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

India - Jaisalmer

The main reason for going to Jodhpur was really a stopover to get to the desert town of Jaisalmer, the next stop on our trip. The first evening we arrived we were walking back to our hotel after dinner, when a young Indian boy we’d never seen before pulled up next to us on his motorbike to say hello. When he asked if we were English, for some reason this particular time we pretended to be French but he was having none of it…he just replied  ‘no you’re not, you’re English and your names are Michael and Katy’. We were completely taken aback but apparently we shouldn’t have been… everyone in the tourist industry will know everything about us and be tracking our movements around India, warning friends to be ready for us in case there could be a sale involved! In this case it was a camel safari but unfortunately for this guy we had already booked one through our hotel. 

The said camel safari was absolutely brilliant! Lead by our local guide ‘Jonny’ we spent 3 days and 2 nights in the desert. We rode for a couple of hours in the morning through what was mostly arid scrubland, before stopping during the heat of the day for Jonny to rustle us up vegetable curry on a little camp fire. Then in the afternoons we visited a couple of desert villages before riding on till we reached some picturesque sand dunes where we slept the night under the stars on our camel blankets! Apart from in the villages we didn’t meet another person and it wasn’t long before mike, fully clad in his turban, was galloping with his camel, secretly fancying himself as an Arabian prince. That is, until the chaffing got too bad and he had to dismount and take 10 minutes respite…the camels were insanely uncomfortable!! Overall though we absolutely loved it, a definite highlight of India so far.

Campfire cooking

Toilet stop!

India - Udaipur & Jodhpur

After Jaipur came the much quieter and much more beautiful Udaipur. We were recommended somewhere to stay by our previous hotel owner (as always) and when we arrived we could tell immediately that even the reception hall was out of our budget. Luckily for us apart from one Canadian guy the hotel was completely empty and we were able to stay for a fraction of the price that the lovely ‘Baba’ was asking…once again thank you low season! Having stuck to our guns and bargained hard for the room we then continued to splash out on a few extravagant items/experiences!

Mike invested in a suit (or two!), we took a boat ride to the island where James Bonds ‘Octopussy’ was filmed, we had a city tour, ate dinner at a gorgeous lakeside restaurant indulging in the first cocktails of our trip and had some Indian cooking classes! I think Baba was probably reasonably surprised just how far the stringent budget he’d heard about on our arrival was managing to stretch…but then you’d be surprised how many times you can ‘make up for not going inside the Taj Mahal!’

Cooking class

We also took a guided tour around the very grand City Palace which was interesting for several reasons, one being that for the majority of the guests we were the main attraction! Mike and I felt like a celebrity couple, literally everywhere we went we had families coming up and asking to have their photos taken with us. Apparently according to our delighted guide the low season for westerners is the high season for Indian tourists who head north to escape the insane heat of the south. He reckoned that many of the tourists were from remote villages and may have never seen a white person in the flesh before…a somewhat alien concept for Mike and I coming from cities like London and Birmingham!

Katy and some Indian Tourists....

Katy and some more Indian Tourists!

Photo taking has become somewhat of a theme throughout India, as has the staring. It’s quite nice when a young family ask if their shy little daughter can have a photo with a westerner. It’s not so nice when a group of leery teenage boys/men ask for a photo, or more often than not just take one on their camera phone without asking and usually with the least subtlety. Since learning that most men use the photos as ‘evidence’ of the white girlfriend they spent the summer with, we’ve changed our attitude towards this particular type of punter.  Mike is still very happy to oblige with ‘a photo of a westerner’…I am not.

I think it was probably Udaipur where we first really got into eating street food, and we did so at least twice a day. The little street food stalls, usually covered in flies, served up delicious freshly cooked samosas and Pakoras. Very yummy, very cheap but very deep fried!!

Small haircut for Mike

Transporting goats Indian Style

Desert Lake

James Bond 'Octopussy' Hotel

After a lovely five days in Udaipur it was time to move on. The destination was Jodhpur and the mode of transport was a sleeper bus! When we first arrived in India it took a while to work out which side of the road they drive, because it doesn’t seem to matter…they drive on whichever side has the least traffic. In fact as I’m writing this now the bus we’re on has just spotted a gap in the central reservation and crossed over into the oncoming traffic of a very busy dual carriageway.  Fair enough I guess…how else do you overtake two parallel trucks taking up your available lanes? Luckily for us the driver of the massive truck hurtling towards us in the opposite direction was paying attention and so able to swiftly move over into his left hand lane. Unfortunately the motorbike to his left was not so lucky and was forced off the road… no harm done though, so all in all a successful maneuver. Absolutely ridiculous and yet apparently completely normal!

The journey to Jodhpur was no exception. Our driver drove like an absolute maniac speeding round corners and over bumps. Mike and I in our bunks at the back of the bus were tossed right to left all night and at one particularly large pothole were propelled 5 inches completely clear of our beds! Sitting up wasn’t an option as we would both have come down with serious concussion so we had to settle with lying down and gripping on to the bars for dear life…as well as our bags for fear of theft. Consequently we arrived in Jodhpur absolutely exhausted and allowed ourselves to driven to the nearest (and cheapest) hotel.

The bluish city of Jodhpur

Jodhpur ‘the blue city’ is not so dissimilar from Jaipur ‘the pink city’. It has the same hustle and bustle feeling that accompanies busy street markets and the same incessant blasting of motorbike and tuk-tuk horns that seem to encompass the whole of India. The little windy streets (often blocked with cows) lead up to a grand fortress which offers great views of the city. To be honest though the highlights for us and not surprisingly for those of you who know Mike (!) were as the Indians would say, ‘the eatables’. 

We found a place that served great Thali, a meal that consists of 3-5 chapatti, poppadom, 3 types of curry, curd, pickle and rice - basically large quantities of food for very little money. There was also an amazing lassi shop and some really yummy Indian sweet shops. Despite warnings of local water often being used in them, our love of lassis has steadily grown throughout India. In fact we’ve even started to recall places we’ve been by the lassis we’ve had! No dodgy stomachs yet!!

Next Stop Jaisalmer....      

Panni Puri

Lentils

Indian Sweets

India - Varanasi, Agra & Jaipur

The journey from Nepal to India was definitely more eventful than we had anticipated. On the morning that we were due to leave for the Indian border a national strike was declared in Nepal. This amongst other things meant that no one was allowed to use any kind of transport. Apparently tourists are exempt but the tourist bus we were on only got about 2 miles down the road before it was held up by a mob of local strikers, who although all branded with sticks, were actually quite friendly and calm. They wanted to check that there weren’t any local passengers on board before deciding whether or not to let us pass. Unfortunately for us there were some locals nestled in amongst the tourists so although hiding behind curtains was sufficient for the road blocks, for the police check points it wasn’t. Subsequently every time we neared a police check point we offloaded the locals before waiting for 20 min’s down the road whilst they passed the check points on foot and then rejoined us safely out of sight of the officials. To start with it was quite fun to see all the negotiations going on and experience what is apparently an all too regular occurrence in Nepal but when we were still on the bus 10 hrs later (for an originally 5 hr journey) we were eager to get to India and leave the strikes behind!

When the bus driver eventually decided we had reached our destination and turfed us off the bus – we hadn’t. We were in a small nowhere town still 5Km from the border, it was starting to get dark and a huge dust storm (that quickly turned into torrential rain) was whipping up!! We checked into the first and quite possibly the only hotel we could find  but luckily one whose owner had a ‘friend of a friend’ who was willing, for the right price (80p) to risk smuggling us at dawn to the border through the mobs on his cycle rickshaw. Finally 24hrs behind schedule we were in India! J 

We caught a tourist bus from the Indian border down to Varanasi which took about 11 hours. It was a reasonably comfortable ride as for the majority of the way, bar a couple of locals right at the front, Mike and I were the only people on the bus. Unfortunately however despite practically having the bus to ourselves, having not left our seats and having read the majority of the journey, just as we approached Varanasi Mike realised his beloved kindle was missing!!We searched the bus thoroughly but to no avail and annoyingly we still have no idea what happened to it…the journey was pretty bumpy so in theory it could have fallen onto the floor and slid down to the front where someone sneaked it into their bag, or maybe and probably more likely the really nice polite young student who came to talk to us to practice his English for an upcoming exam swiped it from right under our noses! Though neither of us can think of a single conceivable moment when that could have happened so it remains a mystery!

The Best Lassi in Varanasi

 Subsequently though we arrived in Varanasi (The Holy City) suddenly very hardened travelers, unbelievably skeptical of every Indian who approached us, convinced they were either trying to steal our things or scam us. I’m pleased to say that very quickly changed and actually from that moment on with only the odd exception everyone was really nice and helpful. In fact, we loved Varanasi, complete with its small windy streets littered with fresh cow pats and endless lines of barefooted Hindu pilgrims traipsing between temples adorned with elaborate offerings for the gods. Mike even took a liking to the thousands of annoying monkeys that clambered across the roof tops and the mangy stray dogs that slept in the gutters. One of the definite perks of travelling ‘off season’ we hardly saw another western person, so not only did we get everything a lot cheaper but we also seemed to gain the respect of a lot of the Indians who thought we must be completely insane to be visiting India when it was so hot! And although it has at times been pretty hot going up to the mid 40s the only people it seems to really bother are the locals!

Chai!

Our first day in Varanasi was spent in the police station where Mike wrote his statement and we sat and waited to be seen whilst the 10 officers who were sitting around the station all came over to have a good read. I don’t think anyone was really sure what to do with us or the information we had given them until eventually the chief of police was informed and he promptly invited us into his air-conditioned office. We were then offered tea ‘as his guests’ whilst he explained what a tough job he had policing Varanasi as there were just so many people and such a small force. Despite the fact we had gone there to report a theft (on our first day in India!), he was so nice and made us feel so welcome the conversation soon turned to us saying what a good job he was doing and how we were loving India. Within the space of a couple of hours what had been a bitter nightmare was already turning into a lesson learned and a good experience had as a result of it! Cheesy but true J

Ganges at Sunrise

We took a boat trip down the Ganges at sunrise which was great although we didn’t see any of the 

floating dead bodies that the holy river is supposedly renowned for! We became regulars at an amazing little lassi shop and a local masala chai vendor. Another favourite was the lonely planet recommended brown bread bakery that served up amazing breakfasts and shakes – it was slightly pricier than other places but the profits went to a local school so we felt able to justify the yummy food in the name of a good cause! At least that’s what we thought…it turns out we were actually dining at the ‘fake’ brown bread bakery three doors down from the real one that was opened by an ex partner of the real one after the business relationship went sour. Unfortunately for the real one despite having exactly the same menu, the food, general ambience and service wasn’t half as good as the fake one! It seems to be a running theme, though, that wherever the lonely planet recommends a restaurant, several of the same name pop up next door or round the corner to reap the benefits.

Next stop after Varanassi was Agra and the Taj Mahal. Unfortunately due to a severely delayed overnight train and an already booked onward train, we didn’t get to go inside the Taj Mahal but it was very beautiful from the outside!! I know…ridiculous.

As well as not leaving us enough time to go inside the Taj Mahal the overnight train to Agra also left us with quite bad chest infections so the next couple of days in Jaipur (The Pink City) were not that productive. We wondered around the little bazaars, visited a huge fort with great views of the city and went to see a Bollywood movie! Disappointingly the film didn’t have as many cheesy songs as we would have liked and neither was the acting as cheesy/bad as we would have liked. Instead it had a rather serious message about how many young people in India are killed by their families for falling in love with people from different casts. Despite the whole film being in hindi it was entertaining to watch, and made even better by the fantastically involved audience of Indians who whooped and cheered at all the jokes and went completely berserk when there was eventually a kiss!!

View from Hill Fort Jaipur

Bollywood Film