Mumbai

It was quite a scenic tour of the city as the bus made its way through Bombay. Most of what we saw was the slums, mile after mile of haphazardly constructed shacks, lining the railroad tracks and stretching out as far as we could see. The people all spilled out of their homes and live most of the day out on the street, since their shacks are no bigger than a bedroom in a typical western home. The kids play, women do washing, and men sell food and other items right outside with buses, trucks and cars zooming by at top spead. Bombay (officially called Mumbai, but most people still call it by its original name, so we will too) is India's largest city with over 16.5 million people. And, as we quickly saw for ourselves, the home to Asia's largest slums.

As the bus travelled south, we soon saw the other side to Bombay: a cosmopolitan of modern buildings housing the nation's wealthiest industries. The absence small alleys, rickshaws, open sewers, and cows wandering around the streets were immediately noticeable. Although somewhat relieved to arrive in such a 'modern' place after the last few weeks, we can't help but think that Bombay is not a fair image of the rest of the nation. If a traveller to India were to arrive in Bombay as his/her first stop, it would not quite prepare him/her for the rest of what's to come! On the other hand, it's good to see the progressive attitude of this city, and it could very well be a gentle introduction to the country instead of the medieval world of Delhi.

As always, the bus dropped us off in some obscure location, so we took a taxi to the Colaba area, the 'backpacker' area where all of the cheapest hotels are. Just the fact that rickshaws are banned from most of the city and taxis acutally use working meters was a treat to us. Wandering around Colaba searching for a place to stay, we soon realised it would be an expensive stay in Bombay. I guess there is a price to pay for all of this modernisation, and that price trickles down to the tourists. We rejected the first hotel, as they wanted 700 rupees for a room no larger than a closet, with walls that don't even reach the ceiling. Instead, we chose to pay a bit more and go for a 'nice' hotel. We chose Bentley's Hotel, although I was a bit concerned it would be way out of our price range, given the name of the place. But it's a cute hotel in an old home, located off of the noisy main street, on a road that reminds us a lot of a Sydney suburban road. Bombay is very green (especially coming from the deserts of Rajasthan), with lots of trees lining the streets. Nige talked the owner into a room for 800 rupees, and we settled in.

Starving for some 'real' food by this time (it had been over 24 hours since we boarded the first bus in Udaipur, and nearly 30 hours since we'd eaten a proper meal at breakfast yesterday), we felt that a shower was more important than food. So we had a good scrub, put on some fresh, clean clothes, and headed to the only place that could even come close to satisfying our hunger: McDonald's of course, since we had been dreaming about it since 9:00 last night! Eating in the clean, air-conditioned restaurant, I again felt funny about seeing McDonald's as a treat, but who are we trying to kid? It was an awesome meal.

Not in the mood to do much other than sleep, we used the internet a bit after lunch, bought a few cold beers at the liquor store (conveniently located just around the corner from our hotel, another justification for the high rate) and spent the remainder of the evening watching some TV and napping. After the sun went down, we headed out to Chowpatty Beach (of course we call it Cow Patty Beach). Every night, locals gather here to spend time with family, join in political rallies, or just enjoy being outside. During the day, the beach leaves much to be desired, and all of the action is at night. There are many food stalls set up, selling many different kinds of Indian foods, sweets, and ice cream. There were a few kiddie rides going, like a small ferris wheel and a blow-up super slide. People sell roasted corn on the cob, roasted chana (chickpeas), balloons, toys, and even fairy floss (cotton candy). The carnival atmosphere was even more prominent as it happened to be Saturday night. Although we did see some young teenagers hanging out and couples by themselves, it's definitely a family affair at Chowpatty Beach. We even decided to be brave and try one of the local specialties, bhelpuri. It's a dish of fried dough pieces mixed with puffed rice, lentils, lemon juice, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers and fresh corriander. It was delicious, but we were cautious. After walking down the beach and back, we had a late meal at a busy little Italian place before heading to bed.

Long road to Bombay

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEVIN AND BEN!!!

We woke up to a nice cool morning in Udaipur and had some breakfast before heading to the train station to figure out what we're doing after Udaipur. All of the trains to Mumbai are booked out for the next few days, so we decided to take a bus from here south to Ahmedabad and will deal with the trip to Mumbai once we get there.

Our chores done, we spent most of the morning on the computer. We headed to the bus stop in the pouring rain, arriving drenched and just as the clouds passed over and the rain stopped. We got on the bus (non air-con of course) and waited about 20 minutes for it to leave. As we waited, a young boy of about 10 years old was walking underneath the bus windows, trying to sell cold drinks and snacks. He and a friend boarded the bus and quitely walked down the aisle to make a sale. A few minutes later, a man (with horribly dyed orange hair-what's up with that in India anyway?) got on the bus, yelled at the two boys, and smacked them both upside the head a few times. And hard. Nige instinctively yelled at the guy, but he didn't listen at all. He was only interested in smacking the boys until they got off the bus. Feeling bad, Nige stuck his head out of the window and beckoned one of the boys over. He wanted to buy a soda, and the boy quickly went to fetch them. As Nige was handing the money down to him, the same bad man came over, yelled at the boy and started whacking him with a broom made of sticks, and hitting him on the head again. Nige yelled at him,'Hey fuckhead, don't hit him! I'm buying something from him!' and yelled a few more times as the man continued to abuse the boy. The boy didn't seem bothered, he just wanted to make a sale. It was very frustrating for us, as the boys were not doing any harm or causing any problems. The guy probably just wanted passengers to have to get off of the bus and go to HIS shop right in front of the bus, rather than buy from the boys. We caused a bit of a scene, with all of the other passengers coming over to look at us and look out to see why Nigel was yelling, but just because something is accepted as part of a different culture doesn't make it right.

We had about 8 hours on the bus south to Ahmedabad, and it was uneventful. Our lovely diet during this whole time included Lay's Potato Chips, Cadbury chocolate bars, and some Mung Dhal (a packaged snack of crunchy, pan-fried lentils that kind of taste like a mix between a nut and potato chips). We were not even going to attempt the food being served at the dodgy truck stops.

Arriving at night in Ahmedabad, we decided we didn't want to hang around at all, and figured we'd just catch the next bus to Mumbai, even though we don't particularly like overnight buses. We were dropped off in some obscure place in town, and as we tried to figure out where we were and where we needed to go, we were surrounded and hassled by a crowd of rickshaw drivers, children wanting to catch the action, and anyone else who just happened to be walking by. All of the drivers wanted to charge us about triple the real price to take us to the bus station (God forbid the buses actually drop us off there!), and they even lied about how far it is. Some said 8 kms, some said 10, and one guy said it was 20 kms! We knew where it was, about 7 kms from where we were standing, and that we shouldn't pay more than 30 rupees to get there. After fending off those trying to charge us from 70-130 rupees, we walked up and down the street trying to flag down other rickshaws. As we moved, the whole crowd around us followed, creating a nice little cocoon of crooks around us, kind of like the dirt that follows Pig Pen around in the Peanuts comics. It was extremely frustrating, and I felt particularly uncomfortable having all of these men right in my face, touching me and trying to get a grope or two.

Finally a driver said he'd take us for 40 rupees, and we were happy to leave the mob behind. We went to a travel agent just near the bus station, but they were rude and couldn't/wouldn't help us. We rang a number in the Lonely Planet book, and found out that there was a bus leaving for Mumbai at 9:00 p.m. But the guy hung up on Nigel before we could find out where it left from. So, we finally got through again, and the nice man at the phone place helped us figure out where we needed to go to catch this bus, and how much it should cost in a rickshaw. He even came out of the shop to speak to the rickshaw driver in Hindi. We arrived at the private bus company, purchased the last 2 seats to Mumbai, and got on the 9:00 p.m. bus with about 2 minutes to spare. So after all of the hassles, it really did work out in the end.

The bus did depart at 9:00 a.m., but we then spent the next 2 hours stopping at various locations around town to pick up cargo, some of which we think was some sort of bootleg magazines. Starving for something to eat by this point, we asked the driver how long we would be as we had just passed a McDonald's down the road and we wanted to make a quick trip there. He assured us it would be only 10 minutes, not enough time. So 10 minutes passed, and I asked again how long we'd be. 'Only 10 minutes.' In the end, we were there for nealy 45 minutes, enough time for us to have been down to McDonald's and back about 5 times. It was so frustrating! And then to pour salt into the wound, we passed another McDonald's as we finally headed out of town. It was a long, boring trip to Mumbai, and the 13 hour trip ended up taking about 16.

Where's the water?

We had a 5:30 a.m. bus departure this morning, heading south to Udaipur. We had told the guy at our hotel that we were leaving at 5:00, and he assured us he'd be up. We went downstairs just before 5, and spent about 15 minutes banging on doors for someone to wake up to open the locked gates for us so we could get out. I'm glad I didn't realise the impossibility of escaping the hotel before we spent 3 nights there, as I'd spend all night worrying that there would be a fire. Eventually we got out, found a rickshaw to the bus stand and headed out.

We got to Udaipur around 12:30 and wandered around a bit before choosing a hotel. Udaipur is a large town of about 400,000, surrounded by hills and centering around a huge lake. We walked around the alley streets, across the lake and walked along the ghats to Ambrai restaurant for lunch and a beer. The restaurant overlooks the lake and the Lake Palace Hotel, a ritzy place built in 1754, that was once the royal summer palace of Maharaja Jagat Singh II. It was used as a set in the James Bond movie Octopussy, and no one in town will let you forget this fact. We would have like to enjoy a martini (shaken, not stirred of course) with our meal, but beer is hard enough to find and we didn't press our luck.

After lunch we headed back across the lake, had a very quick dip in the cold water of our hotel pool, and relaxed for a while. In the evening, we walked around town some more before having dinner and heading to bed. Oh yeah, and the lake in Udaipur is completely dry at the moment, so we walked right across it, among the grazing cattle and kids playing cricket or flying kites. Not much of a romantic lakeside town.

Dodging rickshaw-wallahs

Having seen enough of Jaisalmer, we took the long bus back to Jodhpur this morning, but not before we could enjoy a Nutella and banana pancake for breakfast. We were tempted to get the pasta we had last night for dinner, but 8:00 was just too early.

With Mr. Belches behind us, and another Mr. Spits in front of us, it was another long ride back to Jodhpur, but still not too bad. When we arrived, we were assaulted by rickshaw guys at the bus stand and had to argue our way onto one that accepted our price. We wanted to go to the government bus station and everyone else wanted to charge us double what we wanted to pay. When we found a guy who was happy to charge us the proper price of 30 rupees, he got into an argument with a few other drivers. One of them even physically blocked our way onto the rickshaw and we had to kind of shove him out of the way. The bad man who wanted 50 rupees finally agreed to 30, but only after we'd gotten in the rickshaw of the good guy who had immediately agreed on 30. So the bad guy tried to say some story about this rickshaw not being the next in line to leave (Nigel's response: "That means nothing to me, I don't care, this man has agreed to 30 rupees and we'll be taking this rickshaw.", and that we'd have to wait at least 2 hours until this rickshaw left (Nigel's response: "That's okay, we're happy to sit here and wait.". We knew he was lying of course, and our rickshaw driver was finally able to take off. Along the way, he told us that the bad man was a cheat and overcharges everyone. He was a good guy.

Interestingly Nigel had just had a quick conversation with a teacher on the bus about this very thing. The teacher asked how Nigel liked the Indian people to which he replied 'Some are good.' The teacher asked why and Nigel explained that everyone was trying to cheat us and rip us off. The teacher seemed a bit shocked by this and appealed to his friend saying he was a good guy. His wise friend then replied 'The robber never tells you he is a robber until he has robbed you.' Unfortunately our experience in India has not been at all improved through our interaction with the people. And until proven otherwise, we will enter each new encounter on the defensive.

At the government bus station, Nige booked us seats to Udaipur for early tomorrow morning and we headed back to The Blue House hotel. We had our good rickshaw driver stop at a liquor store we spotted so we could buy a few beers on the way. We checked into a room, enjoyed our beers on the rooftop, played some carrom and had our favourite masala tomato curry for dinner.

Remind me why we came here???

We had an 8:30 bus this morning to Jailsamer which wasn't too bad, except that at times it was packed full of people, sitting 3-4 in a seat meant for 2 and crammed in the aisles. And the guy in front of us kept spitting his tobacco chew/cardomom concoction out the window, which only came right back into our window to spray us. Since there was no air on the bus, and it was easily 42C outside, closing the windows was definitely not an option. Along the way, the scenery was desert sand and scrub brush. We saw some camels in the shade of trees and a few deer-like animals. It was such a sight to see brown desert, brown desert, brown desert and then all of a sudden the bright, colourful saris of a woman or two walking in the sand.

Arriving in Jaisalmer, we were assaulted by rickshaw guys at the bus stand and had to shove our way through them. We knew they'd try to get commission at any hotel we were taken to, so Nige had the great idea to have the guy drive us to a hotel near the one we wanted. We got out, and he was rather surprised when we headed down the street instead of into the hotel reception. Very smart move. We ended up at the Desert Boys Guest House. Jaisalmer is a town of about 60,000 people, built right in the middle of a desert. It's another town with a huge fort, except that here, part of the town is inside the actual fort. Homes and shops have been built into the walls and old structures of the fort, and the huge gate entries and bricked streets still exist. And instead of the blue homes contrasting with the desert in Jodhpur, in Jaisalmer, everything is the same brownish red colour; the fort, the houses, and the desert all look like one big clump of dirt. Just about the only thing to do in Jaisalmer is to take off on a camel safari into the desert for a few days. Not caring for this sort of adventure (after all, we both grew up in desert-like places and we've ridden on elephants, so we can only imagine how much worse a camel is), we knew we wouldn't be staying long in Jaisalmer.

After a fantastic lunch of pizza and mashed potatoes (sounds like a gross combination, but it was good!) at our hotel's Italian restaurant, we wandered around town for the remainder of the day, went to the bank and allowed ourselves to get lost in the tiny alleys. The people are quite friendly, although it's very touristy, obvious by the shops selling touristy things and the competition for camel treks. We bought a few beers at a liquour shop we passed (one of about 10 in India it seems) and enjoyed them on the rooftop of our hotel as the sun set over the desert. For dinner, we shared another awesome pizza and some pasta, which alone made the trip out to Jaisalmer worth it. Although the hotel doesn't have a carrom board, we still went to bed happy after the cold beers and great meal.

The Last Team to Arrive

After another hot night last night, complete with about 10 trips to the shower to get drenched, we were up early this morning, had our usual cheese and tomato toast for breakfast, then headed to Jaswant Thada. This is a memorial to Maharaja Jaswant Singh II, and is also the royal crematorium sight. It's a white marble structure set high on the hills overlooking Jodhpur, earning the nickname "The Taj Mahal of Mewar." From here we walked along the mountainside towards the Jodhpur Fort, or Meherangarh. Along the way, we stopped at the very spot where The Amazing Race contestants reached their checkpoint on the episode we watched just yesterday.

Meherangarh is a really cool fort overlooking Jodhpur from the desert mountains above. It is very medieval looking, with cannon studded ramparts surrounding the inside, and huge entries with thick wooden and iron doors that even elephants couldn't beat down. We spent about 15 minutes just sitting on a wall overlooking the city and enjoying the brightly coloured blue houses spread out almost as far as we could see. It used to be that the blue colour signified the home of a Brahmin but these days nearly everyone paints their home in some shade of blue. The colour is also said to be an effective mosquito repellant (a theory I definitely shot down during my stay). It was amazing to hear the noise of the town rise up from below. We could hear a general buzz as well as individual sounds: pots banging, children crying, men yelling, dogs barking.

For the next few hours, we took an audio tour of the fort, narrated with dramatic tones and even some sound effects. Besides the royal buildings themselves, there are also many things from the Rajput era on display including clothing, jewelry, royal elephant chairs, paintings, carpets and of course armoury and weapons. It was fun wandering around, imagining how life was back then in Rajasthan, the Land of the Kings.

When we were finished, we walked back down into town through the crowded alleys. We did some laundry (which dried in 30 minutes), had more beer from the suit bag and a few more matches of carrom after dinner before heading to bed.

Carrom Madness

It was a long, hot night last night, and we made several trips to the bathroom to drench ourselves in cold water (PJs and all) before lying back down and trying to sleep. After having breakfast at the hotel, we changed rooms (our new one actually has windows for some air circulation) and then spent the morning walking around Jodhpur. We wandered around the market stalls at Sadar Bazaar and the clocktower in the centre of the old city within the city walls. I (Kel) bought some bracelets from one of the vendors. Since I can't wear metal of any kind (except gold), I bought glass ones. We spent about 20 minutes there while the guy loaded my arms up with different bracelets, all the way up to my elbows. He said because I'm a married woman, I need 24 bracelets on each arm! Some Rajasthani women wear bracelets all the way up to their shoulders, getting larger and larger from the wrist to the shoulder. 48 bracelets a bit much for me, I settled on a few each of several colours. As we walked away, I noticed a bit of blood on my hand. Of course I freaked out, having just spent 20 minutes with this guy touching my hands and arms. But it turns out that one of the glass bracelits nicked my hand as he was taking it off, so I was much relieved. Then I realised it was a stupid purchase as I'd have to carry these delicate glass bracelets around until we get to a post office to send them home. My original purchase was about 50 bracelets, and by the next day I was already down to 46. Oh well, they're cheap, and it was fun buying them.

We headed back to our hotel for a bit in the heat of the afternoon, and caught an episode of one of our favourite shows, The Amazing Race. Ironically enough, this episode of Series 7 showed the teams in Jodhpur, India, climbing the clocktower we'd been to not 20 minutes before, and going up to the Fort and Jaswant Thada, where we're heading tomorrow! It was very exciting to watch.

For the rest of the afternoon, we walked all around Jodhpur, and found it to be a nice little town with friendly people. We headed to the Umaid Gardens & Zoo while trying to find a pub on the way. But we never found a pub, and the gardens were so dry and boring that we weren't exactly sure they even were the gardens until we looked at our map. So, we walked back through town, wandered around a street market selling fresh produce & many different colourful spices and back to our hotel.

We asked at our hotel if they had beer, & they sent out a guy to get us a few cold ones. He brought them back 'hidden' in a men's hanging suit bag. We enjoyed these on the rooftop restaurant while playing Carrom. We've been sucked into the carrom hysteria, and have purchased our pieces and super fast powder so we can make ourselves a board as soon as we get home. And we've thought of quite a few ways to incorporate beer into the rules.

On to Jodhpur

Up early this morning, we wandered around Pushkar some more and spent some time relaxing on the steps of one of the ghats leading to the small lake in the centre of town. We watched a few boys swim in the lake, an old sadhu (holy man) pray on the shore, and plenty of kids coming up to us asking us to take their photos for 10 rupees (NOTHING is free in India, and kids have caught on to this as well). Since there isn't much else to do here in Pushkar, we headed back to our hotel, packed up and caught a bus back to Ajmer, where we hoped we'd find a connecting bus to Jodhpur.

Back in Ajmer, our only option to get to Jodhpur was a non-airconditioned 'deluxe' bus. Being a 5+ hour drive and over 40C, we were hesitant to accept this, but didn't feel like staying in Ajmer all day either. So we bought the tickets, made another unfortunate stop at the bus station toilets, and headed off just as the heat of the day really started to burn. But it wasn't too bad at all. The bus was a normal Greyhound type, just without airconditiong. The trip west to Jodhpur passed fairly quickly.

Arriving in Jodhpur around 4:30, we had a challenging time dodging all of the rickshaw touts but finally made it to our hotel of choice. It wasn't quite in our price range, so the packs were back on and we continued through the maze of alleys to another place, The Blue House. This turned out to be the winner, so we gratefully dropped our bags in the room, ordered two (overpriced) beers that were especially delicious, had a cold shower, and relaxed a bit before having dinner at the hotel's rooftop restaurant. Jodhpur is on the edge of the Great Thar Desert, the old city still surrounded by a massive medieval wall like Jaipur. Looking over the city, high up on a hill, is Jodhpur's fort, Meherangarh. It looks like a castle jutting out of the desert rocks, and we have a great view from our hotel. It was surprisingly cool, with a much-needed breeze blowing as we watched the sun set through a haze of clouds and had masala tomato curry for dinner.

Java Oasis

After breakfast this morning, we set out to get a good coffee since the ones at our hotel have been pretty bad. We headed to a place in our book that mentions they have good chocolate doughnuts (Nige has a weak spot for these). We found the place, bought his doughnut, and he took one bite before deciding it was pretty bad and not worth eating. He gave it to one of the many stray dogs on the street, and even the dog wouldn't eat it. A good indication of how bad it was. We remembered seeing a coffee place across the street from the Raj Mandir Cinema 2 nights ago and headed there. We were pretty sure we couldn't go wrong, with a name including the word 'barista' and the fact that they have a book corner inside. It looks totally like any cute coffee shop at home, so we waited anxiously until they opened at 10:00. But as we sat and waited, we remembered our last attempt at eating in a 'western-looking' place in Agra, which turned out to be gross. But, we ordered our specialty coffee drinks and they were delicious. We sat there for at least an hour, a little javan oasis in the centre of India, drinking our caffeine and reading through magazines. There was a group of about 5 people about 17 years old inside, celebrating one of the girls' birthday. They had a cake, sang 'Happy Birthday' in English, and sat there chatting the morning away like many 17-year olds would. One of the guys broke out a guitar, and they started singing some Hindi songs. We wondered if they were some church group. Or I guess it would be called temple group. It was pretty tough to leave but we appreciated having a morning break from India.

We went back to our hotel, packed up our bags, used the internet for a bit, then caught a bus at 1:30, west to Ajmer. At the Ajmer bus station, we had to wind our way through the piles of trash, puddles of sewage, and amongst the roaming boars to find the next bus bound for Pushkar. We only had to wait about 10 minutes, but unfortunately we both had to use the toilets at the bus station in the meantime. Let's just say they were definitely the worst ones yet, and not an experience we'd like to relive.

The bus north to Pushkar is a local bus, jammed with people and baggage. But it's only a 25 minute drive over a small mountain, so it's not bad at all. This area could be in any desert-type place in Southern California, like Agua Dulce (where Kel's mum works), Temecula (northeast of San Diego) or similar places. We arrived in Pushkar in the late afternoon and walked to our hotel from the bus station. We didn't think we could go wrong with a place called 'The White House' and we were not disappointed. We dropped our gear in the room and headed out to explore the evening life in Pushkar. This small desert town is mostly known for its Camel Fair, held annually as a pilgrimage and livestock trading post. But since this fair is held in November, Pushkar was pretty quiet. We explored some of the street shops, and this place is definitely set up for tourism. Besides this, it's kind of a weird town in that it's so holy that no alcohol, meat or eggs are permitted. But we certainly had many offers of hashish during our short stay. After a bit of shopping and browsing, we headed back to our hotel for some diner. While we waited for our dinner to be made by the 13 year old cook we played a quick couple of games of Carrom. Carrom is a game possibly invented in India by the Maharajas. It is a combination of pool, marbles and air hockey. Nige actually played this about 10 years ago with friends and Kel picked the game up quickly. After a good meal we retired to bed.

Mc Maharaja

Jaipur is the capital of Rajasthan, and quite a big city with nearly 2.5 million people. The old city is still surrounded by a huge sandstone wall, reminiscent of some medieval town. Our first stop this morning was the City Palace, within the walls of the old city (also called the Pink City, as the sandstone is a pinkish terracotta colour). On our way, we passed many camel-driven carts bearing produce, construction rubble, and all sorts of things. We also passed 2 well decorated elephants on the street which seemed out of place in this state known for it's love of camels.

The Palace is surrounded by another smaller wall, and building began in the 1600s continuing on and updating well into the 1900s. We first went to the Maharaja Sawai Mansingh II museum, which houses a collection of clothing worn by various maharajas and maharanis. Most of it was pretty ugly, but it was cool to see the different costumes, like the polo and billiards outfits. Next we went to what used to be the Maharani's apartments, but now houses a museum of old weaponry...we're not quite sure on the connection. There was a large display of swords, daggers, knives, and guns. Some of the daggers even had guns built into them. The staff here must have been bored one day and seeing the excess of daggers lying around arranged them into a curious welcome sign that hung over the door to the museum. The guns were of varing sizes from small garter pistols to huge 10 foot rifles. There was even a large gun mounted onto an elephant 'saddle'.
Back outside we passed our favourite, the Diwan-i-Am (Hall of Private Audiences) where the 2 largest silver vessels in the world are. One of the Maharajas had these huge 1.6 metre tall urns made so he could bring water from the Ganges when he visited England, as he didn't trust the water there. We saw some ancient artwork in one of the buildings as well. Some areas of the City Palace are closed off, as the son of the last maharaja and his family still live here.

From here we walked to the Jantar Mantar, an observatory built by Maharaja Jai Singh in 1728. He was obsessed with astronomy and built five of these observatories around India. We saw one of them in Varanasi, but it is not maintained like this one. Jai Singh had all of the 'modern' tools for astronomy, brought back from Europe by the people he'd send there to learn all of the latest astronomical technology. But he didn't think they were accurate enough, so he built these huge, concrete instruments outside in a park (now the observatory). All of the instruments for reading stars, telling the time with the sun, checking planet alignments and heaps of other astrology stuff are fit for a giant. They have all been tested as well, and those not exactly accurate have been remedied, so it is still a working observatory. Despite the heat of the day (another 40C-ish day), we had fun wandering around all of the strange looking structures.

We then wandered along the shop-lined streets to Hawa Mahal, a 5-storey building originally built for the royal ladies to watch the happenings on the street below. It did have some good views, but was a pretty boring place. Very hot and tired by this time, we headed back towards our hotel for a late lunch and a rest. On the way, we decided to give our tummies a treat and had McDonald's for lunch...we'd never thought we'd ever see McDonald's as a treat, but after 3 weeks in India, it was. Nigel had the Chicken Maharaja Mac and Kel had a Chicken Tikka burger. We relaxed for the remainder of the afternoon, had a few cold beers at our hotel (which one of the guys had to smuggle from a downstairs room, hiding them in a disguised bag) and a light dinner before heading to bed.

Yet another beer quest

The Tourist Rest House in Agra was good to us, but we checked out early this morning and caught a 6:30 am bus west to Jaipur. It took about 5 hours, but it was quite comfortable and there were only about 15 others on the whole bus. The scenery was mostly farmland, and we passed lots of camel-driven carts--a sure sign we'd entered Rajasthan. We got to Jaipur around 11:30 and checked into the Hotel Pearl Palace. This place is immaculately clean, definitely an anomaly here in India. We feel a bit spoiled actually, even though it's nothing brilliant. We had some lunch at the rooftop restaurant (where they use clean water for their fruits and veggies!) and took a siesta. Deciding we needed a bit of exercise for the day, we headed out to the main street in Jaipur, in search of a bar. We found a nice hotel with a rooftop bar and waited about 30 minutes for the man to bring a Foster's. We had asked for Kingfisher Lager, so he replaced the Foster's with what we had ordered about 15 minutes later. Nige took one sip of the beer and said "Ugh...this beer is flat!" He had the most disappointed look on his face I had ever seen. The waiter quickly rushed off to get us a new beer, but when he hadn't returned about 15 more minutes later, we left a few rupees for the peanuts we ate and were out of there. Really wanting a beer at this point, we continuted our search and found the Bouncer Bar. It was almost like a real bar, with lots of people in it (all men), a few TVs and some trendy music playing. The owner had no Kingfisher Lager, so we had a few Foster's and a Hayward's 5000 Extra Super Strong (both were crap, but we didn't care at this stage). Walking out of the pub, we realized how much better India would be if they just made beer available like normal countries do (I think some would call this 'beer philosophy'). We went back to our palace for our first full Indian meal since we had been sick and headed to bed.

Braving the public bus

Up early again this morning to catch a bus to Fatehpur Sikri, just west of Agra. We got to the local bus station, managed to find the right bus, and waited for it to leave at 7:15. This was our first experience riding a bus in India, and a public one at that. The seats were so close together that even Kellianne couldn't fit her legs in. It was pretty dirty with vomit splatters down the outside, and they blasted Hindi music all the way to Fatehpur Sikri, for about 1.5 hours. But once the bus started going, it really wasn't too bad. The bus was crowded, but not as packed as we've seen them, and since it was so early in the morning, the people didn't smell too bad (yet). It was a quick ride through mostly farmland, a few small towns on the side of the road, and lots of people out in the dirt dunes doing their morning business (we call them shit dunes).

Once in Fatehpur Sikri, we had a quick breakfast at the Ajay Hotel, then made our way to the ruins. Fatehpur Sikri was the capital of the Mughal empire from 1571 to 1585. Emperor Akbar built this fortified city, but since it was so far from a water source, it was abandoned after his death. Now the ruins are slowly being restored from a 'ghost city' to resemble what it looked like back in the day. We walked through the usual series of Indian buildings: Jama Masjid, royal palace, women's palaces, and our favourites, Diwan-i-Am and Diwan-i-Khas. Emperor Akbar had 3 primary wives, one Hindu, one Buddhist, and one Christian. As a result, the architecture is a mixture of all three styles. The Diwan-i-Khas (Hall of Private Audiences) is one of the most interesting buildings. Akbar had a place in the centre, and at each corner of the room stood a highly respected and intelligent representative from 4 different religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. Any issue up for discussion would be debated by these four men, with Akbar as the moderator. He used their opinions and advice to make important decisions during his reign. Akbar believed in Sulh-i-Kul (Peace for All) and taking common elements from many religions became a fair and just ruler.

Early in the afternoon we caught the public bus back to Agra. It was more crowded this time, and a lot hotter at nearly 42C, but still not too bad. Along the road we passed some dancing bears. Men have captured bears and use them as a tourist attraction by hitting them with a stick to make them stand up and 'dance' around. They operate on this popular stretch of road, getting money from people who stop for a photo. It is atrociously cruel, and something should be done about this abuse to animals.

Arriving back in Agra, we tried to have some lunch at what looked like a modern Western coffee bar/cafe but the sandwiches we ordered tasted like rotten vegetables and paint thinner (we haven't tasted paint thinner since China). So, about 100 rupees poorer, we did what anyone in our situation would have done: headed straight to the pub. We had a few beers at the rooftop bar we found the other day. It is not escaping our attention that at nearly every bar we go to, we're the only patrons, and Kel is always the only girl. But it's beer, and it's cold, and we don't really care. It was a great afternoon at the pub, and well deserved. We spent the rest of the day catching up on emails and relaxing.

The Taj Mahal

We would like to dedicate this entry to UNESCO. Thank you for creating World Heritage Day.

Rising early this morning wasn't too difficult because we knew it was for a great cause. Today we would see the Taj Mahal. We left the hotel at 5:30 on a moto-rickshaw and passed the army cadets running down the street in formation on the way to the Taj Ganj area of Agra. We had to walk for about 1km to the main gate of the Taj Mahal as the government has banned motor vehicles and development around it. There were so many people around doing all sorts of things in the park. People were exercising, families eating breakfast, and lots of cricket matches going on all before 6a.m. We reached the main gate and were about to approach the ticket counter when a lady (tourist) told us it was free today because it was World Heritage Day. At 6 the gates opened and we walked through the security check to a courtyard which led to the grounds of the Taj. There were less than 100 people walking in and our first view of the Taj was pretty much sans people.

** interlude** Kel is a freak and has conversations with me even when she admits she didn't hear what I said to begin with.

The Taj Mahal is beautiful, stunning, spectacular, awesome, cool. We were not expecting such a strong reaction, knowing that these types of things tend to get built up in your mind to be better than they really are. But the Taj is everything we imagined and more. Sounds lame, but it's true. We just stood there in awe, staring at it from about 150 metres away, and seeing the view from where 99% of the photos are taken. With the sun not yet risen, the Taj had a misty/hazy blue colour to it. It looked fake, like a painted movie backdrop. We took about 50 photos, then got a little closer as the sun got a little higher. The blue colour wore off to a pinkish colour, some bits of inlaid stones sparkling. We were able to see the Taj's reflection in one of the fountains in front of it. The whole structure appears so white, yet it's not. The marble has greys and pinks and blues and yellows streaked throughout it. And we were surprised to find that there are areas of intricate stone inlay patterns, Persian script of the Quran etched on it, and carved sections. It was cool to see all of the various details as we got closer and closer.

We put some funky elf boots on over our shoes (to protect the marble) and walked up onto the Taj platform. We spent about an hour just walking around it, all the while just staring up at it. The Taj Mahal was built from 1631-1653 as a mausoleum for the Emperor's wife, Mumtaz Mahal. Inside is her tomb, along with the Emperor's. The tombs are patterned with precious stone inlays and are surrounded by a 7 foot high marble lattice screen, incredibly detailed with the carvings and more precious stone inlays. We had to work to get some interesting photos of the Taj because it is so perfectly symmetrical, which is probably another reason it looks like a movie backdrop. It took 20,000 people to build, and it's said that some had their fingers or hands chopped off when it was completed so that they could never duplicate the Taj's beauty. To one side is a Muslim mosque, and on the other side is a mock-mosque built purely for symmetry.

We spent over 3 hours at the Taj Mahal as the sun rose. I think nearly half of this time was spent posing for other people's photos, mainly Indian guys who want a photo with a blonde girl. And not just happy snaps with their cameras either. They all paid one of the many professional photographers who roam around the Taj grounds taking tourist photos. I'm sure we'll end up as someone's keychain or something. When it started to get too hot and our tummies started growling, we headed back to our hotel for breakfast. We did some laundry, tried to work out plans for the next few days, and just relaxed. We're taking things a bit slower here in India than we have been the past few months. Around 4:00 we went to the train station to get tickets to Jaipur for the next day or two, but all of the trains were full. We took a rickshaw back to the Taj Ganj area and had a beer at a restaurant just outside the Taj Mahal. We would have had a few more, but we didn't want to waste all of the money we saved by not having to pay an entrance fee for the day. Then we went back inside to the Taj Mahal to watch the sunset. Normally we would have had to pay another entrance fee to get back in, but thanks to those UNESCO people and World Heritage Day, we took advantage of the free entry. Normally this double entry would have cost us about AU$100. After several more photos with newfound friends (one guy had the nerve to touch Kel on the bare knee and put his arm around her shoulder), we found a shady bench out of the way (and away from the guys asking for our photos) and just sat for about 2 hours as the light changed from yellow to orange and slowly faded. We found it amazing how we could spend 5 hours of the day just staring at an inanimate object.

As the grounds closed, we walked around the Taj Ganj area a bit, but decided to head back to our hotel for dinner, since the food is good and the service friendly...and we hadn't been sick from the food yet either. Not much exciting to report for the day, but truly a fantastic day.

Agraphobia

Our train arrived in Agra around 7:00 this morning. We had our first glimpse of the Taj Mahal as we arrived in Agra, and we felt like kids on Christmas morning, we were so excited. We headed straight to the Tourist Rest House hotel, had 4 toasted cheese and tomato sandwiches for breakfast then took advantage of the early hour and coolish weather and went to Agra Fort. This was built in 1565 by Emperor Akbar, mainly as a military base, but then he added a palace, a mosque and some other stuff. Some of it is still under military occupation. The complex is surrounded by a massive red sandstone wall and (now dried up) moat. Inside was a little city in its heyday. It was here that we had our 2nd glimpse of the Taj Mahal. We are getting to know pretty well these type of forts and palaces. They all have a palace residence, Jama Masjid (mosque), Diwan-i-Khas (Hall of Private Audiences), and Diwan-i-Am (Hall of Public Audiences). We enjoy saying these names incorrectly and adding a few more characters, ie Jawanna-Man Diwan-i-Am.

Leaving the fort we tried to get a regular cycle-rickshaw to the markets and then back to our hotel. The old driver had his friend there so we went in 2 seperate rickshaws. They tried to drop us off near the markets where they told us it was only food and spices sold there, so we decided to go back to the hotel. The driver wanted to make 1 stop at a marble store so he could get a commission, even if we only look. We don't like to play that game so we said no, but they persisted and in the end we just got off the bikes and walked away. We got a not-so-crooked driver to take us back to the hotel, and Nige ended up riding the bike with Kel and the driver in the seat. Back at the hotel we relaxed in our room during the hottest part of the day and emerged later to go to the Sadar Bazaar. We thought this would be a bustling street market ready to take our tourist cash but it was a more modern shopping street with a nice sidewalk and real stores. The cows were still present, and their markings. First stop was the pub. We found a rooftop bar with a beer garden, even if the garden was cement sculptures stuck on the walls. There were monkeys though. The beer was cold and cheap, so we had another and lost interest in the Bazaar. When we did make it out the Bazaar didn't have much to offer so we went back to our hotel for dinner and bed.

We had heard an read that Agra is a dump, so we were a bit scared at first. It is a dump, but not as bad as we thought. The touts and crooked rickshaw drivers are all part of India not just Agra. As we are used to this now, we actually appreciated Agra for its slightly quieter and cleaner elements. It definitely has more to offer than just the Taj. Of course our views of Agra may be skewed because we came straight from Vara-nasti.

Wow, NOT ripped off!

After sleeping in a bit this morning, we took our time packing up our stuff. We had done laundry, so our clean clothes were everywhere. We checked out of the hotel at noon and spent the next few hours on the computer. Around 4:00 we put on our packs and walked our way through the tiny alleys to the main street, where we caught a rickshaw to the train station. We hung out in the comfort of the Internationl Tourist booking office with the intention of booking train tickets for our next city after Agra, but couldn't decide on when we wanted to go. We hopped on our train to Agra around 5:30 for the overnight trip. The 2 bunks across from us were occupied by a man and a 10 year old boy. Before the train took off, I hopped out to buy some water and a snack. When I returned, the man asked how much I paid. It turns out I paid too much and didn't recieve enough change. He kindly said "Come with me," took me to the stand where I bought the stuff, spoke to the man, and got me my proper change. It was so refreshing to have someone willingly help me out, realizing I had been ripped off. Such incidents have been rare (if at all) in India, so it made this one all that more appreciated! He is from Varanasi and was headed to Agra for his cousin's son's daughter's wedding...an indication of how close families are here! The boy is his brother's son's son. We joined them in a few card games, and the man shared his sweets with us, which he was bringing to his cousin in Agra (Varanasi is known for its sweets). He politely waited until after we'd eaten it to tell us we shouldn't eat food from others on the train, as sometimes they purposely poison it so you'll get sick, then steal your bags while you're in the bathroom. Well noted, and we won't be doing that again! It was a long night on the train, but not too uncomfortable as we're getting used to it.

Sunrise on the Ganges

We were up around 5:30 this morning, excited for a sunrise cruise on the Ganges. We climbed down the stairs from our hotel to the river, hired a driver, and hopped in his little wooden row boat. As we rowed upstream, we got to see Varanasi at its busiest and most important time of the day. Hundreds of Hindus come down to the water at this time of day. Kids were having a quick swim before school, men & women did laundry, sadhus (ascetic holy men trying to attain enlightenment) meditated, and people prayed with beads, water urns or candles. The men strip down to their jocks and dunk themselves over and over in the water. The women, of course, dunk in their full attire. There was a group of 3 old women in the water, taking turns dunking themselves. They clung to each other to prevent themselves from being carried downstream, even though the water is pretty much stagnant at this time of year. The main ghat was the busiest, but people were crowding nearly all of the other ghats as well. Our boat driver was able to tell us who was visiting from southern India based on their attire. We even passed a few boys in a rowboat trying to catch some fish, although I doubt that anything they did catch would be alive. It was very interesting and exciting to catch a glimpse of such an important daily ritual in the lives of the people of Varanasi. It was a beautiful morning with the sun rising behind us and giving the ghats & buildings behind them a pinkish glow.

We spent about 2 hours cruising up and down the river, just watching the people. We then went back to our hotel for a nice breakfast, and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon. When it had cooled down some, we ventured out to get a few errands done. We had to get train tickets, but needed money first. We navigated our way through the maze of tiny alleys near the river and continued walking, looking for an ATM. By the time we finally found one, we were nearly at the train station and had walked through most of Varanasi. We continued on to the station, purchased our tickets from the wonderful International Tourist office, then decided to treat ourselves to a massage at one of the 'ritzy' hotels nearby. We took a cycle-rickshaw to one of them near the Raddisson but the massages were too expensive, so we decided to have a drink instead. We headed to another, nicer hotel down the street, but the drinks were too expensive as well. We gave up and took a cycle-rickshaw back to the main ghat area. We walked around a bit, watching everyone prepare for the nightly candle ceremony then headed back to our hotel. Again we had a great view of the candles being released into the river as we ate dinner before heading to bed.

I see dead people

We got to Varanasi aroudn 7:30 this morning. Walking out of the train station, we were surrounded, hassled and nearly assaulted by rickshaw drivers. We pushed our way through them, found a guy willing to take us to where we wanted to go for only double the price it should have been (rather than 5 times as much like most drivers) and made our way to the Old City area. Varanasi, or the city of Shiva, is southeast of Delhi, and is perhaps the holiest city in all of India. It is on the banks of the Ganges River, and Hindus come from all over to bathe in its holy waters.

We were dropped off near the Old City and had to walk the rest of the way to the hotels along the river, as the alleys are so narrow that no vehicle can get through, including motorbikes. The hotel we chose to go to was pretty clean, but out of our price range. We proceeded to walk around for nearly an hour in the 42C (107F) heat with our packs on, but every other hotel was pretty gross. We were constantly followed by touts trying to lure us to their hotel of choice, where they'd get a hefty commission, and we would pay twice the price for a room. They are incredibly persistent and constantly in our faces. When we weren't dodging them, we were trying to get away from guys offering us boat rides on the river. **Warning: disgusting material ahead. All the while we were trying not to step in human, goat, cow, buffalo or dog shit and/or urine (or said beings in the act of creating this), piles of rotting trash, and Kel was desperately trying not to barf. It was a challenging morning, made worse by the heat. To top it all off, we walked by one of the concrete umbrellas that line the river (for people to sit under and pray, or prey on tourists) and there was a dead guy. It appeared as if he had been sitting when he died, and his body had slowly slumped over, mercifully hiding his face. Because of the holiness of the city, people come here to die. If they can afford it, they then get cremated, their ashes thrown into the Ganges. It was pretty disturbing, especially considering he must have had no family or friends to take care of him in the end. Nige asked a local kid what would happen, and he said "Oh, someone will call the police, and eventually they will come around and take away the body." It didn't sound as if dead bodies near or in the river is a rare occurance.

We decided to go back to the first hotel we looked at, despite the cost. By this time, we didn't really care. We had some breakfast in their outdoor restaurant, on a terrace overlooking the Ganges, while we waited for someone to check out of a room. They only had really cheap rooms (ie a small box with a bed in it) or a really lush room, so of course we opted for the latter. A huge room, non-smelling bathroom, 2 ceiling fans and an evaporative air-cooler. Of course given the standards of India, this is luxury. And we certainly paid for it too.

We spent most of the afternoon relaxing and napping, as it was so hot outside, and not much was happening. Around 5:00 we went out to have a look around. We walked along the many ghats on the river. These are huge platforms on the bank of the river, with stairs leading down into the water. People come to their ghat (or any ghat) to bathe in the river, do laundry, or pray. From the Meer Ghat (not meerkat) near our hotel, we headed south along the river. We passed the Dasaswamedh Ghat, Varanasi's main ghat, apparently where Brahma sacrificed 10 horses. It seems to be busy at all times of the day with people bathing, selling various foods and trinkets, praying, or just hanging out. We walked upstream a bit, then headed back downstream towards the Jalsain and Manikarnika Ghats. **Warning: disgusting material ahead (again). We passed the dead guy again and unfortunately experienced the results of what a day of 42C heat can do to a dead body. The skin on his back had blistered and attracted many flies. His body had lurched forward as a result of the bloating. Some bodily fluids had also been released, and were draining over the side of the platform. And of course, the stench (Kel's head was tucked inside her shirt before they even came within 30 feet of him). It was too much for some people, as there was evidence of people's lunches dotting the sidewalk.`

The Jalsain and Manikarnika Ghats is where most of the cremations take place. We stood and watched as a few ceremonies took place. When someone is to be cremated here, the covered body is taken down the ghat steps to the Ganges on a bamboo stretcher, held by male family members. They wash the body in the river before taking it back up to one of the wood piles lining the river. The deceased's oldest son goes through a ritual of bathing in the Ganges, shaving his head, then donning a white robe/sari type attire. The covered body is then put on the pile of wood, a few logs placed on top, and the fire is lit by the son. Some family members wait and watch the cremation, which takes about 3 hours. The doms, or ghat workers (kind of a category of 'untouchables') keep the fires roaring. When finished, the remaining bone fragments are taken by the family and thrown in the river. The next morning, in the early hours, the doms collect the remainder of the ashes, sift through them for gold and jewelry (which they keep), then dump the ashes in the river. We watched about 5 cremation ceremonies happening at once. They continue non-stop, 24 hours a day, with about 200-250 cremations per day. An astounding figure. And it costs about 30,000-40,000 rupees per cremation. It isn't as solemn as we would have thought, since the families believe their loved one will be released from the cycle of rebirth and will go to heaven; there is a general feeling of happiness among them. At first we were a bit uncomfortable watching, but it is all business at the Jalsain and Manikarnika Ghats, and none of the families mind (as long as you don't whip out your camera!!). It was very interesting to have a glimpse of what I think of as a very private time for a family. After observing this, we felt a bit better passing the dead guy for the third time, hoping that he was exactly where he wanted to be when he died.

We headed back to the hotel after stopping to watch one of the many cricket matches being played on one of the ghats. These seem to go on most of the day. They range from serious matches that draw large crowds, to pee-wee criket played by a handful of 5 year olds, just trying to be like the big boys. We dodged more boat drivers and disgustingness. As we got to the stairs leading up to our hotel, we stopped to watch the nightly candle ceremony. At sunset, people buy small little candles set in a bowl made of leaves, surrounded by flowers. They place the lit candle on the surface of the Ganges, either from shore or from a boat in the middle of the river, and say a prayer. Most people release at least 4 or 5 at a time. While eating dinner on the rooftop restaurant at our hotel, we watched as hundreds of these candle boats were floated into the river. We can imagine how spectacular this would look during the festival time at Varanasi when thousands and thousands of Hindus come here.

Smelhi to Veranasti

Arriving in Delhi at about 6a.m. we went back to the Anoop hotel were we had negotiated a not so cheap half day rate for a room. Nige was still recovering so we slept most of the day, watched some TV, checked our email and made our way to the train station for the overnight train to Varanasi.

Corbett Tiger Reserve

Day 1: 10 April 2005

We tried to have an early start this morning, but, despite our excitement, we didn't leave Ramnagar until 8:30. We hopped into the 1/2 open Suzuki jeep thing that would be our vehicle for the next 3 days and set out for Corbett Tiger Reserve with our driver, Bhola. CTR (as it shall be called from here on) was established in 1936 by Jim Corbett, a tiger hunter and also a legend here in India. He was greatly revered by locals for shooting tigers who had developed a liking for humans, but he eventually became an avid preserver of wildlife. CTR itself is now over 1300 sq km, and Jim Corbett established Project Tiger in 1973, which led to the creation of 22 other reserves throughout India.

The park is less than 50 kms from Ramnagar, and it was a beautiful drive. Our jeep wound its way through forests and nearly clean air. On the way to our accommodation inside the park, we saw wild boars, a kingfisher fishing, some sambar deer, rhesus monkeys, and our very first tiger. We had stopped the jeep just above a nearly dried up riverbed, as Bhola (who speaks little, but enough, English) has seen tigers here before. I spotted an orangish brown patch in some green grass just as Bhola said "Deer, deer!" But then it started to move, and I said "It's a tiger!" I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me (what are the chances of seeing a tiger withing one kilometer and 5 minutes of entering the park???) but Nigel saw it too and said it was a tiger. We watched him slowly wander out of the bushes and start to cross the riverbed. Then we actually did spot a deer on the other side of the river, alert and watchful. The deer quietly took off, but the tiger still made his way leisurely across the stream. It was an amazing sight, seeing this beautiful animal walking with the forests and mountains surrounding him. We thought he might go and chase the deer, but he didn't seem to be in much of a hurry. And before we knew it, he was on the other side and hidden in the forest once again. We drove up the road a ways to wait and see if he'd cross the road. We saw it briefly through the bushes but it moved on and out of sight. We were so happy and excited, as this is why we came here. This was all topped off with seeing a huge bull elephant wander across the road in front of us, only to reaveal a peacock behind him, feathers shooting up in his little mating jig.

We arrived at Dhikala, the main accommodation campus inside the park, at around noon. We checked into our room, the term 'very basic' not even accurate. There are 12 beds in the dorm rooms, 4 3-tier bunks that are old train beds. We could say the beds are as hard as planks of wood, but in fact they ARE planks of wood. We couldn't help but feel like we slept on a shelf for 2 nights. We had to shove our backpacks and belongings into small lockers so that the rhesus macaques can't get to them. Apparently they take great pleasure in 'breaking into' the room and pilfering anything they fancy. The toilets are nothing short of disgusting, although I guess somehow they could be worse. We wouldn't mind all of this if we'd only paid, say, 50 rupees per bed, which is what the Indian guests pay. But foreigners must pay 200 rupees per bed for the same accommodation (Indians and foreigners have separate dormitories but they're similar), 4 times as much. And they only pay 50 rupees for a 3-day park permit, when foreigners must pay 450 rupees, 9 times as much! We're glad that they encourage Indians to travel here because it encourages them to take care of their environment and wildlife, and it's beautiful. And we don't mind paying more as foreigners, but this is a bit excessive. The facilities at Dhikala are atrocious, the staff lazy and rude, the restaurant poisoned (as we later learned), and politics nothing short of discriminatory.

Nonetheless, we were happy to be here. We locked up our gear and shared a small lunch before hanging out on the deck while we waited for our 4:00 safari. The campus is located above the Ramganga River, overlooking the water and a massive grass plain that stretches over 1 kilometre to the surrounding forested mountains. We had an afternoon of watching birds fly around, the langurs and monkeys play around in the trees, and watch the wild elephants grazing the distant plains. At 4:00 we met our driver Bhola and our guide. Everyone must have an offical park guide, at 150 rupees per safari trip. We drove through the forests and across the river at a shallow point, all the while searching for a tiger. On the way back, we came around a corner and saw a tiger about 30 feet (or less) from the road, having a drink in a small pond. This tiger was absolutely massive, and absolutely stunning. He was haunced over, lapping up water with his huge pink tongue. He looked up at us for a few seconds, then slowly got up and wandered into the trees, as if saying "Man, I was having a good drink there, but I've been disturbed now. I guess I'll go find somewhere else to get a drink." He was so beautiful, graceful, wise and powerful, all at the same time.

**WARNING: This next paragraph may be offensive and stomach-churning to some. Please skip to the next paragraph if you wish to save yourself the tormnent. It's our diary too, and we like to laugh at stuff like this, after the fact of course.***
By this time, I was really feeling the effects of eating tainted food at the dodgy restaurant for lunch. It had been building up all afternoon, and I knew I needed to get back to the campus. As we were driving away from where we saw the tiger, and towards campus to drop me off, I knew my stomach was about to relinquish all it had in about 10 seconds. Nige had the driver stop for a minute, and I asked them, hurriedly, if I could get out of the jeep. It is strictly prohibited to be on foot anywhere in the park other than within the Dhikala campus, guides and drivers included. But I broke the rules, jumped out of the jeep and just barely hit the ground before a Niagra of dhal, naan and rice spewed out from me. Nige jumped out to rub my back, and Bhola and the guide both jumped out to protect us all from that huge, massive tiger we just saw down the road. Only I could manage to stop a tiger safari to vomit, and nearly get mauled by a tiger in the process. But, my lunch expunged, I was able to get back into the jeep and make it to the dorms for some rest. At least I made it through 7 whole days in India before getting sick.

With me cozy on my shelf in the room, Nige continued on in search of wildlife. He saw hundreds of deer, all 4 species in the park: spotted deer (chital), hog deer, barking deer, and sambar deer. The last type is what we saw on our night safari in Vietnam, although we thought they were saying 'Summer deer' at the time. He also saw wild elephants, wild boars, and lots of birds. He returned just after sunset, checked up on me (feeling like I will live by this point), ate dinner by himself, and then everyone in our dorms went to bed as we had to be up at 5:30 am for our morning safari. There were 8 of us now in the room, 2 Texans, 2 guys from Michigan, and 2 Isralis in addition to us. During the night, one of the Texans suddenly became violently ill from his dinner at the dodgy restaurant. Although the rest of us only had intermitent sleep, we have all been there before and felt nothing by sympathy for the poor bugger.

Day 2: 11 April 2005

We jumped out of bed this morning around 5:45, already awake from the monkeys jumping around on the metal roof. We packed our sleeping bags into our monkey-proof boxes, rugged up and met our driver at the jeep. The sun was already starting to rise, and it was a gorgeous, peaceful morning. We drove around for about 2 hours and saw tons of deer, wild elephants and lots of other things. A massive elephant bull with huge tusks crossed the road only about 20 feet from us. He was so incredibly big, but so gentle and quiet. Next we climbed one of the watchtowers to look for tigers, then saw one only about 5 minutes later. We watched her move across the grass along the river, then flew down the tower stairs, jumped in the jeep and sped off to get a closer look. Our guide and driver were an excellent team, great at reading the animals and trying to predict their movements. Once we stopped, it didn't take long to spot the tiger again. She was laying behind a rock, in the grass (literally, "grass" as in canabis as most of the river is lined with millions of dollars worth of the stuff) across the river, and she was munching on a Sambar deer. We could see her head pop up from behind the rock every now and then, and the deer leg would pop up as she ripped some meat off. She looked at us a few times, but didn't seem too bothered by us watching her. It was so fantastic to just watch her eat breakfast, and she was so quiet. We sat there for a while observing her until a few other jeeps roared up and scared her off into the plains.

For the rest of the afternoon, we had absolutely nothing to do. There is a watch tower nearby that you can normally walk to but the tigress with 4 cubs has been agressive to jeeps recently so they closed it. During the the day no vehicles are allowed to drive around so we just hung out watching the plain across the river, the monkeys and langurs. While sitting ther we were attacked by these little gnat type bugs that somehow managed to get up our shirts and pants and bite our bodies.

Our afternoon safari was on an elephant. We had booked it yesterday but heard stories of tourists being bumped off the list for Indians. Nige managed to pay in a bit earlier although they really didn't want to take the money. We had also paid Mr Govind at the restaurant in Ramnagar a "guarantee" to get us onto an elephant trek. This can also be known as a bribe. It worked and we were on our elephant out to torment some wild tigers. We shared the elephant with a young Indian family and we sat sideways instead of the forward facing technique we had experienced in Thailand and Vietnam. It seemed far more comfortable... well not more comfortable just less rocking side to side. We walked down the hill and across the river onto the huge floodplain. Walking along the river bank the elephant took huge clumps of cannabis to eat as he walked along, he was happy. As we approached the area where we had seen the tiger this morning there was a row of jeeps parked on the other side so we knew there was a tiger nearby. The next 20 seconds happened very quickly. Looking down into the cannabis for tigers we heard the elephant trumpet (apparently they arew trained to trumpet when they see a tiger) and suddenly there were 4 tigers around us. The tigers roared back at the elephants and the elephants trumpeted and growled back at them. One tiger was crouched snarling at the other elephant and then Kel pointed out that another one was right at our feet. It was crouched down looking up at us and snarling ready to pounce. In the words of Steve Irwin, "Absolutely Gorgeous". The tiger turned and ran toward the open plain and our elephant took a few quick steps after it. Two tigers stayed near the river two went off onto the plain and one went further upstream. We followed the single tiger upstream for a while until it crossed the river and out of sight. We would have gone back to see the remaining two but it would have been dangerous as they knew we were there and they woud have attacked. This and the fact that it was a tigress and four cubs and she has been aggressive lately. The cubs are pretty much the same size of the tigress. After crossing back over the river and treking through the forest we finished our exciting elephant ride, had some dinner and went off to bed.

Day 3: 12 April 2005

Nige didn't sleep much last night thanks to the shitty restaurant here at Corbett. We got up early again for another morning Jeep safari. We saw a tiger straight away this morning in the same spot we saw it from the elephant. There was a herd of wild elephants approaching and the tiger got up and moved on. After a drive around the river area looking for more tigers we saw some wild elephants walk down the road into the jungle. Nige was dropped off at campus this time and Kel went on to see the plains. She saw hundreds of deer, wild elephants, birds, boar. At one stage they almost got charged by a massive bull elephant peering at them from the edge of the jungle. It was looking at the jeep, ears out and started to rumble and flicked its tusk towrd them. Thats when it was time to move on.

Back at campus we slowly packed up and left about 11a.m. after we had checked out and got our permission to leave slip for being a well behaved visitor. We shared our jeep with Rolf a guy we met on the shelves. He is a very interesting guy who has done a lot of travel and for a moment we thought he might be Rolf Potts who wrote one of our favourite travel books, Vagabonding. It turns out he isn't Rolf Potts but he does know him. It was a nice drive back to Ramnagar chatting to him about travel, life, and combining the two. We had a brief glimpse of another tiger heading into the jungle. We drove up to where the driver had seen it and in the dust of the road saw a perfect tiger imprint. It had been laying there in the sun making tiger dust angels. We could make out the tail, body, legs and head. The driver picked up a porcupine quill with some blood on it, so it may have been taking a cat nap after lunch (sorry I couldn't resist).

Back in Ramnagar we rested in a hotel room for the afternoon, cleaned up, and caught our overnight train back to Delhi. We are heading to Varanasi but it is an easier connection through Delhi.

Despite the challange of getting here, surviving the restaurant, the bugs, the shelves, the cost, and the staff it was definately worth the trip to Corbett Tiger and Cannabis Reserve. Seeing these amazing animals in the wild was a very memorable experience.

Ready or not kitties, here we come!

We arrived in Ramnagar around 6:00 this morning, got a rickshaw to a hotel, and promptly fell asleep until nearly 1:00. This turned out to be a wise choice, as there is not much to do in Ramnagar, and the more time we 'wasted' sleeping, the better. I can't believe we managed to sleep that long, despite being so tired, as our hotel was practically the town bus stop. The buses all have a deafening horn, which the drivers use as frequently as they see fit, i.e. constantly. I think the honking has gotten so out of control in India that they've become useless. No one pays attention to horns any more, as they just keep honking no matter what.

Ramnagar is a small town not far from the Himalayan foothills, and the closest town to the Corbett Tiger Reserve. We dragged ourselves out of the hotel, had some lunch and then wandered around to book a trip into the park. We had to get a permit, book some accommodation, and find a driver. We ended up going with the restaurant where we ate lunch, Govind Guest House and Restaurant. The owner is a friendly man who broke down all of the necessary costs involved and what he offered. He was completely, surprisingly honest. We had been to the Corbett Tiger Reserve's official reception centre and got little help. The assistance we did get was in confusing, not so pleasantly offered English and we had left annoyed and still clueless. We agreed on a price with Mr. Govind (that's not his name, but what we call him) and headed back to the lovely woman at the CTR reception centre to buy our park permits and book our accommodation. We then went back to Mr. Govind with our permit, paid him the money for our jeep and driver, and were done with the hassles of the day.

We walked around the small town of Ramnagar. It's still dirty and smelly and loud like Delhi, but the people here are friendly and seem much more at ease. We happened by some kids playing cricket in a concrete park and watched them for a bit. They were having a great time and seemed to like the fact that we were there. Indians are so mad about cricket, and of course it's the first thing they talk about with us when they find out we're from Australia. We found a place to buy some binoculars, had some dinner, tried to have a beer in the one pub but it wasn't cold, then headed to bed.

Amritsar and a bunch of messing around

The overnight train to Amritsar last night was not too bad. The trains are not very clean and not the most comfortable, but definitely liveable...at least in 2nd class. Anything less would probably be a different story.

We arrived in Amritsar around 6:00 a.m. It is about 430 Kms northwest of Delhi in the state of Punjab, just near the Pakistan border. Amritsar is the centre of the Sikh religion. Sikhism began in the late 15th century as a reaction against the caste system and the Brahmin domination of ritual. They aimed to combine the best of Islam and Hinduism. They believe in one god, reincarnation and karma, but reject the worship of idols. They believe in the khalsa, a chosen race of soldier-saints. These men live according to a strict code of moral conduct (ie no alcohol or drugs) and are on a crusade for dharmayudha, or righteousness. The Khalsa brotherhood are distinguished by five traits: the unshaven beard and uncut hair (kesh, symbolising saintliness), a comb to maintain the hair (kangha), loose pants (kaccha, symbolising modestness), a steel bracelet on the right wrist (karra, symbolising fearlessness and strength), and a sword (kirpan, symbolising saintliness). The Sikh's holy text, the Guru Granth Sahib, contains the teachings of the 10 Sikh gurus.

The reason we came to Amritsar was to go to The Golden Temple, the holiest shrine of the Sikh religion, but is open to everyone. We left our bags at the train station, grabbed a quick breakfast and headed to the temple. The first thing we did was remove our shoes. I tried to put out of my mind just how much bacteria and disgusting things were covering the ground and stinky pools of water around. Everyone must cover their heads before entering, so I tied a handkercheif to my ponytail (I had bought one to combat the dust and pollution in Delhi) and Nige donned the traditional San Francisco Giants baseball hat. We walked through a small, shallow tiled pool of water in order to cleanse our feet. Of course it didn't slip past us that our feet were dirtier upon exiting the pool than before we went in, but I guess that's beside the point. We walked through a passageway and caught our first glimplse of the Golden Temple.

It isn't a large building, but it is stunning. It sits in the middle of a huge sacred pool, the Amrit Sarovar (Pool of Nectar), and is connected to the surrounding square complex by a long causeway, Guru's bridge. The surrounding causeway and buildings are made of a rich, stark white marble which all contrast beautifully with the shiny gold temple itself. The temple's architecture is a blend of Hindu and Muslim styles, but the surrounding buildings seem quite European. There are two clock towers on two sides of the complex, and everything is connected by columned breezeways with tiled floors. The early morning sun was streaming in at an angle, glinting off the sides of the golden temple and making its reflextion in the pool. At this hour, there were hundreds of people here to pray and bathe in the sacred pools. The bright colours of the women's saris and men's turbans (not sure on the proper name) were magnificently highlighted against the smooth white buildings and walkways.

Everyone seemed to be walking around the temple in a clockwise direction, so we joined in. Along the edge of the pool, men stripped down to their undies to take a dip in the holy waters, women were grouped in one area, and all along the square causeway, people were kneeling to face the temple and pray. The causeway to the temple itself was so packed with people that no one could barely move. All Sikh temples have free community kitchens and the one here was packed with worshipers having breakfast on the floor, surrounded by fellow Sikhs and non-Sikhs alike. They also have free accommodation for anyone who wishes to stay. It's like a little town around the complex, what with the guesthouses, kitchen, a library, post office, bank, and railway ticket booking office. Around the temple, 4 priests keep up a continuous chant in Punjabi, reciting things from the Sikh's holy book.

After walking around the whole complex, we bought a food offering (as everyone else was doing) and got in line to see the inside of the temple. The offering was some sort of dhal mush served in a biodegradeable leaf bowl. We got in line amongst the hundreds of others and waited, less than one inch separating us from those in front of, behind, and next to us. After standing there for about 15 minutes and the line not moving, we decided to give it a miss and just enjoy the view from the outside. Before leaving, we had a quick wander around the Sikh museum, a collection of bloody battle scene paintings that really didn't make any sense to us, having absolutely no knowledge of the history of the Sikhs.

There was not much else of interest to us in Amritsar, so we waded back out through the washing pools, retrieved our shoes, and headed back to the train station. We booked tickets for 11:00 am to Moradabad, southeast of Amritsar, northeast of Delhi, and the nearest connection point to Ramnagar and Corbett Tiger Reserve, our next destination. We went to the booking counter, who told us to go to the mysterious "Room number 5" who told us to go back to the booking counter. Nigel was brilliantly persistent and it only took about 40 minutes to get tickets. It was a long, boring day spent on the train to Moradabad, and we arrived around 8:00 pm. The first thing we had to do was get tickets for our connecting train to Ramnagar. We weren't too worried about this, as it didn't leave for 6 more hours. However, despite the seemingly efficient Indian railways booking centre of our previous experience, it took nearly all 6 hours to get our tickets.

After being shuffled around, Nigel found a train employee/porter who was more than willing to help him. Of course he didn't speak any English at all, but by this point we took what we could get. It took some time to get across to him what we wanted, but he basically said, charades-style, 'Just leave it to me.' He had this constant tick of his head (the indian equivalent of nodding or shaking your head, yes or no), which he'd nod either left or right, depending on the question. Happy with that for now, we left our bags at the station and went out to get some air. Moradabad seemed to be a bit of a hole, especially around the train station at 10:00 at night. Outside were tons of people huddled under blankets, sleeping on the concrete. We weren't sure if they were bums or people waiting for trains. Probably both. We looked up, and much to our happy amazement, we saw a sign reading 'Bar and Restaurant' directly across the street. This is exactly what we wanted. Followed by our porter friend, we went into the bar to get a few beers. Of course I was the only female, but that didn't stop us at all. I think all of the locals were amused at the sight of us, and the owner was more than happy to have us there. We sat in a little booth and enjoyed a nice cold Zingaro beer, apparently only available in this state. It wasn't too bad. Nige got a bottle to take away (we hid it in our backpack), paid the ridiculously high price (not only is beer a rare thing here, it's also more expensive than most things, including probably the purchase of a rickshaw) and headed back to the station to see if Mr. Porter had worked out our tickets.

We got our bags back and I found a cozy spot on top of them in the waiting lounge. The combination of being tired, being midnight, the beer, and the antihistimine and valium cocktail I'd had earlier in the day had finally caught up with me, so I guiltily nodded off to sleep and left Nige to it. He followed Mr. Porter around, played many games of charades, worked out his secret head-nod signals, and we finally had things worked out by the time the train arrived at 2:00 am. A brief trip across the street to the porter's father's store allowed Nige to drink his take away beer. The beer was nearly finished and things were going well until Nige spilled some beer on a notebook (possibly the accounts book) and the mood changed quickly. The spill was cleaned up but it was clear that he had outstayed his welcome and rushed back to the train station. We could only get 3-tier beds, but it was late, we were tired, and it was only a 3 hour journey to Ramnagar, so not a big deal. Of course Mr. Porter had to wake up and kick out 2 passengers to get the beds for us, but I don't think they had sleeper tickets anyway. Moradabad was a dump (at least what we saw in the middle of the night, which probably isn't too fair, but also probably not inaccurate either), but we found beer and a friendly person to help us out.

I think all of that was ruined by the fact that we had to pay Mr. Porter 100 rupees for his generous assistance. Nothing is for free in India. In fact, everything in India is at least 5 times the price. I don't think Gandhi would be impressed.

Liar Aversion

Our first experience in buying Indian railway tickets this morning turned out well, although it could have just as easily been a rip off of a nightmare. We headed down to the train station after breakfast, and knew right where we were going: to the International Tourist Bureau inside the train station. They specialize in helping out people like us I think (although when we finally got there, we saw that a some Indian people made use of these chaos-free conveniences too). When just outside the train station, we made the mistake of stopping to read a huge chart of trains departing from Delhi, just to see what options we had. It didn't take long (about 3 seconds to be exact) for a person to approach us and offer his help. He claimed to be employed by the Indian Railways, and made some small talk with us to start, i.e. where are you from, where are you going, how long in India etc. etc. (Oddly enough, we learned that his brothers live in Santa Clarita, California--where Kel grew up--and they own Singh Mechanics on Soledad Canyon Road. He showed us the business cards--we were astounded at the smallness of the world).

This helpful man tried to tell us that the International Tourist Bureau was not a good place to go, and we should go to a different place. "It will only cost 10 rupees, not far from here" he assured us. He claimed that at the ITB, we couldn't pay in Indian rupees, we couldn't book same-day train tickets, we had to pay for our train schedule book, the lines were long and tedious, and that they were not helpful. Of course we were polite, listened to him but then said we were still going to check out the ITB for ourselves first. He began to 'usher' us to a rickshaw (by 'usher' I mean gently push) and it took everything we had to insist that we still wanted to check out the ITB for ourselves. "That's fine, you see for yourselves. I am not lying. Please believe me, I am an honest man. I work for the railways."

We practically ran away from him, went to the ITB (after dodging a few other people trying to lure us away) and arrived at the haven that is this office. Everything that man said turned out to be a lie. We had no problems paying in rupees or buying a same-day ticket, NO ONE gets the train schedule book for free, and the office was cool, cleanish, and no lines! We bought our 'Trains at a Glance' book, quickly made sense of the maze of charts inside, figured out the train we wanted, filled out the proper forms, handed them to a man at the counter, and had our tickets to Amritsar within 10 minutes of walking in the door.

Happy at our success (both in booking the tickets and not being suckered into that 'helpful' man's assistance), the rest of the day was ours. We went to New Delhi, or Central Delhi, and first stopped at the India Gate. This is another Arc de Triomphe looking structure and bears the name of 85,000 Indian army soldiers who died fighting in WWI and during the 1919 Afghan fiasco (where the British army fired into a crowd of protesters in Punjab, killing over 1000). It was here that we experienced our first snake charmer. He appeared from nowhere, put down his basket lifted the lid, tapped the cobra on the head to wake it up and started playing his flute thing. Nige being the courteous gentleman he is, let the lady go first. Kel stood next to the charmer and cobra as it swayed around a bit in its attack mode. Of course after taking a photo he wanted 100 Rupees, we settled for 30. We then walked west along the Rajpath. This is a street flanked by large parks with fountains and ponds. The shade of the trees was nice, but none of the ponds or fountains had any water in them. At the other end of Rajpath, opposite the India Gate is Rashtrapati Bhavan, the official residence of the President of India. On either side are the north and south Secretariat Buildings, housing the ministries of finance and external affairs. These buildings all appear European to us, especially in that they're topped by domes. Just nearby is Sansad Bhavan, or Parliament House. This is a beautiful yet strange building, oddly resembling a modern coliseum.

Later in the afternoon, we headed back to our hotel to pack up our bags. As we were trying to figure out where we would head to after Amritsar, we discovered that our Lonely Planet book was missing about 30 pages. And, as luck would have it, they were pages we needed. After searching around for a cheap copy (which we didn't find) we went into a travel agent office to get some information, and there was an L.P. book sitting on the desk. It belonged to a man using the internet nearby, and Nigel asked to borrow it. He ran down the street, paid about 10 rupees to photocopy the pages and happily returned the book to its owner. We got our bags from the hotel and wound our way through the crowded streets to the train station. We were had an overnight train to Amritsar, about 430 kilometers northwest of Delhi near the Pakistan border.

At least Gandhi had it right.

Exhausted from the assault to our senses yesterday, we slept in again today before venturing out into the wilds of Delhi. We tried again to find a bank, and jumped for joy at the sight of Citibank.

Our money sorted, we hopped on a rickshaw to Raj Ghat in Old Delhi. This is the spot where Mahatma Gandhi was cremated after his assasination in 1948. It is a raised, black marble platform, and today was covered with bright, colourful flowers. There is a flame burning in a lantern nearby, which we assume is never distinguished. We were extremely happy to see that, although in the middle of such a busy, dirty city, and although it's just a small platform, Raj Ghat is surrounded by a massive park. It is on the banks of the Yamuna River. The parklands are clean, quiet, and well looked after. Although it didn't take long to remove our shoes, walk along the path and pass the memorial, we couldn't help but be moved by the solomn yet peaceful atmosphere.

We then tried to dodge our rickshaw driver (who had been waiting for us, even though we told him not to) but he was in stealth mode, spotted us from the distance and crazily zipped his little 3-wheeled rollercoaster cart towards us, barely stopping in time to prevent us from being roadkill. He seemed upset when we said we preferred to walk the 20 metres across the road to our next stop, the Gandhi Museum, but we felt guilty only for about...well, we didn't feel guilty at all. We're toughening up a bit the longer we've been gone. We spent some time wandering around the Gandhi Memorial Museum. It was a nice collection of photographs documenting his life from his earlier days until his death. We recalled learning about Gandhi in school, and found it cool to be here in Gandhi's own country at a museum about him. I don't think people remember him much, and think that everyone could do with a hefty dose of Gandhi's philosophies on life. The world would be a better place. What an incredible, courageous man.

I think Gandhi may have had the best description of India I have ever heard: "The moment there is suspicion about a person's motives, everything he does becomes tainted." We've often wondered over the last week that, if nearly 85% of Indians are Hindus, and they believe in living a righteously so they will be reincarnated into a higher caste with a better life, then why is everyone out to rip us off, lie to us, trick us, and do anything they can to ensure we have the most frustrating, exhausting day of our lives???

We then started to head to New Delhi, but quickly changed our minds when we remembered the horrific traffic from yesterday, and realized we'd be in the same situation if we didn't head back to our hotel now. So we spent some time on the internet, had a relaxing dinner at Sam's Cafe on Main Bazaar (I think the only place we've eaten in Delhi, as it seems to be on the safe side) and then headed to bed.

That's it, we're out of here!

Our plane touched down in Delhi around 5:00 this morning. Thanks to the good ol' Lonely Planet, we knew to ignore the touts outside the airport offereing taxi rides (and there were many!) and went straight to the pre-paid taxi stand. We got a ticket and it was a quick trip into the city and to our hotel, once we got past the splattered cow on the road and subsequent traffic jam. The streets were very quiet, and no one was about. Luckily, also thanks to the L.P., we had booked a place and the hotel dude was awake to let us to our room. After a brief inspection, we dropped our things and went straight to sleep.

We woke up around noon and saw that our hotel room wasn't too bad. The bathroom does smell like the sewer, but we just keep the door closed. We were very sluggish this afternoon and slowly made our way out for the day.

"HOLY COW!"...and that's exactly what we first saw upon stepping out of our hotel onto Main Bazaar street in the Paharganj district: a cow, walking down the street. What a difference from how the street looked at 5:00 this morning! The street was packed with people, rickshaws, auto-rickshaws (tuk tuks), cows, dogs, cars, motorbikes and carts going every which way. All of the shops were now open with their wares spilling out into the street. "Street" here is used liberally. It's really just a wide-ish alley. And the noise! Horns beeping, people yelling, traffic zooming. And the smells! Indian spices, incense burning, exhaust fumes, smoke, cow shit, rubbish heaps, and of course, sewage.

Exactly what we expected of Delhi.

But everything is so colourful, from silks and fabrics being sold to women in their bright saris, to fruits and food sold on the street. And there is so much activity going on, it's hard to believe that Delhi was ever as quiet as we first saw it at 5:00 am.

We made our way down the street (walking any faster than at a cow's pace is impossible) and to Connaught Place. This is the core of New Delhi, with 3 circle roads around a central park. However, all of this area is under construction as the city is in the process of building a metro system. We headed to the Underground Bazaar, bring up images of the Russian Market in Phnom Penh--cramped, crowded, and stinking hot--but made worse because it's underground. But we were surprised to find that they were cool, spacious, and not crowded at all. We walked around--literally in circles--amongst the shops selling saris, clothing, electronics, music, shoes etc. And every shop sells some porn too.

After surfacing from the bazaar, we tried to find a bank with a familiar name but gave up after a while. We caught a pre-paid rickshaw to the Jama Masjid. This is India's largest Muslim mosque, built 1644-1658. The courtyard can hold 25,000 people. We took off our shoes, paid a camera fee, and hired a skirt for Nigel since he had shorts on. It was nice to see some different architecture from the southeastern Asian temples and wats we've been seeing for the last few months. Inside the complex, families were relaxing in the courtyard, and some people were praying. And there was a man hosing down the burning hot cement with skanky sewer water. All of the pigeons flying around reminded us of Europe, even though we've never been there.

We returned Nigel's skirt, walked amongst all of the people down the many steps, past the trash piles and street stalls and caught a bicycle rickshaw to the Red Fort. As we took off, 2 boys jumped onto the back of our rickshaw, shouting "Hello, chapati!" over and over. Nige said "My name isn't Chapati." They were asking for money for food, and Kel replied "We don't have rupees." Despite their begging, they were smiling and laughing all along. Nige is now nicknamed 'Chapati' and Kel is 'No rupee Chapati.'

The Red Fort (in Old Delhi) was comppleted by the Mughals in 1648. It was meant to be the site of their new capital once they moved it from Agra, but this never happened. It is a complex surrounded by a huge red sandstone wall. We went through the main entrance at Lahore Gate, sparking many witty comments from us for the remainder of the day. Inside are the Emperor's living quarters, royal baths, assembly halls, a mosque, and other structures, all surrounded by gardens and what used to be an intricate fountain/pond system. On our way out, we became the celebrities we once were in China, as a few Indian boys & women asked to have their photos taken with us.

After leaving the fort complex, we walked across the street and down Chandni Chowk, the main street of Old Delhi. Being peak hour traffic, it took us nearly an hour to walk down the entire street, constantly being asked to look at saris, pyjamas, and suits. It is probably the main market in the entire area. We wound our way through the hordes of people, rickshaws, motorbikes, street stalls, hand-pulled carts, and cows. Just as it was getting dark, we finally found a rickshaw to take us back to our hotel. This turned out to be a 2 hour cycle ride as the traffic among all of the streets (traffic being 99% bicycle rickshaws and carts) was so congested that we barely moved every 5 minutes or so. The cows move through the traffic just like the rest of us: they move a bit, stop and wait, then move a bit more. Sometimes they get distracted with a pile of rubbish to munch on. We would have walked back to our hotel, but by this time we had no idea where we were.

Finally back in the Pahar Ganj area, we headed for dinner, and felt we deserved a few cold beers. Well, you cannot get beer at restaurants here (except for a few very expensive places) or hotels, or shops. Or almost anywhere for that matter. After suffering through dinner without some amber liquid, we asked the guy at our hotel, and he told us to catch a bicycle rickshaw for 10 rupees to the 'beer shop' and 10 rupees back. We couldn't get into that rickshaw fast enough. The driver rode us there, Nige bought a few bottles and smuggled them out onto the street (everyone else seemed to be stuffing their bottles of whiskey etc. down their pants and up their shirts as they left the shop, so we did too) and went back to our hotel. After a long, hot, filthy day, the beer was crap. It foamed over upon opening, half of it spilling onto the fine white marble floors of our hotel room (which, tragic as it was, at least made the room smell better). The remaining half was barely worth drinking...and after a day like we had, you know the beer had to be really bad not to drink it!

So, all in all, our first impressions of India are as expected. However, most people who leave India not long after arriving do so because of the stench, the noise, the hassling touts, the rip-offs, and the disgustingness of it all. We don't mind this, as it's part of the whole character and culture of India. We do, however, mind that we can't get a beer!!! We're out of here!

To India...eventually

04 April 2005

This morning we trudged through the pouring rain to the post office to offload a bunch of stuff we have accumulated over the last several weeks. Since we hadn't been to the post office since Siem Reap, Cambodia, it was quite a package. But the post office was easy to find, and hassle free, so we were happy. We checked out of our hotel, had our last street pad thai for lunch, then went around to try to sell off some books and cheap clothes. We finally found someone to buy it all for just less than we wanted (400 baht), which was good. We wasted some time on the internet before catching our ride to the airport.

After a quick ride to the airport that would make Mario Andretti jealous, we were dropped off at the departures gate and proceeded to Thailand's VAT office. Tourists can claim the tax back from purchases at certain stores around the country. Luckily for us, we had spent enough at these stores to be eligible. So, we got about AU$10 back, which is still AU$10 to us. We headed to the Cathay Pacific check-in with our fingers crossed that our booking was valid. No problems. We waited for a few hours (Bangkok airport sucks-there is nothing to eat, no beer, and no internet) before departing Bangkok around 6:45 pm. We're off to Delhi, via Hong Kong of course.

We made it to Hong Kong on new, clean Cathay Pacific planes, with excellent, friendly service, good food, and, most importantly, TVs in the back of the seat with heaps of channels! We had about an hour in Hong Kong before boarding our flight to Delhi. Once all of the passengers were on the plane, the (Aussie) captain announced that due to an electrical problem with the entertainment system (Gasp! Oh NO!!!), we would be changing planes for the comfort of all the passengers, since it would be a long flight without a working entertainment system (Whew! Thank goodness!). We were more than happy to get off the plane and wait about an hour before finally taking off for India.