I'm writing, rather squelchily, from a 42 degree Varanasi, the last stop in the India leg of my journey. It doesn't feel like I have only been in India for 3 months. By that I mean that it feels more like I have visited many countries, not just one. India is so vast and diverse that from place to place you are greeted with different languages, faces, dress, religions, food, wildlife, landscapes, weather...you name it. And still I know that there is a lot more to India that I have not had the chance to see in this trip, but I've had a fair old crack at it!
I will give you a round-up of the places that I have experienced in this blog submission. Just in case you're pushed for time here is the condensed version:
I still don't have dreadlocks (although I've had my first haircut!)
I have not bought any tie-dye items or happy pants (yet).
I do not possess a henna tattoo.
I have met some wonderful people (both locals and fellow travellers). I have met a few stinkers too!
I survived India. More than that, I loved it!
And so, I left you
in Mysore back in February - yellow cows, banana leaf thalis, sandalwood - remember? I've added a couple of pictures, as promised.
From here, Liz and I entered Kerala for a touch of wildlife spotting at Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary. Alas, I probably saw as much animal activity on the way to the sanctuary as I did inside it but it was a pleasant experience all the same. There were plenty of monkeys, a good number of spotted deer, and just as we were giving up hope and within minutes of leaving the park, we stumbled across a family of elephants having a light snack of tree.
Staying in Kerala we trod the following path southwards:
Fort Cochin: A cute old Dutch/Portugese/English town with several other influences making it an eclectic place to wander around. We took in the ancient Chinese Fishing Nets which are still in operation; a few churches including St. Francis Church, the oldest church in India; the Jewish area of Mattancherry; and several cafes serving very nice cake.
Fort Cochin is home to Special Tea. A wonderful concept whereby you are served beer in a teapot with a cup and saucer in order
to dupe any passing police officials who think that you may be partaking in alcoholic beverages, which is not permitted in unlicensed premises (which almost all restaurants are.) Very cunning.
It was in Fort Cochin that I sampled my first full body Ayurvedic massage. At this point I realised that things are taken very literally in India and I definitely got a full-body massage.
Munnar: Tetley tea country! I loved this place. A hill station situated amid the tea plantations that produce our very own Tetley tea. Next time you have a cuppa make sure you savour every sip because a blooming lot of work goes into producing it. The town of Munnar itself is nothing special, but the surrounding countryside is something else altogether and has to be seen to be believed. Enter photos. Just beautiful.
I made the most of the cooler hill air and took some lovely walks among the wonderful patchwork of tea; saw the women picking tealeaves (and the men watching the women pick tealeaves, very important for the flavour); visited coffee, cardamon and sandalwood plantations; and fled from a wild cow in Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary.
After a white-knuckle bus journey
down from Munnar, we caught the more sedate local ferry from Kottayam to Alleppey - the main hub from which to explore the Keralan Backwaters.
Alleppey: If there was anything of interest in this town I'm afraid I missed it. The real reason for visiting Alleppey is to take a trip on the backwaters, a 900km network of waterways running from the coast to far inland. There are many ways to experience the backwaters ranging from overnight packages in deluxe riceboats with cooks, waiters and the whole shebang for 5000 rupees, to the local ferry for 11 rupees. Liz and I opted for a 2 hour ferry ride (which follows more or less the same route as the more expensive riceboat, said smugly), followed by a covered canoe the next day to explore the narrow canalways, and then an 8 hour boat trip onto Kollam the day after. So it's fair to say that we definitely had the backwaters covered. It was a wonderful experience - floating along the waterways watching people go about their daily lives; washing their clothes, pots and pans, fish and vegetables, and themselves in the canals; fishing; going to school; praying; gossiping; themselves watching
the world go by and the funny tourists in boats.
In Alleppey I learnt from our marvellous Guest House owner, Vincent, that I have very little hope of attracting a suitor at my age. He offered to place an advertisement in the Sunday paper for a husband for me (the standard way in Kerala of finding a suitable wife/husband for your children), but something in the tone of his voice told me he thought it would be a waste of time and money. Ho hum!
Varkala: a touristy beach spot where I chilled, ate, read, slept, watched a few sunsets (missed the sunrises), had lots of laughs, and swam for a few days.
Ponmudi: a tiny hill station little visited by foreigners, perhaps because there's nothing there. But that's what I liked about it. It consists of lots of beautiful hills, a guest house, a post office and a beer parlour - what more do you need? It's just as well I liked it as we got stuck there thanks to yet another one of Kerala's infamous strikes.
We decided that we'd done our fair share of public buses and trains over the past few weeks
and splurged on a taxi to Madurai, sharing with 2 other people. This journey ended our tour of Kerala and took us into the state of Tamil Nadu, starting in
Madurai: Famous for its Sri Meenakshi Temple, Madurai is a bustling old city, perfect for ambling around. It's best not to stand still for too long though or you'll get collared by one of the many touts who would like to educate you (about the temple), dress you (in some lovely tailored silk garment), or transport you (to the Palace which is closed for renovation), all for a small fee, of course.
I visited the excellent Gandhi Memorial Museum which covered the history of India from the period of British rule to independence. It also housed the blood-stained loincloth that Gandhi was wearing when he was assassinated. Sounds gorey but it just looked like a mucky cloth.
I sampled my first Spaceship Bar in Madurai. A bar decked out like the starship enterprise. Amazing!
After Madurai I had planned to fly to Sri Lanka but due to the spate of terrorist activity targeting local transport systems I decided to give it a miss. Although a bit
disappointing, this decision gave me more time to spend in India and visit...
Tanjor: This was a brief overnight stop en route to Pondicherry, to see the World-Heritage listed Brihadishwara Temple. A lovely sandstone temple complex where I got told off for taking a picture of the temple elephant. Boo.
Pondicherry: A former French colony, Pondy (as it's know locally) is a funny place that looks French (it has a Hotel de Ville, wide boulevards, french architecture, french road signs and even the French gutter system in the roads), but definitely smells Indian.
I really felt the gap between rich and poor in Pondy, more so than anywhere else I had visited to this point. You could talk to people who were brimming over with excitement about the prospects for the town and indeed India, whilst outside at night you would literally trip over people who made the pavements and canalside their home. Very saddening.
Mamallapuram: Another overnight stop, this time on the way to Hampi (for a second time, see previous blog). This is stone-carving central with bucket loads of ancient rock carvings dotted around the town, and craftsman after craftsman chipping away outside their
shops where you could buy all manner of stone stuff (that's the technical term). It's also home to another World Heritage Site, the Shore Temple, which is perched on a cliff looking out to sea. I didn't go in as I was on a self-imposed temple dry-out regime at this point but I'm sure it's very nice like all the other WH temples.
From Mamallapuram we travelled through Tirupathi, close to the holy hill of Tirumala, one of the most important pilgrimage centres in India and indeed the world. Apparently the temple here eclipses Jerusalem, Rome and Mecca for sheer numbers of pilgrims. It's estimated that there are never fewer that 5000 pilgrims at any one time and in a single day, the total often reaches 100,000. I can believe this because I think most of them were getting the same train as me.
And so, four weeks on from my botched attempt at entering Hampi, my decision to bye pass Sri Lanka provided me with the opportunity to try again. This time, all went swimmingly and I arrived without a hitch on 29 February 2008.
Hampi: What a unique place this is and how glad I
was that I made the somewhat cross-country trip to (re) visit it. The attraction of Hampi is not the actual village but the Vijayanagar ruins and the boulder-pickled landscape that surrounds it. Nobody seems to know how these boulders came to be here. Some say there was an earthquake, others believe it was an act of God. Whatever the answer, they give Hampi an air of mystery. The ruins date back to 1336, housing a population of 500,000, which will give you some idea of the scale of them, and ceased to be inhabited in 1565.
The old adage 'You can take the girl out of fundraising but you can't take fundraising out of the girl' came to life in Hampi. Somehow I ended up spending an evening writing a fundraising strategy for a woman who was trying to raise funds for children who couldn't go to school as their parents couldn't afford to buy the books, pens and uniform that they needed in order to attend. She was also trying to help the homeless elderly people of Hampi (of which there were many) who had been turfed out of their family homes by their own children. I'm not
sure whether I missed the point here and maybe she was really asking for my money but she got a strategy anyway and seemed extremely grateful for it.
It was in Hampi that I bid a sad farewell to Liz, my travelling companion of 7 weeks. I'd come to the end of a chapter in my adventure, and it was time to begin my solo expedition. I thought it would be a good idea to ease myself gently into this solo travelling malarkey, so I booked a 32 hour train to Calcutta! I took my reserved seat in a carriage with seven men and within approximately 30 minutes I had managed to alienate myself from the whole carriage next door by carelessly leaving my copy of the Lonely Planet on the floor. Not such a crime you would think, but this edition carries a picture of a Hindu God on the cover, and my obvious lack of respect (even though it was unknowing) caused offence. I was of course quick to apologise when I realised what was going on, but my comeuppance was to arrive a good hour later when I visited the toilet only to find that I
couldn't get out. They had locked me in the little scamps. Believe me, sleeper class squat toilets are not the best place to find yourself especially with no means of escape. Still, they had there fun and that's what's important.
Calcutta: I arrived in Calcutta at 2.30am after a predictable 5 hour delay, making my train journey a wonderful 37 hours. I decided that leaving the train station at this time with no hotel booking would not be a good idea so took a retiring room on the third floor of Howrah train station.
I spent approximately 29 hours in Calcutta (not that I was counting) on my way through to the Andaman Islands. In such a short time it was difficult to get a true feel for the city but I did manage to:
- Walk over the World's Busiest Bridge. Wow! Howrah Bridge carries some 100,000 vehicles daily.
- Get extremely dirty. I thought it was a suntan until I had a shower. Boo.
- Get stalked around Calcutta's Maidan park. Don't worry, I sent him away with a flea in his ear.
Andaman Islands: Here I found paradise. This is where the Bounty
ad was filmed apparently, and it was a truly beautiful. A cluster of almost 600 islands belonging to India but closer to South East Asia, and near to the epicentre of the 2004 tsunami. I only got around to visiting two islands in the week that I was there. However I did go with the aim of doing absolutely nothing, and I feel that I executed this with perfection.
So after a nice relax, it was time to tear myself away from my hammock, and head back to Calcutta to continue my journey north.
Darjeeling: On arriving in Darjeeling, the differences from the other areas of India that I had visited were immediately apparent. These being:
- The people looked different. Darjeeling residents are of Nepali descent and therefore look and speak Nepalese.
- Prayer flags were everywhere. If you stood still for too long you'd probably end up with some draped around you too.
- People didn't stare at you. In other parts of India the staring is really quite intense at times. Not just a sideways glance, but 'full-on, don't look away even when you have been clocked' looks, usually followed by a mobile phone snap
shot or video, and amongst the male folk, a lot of sniggering and whispering. If you are prone to a touch of paranoia, India really isn't the place for you. But in Darjeeling there was none of this and it made a refreshing change.
- No cows.
- No auto-rickshaws - it's too steep!
Darjeeling was founded by the Brits in the early 1800's and although there are still some colonial buildings dotted around like the Victorian Clocktower, they are largely masked by the sprawl of buildings that has developed around them. Perhaps the biggest resemblance to the UK was the weather. It was damp and dismal during the time that I was there, and it felt kind of homely.
Famous for its tea of course, there were ample opportunties to taste the wide range of flavours. Not quite as much fun as the Beer Festivals or Wine Tastings that I've been to, but then the tea-tasting session didn't require a two-day recuperation period. Must be getting old, I'll be signing up for a Horlicks-tasting evening next.
I visited Tiger Hill one morning, to catch a glimpse of the 250km stretch of Himalyan horizon, including Everest. I
set off at 4am to catch the sunrise, and was fortunate enough to see the sun emerge from the blanket of cloud for approximately one minute before going back to bed (the sun, not me.) Like I said, British weather.
I also took a ride on the famous Darjeeling Toy Train which was cute and kept me dry for a while.
Sikkim: And so, I left West Bengal for Sikkim, the tiny nodule of land lodged between Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan. I spent just over two glorious spit-free weeks here. (I don't think I mentioned the spit issue in India before. You are generally woken to a chorus of phlegming up, which builds up throughout the day, and culminates in a cymbal crash of spitting to drop off to. Apparently it's not half as bad as China though.)
Anyway, back to Sikkim. I really fell for this state. I saw relatively few tourists here, perhaps because you require a permit to visit, but this is a very easy process and does not cost a penny. After many years of sustained effort in promoting eco-tourism and becoming a green state, Sikkim really is a breath of fresh air
in comparison with the other areas of India that I visited. There were bins for starters, and 'No Spitting' signs in the pedestrianised zones of the state capital, Gangtok. It is a tax-free state which means the booze is dirt cheap, but unfortunately it also means that it has the highest rate of alcoholism in the country.
One slight snag with Sikkim is that you cannot travel freely around the state even after acquiring your permit. To access the more remote areas you must book through a travel agent and can only travel as a group. Not to be deterred by this, after a brief spell in Gangtok, I headed to North Sikkim and the beautiful Yumthang Valley.
Yumthang Valley: I was quite surprised, and if I'm honest a little disappointed to start with, to find so many other people making the journey to this area. The five hour ride through the most spectacular countryside felt reminiscent of an Irish wedding convoy, with jeep after jeep carrying Bengali weekenders honking their way up to Yumthang. In the valley, hordes of Bengali tourists were playing in the snow, Hindi pop pumped out of the jeeps' tinny music system, and
the men were bumping and grinding to the tunes. It was quite a spectacle. I took myself off for a stroll to try to find some silence in what you would expect to be (and hope to be) a peaceful place, but instead I managed to get mobbed by all the families who wanted to have their photograph taken with the funny looking white woman. (This happens a lot in India.) Although the experience was not quite what I had envisaged, it was a funny one all the same and I'm recalling it with a chuckle or two.
Goecha La Trek: I headed over to West Sikkim for a ten-day high-altitude trek with a Finnish couple (Leni and Joonas), a German chap (Axel), and an entourage of 2 guides, 1 cook, 3 porters, 1 yakman, 3 yaks, and last but not least, 1 plastic table complete with stools and a tablecloth. Imperative. Collectively we were Team Yak!
I will let the photographs speak for themselves but suffice to say this was one of the highlights of my trip to date. We passed through such a range of landscapes from lush forest, to rhododendron woods, almost desert-like barren mountainous
land, and snow-capped mountains. We stayed mainly in wooden trekkers huts along the way which varied in condition from small shacks with no windows to larger huts complete with straw mattress - very luxurious.
In a nutshell, the highlights were: sitting down at our little red table feeling very chuffed at finishing a tough day's uphill trek at over 4200 meters, in snow, with blisters; the great humour and company of my trekking companions; the scenery (which included the world's 3rd highest mountain, Khangchendzonga) and local people that I met along the way; the fact that we hardly met anyone along the way, and for the majority of the time we had all the lovely scenery and fresh air to ourselves.
Lowlights included: the aforementioned blisters (despite using my tried and tested 3 year old walking boots) which sprung up on my heels on day 1, my toes on day 2, and followed me around for the other 8 days; the guide who was either drunk, stoned or absent for the majority of the time; camping in the freezing cold at 4200 metres with an inadequate hired sleeping bag and mild altitude sickness. Reading this back it sounds
quite terrible but all the positive points far outweighed the minor grumbles.
After a rest day in the pretty village of Yuksom, the trailhead, I moved on to:
Pelling: A small village in West Sikkim where I rested my blisters for a few days, looked at photographs of the spectacular views that I would have seen had the weather been better, and ate lots of apple-pie safe in the knowledge that the profits were going to the local school.
Next stop was
Kalimpong: I went here because I liked the name and it was a suitable stop-off on my way to:
Varanasi: My final stop in India. (PLEASE NOTE: I know I said that I was writing this from Varanasi but it has taken so long to update that I actually left India a few weeks back. Oops.)
How can I sum up Varanasi? It is Full-on In Your Face India. Everything here is extreme: colour, noise, touts, smells, religion, heat, poverty, the list goes on. You see the most intimate parts of indian life (and death) all around you. And if you can't see it you can feel it, smell it and hear
it.
Take a stroll on the ghats by the river Ganges and these are some of the things that you will see:
People bathing; people doing their washing; brightly coloured saris drying on the steps of the ghats along with the cities smalls and other laundry; people brushing their teeth with twigs that look like liquorice sticks; boatmen lining up to take tourists and pilgrims on a boat ride down the river to make an offering to the Ganges; mass yoga demonstrations; children and men playing cricket; people washing their bronze puja instruments in the river; ox, goats, monkeys, dogs; male members of families watching as their loved one is cremated on the public burning ghats; countless temples; drugs being traded and sampled openly; holy men wandering along the ghats collecting money; people sleeping under any bit of shade they can find; and people praying and lighting butter candles to float along the Ganges.
Varanasi really is a unique city. Where else would you see a body bobbing in the river on a sunrise boat trip and nobody bats an eyelid? (Yes, I really did.) It's filthy, loud, hectic, and full of people trying to rip you off,
Tashiding, Goecha La TrekHeading up to the summit of Goecha La at 4,900m. Unfortunately, heavy snow during the night meant the pass was closed but we still made it to Lamiti viewpoint - 4 hours through the valley from here, o
... [more]but somehow it just gets you and draws you in, and it provided the perfect end to my 14 week tour of India.
I wouldn't go as far as to say that travelling in India has been a breeze. You just kind of get used to it and get stuck in. Many people have said to me, both before leaving the UK and whilst I have been away, that if you can cope with India then the other places that I plan to visit will be a piece of cake. I loved my time in India, but also felt ready to leave to experience somewhere new. I only hope that I don't become bored!! I'm sure I won't but will let you know in any case.
Goodbye India. Next stop: Nepal
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