“Last petrol pump in the valley of gods” reads the sign. March 2009, I'm on a motorbike tour of northern India, en route to the spectacular Himalayan road at Jalori pass. While riding down the Kullu valley, I reach a roadblock, where two armed police men approach me.
With the rampant increase in cheap flights and package deals, even once hidden islands are now full of tourists on journeys of personal discovery. Try this dozen for size...
Regardless of how dear you respect your mortality, there are things you cannot easily hide from, something which managing an education project in India has hammered home for me...
Sachin Tendulkar didn't manage a final century as his peerless career came to a close with a 74, the big party pooper...
Six feet away, in the sweltering Indian heat, an open sewer belched a fetid stench. Yet the beer was cold and the people friendly...
Eastern people don't just wipe with their hand, Cuba won't change for at least 20 years and not all Yanks are Colt-wielding maniacs...
Sick to death of the screaming kids and stale farts of budget airlines but still terrified by the idea of 18 hour bus trips? Welcome to the peace...
Rick Stein's recent culinary odyssey around India was an inspiring watch. My experience of the food was somewhat different, however...
An excellent book chronicling four chaotic weeks on India's famous Grand Trunk Road, described by Rudyard Kipling as "such a river of life as now...
You know you’re in for an adventure when the organiser crashes into a ditch on day two. Introducing the Indian Autorickshaw Challenge, otherwise known as ‘The Amazing Race for the Clinically Insane’.
Expecting a relaxing few days in Varanasi, I got a front row seat for the ritualistic burning of bodies, roasted br...
My Grandma and Mum have it all planned out for me. Uni, marriage, kids, the end, I've done my best to rebel, but ha...
From the Danube to the Yangtze via The Amazon and the Ganges, the world has some truly spectacular rivers. And no, ...
Indoor pollution causes pneumonia and other acute respiratory infections, killing more than 7,000 children a year, ...
Chris Bonington is a bearded hero who scaled the hardest climbs going. I'm a clean shaven coward who admired from a distance.
The brilliant form of MS Dhoni has kept India’s hopes alive in the ODI triangular series with Australia and Sri Lanka, and has cemented his pos...
Check out the Governator on his jollies...
If it's good enough for God it is most definitely good enough for us. Chris Sullivan discovers the culinary delights of Kerala and boy are there ...
Reducing the world's best batting line-up to a bunch of village sloggers is no mean feat. All hail England, the best team in world cricket...
The passing of Sathya Sai Baba has been the occasion for millions of his followers to mourn the loss of a revered I...
Liam Gallagher chants the Guru Dev mantra over a new single for Beady Eye. Like George Harrison and many other befo...
The second installment taking a look at the greatest food in the world, the humble takeaway...
Cricketers these days have to be fit as fiddles, but as the Cricket World cup rumbles on with England facing Bangla...
Did someone say deep tissue?
“It lived on for days afterwards,” says my Dad. “Everybody was talking abo...
Welcome to politics in the internet age...
With the Inspiral Carpets releasing a new single Spitfire in August and a new al...
If you need a laugh, read this man's inbox...
They'll go down in music folklore, and in many cases nearly finished off their c...
Currently undergoing harrowing political instability, Toby L goes in search of r...
Ever had your house party rudely interrupted by three angry Ukrainians in balacl...
Overly long, needlessly confusing and all in all, pretty frustrating. Greatest f...
Omanis aren’t ones for pretending: they like drinking, whoring and shooting po...
In life we often take things such as "it is dangerous to wake a sleepwalker" as ...
He might have had the world purring with Yeezus, but increasingly average gigs a...
25 years ago, NME had the bright idea of knocking out tapes via mail order and i...
The best Tumblr of the week...
"OMG David.....I think I'm in The Matrix"
Two international trade agreements are currently being negotiated which, if rati...
In the first of what will probably be a pretty irregular feature, we have a look...
It's 36 years since Georgi Markov died from poisoning in London, and his assassi...