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Published: January 27th 2008
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More pics to follow.....
We didnt quite know what to expect when we arrived in India, all we knew was that people we had spoken to seemed to both love and hate the place for so many reasons and that there would be cows everywhere amidst the chaos in the streets and beaches. We had been warned about the many toting stores of the conmen that target you as soon as you set foot on land so we felt semi prepared and little bit anxious and excited!!
So first leg complete - we made it from the airport without being scammed, albeit the taxi driver attempted to as we stopped at a dodgy tourist information centre but we refused to move out of teh cab or make any dodgy calls to dodgy hotels!! We avoided a dirty room and got a less dirty one, obviously for more money and so we spent our first night in Delhi!
we were a little scared to venture out the next day but were so glad that we did...everythig everyone said was confirmed - it was a wonderful place, so much to tak in, so many smells, so many colours, so much
going on - but never with a possibile explanation for much of it or why it is so mesmerising!! We avoided many con men touts 'friends' and successfully found a beer in a rather london style pub - 'Piccadelhi' which made us chuckle quite a bit!
We werent in a city mood as usual, we mooched around a bit and then caught our train to Jaipur after being up all night (the hotel wouldnt do a deal to let us extend by a couple of hours without paying a full night!!) Our train ride was brilliant - so much better than expected, we even got a tea flask, breakdfast and a newspaper!!
Jaipur was madness and definitely PINK- rickshaw drivers chasing us down despite our insistence on walking, we got lost so many times but finally found our hotel in pools of sweat!! We chilled for a few days, ate loads of nice indian food, found the best ice cream parlour, got drunk on super strong (unknowingly) on new years eve and meandered the pink city!
Then we started what was a painful volunteer placement....all for the money and not a lot else!! But we did get
a couple of brill days out in rural india in a little village which was such an awesome experience-sothe people were brilliant, the women and children were so inquisitive and the men so much less starey!It helped us not have such a negative view of the men in Rajasthan, they seemed much more respectful to women further away from Jaipur! Jaipur was hard work I must say and at times I had to fully cover my head with my shawl, something I never thought I would do, I thought that fully covering myself with clothing would be enough...but it got too much at times!
We left the volunteer work after handing our project/dissertation in after our patience was severely tested by being made to sit and do nothing for hours on end however we did rate the food and proceeded to eat lots and get a bit fat!! We met some lovley people over our many chai breaks (which kept us going in the cold days at the institution), we acquired a pet puppy and named him Gilbert (so cute) for a few days and helped save it from starvation with chapati!!
Maneged a visit to Pushkar -
a little hippy town near Ajmer - cute and chilled! Great hike up a hill whcih wasnice and tranquil - mmmm!! I even fed the monkeys - very scarey though!
After the vol work, we headed out to Agra to meet Keely (nightmare train journey - the coldest ever - D ended up with a man witha gun snuggle dup to him hee) and visited the Taj Mahal - amazing! Had a sleepless night since we overlapped with some Muslim festival that was being held which meant really loud music blasted out all night in the street and then a procession of cardboard cake things the next day) very bizarre but quite cool!
Went to Varanasi which was a somwhat strage experience - going to see where bodies are burned at the side of the river and then their ashes are placed in the water to avoid the cycle of rebirth for Hindu's. Pretty amazing! Annoying that the boat men were on strike when we were there so we couldnt take a boat ride in the Ganges - typical!!
On to Kajuraho to see the erotic sculpted temples - pretty amazing again!! Such detail and carved
The Water Palace
Spot the green water!! so long ago!! Brilliant place and chilled out too apart from the million shop keepers that wanted you 'just to look'!!
We left Kee and headed south on another delayed train........
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