India - so far, so good!

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Hello one and all - hope all is well with you

We are in an internet booth next to where we are staying in Amritsar and the keyboard is pretty grim, the keys stick so please excuse typos!

So we left London for Zurich. Taxi at 5.30am, handsomely tipped as I gave him 45quid instead of 35 by mistake. Bloody minicabs!!! Anyway, we were (for the first time ever!) early...and then there was a delay. No problem, bit of a wander and some breakfast then we were away. The only problem was that the delay basically matched our transfer window at Zurich so when we got there and were faced with a security-check queue 300 deep we panicked and asked to be let through as our gate was closing. Swiss respect for rules meant that was a 'no' and we made it by the skin of our teeth.
Flight was then held on the tarmac for an hour and a half as the starter motor had broken...when it was mended the captain said 'we think it's ok, we'll give it a go'. So we drank several bottles of red wine and hoped for the best.

Arrived safely in Delhi which is a horrid building site of an airport. Our driver wasn't there so we called the hotel, they located him and after a lot of standing around we got to the Ajanta - it was now 4am so we were just ready to collapse. Hotel was fine, nothing too special but fairly helpful. We wandered out in the morning to get some breakfast, past cows and cars and more peole than I have ever seen. We stopped to eat and I was sitting next to someone from Davenant - bizarre! Looked like he was being too cool for the likes of me to talk to him so I nodded acknowledgement and left him to it.

We wandered around a bit and went to India gate which commemortates India soldiers lost in WWI and II - only westerners there, attracted the attention of every hawker and saw some 'hijras' - the eunuchs who dress like women and are 'lady boys of the night'... We went to the main bazaar and to where Matt stayed before then had to go to the hotel to have a veg biryani (still no meat!) and chai on the rooftop watching the hawks circle above then catch a train to Varanasi (via a cycle rickshaw to the station with all our luggage - Indians are so strong!).

Train journey was 13 hours which became 15 - we sat with the Wali family and a nice German man called Libby - he didn't speak at all so we only found out he was nice a couple of days later! The family was Kashmiri and has a business in Varanasi selling silks and fabrics, saris and shawls etc - she did a pretty good sales job on us but sadly we didn't have time to visit the shop so we didn't part with any cash!!! Her son was like a mini-Spiderman, he didn't sit down at all and was going from bunk to bunk continuously, irritating little swine. Then he snored like you wouldn't believe - all night. We were in a car with 3 bunks either side, it was actually pretty comfortable but everyone had so much luggage that getting anything out of a bag was quite a manoeuvre. Food comes around constantly as does tea, it's crazy cheap if a little samey.

Anyway, Matt's bugging me to move on to stuff he's taken pictures of, so I shall. We arrived in Varanasi and got a scary rickshaw to the Scindia guesthouse where we had a top floor room with blacony over the ganges - really rather nice but plagued by monkeys. We wandered around the ghats - there are loads and each is for a different area of the country of group of people or for a different purpose - the burning ghats are famous and everyone in own thinks that we westerners are only interested in seeing dead people on fire. I for one was not keen but it's such a coup for a Hindu to die here that you can't miss the dead - the gahts burn constantly so no matter what time you are mooching around, you will here some 'get of the way' shouts but in hindi as a troupe of men carry a bamboo stretcher holding one of their deceased relatives to take them to the pyre. They are bound in cloth and draped in finery so it's only when they are put on the wood that you see their form - women aren't allowed at the ghat so I averted my eyes when we were close to it. The family man who puts them on then goes to sprinkle the ashes and bathes at a special ghat down the way. He goes home and can only eat once a day for 13 days and has no physical contact with anyone for 13 days either - he does everything alone.

We booked a 5.30am boat trip to go along the ghats when the faithful are giving 'puja' - offerings to Ganga, the goddess of the Ganges. They have a ritual bathing process which involves a pot and lots of gesturing and submersion. The rich, the poor, everyone does it. Some people look like they enjoy it and are merrily chatting, others are pretty sombre - all I know is they must be freezing. It was bitter cold and we were out for 2 hours - people do this, then swim then hangout for hours by the river - no towels, no bovril (obviously!) just coldness. The water is beyond filthy - it's toxic so for Westerners it is an absolute no-no to touch it. The boat trip was good and we then pootled around the backstreets - you have never seen so many cows! They are sacred and they are everywhere. Just wandering and eating out of rubbish bags. Order of things is thus - people eat food, throw it in bags anywhere they fancy, cows and goats eat rubbish, poo a lot and then dogs eat their poo - not nice, but I'm telling it like it is. Joanna, never come to India - there are are soooooo many dogs and they are just wandering, no owners - just diseased mange-bags. The other end-product of cow poo, aside from puppy food, is energy cells - women mush up he pats with their hands and dry them in the sun. They build little pat-castles for storage then use them to cook on and warm themsleves with over the fire. So, as you would imagine, it smells quite a bit - particularly when the sun shines, which it did. It was about 80 in the daytime but sunset's early so it wasn't uncomfortable.
We watched numerous weddings - Vegas has nothing on this place - there are multiple families hanging out until it's their turn then they hae the ceremony which is quick. As they walk up the steps they are jostled by the next lot going down for their turn. Not very ceremonious or exclusive, or intimate as we imagine your 'special day' to be - rather it is well dressed womem and poorly dressed men doing the necessary before a big dinner which is more fun and costs an inordinate sum - realtive to us, the average wedding is sooooo much more expensive.

We spent a lot of time getting lost in alleyways where you take your life in your hands against cows, motos, cooking pans, schools, dogs and anything else you can think of. We bought some toot and had some more biryani - I now understand where all the caulifower in the world goes to... A man from the hotel took us around the real old town to some temples and told us that there are 36,000 linga (sacred mens and women's bits in a sculpture - well described as 'half an avocado with the stone still in'). There are little gods everywhere, ganesh over a doorway, Lakshmi in a wall...very spiritual place so you feel a little churlish turning all the beggars away with 'chalo, chalo' - which means 'on your bike, son'. Still, there's no way of helping and there are so many wrong'uns that you just have to walk away. We found a german bakery which gives profits to a school so we had tea and cake there a few times and bought a notebook. If you are ever there, go down the street that the golden temple is on and there's a bakery called 'bread of life' it's a welcome relief from the mayhem. Matt and Libby went into the temple periphery and were old they could go right inside but didn't feel comfortable doing so so they sneeked a peek around and left me with the bags - the doors are manned by armed guards because of a bomb some time ago.

The monkeys at our hotel were quite calm until the night before we left when they went bananas (ha, ha) - Matt was on the balcony when this beast launched at him screaming - by this time I was locked in the toilet hyperventilating, but Matt said he just made noise then ran away - he didn't get bitten or scratched and isn't foaming at the mouth so all fine. They kept coming back in packs so I didn't go out on the balcony again...

We had a biryan variation - kashmiri vegetables - very good, partcularly as there was no cauliflower, at a place called Ganga Fuji - they has some live music which was a nice calm way to prepare for a 25 hour train journey to Amritsar where we are now. We'll write about that in a couple of days when we've left - it's cold here and we've both had minor tummy issues so it's not the best place so far...

We are fine, having a great time. Off to the holiest site in Sikhism now - the Golden Temple - lots of love, sorry this was so long!!!!

Love us xxx

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