khughes

Day 32: Mumbai - With the realization that to really see and experience India, at least 1-2 similar sized trips would have to be made, so for that reason we made a decision not to spend much time trying to see sights but instead shop for souvenirs (turned out to be harder than previously thought).We arrived in Mumbai in the morning, although at a more respectable time. Our bus dropped us off on the side of a highway leading into the city, a little past the airport. The first couple of taxis quoted exorbitant prices but a third one to our great surprise offered to use the meter! The meter! It had been so long since I had seen a taxi use a meter, that I had totally forgotten about them. That said I was still ... read more

Day 30: Udaipur We woke up on the bus and was dropped off in some random location at 5:30am (standard procedure it seems for private buses). We got a taxi to Nukkad hotel. Every morning they run yoga on the roof so Ale had a good time doing that. We ate breakfast on the rooftop which had views of the nearby lake and much of the city. For once there was no fort here, although there were a couple of palaces. We decided to walk around, but to be honest, there really wasn't alot to see. Enough to pass the time, but I wouldn'd put Udaipur on a list of "must see's". But of course we did go out to see the city. First stop was a Jain temple called Jagdish Temple, where people where actively ... read more

Day 28: Jodhpur We arrived in Jodhpur at the train station at 5am. Not wanting to deal with any kind of 'tour' or upsell we got a tuktuk to where on the map there was a market, and knowing nearby there was a few hotels. The street was dead, garbage strewn about everywhere, and it was still quite dark. We navigated our way through the narrow winding alleys towards the hotels. We tried some of the hotels listed but they were full. Outside a hotel that was a little to expensive for our tastes was a man from that hotel. Apparently his cousin had a new cheaper hotel nearby so we let him take us there. We got the room, did some much needed laundry to take us through the rest of the trip, before heading ... read more

Day 26: Jaisalmer When we got on the train there were some Indian men in our assigned beds, so we had to wake them up and tell them to get off. That took 10 minutes. We covered up for the cool night. At about 5:30 am,a Chinese woman with her two daughters boarded at Jodhpur and decided with all her wisdom that since she did not know how to find her bed, should would shake awake everyone in the compartment awake asking them if that was her bed. She was in the wrong car but managed to convince some people to leave so got her 3 beds. We arrived in Jaisalmer at 12 pm, 1 hour late and were bombarded by tuktuks offering rides, hotels or camel safaris. Only having 1 night and 1.5 days we ... read more

Day 22: Agra and the Taj Mahal We woke up and were out the door early to catch the 7am train to Agra from Delhi. We organized with our hotel to drop us off.We had second class seats so we found our seats, put our baggage overhead and strapped them in so that they could not be taken easily or discreetly. The train ride was about 5 hours arriving in Agra 1 hour late. We were surrounded by locals for the trip. Because it was Ale's first train ride in India I got some chai from a passing vendor. We arrived in Agra at 12pm. I used a very good site to check the train status at raildb.comWhen we got to Agra we were hounded by tuktuk touts and battled our way through them to the ... read more

Day 20 : New Delhi As I woke up, the bus was rolling into a dark and misty Delhi. The bus ended up dropping us off at some random location, with the tuktuks surrounding us and bounding us. It's difficult to walk when you haven't the foggiest clue where you are. Even the best map can't help that. I teamed up with the Japanese guy beside me to share the rickshaw to our respective hotels. The started out at 300 rupees each, but then a big argument started and a smaller driver came up and offered 200 each. I got him down to 150. We left while the boisterous ones were still loudly arguing. He tried to add-on a 100 ruppee 'luggage charge' but we refused. He obliged and in the cool of the night drove ... read more

Day 18 - Manali It was early in the morning and still dark out when the bus stopped and everyone was getting out. It was 10 km outside Manali. The bus could go no further because of the snowed out road. I paid 200 rupees for the rest of the journey into Manali which was an alpine resort town. The temperature was about -10 oC. I bundled up with my jacket and shawl. The town was deserted. I was running out of money so I made my way to an ATM and got some cash while using the warm interior to get out my gloves, touque and rainjacket. I headed back to try and find a way to the ski hill Solong Nullah which was 13km out of town. Gypsies as they called themselves, were asking ... read more

Day 16 Traveling to Manali First up was a train to Delhi arriving in the morning and then taking a bus overnight to Manali. Well it turned out that the train was late. 5 hours late to arrive meaning I had to stay in the train station for hours. I didn't sleep. When it finally arrived it was 6 am and everyone on the train was awake and loud. I had to kick out 5 people on my bed, break up a fight where two teenage boys were beating up a younger boy who was crying, before trying with limited success to sleep. The train ended up being 8 hours late to arrive in Delhi meaning that I missed my bus and was stuck in Delhi for a day. It was a long tiring and frustrating ... read more

Day 15 Allahabad I woke up, made hot water for shower using the water heater I brought. I headed out with the Australian as we walked about 7 km to the edge of Kumh Mela - the largest festival in the world. The last 'half' festival had 70 million and this year was the full Kumh Mela held every 12 years. The festival is held in a gigantic tent city spread out for and enormous distance mainly along the river, in particular the floodplains. The festival centres around bathing in where India's 2 holiest rivers meet to cleanse you of your sins. Temporary homes, stores, temples and roads were set up. It was near a major military base so there were lots of gun-toting soldiers around, plus many traffic police. There were thousands of people milling ... read more