Having left Pushkar, we made our way back to Ajmer to see several temples before our afternoon train back to Delhi. Unfortunately our taxi driver from the bus station to the first temple (actually it was a mosque) on our list decided to take us to a different mosque. Unable to decipher what the taxi driver's head nods in response to our questions meant, we headed off to see the mosque in front of us. We'd forgotten our headscarves and, rather fed up with the hundred people swarming around us trying to sell us new ones, and unimpressed by the mosque's [View Full Entry]

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In the last push before returning to Delhi and a date with an international flight, we stopped off at Pushkar and Ajmer. Pushkar is a tiny town around a holy mountain lake; as such, it has tons of ghats (bathing points) and temples. Some of the temples are quite elaborate and cool, but nothing unlike others we've seen. We spent most of the last couple days wandering around, absorbing the atmosphere. Just walking, we saw cows charging down packed streets with small boys flying out of the way; langur monkeys monkeys almost as tall as me (maybe an exaggeration; the damn [View Full Entry]

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Qu: Which is your favourite city in India? Ans: Jaipur Finally Jason and I have managed to agree on ONE thing in India: We love Jaipur. On our journey from Delhi to Pushkar (our last adventure on the subcontinent) we made a short (far too short) stop in Jaipur, mainly with the intention of picking up a few souvenirs we had refrained from buying the first time round (thinking we had many months ahead, and not wishing to be overly encumbered with superfluous baggage). However, our day and night in Jaipur reignited our love for the pink city. Although we missed [View Full Entry]

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It only took 5 hours, in an un-air-conditioned steerage-class carriage, and we were back. In one piece, and none the worse for our travels, we were back in Delhi. And most certainly back in India. Having told some fellow travelers back in Rishikesh that Delhi was my 'least favourite place on Earth', I'm feeling a little like I might have to retract the statement. Jason remarked at the very beginning of our trip that Delhi would be our 'new Rome'; our new home-away-from-home, and I, horrified, argued that Delhi would NEVER be our new Rome. But it seems I might have [View Full Entry]

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It had to come sometime, but by anyone's estimation this is too soon. Returning from Mcleod Ganj on a long but good bus ride, we pulled into Chandigarh to find ourselves in a great room. Nauseous and unimpressed by Indian night life, we turned in to get up early for the next day. All was well, but with storm clouds on the horizon. It came out during the night that Lucy had had enough; the only choice was whether I'd join her right away on the return to England. The Nek Chand rock garden the next morning was odd in all [View Full Entry]

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I've only ever been in one other purpose-built city, and I have to say, it was equally as odd. Or rather, Chandigarh seemed to me to be as equally as odd as the first purpose-built city, Canberra. Originally designed by two American architects, and finished (after one of the original architects died in a plane crash) by a Swiss architect, the city has wide open roads, lined, no less, by trees, situated on a grid which intersects at roundabout after roundabout. The separate areas of the city are labeled as "sectors", numbered in a logical and coherent order, with corresponding road [View Full Entry]

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And so, once again, conversation has turned to going home. I am desperate to leave, to sleep in my own bed, to not worry every time I drink a glass of water that it might be festering with disease, that every time I eat a plate of *anything* that it might have vegetables that have been washed in diseased water hidden in it (we're not even considering touching meat or milk), that the next time we get on a bus or a train we might get off so ill that we'll be once again confined to a hotel room for 3 [View Full Entry]

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I'm really starting to hate this town. Mcleod Ganj had a lot to recommend it. Lucy's close friend said it was her favorite in India, we had enjoyed a stay in a town with a similar climate and the high Tibetan refugee population seemed like it might make a nice switch from the standard hustle and bustle of Indians. We got a great, cheap room in the hotel we wanted, there were volunteering possibilities to replace the lost hospital opportunity; things seemed on the upswing. Then I got sick. Right off the bus from Dharamsala, I had to sit and stare [View Full Entry]

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And so it is my turn to sit here with a heavy heart while my poor Jason lies in our hotel room across the road, too sick to get out of bed. In fact, our entire visit to McLeod Ganj has been far from healthy, especially for Jason. Our nine hour trek up from Amritsar left us under the weather, as every trip on public transport seems to do, with stinking colds. After eating our first meal in the mountains (Jason had been too sick to eat while we were traveling) we passed out, intending only to take a nap before [View Full Entry]

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We woke up at 4:30am, dressed, grabbed our bags, and headed into the streets of Amritsar one last time to find a taxi. One taxi, one train (our first foray into steerage class), two busses, and nine and a half hours later we arrived in McLeod Ganj, a Tibetan enclave in the foothills (still an impressive 7000 feet up) of the Himalayas. I have to say that my fear of flying can now safely take second place to my fear of Indian bus drivers. Driving on the wrong side of the road, at speed, overtaking on hairpin bends on mountain roads, [View Full Entry]

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