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Published: April 19th 2010
Hey everyone,
sorry I havn't updated for awhile, lots of things done and lots to say.
Firstly we went to Jodhpur Fort which I think is the best fort we have been in India it had lots to see varying from just Walls to a decoration to give an insight of how these maharajas lived in these mamouth places.
Our next stop was Jaisalmer another desert city in West India, so the train ride there meant getting a little sandy and sweaty! We arrived in Jaisalmer and were harrased all over the shop by touts trying to get us to go to their hotel, we stubbornly rejected every attempt and literally pushed our way through. After about 20 mins we caved in to one guy, it was pretty basic but for 75p a night I'm not going to argue, plus we are only there for one night.
We spent the rest of the day discovering the small town. We got our first barber shave which wasn't as great as I had expected but had to be done. After we mangaed to go to an Internet cafe where a couple of guys there were very friendly and very adorned to the western culture. They used phases such as 'brother from another mother' and 'whatsup!' It was such a contrast to outside, and just seemed to emphasise the younger generations attitiudes and hopes of becoming more western.
Later on we grabbed some of the best Thalia that we have had in India at a place called Sagar. The food was soo good that if Jaisalmer didn't turn out to be great then I wouldn't be that bothered. The next day unfortunately I was very Ill and it was also the day when we had to get a 12hr train back to Delhi.
Feeling ill and being in over 40 degree heat is not the best thing but nothing could be helped the train was quite busy which again didn't help things.
After a night on the train we woke up in Delhi and decided that we need to go to the FRRO to sort out our re-entry registration thing, by the time we got there it was too late and they had closed up for the day which was annoying because not only was it 3:30pm but also we had to get a tuktuk all the way there and its quite a way out of town. Instead we went to the airport to sleep over night there, which again wasn't great but was a cheap option and needs must. When it came to go through the immigration post I had trouble again, the guy wanted to see my documents from the FRRO which I obviously didn't have. After a few minutes he decided to discuss this was someone else who fortunatley gave the nod and I was on my way out of India. I seem to continously get in trouble with Indian immigration I have a feeling they don't like me.
Reflecting back on India, although the culture shock made me feel completly out of place in the early days we did eventually get used to it, and once you do you get to see how beautiful India is. Black out the noise, pollution and constant hastle and see the colours the smiles and the general vibrance of the country I really would recommend it to anyone. I hopefully will one day go back to India as we definetly didn't have enough time there, although I don't think you could ever have enough time. We realised that this trip is about tasting different places rather than experiencing them which is a shame but it does give us a good idea of where we would like to go in the future.
Anyway we made to Beijing, and the difference is incredible the first thought that went through my mind was that we were back in a western cultured country with New York looking taxis on wide roads and the clean streets and tube ride on the way to the hotel. The hotel we stayed at was awesome it's called the Jade International Youth Hostel and it's clean with very friendly English speaking staff who are lifesavers as they managed to book our train tickets when we came back from the train station pretty disheartened. The train station had one english queue which we initially thought was great but they told us to go to another queue who didn't speak English at all and told to go back to the English speaking queue. So we gave up. But the hotel did it all for us no probs! We have learnt our lesson. Are lack of Chinese also got us in a muddle at our first restaurant stop. Where ordering water and rice was not as easy as we thought.
Anyway the main highlight in Beijing was when we got to go to the Great Wall in Sumitai a less touristy area of the wall with pretty cool views although as everyday so far it's pretty misty! We had a couple of old ladies follow us for a while trying to sell some books but luckily we were a little bit fitter than them and lost them. The best thing about this part of the wall is that it hasn't been restored so you can see all the originally paving and walls which I think it's all about.
We also walked around the mamouth complex that is the forbidden city. The size of this place is unbeliveable it takes a good day to see most of the nookes and cranies but the stunning arcitecture keeps you wanting to see more. It was built in the Ming dynasty period and seemed to suffer from fires quite frequently but fortunetly most was rebuilt.
We also looked around Tianamen Square where chairman Mao's resting place is and you can get a quick glimpse at his corpse. The Chinese people see him as a god and the way they went about things it was almost a religous practice. The queue was massive and everyone was desperate to get inside. You could buy flowers outside and those who did bowed in front of his portrait 3 times and carried on. The glimpse of the corpse that we got was a little dissapointing as he did just look like a wax figure and I question the ligitacamacy of it.
Beijing is the size of Belgium and we had only 3 days to look around which gave us time to see the big things including the very impressive olympic stadiums birds nest and water cube which are even more impressive than the pictures.
We are currently in xi'an where we managed to see the terracota warriers which were spectacular and what made it even better was that we managed to get in half price for students!! It's mad how someone was one day digging around and just discovered this mass army burried deep under ground though they were in pieces back then and since 76 they have been restoring and standing them in formation in the 3 sited areas.
We plan to go to Suzhou on the 21st so I'll update again after that.
Mark
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Will P
non-member comment
Hey
Alright Mark - Aldridge just passed onto me your blog details, so am working my way backwards now! I'll try and remember to forwar my Chinese-for-dummies document to you - i made a useful section on booking train tickets (without going to the "English" window - which is always useless). Some hostles will charge you for the booking service, so it's useful to have