Will You Marry Me North India

‘Hello Madams, where are you from?’
New Zealand
‘Aaah Switzerland, that is a very nice place…’
No, NEW ZEAland
‘Aaaah very nice also, Cricket! You know Fleming?’
Yeah Stephen, he’s our neighbour.
‘What are your names?’
Emma and Olivia.
‘Aaaah beautiful names, they are Indian names you know…’
Really?
‘Where are your husbands?
Why are you not married?
When are you getting married?
I have a son who is not married?
Would you like to buy my pashminas?, I give you a special price, those ones you have are not real, but mine are, mine are the most beautiful pashminas in all of India!’

And with the above dialogue, like its out of a text book we begin most of our conversations with the men of India, and its only men that we meet as the women are all busy working……A crowd often gathers and we are swiftly surrounded by 20 of his friends and feeling a little like naked celebrities…

Magical India: we landed in Delhi mid-November feeling slightly nervous about spending a month in a country we’d only heard horror stories about…’You’ll get sick!’, ‘Its filthy, don’t wear white!’, ‘Dye your hair brown or you’ll get too much attention!’ Those stories turn out to be true….however only make up a tiny percentage of our experience, the bad was by far outweighed by the good!! We discovered a beautiful, colourful country with amazing architecture, rich history and some of the warmest, quirkiest people we have met so far on our travels.

After a few days in Delhi, our adventures in the North took us all around Rajasthan by car with our own personal driver Farooq (ewwww) I think even Livvy would run out of adjectives trying to describe all that we saw but here is our Rajasthan tour in brief…

Agra; hours of marveling at the wonder of the Taj Mahal, STUNNING - and a man built this for the woman he loved! Between that and Brent Sutcliffe’s diamond rings back home the standard has been set! Oh my amazing-ness!! Definatly a highlight…..

Jaipur; ‘the red city’ where we saw a Bollywood film in a giant cinema that was built in the shape of a wedding cake…Indians are obsessed with Love and Marriage!

Bikaner; non-event….apart from the little man who had the Guiness Book of records award for most miniature painting……fascinating (yawn)

Jaisalmir; ‘the golden city’, Emma had an episode of the dreaded Delhi belly here and left Livvy to go camera-crazy in this pretty place, home to an incredible fort. We also went on an overnight camel safari, which was seriously fun although major regrets on not packing sport bras!

Jodphur; ‘the blue city’…actually divine, we escaped our driver for a morning exploring the old city which was painted blue back in the day to keep away insects!! This place also had a stunning palace on the hill, and here we made some fun new friends…our group became ‘Team India’ and we had some great dinners on rooftops watching the sunset and all tried a saffron lassi together - a very sweet treat with a secret recipe - oh la la.

Udaipur; ‘the lake city’, home to the infamous Lake Palace, where they filmed James Bonds ‘Octopussy’ and every second restaurant does a rooftop showing of this in the evenings….it’s their big claim to fame! This city was actually magical - creamy white marble buildings all built around a central lake. Favourite moments, taking a pedal boat out on the water and watching the local women wash their clothes in the late afternoon sun.

Before we get too gushy though lets keep it real and finish with Livvy and Em’s list of the Top 5 Most Foul Things about India…

1)Hoiwking and red spitballs…eeew, eeew, such a disgusting noise that seems to permeate the air of India…and watch out for your toes when wearing jandals…..
2)Professional beggars, a tragedy of India, yet a fruitful industry that we swiftly lost sympathy for.
3)Toilets, can you call them that?
4)Cows, can you call them that?...found everywhere and for sacred creatures they look pretty unloved.
5)Groping…its my bum cheek and you can’t touch it little man! And no, we will not marry your son!

With a small part of North India explored we promised to return one day soon, then hopped on a train headed to Mumbai and the south…watch this space!

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