Northern India
Trip Start
Aug 16, 2006
1
Trip End
Dec 01, 2006
Delhi, India
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
We arrived in Delhi late at night. Myself a bit frantic and pissed off to say the least. The reason being that I left my perscription shades on the joining flight, but didn't realise this till getting off the plane in Delhi. Doh! There's nothing more concrete in realising they're gone than giving your details to someone on the plane and him saying that they'll post them to you, then when leaving the plane 30 seconds later and them asking for all your details again re the glasses.
But, what can I say about Delhi except that it's a shithole. And a hot one at that. No, I've changed my mind, I wont hear a bad word said about the place, I'm deaf!
It seems so long ago now that I've forgotten exactly what we did. We found an air-conditioned Wimpi, no less! Which was much better than McD's! We went to the famous Red Fort; one of many that India's got; and it seems that we've visited em all! We got a cycle rickshaw to show us around Delhi's famous trader market. An experience and a half! The guy managed to peddle the thing through gaps that weren't there! Literally inches above our heads were live electricity wires! This particularly worried us after seeing a burnt out block of shops that were still smouldering!!!
We got out of the place pretty quick, which is what everyone does, and we travelled north to a place called Shimla. A mountain town that the British used to rule from for for half the year when Delhi was too hot. K and I could see why this happened, it was just like being back home; kind of. There was even Scotch mist to spoil the view; totally eradicate the view being more fitting. The place, and our room, were damp as, but still beautiful after the chaos and heat of the capital.
From Shimmy we travelled even further north, can this be possible I hear you cry? Oh yes! Vashisht, a little village just outside a place called Manali, was the destination. K and I, again, did very little here; which was not helped by me getting a nasty case off going-through-the-eye-off-a-needleitus. Talk about feeling rough. Fortunately, we were in a palce that had satelitte TV and it was a Saturday, so a case of R n' R watching footie was just what the doctor ordered.
However, before this, K and I did manage a walk to the bottom of a very impressive waterfall. Which was nice. Marred a bit by the fact that it absolutely chucked it down.
After Vashisht we tarvelled north again. Anyone else following a trend hear? The port of call this time being Leh. A truly beautiful and engaging place. A place where we had the surreal experience of meeting a girl called Emily, the French girilfriend of my former housemate at Uni who we'd not seen in about 4 years, on a load of steps that wound its way up towards a Buddhist stupa. Freaky!
In Leh we had the brilliant experience of doing a trek in the Himalyas. A truly wondeful and humbling endevour! The views were staggering. The guys who were our guides, cooks and who looked after the ponies were wicked. And they fed us like absolute kings. Back of the net! Our chef was a culinary genius. The only man who can make chips crispy at 4 and a half thousand metres above sea level, when others struggle to get water hot enough to make a cuppa chai. Legend!
We had the pleasure/pain (delete as see fit) of doing the trek, and travelling with for a month, with a Scottish guy called Gus. The Indian guys loved him to bits (he'll be displeased at you to know). Most of them said that he looked like Tom Cruise, which he
doesn't, but I don't think they had the guts to tell him that he looked like a stud-muffin to them. The locals would take any opportunity to look, talk, touch, or sit next to him. The fruity lot! Embarrasing for poor old Gus, but funny as for K and I.
After Leh, and briefly stopping back at Vashisht again, K and I headed to Mcleod Ganje. One of the many famous Ganjes that are out there. Some people love the place and do volunteer work there for the Tibetan Goverment in exile that are stationed there, but we thought the place was a bit cliquey, and the "scene" there had disapeared up its own arse.
Amritstar was next. We had just two days there, the place was a bit of a industrial shithole, but it was truly worth it to see the closing of the Indian-Pakistan border that happens every evening. Laugh, it still brings a chuckle to my face now. It's a truly Monty Pythonesque experience. The crowd were nuts as well. Most of them were dancing and cheering manically, and trying to drown out the noise that was coming from the Pakistanis.
After this madness, the quiet spiritual palce of Rishikesh called us. Rishikesh is where The Beatles spent some of 1968 meditating, and a place that Ringo Starr described as being like Butlins. K, Gus and I went along to a couple of yoga classes. Interesting, to say the least. I fell over a lot, laughed a lot, and hurt a lot, particularly afterwards. The worst part was that in the first class, there was a guy with a mullet behind me doing it in his pants! There was some positions that I did, and that he did, where I didn't know where to put my face; I did know that I wanted to put my foot up his arse though! Spiritual place or not.
KATIE:
After Rishikesh we travelled to Agra, a fairly long train journey with another very early start. The only reason to visit is to see the Taj Mahal which really is incredible. Most of the guesthouses are pretty close to the Taj and have rooftop views, so we had our first glimpse of it whilst enjoying an ice cold beer - especially appreciated as Rishikesh was a dry (no alcohol) place. We got up for sunrise and went to the Taj,a whopping 750rupees entrance fee for foreigners and just 20rupees for Indians, but i guess they can charge what they like and people would still go. It was impressive and we were glad to be there in the coolness of the early morning as Agra seemed to be the hottest place on earth!
After Agra we travelled to Jaipur and met up with Kim a friend of Gus and we travelled together through Rajasthan. I don't think any of us particularly enjoyed Jaipur, it was boiling hot then poured down with rain and all the drains flooded and power went off. We also had to spend half an hour arguing with every tuk tuk driver before we could get a reasonable price,and I had a stinking cold so that did not help matters.
Bikaner was our next stop which was very different to Jaipur, we were constantly approached by friendly Indians wanting to say hello, and the odd one asking for 20rupees. The reason for going to Bikaner was to go on a camel safari so we went to see the Camel Man and booked ourselves up for a 4 day safari, had any of us been on camel before it would have probably been a 1 day safari! Camels are very entertaining creatures but extremely uncomfortable, we rode for 4-6 hours a day and we were all in agony by the end of the day. Other than that it was great! We were joined by a Dutch couple who sensibly went for 2 days. We camped in the desert and had good food cooked for us,were entertained by traditional musicians, and took away the pain with a couple of bottles of rum.
After Bikaner we went to Jaisalmer which is a beautiful old town with an impressive fort, we went to some sand dunes nearby for sunset and enjoyed a bhang lassi and cookie from the government authorised bhang shop - the only one in India.
We said goodbye to Gus and Kim in Jaisalmer and headed to Jodphur - the blue city. We visited the fort which was definitely the nicest one we had seen with great views of the blue city. Our next stop was Udaipur, known as India's most romantic city, it was beautiful. Built on the edge of a lake so there are incredible views from everywhere, we had a fantastic room with a balcony looking onto the lake and city palace.
After a few days relaxing, eating and shopping in Udaipur we travelled to Ahmedebad in Gudjarat, this was a quick stop on our way south. I think we will remember the place for the best meat thali we have eaten anywhere - we had been reluctant vegetarians in India up until this point as meat is quite scarce and generally not that good value, but this thali was excellent.
We then took a long journey south to Goa, it took 24 hours on the train, which sounds terrible but was fine and only cost 370rupees each (about 4 pounds). We had a sleeper bed and friendly people sitting around us so it was fine. We arrived in Goa and it was pouring down with rain not quite what we were expecting, we found a good cheap place to stay in a village called Benaulim. The first day was a bit miserable with the rain, but after that the sun shone everyday and it was great. We found some lovely places to eat with very friendly staff, it was still the beginning of the season so every day new places opened up and the beach became a little cleaner. After a day or so we met 3 guys from Oldham Chris, Mark and Spike, who we have spent the last few days with, they are good fun and J has been happy to have some guys to talk and play sport with. We also met a couple from Uk and Oz, Hildie and Chris, and all of us had a great night out during which we found a 24hr bar and all stumbled home at about 9am the next day - never ever again.
We ended up staying in Benaulim for 10 days, we were quite happy there it was a small local place with a good mix of tourists and some great places to eat. Yesterday we travelled to Baga where we are staying for a week I think, after that we plan to go down south to Kerala. Only 6 weeks to go now, I expected to enjoy India but it has been even better than I ever imagined. Every day you see something different, sometimes it drives us absolutly crazy, the heat, polution, hassle, and general chaos surrounding everything, but it is worth all of that for the great sights, people, food, scenery and the crazy shit you see going on everyday. We will definitely be back!
KATIE:
Now we are further south in Kerala, we took a 16 hour train journey to get here from Goa but it was fine, we had a nice lady and her son sat with us who spoke very little English but took a great interest in our game of scrabble and were keen to learn the rules. We seem to attract quite a lot of attention playing scrabble everyone that walks past on the train stops to have a look.
We are in a place called Kochi or Fort Cochin, most places have 2 names their colonial name and Indian name, both are still used though. It a lovely small and peaceful place, a former portuguese colony, and we have stayed longer than we intended. There is little to do here, but we found a great cafe where we eat lunch everyday. We have been to a Kathikali performance, traditional Keralan theatre where they wear amazing costumes and act out a story in a kind of sign language to music. The tradtional performances last 9-10 hours, fortunatly they have shortened them for the tourists to 1-2 hours. We are leaving tomorrow to go a bit further south and hopefully do a boat trip on the Keralan backwaters.
Comments
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What the f*ck is an indian man doing with a sheffield utd t-shirt?!? It must have been a mail order error!? ;o)