I am now a hippy

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Hello lovely peeps! Sorry I haven't been in touch sooner! India is totally insane - the insanity was great for about 5 days and then we had to find some relief. We are now is Rishikesh in the very north of India which is where the beatles met their yogi in the 60s. It's cooler here and the landscape is much like switzerland. The 'gangages' river is wide, vast and flowing and the monkey's, dogs and cows wander the streets. Jamila and I now look like total hippies - draped in shawls and with ankle chains tinkling on our feet. In the cafes etc, all you can get is vegetarian food - which is fab, but im not too sure how long we can cope without beer!!! Still haven't found any, but we truthfully haven't been looking up until now. Very strange I know...

Mumbai
We arrived in india in Mumbai on Tuesday 2 October and spent two nights there. Mumbai was totally bonkers. We liked some of it and were freaked by the rest! But we enjoyed the whole experience. Poverty was very apparent here. The architecture was amazing. As well as the ramshakle buildings, it was the beautiful Victorian buildings that dominated the city. Despite looking run down, with paint peeling etc.. they still retained their grand appeal. We also saw a lot of beggers and people sleeping on the side of the street, with nothing to their name. We also discovered what the most important piece of a car is in india - the horn. They beep their horns ALL THE TIME. The sound of beeping is one of the main noises of india. They beep their horns to let other drivers / pedestrians know that they are there, that they are overtaking, that they others are in the way, and possibly just for the hell of it the rest of the time!

We found a great little place to eat in Mumbai. There was a little food hall (mini curry house with sparse tables), down the street where we were staying. We ate there both evenings and we had some yummy currys for only about 1 pound 50 a time. The street on which we were staying was about 5 mins walk from the 'Gateway to India'. Built to receive the british king and queen (can't remeber who) - Liz - any ideas??! The walk there wasn't too great though, as it was deathly quiet and we got stared at A LOT. That's one thing about India. You don't see many women - just men and they stare. It can make you feel a bit uneasy...

After 2 days we left mumbai and caught a sleeper train to Agra some 25 hours away - catching the train at 11.45pm. We chose to travel second class as this is the only way to get a true picture of who (and what!) travel the trains in India. It was one hell of a journey! We are so glad we did it but there were points where we struggled! After falling asleep we awoke at about 3am with mad, frantic banging on the train door 'OPEN THE DOOR!', bang bang bang - OPEN THE DOOR!' Then about 8 men got on carrying great big, heavy, metal trunks, who turned out to be in the army and who proceded to yell in our carriage for the next 30 mins - god knows what about. At the time we didn't have a clue what was going on - we just buried our heads under our shawls and hoped for the best. We only found out who they were in the morning once we awoke.

We both awoke to a carriage full of men and guess what? Yes - LOADS of staring and this contnued for another 15 hours. At one point jamila dozed off and woke up to a guy staring at her about 1 foot away. Very funny (for me anyway)! There were also lovely points to the journey. Some of the army guys (prob in their late teens) had a look at Jamila's now magazine and thought it was hilarous. There was a lovely lady sharing the carriage for most of the way with her young son who was v cute and I nearly fell on a yogi with my giant rucksack - not to mention succesfully managing to get a no. 2 to fall down the hole in the toilet in one and hit the train track in one piece! SO satisfying! haha. At the end of our journey we were joined by armed police guards who liked to point their guns willy nilly...and then proceded to ask us if we were married and then look unhappy when we said we were both engaged - (indian men always ask this question).

Agra
Despite being a top tourist destination, Agra is still a typical inidan city, with it's dusty streets, poverty and chaos. We both expected it to be more tourisrty than it was. The reason for our visit was to see the Taj Mahal. We got up at 5.30am to see the Taj at 6am. We walked the short 2 min walk from our guesthouse and arrived in time to buy a ticket and get through the gates before it got too busy. The streets were busy on our way there and we saw monkeys, puppies and cows on our short walk.

The Taj Mahal is probably the most amazing thing I have ever seen. It is so beautiful and very difficult to describe. It looks and feels like it exists between our world and heaven. I ran bare foot on the marble floor...The Taj is set alongside a river (which I never realised). So on one side you had this long and wide walkway along the river, with mudflats on the other side and green birds whizzing overhead - amazing. It is also very quiet - except for the constant chatter of the swallows circling the turrets. It was worth coming to india just to see the Tal Mahal. Sadly, after 2.5 hours we were all ushered out by the guards as an important visitor was coming and they were having the place to themselves...we could have spent hours here.

After seeing the Taj Mahal, we did something very extravagant. We got a taxi to Rishikesh. This is an 11 hour journey. We couldn't get a train for 2 days and we didn't want to travel by 'government bus'. Dilapidated, uncomfortable and the type of transportation where you are very likely to get your bags pilfered. So we opted to pay 5000 rupees / about 60 pounds to do the journey - we were that desperate to find sanctuary. We thought the journey would show us some more of the countryside, but we were wrong and we began to become concerned that we would't find any respite. The sprawl continued for about 9 hours - with no let up. At times we drove through areas so poor it was painful to look out of the window. Town streets packed with people, animals, dust, pollution, the disabled begging, young boys sorting through rubbish to find something worth something, not matter how small - it was very sad and chaotic. Luckily, after about 9 hours the landscape changed. Green fields sped past and as the sun began to set our hearts began to lift. 2 hours later we reached the heaven which is Rishikesh.

I'll be in touch again soon and let you know more about Rishikesh and try to upload some photos. Lots if love to you all, Sabina xxx

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