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Published: March 8th 2010
Ahoy There!
Last time we left off we were sunning/burning ourselves on 36degree Varkala beach in South India. In all honesty, there isn’t much to report as we literally ate, slept and drank for nine days. Now our bellies have returned and we’ve just worked out why. We stayed in a place called Mango House, which turned out to be way over budget yet filled with lovely fellow backpackers. Had a few great parties and hangovers. Some highlights:
Varkala beach is down a big cliff and has some amazing waves. We found the atmosphere and the crowd to be more relaxed, mixed and friendly than Goa. Whether this is because Goa was our first stop or it's actually past its hey-day we’re not sure. In hindsight, we think we should have just travel up the Kerala beaches! We had a great time boogie-boarding and have bruised knees, severe sunburn and a partly snapped spine to prove it! Gail managed to burn despite wearing factor 50 and a t-shirt in the sea and is now peeling. She’s the only person in India/world who is missing out the tanning stage and the only person with Nikki’s suncream handprint branded on her
back…oops.
To help her battered beach body, Gail was going to go for an Adervedyic massage (no idea how to spell it properly or say it for that matter) but upon arrival in the ‘shack’ we were faced with two women scoffing their food and mounds of dirt; she decided this was not a suitably relaxing or hygienic place. Nikki on the other hand decided this would be the perfect venue to provide her with a rather fetching bright ‘traditional Indian’ gold stud in her left ear. How cool is she?!
As we’ve discovered throughout our two-months of traveling around India, it is actually a rather a small place. In Varkala we became social butterflies meeting up - by chance -with all the various people we had spent time with throughout our travels. One special exception really made our time in Varkala memorable… Sat in the café, we spotted what we thought was a rather familiar English face. Upon silly dismissal for being ‘simply not possible’ we discovered just half an hour later on the beach that our wonderful landlady Fiona, from Sheffield, was sat only meters apart from us! This was such a super surprise as neither
of us had any idea that the other would be in Varkala. What are the chances of this ever happening again…?!
Trivandrum.
This is the furthest south we ventured in India, mainly to get the two-day/50 hour train up to Delhi (although we later discovered this passed through Varkala anyway…). Trivandrum was a bit of a shit hole in all honesty! The main road (MG Road) was heaving with traffic and looked like they’d started to put a pavement down but then couldn’t be bothered to finish it. Sadly, this is a common theme throughout India. We did attempt to do some shopping for clothes here as our t-shirts are actually getting permanent sweat patches on them, but we discovered ‘boutique’ shops ten times worse than the ones Mary Queen of Shops visits in England. After trying some hideous tops on we did manage to find Gail some decent flip-flops that mean that she was no longer in the hideous Crocs 24/7. Unfortunately, flip flops are non supportive to a poorly foot so the crocs have returned….
The only highlight form Trivandrum was a visit to the zoo. The streets of India generally have herds of camels;
elephants; cows; monkeys; dogs; cats; goats and horses roaming around so a zoo needs to try really hard to impress. Unsuprisingly, we saw more animals here than we did on our ‘jungle safari’, including two monkeys having a bit of sexy-time. She looked bored.
At a cost of 14pence each to enter, we weren't exactly sure how good the zoo would be; it turns out it was rather depressing: birds were kept in grim cages with just a block of concrete for entertainment. The grizzly brown bears, however, were only separated from the humans by a ‘moat’ that had no water in it, so they could easily escape if they were so inclined. The saddest sight of all was the tiger, lion and leopard cages. They were each in separate cages, approx 2x5meter wide/long with absolutely nothing to do. The tiger seemed to be going mad just relentlessly pacing up and down (see video if it works). It was amazing to be less than a meter away from him; he was so beautiful and grand but sadly we wish that he was free in the jungle. After talking to a couple of friends who also went, we’re unsure that
TKC
following extensive surgery (arms falling off) TKC relax in full recovery. they are ever released into their enclosure, which makes you realize that the 20 quid entrance fee into Chester zoo is worth it.
As always, we’re the last to know whenever there is an Indian festival happening, which isn’t surprising given that one pops up almost daily! We sensed ‘something’ might be happening when we stumbled into the town where we found hundreds of women bartering for clay pots, banana leaves, bricks and kindling. All was revealed the next day as we naively stepped out of our hostel, with rucksacks, ready for the train. We found the streets were lined with 1000’s of women all cooking offerings to the temple. The chaos, heat and noise was incredible and fascinating. We couldn’t have looked more foreign-in all ways- if we’d tried!! Look at the pictures to see the sweat dripping off our faces and smoke stinging our eyes. Least to say we arrived for our train DRIPPING with sweat and stinking of smoke. We’re ashamed to stay we stayed in all of these clothes for the next two days…
The train journey was epic, as expected, but for 25 quid each, who can complain? We booked the 3AC sleeper,
sexy time!!
yes, we took a picture of it... which means we had air con and the seats fold into 3 beds at night (a bit like bunk beds). We shared our section with 4 other passengers, all of whom were Indian, one of which stared at us relentlessly for 49 hours. Highlights include -
·Being offered chai and coffee every 4 minutes by the wallers
·Gail sleeping with her pen knife at the ready after scaring herself silly with the book she was reading (Shantaram)
·Going to the toilet on a squat whilst the train is careering along the tracks
·Feeling awkward as all the really religious Indians around us prayed (a lot)
·Observing Indian people’s behavior and interactions with each other for two days… which in turn has led to debates on whether Indian culture is to be rude, ruthless and survival of the fittest or, if this is normal and, as English, we’re far too polite.
·Gail having the bunk above dropped on her face by the staring man - with no apology.
·Gail shouting at the passengers when they put the fan on when it was ‘clearly air conditioned’.
Delhi
After severe warnings from everybody we have met, we were petrified of
Delhi and somehow built it up into the scariest thing in the world. In utter relief, we were pleasantly surprised to disembark onto a rather clean, relatively empty, hassle free platform. Phew.
We checked into Hotel Namaskar, a four pound a night Lonely Planet recommendation, which is situated on the Main Bazaar in New Delhi (backpacker heaven). The hotel was pretty grim with no glass on the door making sleep impossible, no window, broken fan making it freezing, and…no bloody roof on the toilet. Privacy has hit an all time low with ipods and taps a must-have!
Nikki has described the bazaar as an attack on the senses with hundreds of shops touting for business, men touting, shouting and pissing on the street. Cows, goats, mopeds, cars, cycle rickshaws, auto-rickshaws, beggars, rubbish and Indians pack the street creating the chaos expected. We spent three full-days in Delhi, which we decided wasn’t really enough as despite all the above, we loved it! We spent an afternoon wandering around the tiny, cramped streets of The Chouk Area, near the Jama Masid Mosque. We found ourselves actually trapped in a human-cycle rickshaw-moped traffic jam (picture). We have never seen so much
variety in the shops and even managed to stop for a chai outside a halal chicken shop where we got a free lesson on how to kill, pluck and sell halal chicken. Eugh.
We met up with our friends Ros and Vicky from a couple of previous places and ventured on the metro to The Red Fort. Delhi is hosting the Commonwealth Games soon, so there has literally been tons of money spent on giving it a ‘public facelift’ to impress the visitors. The metro is an impressive network and we were surprised by how modern and efficient it was. More to our surprise at the main junction on Connaught Place, we saw Indian people actually obeying the rules by queuing up! Obviously, as soon as the last person steps off the metro it is literally a mad rush (watch out old people) to jump on board. London’s got nothing on Delhi! . Sadly, Nikki’s experience is a little tainted as a women politely tapped her on the shoulder and gestured for her to get into the men’s queue for the security check. Hilarious. The Red Fort turned out to be rather hyped-up and actually quite dull and expensive,
but the knitted characters enjoyed themselves-as always.
Feeling rather brave, we ventured off to watch our first film in Hindu, ‘Karthik Calling Karthik’. Sadly it was not a Bollywood but we managed to follow the Hindu-English hybrid language perfectly, although we didn’t manage to understand any of the jokes that everybody else was laughing at. Followed this up by a good old pint in Piccadelhi Pub (puntastic!).
The next day, we’d all booked onto a street-walk with the charity Salaam Baalak whose aim is to help support children living on the streets of Delhi. Roughly translated it means saluting the spirit of the child. Our tour guide was an ex-street homeless man who was found by the charity when he was eight years old. Firstly, he took us to the New Delhi train station where it’s estimated that between 2500-5000 children live underneath the walkway and bridge. He explained to us how the children pickpocket, steal and clean trains in order to make money to supply drug habits within their gang. A shocking amount of children here sniff tip-ex and glue before later moving onto cocaine and heroin.
He took us down the railway tracks and showed
us where some of the families live that the charity works with. This was a very sad sight as their homes are single-roomed and illegally built yet this is overlooked by the authority as they work for a poor wage building and cleaning the railway tracks. The children from these families do attend a normal school but can also attend an extra school established by the charity in order to help with literacy. The classroom was so small yet cramped with children of all ages who really valued their education, and prompted Gail to rant and reflect about the spoilt and somewhat ineffective world of education in England. He also took us to their daycare center where we met about 60 children who were simply lovely. It was interesting to note that the charity is only 20% funded by the Government leaving us wondering whether the State actually cares about these children’s welfare. Interesting to note when talking to one of the center’s volunteers about the Commonwealth Games that there are plans to ‘collect’ the homeless and beggars in order to ‘ship them out’ of the city and/or put them in jail until the games have finished. Feel free to
search for the charity and donate as they help about 3000 children living in their orphanages. We’re already talking about coming back here to volunteer in the future.
On the same day, the ever contradictory world of India led us to one of the most magnificent temples we’ve seen yet: The Akshardham. The Commonwealth Games Stadium is just next door so you might see it on the telly! It was a bloody nightmare to get into with security checks and the usual Indian beaurocracy, but once inside we realized it was definitely worth it. Unfortunately, you can’t take cameras inside so we’ve taken pictures of the postcards to pass them off as our own.
The main temple is on a raised platform that has approximately 80 elephants carved into the side of it. These depict various scenes, stories and moral messages (a theme running throughout the afternoon) and have proven to be Gail’s top highlight so far. As far as we could tell, a sect of Hinduism built the temple and there was no expense spared! The rest of the afternoon was spent looking at wax figures (not dissimilar to Wax World) but these ones talked and moved!
We were ushered through about 10 different rooms, each with a different scene depicting how the religion was developed over time. The one time we wish we had our camera… The whole thing was starting to sound like propaganda and indoctrination towards the end so we vetoed going to see the 40-minute film. We did however enjoy a ten-minute educational boat ride through the history of India. This was a little overwhelming as we suddenly realized we knew nothing about Indian ancient history… Did you know:
·Indians invented Pythagoras' Theorem before he did
·They also invented aeroplanes and space ships 3000 years ago (but didn’t tell anyone)
·They discovered gravity (but kept it quiet)
·Indians seem to insist on calling India the ‘birth place of democracy’. Now call us skeptical but from what we’ve learnt over the last few months we’re not sure they’ve really got the jist of democracy yet…
On our final day we ventured to the posh side of the city where all the government buildings are to visit the Ghandi Smriti and the Indhira Ghandi museums. The Ghandi museum building, where he spent the last 144 days of his life, was an absolute attack on
the eyes. It had so much information and quotations from him stuck on the wall that it was difficult to take it all in. To liven it up a bit, the top floor was dedicated to an interactive modern art exhibition (Ghandi themed) and the garden retraced his last footsteps before he was assassinated. The one question we left with was who the hell shot him?! We may be thick for not knowing but this was not made clear in the museum! Any ideas?
The Indhira Ghandi museum was a massive amalgamation of press clippings, pictures, certificates and clothing from the great woman herself. The museum building is the house that Indhira and her family lived in and the rooms have been preserved remarkably well, as has the saree that she was shot in. Unfortunately, the press clippings seemed to be in no particular order so it was hard to follow her rise to power. It seems remarkable that a woman was the PM in the 1970’s in India considering the women in this country seems to be hidden (although less so in the cities). We also queried the democracy of the system that allowed her son to jump
into the PM’s job the afternoon after she was assassinated?!
Overall, Delhi was an amazing few days and we’re really pleased we went back. It is smelly, dirty and polluted but has a charm about it and some excellent redeeming features! The poverty and shear number of children, beggars and disabled people on the street is gut wrenching, but apart from donating to charities, we’ve realized that there is little else we can do to help. The Delhi days have brought us both to tears at different points and has led us to some deep conversations about the whole country and our experiences, but these are proving too hard to put into words. What we do know is that we’ve both fallen for India. It’s taken a few months and a lot of learning but there really is something special about this country!
Our next stop is over to Agra to see The Taj Mahal….ooh!!
Lots of love,
Gail, Nikki, Knitted Gail, Knitted Nikki. xxxx
PS - scroll down then click next for all the pictures. x
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Chud Gott
non-member comment
Who shot Ghandi?
I think it was Mark Chapman..