SITE MAP Front Page
Our Homepage
Travelling Brazil Peru Chile 1 Bolivia Chile 2 Easter Island New Zealand Australia Singapore & Thailand Cambodia Vietnam Thailand India
India
This is an edited version of our travel log. This tenth page is about India.
January 4th-6th, 2006, Dehli
Dehli was kind of like we had expected, but even more dirty if that is possible. I think coming from Bangkok helped a little with the people who hassle you, but we still kind of wanted to go home.
Tried to organize trains but we got scared of the waiting rooms even! All in all we were pretty pathetic, so we will see the sights before we leave – starting to think a bit more planning of India would have been a good idea!
January 8, 2006, Jaipur
Delhi was everything we were warned it would be- i.e. dirty, noisy and a bit crap. But as we were expecting it we weren't too upset. Escaped to Jaipur which seems a little more laid back. Have found a nice hotel, with a good restaurant, so plan to spend a couple of days here relaxing and seeing some kind of big fort.
Then probably off round Rajistan until the money runs out. Hopefully not before we do a camel tour across the desert. That's a new animal for India- we saw a lot today pulling carts like horses do.
Thats all for now
xx
January 8th-10th, 2006, Jaipur
Took a jeep to get out of Dehli – we knew we were getting ripped off but anything to get away.
Jaipur is a more relaxed town, but still really crazy and busy, not to mention dirty. Here there are goats, pigs and who knows what else as well as cows rooting through the piles of rotting rubbish.
We stayed in a really nice hotel which helped us get a bit more used to India while we hid there -very quiet with a really good restaurant – excellent vegetable thalis.
January 9, 2006, Still in Jaipur
Visited the Amber Fort today- very big palace/fort type thing above the city. It was pretty nice, lots of marble and quiet passageways. Spent the afternoon in the rooftop restaurant of the hotel in the sun. Its still quite cold here even in the sun (jumper weather at least).
We are definitely enjoying the food a lot- a thali for 1 pound, and more than you can eat. Also nearly everything is vegetarian so we don't have to worry about exactly what meat it might be. Although apparently we didn't in Vietnam either, as one of our guides told us there, "dog meat is more expensive than beef so only a stupid person would serve it to you." That made me feel better.
We are also happy here we have discovered they do sell beer- they just can't put in on the menu. Some states have prohibition, so seems a good enough reason to stay in this one. As well as the fact its nice.
January 14, 2006, Udaipur
Tony came here I think.. (I seem to remember him sending an email about it, its not that there are posters of him everywhere with "no more curry" emblazoned across them.)
The lake is full of water now, but the floating palace is still not populated entirely by women with big hair, unlike in Octopussy. We watched some of that last night (almost every restaurant shows it every night) my god is it a bad film. It made me want to cry.
We haven't done much here; it is better than Dehli and Jaipur, but it is still filthy. The plan at the moment is to get a bus tonight to Bikaner, (north of here) and see a guy called "camelman" who will hopefully take us on a camel safari into the desert. Then we are going back south, past Jaipur to a national park that has tigers, then east to Agra to look at the Taj Mahal. Then if we can be bothered we'll go up to the very north and stay for a while in the town the Dali Lama lives in.
We don't have enough money or enough time to go down to the far south to Chennai to see my friends from work. 
January 11th-14th, 2006, Udaipur
Yet more time doing absolutely nothing. Well actually reading on a balcony, with a good view to look at from time to time
We arrived at 7am after an overnight bus ride, and totally confused the rickshaw drivers by agreeing to their first price as we couldn’t be bothered (£1.20).
They continued to haggle among themselves though and we got it for £1 without doing anything. Our room wasn’t great, but it overlooked the lake and palace, so for £6 not bad at all!
We visited the palace, where the family still live – apparently they are the longest continuing line of rulers in the world (or something like that). It was pretty, but seemed a really weird mix of styles.
We had a bizarre but excellent meal here. The resturant’s waiters were all over 60, there was no menu, and we had huge thalis, with India ginger tea. Was very spicy curry, but delicious.
The town is good for relaxing in, its small, and for India pretty quiet. There are lots of rooftop cafes which serve cake and filter coffee.
January 15, 2006, Bikaner
Well we made it to Bikaner at 7am this morning and found the camelman. He has already lived up to his name- packing us off to the camel festival in a village 40km away. It was a bit odd. I took part in a Tug of War- Indians vs. Foreigners (women only with a massive crowd of men around being held back by more men with sticks).
You might that Indian ladies are small and unassuming but here they make up about 90% of the construction industry so these women were strong! Not to mention the fact we had 15 women on our side, which was pretty much every foreign woman at the place, including 4 Koreans who were wearing surgical masks and those weird bandage gloves. We lost 2-1 which I didn't think was too bad. Si lost 10 rupees betting on us.
We then spotted a cricket match so wandered over to have a look. The local paper wanted a picture of Si playing, and surprisingly he faced 3 balls and hit 2 with pretty good shots. The 3rd ball was a bouncer that was so high it most likely would have gone for 4 byes.
The camels were entered into some kind of beauty parade- all dressed up. One had a clock attached to its sparkly outfit- I said it was bizarre.
Heading of for yet more camel fun tomorrow with a trek and night in a tent.
January 19, 2006, Bikaner
The camel safari was quite good fun, the weather in the desert was a bit odd, the first day was hot (as you might expect), the second day was really windy, if you talked you got a mouthful of sand, and the third day was very hot again. The nights weren't very cold at all (I remember Tony saying he froze at night last year), but we had blankets and tents and stuff.
The other people on the trip were really good fun and that made the time go really quickly; it doesn't feel like we were out in the desert for 3 days. Unfortunately the guide was a proper oddball. He was supposed to be some kind of musician, but he only occasionally sang a few lines of the same song and then looked pleased with himself! While we trekked he play fought with the guy driving one of the wagons and then at each rest stop he just came and hung out with us and talked nonsense.
He had an amazing ability to drop straight into the middle of an animated talk between the
six of us on the tour and kill it dead in about three words,
while everyone sat around shifting uncomfortably.
He also had a slight speech impediment and a reasonably broad Indian accent, coupled with an rambling way of talking, that reminded me of the old major guy on the Fast Show (Rowley Birkin).
He was without a doubt one of the weirdest people we've come across while travelling.
The desert had small dunes and shrubs/trees which we walked through every day for 2 hours, before stopping for a long lunch and doing another 2 hours before camping. Some of the camels had bells round their ankles so sometimes that was the only sound as we walked along. We didn’t see much but it was very peaceful and relaxing.
I was not happy with Gemma's comments about my cricket playing, so have put the photographic evidence on the website. I added one (wide) for the unspecified wicket before being retired forcefully. (however Gemma's action pictures are actually better than the shots, so that loses me some face).
Not long until we come home now, either next weekend, the weekend after, or the one after that. 
January 22, 2006, Sawai Maduhpor
We have managed to get an Indian train! Feeling very please with ourselves. We got up at 4am to get the train from Bikaner to Jaipur and then caught a connecting train to the national park. Frankly staggered that it worked.
The Jaipur-Mumbai sleeper train was quite odd (our connection) there were people walking up and down selling; chai, pakoras, bombay mix, crisps, biscuits, coke, water, birianis, patties, pappadums, samosas, sandwiches..
I got some samosas (15p for 2). very tasty.
The train from Bikaner to Jaipur was basic and cold, but pretty much OK. At one point the train did fill up with fog though! At one station we tried potato and chilli pakoras from a stall on the platform and they were quite nice, but really hot.
At Jaipur we had to find the ticket office and get on the connecting train, which we were amazed we managed. Buying the ticket involved;
Going to window 2
Queuing
Being told to go to window 10
Queuing
Getting a piece of paper stamped
Going back to window 2
Queuing
Paying 270 rupees and getting a ticket
Going back to window 10
Queuing
Getting a seat number written on the ticket
Paying 40 rupees
Being sent off to fill in another form for the tickets
Going back to window 10
Queuing
Getting our tickets!!!!!! (and being asked for another 100 rupees, but legging it instead as the guy was trying it on)
We went on a tiger safari today, (5am start) but the nearest we came was seeing tiger footprints. We are going to do another one though, we would rather see tigers in the wild than the taj mahal, so if we have to we'll probably blow the rest of our money on jeeps. 
We arrived at the national park in an open top bus (kind of) before the sun rose over the mountains, although it was light. The views of the mountains, and the fort on top were very good.
First we stopped at a big lake and saw spotted deer, like Bambi, grazing at the side. We continued driving up and down over the hills and through valleys, looking very intently for tigers, which I now understand are very difficult to see as sunlight through the trees looks the same.
We didn’t see any tigers today, but we did see a paw print on the road, which next to a human footprint looked pretty big. On our drive through the park we did see lots of animals, including big deer with antler-like horns, peacocks, kingfishers, something that looks a bit like a horse (antelope I think), and monkeys in the trees.
The computer I'm using at the moment has loads of random pop-ups that bring up porn on the screen. Very embarrassing. (That's assuming its not this website...)
Bye.
January 23, 2006, Sawai Madhupor
Spent the morning looking for a cash machine and not liking India very much. We thought a pack of dogs roaming the town in S. America was weird, but it has nothing on several packs of black furry pigs/wild boar roaming the town centre and rooting though rubbish heaps!
We are going on another tiger safari tomorrow morning, this time in a jeep. Hopefully we'll have more luck than last time.
Just to let everyone know we have decided we are heading home this weekend! We are flying back probably on Saturday and will of course get in touch with everyone then.
Bye for now.
January 24th, 2006, Ranthambhore National Park
Another early start, Rahul the hotel manager rang our room at 5.30am. We had a jeep booked as we thought it would give us a better chance of seeing tigers, but were annoyed it didn’t turn up on time [best times to see tigers are dawn and dusk]. We went to another part of the park, after picking up two more people and fairly soon saw some tigers! There was a mother and two nearly grown cubs with a deer they had killed. We saw them eating the deer and then dragging it into the long grass, which was quite cool. Also the male cub jumping on the deer while the mother tried to drag it, and then jumping on her when she stopped! It was just like a wildlife program. After we left them we saw some more deer and I spotted some jackals in the bush. Also saw many kinds of birds and some crocodiles.
January 25, 2006, Sawai Madhupor
Thanks Andy, I'd forgotten how cool that map thing was (if I do say so myself!) You may have also noticed that it is not yet Feb 1st and we are already in India.
It was supposed to be March 4th we flew back, but sadly money is too tight to mention, and India is too dirty to mention. So we are coming home about 5 weeks early I think. Although it has been creeping forwards slowly, about a month ago it was pencilled in for 17th Feb, last week it was the 3rd/10th Feb and now it is the 28th Jan!! We just forgot to mention it.
We've seen everything we wanted to in India (tigers & camels) apart from the Taj, which should be remedied tomorrow.
Sorry I did't keep that page of the website updated.
We will see all of you soon. (that is our parents, Tim, Andy, Daz & Charlotte who are the only ones who read this ) If anyone else reads this please post a message to say so.
Will post again soon.
January 26, 2006, Agra
We have done the final thing we wanted in India, seeing the Taj Mahal. Most people we met didn't seem too impressed, but I thought it looked just like the pictures and was definitely worth seeing.
I liked all the patterns decorating it, and being a bit thick, didn't realise it was a Muslim shrine, so bits of the Koran are also written all over with inlaid black marble which is very nice.
Not even as full of tourists as everyone said 
Back to England on Saturday...
January 27, 2006, Smelly Dehli
Well the last day has arrived. Tomorrow doesn't count, as leaving for airport early. We are really exited about coming home, and are leaving, we think, just before we start to get a little irritated with the whole having no money/clothes/friends thing (which has already happened a bit). Slightly worried about highest daytime temperature of 5C, as we are cold in Delhi now and the BBC says it is 23C.
So here is a short list of our favourite places and things from travelling the world for the past 8 months, so you don't have to ask when we get back, plus a few worst ones too- it can't all be fun!