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Published: October 6th 2008
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THE MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR CONTINUES....
Wow....where to begin...got up2 sooooo much since my last blog - said my goodbyes to April high up in the Ladakh region of the Himalayas, climbed a mountain (by accident) went to a flag raising ceremony on Independence day at Ghandi's actual commune in Nagpur (also by accident) cracked my head open on a taxi???? in Delhi which resulted in day of Indian hospitals and stiches OW! (this was definately not on purpose either) Met up with an old buddy 4 the next stint...Laura Hayhurst...love her to bits, this is her 3rd time out and she's obsessed with the place...she's full of bizarre stories (NOT TO BE REPEATED ON BLOG)
NORTH SOUTH DIVIDE
We escaped from the Hare Krishnas of Bangalore and made our way from the South to head up to Varanassi in the Ganges (river of dead people)...we never made it, got side tracked completely and after stopping off in Nagpur at the centre of India for a few days + a stay in Ghandi's actual commune in Sevagram (...peoples slightly obsessed with the man..too many sculptures, paintings etc...get a life HA...but cool place anyway) we heard about a town called
Khajauro a few hours up North...apparently it was the town of the birth of the Kama Sutra. Interesting....
KHAJAURO/THE WICKER MAN/SEX SHOPS
To get into Khajauro was a mission and to leave was virtually impossible. April thought we'd arrived in the Wicker man. I was quite guarded at first...our driver into the town started getting sleazier with us the nearer we got...we checked into a hostel on the main strip and got followed everywhere we went by people hanging out in the lobby. April thought they were being nice! HA...I did laugh at her A LOT when she realised they were on the take....gettting a tasty bit of comission from us wherever we went...after a few days we started to come round to them and had a lot of fun.......
The temples were INCREDIBLE....and so many (apparently 64 temples for the 64 positions...a 12 year old boy told me)......really ancient and intricate carvings... If you like holiday shopping then you can pick up a copy of the kama sutra or a dirty fridge magnet every 2 yards or find yourself having conversations about tantric sex with shopkeepers...it started to feel normal after a few days....definately time to
leave
AGGRAVATION and DELHI MAGIC
we went through Agra (AGRAVATION...not really... actaully enjoyed Taj Mahal town..got sucked in) to Delhi and hung out for a few days to recover from my head injury that I got after 30 minutes of arriving!!! by soaking up the bohemian and cosmoplitan life for a few days. Stayed at the main bazaar in New Delhi and hung out in backpacker hostels....lovely life. Met some odd characters there...a Russian guy who declared that war had broken out in Russia that day...everyone was shocked as you can imagine...the conflict in Georgia is really bad...but he made out it was world war 3....he also played Indian flute...real oddballs........Really saw the difference between the South and the North here. I hadn't seen so many travellers or white faces in India before this. Thought there was only a few of us. Took in a few films at the South Asain film festival...funny and tragic BBC documentary about Bengali girls in London who were being set up for arranged marriages in Bangladesh...comical director answering questions afterwards...an interesitng 1 about Afghanistanian/American doctor setting up women's clinics in Afghanistan...These films really left impressions on us....got all cultured up for our
next stint of the journey....Love Delhi....will go back for the rest of my life....was so sad to hear about the bombings in Connaught Place just days after being there...
HIMALAYAS
We decided to miss out on the 15 hour train and 2 day bus journey north up to Ladakh in the Jamu and Kashmir region...only cost us 50 quid for a single...so took the 1 1/2 hour flight and witnessed the best views over the northern snow peaked himalayas as the sun was rising...the only way I can describe the feeling of arriving in Ladakh feeling the excitement of christmas morning when you're a kid (ok well I still get it..haha)....very cold, crisp air, add to this a light headedness caused by extreme difference in altitude, Buddhist peoples, medieval buildings... it's a magical place...piped Tibetan chant music is piped out of loud speakers over the town at sunrise every morning...it's like nowhere else on this planet...We arrrived just in time for the Ladakh festival over 2 weeks...it was soooo great...all the tribes of every village in Ladakh got involved...never seen anythihng like it...these guys are fascinating...it was never colonialised being too far north in the mountains with too
stark a landscape to be useful to anyone...they just got access roads in the last few years...getting around was interesting...a lot of off roading in jeeps....all the tourists are your sporty climber/trekkers/nutty traveller...didn't spot any gap year students this far up! and as well as the Ladakhians there were loads of Kashmiris working in the bazaars and guest houses...It felt really different being in a largely buddhist and muslim mountainous community...you don't normally find that cultural mix....beautiful place, beautiful people. Spent our time trekking (ouch....they should really call this an expedition... We realised 1 day in what we had let ourselves into...climbing a mountain in the himalayas is not what I call trekking) it was absolutely the best buzz ever standing at the top a of a mountain in the himalayas looking over the isolated wilderness...all the pain was worth it....YOU HAVE TO GO THERE
In Rishikesh for a while brushing up on my yoga teaching, learning sitar with a holy man and partying with Israelis before embarking to Nepal for to volunteer in women's shelter during the DASAIN festival...slaughtering of many buffalos coming up in the next blog STAY TUNED
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