Thursday 3 May 2012

Delhi

After a suitably enjoyable 8 hour flight to Mumbai (suitably delayed by Air India by an hour or two) I arrived into Mumbai to be greeted by a noise, heat and chaos I can honestly say I was not quite expecting at 3am. The lack of adequate air conditioning meant the corridors and baggage claim were riddled with mosquitoes, and the general lack of good signing or helpful staffing didn't make it the easiest airport to navigate. After taking some 2 hours to simply clear passport control and be re-aquainted with my luggage, I waited in a queue for 45 minutes to take a coach over to the domestic terminals, where I took approximately another hour to clear security in the 'women only' queue. As I was about to step onto the plane (having reached boarding with about 5 minutes to spare which is somewhat staggering when you think I landed 4 hours prior) a rather 'helpful' guard decided that the fact my TINY handbag didn't have a security tag on it was just cause to send me the whole way back to security to get one, meaning I spent about 45 minutes sweating, yelling at people, and running around like a headless chicken, and that the entire flight took off about 50 minutes after its scheduled time (I hope she's pleased with herself). Killed a further 8 hours in the much superior New Delhi airport sleeping on my bag, playing games, fiddling with rupees, listening to music and reading when Abby finally arrived at about 4pm :-)

We had arranged an airport pick up with our hostel, so we left and drove over to it (only 4 near misses on this particular drive so not bad for here. Beeep). Despite the exhaustion beginning to kick in we were both keen to try and power through until later in the evening, so we went out with Hassan (a man from the hostel) to see a night market and eat some local food.


In part, my initial reaction to India is that it reminds me of Asia, only far far busier, and keeping your wits about you is far more necessary in the crazy streets where, say for example, somone might think it's fine to reverse a 15 tonne cement mixer into a tiny bustling market street at speed and those that survive the escapade are those that move out the way fast enough (a list of names to which I was very nearly not a belonger).

For day one we opted for a private ac car and driver rather than the metro and went to see the main sights of Delhi, summarised as follows:


The Red Fort (Built by the Moghul empire in 1648. For me it lacked a wow factor and looked more like a dilapadated prison than a royal residency, but suppose it's worth a quick visit if you're in the area...)



The Jama Majid Mosque (upon climbing far too many stairs for the midday heat we were asked to pay around 300 rupees by the corrupt armed guards for an official "raffle" ticket; knowing entrance should be free we refused to pay and decided against even going in after watching them shout at and intimidate other tourists. I'd advise standing your ground and walking past without paying if you find yourself in said situation, but we were just too hopeflessly hot and bothered for it.)

The Humayan tomb (spectacular and definately worth visiting),



Gandhi's ashes (a quiet, beautiful place where I burnt the soles of my feet on the boiling hot concrete)

The Lotus Temple ("It's like the Sydney Opera house all the way round"):


Lodi gardens (really pretty)


The presidents house (elephant shaped hedges; what's not to love)

The India Gate






On our second day we went to...

The Qutub minar (very ornate and impressive)




Indira Gandhi's museum (one of the few interesting museums I've visited-you can see the spot she was shot and even the sari she was wearing on the day-well worth a visit).

Wednesday 2 May 2012

Bikaner

We left Delhi after two days with a driver named Mohan Singh, bound for exploring India's prized state of Rajasthan. First stop; Bikaner.

The nine hour drive to Bikaner didn't quite go as smoothly as I'd of hoped-in every way. Poor roads meant bouncing over pot holes and gravel most of the way, 38c was traded up for 45c, and I woke up with a mild (if not very debilhitating and painful) instance of 'Delhi Belly'. The first toilet stop was a squat so heaving with flies I couldn't bring myself to use it, and following that the less said about toileting today the better-let's just say it wasn't fun.

What was fun....

1. Hearing the phrase 'Holy cow' being used in context; when a cow took a wander out into the street and Mohan Singh swung to miss her, saying to us 'looking it's a holy cow'.

2. The following quote, again curtosy of Mohan Singh who was busy trying to explain something to Abby- though quite what that was noone can be sure; "the male peacock is very ugly feet and legs. So the female peacock when she is looking at the ugly feet she is crying and then eating the tears so is very good for making the baby". I should point out though that there is more to Mohan Singh than strange anecdotes that don't quite translate; and for the most part his company is quite marvellous.

3. On the journey (our first in India) we saw camel carts, donkeys, horses, goats, small towns, rickshaws, army trucks, straw trucks, busses so packed people were riding on the roof and even a cobra. Never a dull one on an Indian road.

4. When we got to Bikaner our hotel was beautiful. We argued a little with Mohan Singh over our choice of dinner (he wanted the hotel resteraunt we wanted local-we won) so then ended up in an extremely local place; a table on the street with a man cooking chipatis and cheese curry. Our presence there caused enough of a stir to warrant a gathering of locals to sit and watch us eat-one man filming it on his nokia. Alas I didn't put on much of a show as my immodium was just about holding out but Abby necked her cheese curry with fine finess.

The 'RAT' temple:

After a reasonable nights sleep we had breakfast in the hotel reseteraunt and then went to see the 'rat temple'. Now, due to a slight issue over accents, both Abby and I were fully prepared to see a 'red temple', and had no idea whatsoever what lay in wait. Upon reaching a rather decrepit looking temple building we were asked to remove our shoes; standard protocol nothing to cause alarm here. The first hint of a ring came when I noticed the other tourists were all wearing special blue socks and whilst I did look and wonder why, Mohan Singh was keen to usher us in quickly so I dropped the matter from my mind and happily sauntered through the gates (of no return mwahahaha). Inside was something I can only describe as being straight out of a horror film. Cultural purists look away now-I'm not planning to describe the place as anything less than gruesome for the sake of feigning an open mind... So it turned out that the 'rat' temple was just that-a large temple filled with, serving, and deifying, rats. Rats everywhere you looked, rat feeces carpeting the floor, hundreds upon thousands of them crawling all over each other in wretched groups or scurrying around with lumps of free 'sacred food' hanging out of their mouths. To the side was a large kitched equiped with filthy pans where the rats were piled up at the edges licking away-apparently they get first dibs before it is then fed to the people-and this brings extra luck! A vat of milk in a huge oversized wok lay just outiside the kitchen and was proving a real hit with the holy rats-much to the delight of everybody else. And the centrepiece of the temple seemed to be a cage with a white rat, where people were eagerly queing to bow before it-because white rats bring good karma. I don't know about that, but I certainly gave my feet a bloody good thrice over with an antiseptic wipe when I hobbled back outside positively traumatised.



Much more satisfying was our next stop at Junagarh fort. I didn't get an audio guide or bother to find out a thing about it (again cultural purists look away now) but it certainly was pretty!

Tuesday 1 May 2012

Jaisalmer

Another 5 hours on Indian roads and we had not only made our way to Jaisalmer but we had made a new friend in the form of Gabby-an Argentinian travelling alone with a driver, with an almost identical itinerary to our own.

In Jaisalmer
"the golden city" "famous for silver", we went with Gabby to see a silver smith, walked through the streets, went to the night market to purchase some desert-safari-friendly attire, and then went for our first dinner alone. How can 'not spicy' mean such wildly different things to people is my only muse about that.

A very merry Mohan Singh said good night to us when we reached our hotel (I think he had devoured a good half bottle of whisky while we were out), and so endeth the day.

We took a stroll up to the fort in Jaisalmer in the morning, and did some shopping in the lanes.

Relaxed in the hotel pool for a few hours in the afternoon, then went for lunch in a local resteraunt named Milano.

At around 4 o clock we drove an hour out of Jaisalmer and into the desert, where Abby and I each took our own camel and rode for about an hour out into the dunes to watch the sunset.



We rode the camels back to the village and then had a traditional dinner (though made more western friendly by decreasing the spice content), and watched some entertainment (a local band and a fire eater).

Then it was all aboard a camel cart back out into the dunes where we set up beds with some other tourists (4 french girls, Gabby, Abby and I) and sat drinking and talking under the light of the full moon. The temperature dropped a suprising amount in the night-enough to warrant a thick blanket, and a jumper. We woke up at around 6am which gave us just enough time to all hobble to the top of a dune, and sit wrapped in blankets watching the sun rise, with the setting moon behind us-pretty amazing.