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
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