From 45 degrees to 15!

---

Finally, after 16 months and 14 days on the road since setting off to sunny Rio de Janeiro, I am back home in Manchester and, yes, its raining!

Our final few weeks travelling in Nepal and India were pretty eventful. I last wrote from Kathmandu where I was still sick from the dodgy Indian restaurants (what do they expect when there are goats roaming around in the kitchen?!).

From Kathmandu we took an 8 hour bus ride to Chitwan National Park. On the way we saw three separate road accidents - very unnerving! Chitwan itself was wonderful. When we arrived, there were absolutely no other foreign tourists so we were practically dragged into all the hotels and ended up with yet another great deal - a gorgeous room for only $1.50.

The thing to do in Chitwan National Park is a jungle safari in the hope of seeing tigers (very rare) and rhinos (much more likely). Despite warnings in our guidebook of the dangers, we opted top first do a guided walk. This began with a canoe trip along the river, which was scary as we had seen a crocodile sliding into the murky depths only the day before. When we got out of the canoe, I was quick to move away from the shore!

As we went along on the walk, our guide pointed out several alarming things such as tiger footprints in the mud and bear claw marks on the trees. The whole point in being in Chitwan was to see rhinos, but we were hoping NOT to see them, the problem being that they are very blind and so tend to charge anything that is unfamiliar to them! Going through the long grass, we heard some rustling and our guide looked alarmed and told us to “come quickly” - never did find out what it was!

One of the scariest parts of the walk was when we came across a bear and her three baby cubs. They were foraging around in the trees only about 100 yards away, and with no fence between them and us, we felt a bit vulnerable. Luckily, our guide snapped a twig to throw at it (as if that would help!) and the noise made it run away.

Our other encounter with wildlife was actually a rhino! To be fair it was only a dork shadow in the trees, but that’s good enough for me! The next day we did another jungle expedition but this time on elephant back (much safer) and saw two rhinos wallowing in the muddy river about 5 yards away!

From there we had to head back into India in order to give it a chance to redeem itself...

Our first experiences were not good. First of all, we settled down to sleep only to find we had bed-bugs, so had to pack up our things at 11pm and find a new hostel. Then the next day, we were supposed to be getting a 25-hour train to Jaipur and had paid for a second class sleeper. On arrival at the station we found out we had been ripped off and had to stand in the corridor in between two toilets with all our bags. It was so hot and became increasingly disgusting with every person that spat and peed on the floor until we had had enough after 7 hours, decided to cut out losses and get off at the next major station and find a hotel. Once again the rickshaw driver lied to us and took us to the opposite side of town to where we had requested. We went to bed infuriated and decided that for the next 10 days we would have to grin and bear it until we left!

From there, I am pleased to say that things improved dramatically, as did our impression of India. The state of Rajasthan had been highly recommended to me by several people, and we saw an immediate difference. Although the people still of course wanted to extract all the money out of you that they possibly could, they did it in a nice and friendly manner, and we found the incessant lying stopped, which was so nice.

We spent a pleasant day in the old pink city of Jaipur before getting an overnight bus to Jaiselmer. This is only about 100 miles from the Pakistan border and, given the situation, we had at first crossed it out from the itinerary. However, it sounded so good in the guidebook that we were dying to go, so decided to just go for it. I am glad we did as it was a nice little fort town in the middle of the desert, where we also got to do a camel safari. I was told I could be sold for 10 camels - Scott was trying to negotiate at least 50!

After Jaiselmer we headed to what became our favourite place in India - Udaipur, the lake city. It was a beautiful place set around a lake and surrounded with mountains. There are three palaces (summer, winter and monsoon). The summer palace is in the middle of the lake and is now a swish hotel. Being low season, we managed to get a boat out to it for a cup of coffee (costing the price of a nights accommodation for us!) and a nosey around!

It was almost time for me to get my flight out of Delhi, so we had to start making our way back. We made a final stop in the tiny town of Pushkar in between buses, and spent from 5am to 8am there! I think i could have really liked Pushkar had it not been for the hundreds of evil dogs there. It was incredible, but I could walk down a street and a handful of stray dogs would be calmly watching everyone else walk past, but as soon as I approached they would bark viciously and bare their teeth. It wasn’t just once, but every time. In the end I couldn’t wait to leave!

We arrived in Delhi in the afternoon, and I left on my flight late that night. Just as I was feeling happier about India and was leaving on a somewhat good note, the most scary thing happened --I was told by customs officials in Delhi airport that “the machine” had found heroin in my backpack! I stayed calm, knowing that I was innocent, and told them they were welcome to search my bags, which they strangely didn’t do. They instead kept questioning me for 40 minutes, and took away my passport and boarding card for inspection, and even studied my arms for needle marks!

Eventually they said that the machine had indicated heroin but they would let me through anyway! I felt really annoyed and started to question them, but them suddenly came to my senses and just re-packed my bag and went through to get my flight. As soon as I was away from them, the reality hit me and I burst into tears. A nice Indian guy about my age saw me and, when I told him what had happened, he said not to worry as the officials enjoy pulling young single females aside and scaring them - it was all a sick game! He even confided in me that since travelling to other countries, he has come to realise how screwed up India is and never wanted to live there again (he was studying in Beijing)!

I was worried about Scott as he was going through the next day, so when i arrived in Frankfurt airport, I managed to speak to someone there who tests for drugs. He said that there was no way they could have detected any with a machine, and besides, if they had they would have completely searched my bag and would not have let me through. He confirmed that it was just a sick joke!

All in all, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that, of all the countries I have visited on this trip (and there are 18 in total) India is by far the most corrupt and infuriating of them all, and indeed the biggest risk for travellers. All the other countries I really liked and can highly recommend, but if any of you are planning a trip to India, I have a bit of advice - get the hell out of Delhi as you WILL, no matter whet, be lied to and ripped off, and head first to serene Udaipur instead of agro-Agre. If you can avoid most of the scams in Delhi and can ignore the piles and piles of rubbish lying by the lakeside in Udaipur, you will have a good first impression of India!

Right now I am showing Scott the sights of England (although running out of money rapidly!) before heading to sun, sand and surf in California to look into teaching courses over there.

The End!

---

Photos

Chitwan National Park
Elephant trek

Back in Britain.
Camping Holiday in Devon with Scott, Mum, Dad and Gary