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Published: February 27th 2009
Steve's bit
It turns out india is not great for internet cafes! We decided to stay in the Himalaya for 9 days it was so restful. The air was clean, often cold when the wind blew from the moutains or warm from the plains. The skies were full of birds of prey, the higher we went the larger they were. The days seem to fly by, mostly filled with walks and momos. My beard grew until in a blinding moment of insight i realized i was starting to look like one of the crusty hippies, or plastic indians (westerners trying to look indian - much to the amusement of the indians), the razor made its return! On one of our walks we saw what we thought were massive shrubberies moving along a mountain path, only to later see tiny women burried underneath!! No knights though! We were sad to leave, but off we set on yet another terrible bus journey to the train station, smug in the knowledge we had really cheap sleeper tickets to delhi. The train arrived, we found our carrage, the door opened and a bemused machine gun carrying soldier (sentry) smiled at us then finally let us
on. We were on a train full of military, they obviously had our prebooked bunks, but they found us some spaces. They all had guns, most had lots of booze, but were friendly, it was like an armed school trip. When we finally arrived at Agra via Dehli we had missed sunset, we then negotiated our way to a hotel during a power cut with a dodgy taxi driver. In the Morning the taj loomed bright white shiny over the city, as the heat roused we melted. Then off again to Varanasi, the now regular train station scrum, through a very filthy city and onto the Ghats. The pyres seemed to burn all day, hazy pillows of smoke rising over the city, however it was the smell that got to us. We then moved on again up to Pachmarhi, the plan was a quiet stop next to a wildlife park, and a pilgrimage path. However it just happed that a 15 day Mela (festival) was about to start in a few days, around 40000 indians truned up whilst we were there! However, like most of India, they seemed to have forgotten toilet facilities!! Onwards to Ellora caves(world heritage site); magnificent
Basalt caves hollowed out by generations of Buddhists, then hindus and Jain craftsmen. They were stunning, and cool places to retreat from the heat. Then our penultimate move to Matheran, a hill station, balanced on the last edge of the Deccan traps, a plateaux surrounded on all sides by 600-800 meter cliffs. The ride up to the plateaux was breath-taking on a small 'toy' train, on the top they did not allow any motorized transport, just jungle, some houses, and horses... and the Bickfords. A really relaxing few days. We are now in Mumbai (Bombay, as all the locals call it) despite the Rough guides description we arrived in a modern fairly clean, and interesting city. The streets full of 1950's fiats, hustle and bustle and no rickshaws! The part of the city we are based in is fairly colonial, with some really great architecture (world heritage sites), and fittingly the India gate were the last of the British soldiers left.
Vik's bit
Well, we are onto Steve's third beard I think since we last wrote (that's how we are keeping time these days) so, much has happened, and as brevity has never been a strength of mine it
is going to be a bit of a struggle to keep it brief...but will do a rare thing, and try not to ramble!
As we sit in the sticky heat of Mumbai writing this, the cool of the mountains seems much more distant than the number of days passed would suggest. We of course had to work much harder than you lot did in the UK to enjoy some snow...trekking up to 3000m to get into snowman territory! No altitude sickness, but one of the other many side effects of that height is 'uncontrollable wind'. I was fine is all I will say. The other treat on our walks (as well as the stunning views...amazing wildlife...) was the little pack of canine companions that we attracted as we wandered. Our record was four. And it wasn't even our food they were after, just the company, and the odd stroke (my fear of rabies disappears when confronted with a cute mutt!). And the other source of amusement was (and indeed continues to be) the pesky monkeys, who have far too much time on their hands and cause all manner of mischief. It's difficult to decide whether it was funnier to witness
one such naughty animal casually tossing some poor family's clean washing from the line until stumbling upon the right pair of underpants to walk off with wearing on his head, or the monkey that had the good fortune to stumble on a sack to hop about in at the railway station?! The mountains provided many other highlights...William Dalrymple (the author) giving a talk...beauty and quiet...in fact the only downside to note is the terrible Tibetan tea ('butter tea' as it's called). It still makes my jaw ache to think about it - it is literally a hot steamy mug of molten butter (which, to be fair, is all there in it's title!).
And then back to the cities. I enjoyed our arrival in Agra...the delighted taxi driver beamed at us as he reported that Agra is indeed much better than many of the other Indian cities - no pollution, no congestion, no hassle. We had practically been torn apart by competing touts as we stepped off the train, and were currently sat in a traffic jam held together by a thick layer of smog. Rose-tinted glasses (and ear muffs!)?? Or maybe it was the power cut that protected the city with darkness?!
But Varanasi was a wonderful surprise of a place. The stench of burning flesh was a struggle, but despite this the Ganga river was an amazing place to be beside. We even managed to drag ourselves out of bed (without the demand of an early train) to enjoy the sunrise. Of course it seems that we are not the only ones to have fallen upon this idea, and the highway of already-mobile tourist boats that greeted us as we smugly strolled down to the ghats was a bit of an unwelcome surprise!
After the hecticness of a couple more cities we again attempted to retreat into the hills. Not such a restful experience however as we first of all stumbled into a Hindu mela, arriving just in time to observe the party getting into full swing. It was great to observe, but an Indian version of Glastonbury (with one or two key differences!) was not quite what we had expected as we had made our way up the mountain anticipating a sleepy green village. Our final escape upwards went much more according to plan. Well, that is at least after we had twice caught the wrong train to get there (once is understandable, but to return to our original station only to get the same wrong train out again was a little tedious!). And then (for those of you in Oxford) we had the pleasure of meeting up with not one Bickford, but three!
And now we are in our final Indian city of this trip, and - against all our expectations - Mumbai is proving to be a bit of a treat. I think I might melt here, but otherwise it's a great city to see. Maybe it's just that it looks like parts of London have been transported here, or that we got to a hotel without any mischief, or that last night we had pasta, but so far so good! Of course the trains are like nothing I've ever experienced (having well evidenced that statement in other parts of India, it exceeds even that!). On one of said journeys my feet didn't even touch the floor; I was held in place by the other passengers, until of course we arrived at the first popular station, at which point my only option was to grip - as hard as I could - onto the train in order to avoid eviction (my body at an uncomfortable 45 degree angle for much of this. And don't forget to add the heat). But we battled on! And now we are enjoying a city that is clearly still recovering from what happened in November, but has a lively and determined buzz about it.
And tonight, no bone-shaking bus or unpredictable train-ride, but a flight to Singapore! We will arrive in the morning, looking like we have been living in the bushes for the last six weeks, to one of the world's cleanest cities!! And I'm looking forward to whole days where we don't talk about bowel movements!!!
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Ian
non-member comment
funny
Hello Not talking about bowel movements - what will you talk about, it's a key daily conversation - me and Giz had a 1 to 10 scale (i'll eave it there). Have fun spending the next week washing India out of yourselves. Take care, ian x