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Published: July 27th 2008
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One water and two thali's please has become a favourite saying of ours in India. Once again I'm talking about food but we all know i'm obsessed but so are the Indians to it's all good!
We took the over night train from Goa to Mumbai and arrived early in the morning, everything was still closed but a sleepy tuk tuk driver agreed to take us to the Airport to get our bags back. Once there, we struggled to get IN the airport, struggled to find anyone from Sri Lanka Air, sat and waited outside their office for 5 hrs asking so every Raj-Babu-and-Janesh that walked by if they knew anything about Sri Lanka Air with no success so I finally asked Aeroflot if they had any idea. Aeroflot?" who would have thought it? The guy hardly looked up from his paper and told me in a rather why-don't-you-know-this voice that Air India are responsible for the baggage on Sri Lanka Air. Another tour around the Airport and I finally locate their office in a pokey corner of the second floor and try to explain my story again. THEY KNEW ABOUT OUR LUGGAGE but were not able to give it
to us without an Air Lanka rep. Explaining again that no one from Air Lanka has been there all day they finally got our bags. All we wanted was to get out of there but we weren't allowed to leave because we didn't have our landing cards filled in. WE DIDN'T FLY IN WE JUST WANTED OUR BAGS BACK!!!! ARGHHHH. anyway, we finally got out and breathed a sigh of relief.
We had a day to kill in Mumbai so jumped in a tuk tuk and went exploring doing all the things that tourists should do, rather interesting to see a different side to Mumbai than Colaba. We took our second overnight train to Ahmedabad this time in sleeper class which is non-A/C and not chai-wallah's or food guys about. our section was supposed to seat 8 but at the beginning there were 15people crammed in. Holly got rained on that night and awoke to two men doing their motions on the railway track in the morning, it sometimes pas off to like the top bunk with no window!!
Ahmedabad was, well very different, it was interesting to go to somewhere where tourists don't normally stop and, thanks
to my useless map reading skills, end up in a little district where no one spoke English and i doubt any
Gora had been there in a very long while! Hols and I realised that the pavements are not for walking on, they are reserved for make-shift shops, toilets and rubbish bins! We spent our day in the kite museum, in an art gallery/museum where one of the curators decided to accompany us despite not speaking any English and helped point to things. Surprising the level of communication and humor you can find despite the language barrier. Feeling a little bit lost we decided to go to the cinema to see
The Dark Knight very good though rather sad seeing Heath Ledger. India is so full of surprises to find an upmarket cinema complex/mall only a few k away from what we had seen earlier was so strange. love the contrasts.
Holly was struck down with a fever and flu-ish symptoms that evening (she's better now by the way) but I was secretly panicking that she had malaria - ever the hypochondriac! We took our 3rd overnight train in a row - by this time we smelt
less than wonderful and were in desperate need of a shower, a bed and some rest, along came Udaipur... we both fell in love with Udaipur. With a fairy tale palace situated in the middle of a (now dry due to lack of monsoon but still pretty) lake, rooftop restaurants, a small population, fluent english speaking lovely people and clean streets who couldn't fall in love with it? We spent our time in Udaipur resting and regaining our strength after our fever's chatting with locals and eating. The first question most people ask is "which country please?" and when we tell them we were from England every person would get so excited because the Bond Film
Octopussy was filmed there. Holly and I decided we should see the film so ate dinner in a restaurant watching a dodgy pirate version of
Octopussy. We left the little bubble of Udaipur rather reluctantly but recharged and hit Ajmer. Buses are a little more difficult than trains because you don't know where to get off and the drivers think they are playing a video game but we arrived in one piece in Ajmer. After a tasty Thali we were ready to hit
the sack to recharge for a full days sight seeing the next day. We visited a really beautiful Jain temple with a massive gold miniature 3D equivalent of our nativity scene depicting how they believe the world began. We visited lake Ana Sagar and a smooth guy did the old i'm-going-to-pretend-i'm-taking-a-picture-of-the really-boring-tree-behind-you-trick that we have experienced so much over here!! We took a day trip to Pushkar where we were blessed with holy water from the Ghat. A priest put a red rice dot on our head and made u hold flowers, rice, saffron, coconut and some other stuff then throw it into the water to guarantee me and all of u a happy healthy life. The holy priest then tried to charge unholy prices and when he realised i was not giving up and silly amounts of rupees pretty much pulled the rug from under my feet and stomped away like a child in a strop!
we're now in Jaipur, known as the Pink City because the maharajah loved the colour pink! What a beautiful city. we've been to various forts and met some lovely people. The hostel we're staying in, cheapest so far at 150rs (less than
2 pounds) has a swimming pool. we were going to treat ourselves to a dip but Lucky holly and Emma brought the much prayed for monsoon with them once again! go us!!
What an experience India is, i'm not quite sure why i love it possible because it keeps surprising me.
only 10 days till i'm back in abu dhabi.... can't believe it's nearly finished!
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aunty Cass
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India
oh how lovely to get back from a month on another planet and find your lovely pictures of India.It is ard to explain why we fall inlove with India, but i did too and cant wait to take Ian. How you coped with your luggage saga i cannot imagine, what patience you must have, actually just like your mum! love Aunty Cass x