India, again

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Having “agreed” to return to India on our way to Australia, we arrived in Delhi and spent a couple of days looking about. I'm not sure if it was my low expectations of Dehli or the fact that we know what to expect but we found the place to be much easier and less daunting than we believed it would be.

After two days in the humid heat of Delhi we headed for the cooler air in the hills of Shimla.

Our train journey out of Delhi was a joy, until we reached Kalka where we should have transferred to the narrow gauge 'toy train' to Shimla but realized we had not booked our onward reservation.

We pushed and shoved our way to the reservation window at Kalka railway station, got a reservation form, filled it out and then pushed and shoved our way back to the front of the queue to buy the ticket. The last train of the day had left so we had to fill in time until our train left the next morning.

To this end we traveled a few towns over to Chandigarh, where a rock garden had been created by an old man from stuff he found out on the street. Groups of people and animals made from broken pots and bangles sat in the shade of trees. The gardens waterfalls provided cooling spray and created rainbows in the sun. Considering it was created out of rubbish the rock garden was a lovely place to while away an afternoon.

The next day we took the 'toy train' to Shimla which proved to be a pleasant if overly long journey. Once we arrived we still had to walk two kilometers to our hotel, up hill. Not fun!

Shimla was the summer home for the British Raj when Delhi became to hot and humid. The cool, dry air certainly was a refreshing change to Delhi, along with the old wooden colonial buildings and slower pace.

There wasn't much to do in this hill town so we spent our days walking up to view points and avoiding the vicious monkeys. I still chuckle whilst remembering Tracy being chased down the street by a monkey and his big swinging balls.

Having enjoyed the mountain air, we continued our travels by heading to Mcleod Ganj, another town in the hills and more importantly the home of the Dalai Lama. The Buddhist monastery and Tibetan restaurants gave Mcleod Ganj a laid back vib that was instantly intoxicating and after a few days we decide to extend our stay.

We spent our days walking in the hills and listening to the Dalai Lama give a three day teaching on the concepts of Buddhism, then in the evening we took a Tibetan massage course, complete with signing bowl lessons. We eat vegetable momos (steamed dumplings) and Tibetan Thukpa (noodle soup) and watched the latest Tarantino movie in a basement cinema made from office chairs, a projector screen and a pirate DVD.

Many People had said that Rishikesh was their favorite place in India, so we made it our next destination, and completely failed to see what these people saw in the place. If you're into yoga or sitting around in backpacker cafes with huge groups of stoned Israelis the it might be fun. We both thought everything it had to offer was better in other places in India. The highlight was watching one of the ashrams evening celebration to Shiva and the Ganges, but we had seen the same thing in Varanasi on our last trip to India.

And as fate would have it we ended up travelling from Rishikesh to Varanasi because the train we wanted to catch to Nepal was fully booked. We arrived in Varanasi, checked into the same hotel we stayed in last time, walked along the Ganges like we did last time (although the river level was higher and many sections of the path were covered in thick mud) and prepared for what was to be a gruelling 12 hour bus journey to the Nepalese border.

And when we did cross from India into Nepal we found the country had all but shutdown due to a 4 day national holiday, but that's another story.

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Photos

Our first meal in India, Masala Dossa
We lived on this last time. Thin pancake with spiced potatoes inside.

Monekys in Shimla
"Watch out Tracy they are after you!"

Walking in the hills of Mcleod Ganj with a random dog following us
We had 4 dogs in tow at one point. We named this one Dal.