Rajasthan, Agra and Varanasi...

Today we sit in an internet cafe, sweating as it is 50 degrees outside, and slightly cooler in here at about 45 degrees. We are in Varanasi, one of the holiest cities in India for the Hindus. The story of how we got here involves a lot of travelling, a lot of packing, unpacking, repacking and unpacking again.

Our last update had us in Delhi (again) the night before we were due to leave for a trip around Rajasthan. We had met Fillipe, an Argentinian travelling alone, in the airport from Kashmir, so were with him in the internet cafe and invited him along with us for the next section of the trip. Poor poor guy, don't think he realised quite what he was getting himself into when he agreed!

Anyway, the following morning involved an early start, followed by an 8 hour drive in an "air conditioned" car to Pushka with our driver Paw, who would be with us for the next 8 days. Arriving in Pushka, very tired, it didn't really seem worth it. A decent hotel in the middle of the desert, not really worth an 8 hour drive but there you go.

Turns out, Pushka is probably our favourite place we visited so far, it was literally one bazarre (everywhere in India looks pretty much the same) in the middle of the desert but we felt very comfortable there and our hours walk up and down the strip every day always ended in some adventure or another. The thing we most noticed about there was how colourful it is, with all the sari's of the witches of Pushka!

Kate and her red hair proved to be very popular and all the women wanted to shake her hand or just touch her, as if they have never seen anything like it before!

Pushka is one of the three holiest places in India, where Brama (one of the three main gods) - the Creator - used to live. He married a second wife so the story goes, and when his first wife found out, she decreed that they couldn't worship in any of the 500 temples, and only at the lake (which was almost dried up when we were there). So, we went to visit the lake and were immediately pounced upon by "priests". The reason I put this in inverted commas is because they were the least priestly looking priests we have ever seen... but anyway, we let them bless us, had to repeat a mantra after them and then throw flowers in the water along with red powder, orange powder and rice. Some of this was mixed in water and put as a bindi on our heads. Next came the "we will do a prayer for your family, how much money is your family worth as a donation?" Ah! OK, sorry family, Sally's is worth 150 rupees (about 2 pounds) and Kate's is worth 100 rupees. And for our troubles, we got a bit of string to tie around our wrists.

Sally decided she would like to get a henna on her hand, so we walked through the strip to a shopthat was advertising it. Somehow, the search for henna ended up in us both getting a massage with this crazy man from Kerala removing our bad karma and "throwing" it out. And then he had the cheek to try and charge us 1400 rupees each for the pleasure... we paid him 250 each and he sent us to his sister in law.

Sally finally got the henna on her hand under strict instructions not to wash, swim or get it wet for 24 hours. Slight pain, but manageable until the skies opened.

She would have been complaining, but rain was such a blessed relief after all the heat that we just carried on walking. We became the pied pipers of Pushka as all the young beggar boys started to follow us, saying "chapatti chapatti chapatti" (chapatti is bread). We fell in love with these boys and bought them some flour for chapatti and some biscuits. One of the older boys told us that it is common for the shop keepers to come after them once tourists bought them food and confiscate them, so we made sure we watched them get back to their shacks with their mothers and had opened the food.

After Pushka, we moved onto Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, a three hour drive from Pushka... not worth visiting unless we missed something whilst there, but we did manage to be celebrities for the day! We went to the Amber fort and Sally was asked to pose for at least 50 photos with vaious Indian men, women and children, she was even asked to hold babies for pictures! We have later heard that she looks like a Bollywood actress!! The only other positive about Jaipur was our accommodation, as we had an outdoor lounge to ourselves, with movie channels, a nice way to pass the evenings.

After Jaipur came Ranthambhore National Park... another waste of time as the whole reason to go there was to see tigers and we didn't see a single one! We had a room with air-conditioning which cooled a total area of about 2 square meters in a very narrow strip... oh and every half an hour there was a total power cut and the AC switched off... at least 8 times in the night, one of us would have to get into the bathroom, fill a bucket of water (oh yeah, no showers) and throw it over our heads. The pair of us had to sleep across the foot of both beds in the hope of getting some air conditioning!!

The plus side was, we did have a pool, and this was where we met Dave (Davindra) who said he owned a 5* hotel down the road and did we want to come for dinner? Seeing as there were three of us, and a free dinner was on offer, there didn't seem to be any harm in going, so we accepted the offer and went to the hotel that evening. Knowing the safari was booked for 5.30am the next day, and Argentina was playing at midnight, we thought a quick dinner and then back to our hotel would be perfect... but no.

We were kept in the hotel until about 2am, plied with Rum and were only allowed to leave when the drinks had been finished. Thank goodness for Filippe for making sure we were ok and for finishing the drinks when we couldn't take any more.

So you can imagine the state we were in when we had to get up at stupid o'clock in the morning to see a National Park that didn't have any tigers in it! Had we been less tired, we may have appreciated it for the beauty of the park as well as the less exciting animals. Oh, and Sally did have a HUGE bird sitting on her hand eating biscuits at one point.

After Ranthambhore came Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, on the hottest day we have experienced so far... and of course we decided to go there at 12pm... not the most sensible idea! Just for an idea of how strict they are in what you can take to the Taj, we had to check in a torch and a camera tripod into the lockers... clearly they are very dangerous objects!! The Taj is every bit as impressive as we had hoped, but it was just too hot to enjoy it at all, so hot, it turns out even princesses do sweat. A LOT! And of course, you have to remove your shoes everywhere here and walking on the marble floor was a nightmare!

After only one night in Agra, we then went to the station in order to catch a train to Varanasi. Now, we knew the train was due at 8.30pm and we knew we had to be on platform 3. Proud of ourselves for getting to the station two hours early, we sat down in the waiting room and started talking to a Canadian couple. We even managed to get onto the platform by 8pm so that there was no way we could miss the train. Here was where we learned that trains do not have their names, numbers or destinations on there. They also don't tell you in English whether your train is delayed. 10pm, still sitting on the platform, and the skies open again! All of a sudden, there are rats, that's right, rats running across the platform to get out of the rain...!

Every train that came through the platform, we were told wasn't ours... finally at 10.30pm the right train came in. For all our organisation, we were so far away from our reserved carriage that we had to run, backpack and all, all the way down the platform and jump on the train as it started moving! So much for being highly organised, we were ten seconds from missing our train entirely!

Considering how bad most forms of transport are in India, we were very impressed by the trains. We took 3AC class (thee bunks on one side of the train and three on the other with air conditioning) and slept up one side of the train. It was a very comfortable journey and we all managed to sleep through til the morning. The only downside was the "bathrooms" which was really just a hole in the floor... but we coped...!

And so, we arrived early morning in Varanasi a couple of days ago. We checked into our hotel, had a sleep, and in the afternoon went to Sarnath which is the site of an ancient Bhuddist temple, where it is believed that Budda himself meditated. It was only discovered by British Architects in the early 20th century.

The following day entailed a 4.30am wake up for a early morning boat ride along the Ganges river. Varanasi is also one of the three holiest cities in India and it is also believed to be the oldest. This is the city of Shiva - the destroyer - and it is the place that all Hindu's come to die. There are many many hospices lining the ghats (steps by the river bank).

We were taken to the burning ghat by boat, where 2-300 bodies every day are burned by the ganges and then the stenum (for men) and the hip bone (for women) are thrown into the Ganges. If a Hindu is burned at Varanasi, they go straight to Nirvana, and for this reason, women are not allowed to accompany they bodies as if they cry, they will stop the entry to Nirvana. We also did this boat trip the same evening and saw nine bodies being burned. There is an eternal flame that has been burning for 3000 years and the owner of the temple where this sits is a hugely rich man, being that he can sell this flame to every family who has a body to burn. It all sounds a bit morbid, just sitting there and watching, but it was incredibly spiritual, and the Hindu's look upon it all as a celebration.

We also saw a body being thrown into the middle of the Ganges as children (as they look like gods) pregnant women, very holy men and those with chicken pox cannot be burned.

We went to a number of Hindu temples and started to get an idea of quite how difficult life is to be a Hindu. It is common for Hindu's to visit three or four temples in one day, and some will sit in the same place chanting mantra for 24 hours. It is nice how individual the religion is, there are no set services and they are very giving with people of religions other than theirs. We were privileged enough to be allowed into a Hindu only temple and blessed with a prayer whiles being tapped by a peacock feather, having a bindi put on, and a knotted rope tied as a necklace.

And this brings us to where we are today... it is now nearly 4pm and in a couple of hours we are being taken to the station to catch a train back to Delhi, where we will say goodbye to the lovely Filippe who is off to S.E Asia and we will make our journey down South!

Updates (and hopefully photos) soon,

All our love

Sally and Katie

We can't get out of Delhi!

Hello world!
If you are wondering why you havent heard from us in a week...

June 9th, we packed up our bags and left for our city tour as arranged. It was an interesting (?) tour, not much was seen as it was too hot to leave the air conditioned car, the temples wanted all our belongings locked away and the museums wanted all our money. On top of this, we have been told that there were troubles in Amritsar, where we had bought tickets for later that day! We decided not to go, and that it where the phrase "we can't get out of Delhi" came from.
At this point, we had nowhere to live, nowhere to go, and no idea where to head for instead! We then spoke to some travel agents for some ideas and read our Lonely Planet book for inspiration. We decided to heat North, somewhere quiet so we could plan the rest of India as it is not quite as easy as expected! And, its a BIG place!
We settled in Srinagar, Kashmir, in the very North of India. The Lonely Planet describes it as "Indulgent houseboats on placid Dal Lake, famous Mughal gardens, colourfully historic wooden mosques and Rozabal's 'Jesus tomb'".
Perfext, we thought, and booked ourselves a flight for the next morning. Of course, only the best for us princesses, so we booked a delux houseboat too!
Landing at Srinagar airport, we were slightly shocked by the number of soldiers inside and outside the terminal. (Later told the figure of 10 soldiers to every person!)
Little were we to realise what would happen whilst there...
Our driver picked us up from the airport and drove (almost as madly as the do in Delhi) to Dal Lake. Once arriving, we could see what all the fuss was about. The views of the Himalayas, hundreds of houseboats surounding a mirror flat lake with lots of Shikara (a local rowing boat with beds) crossing backwards and forwards. We were taken across the lake and checked into our houseboat, the Star of Kashmir. We found a very old English decorated houseboat as these were first build during English colonial times and during this time, they were not allowed to build on the land. We were shown to our room, brought some Kashmir tea and told to settle in by the manager who promised to come back and see us once he had sorted out a tour for another guest.
Half an hour later, we were taken to another room and the manager attempted to sell us a 420 pound 6 take trek into the Himalayas. We made it clear that we werent able to pay for this and somehow found ourselves agreeing to a 10,000 RS (175 pounds) trip which consisted of 4 single day trips. Fortunately we didn't hand over any money at this time, as later that evening we both began to get a little paranoid about how we were practically stranded on a boat 200m from land and had somehow promised to hand overa weeks budget to do activities that we weren't interested in doing in the first place.
We had also met an Israeli girl who was travelling alone and had recieved the same pushy sales treatment we had. Although she had taken an 27 hour bus ride to get there, she had gotten so upset that she booked to go back again the very next day. Bear in mind, none of our phones were working, we had (we thought) no access to the internet, oh and we were in KASHMIR!
Needless tosay, neither of us slept too wel that night, and locked up our belongings securely.
The next day, we told the manager we didnt want to do the trip, and he demanded we pay the tax on it (22.5% - we got away without paying so no worries there).
We then found out there was internet access and payphones just along the lake, and one of the servants rowed us across. We spent some time searching for cheap flights to get us straight out of there and back to Delhi where we felt safe ("we can't get out of Delhi!")
We then phoned our travel agents Vijay and Sunny and told them we were very unhappy and wanted to leave. Next thing we knew, they had phoned our boat manager and told him everything we had said and he turned up in our internet cafe. Turns out, we had already got two trips included in the the price of our accommodation and we could get a flight our of there for no extra charge on 15th June.
OK, fine, we will grin and bear it, not ideal that we have had a "disaster" within days of getting here, but we will do the tours and spend the rest of the time planning the rest of the trip as we had previously devided.
As time went on, we actually really started to enjoy ourselves. What we originally thought was pushiness was actually friendliness and whilst the owner of the boat was possibly a little crazy, he was a kind man who actually wanted us to enjoy our stay as much as possible. Anything we wanted was brought to us and we had meals included (which were all very nice)
One of our trips was a Shikara ride and we were picked up early morning by Manzoo, our guide and best friend for the day. We were expected to lie back on the beds while poor Manzoo rowed us for 10 hours but we were having none of that. Instead, within half an hour, Kate had picked up the other oar and Sally was able to lie back and get the princess treatment (sound about right?)
We passed many floating gardent, mountains and fellow boated during the day. We visited a small town and mosque and received many strange looks as if we were the first Western tourists in town. We chilled with Manzoo who was very over protective as many people approached us and he eaither shooed them away or told us we must move. As we left the town by boat, children were throwing stones at us, and later that day we found out why...!
We headed to the old city which took some time as the wind was against us, so we all took an oar (even Sally) and helped. We experienced our first meal without cutlery and ate rice and vegetable curry with our hands. It was very nice, if a little unhygenic!
We then visited the honey house and tried samples of honey, from Lotus and Almond, through to Hashish and Opium!
According to "Mrs Honey", Mick Jagger has been to her house and bought honey from her also!
She fel in love with Sally and kept telling her "you are very very beautiful" - this seems to be a recurring theme in India!
We then left (after buying a pot of lotus honey) and visited some floating shops on route home. When arriving, we were informed that a 24 hour curfew had been put out in Srinagar as the army had shot three young boys for throwing stones. Which explains the treatment we got earlier!
The next few days were spent drinking Kashmir tea, reading on top deck and watching the shikara pass by. Our tour of the city was cancelled, which worked out ok due to a servere case of Delhi belly which left Kate in bed for a day or two!
We spent most evenings chilling on top of the boat - to the left we had the green covered foot of the Himalayas, the right, snow covered peaks and bright blue skies. One evening, the sky became totally overcast, turning day into night and we thought we would stay out and watch the storm. It was probably the most fascinating experience yet as we literally heard the thunder as the clouds hit the mountains. We could actually feel the vibrations through the wood of the boat. Not a drop of rain fell on us but we were able to see the most beautiful rainbow appear from the foot of the mountain!
And now we are home, well back in Delhi ("we can't get out of Delhi!")
And best news of all is we have a plan for the rest of the trip! We are staying a night here and then heading for a week or so to Rajasthan!
And so here is where we will leave you!
All our love,
Sally and Katie xxx

We have arrived in Delhi!

Hi all!
Just thought I would give you an update on our trip so far.
We arrived in Delhi late last night and within 10 minutes had our first adventure... getting into a taxi. There don't seem to be any road laws here, red lights are ignored and road markings seem to be for aesthetic purposes only! The only way to get anywhere is to weave in and out of cars, oxen, people, scooters, bikes, mopeds and rickshaws, beeping the horn and flashing the lights!
We had booked ourselves into a hotel for the night, very expensive by Delhi standards. It was decorated in bright multicolours, with the letter things that opticians use for lights and other multicoloured flashing lightbulbs. CRAZY!
This morning, we checked out of the hotel and moved to another hostel. It is actually very nice, with a real (own) toilet and air conditioning... and this is costing us a fiver a night.
The part of Delhi we are staying in is like nowhere I have ever seen... there are no actual roads or pavements, it is more of a free for all... and it is all just full of dust and rocks.
Very quickly I had to change out of western clothing and into a pair of Indian trousers pretty sharpish!
We have both bought Indian mobiles which is free to recieve calls from the UK.
It is evening now and we are both pretty exhausted - it has not been too hot here today which is a relief although I am sure that will change soon.
Tomorrow we have arranged for a driver to pick us up at 9.30am for a tour around the whole of Delhi and then catching a sleeper train to Amritsar, which is where the Golden Temple is.
And that is where I will leave you for now... more updates soon I promise.
We are both happy and well (even though I have obviously already injured myself and can't move my neck... REALLY hope a good sleep will cure that for me!)
Much love,
Sally