The North

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Well I've left this quite a while now and now we are in our last stop in India, Varanasi, an apt place to end our Indian adventure as around 300 hundred people a day also leave India here, although they do it through open air cremation (were going by train). We have been here less than 12 hours and have seen around 30 dead bodies and spent around an hour watching people get torched, very grim at first but you soon realise it is a very natural part of their circle life and death. Something that's on full show all the time in India

I think the last time we were in Udaipur, we came up from the Ellora caves via Achmenabad and a 16 hour overnight bus which was easily the worst journey i´ve ever had. For at least eight hours we were traveling along roads that were under construction and that was from 10 at night till 6 in the morning the next day, so neither of us slept at all and what at first started as frustration, then to anger gradually turned to laughter as we watched the Indians pinballing around the compartment while fast asleep, half of them were just sleeping on the floor (their made of stronger stuff than us). When we arrived we were delighted to find the place we had chosen was a beautiful 300 year old building right on the Lakeside with a total character of an owner who had ran the place for thirty years. Just what we needed to rest ourselves

Udaipur lakeside was easily the prettiest large urban area we've been and was much more similar to places in Europe than anywhere else (Granada for instance). Although it was all fake really because all the buildings round the lake, while very pretty were mostly five star luxury hotels with the exception of the massive Maharajas palace complex.

It didn't take long to realize we were out of peninsular India and into the massive Arabian landmass, you only had to leave the hotel and everyone wanted to show you their shop, play you a tune or just plain wanted your money, I think its not to dissimilar to that all the way to Morroco. But its all done in good spirit and a friendly "no thank you" usually does the trick. You needed to walk a couple of Km out from the lake before you got back to real India and reasonably priced food and we went to a place highly recommended and had our best Thalli yet, with the waiters constantly circling, filling up your wee pots and we left stuffed. All for around a Euro.

All in all we had a very relaxing time in Udaipur then we were of to Jodhpur.

On the way to Jodhpur we stopped at a magnificent Jain temple in the middle of nowhere called Ranakpur, maybe even the nicest temple yet, all carved intricately from the whitest marble and designed so it was very cool inside. A very impressive place indeed and we could of stayed longer but it was of to Jodpur for us.

Jodhpur is a town painted mostly Blue and completely dominated by its collosal fort.

Rajastan is a place whose long history is mostly made up of princely states fighting over control of vast areas of land all ruled with an iron fist by the Maharajas. And the fort at Jodhpur seen more than its fair shair of battles even up until this century. It is pure Arabian nights stuff and one of the highlights of our trip, to be honest, the Fort and Ranackpur temple would be the only places i would highly recommend in Rajastan.

The tour of the Fort had an Audio Guide which was also impressive, playing traditional tunes and had a starring role for the current maharajah telling you all about the history of the fort and his family. Absolutely compelling stuff and gave the place a great ambiance. The views of the city beneath were also something else, as i said before a real highlight, but we were soon to find out what traveling round Rajastan is more about these days, it was on to Jaisalamer.

Jaisalamer is famous for one thing more than most and that is Camel trekking and most people presume that any white face getting of the train wants to arrange one, so that means that when you get of the train you are awaited by around a hundred touts all in your face, one even knew Martas name, (we must of spoken to the wrong dude somewhere along the line). But we knew this was the case so we wanted to get out of Jaisalamer, arrange a trek at the source (Khuri) so to speak then come back, having done one, then be left alone. However getting out of Jaisalamer was much harder than we had anticipated, nobody wanted to take us, they all wanted their cut of our money. so we got a rickshaw to the bus station all the time the driver trying to punt us his trekking tours, when we refused he let us out at what we presumed was the bus station, but not the one we wanted, soon we discovered we were in the middle of nowhere, it had taken us a grand total of five minutes to get fucked over in Jaisalamer.

We finally made it to Khuri and before long were on camels riding towards the dunes, very nice it was but like the boat trip before and every other "to do" thing in India you really get the feeling your about the 500 millionth person to do it and i guess the idea is better than the reality, they obviously have the trip down to a cost cutting art. However sitting by the fire and drinking rum then sleeping in the open under the desert sky was really nice it just wasn't the unique once in a lifetime experience they are sold as.

The next day we returned to Jaisalamer, another forted city, but this fort had none of the glamour of the one in Jodhpur, from beneath it looked cool and at first glance street level the buildings had beautiful facades, once you looked a bit harder or got to roof level it looked like a big building site, the consequence of 2000 people living huddled for century's,constantly building without permit. The council want to take everyone out and start again, but this is obviously controversial.

From there we went onto Pushkar. We had high hopes of Pushkar everyone talked highly of it but the best thing i can say is that its good from a distance. If your looking for the real india you will find none of it here. you dont have to go far outside to find it but the centre is like a gypsy funfair, full of scams and bullshit, the rides are rubbish and when you leave your left with a sense of how plastic it all was. Originaly a very religious place a small lake surrounded by hundreds of temples, but now firmly part of the wankers route of Rajastan. This being the spirituality stop for most. Exept one thing, any real religious belief seems to have left years ago as the hippies came flooding in and what is left is an organized group of con men fleecing stupid tourists and falafel joints.

On the first day we were dragged to the lakes, by some pretend brahmin, me protesting my Atheism,
but he wanted our cash not our faith
it went like this.
"Repeat after me"
"Brahma"
"Brahma"
"Vishnu"
"Vishnu"
"Shiva"
"Shiva"
"Ganesh"
"Ganesh"
"Laksmi"
"Laksmi"
"Good luck for my family"
"Good luck for my family"
"I will give you a hundred DOLLARS"
"I will give you.............. Fuck off"

And the second day.
Man gives Marta a flower, not an uncommon ocurance in India, he says she should put it in the lake, but Marta prefers to put it in her hair, finds no stalk with which to tuck behind her ear, and as were not going to the lake puts it down, another man who must have been following us with the intention of charging us to put it in the lake starts telling her to pick it up and go to the river she tells him no, he insists quite angry, she tells him to take the flower him self and he takes it. later i see the men both together and i become very angry charge over to them and tell them that their stupid trick must make their god very happy, they look sheepish and rush away as the shopkeepers laughed at them.

The Worst of all are the organised street kids who in between knicking anything they see, will beg you to buy them food but not street food, only non perishables at inflated prices which they or there boss can return for cash at a later date. The worst is when you see well dressed fagans keeping the kids in check, its easy to spot as all the kids cower in fear as they walk past. I felt like organising an army of whiteys to release the kids there and then, but as i looked around most were on there way to the lake with flowers in their hands being followed by guys in white. This is the problem with these scams, its our fault they exist if none of us were stupid enough to fall for them, the locals would have to make an honest living but
as P.T Barnum almost said nobody ever lost money underestimating the stupidity of a white man in India.
I'm not even going to mention the Spaniards and the Silver just suffice to say Nicky Campbell would have a field day in this place.

And this is the place millions of foreigners come to for Yoga, Meditation, spiritual enlightenment (all bollocks in my opinion) and that most modern of western faiths, shopping. If you ask me you can all stay there and leave the nicer places unspoiled with your stupidity.

But as i said its nice from a distance, we stayed amongst the flower plantations on the outskirts, which were lovely and we made a habbit of feeding three newborn puppies biscuits on the way into town, which always gave us a nice start to the day, there's also many nice hills around which have great views from the summits and of course the all important "Sunset Point".

Wherever you go in India the tourists have inevitably christened one place "Sunset Point", even though it has a perfectly good given name by the locals. I'ts a place where they all go on mass to sit in their hundreds and gaze blankly at the sun set.

I would rather eat my own legs, its so boring. India has a great sunset everyday and as long as your out and about you'll catch the sunset and sometimes the ones you least expect will be the most memorable.
I can still remember very well the sunset from that 16 hour hellish journey. It was from the top of the hill looking out over endless plains towards the sun. But dont tell anyone or for sure people will copy me getting on the that bus for the "great sunset man" , "Sunset point tours" will soon spring up and people will fight over the seats me and Marta had that day. Beat your own path is the best advice i think.

Well from Pushkar it was then onto Dehli where we went to stay with our friend Guillermo who really kindly put us up for two nights. Easily the biggest city i´ve ever seen, to travel the smallest distance on a map takes hours in a scary rickshaw ride, but it was defiantly worth it.

Guillermo and his flatmate Carlos work in an NGO based on the outskirts working with very impoverished people, they run a school for infants and sewing, jewellery, english and cookery classes for the ladies of the area. It all seems to be doing very well and they have a great atmosphere in the place. I found myself very humbled by their efforts to enrich these peoples life's. They are planning some sort of food delivery service to local offices at lunchtime and was more than happy to give them some input and ideas.

We only stopped briefly in Dehli, and soon it was on to Agra and the Taj Mahal. We got up at 4 got a rickshaw at 4.30 to be at the station at 6 but when we arrived we were informed that the Taj is shut on a friday. Marta was probably a lot more dissapointed than I, as these "must see" places have been more or less disappointing, due to huge amounts of other people and where there huge amounts of tourists the touts and tricksters are there on mass. We took the train any way and extended our journey 200 Km to a place we absolutely adored it's called Orcha but say it quietly it would be a real shame for it to change through mass tourism. It was of the tourist track and drop dead gorgeous. Marta soon forgot her disappointment as we gazed upon the Raj Mahal instead. It was one of these places i love, a mixture of Hampi's lost continent feel and the innocent but beautiful people of Tamil Nadu, all surounded by golden wheatfields.

It like Hampi was the capital of a long forgotten empire, but unlike Hampi the people just upped and left everything, there was no destruction, so everything is still standing, like the most deluxe squats youve ever seen, some of them are now peasant farmers housing. The great thing is you can just wander around them on your own and you dont even have to pay.

We were lucky to be here during the great Hindu festival of colour, Holi, where all the kids chase you about with coloured powder then chuck it in your face to much hilarity for all. My favoutites are all the dogs, cows and goats who unbeknown to them are now totaly multi coloured.

We then travelled on to here Varanassi via the porno temples of Khajuraho, very cool and the town had an atmosphere not dissimilar to Orcha we went on a bike trip through lots of countryside villages in Madhya Pradesh (a state that i wish we had travelled more) and made friends with a farming family, we exchanged contact details although to what purpose im not sure.

And now here we are in Varanassi a place i wasn't sure i would like, but am now so glad to have come to there is an atmosphere here unlike anything weve seen since Madurai. An ancient culture full of rituals unchanged for thousands of years, there are very few places like this left on earth and long shall they remain unchanged for i see no reason whatsoever to change them, modern citys are ten a penny and infinitly boring in comparison.

Hopefully we will make an Indian roundup soon, as were now of to Nepal.
We both leave here hoping that we will see it again as it has had a profound impact on us both and I leave a country with a feeling i've not had since i left France after a holiday when I was around five.

I leave with one more fact in the Dehli metro the fine for sitting on the floor of the carriage is 200 rupees the fine for going on the roof of the metro ( if you avoid death being that its an electrically run metro) 50 rupees, boy you gota love India.

Take care
Mikey and Marta

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