| Passage in India |
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Hi, Hope you are getting our emails. No replies yet. Have reached Jaipur where we will stay tonight and tomorrow night. Saw Taj Mahal yesterday and it was incredible. Today we saw a complex of buildings, Fatephur Sikri, built in the 1500s by emperor Akbar the Great. Impressive also. Still finding it hard to beat off the touts / hawkers - everyone seems to see us as a walking money tree, but compared to the squalor / poverty we see we can understand why. Seen many camels now. Hoping to arrange an elephant ride tomorrow. Also have been tempted to bring home a squirrel. Lots of them and very very cute. Have now figured out that tooting your horn means something like "Hi, I'm here" rather than the NZ version which would be "You B&^%$$#" Love, Janet and Ian |
| Star Trek Log Stardate 1211 |
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Second night in Jaipur tonight and it is their biggest festival in India - Diwali. Fireworks going off around us. We stood in a line for Indian sweets this afternoon. Ten pieces cost us 64 rupees (about $2) and twice the size of a Cadbury's bar. We finally did the elephant ride that Janet was looking forward to. Up the side of a hill to an ancient fort. Had to pay the driver 450 rupees and the elephant another 100. He took it in his trunk and handed it to his driver. We went into a small multi-storied shopping centre (not quite as flash as St. Lukes) and still can't get used to coming out and having to walk around the cows and pigs in the carpark. Saw a man lying naked asleep on the side of the road. Saw two boys on a motorbike. The one on the back had no helmet on but was holding the driver's helmet on for him, as it had no straps. Jaipur is a city of 2million - small by Indian standards, but it's all lit up tonight as Diwali is the festival of lights. We are about to go out and walk around the streets for a while. Tomorrow we leave for Pushka but we are avoiding the camel fair there next week. Accommodation costs increase 6-fold during the fair. Still loving the food and (touch wood) no problems with it yet. Have become addicted to lemon soda. You get lemon juice and sugar syrup in two jugs plus a bottle of soda water and mix it to your taste. |
| Chicken Run |
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We have turned around from Pushkar and come back through a rural area to Delhi, hence have not been on email. Have walked through small villages; very very basic living, but also seen larger Raj palaces. Tomorrow morning we are going by train to Amritsar (we have finished with our driver) and may be away from email again for a couple of days. The title Chicken Run refers to our chickening out of more of Rajastan - hoping to get away from the touts / rubbish / rubble but not holding out much hope. The pollution is unbelievable. The air pollution is a bit better in the country, but everywhere looks like a great crumbling empire built on rubbish tips. Finding that even walking around we get dirt under our fingernails as if we have been in the garden. Some days have had to fight the urge to get on the first plane home. Other days have been great and very interesting. Probably after Amritsar we will come back through Delhi and then on the night train to Varanasi, and after that head south. Love, The Chickens |
| In Search of the Holy Grail |
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We are in a cybercafe just outside the Golden Temple (Amritsar) that is the centre of the Sikh religion. Just been in - in our full Indian style dress, scarves on our heads and barefoot (had to bathe our feet in the general bath). Chant going on continuously, atmosphere in the inner sanctum pretty impressive. This is the temple with the gold plating, unfortunately outside there is the usual squalor, crowd and noise. Janet has been hopeful that we will find somewhere in India not so polluted. Ian is sure we won't. We will move on again tomorrow, but we have yet to decide where to. Possibly attempting to find a view of the Himalayas, but we are heading in the general direction of Varanasi where the Hindu bathe in the Ganges and burn their dead on the banks. Nice, and bound to add to the pollution. We met an Australian couple back in Pushkar who have had much the same reaction as us. They had already been to Varanasi and gave us a few hints about how to survive the visit. The train journey here was quite good, as we were only able to get seats in Executive Class. Not like you would expect of an Exec class in NZ, but still fairly comfy. Still enjoying the food best of all. Found some wonderful local sweets. |
| Journey to the Top of the World |
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Back in Delhi ... again. After Amritsar we went up to Dalhousie in view of the Himalayas! Stayed in an old Raj hotel at 6000ft above sea level for two nights so we could rest a bit and enjoy the view. Yesterday we spent 14hrs travelling: 5 on a local bus down from the mountains and 9 on cattle class in a train. Interesting ... Best part were the food sellers on the train and at every station. We had a full meal for 20 rupees (about 63c) and our stomachs are still as good as gold. Worst part was seeing (and hearing) people vomiting out the bus window most of the 5 hour bus trip. After the train trip (with open windows) we needed a chisel to get the dirt off. We are about to head off to the train station again (masochists that we are) to head for Jhansi and then Orchha by bus. By the way, New Delhi train station is where five people died in a stampede last Saturday. There is everything there - beggars, dogs, cows, and the usual persistant touts and rickshaw drivers. We cannot stop in our tracks to talk to each other without several people standing inches away trying to sell us something. It's maddening. Love, The Mountain Climbers |
| Kama Sutra-ing |
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Have arrived at Khajuraho. A city known for its erotic sculptures. Just on our way to see them now, although we are not sure Ian will be old enough to be let in given the R rated material. Last night we spent in a royal suite in a converted Maharaja palace. Like many things here it looked amazing at first glance, and should do in the photos, but closer inspection is not quite so spectacular. We had showers in a huge marble bath this morning, and used a toilet with panoramic views around the medieval city, but we had to share the shower with Rajeev, the cockroach. The dinner was on the roof (where they had earlier scraped it off), where we were entertained by three musicians and a dancer. The reason the dancer never lifted her veil was, we were sure, that he was a young man. We travelled here to Khajuraho by hired car and driver, choosing to forego the public transport, and thereby reduce the trip from 6hrs to 3hrs. The road was pretty rough and a bus had broken its axle, so it was a good choice. We have actually booked internal flights for the remaining legs. Tomorrow we fly to Varanasi. Love, The Perverts. |
| Journey to the River Styx |
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Writing just a few meters from the burning ghats of the Ganges at Varanasi. Typical of India that there is so much of the old mixed in with the new. We sit in an internet cafe and yet not far away bodies are burnt in a time honoured tradition; women wash sheets in the river and stretch them out on cow dung lined steps while some young businessman has a stall with an expresso machine! So much more has happened, but it's hard to keep up with in the emails. Yesterday we were taken on a tour of a poor village, seen inside their homes, taken a picture of one's baby brother in a crib, and paraded in front of a classroom full of children, one of whom had to read us a story. Felt like the Queen and Prince Philip. This sort of thing surely doesn't happen for the group tour people. Spent 5hrs sitting in an airport last night as our flight was delayed. We were surrounded by Americans so we did the only thing possible - we put on our headphones and listened to "American Idiot" turned up loud. Tomorrow we fly to Delhi for one night and then on to Mumbai. |
| Rovers Return / Out Of India |
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Starting final preparations for re-entry. The countdown has begun. Mumbai seems like a nicer place than Delhi. It's the poor man's Singapore. The touts aren't as intense and parts of the city are reasonably OK. It's Sunday 5pm. We leave tomorrow at 11:30am, arriving Auckland as scheduled on Tuesday morning. All we have left to do is check the weight of our luggage and ditch any extraneous objects. We have been looking back and can only count two meals that were truly bad (but still didn't make us sick) and two hotels that really weren't up to a reasonable standard. Reasonable in an India sense, that is. See you all when we get back! Love, The Lost Souls. |
