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Published: February 25th 2008
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Crazy Weather
We didn't pack for 4 foot snow.... Hello Readers! (If we have any!)
Wednesday saw us taking a tour of Delhi. We were up at 6am to get ready and went for a walk around Main Bazaar before being picked up by our tour guide at 7am. Bit of confusion as we waiting in the hostel and he wouldn't go near it due to stealing thier bussiness.
First we went to India Gate, here we walked around by ourselve and took some good photos, this thing is hugh! There was lots of guards and a snake charmer! After seeing this we headed off towards Old Delhi to see the red Fort. When we arrived there was the usual 10 or so people trying to grab us and take us around, we ended up with some young chap (with a dodgy leg) taking us around everywhere by bike for 300 rupees (about £3.50!).He took us to a big mosque which was really nice looking, but with some creepy beggars inside! Then he took us off around Old Dehli, something he hadnt told our guide about! It was a nice ride and we got to see all the different areas, but the main cause of this detour seemed to
View from Plane
Not often you see that!!!! be to get us in some kashmir rug shop, we politely went in and after much hassle walked out without buying anything! Then he took us to the red Fort, we were a bit pushed for time by now so we didn't go inside (the one in Agra is exactly the same and we are heading there soon). We were so pushed for time he gave his bike to someone and got us on a bus, it was jammed packed and Adam hung out the side like a local!. We took some photos there before heading to get our tickets for Srinagra (Himilayas).
We then got drove to the airport for our flight with Kingfisher Airways to Srinagra, we stopped at another mosque, this was the nicest we have seen but unfortunatly no photos were aloud, we have one from outside (red, yellow and white one).
The airport was full of army people (only a taste of what was to come!) and had a McDonalds in it, with Ronald on a bench outside. Our flight was nice with some amazing mountain veiws and we were laughed at for having not winter clothes on (oh deah). We landed in Srinagra
A shop
These guys come shouting at your boat window!!! Cigarettes....chocolate....biscuits...!!! and had to sign lots of forms to say who we were and our reasons for bing here. We were then met by a guy from the tour company who told us not to worry about the soldiers and drove us to our boat house on Lake Meena. On the drive it was freezing, and soldiers were all over the place, all with big guns, we didn't quite realize what it was like here (they must have forgot to mention this at the Tour office!).
On our night of arrive we had some nice Indian food from Yousef (our chef and guy that looked after us on the boat) and then Rammi came to try adn sell us some trips into the mountains. He was trying to get us to give him £275 for 2 day trips to the mountains, promising us lots including seeing K2 ('second highest mountain in the world - you will love it'). We said no to him and told him we couldn't afford it on our budget. He soon returned with the tour guy who sat down trying to talk us into it again, this went on for what seemed like an hour or
Man on the lake
You can see our neighbours boat house on this and a local sales man... so, we still said we couldn't afford it. They started to get a bit mad and went off lecturing us about the problems with tourism they have due to security and stuff, luckily we calmed them down before it turned into a full scale Jihad! They were happy with us not to go on thier trips, but we couldnt leave the boat due to politcal problems, even though in Delhi we were told we could do what we liked!
We spent 3 days in Srinagra on our boat house, and they went as follows:
Day 1. Slept in till afternoon, chilled out, read some magazines and books people had left behind. Bashir (tour guy from Delhi) came to see us and said he could take us up the mountains for £25 to see the last day of the Indian Winter Games and go on the Gondola. This seemed more reasonable, and after a long day on the boat seemed like a good plan. We got some more Indian food from Yousef brought to us and enjoyed that. Slightly unsure of what the meat was, they said chicken but it chewed like beef. hmmm. Nick fell asleep, and Adam
Yousef's Cooking...
The cause of Adam's illness.... was up until 5am until he got some serious sweats and was sick. Seems 'Delly belly' was avoided but not the 'Srinagra Shits'.
Day 2. We were up at 6.30am today ready for our trip, Nick enjoyed some breakfast and Adam stayed in bed 30 mins extra. We had a couple of hour drive to Gulmarg, where the games were taking place. Some normalities on this drive included hundreds of soldiers, our driver stopped to pick up some hash, our jeep picking up various strangers and dropping them further for money and a lovley sight hanging up in the butchers. They had some lovley looking dog meat hanging up, just like a pig would be in the UK. Maybe the cause of Adam's illness! The games were a bit of a let down, not much seemed to be happening, even though it was freezing and about 4 feet of snow everywhere. We then went on the highest Gondola in the world, it took us over 10,000ft but the higher part that goes to 14,000 was closed off due to bad weater. Our veiw of K2 was also spoilt due to bad weater! Same in the evening as usual from
The Gondola
Highest Gondola in the world in Gulmarg our friend yousef, except no food for Adam.
Day 3. Slept in today, until we were woken by the now usual sound of 'cigarettes, chocolate, biscuits, soda...'. These guys would come around on tiny boats trying to sell you food and gifts, Adam gave in and brought a can of Coke today! Then we chilled out playing cards and sitting on the boat roof. Then we watched some Premireship football before heading off to bed - looking forward to our longest bit of travelling yet (9 hours in jeep to Jammu followed by 16 hours on train to Agra, with 3 hours between!)
Our Jeep drive to jammu was the only way out of the mountains except flying, and it went along some crazy roads. Our jeep was normal size with 10 people (all locals) in it and all our bags strapped on the roof. We saw more Soldiers along the way, some of which stopped us to make us fill out departure forms, but our jeep were a friendly bunch and didn't seem to mind. We also saw lots of snow monkeys around and stopped of at some services, not quite like Welcome Break! Once our 9
Welcome Break!
Nick and our Jeep at the services lol, got some bargain food here! hour jeep ride was over we got a Tuk Tuk straight to the train station in Jammu. We managed to get him from 60 rupees to 50 rupees before setting off - our best haggle so far!
We then sat around for our train, the Jhellum Express. We travelled in the AC3 section, which ment our seats which turned into bed were stacked 3 high. If you can imagine half your garage with 9 beds hanging off the wall thats what its like. We swapped seats to help some family sit together and ended up meeting a really nice family, the young girl had very good english and seemed to want to chat lots, and feed us half her food too! Then everyone changed the seats into beds so we all got into bed, it was scary at first leaving your baggage under the bed and your wallet in your pocket while the train was in almost complete darkness. but we both drifted off a few hours into our journey and woke up the next morning with about 4 hours left to Agra. The family left and Delhi station and we met a new bunch who helped out by telling us when Agra Cantt station was. We got off with no problems and had our first man with our name on a sign waiting (sadly no photo).
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Adam Gibson and Nick Burke
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Steve
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Srinara Shits
Looks like them black firestick pepparamis do nothing !!!!!!!!!!!