What a great start to my journey, the first week has been fantastic.  I met up with the team on Monday morning at 10am who are all really cool.  There are 9 of us in all - Martin (Irish) and Clare (English) who are the leader and co-driver, the passengers are Joanna (English), Michael (Austrian), Valery (American), Dave (American), Leslie and Bryan (a Canadian couple) and me.  The truck can seat about 24 so we have plenty of room to spread out which is nice.  Joanna and Valery are the only people continuing after Delhi back to the UK and Clare will be leaving us in Mumbai, so we will hopefully get some more people join us in Delhi for the second leg.

We all get on really well and are having a lot of fun together.  After we had our inital meeting we had the rest of the day and night in Kathmandu and then were leaving the following morning.  Me, Michael, Dave and Joanna shared a taxi to Pashupatinath which is where all the cremations take place using the ghats on the side of the river.  We then walked to a large Stupa (type of temple) where we could see the Hymalayas from the roof.  From there we got another taxi to Patan and had a tour around Durbar square which was very interesting.

We went to a nice restaurant for lunch were they have a roof garden with great views of the rooftops of Kathmandu and the Hymalayas in the background. We had Dal (lentil soup), vegetable curry and rice, along with bread, usually chipati.  This is pretty much the staple diet in India and Nepal and will be my main sustenance while I am here.  Good job I like it.  We all met up again at 6 and went out for a meal and then to Sam's bar in Thamel (which I can recomend to anybody who goes to Kathmandu).  We had a great night and all got a bit drunk which was a good way to break the ice and kick start the trip.

We left the following morning with hangoves and drove to Sauraha which is the main town for access to the Royal Chitwan National Park.  The journey should have taken about 5 hours, but because of the trouble in Nepal with the Moaists there were several road blocks and security checkpoints to get through, 1 of which we were stuck at for over 4 hours!  It took us 14 hours to cover less than 200km.  The roads were also very rough in places, one stretch went on for 40km that was just made out of gravel and had huge potholes everywhere, so it was a bit of a rough ride!  On the way we also passed about 15 burnt out trucks which were still smouldering and later read in a newspaper that the Moaists had shot out the tyres and set them on fire to disrupt industry.  Inside the trucks there were over 60 water buffalo, which all died.  In addition they also opened fire on a military vehicle, but missed and hit a bus killing one and injuring 7, so we were very lucky to get through.

The Rhino Lodge in Sauraha was stunning, it was a really nice safari lodge on the banks of the river with the National Park on the other side.  We got up very early and took dugout canoes up the river and went trekking through the jungle where we saw crocodiles and monkeys up close.  When we got back to the lodge we went to see 2 elephants who we were then allowed to ride bare back into the river and wash them, it was so much fun as the elephants kept throwing us off into the river.  In the evening we took an elephant safari through the park, there were 4 of us on each elephant and we managed to get up really close to Rhino's (about 3 feet away).  Rhino's can hardly see, so they just think that there are elephants and do not move.  In the evening we had the Thari tribe come to the lodge and perform there local dances for us.

On the Thursday we had to drive to India - yippee.  The journey is for 204km, but because of the troubles it took us another 14 hours.  The roads were better and the sceney was stunning, but it was quite dangerous.  We got stopped in one small town for 3 hours and about a mile away you could here explosions and a gun battle and thee were helicopters flying off into the jungle firing into the trees.  About 10 minutes after the shootout stopped we were allowed to continue along the road straight through where they had just been shooting and along the road there were about 100 troops marching back to the town, so that was a bit worrying, but we made it to the Indian border at about 8pm and it was a very simple process to get another stamp in the passport.

Nepal was great, the scenery is stunning and the people are the friendliest I have come accross, which is especially surprising and nice as it is also one of the poorest countries in the world, the average income is only about 240US$ per year, so the poverty, especially in parts of Kathmandu is shockingly bad.

We crossed into India at about 9 after we had a final Nepalese meal at the border.  We drove for about 30 mins and then did our first bush camp, this is where we just pull off the road and pitch the tents on a piece of grass for the night, usually we would cook a meal and sit around having a few beers and a laugh, but we were all so knackered that we just put the tents up and hit the sack, especially as we had to be up at 5:30 in the morning for the long drive to Varanasi.

We all did not sleep that well as in India a lot of the temples play extremely loud music during the night to please the gods, it is so loud that it sounded as though you were in a disco, but the temple was about 500metres away!  Sleeping in India is going to take some getting used too I think.  We set off at about 6.30 and drove down to Varanasi which is the holiest town in India for Hindi people to come.  A lot of people come here to die and be cremated on the side of the Ganges.  The dead people are dipped into the river and then put in the middle of a lot of wood, a bit like a bonfire and then burnt and the ashes are swept into the river.

We had an early start on Saturday, up before dawn to go on a boat trip down the Ganges river to see the cremations, and just down stream from those all of the people washing themselves in the holy river, which is so dirty it is amazing.  It was stunning as we saw the sunrise and then the sun light up all the buildings, so I have a lot of pictures to put onto the site when I get back.  We then took a tour around Varanasi and saw some of the temples.  In the afternon we went to a silk emporium as Varanasi is very famous for making silk for sari's, bed covers, scalves and table clothes etc...  We had a demonstration of the different items and was shown how they were made which was very interesting. The items were beautiful and a lot cheaper than you would find anywhere else.

Well, sorry I drag on a bit, but am trying to get everyhing in.  I will try to put another post up during the week.