It's the People, Not the Place.

A lot of travelers will tell you that it's "The people, not the place" that makes a trip.  This is true to an extent. However, even if you met a naked Cheryl Cole / Brad Pitt in Baghdad I think you'd find it difficult to say it was the best trip ever.  The ones who say "It's the journey, not the destination" are full of shit though.  When was the last time your EasyJet flight was the highlight of your holiday?  If it ever was, you need to find a better holiday spot.  Over the last week we have met some fantastic people and I do believe that this has made the destinations more enjoyable.  Let me quickly tell you where we have been before I name names; Jodpur, Udiapur and Mumbai.  Jodpur wasn't really up to much, it had a fort (like every other city in Rajistan) and not much else other than a posh restaurant which we utalised more for it's beer and spirit collection than anything else.  I'm not sure if I mentioned how difficult it is to get a beer in Northern India?  I've had about three since I got here.

Shashi and the Cleanest Kitchen in India.

Udaipur had a lot more to offer.  It was a really chilled out place with lots of good shopping, some decent sights and a few activities worth having a go at.  Apparently some of the scenes in Octopussy were filmed there too, although I don't know the film well enough to confirm or deny that and I'd never believe a word a local said.  We decided to go for an Indian cooking course which was actually more like a boot camp.  Shashi, our instructor was a very harsh mistress indeed.  If you weren't pounding the life out of the garlic cloves the way she wanted, she'd pound the life out of your balls.  We made load of different traditional Indian dishes and they were all amazing.  As well as the amazing food, our teacher, Shashi had a particularly interesting background.  Before we started she gave us a little insight into her life and the events that had lead  to her to running the cooking classes.  About nine years ago her husband (of an arranged marriage who she said she loved very much) sadly died.  This is sad for anybody who experiences this sort of shock but because of her religion, the grieving process is much different to what you'd expect from a typical British person.  She had to remain silent and entirely covered up for 45 days, only eating when the sun was down.  After this 45 day period she was allowed to talk but not leave the house for one year.  It was only at this point that she could start to build up her life again and eventually opened the doors of her house to allow travellers to partake in cooking classes.  I can't imagine why she had to do this, it seems a little extreme.  That said, I've also learned that back in the day some Indian women (who are still alive) would cremate themselves with their dead husband as a mark of respect?! Anyway, she's a strong woman.  I'm lucky enough to know a few.

I think this is the work of Udaipur's very own Banksy.

After Udaipur we headed for Mumbai on a 17 hour sleeper train.  Not the most comfortable journey given that we were sharing our beds with cockroaches and rats but we have found the perfect solution to these little nuisances......Valium.  Valium is available over the counter here and its really cheap.  I haven't been down back alleys doing deals with dodgy drug lords, nor is this the beginning of a slippery slope which ends up with me dying from an overdose in a crack den in Camden.  It just helps to get some sleep on the night train.  We'd heard a lot of mixed things about Mumbai.  Some people hate it and some people love it.  One person even said it was worse than Delhi; A statement that should never be taken lightly given that Delhi is the benchmark of grimnesss.  But to be honest, Mumbai is my favorite place so far.  Without being too patriotic, you can really see the influence of the British rule in Mumbai and in fairness it's done the place a massive favour.  Simple things like pavements, zebra crossings and a ban on rickshaws make it easy to get around and enjoy all that it has to offer.  I think there was even a bin somewhere.

Classic Bollywood Film Posters

We decided to take a slum tour one day to see what it's like in the real poverty stricken areas of the city.  In my mind a slum was somewhere that the real poor people live, in shacks, with no food, water or electricity and have terrible lives.  I couldn't have been more wrong. The Dharavi slum was as clean as some of the major cities we've been to, has reasonable living conditions that include clean running water and electricity for 2 hours each day and there is a sense of community there greater than anywhere I have ever been.  They say it is a city within a city.  The slum itself is only 1.6 square kilometres big but it is home to over one million people.   In most cases if you are born in the slum, you live, work and die there.  However, these people are not ill educated or living in disease riddled streets for the most part.  Although I must admit a saw quite a few dead rats knocking around in the alleys.  If even the rats can't handle it, that says something.  We met doctors, engineers, teachers and all other kinds of people that you would meet on the streets of Newcastle.  The difference is that the people here are happy with their lot.  They don't look over their neighbours fence to see what kind of car they have so that they can keep up with the Jones's, they look over the fence to make sure their neighbour has enough food and water.  Just to clarify, the aforementioned fence is purely metaphorical, we're not talking about people who have decked back gardens with patio heaters here.  It's difficult to describe but it's certainly opened my eyes. It's not an easy life in the slum by any means, but it's a life that we could all learn from in some way I think.

Breakfast Time in Goa.

We've now landed in the beaches of Goa which is total contrast to where we have just come from.  There are two things to do here; Sunbathe and get drunk.....and that's exactly what we'll be doing for the next few days.  Its a funny thing that you should need a holiday from traveling, but you do.  It's not quite the same as your standard two week holiday,  It takes effort, patience and lots of planing.

Lessons learned this week:

1. India is more of a continent that a country.  It changes dramatically from state to state.
2. If anyone says anything about going to Kashmir, they are a crook.
3. There are three options when ordering cornflakes in Goa.  With cold milk, hot milk or beer.
4. The only people on the planet who are whiter and more "lager loutish" than the Brits are the Russians.

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Some Get Lost. Some Find Themselves.

It's hard to know where to start with this blog.  Now that we're over illness and things are moving quickly there is a lot to write about.  I might even be able to get through this one without a single mention of toilet troubles.....might.

Since we left Varanasi we've visited Jaipur, Ranthambore National Park and we're currently in Pushkar.

This weird camera angle makes the anaconda look like a cobra?!

Jaipur was a pretty nice place.  It didn't feel particularly different from any other place we had been but it moves at a slower pace.  We done the usual traveler stuff; visited a fort, checked out a palace, charmed snakes and argued with rickshaw drivers over the smallest amounts of money.  Sometimes you have to give yourself a shake and remind yourself what 10p is actually worth.  You can't even get a packet of space raiders for that back in England these days.  We fancied bit of a quiet night during our stay in Jaipur so we went to the cinema to see the latest Bollywood blockbuster, Angeepath.


I'm fucked if I know what the hell it was about but it certainly entertained.  Indian cinema is not the place to go if you fancy a quiet night though.  It's not like the cinema in England where people get pissed off if someone slurps their coke or rustles their popcorn too loud.  No.  It's more like panto.  When the hero comes on screen (which is usually out of focus) the audience goes wild.  They cheer, throw popcorn, clap and in some rare instances they even stop talking on their phones.  I did find it a little strange that one second we were seeing someone being brutally beaten then in the next scene everyone is singing and dancing.  I'd love to see Arnold Schwarzenegger break out into song after delivering a classic action hero line. "GET TO THE CHOPPER!!!" and cue music.  Maybe Hollywood has something to learn.  Anyway, we had a really good time and can't wait to do it again.

After Jaipur we jumped in a Jeep and drove five hours to Ranthambore National Park for a tiger safari.  It was a quiet place mainly filled with rich american tourists (the hotels, not the nature reserve).  Our safari was a slight disappointment to be honest.  We were out for four hours and didn't see much.  There are more animals knocking about in the streets then there were on the safari.  At one point our driver tried to claim there was a black bear in the bushes but I was pretty sure it was just a dark coloured shrub blowing in the breeze.  Still, we were out long enough for me to catch a cold and damage my spinal chord due to the sheer state of the road.  At least I wasn't shitting or spewing though so in my book it was a good day.  We spoke to a fair few people who had also been on safari and hadn't managed to see any tigers either.  I think it might just be another scam.  Print some photos of tigers off, stick them up in the ticket office and drive daft tourists around in a field for a few hours.  Money made.

Laura and Jimmy the camel

We're now in Pushkar which is my favorite place so far.  It's a holy town so things are much different here compared with other places we have visited.  The main difference being that the locals aren't scamming little bastards.  We've been spiritually cleansed (for a cost...obviously), rode a camel through the Indian countryside, climbed a mountain and had some time to chill out and collect our thoughts.  I've noticed that this town is full of hippies.  I figure they are the kind of people who came to India on a two week holiday and just ended up "getting lost" here.  They annoy me.  I was sat next to one of these uber travelers (you know the ones I mean, the ones who have had one off experiences that no other traveler could possibly of had in some remote village where the locals have never seen a white man before and it was totally spiritual and oh my god I can't even describe how much it changed my life because I realised how lucky these people are not to live in modern society and be restricted by whatever the fuck is topical at the moment). I fucking hate those types.  Where was I? Oh, so this woman who was "lost in India" pretty much put her armpit hair in my biryani.  That's not cool.  I can't remember where I was going with this............

Lessons learned this week;

1. Hemorrhoids do not appreciate camel treks in sweltering heat.
2. Bollywood films are bloody epic.  Well worth a watch.
3. Bring a map.  There are enough people "lost in India".
4. 10p is worth a lot to someone with nothing, but nothing to a lot of us.  Don't be tight.

Anniversary Chocolate Cake.....

I guess any place that came after Delhi was going to seem like a total walk in the park after what we had experienced.  I don't blame Delhi, well, maybe I do a little, but the truth is that I think we were probably just a little unlucky. However, Delhi is only a tiny part of India so we should be careful not to assume that the whole of the country smells of petrol, cow shit, rabid dogs and out of date chicken and that the constant sound of rickshaw horns and persistent shop owners is the norm.  That would be unfair.

Classic Indian train digs.

When we eventually left Delhi, which was naturally difficult, we started to settle down a little and enjoy ourselves.  Our first stop away from Delhi was Agra.  Actually that's not strictly true.  On the way to Agra we jumped off at what we thought was our stop (as was confirmed by numerous locals who it seems do not actually understand how to say no....another good lesson learned) and were peddled around on a rickshaw for an hour and a half before our driver realized we were 50km west of where our hotel was actually located.  A 50km peddle rickshaw is too much for even the most hardened drivers so we jumped on the train again and finally made it.  Thank God!

The most amazing thing we saw by far.

Agra was a quieter , quainter version of Delhi and more importantly it was easy to breath the reasonably clean air.  Apparently there are strict rules enforced on pollution to protect the facade of The Taj Mahal.  I'm not sure if anything in India is "enforced" to any degree, but the air did seem cleaner so you never know.  We spent a couple of days checking out the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort.  Both were amazing.  The Taj Mahal is probably now my favorite building.  My only issue with it was the sheer amount of Chinese and Japanese (and possibly some other kinds of those types) blocking the view of everything.  They were literally everywhere.  They all have the biggest most expensive cameras too which is weird because they take shit photos.  A couple asked me to take a photo of them so I stood in position with the Taj behind them, not a bad shot I thought to myself but they didn't seem pleased.  Oh no.  They wanted a shot of them standing next to a tree.  It wasn't even that nice of a tree.  Shit photo.  THE FUCKING TAJ MAHAL IS RIGHT BEHIND YOU!  Anyhow, we had a great time there and it was nice to learn about the history of the buildings and what not.  I won't bore you with the details, that's what wikipedia is for.

Hanging out on the Ganges the night before Laura took ill.

So now we are in Varanasi which is by far the best place we have visited so far.  It's a very cultured place with a very interesting history and offers many chances to immerse yourself in the Indian culture.  We've dabbled in yoga, which has lead to us dabbling in massages due to being in absolute agony afterwards.  We also took a boat out on the Ganges to watch some bodies being cremated on the waters edge.  I know that sounds like the total rapeage of a very personal and upsetting ceremony but that's kind of just the way it is.  Aside from the boat loads of tourists whizzing past, the ceremonies are very spiritual and its nice to see that the families and friends of the deceased have so much respect for those being cremated.

Today, I was supposed to have a sitar lesson.  Supposed to.  Laura managed (managed sounds like she has been trying for ages....she has not.) to fall ill again.  Poor little bugger.  She's in a bad way.  Today is actually our anniversary which we decided we would celebrate yesterday as there were more options of things to do.  Let me tell you how it went;

Laura got ill.  Now just to clarify when someone gets "ill" in India it means they are shitting through the eye of a needle.  Lets not go into the real specifics though.  When she finally got to sleep, I snuck out to go and buy her some presents.  Romantic, I know.  When I got back she was awake so she started unwrapping said presents.  Half way through unwrapping them, the poor lass had a little accident in her undercrackers.  The kind of accident that would be bad timing whatever you were doing, but to be half way through a romantic gift giving session was the best use of slapstick comedic timing ever.  She didn't think it too funny mind.  Being the hero that I am, I got her cleaned up and even cleaned the boston from her soiled shreddies.  If that's not love I don't know what is.  Travelling makes you closer; FACT.

It might seem a little bad taste to be writing such things about my ill girlfriend (who has actually been verbally promoted to wife to reduce confusion amongst the locals) but when you're travelling, talking about bowel movements with strangers is as common and harmless as talking about the weather at the bus stop in England.

Lessons learnt this week;

1. Indian's don't know how to say no. 
2. Never ask yes or no questions.  See above for the answer that will be received.
3. Always ask leading questions.  For example,"Which station is this?" as opposed to "Is this Agra station?".
4. Every other traveler in India has been ill and scammed.  It's not personal.
5. India is a really cool place.  It just takes some getting used to.

You might notice there are no photos with this post.  Somehow, they have been deleted from our memory card.  Totally gutted, all our photos of the Taj Mahal are gone.  Nothing is ever easy eh?

As soon as Laura is well again we'll be heading over to Jaipur.  Hopefully that won't be too long.

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