India: Dharamsala/Mcleod Ganj

Dharamsala/Mcleod Ganj 22/03-29/03

We took a 7 hour government bus up through the mountains from Amritsar to Dharamsala. The local buses are definitely not made for people over the height of about 5ft 6in so the whole way my knees were cramped up against the seat in front of me. Nina was engrossed by her Ghandi book and read it for 7 hours straight managing to finish it just as we arrived. Dharamsala is known for being the home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government in Exile. However, it is actually split into two and the temple complex that houses the Dalai Lama’s official residence is a few kilometres up from the main town in Upper Dharamsala, more commonly known as Mcleod Ganj. We decided to stay in Mcleod Ganj and immediately loved it, so much so we extended our stay to a week. It is only a small town, but it is set right in amongst the mountains of the Himalayas providing amazing views and fresh unpolluted air! We felt when we arrived like we had stepped out of India and into Tibet as the population must be over 70% Tibetan. As a result there was also a huge variety of different Tibetan and Chinese food on offer which provided us with a well needed respite from the 2-curry-a-day diet we had been on for the last 3 weeks.

We decided to visit the Temple Complex that houses the Dalai Lama first. The temples themselves were very different from those which we saw in Sri Lanka, despite both being Buddhist in nature. There were lots of prayer wheels and prayer flags in the temple and we saw monks practicing debating in a very specific style. They are quite theatrical and slap their hands and stomp whenever they make a point. We visited the Tibet Museum which documented the sad history of the country since the Chinese occupation and watched a documentary about the self-immolation protests of monks. Nina bought the Dalai Lama’s autobiography to complement her newfound knowledge on Ghandi. She is already becoming extremely wise beyond her years! As it was significantly colder in Mcleod Ganj and I had left my only hoody on a camel in Jaisalmer, I bought a thick fleece from one of the hiking shops and Nina got a lovely Yak-wool Tibetan shawl which kept us nice and warm in the chilly nights.

Prayer wheels in the Dalai Lama's temple complex

View from Mcleod Ganj

There are loads of walks that you can do from Mcleod in a day and we did two long ones in our time there. The first was a sort of warm up for the much longer second and it involved a leisurely walk to the neighbouring town Dharamkot, on to the sacred Dal Lake and back to Mcleod. In total it was about 8km and it had great views over Dharamsala and the surrounding area. One problem was that we couldn’t find the lake, but instead were treated to a small waterfall and distant snowy peaks. The following day we tackled the much tougher walk to a place at the top of a mountain called Triund. We had to wake up and leave by 6.30am in order to do it in a day. We took a taxi the first 4km to Galu Temple and had breakfast chai and bananas. Then we tackled the ascent of the mountain, climbing about 800m in 5kms to an elevation of 2875m! There were small shacks along the way that offered much needed chai and chocolate breaks. When we reached the last part of the climb it started getting really steep but we were rewarded at the top with spectacular views of the Dhauladhar Himilayan ridge. One of the best things about the walk was that the final view was blocked from sight the entire way until it was revealed just as you reached Triund. We had saved a precious Cadbury’s fruit and nut and some ginger nut biscuits for the top and sat to enjoy the amazing view. We begrudgingly had to leave after a while in the knowledge that we still had 9km to walk back down to Mcleod. As we entered back into town around 3 30pm we were exhausted and our legs had turned to jelly but it was totally worth it.

The view we stumbled across when looking for the lake.

Just doing some sewing

Tibetan prayer flags

7am chai stop in my new warm fleece

Nina showing off her new yak-wool shawl

A nice place to stop for some chai...

The view from Triund

Nina making herself look big

The rest of the week we spent enjoying good food, doing some much smaller walks and we even went to the cinema (basically a room with chairs and a projector). We also experienced the Indian festival of Holi. We headed out of our hotel in the morning to get some breakfast and before we knew it we were surrounded by Indian people covering us in green and yellow paint. We then went for a walk around town and more people kept coming up to us and adding different colours to our faces and clothes. Before long we were absolutely covered!

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Holi cow!

India: Pushkar,Jaipur,Delhi (reloaded) & Amritsar

Pushkar 10/03-12/03

We headed on up to the small town of Pushkar which surrounds an extremely holy lake for Hindus. It attracts huge amounts of pilgrims every year to come and pray in the holy water. However, we found it also attracted a lot of hippy style westerners searching for spirituality! We had a good time wandering around the bazaar streets and taking in all the colours and smells. Our visit was somewhat tainted though by the fact we were scammed on the second day. We went to see the holy lake and the pilgrims making a puja (prayer) by it. Immediately as we entered some men who were supposedly Brahmins shoved flowers into our hands and whisked us off to make a prayer. Before we knew it, we both had bindis on our foreheads and Puja passes (basically pieces of string) wrapped around our wrists. It all ended up with a donation being demanded in order to make sure the prayer worked and guarantee the health of our families! Nina said she’d pay 500 rupees just so we could walk away without having an argument in this holy place. It was strongly suggested that she pay for both her parents not just one so this quickly doubled to 1000! I ended up saying that I would only pay 500 as we shared the same money and to this they said that Nina’s family would be much happier and healthier than mine! Not a very holy thing to say coming from a ‘holy man’. So Nina’s family if you are reading this, be safe in the knowledge that she did you proud and you have twice as much money backing up your prayer than the one for my family! Sorry Mum and Dad. We’ve decided to try and get our money’s worth out of our Puja passes and wear them for as long as humanly possible! Our time in Pushkar was summed up by our taxi driver the next day when we were heading to the train station. He said that in India there are no rules and to show us this he took loads of paper from on top of his dashboard while driving and chucked it theatrically out the window while laughing!

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Jaipur 13/03-15/03

We reached Jaipur, our final stop in Rajasthan, the same day. Feeling like a good sleep we discovered that the bed in our hotel room was about 5ft 8in in length! Although this was fine for Nina, I ended up sleeping sideways in order to fit! Our guide book suggested a 3-4 hour walking route of the old city that weaved in and out of the shopping streets and incorporated a visit to the city palace. Each section of the old city was selling something different, from fruit and veg to textiles and kitchenware. We had lots of people approaching us to see if we wanted to buy anything from their shop although we thankfully got some respite in the paint and DIY sections . Walking along we saw a popular street vendor selling ice cream lassis! They were delicious and so far our tummies haven’t reacted. As we were standing drinking and chatting, a man approached us and asked the usual “What country?”. We replied that we were from England to which he was excited because he apparently had friends in Norwich of all places. Very quickly he said he wanted us to write his friend a letter for him and that we should come to his shop to do it. We immediately spied a scam and said no in the most polite way we could but he got really annoyed and angry at us! The problem is even if he was genuine, you just don’t know who to trust! The city palace had some really interesting exhibitions about the previous rulers of Rajasthan, one was over 7ft and weighed 35st! We then continued on the walk which took another 2 hours by which point we were getting pretty sick of saying “no thanks” to a shopkeeper or tuk-tuk/rickshaw driver every 30 seconds. We stopped for dinner at a place which specialised in southern Indian food and we ordered Dosas. We didn’t really know what to expect but they turned out to be huge (maybe 60cm long) rolled up pancakes with filling and really tasty!

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The next day we hired a tuk-tuk to take us to the Royal Cenotaphs, Amber fort and the Monkey temple. We left pretty early meaning we had the cenotaphs all to ourselves which was a really great experience. They were really beautiful and extremely peaceful. We carried on up to Amber fort, which was the former residence of the Rajput rulers before the founding of Jaipur. It was on the top of a mountain overlooking a lake and extremely striking as you drove towards it. This was our 4^th fort so far, and I think our favourite is still the Mehrangarh fort in Jodhpur although this one had a beautifully colourful Ganesh gate. On the way back to the city we went to a temple famous for being the home to hundreds of monkeys. Nina daringly bought a nut selection pack from a random child at the gate, and immediately as we entered she was being stalked by numerous primates. She eventually just chucked them all on the ground for fear of being attacked!

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Delhi (take 2!) 16/03-18/03

After waking up at the horrible time of 4.45am to catch our train to Delhi, we found that the hotel hadn’t booked us a tuk-tuk meaning we had to walk to the station at 5am. Not Fun! We got on our double-decker train and it was packed with middle class Indians on their laptops and smartphones. We find the income gap quite difficult to come to terms with sometimes as when we were coming into Delhi we passed about 4 miles worth of shanty towns with people living less than a metre from the train tracks in no more than metal shacks. In order to save a bit of money, we reluctantly stayed in a hotel in the Paharganj area near New Delhi station again. Our room was fine despite the fact that the entire hotel seemed to be subsiding and had around a 5% downward slope gradient. The staff were also a little too attentive and all absolutely desperate for a tip! The first guy showed us our room, put our bags down, showed us the bathroom, showed us the menu, adjusted the TV, asked if we needed laundry, showed us the kettle, and the started adjusting the glasses next to the kettle before we realised what was going on and gave him a tip. Then 5 minutes later another guy came in and adjusted the TV again and asked if we wanted room service before waiting next to the door so we had to give him a tip too! Throughout our stay every time they saw us they’d try to do us a service before waiting for a tip. We had to just pretend that we were busy doing something and eventually they would leave.

The next day we experienced the vast difference in wealth once again when we travelled from the really poor area we were staying in central Delhi to south Delhi to see the Ghandi Memorial. It was like a different world entirely with grand wide streets lined with trees and not a piece of rubbish in sight. The Ghandi Memorial and museum were absolutely fascinating. They were in the house where he spent his last 144 days and there were also concrete footprints of the last steps he took out into the garden where he was assassinated. The exhibits were so interesting that they inspired Nina to buy a book about his life which she finished in 2 days! Just when we were about to leave, out of nowhere I was struck by a severe bout of Delhi belly! I had to rush to the toilet on the one day we had forgotten to bring toilet paper out with us. There was only a little tap on the wall. Nina understood exactly what had happened from my face when I came out to find her and knowingly handed me the anti-bac hand wash without saying a word. It made the Ghandi memorial a lot more memorable for the wrong reasons!

With both our stomachs on the tender side, we treated ourselves to a deliciously western dinner at an All American Diner. We had burgers and milkshakes followed by a sundae for dessert. It was absolutely delicious and exactly what we needed.

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Amritsar 19/03-22/03

We said a final bye bye to Rajasthan and Delhi and headed up to the province of Punjab to a city called Amritsar. As soon as we got there it was a very different feel to Rajasthan. There was a lot less hassling and it was slightly less hectic! Amritsar is a mainly Sikh area which creates a slightly different vibe. Walking along the streets you can occasionally see devoted Sikhs carrying swords and wearing huge turbans and silver bangles. Our hotel was right next to The Golden Temple which is one of the most sacred places for Sikhs and we both agreed it was the most beautiful and welcoming religious temple we have visited so far. One thing that I liked was that the Temple provides places for anyone to sleep and eat free of charge. Interestingly, I think this is linked to the fact that Sikhs reject the caste system in India so everyone is equal. When you arrive at the Temple you have to remove your shoes and wash your feet, you must also cover your head at all times. Then you walk through a large white gate and the Golden Temple is suddenly in front of you surrounded by a Holy Lake. It’s really quite breath taking when you first see it. We happily wandered around the lake enjoying the atmosphere. Everyone was very friendly and lots of people said hello to us and a few even wanted a photo, although I’m really not sure why! At one point someone asked for a picture with me holding their baby!

One afternoon we organised a taxi to the Wagah Border to see the flag ceremony between Pakistan and India. We were both really excited to see it as we’d watched quite a few you tube clips! When we reached Wagah, our taxi driver asked us whether we had brought our passports. We hadn’t as we didn’t realise we needed them! Although in the end this didn’t seem to be a problem as when we got asked for our passports and we said we didn’t have them they just let us in anyway! There were quite a lot of security checks on the way and the queues were separated into men and women which was pretty good for me as there was 1 woman to about every 5 men! Every time we went into a new queue Ed would be lost into a sea of Indian men and I’d hope I’d see him on the other side! Once we got through security we found our seats at the border in the ‘foreigner/tourist section’. The place was completely full and the crowd were being warmed up by a man in an entirely white tracksuit pumping out Punjabi tunes and encouraging the woman to stand up and dance! There was a real fun party atmosphere with children running up and down the path carrying the Indian flag. The Pakistan side didn’t look quite as fun! At 5pm the main event began! It was a great spectacle. Soldiers on both sides would call out for as long as they possibly could and then charge up to the border gates kicking and stomping as high and hard as they could! They looked like fighting cockerels! On both sides, the crowds cheered enthusiastically for their country. Eventually. both sides shook hands and took down their national flags until the following day when they would do it all again!

During our stay in Amritsar I’d wanted to get a Punjabi suit, which all the women wear. It consists of baggy trousers and a slightly tighter tunic top. I found a pretty white and green one in the market but when I got it home I found it was just the fabric and you were expected to sew it yourself! Disappointed I wasn’t sure what to do and Ed suggested that maybe we could take it to a tailor. So we took my fabric along to a man with a sewing machine and without speaking Punjabi and him English we managed to establish that I’d like the fabric to be transformed into a Punjabi suit! He was a little surprised at first but then agreed. Incredibly, he finished it in one day and charged 200 Rupees which is £2.50!!!! That must be the cheapest tailored suit I will ever own!

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India: Jaisalmer, Jodhpur & Udaipur

Jaisalmer 28.02-03.03

We had booked an overnight train from Delhi to Jaisalmer for the next leg of our adventure. We'd left lots of time to get the train and arrived at New Delhi station with an hour to spare. However, like most things so far things weren't that simple! Looking at the train time board we couldn't see our train number or it's departure time. We thought this was a little strange so we asked the information desk and to our horror it turned out that the train was leaving from Old Delhi station 5km away! Whilst being heckled, which is the most annoying thing when you're trying to make a decision, Ed found us a taxi. To add to the drama of it all we had roughly 40 minutes to get there but it was 5pm- rush hour in Delhi!!!!!!! The taxi we took was something else. We put our bags in the boot and all sat in the back. To switch on the engine, the driver took a crowbar from the front seat and politely asked us to lift up our feet. He opened the floor of the car and used the crowbar to start the engine! The car wasn't the fastest machine and made a high pitched squeel from somewhere underneath the bonnet. Time was ticking! Weaving in and out of Delhi traffic and having road wars with a bus, we reached Old Delhi station with 10 minutes to spare. We rushed through security and ran to our platform which of course had to be platform 9 over the other side of the building! 2 minutes to go, we got to our train but we couldn't find our correct carriage. We were directed by man to go further down the train but with one minute to spare we were only by the jam packed sleeper carriages. We had no choice but to get on. Hoping to be able to walk through the train to our reserved births, our dreams were dashed when we found there to be no doors between the carriages. Stuck in the sleeper carriage, we were seriously contemplating having to spend the next 18 hours next to the sleeper toilet! We hatched a plan to jump off at the next station and run up the platform to try and find our carriage. The train ground to a halt and we charged up the platform. Locating our carriage, we tried to open the door but to our horror it was locked! We tried 3 separate doors, all locked!! With the whistle about to go, we miraculously found an open door and jumped in. Our hearts have never beated so fast. We were greeted by a ticket collector whom we breathlessly showed our reservation. He did the Indian head wobble which I'm ever so fond of and pointed to the births we were standing right next to! What a relief!!

Finally on the train!

It seemed that once we left the clutches of Delhi, our trip finally started to flow stress free! We reached Jaisalmer and were happy to be greeted by our hotelier at the train station, hence avoiding the ocean of tuk tuk drivers. Our Hotel Haveli in Jaisalmer was a great success. The two brothers that owned the place were genuine and very helpful. Issaak the eldest brother helped us to organise a camel safari for the three of us. We decided on a one night/two day safari to a non-touristy part of the Thar Desert. Ed and Matt bought Ali Baba trousers and tops from the bazaar inside Jaisalmer fort to look the part. In the morning we were driven out to the edge of the desert to find our noble camel steeds awaiting us for our journey. There were 4 camels; Charlie Brown, Rocket, Lucky and Michael. Our safari guide was a young man called Devid a 17 year old who was from a desert village and was a great cook! We introduced ourselves and then hopped on the camels. I took Charlie Brown, Ed had Michael and Matt rode Lucky. We trekked across three very different landscapes. The first was red rock similar to what you see in Utah, then there was more Bush land and finally the sand dunes. We all enjoyed riding the camels, at one point we got to take control of the camels ourselves. Charlie Brown was lagging slightly, eventually I got my reigns taken away from me again as I was too slow. Every now and again we were told to make the camels run which was quite comfortable the first few goes but by the end of the day it was pretty painful- Ed found it painful from the outset. Matt and I found it quite amusing whilst running to look back at Ed and see his very 'unimpressed' face. When we eventually reached the sand dunes, where we would be staying the night, as if on cue a 'beer man' appeared with chilled beers! He'd traveled 7km from his village to sell beers to tourists. We bought some and then played cards and watched the sunset. The sun went down and the stars came out. It was a very clear night so the stars were spectacular. We slept under blankets looking up at the sky. It was very romantic at first but then it was absolutely freezing!! We snuggled together for warmth, Ed in the middle, me and Matt on both sides. Although at one point I could feel someone snuggling me from the other side, bewildered I looked around to find a stray dog leaning on me for warmth! The next day our legs were really feeling the strain of camel riding so we all resolved to ride side saddle for the remainder of the trek.

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Inside the fort

Jaisalmer Fort

Jodhpur 03.03-05.03

We caught our first bus to Jodhpur which took around 5 hours but was actually really comfortable despite the ridiculously loud horn. Our new hotel had an amazing rooftop restaurant with a great view of the Mehrangarh Fort. We found Jodhpur to be a lot more chilled out, and we were able to walk around the market without being hassled that much which was great! We went to a spice shop that boasted it provides spices to Harrods and Gordon Ramsey (this is probably entirely untrue) so we all bought some nice spices and different teas as our first souvenir. We also visited a hotel which served "the best lassi in Rajasthan, if not India" according to Lonely Planet. I was obviously very excited about this but it wasn't at all what we expected. The lassies were really thick and extremely sweet and you had to eat them with a spoon! For dinner we went to a nice restaurant and had a thali which is basically an Indian set meal of 4 or 5 curries which naan and dessert. It was absolutely delicious! On our final day in Jodhpur we visited the fort itself and spent around 3 hours looking around with the help of an audio guide. Unlike Jaisalmer, the Jodhpur fort isn't inhabited so it was much better preserved. The architecture was really beautiful and the audio guide helped us to really understand the history of the rulers that lived there. In the evening, we decided to go to the cinema to watch a 'bollywood' movie. The men at the hotel recommended the film "Special 26" which was a crime/comedy/drama/love story. Although it was completely in Hindi, we were able to follow the story line easily and we all really enjoyed it. After the movie we tried out Indian Mcdonald's and got 3 Chicken Maharaja Macs!

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Our trusted audio guides

The "best lassi in India"!

Our Thalis

Jodhpur's Mehrangarh Fort

Udaipur 06.03-10.03

Udaipur was our final stop with Matt by our side. Taking a 6 hour bus from Jodhpur to Udaipur we were all seriously dehydrated once we reached our hotel as we’d been too scared to drink much during the day with the fear of needing the toilet on the bus! The rooftop restaurant in our new hotel provided a stunning panoramic view of the city. We all instantly liked Udaipur, it had quite a unique feel. It still had the bustle of the other Indian cities we had visited but there were lots of thin winding streets with small shops selling all sorts. It was also pretty clean and the buildings were really well maintained. It was a nice place to just have a wander around.  I managed to do my first bit of real haggling although I definitely still ended up getting ripped off. The notion of no fixed price is sometimes very difficult! I wish that someone would at least point me in the right direction as to how much something is genuinely worth! Ed seems to really enjoy it though and has become quite the seasoned haggler. We had a look around a Hindu Temple called Jagdish Temple which was holding a lively ceremony in preparation for Holi on March 26^th.  Whilst walking around the market Ed and Matt bumped into one of their friends from London! Very small world! We all ended up having dinner together, exchanging stories about getting ripped off in India! The restaurant we ate at showed the Bond film Octopussy every night at 7pm as it was actually filmed in Udaipur. We sat and had some drinks whilst watching the super cheesy film and recognising parts of the backdrop!

During our stay in Udaipur we looked around the Maharana Palace. Audio guides were a little expensive so we went without and tried to decipher the riddle-like English on the placards around the Palace. The architecture was impressive and there were some lovely courtyards where we sat and chilled.

On our final day we decided to take a cooking course. It was great value for money and lasted from 10:30am-3:30pm. The woman who ran it, her husband died when she was only 31 and she had 2 children. For a while she was expected not to leave the house and to mourn her husband. She’s not allowed to marry again and because of her caste, she’s only allowed to do certain jobs to get money for her family. Someone gave her the idea of providing cooking lessons to tourists and thankfully it’s been a great success. We cooked loads of different things; curries, naans, chapattis, & chutneys. We cooked a breakfast of Masala Chai (a delicious sweet Indian tea) and pakora (deep fried vegetables). She gave us the recipes and we cooked different parts of the meals. The final dinner was huge! We’d cooked three different curries each made for 6 people, plus naans and chapattis! My favourite was the coconut parantha which is like a sweet bread eaten for dessert.  We couldn’t finish all the food although we really did try!

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