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Published: October 18th 2011
Hello there folks!
We hope everyone is doing fine back home. We’ve been having a great time so far and, having been on the road for about a month now, thought it was about time we gave you all some news and let you know what we’ve been up to! We wrote most of this in Rishikesh, a bit of a hippy town, really chilled out – so the perfect place to relax and reflect on our time here in India as we leave in a couple of days.
We’ve never written a blog before. In fact we’ve never even read one really! But then it can’t be that hard can it…? We hope you can find the time to read it and enjoy it!
Mumbai (16 – 18 September)
Our first port of call was the huge expanse of a city, Mumbai – home to around 25m people! We thought we were prepared for the culture shock but have to admit, it was somewhat overbearing!
We arrived and immediately took a taxi from the airport to our hotel in an area of the city called Colaba. An hour and a half of jam-packed traffic, bumpy roads,
non-stop horn beeping, buses spewing their diesel fumes all over us…pure madness! And all around us, throughout the city, there was a stark contrast between the rich and the poor – brand new high-rise buildings sprouting out of the dark and dirty slums that surrounded them.
Mumbai was quite hard work. It’s known as a place of arrival for tourists, so we were ‘fresh fish’ ready to be caught. Walking down the street (especially in Colaba, the haunt of many tourists), and sticking out like sore thumbs, it was hard to avoid the constant flow of people coming towards us, asking us to enter their shop, look at their stall, book a tour with them, or just plain asking for money.
It may sound pretty ignorant to complain about poor people asking you for money. We’re clearly extremely rich by their standards, and it’s only human to feel like you should help in some way. But it’s not quite that simple when you’re here. If you give money to one guy, do you also give to the next guy two metres further along the street, and the next and the next? Or, if you’re selective, do you pick
the blind guy or the person with no legs who walks around on his hands or the woman with a small child? And how do you deal with the hordes of people who surround you when they realise you’re a ‘giver’? We found that the best way to do it was to give a decent amount, but not too often, and when there aren’t too many people around.
Anyway, despite the hassle, we did have some good times in Mumbai. On our first day, we visited the Gateway of India (a massive arch near the city’s main port), Crawford markets (huge, old markets, selling everything from fruit and veg, to spices, to live animals!), Mahalakshmi temple (a beautiful temple on Malabar hill, which had a nice quiet area out the back which overlooked the Bay, where we sat for ages, escaping Mumbai’s noise), and Chowpatty beach (a long beach stretching across much of Mumbai’s coast, heavily populated with visiting families playing long into the night).
On the next day we hung around with a couple of Indian guys we’d met the previous evening (Babu and Dinesh). They showed us around the Dhobi ghats (massive area where the city’s
laundry is sent - can you imagine the washing of millions of people all happening in one place?!), a beautiful Jain temple (‘Jain’ is a minority religion in India), the hanging gardens, and Ghandi’s house.
We had a nice day with Babu and Dinesh but then we got stung. Babu had mentioned earlier in the day that he lived in a church and, when he had some spare time, helped out by working with the children who also lived there. So at the very end of the day, he asked if we could help him out by donating some money so that he could afford to buy a ‘shoe box’ (containing all the materials for shoe cleaning) so that he could use it to earn some money for the children. We were dubious, but agreed to offer him half of the money (about £25, which is a lot of money there!). Things then turned really awkward as he started asking for more, as it’s “for the children”. Call us cynical but, in hindsight, we don’t really believe that money was spent towards a shoebox for the children – more like straight into his back pocket. If you asked me
what Babu and Dinesh are doing right now, I’d put my money on them talking to a couple more ‘fresh fish’ like us, eyeing up their next ‘donation’! Another thing that added to our cynicism about Babu and Dinesh was the fact that they took Oriana to buy a traditional Indian dress from a chosen stall, went through some elaborate bartering process on our behalf, and then we still ended up paying what we later found out to be massively over the odds for the clothes we bought – wonder what their commission was on this!
That experience with Babu and Dinesh wound us up a bit, and left a bitter taste. For a start, it’s so frustrating to offer something (quite generous for a couple of guys we barely knew) and then be asked for more. And also, it’s so harsh to gain people’s trust and friendship and to then throw it in their face and basically rip them off. It made it much harder for us to trust people from that point on. But, you live and learn…
The day after our ‘run-in’ with Babu and Dinesh, we left Mumbai by train to Udaipur.
Udaipur (19
– 23 September)
Udaipur was, in contrast, a really chilled out place, and we were so relieved to get there after the madness of Mumbai.
On our way there, we were supposed to change in Ahmedabad, but the first train was late so we missed our connection and had to get a bus the rest of the way. So there we are in a rickshaw on our way to find the bus station…an old guy with half his teeth missing picks us up and oh my god be ready for the craziest drive ever! We went in between motorcycles crossing each other, but the worst was when he went against the traffic on a crammed three- lane road (equivalent to 5 lanes here), with cows lying lazy in the middle, some guy pushing his fruit n veg stall across the road and children zigzagging between cars! Add to that the noise of horns, music, people, and you can picture how scary the ride was, I (Oriana) even found myself secretly praying Ganesh for a safe arrival at the bus station!
But we made it! The bus from Ahmedabad to Udaipur took ages because we had to change
the tyre - quite a recurrent theme here in India!
In Udaipur, on our way to the hotel, the rickshaw driver stopped to pick up his ‘cousin’ (they’re all brothers or cousins here!), who persuaded us to have a look around his hotel. We were a bit resistant, on the defensive after our experiences in Mumbai, but we decided to go with the flow and check out the place…and we’re glad we did since we stayed there for 4 nights! Speaking to other tourists at the hotel, it seems that they were all roped in in the same way!
That’s just one example of how things work in India – everyone in a city is interconnected, they all know someone with an hotel, a restaurant, a rickshaw or a tour operator, and they always refer people on - either just because it’s friends or family, although usually for commission! This is so different to western countries, as we were discussing it with some Indian chap who asked us “how many of your neighbours do you know?”
Anyway, back to our story. Udaipur is such a nice place, in fact our “coup de coeur” of India. It’s quiet,
peaceful and romantic, surrounded by mountains and squeezed in between five lakes.
The rooftop of our hotel had a beautiful view over the lake Pichola, a nice place to sit and relax with a few drinks. On that rooftop, we met a few guys which we in fact ended up meeting again a few times before leaving India: there was Anton (a kind of drifter from Scotland who was slowly making his way down to Australia); Jan, a German guy who is 2 months away from finishing his one year around the world trip; Alexandra, a very friendly girl from Poland; and Kabir with his friend Yeman, both from Jaipur, a city we visited a few weeks later. We had a great evening together, went for dinner and ended up at Pushkar’s café, where we bust a few dance moves.
As for sightseeing, we visited the city palace, which is on the coast of Lake Pichola, and then took a boat trip to Jag Mandir island in the middle of the lake - it was beautiful, very tranquil.
We also took some cooking lessons with an Indian lady called Shashi, and learnt how to make chai tea,
masala curries, naans and chapattis amongst other things. But the best part of the evening for us was to listen to Shashi’s story. She told us how her husband was murdered a few years ago by a close friend of theirs. Because Shashi is from the Brahmin caste (a strong caste), she was not allowed to re-marry. In fact, for the 45 days following the death of her husband, she had to stay covered in a corner in her home and receive other women from her caste throughout each day to mourn and cry together. She also wasn’t allowed to eat during the daytime for those 45 days. In addition (!), she wasn’t allowed to leave her house for an entire year. Because of her strong caste, Shashi was not allowed to go out to work. But she had no skills that she could use to earn some money from her home, so she had to take on secret laundry (which is usually a low caste job) to earn a few Rupees to keep her children in school.
At some point, after a few years of struggling, she met an Australian tourist who gave her the idea of giving
cooking lesson to other tourists. She now has a well-established business, recommended by Lonely Planet, a cooking book and a website, all accomplished with the help of her cooking students! This story really opened our eyes to the (sometimes) cruel fate of the caste system, which has a massive influence in Indian society – despite politicians’ efforts to remove the prejudices that are inherent in the system, it still impacts what jobs people can do and the opportunities they have.
Another nice guy we met in Udaipur was Yogi, owner of a small juice bar on the main street. Apparently he has this special gift (a very religious man!) – he is able to cure people and to put curses on them. Over a papaya juice, we spoke about karma, spirits, energy, and even black magic. He arranged a rickshaw tour for us 10-20 km out of the city…
The rickshaw took us out through rural villages on the way to Crocodile Lake and Tiger Lake. It was so nice to see the reactions of the villagers as we passed by – a mixture of persistent and inquisitive looks, but once you raise a smile you always get
a bigger one in return! Tiger Lake was beautiful. It was huge, surrounded by mountain peaks, with a massive temple down one side, a layer of which was partly submerged in the water (when the water level is low, they can enter the lower layer).
On the way back from Tiger Lake, we happened upon a festival that was taking place in a small village nearby. We followed the flow of villagers and ended up in a crowded square, full of people singing and dancing. As we looked over our shoulders, we saw the procession beginning – a group of people were walking towards us, supporting the body of a hand-made elephant, with a guy in some crazy warrior costume sitting on top. What are the chances eh?! We were the only tourists there, and we felt so lucky to stumble across such an interesting, vibrant festival. There are many Hindu festivals (we witnessed quite a few in just a month!) and it’s great to see how these traditions really bring people together.
For Lee’s birthday, we went to watch some traditional Rajasthani dancing, back in Udaipur, in Bagore-Ki Haveli. It was so interesting to watch – especially
the woman with a two metre stack of pots on her head, dancing round at full speed, stamping on glass! We finished the evening in probably the best restaurant in Udaipur (Ambrai) just by the lake (although still pretty cheap by English standards!) and finished up with a few drinks in Pushkar’s café.
After such a great time in Udaipur, it was actually quite hard to leave. We’d actually started to feel quite at home! We’d walk down the street and have a few nods, smiles and chats from familiar faces. Such a friendly place and, to us, the highlight of Rajasthan!
Jaisalmer (24 – 28 September)
Next up was Jaisalmer, a pretty small town near the Thar Desert, with a massive fort overlooking the town from the top of the hill at its centre.
The journey there was a horrible, bumpy, long, overnight bus ride. Just a small tip – don’t board an Indian bus having just drunk a juice, then a chai, and then a beer! We’ll say no more!
Once in Jaisalmer, we visited the fort for some great views out into the Thar Desert and to watch to sun set. On the
morning of the second day, we embarked on a camel safari for two nights, armed with white turbans and baggy trousers. Oriana’s camel was called Papu, but Lee got the younger and more temperamental Michael Jackson (presumably because of his eccentric moves, in an attempt to get rid of mosquitoes!). MJ was a real moaner (cham’on!); he would moan to get up, and it would walk through every bush possible for a “camel massage” as our guide Hussain would say (or a bit of a scratch in lay terms). You should have seen Lee’s face lol! It was very funny to watch, and Hussain would often say “what to do? India is India!” – an expression we heard a lot while we were here.
Hussain lived all his life in the desert and he was pretty ignorant about the “outside world”, but he sure knew a lot about the desert. He showed us how to make a fire under the sand when it’s too windy, how to put a saddle around a camel, or even how to wash dishes using the sand.
The safari itself wasn’t purely in the desert and we spent much of the daytime traipsing
through farmlands, grasslands and local villages before making our way to the dunes for the night. The sleeping arrangements were pretty basic, consisting of being sandwiched between two camel-stinking blankets on the sand! It was best not to think about what bugs or animals might be surrounding us!
On the second night, we picked up a chicken from a village, carried it by its legs to the dunes (still alive!) before it was killed Halal style in front of our eyes and butchered (all with Lee’s pen-knife) and added to a delicious and very spicy curry. It felt cruel but it was so good…
The highlight of the safari was to sleep under the starlit sky, never before had we seen such an unspoilt array of stars. We could even see the Milky Way, disappearing into the border lights of Pakistan on the horizon! It was breath-taking, and made it hard to close your eyes to go to sleep!
When we got picked up by our jeep on the final day, to our surprise, Jan and Anton (the two guys from Udaipur) were inside it!! It was nice to see familiar faces again after 3 days of
isolation and to compare stories of the desert.
We spent our last night in Jaisalmer with Anton, Jan and Martina - a German woman in her forties, who we suspected was having a bit of a hanky-panky with Meeru, the owner of the hotel (!). We walked to some festivities in town as part of the Durga festival. Children were dancing around and clapping sticks together - Oriana quickly got enrolled. We were made so welcome and got the impression that they were extremely proud to share their traditions with us.
Jodhpur (29 September – 2 October)
The next destination was Jodhpur, the blue city of Rajasthan – so named because many of the houses are painted in a bright sky blue.
We had a bit of a bizarre encounter on the first day: we met some guy who kindly invited us into his father house for a chai. We said yes (“why not?” as the Indians always say!). He then invited us to his father’s house for a great view of the city and Jodhpur’s fort from the rooftop. I (Lee) was reluctant but Oriana said yes. It’s true, the view was nice. But then he
asked us if we would lie down and have a ‘cuddle’ on his bed! We laughed and made a hasty exit. What a weirdo!
Anyway, onto the sights of Jodhpur…
The city itself is made up of tiny, narrow streets, all buzzing with small shops, bustling markets, rickshaws, motorcycles, people, and plenty of cows and pigs just wandering around for good measure! Even using Ori’s jamming skills, it took quite some time to get around.
We visited Jodhpur’s main attraction, Meherangarh fort, on the second day. On our way there we came across a massive black cobra who lived in a hole. Legend has it that two cobras have lived there for many years; they are seen as a manifestation of Shiva (one of the main Hindu Gods), and once a year there is a festival in their honour, at the place in which they live. The fort itself was impressive and immense, full of history and stuff that we can’t really remember! (Check us out!)
The next day made up one of the highlights of the trip. We took the local bus (which was fun in itself!) to Mandor gardens, with Jan, Anton and Nadine.
We didn’t know much about this place, but it was full of surprises. Hidden amongst the vegetation were huge cenotaphs, dedicated to the deceased Maharajahs (kings) of the past. We then climbed a hill to find countless monkeys – some guys came out with a massive sack of ‘nanas and we were delighted to help them feed the greedy animals! (So greedy that one of them started chasing Oriana at one point for her last banana!) We then wandered up to a river where we met some guys that were feeding chapatti dough to the fish. They happily shared their dough with us so we could have a go as well – they were such nice guys, although it was tough communicating with them! They invited us to join them up the hill, to a temple at the summit. We followed, up the hill, up some steps, then some more steps, through the entrance to the crumbling old temple, to a small unlit room at the back where they were burning offerings to their God. We watched their ceremony in silence and, even for non-believers like us, it felt like a special moment. We then followed them to another temple
– through an unlit passage, stepping into another tiny unlit room where they lit a candle to reveal a different shrine to a different God (the Hindu religion has over 30 million Gods!). To exit the temple, we had to crawl through a tunnel which brought us back out to the light, to the same place we had left our shoes! …An awesome day, topped off with a few turbo beers in the evening, in the only bar we could find!
Pushkar (2 – 5 October)
And so onto Pushkar, a quiet, relaxed, religious town (so religious in fact that all meat, eggs and alcohol are banned!), centred around the sacred Pushkar Lake.
The lake is surrounded by 52 ghats (gateways). People go to this lake to pray for their families and the first time any tourist ventures through a ghat, they are collared by a local priest who walks you down to the river to offer prayers for your family, and asks for a donation. Once this is out of the way, they tie a strip of red and yellow string round your wrist (known as the Pushkar passport) to show the other priests that you’ve made
a donation. You can then walk freely around the lake and through any ghat.
Pushkar Lake was a fascinating place to sit and watch: People washing their clothes and themselves, or just having a splash around, drying their colourful saris in the sun, cows wandering about (of course! They’re everywhere!), flocks of birds flying from one side of the lake to the other.
Other than that, Pushkar is pretty much just one street, with loads of shops on it!
We also walked up to Savriti temple on a hill high above the town to take in some views of Pushkar and watch the sun go down over the desert horizon.
One final thing to mention about Pushkar was the relentless noise of the pantomime (in relation to yet another religious festival!) that took place in the street near our hotel every night we were there! But it was pretty funny to watch and the kids seemed to be loving it, so fair enough!
Jaipur (5 – 8 October)
Woohoo! Back to the madness of India’s big cities! Jaipur is the capital of Rajasthan, with around 5 million inhabitants. As opposed to the other cities we
visited so far, the town and its main sights are really spread out, which makes for a helluva lot of traffic on the roads, and lots of rickshaw journeys.
On our first evening in Jaipur, we met up with Rich and Katie (a couple of friends from back in Brum), who had come out for a two week break. It was nice to see some familiar faces from back home, just to bring it all back into perspective. We exchanged stories about our time in India so far (they didn’t have a particularly high opinion of Delhi!).
The following day we took a cycle rickshaw tour to the water palace, came across some elephants on the way (quick stop for an unmissable photo opportunity!), and were then taken to a load of shops by the rickshaw drivers on the way back into town (the commission theme coming back to bite us again!). It was interesting to see how all the local handicrafts were made – we watched some guys cutting and polishing semi-precious stones, and another chap stamping patterns onto a massive piece of sari fabric. Following that, we took a stroll up to ‘monkey palace’, a temple
up on a hill which is highly frequented by a local monkey population. It was nice apart from the part where a monkey jumped up and bit Katie! Not too much blood or anything, but enough to warrant a trip to the hospital for a quick jab!
Most of the rest of our time was spent with an Indian guy called Kabir, who we’d met in our hotel in Udaipur. Kabir was so kind to us – drove us round to places we would never have found on our own, helped us out, invited us to his home for dinner (they cooked us a ma-hoo-sive chicken curry on a barbeque, up on his rooftop), took us to a ‘club’ on the outskirts of town (more on that later!), allsorts. And he never asked for a thing in return, such a nice guy.
One of the highlights of our time mooching around with Kabir was when we went to his friend Yeman’s house to pick him up (we also met Yeman in Udaipur). We were invited into his home for chai and nibbles, met his family, and got a taste for how they live. We were made so welcome.
But let’s come back to that ‘club’ for a minute. It was miles out of town, near the airport, in the function room of a big plush hotel. The drinks were a rip-off and the music was suspect. But it was well worth it because we’d not seen anything like a club during our time in India (it was nice to see that they exist, at least), but also because of the dozens of Indian guys and girls going nuts on the dancefloor! They were loving it, pulling out all sorts of crazy moves to terrible music (you know that horrible dirge-y track that goes ‘you can get your girlfriends and meet me in the hotel room…’ and ‘…hotel, motel, holiday inn…’? That was the most popular track of the night!). It was kind of like a school disco crossed with the worst room in Risa on a Friday night, but full of Indian people instead of chavs!
The next day Katie and Rich headed off to Pushkar whilst we departed on a horrible lengthy train journey to Agra (lucky the drinks were so expensive in the club, or we might’ve had hangovers to contend with!).
Agra (8
– 10 October)
To speak about Agra is to speak about the Taj Mahal. Don’t get us wrong, there are some other things to see and do in Agra, but (on the advice of others!) we didn’t do them. Generally, if you ask people about Agra, you hear only of the Taj Mahal. We will do the same here (although it is worth quickly mentioning that the city itself absolutely stinks!).
We woke up early to catch the Taj at dawn, arriving just after 6 o’clock, just as the sun was starting to light the sky. Having arrived the previous evening, in the dark, we hadn’t actually seen it yet since we arrived in Agra. As we walked through the main entrance archway, opposite the Taj, it came into view, grey through the morning mist. As the sun started to peek through the trees, it turned a yellow-orange colour, before later becoming bright white, casting a heavy shadow on all the ant-sized people wandering around it in awe. You would think that, because you’ve seen so many pictures of it throughout your life (every tourist brochure of India!), that you wouldn’t find it particularly astounding. But it was
amazing, and we could do nothing but stare at it (and take pictures!). Once you get close up to it, you can see the fine detail of the carvings in the marble, the writing around the archways and the decorative flowers adorning the walls.
The Taj Mahal has a pretty interesting history. It was built by the emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favourite wife (he had many!) when she died following the death of their fourteenth child, and took over 20 years to build. Legend has it that he killed the wife of the architect so that he could share in his pain and design a fitting monument. It is also said that the emperor had wanted to be laid to rest in an identical monument built in black, on the opposite side of the river, when he himself died. However, his successor found it too expensive so they just laid him to rest next to his wife in the main mausoleum of the Taj, where they remain to this day.
Rishikesh (10 – 14 October)
We had originally planned to go to Varanasi following Agra, but that would have involved a gruelling 24 hour round
trip, to another big city. Given we’d just visited Jaipur and Agra (both big, sprawling cities) we decided on Rishikesh instead for some much needed Rest ‘n Relaxation, to reflect on our time in India.
Visiting Rishikesh also gave us the chance to fulfil Oriana’s obsession with staying in an ashram for a few days! For anyone who doesn’t know what an ashram is (we certainly didn’t before we came to India!), it’s a centre for yoga and meditation (or ‘stretching and thinking’ as Lee likes to call them). They generally have pretty rigid schedules and rules, but ours was relatively relaxed (we were actually allowed to leave the complex, whereas some of them don’t allow this, and some even go as far as banning conversation and reading, and separate males and females!).
The ashram experience was pretty interesting to say the least. The schedule ran as follows: 5-6 am was prayer time (needless to say we didn’t attend this!); 7-8:15 am was yoga; 8:30 – 9 am was breakfast; 1-2 pm lunch; 5:30 – 6:30 pm was ‘aarati’ – basically some singing and prayers and stuff around the nearby river Ganga – pretty interesting to watch; 6:30
– 7 pm was ‘Question Time’ with the Guru of our ashram – more on that below!; and then dinner from 7 – 8 pm and meditation from 8 – 8:30 pm. The gate to the ashram closed at 10 pm (!).
One thing we couldn’t help but notice about our ashram, and Rishikesh in general, was the amount of westerners that were there. There were loads of experimental hippies, and then people like us who just enjoyed soaking up the ‘peace and love’ vibe. But then there were also many ‘converts’ there – the type of people who you imagine went there for a few days or a week and got carried away with it all and decided to stay there, going to Hindu prayers and singing, wandering around dressed in white (or sometimes dressed like sadhu - a Hindu holy man with no caste or family ties). It was difficult to decide whether these people had genuinely been inspired by the things they learnt and saw in Rishikesh, or whether they just thought it was cool to live in some hippie mountain town in India and do yoga and meditate all day long. The cynical part of
you follows the latter hypothesis, especially as most of them make no effort to speak Hindi, or eat local food, or mix with Indian people.
Anyway, despite the masses of ‘converts’, and our slight feeling of being out of place in the ashram, Rishikesh was a great place to hang out for a few days. The town is set on the Ganga river (which later tributes to the Ganges, India’s most sacred river), with mountains rising dramatically in the background. It’s a pretty vibrant place too, with very little traffic and plenty of people (and cows!) walking around adding to the atmosphere. There’s also lots of nice little rooftop cafes overlooking the river, especially in Laxman Jullah, an area of town a few kilometres upstream.
In terms of the yoga and meditating…well we never really got off the ground! We did attend the yoga session on our first morning, and it was quite refreshing as a means of shaking off all those lengthy bus and train journeys when you’re contorted into some horribly uncomfortable position for hours. But after that first day we never managed to drag ourselves out of bed in time! As for the meditation, well
we went along for about one minute of the first session (and the second!) and then sacked it off. Don’t get us wrong, we’re all for a bit of ‘thinking’ (or is meditation supposed to be about ‘not thinking’? Not sure, they never told us), but they kept throwing in all these religious chants that put us off. That was the main problem with the ashram experience – there was kind of a religious flavour to it, which limited our involvement in it. We don’t believe in all that stuff, all the things they’re chanting about, so it feels pretentious to join in.
So speaking about the religious flavour to the ashram, let’s move onto the ‘Question Time’ with the ashram’s guru. You see, each ashram has a kind of Guru – an ‘enlightened master’ – and this session was a forum in which you could ask him questions. Feeling inquisitive about the whole thing, we attended the QT session on our first day. Let’s just say there were few ‘outsiders’ like us there. It was like stepping into the centre of one of those weird sects from middle America (not helped by the fact that most of the
attendees were yanks!). They were all speaking about a load of wishy washy nonsense about ‘seeing the light’ and using meditation as a pathway to ‘tuning into their inner GPS to keep them on God’s path’. What a load of rubbish! And there was us thinking we’d ask him what he wore under his robe, or how much money he earned!
One final thing to mention about the ashram was that the food was as nasty and plain as you can imagine! I mean, come on, at least add some salt and pepper or something to liven it up!
So, given that our ashram was full of nutters and the food was terrible, we didn’t spend a great deal of time there, but luckily there were plenty of other things to do in Rishikesh. Lots of nice cafes by the Ganga to sit and relax; some nice peaceful beaches on the riverbank a few miles upstream - the water was a clear translucent green colour, cool, clean and refreshing! We also went rafting, which was pretty cool although not too rapid – but still a nice way to see a decent stretch of the river.
Delhi (14-15 October)
We didn’t do anything in Delhi except sleep and then go and get on our flight to Kathmandu…! The only thing we can say is that the airport is spotless and brand new!
Some thoughts about India…
Well it’s probably best to start off by highlighting that we spent just one month in India. We saw a fraction of the country (we didn’t even venture south of Mumbai, or east of Delhi) and so we can’t exactly pretend to ‘summarise’ India or anything like that. You could spend years in India and still only scratch the surface. But we’ll try to say how we feel about our experiences, as narrow as they were…
The people
Yes, we did have some bad experience in Mumbai to start with, but we found that the majority of Indians we met were extremely friendly, very curious and pleased to speak to you and help you out, and proud of their country and happy that we’d come to visit. When you’d meet someone they’d always come up with a similar round of questions – the usual “what’s your good name?”, “where are you from?”, etc – but they’d also be keen
to know what your job was and how educated you were, to try and place you in the hierarchy that they’re used to with the caste system. When Indians meet each other, they can ask their surname, where they’re from and pick up other signs from their appearance to get some idea of their caste (and therefore their ‘rank’ in society). With foreigners, they have to delve a little deeper and ask a few more questions…
It would be nice to be able to say that every Indian person we met was lovely, but that’s not quite true (it wouldn’t be true in any country in fact). But sometimes it’s easy to confuse ‘rudeness’ with simple differences in mannerisms between us and them. For example, they don’t bandy about the words ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ like we do. And sometimes you’d catch someone staring straight at you, but they wouldn’t avert their gaze – they’d just carry on staring, but that’s only because that’s not considered rude or threatening as it is back in Europe – there’s no harm in it at all, more a curiosity.
Living conditions
Never before had we seen so much poverty in the
streets…from the slums, to people sleeping on market stalls and benches in Mumbai, to men without legs walking on their hands (although often with a big smile on their face) and families living meters away from the railway line…needless to say that the living conditions for these people are terrible. Many parts of India are very dirty with open sewage systems running right through the streets (to the pigs delight!), rubbish accumulating everywhere and limited supplies of clean water.
In the middle of all this poverty, you find forts, palaces, cash- rich temples and brand new high-rise buildings. Politicians speak a lot about fixing these inequalities: one recent discussion being about defining the poverty line, currently defined as a measly 32 Rupees a day (that’s a bag of flour and a bottle of water!) to hide the fact that as much as 40 to 50%!o(MISSING)f the population live in very poor conditions. You’ll see a lot of stories in the press and from speaking to people, about all the corruption in Indian politics and the police.
Religion
Another thing to note about India is the impact of religion on the way everybody lives. The majority of Indians
are Hindu but there are also many Muslims and Sikhs, and a few Christians, Jains, Buddhists and Parsis. The best thing about it is that they all seem to mix and interact together with no problems.
And so religion is everywhere: Many people go to their place of worship every single day; in most towns and cities you can’t walk for five minutes without coming across a temple, or a mosque, or a shrine of some sort, with women sitting outside selling necklaces of jasmine flowers to offer to the Gods; you can hear the religious chants bellowing out across town in the morning and the evening; and in almost every Hindu shop or home there is a shrine to the family’s chosen God, or often to Ganesh, as he is the God of luck and prosperity.
Religion is an everyday part of almost all Indian people’s lives. A way of life pretty much. Especially the whole idea of karma – if you do good, then good things happen to you, and vice versa. So if something bad happens to you, then it’s just a consequence of something bad you did in the past or in a past
life, so there’s no use doing something else bad in return. Best to do something good so that good things will come round to you in the end. Nice thought.
Bargaining
We surely can’t write a blog on India without mentioning the art of bargaining!
First up, let’s just say that it’s a steep learning curve. We could’ve been paying three times the price for some things in Mumbai, just after we arrived, and been none the wiser. But I think it’s fair to say we’d picked up some skills by the end of the month. Oriana in particular is pretty awesome at it, it must be said (inherited from her father!), whereas am still finding my feet (or, rather, less inclined towards confrontation!).
So, you ask how much something is, and you are told a price…you know you can have it cheaper, but how low do you go? Well some things are pretty fixed in price (food, water, cigarettes) so that’s simple enough. But as for pretty much everything else, it’s anyone’s guess! They could’ve added 20%!o(MISSING)n the price, or doubled it, or tripled it…who knows? But a fair enough rule of thumb in many
cases is to offer a third of the asking price. You’ll either get a flat ‘no’, or they’ll come down towards your price. This is probably the point at which I would say ‘OK’ and buy, but Oriana would stand firm, trying to drag them down further. And further. And if all else fails, start to walk away, and then you’ll see what the seller is made of – whether they’ll really sell for your offer price or not.
But the above is just the tip of the iceberg – most shopkeepers have got so many more tricks up their sleeves. For example, let’s say you ask how much something is, they say ‘200 Rupees’ and you offer 100. They refuse. Then you ask how much something else is and they think ‘hmmm this guy’s wants to knock half the price off’ so they tell you it costs 400 Rupees. You say ‘200’ and they agree, because the true value is only 100. So they’ve ripped you off by 100 Rupees and you think you’ve won! Bit of a geeky maths-y example, but hopefully you get the picture – even if you think you’re winning, you’re probably getting ripped
off in one way or another!
Transport
As we’ve already said above, some places in India are unbelievably crowded, but none more so than the buses, trains and the roads.
How many children can you fit in a rickshaw? At least ten judging by what we’ve seen.
We went on 10+ hour journeys on the train, having reserved a sleeper bunk, only for it to be invaded by lazy women stealing our space, or guys just plonking themselves on the end of our bunk. Some of the local bus journeys were even worse, especially with the bumpy roads and manic driving!
But it has to be said, it’s amazing to see how they cope with the crowds so well. In our countries people would moan so much, but here they’re very patient and calm, transforming long uncomfortable trips into chats and laughs with their neighbours over a chai tea.
Sensory overload!
Colours – the vibrant colours of the women’s saris as they stroll past you in the street carrying massive bags on their heads; the yellow-orange of the desert sunsets; the changing tones of the Taj Mahal as the sun moves across the sky; the
spice and fruit and veg stalls in the busy markets; the jets of red paan spit from pretty much every man in the street; the blue city of Jodhpur; the pink city of Jaipur; the multi-coloured flags above Rajasthan’s temples; the colourful gemstones in handmade jewellery.
Sounds – the relentless orchestra of car horns; the packs of stray dogs barking at night; the crescendo of bells from the temples; the chants by the Ganga; the regular-as-clockwork prayers from the mosques; not to forget the constant rattle of the fans and air coolers!
Smells – the smell of spices (esp. coriander) down every street; the whiff of incense burning in shops and temples; but also the stench of pollution, cow shits and the stinky dirty toilets in the trains!
Touch - the feel of pashmina, cashmere and silk; the feel of filth on your skin at the end of every long journey!
Taste - Well we never thought we would be able to eat curry for days on end, but it turns out we can! Can you imagine having curry for breakfast?!
But it turned out that we really enjoyed eating so much of the native food
- even Oriana who was so resistant to ‘warm-up’ curries in the last few weeks in England!
To conclude
India is the country of extremes. As they say here, “everything is possible in India” and we certainly experienced that feeling.
Yes, it was a culture shock, but that was a great way to start the trip – to experience something so different in every sense to what we know. But at the same time, this made it tiring, as there was just so much to take in at the end of every day. Our retreat in Rishikesh at the end of this month has given us a chance to digest everything we’ve seen and done in India and given us a flavour of the Himalayan surroundings we’ll explore in Nepal…
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Bruno MIOTTI
non-member comment
Trop top, on participe à votre extraordinaire aventure! J' ai bien aimé le style du blog, soit la prose florissante et passionnée d'ORi, soit le prose flegmatique, profonde et pleine d' humour de Lee. C'est vraiment sympa pour nous, stuck in Europe Continue de progresser en bargaining, je suis fière de toi. Bises à vous deux