Frank and Robyn visit India in 2019

Another early start and we are driven to Kathgodam railway station for our trip back to Delhi via Indian railways. We were dumped rather unceremoniously into our fairly rough home for the next 7 hours. Thank goodness we had something to watch on the laptop to make the journey nearly tolerable.I ate a reasonable vegetarian curry en route, served by the lunch-wallah who made his way down the carriage. Delhi station was chaotic with crowds pushing onto the train before it had barely stopped-with the help of a couple of 20kg rolling cases they went down like ten pins. The rep from the company was there and was insistent to make our last remaining hours in India as pleasant as possible, as the last few days had been a bit of a balls up. He took us to various shops so we could buy some souvenirs(whisky) and delivered us to a very luxurious hotel to freshen up prior to flight. He then took us out to a fancy pants restaurant at the company's expense . A good time was had by...

Today is the festival of Holi where we celebrate the victory of goodness and niceness over the forces of badness and nastiness; and what better way of celebrating this than anointing each other with coloured stuff (and other stuff it turn out). After breakfast we walk up coronary hill and then on to the next village where celebrations are well underway, We wait in trepidation on the roof of a village house as random characters appear to smear coloured powder on our faces and then the raucous boys arrive(perhaps representing the forces of badness) and they have a rather amusing variation on the colour thing- they have buckets of mud and cow dung which they are happy to share around; they all seem to be under the influence of intoxicating substances but their general demeanour is very good natured. We return to the smokehouse via coronary hill and remove the detritus of holi, lunch and then up coronary hill for the 3 hour de...

Our frustration with our "guide" means we have a shorter walk to a local temple. We receive a phone call en route from our Australian travel agent who is horrified by our disgruntlement. Of course we have to walk up coronary hill, past the usual piles of rubbish and then off to the jolly temple which has some stunning views and piles of rubbish. We spend the rest of the day in quiet contemplation.

Breakfast and then a trudge up coronary hill and a 30 minute drive to the start of our walk. Stunning scenery but minimal explanation from our "guide". It is good to know that no matter where you go, however remote, you will never be very far away from crisp packets and lolly wrappers. We arrive at a temple complex but significance eludes us, but we work out that structures are anywhere between 8th to 18th century. The lack of any explanation is really starting to piss us off. Is that a lingam in your pocket or are you just glad to see me We are taken to a grassy knoll for a picnic lunch of European style food which turns out to be surprisingly delicious. We spend the evening talking to a couple of somewhat lapsed Jains who are very happy to drink my whisky despite alcohol being forbidden by their religion-a very good night.