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Published: April 7th 2006
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Hi gang,
This is our blog - have no idea if this works so let us know to our yahoo if it does.
Well, we have left India now and what an experience. Having recovered from the vomming and diaorrhea (and after enjoying some red meat and a Singapore sling in raffles, as well as clean toilets and no cows banging into us in the street) I can safely say India was an experience...a good one!
After leaving Udaiper we headed back across the Rajhastan stopping in some remote villages along the way. We were like celebrities - everyone wants to be in the picrure with white people. The kids want you to take their photos all the time and then look at them......the marvel of digital! I guess some of them have never seen themselves before so there is always much hilarity when they see what they look like. All very cute (although if anyone else says one foto or asks me for a pen again soon i may commit a crime). Having said that, being the beckhams equivalents(or so we like to think) was pretty cool and we could certainly get used to it - Heat
magazine here we come!
We moved onto visit Jaipur (fairly boring - quite pretty says andrew, lara spent her time there with her head in a toilet! (which was also a pretty toilet). lots of palaces, forts, beggers and of course cows - a typical indian city. Then we went to the Taj Mahal and it really is amazing and quite awe inspring. We went for sunrise (another early morning!) and watched it change colours as the sun came up. It was bloody freezing though! Pretty marvelous and some of you lucky kids will be getting a postcard from there. We took about a million photos (some of which we will try and post here) .
After the taj it was an overnight train to Varanassi. You literally have to sleep holding onto your rucksacks which was an adventure. But remarkably nothing got stolen. As our tour guide - Sid woke up he poked his head over the bunks and said - still got your stuff? He seemed genuinely surprised and relieved! It was everything you can imagine - loads of Indians crammed into a very small space, people do sit on the roofs on indian trains but
fortunately for us we had a carriage bunk to cling to! It was quite an experience and definitely a highlight of the trip.
Varanassi is an amazing city - said to be the holiest place in India and by far the highlight of the trip for us. We arrived and went to an evening service on the Ghats of the river ganges. Pretty impressive. The next day - another early start and we went for a sunrise boat trip and watched the ganges come to light. (in fact - for all those people who think travelling is one long holiday - i have been up before dawn more times in the last 3 weeks than is normal in one entire life) The place is amazing. People pilgrimage there from all over India to spread ashes and cremate their families on the ghats. These burning ghats are open for all to see and you can walk by and watch them perform the last rights before setting fire to the bodies.
The body is carried through the street (this is a narrow lanes in the middle of the towns) on a make shift stretcher - just 2 canes with some
cloth holding the body on. The body is carried above their heads and they literally run through the streets. Bodies come and go all day and nobody bats an eyelid - completely normal for there so you just duck as and when they come past. The body is then dipped in the ganges, laid on top of wood and set fire to. Obviously something we hae never experienced before and never will again, but suffice to say that i dont ever want to die in a fire - your skin literally peels off. This is for everyone to watch and it smells a lot like a barbeque! Gross but very interesting. Not all bodies are burned - those of children under 5, pregnant women, holy men and victims of snake bites - those are just chucked in the river and float down for all to see. Needless to say we decided against getting washing done there as we are pretty sure your stuff gets washed in the river and hung out to dry over the burning ghats - nice!
Having returned via another overnight trainto Delhi we left India for Singapore... a welcome change - and hopefully a lie
in!!!!
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