Last night we caught another overnight train. This one had a lot of sand in it. We caught it at 2300 and at 0030 it stopped. From then on we shared the sleeping car with lots of soldiers from the Indian Border Security Force. We are 250km, straight across the desert to Pakistan and it shows. Most were wearing full desert gear with antiquated rifles. At 0400 we stopped at Bikenir – our destination. It is much less touristy than we have seen previously. We are staying at a nice B and B out of town. Camels trot past pulling huge carts of just about everything.

Yesterday we went to the Rat Temple. It’s a temple and it does what is says on the tin. They are encouraged. Allegedly they are thought to be re-incarnated saints. Yeh right. They are ratty, smelly vermin. The place was a tourist circus. Patrice went in, I didn’t. Partly because I don’t like rats, partly because it was a tourist con. She came out with photos and wanted to wash.

We leave on the 19th of a long overnight and following day trip to the Himalaya. No paragliding for me this time. Hopefully the weather will hold out and we can get some hiking in.

We have spent over 85 hours on a train so far, 12 hours on a plane, 73 hours on a boat, 10 hours on a bus and 10 hours on a camel.

We are spending 30.50 pounds a day between us, not bad considering this is an all inclusive price and includes learning to dive at the start of the India leg.

We had originallyplanned to do another camel trip whist here but we are both tired and need a rest. That is the difference between long term travelling and being on a two week holiday, sometimes you just need to do nothing for a while. The B and B has a movie channel and we plan to go square eyed for a while.