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Published: March 1st 2009
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Here I am again, backpacking solo across some God forsaken place, this time its India and Nepal. After countless hours of research I am bracing myself for some serious hassle plus the inevitable dose of deli-belly. Obviously I will also be looking forward to the amazing sights, sounds, tastes and smells that I will no doubt experience. I haven't a clue how often I will be able to update this, I guess it will be dependent on how much trouble I manage to get myself into.
Obviously I want to make this trip as difficult as possible so I won't be getting involved in any of them organised tours, however, after a couple of sleepless nights on a rickety train I may change my mind. Additionally the map I made of my journey states that I will be travelling 1,661 miles overland (the vast majority by train) so as usual I've probably bitten more than I can chew.
I just managed to catch a train as my flight was late, it left with a minute to spare!! My flight from Doha to Delhi by the way I shall never forget I was upgraded to first class, I enjoyed fully
reclineable seats which even gave me a massage - very nice indeed. Still didn't get any sleep though so in 3 days I had around 5 hours kip.
The train journey was just under 5 hours, I got served tea in a flask and then received a complimentary newspaper and then breakfast.
Stayed at the Hotel Pearl Palace in Jaipur which I cannot recommend highly enough (4 pound sterling a night - woohoo). Jaipur is mad as hell especially the traffic on my journey from Amber fort was punctuated by my tuk tuk driver banging into 2 cars and knocking over a cyclist. Banging into things though wasn't enough for him after this happening he then had to accelerate towards the driver of the car and gesticulate wildly at him even though it wasn't his fault.
I went to see monkey temple on the second day in Jaipur which is named this as there are monkeys everywhere leading up to it. They sell bags of monkey nuts at the bottom of the hill but as soon as the monkeys hear the rustle they leap on you and rip it out of your hands - I can't believe
I fell for that one.
On the way down from monkey temple, there were a group of Sadhus (holy men) sitting around and one of them invited me over for a smoke!! They then shared this strange pipe around for a bit, see below of a pic of my sadhu friend.
The Sadhus then invited me back to their temple, as this was an offer you don't get every day I accepted. So after washing my hands and feet next to a cow, me and my new chums sat down in a room to enjoy a meal (I can't believe I said this but I asked them if it was vegetarian - you have to make sure:-) We ate Indian style i.e. using our hands scooping up the food with Chapattis, the food was delicious and halfway through the meal we had a visitor as a cow popped his head through the door and stared at me.
I then washed the bowls in water and ash - no fairy liquid here and thanked my Sadhu friend for his hospitality.
Now off for a few beers before my 23:57 train to Jaisalmer which gets in 13 hours
later and to make things worse I've lost the most important item of my trip - my wet wipes - arghhhhh.
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