Happy as Guests at an Indian Wedding Some tips on what to do if you ever want to attend an Indian wedding: set off to do a day in the hills; see that your hair needs washing but decide you're too tired to bother; wear your shabbiest bush walking gear; make sure you're totally makeup and glamour free ... and then say ok to a random invitation from a handsome young boy who's walking down the street dressed in wedding finery. That should do it. At least it did for us today. It t

We took a long time arriving in The Valley of the Gods . The drive from Palampur to Mandi was stunning ... steep valleys plunging to glacier colored rivers, strewn with huge boulders; terraced emerald hillsides dotted with painted mud-brick houses resembling daubings from a Roy de Maistre palette; winding ribbons of road which offered unending surprises around each bend. The rambunctious township of Mandi was the halfway point and from there the road became almost impassable

The View from the Valley One of the many contradictions of India is that while its traffic scene is incredibly frantic, day to day life actually moves at a very leisurely pace. And so it is for us. We've mastered the ability to drift ... to forget about planning for the day and to allow it to unfold in all of its unexpected and intriguing ways. Not once have we been bored; not once have we been disappointed; not once have we wished we were anywhere but where we are. Living i

At Mussoorie I saw them today ... truly l did! The snow covered peaks of the distant Himalayan mountain range. They stood tall and white behind the closer brown mountain peaks which surround this village. I'll confess that a squeak of joy escaped from me as l realised what l was seeing; something I'd never expected to experience. The fact that they were distant and partly obliterated by the days gathering smoke haze didn't in the least diminish my elation. But it's probably b

You see it first from the air as you fly low into Dehradun airport ... hundreds of coloured specs of varying hues, scattered in a random pattern across the green fields. They're houses and they make a brilliant contrast to the decaying brown and grey tones of the ones seen in Kolkata. As l disembarked the scene was of the Himalayan foothills which surround Dehradun, the suns glow low in the sky behind them. What a perfect and peaceful way to be introduced to this mountain ar

At a glance she seemed to be 5 or 6 years old. Wearing a brightly patterned dress and sleeping peacefully on the makeshift, cloth bed in a corner of the airport car park, her small legs were casually crossed at the ankles, showing the pinkish soles of her bare feet. She was completely relaxed and oblivious to the surrounding 3am noises and passing traffic, confirming that this was a common rather than an exceptional occurrence for her. I wondered if her parents worked at the

Camping at Ningaloo Reef The colours of Ningaloo Reef defy description. From the moment you gaze on its myriad tones of blue you want nothing else but to immerse yourself in its warm waters. Exmouth is the only township with access to the northern parts of the reef and its prosperity depends on such a fortuitous location. For us there was a sense of anticipation as we drove towards this small seaside town, having endured ten long weeks without access to crocodile free salt wa

Expansive view of Dales Gorge at Karijini National Park The road from Broome to Karijini National Park is 1,000 kms of monotonous driving, punctuated only by the massive industrial exclamation mark of Port Hedland. The landscape after Broome changes quickly with the sharp edged, red cliffs of the Kimberley being left far behind to the northeast. The remaining journey south is flat and uninteresting until the rounded, purple red domes of the Pilbara finally erupt across the ho

Kununurra Wetlands at dusk It's a salty air I'm breathing now, so different from the dry, dusty atmosphere of Kununurra. We're on the Ningaloo Coast at Coral Bay, having travelled just half way through our trip. We've left the beguiling warm, red tones of the Kimberley and Pilbara far behind, replacing them with the cool palette of the Coral Coast and Ningaloo Reef. Despite the more temperate, pleasant weather I confess that I'm finding the transition from reds to blues, from

Lake Argyle (Western Australia) Lake Argyle is a vast body of water created, in the early 1970s, by damming the Ord River upstream of Kununurra. Its pinkish red cliffs glow as they drop into the deep sea of blue below, but there's something sterile and eerie about this landscape - unnaturally devoid of life except for the ceaseless throbbing of the frantically busy caravan park on its shores. The latter is testimony to great foresight and marketing and is an oasis for the ho

Setting off in the Campervan feeling invincible After a lifetime of camping and exploring Australia’s coastal fringes we thought it time to use our retirement years to explore The Outback. So we purchased a brand new VW Campervan, completely fitted out with a bed, basic kitchen and poptop roof to allow indoor headroom. To that we added a retractable awning plus the optional addition of a shadecloth side wall, when the the weather dictated. What a setup it was after 30 years o