The Big Adventure

---

I am going back in time now to the start of our trip.

We landed in Dehli after several weeks of worrying about our visa and several applications, resulting in very little sleep and all my poor friends listening to my fretting!

After arriving at Dehli at midnight, we had an early train from Dehli to Tordi Gahr, a small village, at 5am on Sunday 15th. This was a strong awakening to the standard of living and amount of poverty that was waiting us for the next 10 days. There were homeless people and a slums lining most of the track, with most of the men taking an early morning dump in the middle of the field next to the tracks! You couldn't help but look!!

The train connected with a jeep for a 2 1/2hr bumpy ride with no views, and extreme heat! We arrived in Todri Gahr and was welcomed into an ancient palace, our accomodation for the night. Mark and I slept! Happy days!

The next day we had a tour of the village and met some locals and livestock. We were warned that the water buffallo were very dangerous, not because they attack us, but because they were scared of white skin! They stampeded to get away from us!! Then we visited they primary school and chatted with the kids there, they loved their picture to be taken! Then some of the girls played clapping games with me and won!

After the village we travelled to Jaipur, with vast silk shops and colour and spice filling every section it was amazing! We also caught a Bollywood movie here, no english but plenty of crowd whistling and shouting gave us an idea, great experience.

We travelled to Agra next, home of petty theives, harassement and the astounding Taj mahal! Breath taking is the only way to describe the feeling of seeing it for the first time. We watched the sun setting over the back of the mosque and headed out for a hearty curry tea.

Agra fort was the final installment of the love story behind the Taj Mahal, very interesting, but incredibly hot. From Agra we travelled up to Varanasi where we walked hurriedly between traffic coming from every direction to the Ganges to watch the sunset and ceremonies the accompany it. We lit tea lights and made wishes as we set them adrift on the river. The next morning at 5am again we watched the sunrise and saw the variety of buildings ranging along the riverside. We heard stories of the deads' burial pires and how children, pregnant women and sufferers of leprosy wouldn't be burnt, but just pushed into the water to be recieved by Shiva (i think)!

We all got ill from Varanasi! Dirtiest place i've ever been!

From Varanasi we travelled by bú for 15hrs to cross into Nepal, and into Lumbini, for a night in a jungle lodge. Mark seriously suffering at this point! No food for 24 hrs. This continued for 4days, Tekai gave him some antibiotics that made all the difference. 10days of a bad belly lasted into Tokyo tho!

Chitwan was our next stop, I loved Chitwan. It was so relaxed compared to India and the hustle and bustle that came with it. We had a canoe ride and an elephant safari. the elephants allowed us to get up close to a pair of mother and calf Rhino's, an awesome sight.

Our final few days were spent in Kathmandu. Kathmandu was full of history and culture and very little hard sell that wall all over our time in India. We spent a lovely day with Henry and Haydon showing us about Durbur square and walked upto monkey temple to get an incredbile view of the whole of this awesome city.

I loved india for its colour and life, but hated the constant fight to simply walk down the street, the amount of tipping required by our guide Vikash was half of everything we spent while there, making our time in India more expensive than our time in Japan!

I hope we can get back to Nepal, even though they have an incredible 11 security checks between entering the airport and getting on the flight, as it was an awe inspiring country with so much to offer...maybe even everest base camp one day!!

---