Some advice for anyone wanting to go where we’ve been

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After being away for over 2 months, I realised my blog gave little help to anyone wanting to actually go to the places we’ve been. Although our experiences are very funny, they’re not particularly practical for anyone else wanting to go somewhere (and I got a little jealous of those who blog with decent advice). In the spirit of Christmas, here’s my advice free of charge.

TURKEY

Turkey – Istanbul

Average Daily Spend: 150 Lira (£50)

Visa: On arrival. Very easy and straight forward, just pay £10 at an airport counter.

Best thing to do: Mosques. If you don’t like your history or visiting religious buildings, then this probably isn’t the place to be. Aya Sofia is spectacular.
Best way to get around: The tram or just walking. Most things are within walking distance, but be prepared for steep hills.
Food: You can find cheap food, but you can’t really be picky. If you go outside of Sultanahmet you’ll find better value. The rooftop bars by the Galata Tower or Sultanahmet make the perfect place for a coffee with a view.
Accomodation: We stayed in Eurasia Hostel in Sultanhmet for €24 per night. The location was perfect for getting to see everything and the rooms were basic but fine.
Best Juice Place: By the Grand Bazaar. Very cheap and very fresh, but there are hundreds everywhere who do the same thing
Thing to avoid: We found the boat trip on the Bosphorus was over-rated. It was essentially a passenger ferry that was very uncomfortable and not what we expected.

Average spend per day: £46
Miles travelled from London: 1,555
Time spent in transit: 3 hours 25 minutes

NEPAL

Average Daily Spend: 3,500 Rupees (£26)

Visa: On arrival. Very simple and costs $30 for 30 days entry. I think re-entry is straight forward as well.

Things to keep an eye out for

ATMs Nepali banks charge to withdraw (on top of what your bank at home will charge), so hunt around for international banks if possible.
Walking around Kathmandu There aren’t many pavements in Kathmandu, especially in Thamel. You will be sharing the road will all the traffic in Kathmandu which can be daunting. Try to avoid walking around at night.

Nepal – Kathmandu

Best thing to do: Either Boudnath (a huge Buddhist Stupa you can walk on) or a trip to Nagarkot for views of Everest and the Himalayas. Most guidebooks rave aout Durbar Square, but although it was interesting we found there were better things to do.
Best way to get around: Taxis are cheap, but most things are walkable if you choose the right place to stay. However, don’t expect any pavements or cars to obey the traffic lights.
Food: Thamel! Only after leaving did we realise that this is one of the best spots we’ve been to for variety and quality of food. My particular favourite is Dolce Vita who offer very good wine and an awesome Pasta. Old Orleans also do a good happy hour on wine and cheese.
Accommodation: Good luck. Most accommodation in Kathmandu is terrible and we didn’t stay anywhere that actually delivered hot water, anything but constant noise and a pretty rough bed. We paid mo more than 600 rupees, however if you’re willing to stump up the money I’m sure you will find somewhere.
Best Juice Place: We found an awesome incredible place selling fresh juice for 70 rupees in Thamel. If you head past walk with your back to Dolce Vita and with Old Orleans to your right, you will find it down a street on your right (just before the road curves left).
Thing to avoid: Staying in the middle of Thamel. The late night bars play cheesy covers of western songs and make sleep before 2am each night impossible.

Nepal – Pokhara

Best thing to do: For me Paragliding, for Cat International Mountain Museum. It’s very picturesque and chilled out, so it’s a good place to chill out. Walking up to the World Peace Pagoda was also good.
Best way to get around: Pokhara’s quite small, so you can walk around very easily. Hiring a motorbike is also quite affordable (about 500 rupees per day) to go to places such as Sarankot for great views of Annapurna. Last option is a taxi, but this isn’t too pricey either.
Food: Best value is Punjab that offers really good veggie curries very cheaply. If you want a classier place for non-curries then it has to be Moondance which gave us the best food outside of Kathmandu. If I wasn’t on a budget, I’d have eaten the wild boar on a spit for 1,500 rupees.
Accomodation: We stayed at Hotel Angel for one night (very good, but no hot water 700 rupees), then moved onto Highland (which had hot water but had a rock hard bed, 650 rupees). There’s plenty of options, but all are similar at the budget end of the scale.
Best juice place: A couple of places did very good lassis, but there are a few juice sellers on the walk in from Lakeside East.
Thing to avoid: Anywhere that sells food but has a happy hour. Terrible food, but decent beer.

Nepal – Chitwan

Best thing to do: Elephant Safari or Elephant Breeding Centre. Both are amazing experiences. The Elephant Safari or Jeep are the only ways I’d recommend of going into the forest.
Best way to get around: If your bum can take it, bike. They’re pretty old and knackered and the roads are very bumpy, but it’s good fun. There’s no taxis or public transport so the only other way is to walk. However, Sauraha isn’t very big.
Food: KC’s serves some of the best curries I’ve ever had. It’s set in a very atmospheric spot by the river and has fire pits to keep you warm at night.
Accommodation: We stayed at Gaida Lodge which was a little out of town but had nice bungalows with terraces and hot water showers (900 rupees). They offer very expensive tours, but you can find much cheaper in town.
Best juice place: Yet to be found. Very few places offered genuine fresh juice
Thing to avoid: Sloth Bears and jungle walks. Both very dangerous and aren’t necessary.

Nepal – Lumbini

Best thing to do: Not much choice, but walk around the temples
Best way to get around: Choice of walking of cycle-rickshaw (which are the most expensive we’ve seen). As long as you’ve got all day, you won’t need a rickshaw
Food: Pretty bad, but Sunflower does some decent Chinese food.
Accommodation: We stayed at Hotel President which is essentially a building site, but comfortable enough. Rooms are basic and clean but echoey and you can hear everything said in reception (770 rupees). It’s next door to Sunflower Traveller’s Lodge so you can steal their wi-fi!
Best Juice Place: None
Thing to avoid: Getting the runs. Lumbini’s a very dull place to be stuck in. It only needs 1 day or an overnight stay at most.

Average spend per day: £27
Miles travelled from London: 5,870
Time spent in transit: 38 hours 35 minutes

INDIA

Average Daily Budget: 2,700 Rupees (£34)

Visa: Incredibly tricky. It costs approximately £50 and you MUST apply in advance. Here’s the terms:

1. Visa issued on the date your passport is stamped at the embassy (not the day of arrival in the country). The date of expiry is the last day you can be in India (not the last day to enter the country).
2. Visas are valid for 3-6 months and can be multiple or single entry. It’s a lottery which you get (I got a 3 month single entry and Cat got a 6 month multiple entry visa).
3. You can’t re-enter India within 2 months (no matter which visa you have).

Things to keep an eye out for

Getting around: In some cities (such as Lucknow) getting about is testing at best. As there’s not enough tuk-tuks around you can find yourself stranded trying to cross roads (which can take hours).
Transport:This is incredibly difficult. The Trains get fully booked well in advance, so planning ahead is essential. Buses are an option but uncomfortable and slow. If you have the money, hiring a driver is a very good option (costs about £25 per day).
Travel agents: Travel agents are a brilliant way to buy train tickets which no one else can. My default is to go to the train station, but this takes ages and frequently gets you nowhere. Travel agents cost a small amount but can help you do what you want,

India – Gorakhpur

Best thing to do: Leave. Gorakhpur is a shit hole
Best way to get around: Don’t walk. Traffic is heaving, the roads are filthy and disgusting and there are no pavements. Best to get a cycle-rickshaw or auto-rickshaw.
Food: If you dare, the street food is good however, you run the risk of dysentery.
Accommodation: All are foul, your choice is degrees of nastiness. i only hope that accommodation further out from the train station is better.
Best Juice Place: none
Thing to avoid: Being here anymore than an hour

India – Lucknow

Best thing to do: Visit the Residency. Interesting ruins, but there’s not much else going on in Lucknow.
Best way to get around: Auto-Rickshaw, but they’re difficult to get hold of. We spent an hour and a half stuck by a junction trying to hail one down.
Food: There’s decent food in the top hotels, but we’ve heard there’s some local kebab places which are very good and very cheap.
Accommodation: Leavana Best Western was superb. Granted, we spent £50 (3,000 rupees) a night after some very hard haggling, but it was very near 5 star standard
Best juice place: None
Thing to avoid: Cheaper accommodation. Horrifically overpriced and some of the worst rooms I’ve seen. Also avoid walking.

India – Agra

Best thing to do: Taj Mahal, but other sights around are very good as well such as Itimad-ud-Daulah (Baby Taj) and Mehtab Bagh (a park on the opposite bank).
Best way to get around: If you stay close enough to Tajganj, you can walk everywhere. Otherwise you’ll have to rely on the inflated auto-rickshaw prices.
Food: Best food was at our hotel (Taj Plaza). Very good curries, but stingy on rice
Accommodation: We stayed in Atithi for our first night (1,500 rupees) which was good, clean and better than basic, but far out. On the plus side it’s next door to Pizza Hut and Costa if you crave western food. We then Taj Plaza; it was ok but in need of renovating. It cost 900 rupees. So wasn’t awful, but the location is its selling point
Best juice place: Joney’s place isn’t bad but I preferred Taj Cafe whose lassis were so thick you had to use a spoon.
Thing to avoid: Getting to the Taj after 6.30am. You’ll have to fight thousands of people. Also if you can avoid the “foreigners entrance fee” then you’ll be in luck.

India – Delhi

Best thing to do: Hanyuman Tomb – a really cool monument, similar to the Taj Mahal but bigger and with red sandstone.
Best way to get around: The Metro. Very cheap, very quick, but can be busy. You’ll never spend more than 30 rupees to go anywhere.
Food: We ate pretty cheaply and happily at guesthouses in Paharganj. Vivek was one of the better ones.
Accommodation: Metropolis Tourist Home was a very good hotel in Paharganj. For 1,200 rupees you get a very modern and stylish room that’s clean and provides your own wi-fi router.
Best juice place: Couldn’t find one worth shouting about.
Thing to avoid: The main roads. As they can be so busy, the motorcyclists use the pavements instead and force you to jump out the way.

India – Jaipur

Best thing to do: Amber Fort. Incredible sandstone fort perched on the top of a mountain. The Lake Palace is also very picturesque.
Best way to get around: Auto-Rickshaw. There’s very few other ways to get around and walking is near impossible
Food: Little Italy was very good. Quite expensive, but the best Rissotto in India
Accommodation: We stayed at Moonlight Palace Guesthouse for 700 rupees per night. It was clean, comfortable and had hand painted murals on the ceiling. Thebonly downside was the Gangnam Style disco next door every night.
Best juice place: None found
Thing to avoid: Auto-Rickshaw drivers selling tours. Overpriced and you’ll be driven to a shop and being forced to buy tat.

India – Udaipur

Best thing to do: Chill out and admire where you are. Udaipur has a lot of rooftop bars with cushions surrounding the beautiful lake. Or if you need a ruthless massage, find a man called Raju.
Best way to get around: walking as Udaipur is so small
Food: Panorama Guesthouse serves some awesome curries. Buddha Bar also does a very spicy but cheap and delicious chow mein.
Accomodation: Your spoilt for choice in Udaipur as there area lot of good, cheap places. We chose Panorama (500 rupees), but saw that Dream Heaven and Nukkad are also really good choices.
Best juice place: Pap’s Juices on the bridge. Cat has proclaimed it one of the best in the World!
Thing to avoid: Cheap massages or Pedicures. They’re not relaxing and not very good.

India – Jodhpur

Best thing to do: Mehrengarh Fort. Huge, impressive and beautiful. A must for India
Best way to get around: Walking in the old city or auto-rickshaw otherwise
Food: Ok, food in Jodhpur is not good. Pushp guesthouse is the best. But are stingy on the portions,
Accomodation: We stayed in Hare Krishna Guest House for 500 rupees and it wasn’t good. We’ve only heard good things about Pushp and Yogi.
Best juice place: There’s a great Makhani Lassi place called Shri Mishrilal Hotel (which isn’t a hotel) in the main square.
Thing to avoid: Well, try and avoid the countless cows and their excrement. It’s not easy though

India – Pushkar

Best thing to do: Get out to the desert. We did a camel safari for 3 hours for 600 rupees each. You can choose to do horse riding instead but either way the scenery is amazing.
Best way to get around: By the amount of them that nearly run you over, you’d think locals are obsessed with motorbikes. I preferred to just walk
Food: Inn Seventh Heaven does decent curries, but everything is vegan in Pushkar, so prepare for this.
Accommodation: We stayed at Everest and loved it. Nice and comfortable with everything you could want (575 rupees per night)
Best juice place: Everest was good, but nothing to rave about
Thing to avoid: Holymen who will rip you off and emotionally blackmail you. Don’t accept the amount they claim you must pay for a Puja. Indians would never pay over 50 rupees.

Average spend per day: £34
Miles travelled from London: 7,205
Time spent in transit: 89 hours 5 mins

Bangkok – The Good, The Bad & The Funny

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Tea Index: 35 Baht (70p)
Days away from UK: 64
Days of rain since leaving the UK: 1
Weather: 32C humid
Style of accommodation we have got: “An infusion of hospital clinical and 1970s halls of residence furnishings”
Average speed at Bangkok rush hour: 4km per hour

Finally, we could breathe out. After a lot of edge of your seat moments, we got to Thailand expecting something completely different. A slower pace, a different culture and somewhere a bit simpler. However, we had to get through Bangkok a city which in my mind was going to be crowded, busy, polluted and manic. What we came across was completely different. I thought the best way to explain was to do my favourite thing – categorise my observations.

The Good

Lets start with the good to give a positive mood 🙂

1. Tuk-Tuks

Now I’ve only been on subcontinent tuk-tuks which are a canopy around a converted lawnmower. The kind that go slowly, weave through traffic and block everyone on the road because they red line at 15mph. In Thailand they are turbo charged and fly through the streets. I couldn’t believe my eyes when we got in and were booming through the streets and nipping through the Bangkok rush hour. Bizarrely it costs more than a taxi, but it’s worth it.

2. A modern developed city

Anyone who’s seen the Hangover or various other films would be surprised to find out that Bangkok is nothing like the dingy, undeveloped city I was expecting it to be. I was shocked to find it has more in common with Kuala Lumpur than with Delhi. So far all roads have tarmac, there’s not a pile of dirt in sight and I haven’t been harassed by beggars. In fact, I’d say it’s far more developed than places like Bracknell.

3. Beer and Meat!

Those who know me well know I am a carnivore. I like meat in most meals and like to have the occasional beer (which sometimes becomes a lot more). So if India was my fast, Thailand offers the opportunity to binge. Here the tables have turned and whilst meat is in abundance (good for me) veggie meals are in the minority (no so good for Cat). I still laugh at the fact India menus are the opposite of what I’m used to with veggie being the norm and “non-veg” being the side menu to cater for the awkward ones. But I’m glad I can return to my normal ways.

The Annoying

1. Sneaky scammers

No-one likes a scammer, but there’s something particularly annoying about Bangkok scammers. In India, your con-artist is a honest man. To him, it wasn’t a con – you’re rich and white so you owe him money. If you asked the right questions he’d happily tell you how he was going to drive you to all the shops he’d get commission from or charge you more for not being Indian.

However, the Thai scammers are just blatant liars who deny that anything they’re saying is a lie. This was hard to foresee as the majority of Thai people we have met have been so friendly that we didn’t believe they were capable of this. We’ve already found a man at Wat Pho who told us it was closed (they never close) and tried to send us to do all kinds of crap. We nearly believed him until I thought the hoards of tour buses outside were strange if it was closed.

Unfortunately one of the scammers won. After successfully getting the meter in a taxi (a rare feat), he decided to drive us to the nearest traffic jam on a 3 lane highway about 3 miles away from our chosen destination for an hour and a half.

2. Rock hard beds

In Bangkok, cheap rooms = cheap beds = not a bed at all, but a substitute for a bed. Our first room gave us a new experience as they clearly bought a primary school gym mat to use as a mattress. A park bench would have been better. After 2 lousy nights we decided to move to another hotel which had gone to the same shop but bought a slightly thicker gym mat, but then made the money back on saving on the floor space in the room. The tv hit our heads whenever we got out the bed.

3. Khao San Road

Sorry, but the Khao San Road is basically a far eastern Magaluf. This is good if you want a night out on the cheap, but otherwise it’s pretty nasty. The guidebooks all advise that Khao San is the area to be and that you should set up nearby, but its a bit sleezy and cheesy for my liking. Touts, booze, Rihanna on full volume and sun-burnt Brits wearing not very much is not what I came to Thailand for (although could easily become the norm all over Thailand in a few years); It’s a bit like the South of Spain. Once you’ve had your night out, its best to leave.

The Funny

1. Thai Mannerisms

Thai people are VERY different to Indians and should be approached in a completely different way. They’re a lot friendlier and more shy than their Indian equivalents. However, we didn’t expect the common trait of laughing after every sentence, no matter what it is.

“No sugar please”
“hahahahahahaha…… Ok no sugar”
*then hands a bowl of sugar and proceeds to laugh again*

I assume it’s an awkward laugh but I’m not entirely sure they’re not just laughing at me.

Our taxi driver from the airport gave us a grand (an unwanted) tour of Bangkok as he didn’t have a clue where our hotel was. His routine was: get lost, ask for directions, u-turn, giggle to himself for a while, then ask for more. What wasn’t too funny was that we were paying by the meter….

2. Bartering

This is funny because it’s incredibly rare. As its high season, Bangkok doesn’t bother with giving a deal and so tuk-tuks, taxis, hotels and the majority of people try to shaft you and don’t negotiate. It’s come as quite a surprise as we’re not used to simply asking for a discount, getting a no and simply having to walk out. We had a taxi driver ask us to pay £15 to go 2km and kept a straight face. Before we could haggle he sped off. I can only hope his takings are very poor.

For those who have read previous blogs, this isn’t funny for poor Cat. The discount is half the fun and to not be offered a penny is very frustrating. Strangely, online websites offer better discounts than the hotel owners, so our new trick is likely to be: haggle, walk away, then return having got it cheaper on Agoda.

3. My attempts at speaking Thai

Thai is a strange language, spoken with an unusual accent. So you can imagine how my unashamedly middle-class English accent sounds when I try to say anything in Thai. As I usually try to pronounce my words with soft vowels, switching to an emphasis on harsh vowels makes me look like a bit of an idiot. The accent makes me sound stupid and I imagine I look like a bulldog chewing a wasp when I speak.

I face the dilemma of being either: 1. Stereotypical British Tourist – speaking nothing but English, refusing to even greet in Thai and generally be pretty rude or 2: Make Myself Sound Like a Moron – trying to make an effort to please with phrases such as [in English equivalent] “swaaaaaa de kraaaaaaaaaaap”. Unfortunately this embarrassing one is just hello.

We all know I won’t break the habit of a lifetime and continue to go with option 2.

Leaving India

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Tea Index: 55 Rupees (about 63p)
Days away from UK: 60
Days with rain: 1
Weather: 20 C cloudy
Number of passport checks required before reaching departures: 6
Hotel owners solution to the problems in Kashmir: ‘Only one can survive, us or them’

There were many omens to tell us that we were leaving India at the right time. Firstly, Joe’s visa was incorrectly processed so had to leave a week earlier than expected. Secondly, the eagle eyed will notice that the days without rain has gone. On the day we were leaving the heavens opened and the gloating was over. Thirdly, I had been knocked down with another case of the dreaded Delhi belly.

However, the train ride from Ajmer to Delhi was memorable. Not for the constant meals we were given (about 1 every 2 hours), or for the effect these meals had on my stomach the next day, but for the unusual company we were surrounded by. As we took our seats, a middle aged African African American man with white beard and thick Virginian accent (think Reginald D Hunter for those in the know) was about to sit across the aisle from us when an Indian man asked to swap seats. The indian man was placed next to Joe & the African American was sitting next to the Indian man’s son. Initially the African American refused and made a great fuss about the prospect of sitting next to us. It seemed odd at first why he was refusing (and we soon found out), but he eventually relented.

What followed was a 2 hour, very loud discussion about how awful the British were and how they had “taken everything and given nothing back” to the World. We now realised why he wasn’t too keen to sit next to us. My favourite part was when he claimed that the British had banned procreation in all colonies and killed those who did. Again we found out his exaggeration may have stemmed from his own – pretty cringeworthy – love of the opposite sex. Oddly, he decided to get over his disgust of the Brits (despite dropping another line about Lucknow and Amritsar massacres) and told us about his previous Thai wife and now 26 year old Indian widow he was trying to take back to the States much to the upset of her family. This wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn’t over 60 years old. Still, the last 2 and a half hours of the journey passed a little quicker and a big part of the joy of travel is the characters you meet along the way.

On arriving at Delhi International airport we were more than a little surprised at how calm it all seemed, none of the queuing to even enter the building we had encountered in Mumbai.
However looks can be deceiving, this is India after all and it was never going to be that straight forward. After showing our passports and electronic confirmation of our flights at the entrance to the terminal we were denied entry on account of not having our tickets in paper format. Saving the trees is clearly yet to catch on in India. 30 harassed minutes later, paper in hand and we’re in.
My next stop was a much needed trip to the bathroom, I have to confess it is the first time anyone has actually begun cleaning the toilet whilst I am still on it… India’s last surprise was to come on the plane itself. After being promised two seats together with one being a window seat we discovered that we were sitting separately and both on the aisle. Still for all its quirks, I know we will be back, but for now it’s time to look forward to Thailand.

Next stop, Bangkok!

Cat

Namaste – Thoughts on India

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Tea Index: 55 Rupees (about 63p)
Days away from UK: 59
Days without rain : 59
Weather: 20 C cloudy
Meals served on 6 hour train: 0
Meals served on 7 hour train: 3

Across both India and Nepal, the standard greeting is “Namaste”, which when translated from Hindi means rather warmly that “I salute the God within you”. This trounces hello as a start to any conversation, but upon arriving in India you’d find it hard to believe the divine in anyone was being embraced.

Entry to India should come with a disclaimer and by arriving in this country you accept the terms and conditions – it can be disgusting, it’s bureaucracy is infuriating and there is nowhere else I have ever been to where so many people, vehicles and cows cram into so little so space. It is hard work and very little is straightforward. Once you accept this and get over the initial shock, I’ve found (like many others) that you begin to love India. This may be difficult to believe for anyone who has read my previous posts, but once you look past the annoyances and difficulties, you find an incredible country full of vibrancy that offers a lot to the determined traveller. Besides, I doubt I’d ever like anything that doesn’t have flaws. I guess it’s the Brit in me that will always choose the failing underdog and not feel comfortable with perfection.

The guidebook describes the feeling aptly – “bamboozling…with an ability to inspire, frustrate, thrill and confound all at once, India presents an extraordinary spectrum of encounters.” I can only imagine it is like being a parent – no matter how bad it is, you overlook the negatives and cling onto any positives. Where else would you put up with filth, squalor, horrific poverty, motorbikes and rickshaws trying to run you over and having to give over you passport details to even get on a train. I love the culture shock and find it amazing that there is more paperwork involved in buying a train ticket than potentially dangerous prescription drugs.

But India offers rewards for those who put up with the hardships. You can get amazing food, incredible architecture and beautiful scenery which is just simply overlooked by many as it begins to make its way down a very long list. It is certainly a place which is never boring and even the mundane such as getting a train becomes an event (although this can also drive you to despair as you never get a break). This all before even mentioning the people you see.

I have often found myself wondering how Indians have so much energy as they they start early, finish late and rest very little. It is not unusual to see the same person work well over 14 hours each day in our hotel (and frequently we’ve had breakfast to realise the same waiter is working who had started at midday the previous day). Pushkar is a great example this energy as it is a place of constant celebration despite the poverty and hardships they have. I’ve found myself watching India weddings for ages before realising what the time was as it’s hard to not be drawn by the music, the colours and the dancing that just keeps going. It’s tiring to watch, let alone be involved in.

It has been in India that we met someone who put things into perspective. We were talking to a Danish woman in Udaipur about the problems of getting to our next destination when she simply replied “ahh…. But these are wonderful problems aren’t they!” It was pretty hard to get upset about the logistics of travel after that.

If anything India has given Cat and I a status which we have never been – the “Crorepati”. As the conversion rate is currently 88 rupees to the pound, this has meant that for the first time ever we are millionaires. If that doesn’t make you love somewhere, nothing will.

Pushkar: where every night’s New Year’s Eve

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Tea Index: 12 Rupees (about 14p)
Days away from UK: 57
Days without rain : 57
Weather: 27 C sunny with no breeze
Time in transit in India: 50 hours 35 minutes
Cat’s book count: 24 (nearly 1 every 2 days)

Pushkar is our final stop in Rajasthan before we return to Delhi and leave India. It’s a unique city as every Hindu is expected to make a pilgrimage here at least once in their lifetime. Here Gandhi was cremated in a lake created by Brahma by simply dropping a lotus flower to Earth. Every building here is painted in a pale blue to reflect the colour associated with the Hindu God.

Every night here is like New Year’s Eve as you’ll find loud music, fireworks and all kinds of celebrations. If it isn’t a wedding, they’ll find something to celebrate. The streets fill with people holding lights, banging drums and dancing with such an energy that you can easily that you’ve been watching what’s going on for an hour or so. The celebrations are unusual though as there’s always some kind of pipe organ playing that’s reminded me of queueing for the Vampire Ride at Chessington or a baseball game in America. And then in the day time it goes very quiet; the music stops and the mass of motorbikes disappear. It’s as though everyone’s getting over their hangover and you’re in Ibiza rather than India.

The holiness of Pushkar has drawbacks which I didn’t think of. There is strictly no alcohol, egg or meat (however hallucinogenic lassis are fine). The carnivore in me has struggled as I have the choice of vegetable curries (not my favourite) or poor imitations of pastas, pizzas or other western dishes. I’ve found myself choosing potatoes and chowmein, but fantasising about the time when I can order beef or a big slab of meat again. We’ve been told we can get anything we want if we walk 2 miles away from the city, but the lazy part of my personality has decided that taking on the veg is a preferable option.

Despite the constant celebrations and lack of meat, Pushkar has a nice charm and feel to it. The main strip brings back memories of Thamel in Kathmandu where the buzz of an old bazaar is unavoidable and the Buddhist prayer flags have joined us in our hotel. It’s also set in an incredibly picturesque location that we weren’t expecting. In any other country the surrounding mountains would be a key reason for going, but in India it’s not unusual. We’ve found it very relaxing here and have managed to slow down and get away from the hussle and bussle of the rest of India – probably a good thing before we fly away. Or camel ride into the desert felt like we were riding through The Good, The Bad and The Ugly country as it’s sandy with shrubs with mountains everywhere – not the landscape I was expecting to see in India.

Cat has also managed to bump into another healer. It’s getting slightly creepy how they all instantly know everything about her from feeling her hands and feet. Either they’ve got a knack, or they try explaining the same symptoms to everyone and finally found someone who actually has them. So far the street healers are doing a better job than most the doctors in the NHS. As it’s so easy to get hold of prescription medicine, I can’t endorse India enough as a place to sort out any problem you have.

It was here that I wondered if someone had been listening to me. Unexpectedly, whilst walking down the main strip yesterday, we found ourselves surrounded by over 100 people dressed in beige tracksuits with “green” written on the back, armed with brushes and bin bags. The cleanup crew I’d been calling on had arrived. I doubt there was a cleaner place in India after this army of street sweepers was done. There was no piles of plastic, cow shit, dirt or anything else synonymous with the Indian city centre. I could have kissed them all.

Lessons Learnt from India

India’s taught me quite a few things and also put some others into perspective. Here’s a few things I wish I had know before coming here.

1. It is wise to practise evasive manoeuvres for oncoming traffic before arrival

I knew traffic would be bad, but thought this would be restricted to roads and that any risks I would take would be my responsibility. However, in Rajasthan, the vehicles don’t stick to just the roads. Here we have had to perfect the art of darting away from motorbikes and rickshaws that decide roads are just a little too dull. Incidentally, if you moan at anyone for nearly running you over on a pavement, they look either confused or as if you don’t exist.

Cat is now brilliant at anticipating when to dive and I have frequently looked around to find her hidden in the doorway waiting for the time it is safe to come out. I think her nerves are looking forward to a place with less danger to pedestrians.

2. It doesn’t matter how good a hotel is, if hotel owners don’t offer a discount (even the smallest amount) Cat won’t stay there

I’ve learnt since this trip just how important value is to Cat’s enjoyment of a hotel. The discount is just as important as the cleanliness of the room (unless it’s in Gorakhpur where we’d have paid anything for a non-bug infested room). In India, I’m sure she’d enjoy a £1 room that was pretty nasty more than a £20 that was incredibly clean and plush.

Initially I thought letting her take the lead in sourcing hotels was a good idea, but once they refused to negotiate this quickly became a bad idea. Our current hotel is perfectly nice: clean, comfortable and very pleasant, but initially written off because they stuck to the list price.

I admit this is unusual in India and many times you would think you are getting ripped off. However, when the list price is £6.80 it is hard to really believe there’s much room to discount. Yet, if they had given even a 50p discount, it would have changed the hotel in Cat’s mind from being simply ok to really good. I imagine if the list price was higher and they discounted to £6.80 it would have changed how she felt as well. Hotel owners take note.

3. Rules and huge additional charges only apply to those who are foreign

I’ve been brought up with a very clear political correctness radar that has meant the I have never even thought of treating non-British people differently. However, in India you are frequently reminded that you are foreign and that you must be treated differently. This isn’t a racist generalisation being made from a frustrated Brit being ripped off by rickshaw drivers (which is to be expected), this is Indian government policy.

Entry fee for monuments is a perfect example. To visit the Taj Mahal costs an Indian citizen 3% of what foreigners pay [Indian citizen 20 rupees (23p) whilst foreigners have to pay 750 rupees (£8.50)]. Mehrengarh Fort in Jodhpur is similar, but Indians only pay 8% of what foreigners do. It’s no surprise that when the government endorses charging foreigners more that rickshaw drivers, shop and hotel owners and tour operators choose to do the same.

Although the funniest example is the train network. Each time we get a train our passport and train ticket is checked several times over. However, we found today that Indian people are allowed to buy a seat and shove as many people as they like in it. This made our 3AC compartment very cramped when we were forced to squeeze 10 people into 8 seats.

The typical train conductor’s thoughts are: people getting seats when not buying ticket – fine; white people getting train – motive must be questioned. Interestingly, I’ve found it’s always my seat number that is questioned when there’s too many people for the amount of seats there are. I guess India is National Front Utopia.

4. Beware holy men

Apart from the odd Catholic Priest joke, I’ve always thought until India that holy men were honest pillars of the community. After all, how bad could a person devoted to God and religious morals be? Well in India, the answer is very bad. The list of scams in the Lonely Planet makes you think that these holy men are con-artists using religion as a way to legitimise extortion.

Holy men have now become synonymous with “lazy crook” as they do little work to steal your money and have perfected the art of emotional blackmail. They’re persistent bastards who will try to argue that you should give them money to bless your family and not offend a whole religion. It takes the piss even more when the going rate is 100 rupees (£1.14) per member of your immediate family (which adds up when you have a family as big as mine). I was faced with the choice of losing £5.70 or cursing my whole family. Being an atheist the choice was easy.

Later on in Pushkar we were accused of making a donation to the wrong box. This holy man accused us of giving to the government who will only use our money to build hospitals, schools and not give it to the private individuals in the city. It was an odd argument, but he wouldn’t let me look at a monkey for a minute more until he’d got his share; so I chose to not look at monkeys. So far I’m not popular with Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.

The extortion here is something that Don Corleone would be proud of. Not even he could use God’s curses to make them rich.

5. Healthcare is unconventional

The title of this section is a bit of understatement. In Udaipur we stumbled upon a healer after Cat had a bad stomach from an awful curry. Immediately he took her inside and clicked her toes and within a short while it was gone. After this, Raju proceeded to diagnose Cat’s problems by looking at her hands.

I would normally see this kind of thing as a load of rubbish, but when he seemed to go beyond general conditions such as “bad bad” to more very specific ones, it seemed like he knew more than your average palm reader. He promised that his massage would in time heal Cat’s persistent bad neck and shoulders. Unfortunately, he had also diagnosed the cause to be a misaligned tailbone which was only fixed by “going through the bottom”. As you can imagine she immediately said no; however, what was more worrying was that there was a lot of people in his comments book who’d said yes….

6. Menus can take a long time to read

The majority of traveller restaurants have menus so long that they make War & Peace look like a short story. The rule of thumb is that a long menu serves crap food. However, sometimes you have little choice.

The worst so far was a pizza we ordered in Jodhpur. After getting a little bored of curries, we decided to have something different and went with something we thought was pretty hard to wreck. Unfortunately, what we were served with was a toasted congealed cream sandwich. I can’t remember ever having pizza topping stick like glue to everything before this meal and the less said about the taste the better. This wasn’t an isolated case as we’ve realised that non-Indian food tends to be crap. When it comes to food, stick to curries.

Cows, Castles and Ikea Inspired Guest Houses – The Blue City of Jodhpur

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Tea Index: 20 Rupees (about 23p)
Days away from UK: 53
Days without rain : 53
Weather: 28 C misty start, but then sunny
Life expectancy of a pair of my sunglasses: 20 days
Indian fort count: 5

After the joys of Udaipur our trip took us to Jodhpur – the blue city. I’ve began to appreciate uniform coloured cities and I can only imagine that multi-coloured cities will horrify me. The people here say that the blue colour acts as an insect repellant (never knew mosquitoes didn’t like blue) and that tis colour makes the buildings warm in winter and cool in summer. It looks good and makes for good photos, but I doubt the claims are true.

It was here where we had to make a decision: venture onto Jaisalmer and add 2 overnight sleeper buses in 3 days or cut it out and make more of Jodhpur and Pushkar. I hate decisions like this, your rational self says it is stupid to constantly be on the move, but you don’t want to miss out on anything. Unfortunately, the sacrifice was made and Jaisalmer was struck off the list and 1 less fort to add to the list. It’s sad because it was somewhere we were looking forward to, but the constant transit has taken its toll. the prospect of only sleeping in a normal bed for 1 day out of 4 brought the old man out of me. However, it has proved to be a sensible decision. Instead of rushing 3 places, we’ll be giving two cities the time they deserve.

Jodhpur is the Indian equivalent of Wales, however here it seems that cows (not sheep) outnumber people. When walking around the old city you find you are never more than 10 metres away from India’s sacred bovine. Unfortunately it means that you are not far from their excrement either. However, Jodhpur’s old city is a pedestrianised maze of narrow streets all painted in the light blue of Brahma. You feel you have gone back a centuries as there’s rubbish everywhere and not an inch of tarmac in sight. However, as with everywhere in India, you begin to ignore the smell and embrace the madness and “crush of humanity” (the most overused phrase to explain India).

My focal point of Jodhpur was Mehrangarh, a huuuuuuuge fort. To me, it’s the best I’ve seen so far. It’s perched on top of a natural hill (quite like the acropolis) and the audio tour was something that even Cat liked despite her growing fort fatigue. The audio tour gets a lot of brownie points for using members of the Royal Family to guide you round. Since being robbed of all power and wealth, the Maharaja has embarked on using the money raised from the entry fee to the fort to set up trusts to preserve heritage and look after the less fortunate; an example I think the British can learn from. It also made the “Foreigner Fee” (something which I always thought would be in the BNP election manifesto) a bit more palatable.

In a bizarre addition, you can zip line around the ramparts and outer walls where they claim you can “mix heritage with adrenaline”. However, the quotes needed from the Lonely Planet, British High Commission and The Times to reassure visitors of safety standards did the opposite. I quickly remembered where I was and thought that health and safety was low on the list of priorities.

Our current hotel is unique. I should have guessed from the name of the guest house what it would entail, but it was only from after the first night that I realised why there was banging of cymbals, drums and droaning at 5am and 10pm. The Hare Krishna Guest House continues to celebrate it’s religion in the same way it does on Oxford Street: by making a lot of noise and chanting the same 2 words for as long as humanly possible. What I didn’t expect is the architect’s love of Ikea. It would have been great if he had gone so far as to buy some furniture, but it was the structure of Ikea stores which he took a liking to. I can honestly say that this is the only accommodation I have been to with a 1 way system. If I want to go to reception for whatever reason, I must leave the hotel, battle through 3 resident cows outside and go to the front door.

It was in Jodhpur where I came to finally understand McDonalds in India. As Hindus don’t eat beef and Muslims don’t eat Pork, the prospect of eating there has always seemed pretty dull as they only serve chicken and veggie burgers (much to Cat’s delight). However, I changed my mind once I tried the Indian equivalent of the Big Mac: the Maharaja Mac. The name itself is cool enough, but it is something that should be exported. It gave me back faith that McDonalds in India wasn’t a stupid idea.

Our next stop is Pushkar, a very holy town en route back to Delhi. We’ve heard stories of harassment from Holy Men, but I can only assume that my lack of religion will either enrage or confuse them. I can only hope that by saying “I don’t believe in God so don’t bless my family” that this will give me enough time to escape. I’ll let you all know.

Bluntness, Bond and a Bad Pedicure – Udaipur

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Tea Index: 16 Rupees (about 18p)
Days away from UK: 51
Days without rain : 51
Weather: 28 C Sunny
Time it took James Bond to go from Delhi to Udaipur via Varanasi (in Octopussy, but rickshaw): 5 minutes
Fresh juices devoured by Cat in 3 days: 7

We weren’t quite expecting what we got in Udaipur. So far everywhere in India was either hyped up and didn’t deliver (except the Taj Mahal) or was bad and proved to be bad. Upon doing our research, the city didn’t stand out. Another stop on the Rajasthan loop, but pretty much described as another city. It was only from the people we met that we realised that it was potentially a hidden gem.

At times we’ve had to remember we are in India as it is so unlike anywhere else we’ve been to. Udaipur has a lot of things going for it:

1. A Bond movie was based here (granted Octopussy and is shown EVERY night in several restaurants)
2. The streets are narrow, so you can walk everywhere
3. The hotels/restaurants/shops actually have a clue what they’re doing
4. The place is quiet (in Indian terms, ie if there isn’t a wedding on, you may get a night’s sleep)
5. It is incredibly picturesque. Set around a lake (with a palace in the middle) with mountains and hills in every direction
6. It has a lot of rooftop restaurants with cushions to lay on (Cat’s criteria)

It has been really quite refreshing. Even the people act differently here. You don’t get relentlessly pestered to buy stuff, take rickshaws or tours and it has felt the most relaxed and holiday like of everywhere we’ve been to.

But don’t go thinking it doesn’t have the unique – this is still India after all – and where there’s tourism, there’s someone trying to provide a service in a hilariously shoddy way. This came in the form of a massage parlour we visited.

In hindsight, Cat probably shouldn’t have chosen this place (or India) to be the place to get a pedicure. When you first get to India you realise that care and precision isn’t a consideration when it comes to painting anything. You’ll see that if something needs painting, everything gets within the vicinity (this includes the 2 tortoises at our hotel). So with this in mind, she probably shouldn’t have trusted anyone to paint something as small as her toenails. The result was that the majority of her toes were painted as well as her nails.

It was clear that her pedicure was something put on the price list which they hoped no one would ever ask for. When Cat requested this, it involved a team effort and some on the spot thinking. They firstly distracted her by putting her feet in a bucket of cold water with Pantene (I don’t know much about pedicures, but this is surely a strange start), whilst the rest of the parlour went through the whole of Udaipur to rummage up everything that was needed. Soon there were several different people bringing in nail files, varnish remover and a whole 1 colour for her to choose from – it’s a good thing she didn’t mind Dulux’s Ruby Fountain Red. The 5 star treatment wasn’t restricted to Cat as I realised in the middle of my massage that my masseur was using 1 hand to massage and the other to text. Class.

We’ve also found the people of Udaipur are refreshingly frank. Until now, we have found that the default answer to most questions is yes, particularly if they don’t understand what you are asking. A typical conversation would be:

Does this place have wifi?
Yes
Great thank you. *buys drink* So what’s the wifi password?
No wifi…..

Yet it was here where we were greeted with a refreshing answer of “don’t get that bus, it is a shit heap. The worst in India, I wouldn’t even get on it”…….. from the man selling the bus ticket. It’s either an ingenious sales technique or someone who just can’t be bothered to lie anymore! Either way, I’ve grown to really like this little city. I’ll be sad to leave.