met an amazing tiny little and very well-groomed 75 year old lady who became a bit like my surrogate grandmother for a few days! She was from Toulouse in France, but living in Yemen (for some unexplained reason) and we had fascinating chats with her about her life and travels. She was travelling alone in India for two months. She even invited us to stay with her in Yemen. I said, 'I'm not sure we'd be safe in Yemen, would you look after us?' and she replied quite matter-of-factly 'No. But I think you'd be ok.' I don't think we'll take her up on that offer, but we have vowed to remain penpals from now on.

After that we headed to Agra in Uttar Pradesh to celebrate Holi festival and visit the Taj Mahal, and become even more famous, and I shall tell you all about that another day when I'm not in such an incredibly warm internet cafe... this is my only clean t-shirt. Until then!