More photos of Bandavghar and Tiger Den

I've put some more photos from Bandavghar and Tiger Den online this week. You can see them if you click here

It is such a fantastic place. Now it's all cold and horrible in London, it really makes you think how great it was to be looking for tigers every day...

Nature Safari Tours

We just wanted to say how good Sharad, Yogesh and the team were to us while we were in India. I promised I'd put up a link here to their website.

So go there and book a holiday!

Link to more of our tiger photos

I've put a page together with 20 odd of our tiger photos in one place.

Sunset in Goa

Finally for now, Goa is on the Arabian Sea, and of course all the beaches face West, which means great sunsets. Here's one from while we were there.

More wildlife in Bandavghar

Photos of tigers at Bandavghar

More photos

We're home!

We got home last night. So much to write about. Highlights:
- 2 overnight trains, to and from Bandavghar
- Tiger Den, the wonderful people there, and the tigers! Bandavghar is amazing, full of wildlife and very, very beautiful
- The fabulous resort in Goa, the warm Arabian Sea and New Year's Eve on the beach (again)

Anyway, we will catch up on the detail of all this during the coming week, but for now I'm going to post a few photos to give you a flavour of what we saw and did.

Jaipur

A full day touring Jaipur and Amber with Himanshu, the most excellent guide and friend to royalty. We had a terrific day out.

First we went to the Observatory, which was built in the 1730s so the Maharajah could do very accurate horoscopes. The sundial (the biggest in the World at 27 metres) is accurate to 20 seconds. Lots of really cool structures help keep track of the Sun, stars, planets and all things astrological.

Then on to the City Palace, home of the present Maharajah of Jaipur, and some interesting collections of weapons (for the boys) and sparkly robes (for the girls). We had our pictures taken with the biggest silver objects in the World - 2 enormous water carriers.

Then on to the highlight of the day: the elephant ride and tour of Amber Fort. Our elephant was called Emily, and she was the fastest elephant in Jaipur, if not Rajasthan. The fort is enormous and very impressive.

After a good lunch (dal, tandoori potato, rice & roti, with beer) we went on to a textile & carpet shop. Sue tried on a sari, which looked lovely but was the wrong size.

Then back to the hotel for more beer and a very odd dinner: we sat down on our own in the dining room @ the hotel. 20 minutes later we were surrounded by 200 Chinese tourists. Quite unexpected!

Agra - Taj Mahal has been spotted

A lot of news, and no time, so it'll all have to wait, but we've been on fantastic tours in Jaipur and Agra, and done 2 trips round an incredible bird sanctuary called Keolodeo. The hotel in Bharatpur (called the Bhaj) was one of the best I've ever stayed in, made even more interesting by Sue and I being the only guests that night.

And today we saw the Taj Mahal for the first time. Absolutely amazing. Half day tour to see it properly in the morning, then off on a train to Bandahvgar, for some serious tiger spotting over Christmas.

More news and photos soon.

M

Update from Jaipur, Tuesday morning

Sunday
The flight from Bahrain made an extra stop in Muscat, which was most educational, but did stop us sleeping at all as we had to keep an eye on the luggage... Anyway, Muscat looks very interesting!

When we got to Delhi the first thing we noticed was how foggy it was. Later we discovered this is part winter fog, part smog. Lots of cars, factories and open fires here.

The second thing we noticed was that the escalator at the airport had a long list of rules posted at the top of it; 10 in all. No time to read them so we hope we didn't do anything wrong. Customs only had 5 rules, which made me wonder if using an escalator was harder or easier than going through Customs.

We met up with our rep, the very friendly Yogesh and our driver Ratan, and started off from the airport to the hotel. On the way we saw our first elephant being used to transport some hay. Very exciting. The hotel was very impressive, and we checked in and decided to have a sleep till lunchtime. Our first tour in Delhi took in the Red Fort and the biggest mosque in India, and a ride on a cycle rickshaw. Photography at the mosque cost 150 rupees and after seeing the results I want a refund! The chaos of Delhi's roads and pavements, especially in Old Delhi, is really quite hard to convey. Bustling, but not scary like some places can be. We saw a lot of motorbikes with multiple children on them. They'd probably send you straight to jail for doing that in the UK, but here it seems quite normal.

After the tour, it was back to the hotel, out for dinner (over-ordered various chicken curried, all lovely) and then slipping into a 10 hour coma.

Monday
After a sleep in that we'd really earned on the way over, we went down for an excellent breakfast in the hotel. Slightly odd was the banana and orange jam, but I'm sure we'll see stranger things.

We then went out on an all day tour with Ratan and Dolly, our guide to Delhi. I'm going to be rubbish at the names for places we visited, but we saw a burial mounument very like the Taj Mahal (l think you mean humayans tomb mark), which was beautiful, and a Hindu temple that had been turned into a mosque in the 17th Century, with an enornous minaret, and we visited the park which contains Mahatma Gandhi's cremation site. Dolly also took us to 2 retailers she knew whose products she highly recommended. We had a very good day, and got back to the hotel pretty tired. At the hotel we met the famous and handsome Mr Sharad Vats, owner of Nature Safaris, and mastermind of our itinerary. Dinner in the hotel, then the worst night's sleep because someone outside was giving a speech till 3 in the morning over a PA system.

Tuesday - Delhi to Jaipur
We got up really early and packed up for our long drive to Jaipur. The drive was 6.5 hours, the first 2 just to get out of Delhi, and confirmed that India has the maddest road system I've ever seen. The number of times you have to swerve round camels coming straight at you on the wrong side of the road, and the discovery that lorry drivers stop every now and again for a refreshing glass of whisky, it really was very exciting. Ratan did a great job, particularly with the choice of lunch venue. Very nice samosas, in a great place.

Rajasthan does seem very different from Delhi, and so far we like it a lot. The hotel is not as modern as the one in Delhi, but has more character, and the rooftop bar is excellent. Tomorrow brings an all day tour of Jaipur, which is going to be brilliant, and includes an elephant ride.

Assorted photos from Bahrain, Delhi and Jaipur

Bahrain status report

We've just taken off from Bahrain for the final flight to Delhi, via Muscat. We've downgraded from an A340 to a 767 but we'll be asleep soon so it's fine.

Bahrain would seem to be a crossroads for the region. From traditionally dressed Arabs to furtive clumps of Americans with tattoos and shaved heads, and a fair number of us tourists heading East.

The funniest thing was the Christmas retail experience, but you'll have to wait for the photos of that.

Next report will be from Delhi.

M&S