Blogs from India, Asia - page 1976

From Ooty on the "toy train" (narrow gauge stream train) and headed down to the plains to Mettupalayam, Coimbatore and finally a 7 hr day liner on the Indian Train network to Madurai. In Madurai we tripped around the palace of 1000 pillars (actually 986) and this incredible bunch of temples in Madurai -- http://www.exotiqueindia.com/tourist-destinations-in-india/madurai-tourism.html. There were thousands of pilgrims in town chanting, praying and providing gifts to their gods. From there we headed to Rameshwaram http://www.tamilnadu-tourism.com/tamilnadu-cities/rameshwaram-tourism.html . It has a huge temple with the worlds longest corridor (1 Km) where you can get your sins washed away by going thru 22 water stations including #22 in the Bay of Bengal. Then we hired a Jeep and headed out to Adams Bridge where we could see (actually not) Sri Lanka 18 km away. So, we s ... read more

Puri is on the coast of India and once a year hosts a massive and incredible festival - yes another one. The number of festivals in India is seemingly endless! A recurring thing with my travels now seems to be bad first impressions. The amount of hassle I had trying to get someone to bring me to where the hotels are was incredible. This kind of thing happens in lots of places but I hadn't been exposed to it for a while so it came as a shock. Initially I had a struggle to get them to give me a decent price. When one of them finally agreed a good price he tried to take me to a different hotel (I wouldn't tell him which hotel I was going to because they take a large comission ... read more

Well here we are in Udaipur, at the end of our tour of Rajasthan. After today, we are heading down to Mumbai on a train, which will be our first experience of Indian railways.... Apparently they're an unmissable part of the authentic Indian experience, although I'd probably be more excited about the prospect if we didn't have to do 8 hours on one train, get off at 4am, then onto another train for the rest of the day at 7am. I'm sure it will be character-building anyway.... Udaipur has been quite nice, although everyone is dying to tell you how the James Bond film, Octapussy, was filmed here. Naturally, everyone you speak to was pivotal to the film and had some kind of starring role. My favourite example of this is the owner of a bag ... read more

We're now in Pushkar, home of the famous camel fair that happens every November. The town is small and quiet compared to the other Indian cities we've been to, and this is a blessing! From Agra we drove to Jaipur, stopping off at Fatehpur Sikri along the way....Fatehpur Sikri is an ancient town that was at one time the capital of Mughal India, but has since been abandoned and the whole complex has been preserved in immaculate condition. Where once there must have been thousands of courtiers, now the pigeons rule the roost, making for an interesting experience in this ghost town. After a rather quick visit there we continued on our way to Jaipur, driving along the scariest road yet! Normally the "highway" is one lane in either direction, but since they decided to improve ... read more

We arrived in Pushkar late in the evening. We were glad to have an experienced driver. Daytime driving is hairy enough, much worse at night, especially on the curvy road from Ajmer to Pushkar. Our driver found a beautiful hotel in the fashion of a fine mansion (Haveli) on the edge of town, with floors made of marble. Cost: less than $C15 per night for two of us. We planned to stay 2 nights. Pushkar is a holy city of about 15,000, with anywhere from 200 to 1000 temples (depending on who you talk to). IN the morning Jamie and I walked down to the lake, supplied by groundwater (there has been hardly any rain in recent years), and considered holy - a little like the Ganges. Accordingly the townside of the lake contains ghats or ... read more