Last Stop: Darjeeling

We arrived in Darjeeling this afternoon, and it's just as I remembered it from my visit eight years ago. It couldn't be more different from Varanasi - here it's cold and foggy (the thermals are going to come out once again), the people are friendly even when they're not trying to sell you anything, the streets are steep and windy and cobbled and the air smells like woodsmoke. I absolutely love it - have always been more of a winter girl! Plus the air feels so fresh and clean after the stifling pollution of the other cities we've visited.

Our guesthouse is gorgeous, and most importantly, spotless! I was really excited to see a big bookshelf heaving with great novels in the common loungeroom too, so I'll definitely be exchanging some books before I go. I actually just started Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts and it's a really engaging read so far, but I'm trying to get through it as much as possible as it weighs a ton and is a massive pain to lug around. It's funny, all the tourists here seem to be reading the same books - it's either The White Tiger (which I finished myself last week - a great read), Holy Cow or Shantaram.

For those who have read The White Tiger, do you remember how Balram uses one of the fortune-telling scales at a train station at one point in the book? Well once I started looking out for them, I realised they were at every station. I used one yesterday at Varanasi Junction before we boarded the train. You stand on the scale, wait until a little red and white striped disc stops spinning, insert your 1 rupee coin (something like two cents) and then wait for the machine to dispense a little ticket displaying your weight in kilos along with your fortune and a picture of a Bollywood star on the back. My fortune was 'You are practical, romantic and a perfectionist' and my Bollywood star was Aishwarya Rai. But my weight I'm keeping to myself thank you very much! (For the record, I've managed to drop a couple of kilos, despite all of the curry and Indian sweets! Maybe it's all the walking we've been doing. Or maybe the scales are just dodgy. I like to think that it's the former.)

Our train journey from Varanasi to New Jalpaiguri was supposed to be our second-last Indian train journey, as we were booked on the famous Toy Train from New Jalpaiguri up the mountains to Darjeeling an hour and a half after the first train was scheduled to arrive in NJ. But in true Indian style, our train from Varanasi was four hours late so we missed our connection. It's a pity, because the Toy Train is supposed to be a not-to-be-missed experience, but then again we figured that we can just do a half-day joy ride on it in a few days. We ended up getting a jeep instead which was much faster and still very cheap. The drivers really try and max their profits - there were 11 people and one child squished into our jeep, along with all our luggage that was strapped onto the roof!

The train trip itself was okay - very long at 700km and over 15 hours, but it doesn't feel like such a long time when it's an overnight journey and you manage to get a good night's sleep, which thankfully we both did. We also met a really nice British couple who were in the same compartment with us and ended up sharing our jeep and checking into the room next door to us at our guesthouse.

I can't believe this is our last stop in India and that it's nearly been a month since we arrived here. We're heading to Kathmandu on the 4th. I'm actually really worried about it - we'll need to get a jeep ride down the mountain to Siliguri (three hours), another jeep to the Nepali border (one hour), followed by a 17 HOUR (not a typo) overnight bus trip from there to Kathmandu. As someone who is not and never has been a 'bus person', this is my idea of absolute hell, especially because I know it's going to be a rickety little bus packed with people and luggage that will drive at a hair-raising speed around hairpin bends on the top of steep Himalayan ravines. I've just priced a flight to Kathmandu as an alternative option and it's going to be about $165. I just don't think I can justify the cost on my budget but I desperately want to fly rather than catch the bus. Opinions please! What do you think I should do? Help!

I have a desperate craving for momos so I'd best be off in search of dinner. No doubt I will be back to update soon with news of walking, shopping, more sightseeing and tea consumption on a ridiculous scale.

Love,

E xxx

PS: More advice needed: If I buy tea here, will I be able to bring it back into Australia or will Customs confiscate it?

Three Little-Known Life Lessons that India Has Taught Me (and more)

1. Murphy's Samosa Law
If you're not hungry, there are samosa stalls on every corner of every street, but as soon as you decide you'd like to eat one, there are no samosas to be found. See also 'Murphy's Rickshaw Driver Law'.

2. The Gulab Curse
It is physically imposible to stop at one gulab jamun.

3. Knowing When to Start Breathing Through Your Mouth
e.g. whenever you see:
- a stretch of wall with suspicious dark stains on it
- any man reaching for his fly
- any toilet, urinal or designated peeing area of any description.

Quotes of the day:

'The only thing worse than drowning generally is drowning in the Ganges'
'Why you so tall? I think your father works in a tower!'
'You look like a flower, I think your father works in a garden!'

In other news, we have spent the day walking around the ghats and dodging bags of brightly-coloured dye that the local kids are throwing everywhere for the Holi festival. So far I've managed to remain unscathed by bolting whenever I see a kid with a water pistol or plastic bag of dye, but Phil's hair, t-shirt and pants are currently pink and purple!

Until next time,

E xxx

Hello Varanasi

The train journey from Agra to Varanasi was another surprisingly pleasant one and I had ten hours' sleep, all thanks to the luxury of our second-class carriage - no beggars, chai-wallahs, screaming children or pushy people who whack you with their luggage to be seen!

I had a huge scare this afteroon as we checked into our guesthouse though. Lugging my bags up the six flights of stairs to our room, I noticed that one of my boots was making a metallic sound with every step I made - like the sound that a show makes when you've stepped on a drawing pin. I bent down, and in the dim light I could see what looked like a small pen stuck in my sole. I tried to prise it out with my fingers, and doing so flicked the cover off what was a used syringe! I was so incredibly lucky, the bare needle missed my finger by millimetres. And thank God for my lesbian hiking boots (aka Ellen and Portia), they may be butch and ugly but they saved a syringe from going into my foot!

Varanasi is amazing. we walked down the ghats this afternoon in the twilight. It's hard to know where to look because there is so much going on around the Ganges. I've got to go now but will write more soon.

E xxx

The Taj

We arrived in Agra yesterday morning and we're leaving tonight on the 11.30pm overnight train to Varanasi, so really it's an in-and-out-trip to the Taj! I got my first glimpse yesterday evening at sunset from the rooftop restaurant of our guesthouse as we were enjoying yet another pot of masala chai, and my initial impression was that it was just as beautiful as I'd expected but a great deal smaller.

We were up at 5.30am this morning as the Taj gates open to tourists at 6am and we wanted to be there for the sunrise. So did about three hundred other tourists it turned out, despite the fact that the early morning is supposed to be one of the quietest times to go! It's so annoying, if you're Indian it only costs 10 rupees (25 cents) for your ticket, butif you're a foreigner it's 750 rupees ($18)...blatant racial discrimination I say, seeing that the ticket seller didn't even ask if I was Indian! You may laugh, but a rickshaw driver asked Phil and I if we were Japanese today. Now THAT was one we haven't heard before.

Anyway, the Taj. It really didn't let us down. Yes it is smaller than I'd thought it would be, even up close, but the white marble it's made of glows and looks almost pearlescent in the sunlight, giving the whole building a really magical feel. We spent a couple of hours there and I have so many photos, but I think perhaps when it comes to photos of the Taj Mahal there is no such thing as too many photos. It's really a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

After we left, we had breakfast (yet another banana pancake. Every morning I try and be adventurous, but I keep going back to the bloody banana pancakes. It was only $1 though!) then walked the 2km from the West Gate of the Taj through the city gardens to the Agra Fort. It was magnificent, but like I think I've said before, I've lost my enthusiasm for forts a bit - I've just seen so many here in India. From there we got a cycle rickshaw to the baby Taj, which as it sounds is a smaller and more intricate version of the Taj itself a little way out of town.

I think that's the last time we'll be getting a cycle rickshaw, every time we have we sit in the backseat racked with guilt as some reedy little Indian man puffs and sweats and groans as he tries to navigate the little vehicle around the streets. Apparently we are so heavy that even on the slightest incline, the driver has to get out and push us manually!

Off to dinner now, a south-indian food restaurant down the road that serves 1.2m dosai! I do love my dosa, but even I'm not up for that challenge.

Love,

E xxx

PS: A postscript to the Rishikesh post. Remember the ex-roofer/hypnotherapist/stoner from QLD called Brad? Well, he turned up unexpectedly on our doorstep on our last night (God knows how he found where we were staying) when we were both in bed. Apparently he came to tell Phil that she is an amazing girl (well we know that already) and that he keeps seeing her in his dreams and every time he meditates (huh?) and that he can't ignore the connection between himself and Phil (?) and that he found his way up the hill to our guesthouse because 'the spirits' led him there (WTF??!!).
Rishikesh in a nutshell, my friends.

According to my palms...

I'm going to live until 84 or 85
I'll get married between the ages of 27 and 30
I'll have two children, a girl and a boy
I'll own property
I'll have good health
My parents will have good health
From the age of 28, I'll be extremely happy and satisfied with my life
I'll keep living in Australia
I'll have a successful job in the public service or government
My husband will be successful in the same field.

Well, according to the palmistry expert and astrologer who examined my hands today anyway! It all seems conveniently positive, but hey, it's a bit of fun! Apparently I am also supposed to fast for one Tuesday every month in order for me to enjoy maximum life success...oh, and I have to wear a silver ring with red coral in it on my ring finger while doing so...

Rishikesh

Today is our third full day in Rishikesh. It's a great little town, but our first impressions were not the best! Basically our train from Delhi was supposed to arrive in Haridwar (the station closest to Rishikesh, but still an hours' drive away) at 8.30pm the other night, but we were delayed for over two hours. When we finally arrived in Haridwar around 10.45, it was dark, freezing, and it took us another half an hour to walk to the bus station, although luckily we caught the Rishikesh bus just as it was leaving the station. Or maybe not so luckily, as the bus ride was um....interesting. The bus driver and conductor were drinking and smoking weed at the wheel with Bollywood music on maximum volume, so the little old bus was careering and skidding all over the road up the mountains, even doing donuts. It was harrowing to say the least, but thank god we got to Rishikesh without incident. From there, we had to get a rickshaw up to the mountain where our guest house was. There was just one problem...when we got there (about midnight), reception was closed! As was the reception of every other guesthouse we could find in the vicinity. By this time we were exhausted and both of us had splitting headaches - all we wanted to do was sleep, but it seemed that we were going to have to camp out on the verandah of the guesthouse's reception until the morning.

Then, luckily, I noticed that the padlock on one of the room's doors was open and hanging on the outside door handle. We walked in; the room was empty. We were freezing and tired, and here was a bed (albeit an illegal one!)...so we dumped our bags on the floor and lay down on the bed to sleep until we could check in the next morning. Okay, so it wasn't the best sleep in the world (one pillow and one blanket between two people when it's about five degrees will do that!) but it was better than camping on the verandah, and we saved one night's accommodation! At seven the next morning, we woke up, went downstairs, pretended we'd just arrived and checked in to another room! It's quite a nice one too for $7 a night for the two of us, although at the moment it's festooned with our laundry.

I love Rishikesh because it's completely different to anywhere else we've been in India. It's famous for being a hippie retreat/sacred Hindu place, and the town is perched on a mountain overlooking the Ganges, which from above looks surprisingly clear. We've seen a few people swimming in it, but I'm passing on that one - I see what goes down the drains here! Phil thinks that India has made me a germophobe and that I'm getting obsessive about dirt and germs, and I can see her point - but this just isn't any dirt, it's Indian dirt, which means the black stuff on my feet at the end of the day is more likely faeces than soil. Ew! Maybe I should just embrace it though...

How else to describe Rishikesh? There is a temple or an ashram on every corner, there is weed on the wind, it's mountain-air cold in the early morning and evening but pleasantly warm during the day. Yogis and gurus in gold and red robes roam in the streets, every shop sells tie-dyed and felt clothes, there are countless cafes where you can sit barefoot and cross-legged and drink organic herbal tea and avocado smoothies (which actually taste okay) on cushions overlooking the Ganges. At sunrise and sunset you can hear chanting coming from the ashrams over the river, and signs everywhere advertise palm reading, ayurvedic treatments and astrology classes. Although it's so chilled out here, Phil and I actually feel a bit out of place at times because we don't have dreadlocks and our clothes aren't hippie enough...although we have embraced ali baba (aka poocatcher!) pants! Most Westerners here are here for extended periods doing intensive yoga courses and staying in ashrams for at least a month, so I suppose it's obvious that we're only here for a few days.

As a result, there are some interesting types of people here, and we've found that it's really easy to get chatting to strangers in cafes and restaurants because everyone is so open. Brad, for example, a guy we've run into a few times over the last couple of days, is an ex-roofer and hypnotherapist (now that's a strange career combination for you!) from QLD who is on some kind of spiritual journey and seems to be hanging around Rishikesh for an unspecified amount of time, apparently writing a book on 'holographic kinetics'. And then we met an English girl yesterday who is a yoga devotee, fasts for two days a week and told us that she is here because she was 'called here by the music on the wind'. Right. As I said, the people are 'interesting'! But like Phil says, so much of the pleasure of travel is meeting different types of people, listening to their stories and hence learning more about yourself and your own life choices.

One of the great things about here is that there is BROWN CRUSTY BREAD and ACTUAL COFFEE. Yay! Brown bread and coffee, how I have missed you so! On the downside, there are lots of monkeys about. Monkeys are scary!

Anyway I had best be off. We are going to go and have lunch, then do a yoga class at 5pm (when in Rome etc). We'll also need an early night tonight because we're setting off disgustingly early tomorrow morning (4.30am) for Agra. That's right, we're off to the Taj Mahal!

Love,

Eve

And some more...

Sleeping in the dunes:

Love those morning cups of chai, and they taste even better in the great outdoors:

Rocket the camel, modelling my beanie:


A Jaipur autorickshaw:

McDs in Jaipur and my Chatpata McAloo Tikki:

Below the Amber Fort, Jaipur:

A Camel Safari in Pictures

Uh oh...here we go!

Holding on for dear life:

Phil loving it!


Voila, a camel!


Dinner:


On the dunes at sunset:

Me:


Phil:

Jaipur or Bust

We had another overnight train journey last night from Jaisalmer to Jaipur, which luckily was pretty uneventful, although I feel bad for poor Phil who has a lot more trouble sleeping on trains than I have had so far (touch wood). Luckily I seem to be able to pop in my earplugs, put on my eye mask and conk out, although I woke at 4.45am this morning for our 5am arrival with a really painful crick in my neck which was annoying. Stupidly, we'd decided not to book our accommodation here ahead in favour of winging it when we arrived here - turned out that that was a bad idea. The first place we eventually made our way to at 5.30am via rickshaw was booked out, and the second, third, fourth and fifth were all booked out too. We eventually found ourselves at a basic but cheap guesthouse that had a room, thank goodness, and collapsed on the bed to get another couple of hours' sleep before we tackled the town. The room is okay - fairly clean (bar the shit stain in the loo), and no sheets or towels, but for $6 each per night for a private room with a bathroom we can't really complain.

After breakfast we headed out into the city to orient ourselves and see what landmarks and sights we could on foot. We failed dismally at the Lonely Planet suggested self-guided walking tour (I know my sense of direction is non-existent, but seriously, there are not road signs whatsoever) and ended up in a dodgy area of the old town where a pack of little kids asked us for rupees then when we failed to hand over the money, proceeded to throw rocks and bits of rubbish at us for the nect 50m up the street. Needless to say our first impressions of Jaipur were not the best.

We eventually worked out where we were and spent today wandering around the bazaars and the City Palace, which was nice but nothing special. I'm getting a bit tired of old stonework, miniature paintings and Mughal and Rajput artefacts to be honest - it feels a bit like when you've seen a couple of Rajasthani forts and palaces, you've seen them all.

Jaipur is another big city really. We even had McDonalds for lunch! It wasn't just regular Maccas though, I had a McAloo Tikki burger and Phil sampled a McVeggie...not bad at all! We also encountered a guy riding an elephant, another couple of people riding camels and the usual million cows, goats and other assorted animals mixed in with the traffic as we walked along the main road this afternoon.

It's actually been quite draining today as the people here are about ten times as pushy and insistent as the inhabitants of any other place we've visited so far. Rickshaw drivers, shop owners and tour operators just will not take no for an answer, and at least four times today we've been accused of hating Indian people and of apparently thinking that we're better than them because we're rich and white when we've politely declined or ignored yet another tout. It's really frustrating. We've also decided that from now on we're Britons rather than Aussies if anyone asks us where we're from, because otherwise they want to know all about the racial attacks on Indian students in Australia and ask us why Aussies hate Indians. I'm not sure why we haven't encountered these questions before Jaipur - perhaps the attacks got more media coverage here? But honestly, about three or four people have randomly asked us that on the street today.

Anyway, had better go and find some dinner. Tomorrow we have another full day and night in Jaipur, and we're off to Delhi on Wednesday morning - a 6 hour train journey if there are no delays (fingers crossed). We'll probably visit the Amber Fort tomorrow, but we'll definitely by avoiding the Monkey Palace. The idea of being swamped by rabid monkeys gives us the heebie jeebies!

Love E x

Jaisalmer - Part Two

Sorry for the delay in posting Part 2! In Jaipur at the moment until Wednesday morning when we'll be leaving for Delhi.
Here you are:

At 6am on Friday morning, we jumped in a jeep to begin our two day camel safari in the Thar desert - one of the must-do activities in Jaisalmer. We met our camels and camel driver at a small village about a half-hour drive away from town into the desert, and our camel driver Aman and jeep driver cooked us a breakfast of toast and chai over a little fire in the sand while we watched the sunset and eyed our camel companions for the first time. At this stage I was crapping myself! My previous experience with a camel was possibly about 20 years ago (God, I feel old, that's terrible) and at the Royal Easter Show. In my mind they were about half as tall and certainly less vocal. FYI, camels also stink! It turns out that they're gassy animals from both ends, which means that when you're riding in a train you bear the brunt of it all!

After about five tries, I finally managed to get a leg over my camel Pepsi and we were off. One of the scariest things about riding a camel, as it turns out, is the getting up and getting down part - in the process of getting from its knees to standing up, the camel violently jolts backwards and forwards, leaving you to hold on to the small brass handle on the saddle for dear life as you frantically try and remember whether riding camels is listed under the extreme sports exception in your travel insurance policy. Thank God I never had to test that one out!

Having successfully mounted our camels, we set off into the desert. It's freezing in Jaisalmer and surrounds until late morning, so I was all rugged up in my beanie and polar fleece so it certainly didn't feel like desert at that time of morning. Actually, the Thar desert isn't what I expected -rather than being a barren landscape of red dunes, it's actually a sandy, scrubby kind of desert with small thorny trees and bushes and the occasional deserted stone village. We rode until late morning, when we stopped for lunch (chapatis and veggie curry cooked by our drivers under a shady tree). At this stage, Phil and I were beginning to realise that our only travelling companion, an American guy called Joe, was a massive pain in the neck. I do try to give American backpackers the benefit of the doubt, but this one was the stereotypical self-righteous yet whingy douchebag. His primary complaints at this stage were that Aman was not an authentic camel driver because he wasn't wearing a turban, and that there were too many flies. Grr.

We had a bit of a scare while we were riding along in the morning when all of a sudden Rocket, Aman's camel and the leader of the train, suddenly bolted for no reason scattering our food supplies on to the ground. Aman told us that it was currently camel mating season, and apparently the camels (we only rode male camels) were able to smell females up to 100km away in the desert and were a little crazy because of it! Later on though, we actually came upon some females grazing in the desert and were able to pass through without incident.

We rode for another three hours or so until we reached our campsite for the evening, the dunes. They were absolutely stunning - huge, rolling, and covered by that beautiful pattern that the wind leaves over sand dunes (will post pictures when I get a chance). By this stage I was in major pain - I knew that it was going to hurt, but seriously, it canes! Particularly on the thighs and hip bones, as you sort of have to clench your thighs whilst allowing your hips to rock freely with the motion of the camel, which is easier said than done.

We walked around the dunes and watched the sunset from the top as dinner was cooked. I can't wait to post some photos (actually I think Phil has the best ones of the sunset on her camera) so you can see how breathtaking it was. Of course, all was not so rosy for whingy Joe, who was upset that the newly made footprints on the sand dunes were ruining his photos!

After dinner (Rice, chapatis, dahl, fried potato 'chips' and another version of veggie masala curry)
we had an early night - we were exhausted and it was dark, so bed seemed like the logical thing to do. We didn't have tents, just padded bedroll-type mattresses that we laid on the sand, and we had a couple of thick blankets to put on top of us. By this stage we were rugged up in our thermals, beanies and scarved because it was freezing. It just felt so surreal to be lying in bed on the dunes in the middle of the desert in Rajasthan, looking at the stars and hearing the grunting of the camels and the animated chatter of the camel drivers on the wind. Unfortunately, the actual sleeping experience wasn't so great - it never fails to amaze me how sand can seem so lovely and soft, but as soon as you attempt to sleep on it it feels like you're lying on a rock! Phil and I also woke in the middle of the night to find that a feral desert dog had decided to snuggle in with us, and as much as we poked and prodded him and tried to shoo him away, the stupid thing wouldn't budge! In the end we just gave up in the name of actually getting sleep ourselves. I was convinced that we'd be infested with fleas by morning, but thankfully we managed to avoid getting infested.

Morning brought with it another beautiful sunrise, more chai and toast, and another three-hour camel journey to our pickup point in the desert where a jeep picked us up. We were back in Jaisalmer by lunchtime - tired, hobbling like eighty-year-olds and very stinky, but so happy that we'd done the safari. That said, I think we were both glad we'd opted for the 1.5 day version rather than the two night one because I'm not sure that our poor hips and thighs could have handled any more camel riding!

That's all I can write for now, but I'm sure that our photos will tell another story in themselves when I manage to post some.

E x

Jaisalmer - Part One

I'm writing this from Jaisalmer, one of the north-westernmost cities in Rajasthan and in fact very close to the Pakistani border. While Jodhpur is the Blue City, Jaisalmer, which sits in the Thar Desert, is the Golden City - and it really is golden in the sunlight. The big attraction here is once again the city fort, but the Jaisalmer fort is the only fort in India (and perhaps the world?) in which people are still living and working. We walked all around the fort and its walls the other day - it's actually much bigger than it looks from the town below, and we got lost a few times because the inner lanes are very narrow and mazelike. From the top we also got beautiful views across the desert and the town.

It's very very dry here, as apparently the annual monsoon has been absent for nine years now.
Apparently it's going to be devastating for local villages if the rains don't come this year.

Although Phil and I tried to like Jodhpur (and it does have a couple of things to recommend it), we never really warmed to the place. Jaisalmer, on the other hand, we absolutely love. Yes, it's more touristy than some of the other places we've been (lots of hardcore backpacker types, who seem to congregate around the Bhang Shop consuming bhang lassis and cookies!) but it has a really relaxed vibe. There are lots of great cafes, the people are friendly, and the town is studded with beautiful golden sandstone temples and havelis (traditional mansions that are now open to the public). We've also shopped until we've dropped at the clothing shops and I've got a couple of colourful printed pants that are really comfy. Even if they are a tourist trap, at $4 a pair I just couldn't resist!

It's really cold here during the mornings and evenings, I'd say about ten degrees or less. I'm really glad that I packed all my cold weather gear for Nepal as I have really needed it here.

After two weeks in India, Phil and I have established a daily routine pretty much based around taking chai. We've become obsessed with sharing big pots of masala chai on rooftop cafes everywhere - chai with breakfast, chai after lunch, a chai stop in the afternoon when we feel like a break, and a couple of pots of chai over dinner. Chai tea here is nothing like the overly sweet, cinnamon-laced stuff you get at Gloria Jeans at home. Here they make it by boiling milk and water with whole peppercorns, cloves, smashed fresh ginger, powdered tea leaves (so you don't need to strain the tea) and crushed cardamom pods and it's the most delicous, fragrant and warming thing ever.

For those who are interested in what we're eating, dinner is nearly always some form of curry and thankfully we're getting better at translating ingredients from Hindi into English so we now have more of an idea of what we're actually ordering and eating. In this part of India, they don't really eat much rice. Instead, the curries are accompanied by chapati (round pita-like breads cooked on a hotplate over a fire) so we usually have a couple of them, or a naan. For lunch today we found a little Tibetan restaurant and had big plates of steamed veggie momos with a chilli relish, they were delish. And then of course we had chai! We also had a samosa from a street stall as a morning snack, it was so crispy and filled with a decent whack of the fragrant, chilli-laden mashed vegetable mixture...absolutely delicious (and only 18 cents!). But then again I only really had the stodgy version from the takeaway Indian place at the Castle Towers food court to compare them to!

I love how easy it is to be a vegetarian in India. Most restaurants are actually pure vegetarian so you can't order any meat dishes even if you wanted to, and in the rest the menus are divided into 'veg' and 'non-veg' sections. Personally I think the veg selections look a lot more interesting anyway, there seem to be a million different dishes based on chickpeas, lentils, paneer cheese, fresh vegetables and spices.

I can't believe I've already written so much and still not covered the most memorable experience of our whole trip so far....our camel safari that we returned from this morning. But with all this food talk, I'm starving and it's already past dinner time. This hotel has free internet so I'll log back on later and write about the camels.

E x

Photo time!

We're off to Jaisalmer - in the far north-west of Rajasthan - tonight, on another overnight train. I'm not really in a writing mood this morning so thought I would attempt to post some photos instead. Sorry for the ones that are sideways, I haven't yet figured out how to rotate them. As always, I seem to have unintentionally overrepresented the amount of time we have spent eating!

Dosai in Mumbai:

Don't worry Mum, I won't run out of books!


Mountain view over Udaipur:

Joining in in a traditional Rajasthani village dance display in Udaipur:


Shashi's cooking class:

My left foot:


Jodhpur, the Blue City, with the fort in the background:


We've got caught in the middle of a couple of weddings:


A dog sleeping in a rickshaw in Jodhpur. I have no idea why it's pink:

Cows on a rubbish pile in the city:

The Jaswant Thada, Jodhpur:



Dinner last night at a rooftop restaurant:

Until next time,

E x

The horn on the bus goes BEEP BEEP BEEP, all freaking day long...

You can classify Indian cities into two categories: those in which you can wear thongs, and those in which you can't. Basically some are dirty, and others are absolute cesspits, where human and animal shit, rubbish piles and rotting food mingle with fetid pools of God only knows what else that leak out of the open sewers on the dusty streets. Jodhpur is definitely in the latter category, which is a pity as my lovely henna-decorated foot will not be seeing the hazy light of day for a while.

The bus trip here was okay, though ended up taking 8 1/2 hours instead of six. The best word to describe it was NOISY! It felt as if the driver had one hand on the wheel and the other on the horn as we sped through the desert. The seats were pretty roomy though, and had the horn been about sixteen thousand decibels lower I probably would have been able to sleep quite well. It was actually a really interesting way to travel as we got to see so much out of the windows: monkeys, peacocks, camels, water buffalo and many isolated villages with low stone and mud dwellings housing tribal Rajasthani people wearing the brighest saris and turbans imaginable. We were also the only white people on the bus so copped the usual stares, but we're getting used to them now.

There was only one stop, at a pretty crummy village where every male within two kilometres attempted to undress Phil and I with their eyes and a couple of cows tried to eat our backpacks. Although it was the only toilet stop, funnily enough there weren't actually any toilets. It turns out that every man and child steps out of the bus, walks three metres away and pisses or takes a dump in full view of the street and bus windows on the edge of a scappy field and surrounded by hairy feral pigs. I actually took a photo on my camera that shows no less than six men going for it within the one shot. If you're female, too bad, you have to hold on! Luckily I hadn't drunk much water and was able to. I am going to emerge from this country with a bladder of steel.

In Jodhpur, we got a rickshaw to our hotel, the Blue House. It's fairly comfortable and the room is nice and big but a bit dark and gloomy. Like every place we've stayed at, it has steep rickety stairs and a rooftop terrace restaurant from where you can see across the city. Jodhpur is particularly beautiful to look at from above; called 'the Blue City', nearly every building is painted blue and the old town is dominated by the massive stone fort which towers over the city. It's Jodhpur's main tourist attraction and we intended to see it today, but the sky is really smoggy today so thought we would wait until tomorrow to see if it gets clearer so we can appreciate the views from the fort a bit more.

Today we have just walked around the old town, and after this we're going in search of the local markets and the bazaars that surround it - they're supposed to be really interesting, and the place to buy cotton pants (unsurprisingly, riding breeches originated here) and spices. I would love to buy some saffron - at AUD$4 a gram it's much less expensive than at home - but of course I wouldn't be able to get it through Australian customs without an appearance on Border Security's 2010 season.

As we walk through the streets, lots of children come up and ask us where we are from, and then proceed to ask us for presents! Actually, every Indian adult wants to know where we're from also. The consensus seems to be different each time depending on whom they see first. If it's me, we're apparently Dutch (am thinking maybe due to my height and big nose?) and if it's Phil, we're Swedish!

Okay my internet time is nearly up. Thanks to those who have emailed or facebooked me - it turns out that I actually had comments from unregistered readers disabled, so you should be able to comment here now.

Until next time,

E xxx

More of Udaipur

I've done a yoga class two mornings in a row now, and boy am I feeling it...I'm walking like an old lady! That said, it was a great way to start the day. The only problem is that when you're eating curry and beans for breakfast, lunch and dinner, then contorting your body into unnatural positions, the results can be a little embarrassing, if you know what I mean.

I think I left off last time when we were off to dinner at the Teal Whistle. It turned out to be a restaurant in a beautiful garden that was all lit up with fairy lights and surrounded by palm trees. The food was delicious as usual (Rajasthani-style dahl and naan this time) and we followed the meal with a strawberry shisha pipe. It was fun but I am such a noob at smoking that I could only manage about twenty minutes off the stuff before I reached my limit and dissolved into fits of coughing.

Yesterday we did the rickshaw tour of the new city of Udaipur. It was okay - good because we saw a conpletely different perspective of the city and went up the mountain on a rickety cable car that gave us a majestic view over the entire town, visited the spice market, puppet museum, royal gardens and royal memorial but just okay in the end because our rickshaw driver didn't really explain anything to us so we were pretty lost in terms of the significance of what we saw.

Afterwards, refreshed by a banana lassi, I went and had my left foot hennad. The girl I went to spent about twenty minutes drawing on an intricate design with a small brown tube of henna, and I had to leave it to dry. Last night I rubbed it with oil to set the colour, then when I washed it all off this morning in the shower the henna tattoo was set. I love it! I'm not sure how long it will last, but I think about a couple of months. I would love to post a photo but it's a massive pain to try and connect my camera to an internet cafe computer and upload. Maybe later if I have more time.

The cooking class last night with Shashi totally surpassed my expectations. We learned how to make two types of pakoras, mixed vegetable masala, three varieties of parantha, naan, chapattis, vegetable pulau ( a rice dish), naan with local cheese and homemade tomato sauce, paneer cheese from scratch, and more that I can't even remember. There were only three of us so it was really hands-on and went for five hours, til 10pm last night! Needless to say we managed to consume the lot, and it was absolutely delicious, I can't wait to make it all at home. Shashi was so friendly and open, she told us how her husband was murdered nine years ago by his business partner and with two young sons, she was disowned by her family and was forced to wash clothes for hotels just to get by. A couple of years ago she started to teach cooking to tourists in her home, learned English, and eventually the Lonely Planet people visited her last year and she got in the most recent edition of the guide, which has upped business so much that she can afford to pay for her sons' university education.

Anyway have to go, our bus to Jodhpur is leaving in 20 minutes. next update will be on here! You should see me today, I'm wearing a silver bead and string bracelet given to me by Shashi, my purple kaftan, Philippa's green fishermans' pants and my henna tattoo, I look like a raging hippie! But actually I look exactly like the rest of the tourists here - Swedes, Brits, other Aussies, French, everyone is kitted out in all the Indian-style clothes with lots of bangles and rings. It actually makes sense because the clothes are so cool and comfortable.

Okay I really have to go. Will check in from Jodhpur. Hopefully the six-hour bus journey will be okay.

E x

Udaipur - Day 1

I had the deepest and longest sleep I've had in ages last night, and woke up refreshed and ready to see the city. Breakfast was indeed banana porridge, and a delicious one at that for only $1! It's actually a problem for me that meals are so cheap here, as it means I'm tempted to try everything on the menu!

After breakfast, we went down to the restaurant's basement to book a cooking class with a friendly lady called Shashi who runs classes for small groups of tourists from her kitchen. When we walked in, three Scottish girls were in the middle of their lesson and insisted we sample some of their freshly cooked vegetable pakoras served with homemade coriander and mango chutneys, which were so good! I'm really excited about our lesson tomorrow night, and am already planning my next Indian-themed buffet dinner party. Shashi told us that we weren't allowed to eat lunch tomorrow so that we would come hungry, so I can just imagine the amount of food we're going to make.

From there, we headed into the nearby temple to look around. It was beautiful, but the experience was spoiled a bit by a very persistent man who proceeded to follow us while pointing out every aspect of the temple, despite us repeatedly telling him that we didn't want a guide. And what do you know...as we walked towards the exit, he demanded money for his efforts! Needless to say we didn't oblige.

Next stop was the city palace. It's huge, and feels even huger due to the fact that it's a a real rabbit-warren of a place with countless flights of narrow stone stairs leading from room to room. In the courtyard was a beautiful fountain, and every surface was covered with beautiful mosaics and hand paintings in every colour of the rainbow. I couldn't help wishing that I'd lived there in the time of the Maharajas - with its smooth warm stone floors and courtyards, stunning view and brightly decorated interior, it would have been a million times more liveable than the cold, damp and draughty royal castles of Europe.

We then went for a walk around the old town, Lal Ghat. There are lots of shops selling paintings, assorted brass and silver curios and lots of Indian hippie-style clothes like harem pants and long skirts that are sold at home at the Tree of Life for about fifty times the price. Tomorrow I'm going to buy some purple pants! They're light and look so comfy so I think I can sacrifice a bit of pack space for them.

Lunch was at the Lotus Cafe, a hole-in-the wall restaurant also in the old town. We sat on the upper floor - a little room covered with silk cushions. The waiter brought Philippa's thali (a mixed tasting plate with a couple of roti, servings of veggie curry and dahl, rice and yoghurt) and my channa masala (chickpea curry) and roti and placed them on the lazy susan on the floor in the centre of the room, and we ate them with our fingers while reclining on the cushions and playing a game of Uno. They also had the Game of Life and Connect Four! With a lassi and bottle of water, the total bill for us both was just $5.

We then went for a walk around the streets and the Tibetan market, and encountered about twenty cows and one elephant! The cows are holy and so have free reign over the town, and the moto-rickshaw drivers and motorbike riders just try and drive around them as best they can. They're really tame and you can walk right up to them. There is cow shit everywhere though! The whole town smells like the Royal Easter Show!
Back at the hotel, we went up to the rooftop for an hour or so to drink tea, read, and watch the sunset over the lake. I couldn't help thinking that just a few weeks ago I was studying, working and stressed - this couldn't be more different, I was so relaxed.

We're about to go and have dinner and smoke some shisha, and have an early night because tomorrow we're getting up early for an 8am yoga lesson on a rooftop overlooking the lake. At ten thirty, we're going on a rickshaw tour of the town and then it'll be time for our cooking lesson! It should be a fun day. I also want to get henna tattoos on my feet - lots of women have them here and they look so beautiful and exotic (don't worry Dad, they're just temporary).

Until next time,

E x

PS: Is anyone actually reading this? Comment, for goodness' sake!

A Baptism of Fire, Indian Rail-style

The last 24 hours in a nutshell:

Kilometres traveled: at least 700
Indian States traversed: 3 (Maharastra, Gujarat and Rajasthan)
Train trips: 2
Hours of train travel: 20.5
Hours of sleep: 5
Railway station samosas consumed: too many

This afternoon we arrived in Udaipur, Rajasthan, and I don't think I've ever been so relieved to get off a train! We enjoyed the relative luxury of a second-class airconditioned carriage for the overnight leg from Mumbai to Ahmedabad, and luckily was able to get a few hours' sleep without the assistance of my trusty sleeping tablets. My only gripe was that a second-class carriage comes equipped with approximately 57th-class toilets, and that's a conservative estimate. Oh, that and the seedy Indian guy who stared at Phil and I for hours in between watching hard-core porn on his mobile phone.

The second leg, from Ahmedabad to Udaipur, was in sleeper class - the cheapest, most basic carriages but also the most interesting as you're truly thrown in with the locals. That said, we seemed to have been allocated tourist seats as we shared our berth during ten-hour day trip today with a Russian girl and two lovely French guys - both called Thomas, which was quite confusing. The scenery was absolutely amazing, particularly as it changed constantly, from city slums to green fields to rural towns to desert landscapes as we traveled deeper into Rajasthan.

Phil and I had somehow forgotten that we had booked two really long consecutive train journeys, so we only came armed with a few pieces of fruit. Luckily, we made friends with a lovely Indian man in our berth who had come armed with a backpack bulging with goodies that he repeatedly insisted we tried: his wife's spiced Roti breads, biscuits, bhaja mix, fried chilli coconut, dried spiced lentils and chickpeas, and whole green onions that he crunched whole like they were carrots! The aforementioned samosas were also a good snack - you can buy them at little stalls at every station and are surprisingly fragrant and delicious. I know you're not supposed to eat Indian street food, but I figure that they're vegetarian so probably okay. Besides, my motto has always been 'what doesn't kill me makes my immune system stronger!'

Udaipur is a beautiful city, and I'm really looking forward to spending the next two days and nights here. The small cobbled streets, friendly locals and relatively clean air is so welcome after the traffic, ripoff merchants and pollution of Mumbai, but the real drawcards here are the beautiful buildings, notably the city palace, Monsoon Palace and the Lake Palace Hotel (most noteworthy for its starring role in the Bond film 'Octopussy', which seems to be played every night in every restaurant in town).

The hotel we're staying at is lovely and I know I'm going to find it difficult to leave. And $9 a night, too!

I probably have more to write but I'm absolutely shattered and looking forward to my comfy bed and the promise of a sleep-in and lazy breakfast of banana and honey porridge tomorrow morning. The hotel has lopts of computers with net access in the foyer so no doubt I'll be able to update again very soon.

Love,

E x

Mumbai Musings

So...my first day in India and I'm already updating my blog. If that's not dedication then I don't know what is!

I arrived here just after midnight this morning - not even 24 hours ago yet, but it feels like I've been here for a week already. Phil and I met at the airport and endured what we thought was quite a harrowing taxi ride (but what we now realise was a very comfortable one!) to our hotel, the hotel New Bengal which is in the old town of the city. It's pretty cramped and basic, but hey, the toilet flushed and the shower had hot water, which here is always a bonus. We also had a fantastic free breakfast this morning of chickpea masala, puris (fried bread), boiled eggs, omelette, banana and of course toast with vegemite (without which no breakfast would be complete).

With full bellies, we stepped out on to the street for our first real taste of Mumbai. The thing that strikes you first about the city is its aroma - a pungent combination of incense, rotten egg gas (sewerage perhaps?), urine and spices that even pervaded the plane within five minutes of touchdown. We did a lot of walking around the Fort (old town) area and checked out Victoria Terminus, Mumbai University and the High Court of Mumbai - all beautiful gothic-style buildings with intricate stonework that have retained their beauty and sense of stateliness despite their state of disrepair.

Being conscientious ex-law students with a continuing interest in the administration of justice (haha!), we even sat in on a criminal hearing in one of the courtrooms, and were surprised to find that the cases are tried in English (although we couldn't really hear much). We also walked around a large oval near the courts where there were a number of cricket games being played.

We then took a taxi to the port to see the Gateway of India (a large stone arch - think an Indian-style Arc de Triomphe) and the famous Taj Mahal hotel, which was worth seeing for its clean Western-style toilet alone!

Lunch was at a little restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet and we had an amazing feed of Masala and Palak Masala Dosai (large crisp pancakes filled with spiced potatoes and lentils, and a spiced spinach mixture respectively, served with a spicy tomato sambal and cool coconut chutney). It was absolutely delicious - much better than the dosai I've had at the Malabar restaurant in Crows Nest and at $1 each, less than a tenth of the price!

The prices here really are unbelievably cheap, with the exception of accommodation, which in Mumbai is much more expensive than in the rest of the country apparently.

Mumbai is very overwhelming. We spent this morning wandering around in a culture-shocked daze trying to cross the road without being skittled by one of the ubiquitous black and yellow taxis and fighting off hawkers. It's also very polluted (think black snot!) , and poverty is everywhere, which is hard to deal with.

It's now 3.45 in the afternoon, and tonight we have a long overnight train journey north to the city of Udaipur in Rajasthan. It's been nearly eight years since my last Indian train journey so I'm not really sure what to expect, but we've booked a second-class airconditioned sleeper carriage so I'm sure it will be pretty comfortable. Thanks to my largely irrational phobia of running out of reading material, I came armed with six books (adding another two kilos to my luggage), so I'm looking forward to bunking down with a book and a cup of chai as we watch the country go past from our train window.

Phil and I are about to head to Crawford market, a large covered market around the corner of our hotel, to stock up on fruit for the journey. Mangoes, bananas, figs, grapes and pomegranates seem to be really plentiful here and look delicious.

The funniest thing we spotted today are vibrators being sold on street stalls! And we're not talking adult shops...just unpackaged dildos being displayed among the chocolate bars, toy cars and fake Rolexes! It does make you wonder...

Anyway I'd best be off, as my hour is already up on the net.

Love to you all,

E x