India Trip Day 9 & 10 - Chitrakoot &Allahabad

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We set off in the morning in our private cars once more to start our journey to Allahabad. Because the journey is quite long it was going to be broken up over a couple of days and our rest stop for the night was going to be a little town called Chitrakoot.

Out hotel for the night was the only hotel in the entire town which will probably give you a bit of a feeling for the size of the town. There were however a full complement of monkeys at the hotel and Suneil told us to be very careful of them as they will go into your rooms and steal your possessions and only give them back if you offer them some food. At one stage we were sitting outside having some drinks and the monkeys were on a ledge above us making faces at us. It sounds strange but they were actually quite scary and I was petrified that one of them was going to jump on my back ( i had my back to them) and try and steal my food. Luckily nothing bad happened.

There was really nothing at all to do in this town except to go and look at the Punja. This is a ritual that occurs in the evenings on the river and involves the Hindu monks blessing the water of the river with air, spirit and fire (i think).

India Trip Day 10 - Allahabad

We completed our trip to Allahabad in the morning. Our hotel tonight is a little nicer than the one where we stayed last night. It actually has a bathtub with a shower curtain in it which makes a nice change. This afternoon we headed out off on some ricksaws to visit the house of the Nehru and Ghandi families. Mr Nehru was the first prime minister of India and his daughter succeeded him. The house was kept in the same condition as it was when they lived there and is now a museum to them. However it was jam packed with Indian tourists and really wasn't a great experience. After visiting the Anand Bhavan Museum we headed off to the river to see where the Yamuna and Ganges rivers meet and join to form the Sarawati. This is the place where 11 million pilgrims come to wash themselves and it is called the sangram. It is also a place where hindus take the ashes of their loved ones to scatter in the river.

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Photos

Jess, Me and Robin
on our boat on the Yamuna

The Ahnad Bharvan Museum
The house of the Nehrus and Ghandis

The group in front of the Ghandi House
Trond, Jess, Pip, Inger, Me and Robin