Thailand - Bangkok

Siam City Hotel Bangok

We arrived in Bangkok, both having been before, determined to get out of it as soon as possible! Thanks to a complete over supply of 5 star hotels and numerous online booking deals, we spent the first couple of days in luxury at the Siam City Hotel. The huge and very grand entrance hall glistened with white marble as the well-groomed doormen opened the doors for us. To the right was an elegant cocktail bar with a pianist tinkling out romantic jazz classics on his grand piano. In front, the reception desk adorned with grand flower arrangements had several very beautiful ladies waiting to check us in. In complete contrast we were straight off the plane from Delhi, having tramped around India for 6 weeks, our clothes not to mention our flip flop adorned feet were absolutely filthy! As we headed across the reception hall towards the beautiful ladies, laden down like packhorses with our backpacks and various plastic bags, we left behind a small trail of brown footprints on the marble from the rain outside. Perhaps a slightly over the top description but I think you can imagine the scene and subsequently how we felt when everyone’s eyes turned to inspect the newcomers – like everyone was thinking there was no way, surely, that we could possibly have a reservation there?! In reality everyone was actually very nice and polite and our inferiority complex was completely self-inflicted. Luckily any such feelings didn’t last anyway and it wasn’t long before, in true backpacker style, we were making full use of all the free services the hotel had to offer; the internet, the pool, the gym and of course…the huge buffet breakfast! There is something about getting a good deal in a hotel that you normally would never be able to afford that makes you go completely crazy at the buffet breakfast…eating as much as you physically can so that 1) you’ve definitely got your moneys worth and 2) so that in theory you don’t need to eat again that day.  Maybe it was the same train of thought that also drove us to take all the unused complimentary toiletries with us when we left?! So we felt we’d had our moneys worth but also in the hope that we wouldn’t have to buy any more soap (or toilet paper!) for the rest of our trip. 

Fried locusts, scorpians, crickets etc

I don’t know if it was the contrast to India or whether it has actually changed a lot in 6 years but Mike and I were both amazed at how nice and incredibly clean Bangkok was. There wasn’t any rubbish on the streets, no one stared or shouted at us and there weren’t any cows to navigate around on the pavements! There was heaps of fresh fruit and vegetables and amazing street food stalls and restaurants. It’s definitely true that the Thai people are some of the friendliest, everyone was smiley and helpful and no one tried to rip us off. It’s something that we never thought we’d say but we actually loved Bangkok! After 3 days in luxury we came back to reality and moved down town to the budget loving Khao San Road – the young backpackers answer to late night drinking and parties. We stayed a couple of streets away and perhaps boringly didn’t venture into any of the ‘party pubs’. Instead we found great entertainment in Mike buying a bag of disgusting fried insects and eating them whilst I laughed and took photos.

Hard to chew but quite tasty!

After a few problems getting Amazon to deliver to Thailand, Mike was also eventually able to get his hands on a new kindle thanks to the delivery address of a friend of a friend – Thank you Amar and Jolly that was very much appreciated!

What was originally meant to be a fleeting visit ended up being almost a week as we decided to apply for 60 day Indonesian visas. Once the visas came through however we booked our flights out and we were off to the Philippines!

Huge Lychee

Green tea frappe + icecream. Nice but overpriced!

India - Mcleod Gange, Rishikesh & Corbett Tiger Reserve

Paragliding

After Amritsar we moved onto Mcleod Gange, where the Tibetan government lives in exile. There was a completely different feel to the whole place with Tibetan people everywhere it felt like we’d crossed into a different country. It was so peaceful there with lovely views of the mountains, no hassling, no staring and no touting! Unfortunately for the first 3 days, something finally got the better of me and I spent 3 days in bed with diarrhoea and complete exhaustion. I made a speedy recovery though and despite the health hiccup I think Mcleod Gange remains one of my favourite places that we visited. Whilst I was at home suffering Mike nipped off to do the world’s second highest paraglide! Unfortunately he travelled 2 hours each way with the promise of a 45minute flight…only to discover the winds were too strong, so he had to wait for 5 hours and then had a rapid 8 minute descent straight down the mountain. Although slightly annoyed at the reduced flight time I think part of him was pretty relieved – it sounded like the flight wasn’t exactly smooth to say the least!!

The Dalai Lama

The big highlight of Mcleod Gange was that whilst we were there, the Dalai Lama was not only in residence but actually giving a talk at a local refugee school. Equipped with fm radios we trekked up to the hillside school and waited patiently outside for him to arrive. There were no more than about a hundred of us including the school children who all wore traditional dress. When his car arrived and he climbed out all the children started singing and he smiled and waved to everyone as he was helped up the steps into the school. He was less than 2m from us and had the most gentle, kind face. It was the strangest experience because both mike and I became really emotional and were struggling to hold back tears! Quite bizarre seeing as neither of us at the time actually knew that much about the Dalai Lama and don’t follow the Buddhist faith! Unable to enter the hall we sat on the roof of the school listening to a translation through our radios. He spoke in a very relaxed way coming across as very knowledgeable and open minded but also quite witty in his delivery. Although perhaps not converting us to Buddhism it definitely spurred us on to not only visit the museum and find out more about Tibet, but also to watch the film ‘Kundun’ telling the story of the Dalai Lamas childhood.

School children awaiting the Dalai Lama

Our Ashram with Yoga Hall on the left

Rishikesh was the next stop on our trip. Most famous for being the home of the (now derelict) Ashram where the Beatles supposedly wrote the majority of their ‘White album’ during an extended stay in the 60’s. Our understanding of an Ashram is a place of communal living usually under the guidance of a spiritual leader. We stayed in a neighboring ashram where actually the only communal activities we took part in were the 2x90min sessions of yoga a day – a bit of a shock to the system after an otherwise exercise free India! Mike also took part in the daily meditation sessions though they sounded slightly whacky to be honest, particularly the one titled ‘fruit and water therapy’. Not satisfied with what our Ashram had to offer in the way of meditation, Mike looked elsewhere and ended up doing a couple of early morning sessions with a local homeopathic doctor. He described the experience of sitting on the doctor’s roof cross legged at 6am in the morning concentrating on relaxation, not surprisingly, as very relaxing. For the first 10 minutes at least before it became insanely uncomfortable and actually just as much of a physical challenge as a mental one! I have to say I haven’t caught him practicing again since thoughJ

The BEST fruit muesli maybe ever?

Once again one of the highlights of Rishikesh was food related. With the heavily deep fried food and distinct lack of fresh fruit and vegetables throughout India it’s not an exaggeration to say we were aching for some fresh produce! Rishikesh was our answer to this…in the form of the most amazing (and massive) fruit salad with yogurt and muesli we have ever experienced!! It was not only the only thing that got me through the morning session of yoga but also ended up being the daily meeting place for the resident travelers. A little like Varanasi, the streets in Rishikesh were filled with touring Indian pilgrims but unlike Varanasi the Ganges here was clean enough for us to be tempted into its waters. Though it was absolutely freezing, after 2 months of being in the heat and not being able to swim it was sweet relief to finally be able to jump in! Even if in my case it was in full length leggings, top and with a sarong draped over my shoulders.

The Ganges really was that cold

Proof...?

We did also, of course, visit the ashram where The Beatles stayed and as you can see from the picture, went inside the room that John Lennon himself slept in! It was a huge complex, a shame that it’s now completely derelict, with the many dilapidated and deserted buildings overgrown with wildlife. Apparently according to our local guide it closed because the lease ended and the government claimed the land back but have just let nature take its course since.

We couldn't believe it but our 5 weeks in India were almost up and the final stop before flying out of Delhi was The Corbett Tiger Reserve. We stayed in a place with a real safari feel to it, sleeping in a massive tent under a canopy of mango trees. Here we met a young English couple who we ended up doing our safari the next morning with. We had intended to do an elephant safari but unfortunately all elephants were on loan to the government, taking part in a mission to round up a tiger that had strayed into one of the villages! We settled for a jeep safari and got up early, only to wait for over an hour for our jeep to arrive. One of the disadvantages of booking the day before - our guide had to content with the park queues before picking us up!

Although we saw a Jackal, and lots of deer we felt a little bit cheated because the tour wasn’t as long as it should have been and we weren’t completely satisfied. Plus even though we had known we probably wouldn’t I think we were all a bit disappointed that our chance to see a tiger was over.  So… we booked another safari for the afternoon! 

Green bee-eater

This time it was completely different – we had a very charismatic driver and guide who made it much more fun. We saw an owl and a monitor lizard, as well as lots of deer… but the real highlight came as we were heading back to the park gates before the very stringent closing time. Just as our guide was saying we had had a good time even though we hadn’t seen a tiger, a jeep with cheering Indians came speeding past…we were off! Obviously some special guide sign language had taken place and we went racing through the jungle at top speed to a clearing where we screeched to a halt. There, rolling around on his back was a huge male tiger!! We couldn’t believe it!! We watched him for about 10 minutes and it sounds ridiculous but he was so cat like it was amazing! Then he just stood up and slinked off into the jungle seemingly without a care in the world. It was time for us to race back to the gates before they closed at 7pm. The perfect end to India!

Male Bengal Tiger

Clearly relaxed!

Black-faced langur monkey

Fish owl

Monitor Lizard

Black-faced langur monkey

Male sambal deer

Excited Indian tourists

Excited Western tourist!

India - Trains, Delhi and Amritsar

Once we’d recovered from the excitement of the camel safari it was time to move on from Rajasthan and head further north via Delhi. This time we took an overnight sleeper train which, like the sleeper buses, in themselves are somewhat of an experience. We were told that even people who have lived in India for ten years still don’t understand how the rail system works or to be more accurate how the reservations system works and we were no exception! We did attempt to buy our own tickets…once…but we soon learnt the error of our ways. It appears you can either battle your way through a queue for 2 hours in a railway reservations office to be told there are no seats available. Or you can pay a little extra and buy through someone who knows someone who knows someone who works in the reservations office and get apparently unavailable confirmed tickets within a matter of minutes.

We always travelled sleeper class (non-air conditioned) which suited us fine, they’re a lot cheaper than the air conditioned carriages but not quite roughing it in seated second class. Each ‘compartment’ has 8 births and depending on where your allocated seat is, dictates whether you get woken up at 5.30 so that people can sit on your bed or you can sleep through but suffer with the increased temperature and decreased airflow of the top bunk! All in all the trains were fine. We had heard horror stories of people having all their possessions stolen on the trains and so we were particularly, anal is probably the word, about locking our bags up and keeping valuables safely tucked away. Subsequently we didn’t have any problems with getting mugged or having item ‘disappear’ on the train. The main problem we encountered was just everyone’s fascination with us, which wasn’t really a problem as such until you were really tired and just wanted to sleep. It’s slightly off putting having a parade of people stream past to have a good look. Often returning for a third or fourth time with family members and friends just to make sure no one misses out!

We had a brief 4 hour stop in Delhi before our connecting train so we had some lunch and a little stroll around the streets before going in search of an internet café. After lugging our bags for over an hour with no joy we stumbled across a very inviting KFC offering free wifi, right next to New Delhi station. In the hubbub of swelteringly hot Delhi it was like a sweet, air conditioned, internet providing haven… what’s more the chicken to what had so far been a vegetarian trip was (surprisingly) very tasty! It took us a while to actually connect to the internet and with only about half an hour to go before our train we were glad when we eventually did. I don’t think we’d been online more than about 5 minutes though when the KFC manager approached us and asked if we would like a tour of the kitchens?! Too polite to say no we spent the next 20 mins touring the pristine kitchens being shown how they make the ‘world-renowned’ crispy KFC chicken.  Basically they marinade the chicken and then put it in the deep fat fryer and select the correct number of minutes. We learnt that if you put the packet chicken in the freezer it becomes rock hard! We visited both the walk in fridge and freezer learning that they’re called such because unlike a normal freezer at home, you can walk inside! Eager to sound interested and hopefully make up for the tears of laughter rolling down our cheeks, Mike enquired further about how they prepare the ‘special’ marinade used for the chicken. The use of the word prepare is perhaps slightly misleading…they actually just mix a pre-prepared marinade powder with water to create the delicious KFC chicken marinade! Credit to the manager…he took his job very seriously and was very proud of the job all his colleagues were doing but the whole situation was so surreal and of all the places to be disturbed when you’re desperate to use the internet! Our time was up though and we had to sprint across New Delhi station to our platform, managing to board our train to Amritsar with literally seconds to spare.

Washing up is no small feat at the golden temple!

Amritsar is the home of the Sikh Golden Temple. An amazing place where they feed an estimated 60-80,000 people a day all completely free of charge! We stayed in the ‘foreigner dormitory’ inside the temple grounds, again completely free of charge. From previous experiences in India, we arrived more than a little skeptical about the ‘free’ accommodation and food and were fully expecting to be heavily pressured into donating but we couldn’t have been more wrong. There were a few donation boxes around the grounds and although I’m sure the majority of people do donate not a single person alluded to it during our stay. The whole operation is run by volunteers and is really quite phenomenal to witness. There’s a huge machine that churns out chapattis all day and there’s hot chai on tap at any hour of the day or night. When you want to eat you collect a plate and spoon and are then ushered into the huge dining room. Everyone sits cross legged in lines, following the Sikh principal that regardless of race, cast, sex or wealth everyone is equal and should eat alongside each other. The volunteers then walk up and down the lines with their big pots of dhal or rice pudding and you eat your fill!

The Golden Temple

In the evening we went to watch the very extravagant closing of the gates at the Indian/Pakistan border. Apparently according to our Kiwi friend they had to tone down the marching because the guards were getting knee problems but they still put on a very good display with high kicks and goose stepping. We arrived when there were already hundreds of Indians gathered around the gates to watch and thought we wouldn’t be able to see anything. However our pale skin stood out in the crowd and we were soon ushered around to the reserved ‘foreigners’ section right at the front. 

High Kicking

Goose Stepping