So its time for an update....i wrote this on the plane from Delhi to Cochin for the south part of my India experience but only just had the ability to upload it to the internet. Its been a busy week and although we’ve had some down time I’ve really not felt energetic enough to write on here. I was up at 6am again this morning though so I’m feeling pretty tired now but I really want to update you all on my trip so far. I can’t remember my last entry exactly so I might repeat a little bit!!
Delhi on arrival felt like such an assault to the senses with all the noise and hustle and bustle. As our first proper day exploring was a Sunday it was even worse than normal as everyone has the day off and the streets are jam packed.
I thought it was going to be like that every day but thankfully not so in Delhi.
I think I told you about visiting the wholesale spice market. We took the local metro train to get there which was very much like taking the tube in rush hour – but a bit smellier!! Thankfully I didn’t get groped but I know a couple of the other girls did. Once we got to the area we took a bus just a short distance to give us the experience – however it was definitely enough spending only 5 minutes on there as they really are tiny and not very comfy – I don’t know how they do it but I guess its all what you are used to.
After that we visited some different temples and saw a sikh one which feeds 5000 people a day for free based on donations from local people who just come down and help for a couple of hours each day. Anyone who wants to eat there can eat for free, it doesn’t matter what religion you are or if you have money or not.
We went for a delicious lunch in the business district of Connaught Square and then on to the India Gate. After that we were all pretty shattered so headed back to the hotel. A few of us went out for dinner I think that night to a rooftop restaurant of a very nice hotel for another delicious curry meal.
The next day it was on to Jaipur – a very long drive! I was expecting a very squished bus to turn up at the hotel but we actually got quite a good mini coach with air con so the ride was fairly comfortable however 6/7 hours on anything is never that good!!!
We hit a traffic jam on the highway so ended up having to take a detour down local roads – not very comfy but we got to see some amazing villages and local activities that we wouldn’t have seen otherwise.
Never again will I say negative things about Indian driving – after being in India – I can understand it and the method behind it. To drive here you need so much more concentration and reflexes – you think you are about to hit something (as a passenger that is!) but the driver has it all under control and just breaks and moves past etc. Although they have the highways in lanes here, no one really uses them they just overtake and drive how they want, but as they are all doing it – it works!
We were told that in India – to drive without a horn is the same as driving without brakes.
Forget using your indicators here – they seem to mostly be used just for decoration J If you are overtaking you blow your horn! Simple – and everyone gets it so it works quite well – on the highways that is – but once in the city its just noise and everyone goes for it!
As Westerners everywhere we go we get stared at. Sometimes that’s all they do, sometimes its accompanied with smiles and waves, sometimes its also taking our pictures – either surreptitiously or they just come right up and stand next to us to have their picture taken with us!! I asked Kuush why they do it so much and he said that when they are on holiday in a different region they go home and show their holiday photos and say that us Westerners are Hollywood stars that they saw on their travels and as most people don’t watch many US movies – people believe them!!
So after a very long drive we reach Jaipur. Our hotel is a little outside the city centre which is annoying only because to reach anywhere you have to take a tuk tuk and pay rather than walking, however the big advantages are its quiet(ish!), the rooms are LOVELY! and there is a nice garden. We were greeted with traditional marigold garlands and a rose water drink. This hotel was a BIG improvement on the lovely Pooja Palace in Delhi.
I think we got to Jaipur in the afternoon quite late as our detour delayed us so Kuush took us to Amar Road to get a Lassi – very nice! It was a lovely place – really “local”
After our Lassi with trotted up the road to go watch a Bollywood movie – a great experience! The theature in particular was really nice and well decorated – I managed to get a quick shot of the inside – but photos are banned in case someone copies the design of it!!
it was a shame the cinema wasn’t full as I think the atmosphere would have been even better but it was great to hear all the whooping and cheering. It was surprisingly easy to follow the film as well and as there was an intermission we all quizzed Kuush on the bits of the storyline we weren’t sure about. Most of the film is in Hindi but you have these little bits of English which helps and they are so expressive you get what is going on.
Dinner that night was in a local vegetarian restaurant and another great curry!
Wednesday was a very busy day – we visited a lot of Jaipur – the Pink City! We started off very early with our visit to the Amber Fort and an elephant ride up the hill to it! A bizarre experience but very good. Whilst waiting you are just surrounded by hawkers trying to sell you stuff – its so annoying but it does work if you just totally ignore them and they move on to someone else.
We had a good walk around and there is lots of history to the place but you know me – I’m not good at remembering that kind of stuff but the place is pretty impressive and very decorative.
After the Amber Fort we took the bus down to see the Water Palace (at least I think that’s what it was called – I can’t remember now!) it’s a shame as it was only a photo stop really but it was pretty cool to see it. I had my photo taken outside and i've tried to insert it here but its not doing what i want! These Indian women came up wanting to be in our photo – I didn’t want them and tried to get them to go but they wouldn’t so we took the picture and then they asked us for money!!! We walked off ignoring them – very cheeky of them!!!
Then we went down to see the Palace of the Winds which has something like 900 windows to allow breezes and keep it cool. As its only pretty from the outside we went up this tiny little staircase three floors on the building opposite and got some great pictures!
Next was the City Palace Musuem. This was all included in our excursions (i.e. we didn’t have to pay extra for it) so we all trotted off and got an audio guide that was included…….. we lasted about 10 minutes listening to it!!! I did try to be cultured but…..well there is only so much information you want to know! Luckily it seemed like everyone in the group had done the same thing and actually we lasted longer listening to it than a lot of other people. The tour was supposed to last about an hour but we took off our guides and wandered around and was done in about 30 minutes (maybe less!!!) We were however all pretty tired and very very hot. 6 of us took a rickshaw down to Amar Road to a restaurant that was recommended to us and had lunch.
I have now become the ordering expert for two of the girls – Laura who is Spanish and Elena who is Greek. We shared some dishes a couple of times that I had chosen and recommended and now they want me to choose all their meals because everything has been yummy and not too spicy!!
After lunch it was time for our rickshaw tour of the city – everything is such hard work to organise here – you talk to one driver but you have others surrounding you and when there is a group of you then one person is talking to someone, another to someone else- its exhausting!!!
The start of the tour was pretty scary to me as not long after we got on someone through something and it hit my back – I think it was a stone or something. It hurt a little but not too much but it freaked me out a bit, particularly was we were going into all these little back streets seeing where people were working out of, instead of seeing the people looking at us with curiosity I felt it was with an unwelcome look – I was wrong though and it was a lovely tour to see the real streets.
We finished the tour in the market area – I think the drivers were pretty tired by this point as they were supposed to take us back to the City Palace and they told the other girls that this was a good place for shopping – it wasn’t too bad, but I wanted to make them carry on and take us where they were supposed to but the other girls wanted to get off….in the end it wasn’t too bad but we might have got some better bargains elsewhere.
The shops are pretty amazing but you are hassled everywhere to go into the shops. We were told that Jaipur is really the place to buy your pashminas and clothes as it’s the biggest producer and most other cities purchase from here. So the first shop we go into is like pashmina heaven!
They just bring out row upon row of difference scarves in different qualities and colours. Then once you find what you are looking for – the battering begins!!! I wanted one of the very lightweight but warm ones as it will be great for travelling around and I found a lovely one which is two tone purple and blue. They wanted 2500 rupees for it. I told him I only wanted to pay 500 and couldn’t afford 2500 – so the game begins. He starts bringing out the cheaper scarves. I pretend to look and say they are ok but I don’t want them I want the other one. It continues, he brings more out. I say the same thing. So after this goes on for a long time he eventually says he can offer a lower price – I think it was something like 1500 rupees. I said it was too expensive and I can’t afford it. I can only pay 500 rupees – (its about £6 – this is a silk and pashmina mix scarve so one of the better ones). So he gives up on me for a bit and then comes back to me. Offers me it eventually for 1000 rupees – I say no again!! I stick to 500. Not to bore you too much but eventually I say ok, I can go to 750 rupees – he argues a bit, I stick with it, he accepts! In hindsight I think if I would have stuck it out for a bit longer I could have got it for 500 – and I think I overpaid – but that’s the benefit of hindsight!!
So we are going from shop to shop being beckoned from one place to another, one shop keeper finds us on the street and says he saw us earlier or something to one of the girls and we need to go to his shop. Somehow we end up in there, then we split up into little groups as one shop doesn’t have stuff we like and we want to move on. Me and Megan wanted to look for silver so we go to a shop just along from the clothes shop we are in as a friend of theirs is in there and says he has a silver shop just up the way!!
We went to the shop and they had some beautiful stuff but it was just too expensive for what I was looking for. Anyway – somehow we get found by another guy – Megan seems to know him or something - but anyway we go to another tiny little silver shop down a side street and are in there for ages. I find a lovely Turqoise and silver bracelet that I like and barter the guys down – it takes a while but I get there!!
Anyway we’ve been apart from the rest of the guys for probably a good hour or more by now and we figure that we won’t find them so will head back on our own….but no – somehow or other they have stumbled across the same shop and we hear their voices upstairs. Next comes the most entertaining ride ever!
Somehow we managed to find an auto rickshaw that can fit 6 of us girls in it!! There is the normal seat at the back and then there is a sort of ledge behind the driver you can perch on and then two of the girls can sit in the “boot”/back seat! It was the most hilarious ride of my life and the amount of staring and tooting we got on the way back was so funny!
We are exhausted so head back to the hotel for a snack and the most expensive wine ever!!! (note – most expensive – but not that best!!!!).
The next day we have a drive to Bharatpur. A small town where we are staying. We stop on the way to see a bit of stone masonary but really it’s a hop off the bus and take a photo and then hop back on – not that amazing. We go to Abhaneri where there is an ancient step well which is a pretty amazing site.
Then we go to a small village to see the houses and people – it was ok but not that great in honesty – most of us wanted to stop in the villages we saw on our detour where there were shops and normal life mixed in with everything and people would have probably stared at us and the odd one come up but mostly leave us alone to watch and look around. Whilst I was at this little village I enjoyed it (except for the bit where one of the women kind of patted my boob and then started trying to grab at my top to, it appeared, pull it down! I wasn’t impressed and kept trying to push her away but she was very persistent!!!) After the visit to the village though someone pointed out how clean and tidy it was and how they were all there ready waiting for us to visit – it was a bit disappointing because it wasn’t what I really wanted to see and it was a bit over the top. Hopefully I will get another chance in the south to see some proper town/village life.
We arrive at our hotel around lunchtime and it looks great! Peaceful and quiet in the middle of nowhere so good respite after hectic Jaipur. There’s even a lovely swimming pool! Quite a few of us decide to hang around the pool for the afternoon instead of going to the bird sanctuary. All seems well until nighttime when the entire hotel is covered in bugs! One area had a carpet of these tiny little black round bugs with a short of hard shell – it was horrible. And then in bed this weird bug suddenly appeared on my pillow whilst reading (but was dead!) – got rid of that, fell asleep and then at something like 3 am- another bug fell on me but also appeared to be dead – it was really strange and I was pleased to get out of these – don’t tell me – I know I’m going to come across a lot more bugs – but it won’t stop me complaining about them!!!
The next day we have a bit of a drive to Agra and go check out the Red Fort, Baby Taj and the back of the Taj Mahal. All in all a good but very very busy day as we are on the go from about 9.30 in the morning until about 7pm when we reach the hotel. We have a chilled out evening havig dinner and an early night for our very very early rise at 4.30 the next day to get the sunrise over the Taj Mahal!!
So I have to say that getting up at that time in the morning is not that difficult when you know you are going to be seeing something amazing. We were really lucky as we were the first ones to the ticket office so got in to the Taj very early. Its definitely an amazing sight and the photos won’t do it justice at all!!
After that we head back to Delhi – only a 6 and a half hour drive!!!! It was very long and very boring!!!!!! The ONLY highlight was getting stuck in a traffic jam because there was a propaganda parade for the local political party – it was very entertaining – there’s a photo here but I did manage to record some as the photos really don’t capture how loud and amazing it was. I’ll try and upload it to something like You Tube if I get a decent internet connection somewhere.
We had a farewell dinner to half the group last night as they were only on the first week and then headed off to the airport early this morning. I’m not feeling so great as I write this as I seem to have developed travel sickness.
Final opinion of the north – thoroughly enjoyed it, very noisy and bustly but its been a great experience – however I can’t wait to reach the south and see what else is to come!!
As you’ll see from my photos so far, I have not yet managed to perfect my travelling hair – when I tried to curl it, it went frizzy and fuzzy, I tried to leave it dry au-natural – it goes into a puffy bouffant, I plaited it wet and left it to dry – same thing. Last night I piled it with product and I managed to get the curls to look half decent! Its going to be an expensive trip if that’s the only way I can do it! I managed to stay illness free until the last couple of days where I had a slight upset tummy – but nothing at all bad really – I’d previously stayed veggie but I had chicken 2 evenings in a row so I’m wondering if its co-incided with it – we will see, I’m going back to being veggie. I’ve even Indian for every single meal except for breakfast and thoroughly enjoyed in – Ang and Ant – its not too hot - the trick is to ask for it VERY VERY MILD. Sometimes there’s no spice, sometimes a little, and sometimes its still quite hot!
So I think that’s plenty of information for now – sorry there is so much to read through – I hope you found it entertaining – but this is also a sort of diary for me to remember everything as well!
P.s. I’ve managed not to have to use a squat toilet so far!!!! I doubt that will last much longer though L
