Northern Light

April 23: Day 22
 
After watching the Puja ceremony last night, which was even more fantastical from the river, I bumped into Dominic, an Aussie-Scots-Brit who I had met in Agra. After two days of being more or less alone in Varanasi, besides the French travellers from my hotel who I kept bumping into (lovely people but minimal English, aww), some company was refreshing and we decided to go in the hunt for food as neither of us has really eaten all day. I was set on Keshwari, a restaurant renowned for its delicious South Indian dishes, and we found it easily. It was busy and had a good mix of both Indian and foreign customers, both good signs, so we found a table. Although being in the company of other foreigners, especially male, has its advantages in India (as I’ve previously described), the disadvantage at dinner is that the waiter first takes any orders from the men at the table… and then walks away, of course assuming that the women have been ordered for. Wait! Hungry lady here! LOL, I eventually got my order placed (with the waiter looking both confused and peed off), and when our thali (a plate with several small dishes, kind of like an Indian tapas for one) and mushroom masala (the house speciality!) came they were both good. Not mind blowing, but good all the same. Starving as I was, I gladly cleared my plate. Oh, hindsight…

The walk back to my hotel was an amusing one as Dominic and I were ‘befriended’ by a rather hazy-headed Indian man whose sentences didn’t make a whole lot of sense, until he started asking us if we wanted to buy some opium. He was far too out of it to do us any harm so was actually quite amusing, and after a while he seemed to forget we were there and ambled off in another direction! Once back at my hotel I wasn’t quite ready for bed and was feeling quite sociable, so went up to the hotel restaurant for a drink (soft, of course) and to see what was going on. It was there that I met Shinya, an immensely cute and happy Japanese boy who collapsed into giggles almost at the end of every sentence, and with such an infectious laugh that he had me crying with it. He especially loved my ‘easy English’ (his English was good but not fluent, and he sometimes had trouble understanding if someone was talking too fast), and remarked that I was obviously used to talking to Asians… so I did pick up some life skills in Taiwan! He, myself and the waiter, Ganesh, had a jolly little time on the rooftop and when it was time for bed I crashed out straightaway, even in the heat. But not for long.

Somewhere after 2:00am I roused feeling restless, at first thinking that it was because of the heat. This soon changed to hoping it was only the heat, but by 2:30 I’d had no choice but to succumb – the growing nausea in the pit of my stomach became overwhelming and I had to run to the bathroom, vomiting and all, and I quickly became very sick. I’ll spare the intimate details this time(!), suffice to say that it was definitely caused by my earlier meal at Keshwari. It was an hour or so later, when there seemed to be nothing left on my stomach and my body was rejecting even water, that I started to have flashbacks to a nasty incident of food poisoning I suffered a number of years back when the same thing happened (OMG, ten years ago!), that a serious dread began to set in…that incident had lasted five days. The only consoling thought I had was that it had set in very quickly and so might disappear just as quickly – if it got itself out of my system within 24hrs then I would just have to deal with it, however, I was due to get up at 05:30 for a sunrise boat ride along the Ganga and then at 11:30 I was booked onto the train to Mumbai, a journey of no less than 27hrs. Oh gosh.

When 5am came around and I hadn’t gotten back to sleep I felt really, horribly rotten. Goodness knows how I did it, but I managed to pull myself together for the boat ride – I was determined to make it, and it was my only ever chance after all! It had been a half hour or so since I had last vomited, and I was having to restrict myself to only sipping water, despite what felt like an insatiable thirst, as it was the only way to keep it down for any length of time. I hauled myself out of bed, got dressed and was escorted to the boat by the sleepy teenage grandson of the hotel family who, bless him, had no idea of my predicament. My mouth was dry, I had the shakes and my blood sugar was probably non-existent. I have no clue where I got my energy from, but I made it to the boat! The sunrise was beautiful, reflecting on the water and casting a lovely golden glow over the sandwashed buildings on the riverbank, but that wasn’t what I had dragged myself there for. While the streets of the Old City were just waking up, the banks of the Ganga were teeming with life; there were hundreds of people there for their morning bathing ritual, pilgrims who had made the trip especially to bathe at sunrise, people doing yoga, praying, washing clothes, and the burning ghats were still in full use. It was an absolutely amazing experience and, in a weird way as it probably wasn’t very sensible, I’m massively proud of myself for not missing it under the circumstances*! I got some astounding photographs… though what you can’t see is me behind the camera, bent double and praying myself that I wouldn’t make a show of myself by having to puke in their putrid but holy water! I ended up having to cut the ride slightly short, which is a shame but I don’t think I really missed out and I couldn’t have lasted much longer. I was very dizzy walking back up the steps and to the hotel, not helped by some annoying guy who tried to strike up conversation with me and appeared totally ignorant of the fact that I could barely stand. All I could think of was getting back, which I did – it wasn’t very far but I was still very relieved. I was still ill, and was getting even more worried about my prospects of coping with the journey ahead of me. The hotel grandma, who was awake by now, took pity on me and got someone to make me some black tea, the only thing I felt might help.  I drank it slowly and did actually feel a little better, and had no choice but to start packing and hope for the best.  A hot shower also seemed to help and, after a bit of rest, I decided I should probably try to at least eat something small before going for the train.  Ganesh was back in the restaurant and as soon as he saw me could tell something was wrong!  He made me some dry toast and a hot ginger and lemon drink, which tasted very medicinal and was just what I needed.  I left for the town still feeling fragile but, surprisingly, much better than I had earlier.  I packed a couple of 'safe' savoury snacks and some fruit with me so that I had something in case my appetite returned, and when I had survived the rickshaw ride to the station with no queasiness I knew the sickness had stopped.  If I believed in a god, I'd have been cheering my thanks to the entire station.  YAY!

*An advantage of travelling alone? I’m sure anyone with me would have stopped me from going anywhere...

April 21-23, days 20, 21 & 22

Part I:  WTF??
So, three weeks in and I arrived in Varanasi, one of the places on my itinerary, the crescendo of my entire trip.  Oh dear, my first impressions were awful.  Awful awful.  Not only was the harrassment level at the railway station off the map, but in venturing beyond the station's perimeters I could only conceive that I had ventured into what must be one of the filthiest places on Earth.

In my rush to catch the train the night before I had typically forgotten to call ahead to book a room at a hotel, making things ten times worse for myself on arrival.  Rickshaw drivers were on me right from the platform to the station exit, with one in particular who would not leave my side and kept tapping my arm for attention - I'm sure you all know that this is something I would take aversion to at the best of times, but at 5:20am and from someone whose fingers and beard were black with dirt?  Big mistake!  I had picked out a hotel from the limited selection in my guidebook, listed as a reliable budget travellers' favourite.  I was therefore aiming to get to the tourist office in the station, from where I would be able to call them so that they could come to pick me up.  As it was such a major station, I assumed the office would be open 24hrs, as most others had been, but no.  I found their office, quite a big one, with an equally big sign informing me that they opened at 8am.  My rickshaw hound was kind enough to repeatedly jab me in the arm to point this out...  Okay, deep breath, and a new mission: find a public telephone.  This part was easy, except that the guy in the booth insisted on way overcharging me for the two measly calls I made, and as I didn't have change there was nothing that I could do about it.  Tension was mounting, though rickshaw dude seemed to be enjoying himself (presumably seeing my money lighting up the end of his tunnel).  The hotel I had settled on - after the first one hung up on me when there was no one there who understood English - couldn't send anyone to get me as it was too early and had given me some very vague directions but, still, at least I had booked a room...

Golden rule in all tourist destinations as I had learned, and had been told it was truer of Varanasi than anywhere else, is to always hail your own rickshaw if possible and avoid the ones whose drivers approach you directly.  Bearing this in mind my so-called friend had no chance, so when he followed me again outside and started trying to shoo me over to his cart, I lost my rag a bit and told him quite sternly to leave me alone!  He slunked off, looking riled.  :-)  The main road was a pain once I got there, as it quicky became apparent that my hotel didn't pay any commission to rickshaw drivers, as no one wanted to take me!  I started wondering of I had cut off my nose to spite my face and would have to return to the station, but managed to find myself a ride just before my pateince caved.

I was dropped off sort of nearby, and had to ask a local for directions; this is something that has proved tricky in India, as people will often give wrong directions rather than admit that they don't know.  Tthey also have trouble understanding that all I might be asking is for them to show me on the map where I am, rather than full on specifics of where to go next, but once the guy I spoke to had grasped this he was able to help and I found my way.  But was it worth it?

The "winding streets" of Varanasi turned out to be a tiny maze of alleyways which, at 6am were deserted, except for the occasional sleeping stray animal or stinking pile of dung.  The smells were foul, and I made an instant decision to only wear covered shoes in Varanasi!  My hotel turned out to be just as cheerful as me, and when they tried to give me a hovel of a room where the door opened right onto the bed, the sheets of which looked older than me, with a shared bathroom that I can only describe as the toilet equivalent of a toerag, I left.  I felt like I'd been handed my 'Go To Jail' card.  Back to square one!

Resisting the urge to cry, I took another deep breath (uh-oh, smell!), consulted my guidebook with growing venom, and searched on - it at least had an accurate map!  The second place I tried was beter than the first, but still overpriced for what was on offer and the bathrooms were very borderline.  Well, I'd pushed this far so wasn't going to settle, and am so pleased I did as I got third time lucky.  Although again down a filthy alleyway (to be fair there wasn't really a whole lot they could do about that, and at least the monkeys ate up any leftover food lying around!), the place I ended up staying at was really cosy.  It was family run and a little bit more expensive than the other places I had looked, but spotlessly clean so totally worth it!  I took one of their smaller rooms but I loved it as it opened  out right onto the family living room and felt really homey; I could happily leave my door open and nip in and out for a chai or a chat with whoever was around!  This was generally either the hotel manager or another guest, or the really sweet family grandma who was always there watching bad soap operas, and had barely any difference in height whether sitting or standing!  After taking one look at me when I arrived she told me to go and rest, and worry about checking in etc later.  I could have hugged her, and  ducked into my room for a nap.  Relief!

Part II: Rapt

Okay, so I’d had a stinking rotten morning but, like it or not, I had two days ahead of me in Varanasi and I’d been really looking forward to it.  I had a few extra hours of sleep, showered, and threw myself into the streets ready to tackle whatever was waiting.

I had chosen to visit Varanasi as it is a Hindu holy city, famous for the thousands upon thousands of pilgrims who either visit as a one off, or make their final journeys there.  Those lucky enough to make it to Varanasi for their final days are then cleansed and cremated on the banks of the River Ganges, with legend has it gives the spirit a clear passage to heaven.  Though over time the city has grown, its sprawl is centred on the Old City, whose winding streets are littered with tiny shrines and all lead down to the Ganges, the banks of which are lined on one side with ghats – steps descending directly into the river.  The stories I had heard bout the many Hindus who flock here just to bathe in the river fascinated me and I was drawn to Varanasi; I had decided very early on in planning my trip that I absolutely could not miss it.

First essential in any new place is to get your bearings, which here basically meant my memorising every tiny step or landmark I could so that I would be able to find my way back through these narrow streets at night if I needed to!  I walked down to the ghat closest to my hotel, which was fairly quiet as it was the middle of the day (it tended to get busy very early in the morning and then again in the evening), and had an amble through the fruit and veg market before taking a rickshaw to the southernmost ghat in the city with the aim of working my way back north.  The ghats themselves were all on the quiet side, and I found out later that this was largely due to the immense heat; temperatures were hitting 45 celcius and a lot of people were just staying inside, hiding from the midday sun. I couldn’t blame them either – staying out for so long at the Taj Mahal the day before I think I gave myself a mild sunstroke so wasn’t feeling my best anyway (very low on energy), and only lasted a couple of hours before I began to feel unusual and had to head back to my hotel to recover with a fan.  Even feeling rubbish though, Varanasi had held me rapt in a very short space of time.  I was intrigued by the activity in the markets, by the distinctiveness of each of the ghats, the architecture and the general attitude of the people; the city was big and bustling, and yet somehow everything felt completely laid back.  The negativity of the morning had washed away, and I already felt glad to have come.

In the evening I walked back down to the main ghat to watch the evening Puja, a traditional Hindu ceremony that is performed there every night at 7pm.  I’d asked a couple of locals exactly what this was, and all they’d been able to say was “big ceremony, go to watch and you will see… it’s Puja!”  So see, I did!  From what I could understand, the ceremony itself wasn’t anything out of the ordinary and followed ritual Hindu worship where incense is waved in front of an idol and the subject bows, but it was the way it was all orchestrated that made this such a big thing in Varanasi.  There were several rows of steps leading down into the river, and at the top of the bottom row, at the most prominent place on the ghat, was an arrangement of five idols draped in flowers with lights arranged overhead (although I didn’t understand the significance of the lit up umbrella frames – aesthetic rather than symbolic?).  There were five men, all dressed in orange robes (as were the many pilgrims milling around), positioned in front of these idols to worship them, facing the river, with hundreds of people gathered both on the steps behind them and on boats in the river waiting to watch the ceremony.  There were drums beating and music playing, with some singing being played through speakers.  It was hard to tell if there was a set beginning as the crowd waited, chatting amongst themselves with many locals wandering through selling various things (postcards, flowers, henna), but I soon noticed that the five men standing ahead of the idols had begun wafting their incense sticks, all in time to the music and in fully choreographed movements!  This combined with the lights, the candles and the fires that were also being waved, the singing, music and chanting, made for a wonderfully enchanting spectacle.  It lasted for almost an hour, and there was a buzz about the air the whole time.  

Part III: The Wakening

I didn’t have a whole lot planned for my second day in Varanasi, partly because it was most definitely a place to ‘be’ rather than a place to ‘see’, but partly that it was impossible to stick to any pre-made plans in the heat. I walked down to the main ghat, which was as far as I’d gotten yesterday, so that I continue north from there. Only ten minutes had passed before I needed to stop for a water break, but in a way this was a welcome excuse to stop and take a wider look around me! There were more people milling around the ghats today; lots of fishermen, flower ladies and pilgrims (all male) decked out in orange, some also with white body paint and extravagant knots in their hair. There were cows lazing in the river and the usual bathers, many of them young boys with their fathers, or women hitching saris up to their knees. Though I’ve mentioned the Ganga in all its spirituality I haven’t really commented on its reality, and it is essential to do so here so that my total bafflement of these bathers is understood. Holy river it may be, but the actual waters of the Ganga are putrid. There are cows and dogs splashing around in it, dirty water from all over the city being pumped into it after use, human waste from sewers, and those all in addition to the masses of chemicals being churned into it from the numerous factories on the outskirts of the city. To me the water was quite visibly dirty but the people here still wash both themselves and their clothes in it, insisting that it is holy and cleanses their bodies both inside and out. One Indian person told me that if I were to drink from it I would be very seriously ill, but remained convinced that bathing in it was fine and would make me a whole new person. Yet some Hindus do go so far as to drink from it with the liberating sense that they are purging their souls from within, purifying both body and spirit. From their perspective though, I suppose they would be just as confused by my revulsion as I was by their exuberance.
 

I carried on further north, passing several ghats with temples and accompanied by a fisherman who seemed to have latched onto me. At first I tried to shake him off, being automatically wary of his intentions, but in time it seemed that he was just genuinely interested in where I had come from and what I was doing. He was eager to tell me what he could about the city, and I felt guilty for jumping so quickly to suspicion. What has India done to me?? In feeling so rubbish yesterday I wanted to be left alone and shut out a few people who had tried to talk to me, probably making life more difficult for myself! The days where I have opened up to people have been far better than those where I have held firm my suspicions, so today I decided it was time to open up. Although I wasn’t so impatient to see the so-called ‘Kama Sutra' temple (as named by locals – I think it was just a harmless temple to Shiva and his consorts), he knew a lot about the ghats and I let him lead the way toward the nearby burning ghat and to a spot where I could watch without being intrusive.
 

There are two burning ghats along the banks of the Ganga at Varanasi and I didn’t know a great deal about them except for the obvious, that they are dedicated to cremation. I had heard about them both from reading up on Varanasi and talking to other travellers so I knew that it was okay to go to see them – indeed many of the visitors to Varanasi, both Indian and foreign, will make a stop there - but that photography was, of course, strictly taboo. To get to a balcony, from where it was safe to observe, I had to go around to the back of the old disused property it was housed in, a building that sat at the forefront of piles and piles of timber, stored there for use on the ghat and regularly replenished by merchants. From the balcony I could see three levels amid the steps going into the river in front of me, and on each were stacks of the same timber; some were full and freshly laid, some were just remnants of ash. Workers were milling around, though not too many, either topping up the timbers or sweeping around the old stacks – I couldn’t help wondering what happened with the actual ashes. After a short while, a funeral party appeared. I could only see the men as the women would have been back behind the ghat obstructed from my view, and it appeared that only men were allowed onto the ghat itself. Even then, the only men who came to the front were the ones carrying a wooden stretcher, obviously made for the occasion, on which there was a very distinct human shape wrapped in what looked like an orange sort of foil. The body was carried down to the river strapped to the stretcher, where it was quickly sunk into the water for the soul to be cleansed, then brought back up and laid at the side of the ghat. It was then left. Although these proceedings were not what you would call pleasant to watch I was somehow rooted to the spot, captivated, fascinated and slightly dumbstruck by what I was seeing, and I was curious over what would happen next and why the body had seemingly been deserted. A little time went by before anything more happened, and in the meantime another body was brought down to the river for cleansing. A few of the men from the first funeral party, dressed in white, returned and moved the body closer to one of the pyres and the foil around the body was unwrapped, leaving it bound in layered white cloth. It was lifted onto the pyre, which had been lit at the base; further layers of timber were laid over it and they began to burn. The men moved away as more of the timbers were set alight and the pyre began to smoke. I remained, unable to do anything, rooted and unmoving, quite possibly gawping at the goings on below me and struggling to absorb it all. It was only when parts of the white cloth began to burn away and a foot appeared, very clearly, that I jerked back into reality and decided I had seen enough.
 

It naturally took a few minutes to mentally place myself back in my surroundings and I felt a bit dazed, like when you’ve looked at the sun for too long, but I wandered slowly back up to the lanes of the old city, not especially sure of where I was headed. It’s quite astonishing though how quickly you can, at times, force yourself to shake something off when necessary, something I’ve really noticed in India – I can see something totally amazing, shocking or surreal and, in mere minutes, will have left it behind and be gazing in awe at something completely different or have been snapped out of it by whatever madness is going on in the streets! I worry sometimes that I may be being too casual about the surreal things I am seeing day to day or brushing them off too easily, but it’s incomprehensible just how much there is here to take in. I almost feel like I’m storing things up in a mental box to bring back out later, because it’s impossible to deal with all at once, but that’s part of the reason for keeping this diary; if I don’t write things down while they are still at the forefront of my mind I am paranoid that they will just slip away from memory!
 

Anyway, Varanasi thrust itself back on me and soon enough I was fighting my way back through the alleyways. My timing was such that I collided with a big group of women exiting a Hindu temple and sort of became merged with them as they made their way to wherever it was they were going, and I didn’t have much option but to follow the crowd. This was nowhere fast, as they kept stopping at random little hole-in-the-wall shrines, which were so small that I wouldn’t have noticed them otherwise – a blessing in disguise! What utterly amazed me was that these women, for the most part, looked totally pristine; tidy hair, healthy figures, clean faces and elegant saris, and yet they were walking around Varanasi barefoot. Barefoot! Just when I thought I couldn’t be surprised any more… They tiptoed and padded around the dirt with seemingly effortless grace.
 

By this part in the day the heat had taken over so, after aimlessly wandering and realising that the noise of the main roads outside the Old City were just giving me a headache I retreated, found a café and had a little siesta.
 

I spent the latter part of the afternoon again just wandering and loving every minute of it, before heading back to the Ganga and out on a boat to watch the Puja with a view from the river. Gorgeous.

April 20, day 19

Ha, I'm loving this - stubborness prevails yet again!  To get from, Agra to Varanasi I was booked on an overnight train from Tundla station, which I guessed to be about a half hour away from Agra.  Nu-uh.  It turned out to be an hour and a half away, and I didn't find this out until a little under 3hrs before my train was due to depart.  I was online at the time so did some ultra quick research on how to get there, managing to find a little info about getting the bus but nothing very specific.  The guy running the internet cafe said he could organise me a taxi for Rs400, to which I said No!  My hotel also said they could organise me a taxi, this time for Rs600 - a very definite and slightly louder No!  So what to do?  In both places I asked what they knew about the bus, and in putting their two acocunts together was able to work out clear instructions on where to catch one and how long it would take.  I took a rickshaw to the depot, declining the driver's multiple offers along the way to take me all the way to Tundla for Rs200, which would naturally include the privelage of being taken to a marble shop where, of course, I wouldn't have to buy anything.  I've given up trying to suss their logic, which is great as it no longer confuses me, just amuses me! 

On arriving at the bus depot I could do naught but laugh, and it's a good thing I have a solid sense of humour - the bus I was to get on had no front bumper and the rest of the exterior looked fairly set to follow (like in a cartoon where all the sides fall off simultaeneously) and it was already crammed full but, hell, I like an adventure so smiled at my fellow passengers before shoving on board with my backpack and paying my Rs20 for a ticket.  The staff at the hotel had kindly, and with genuine concern, warned me quite sternly to watch out for my luggage at all times.  I bore this in mind, but their really was no need; the people on board were all really lovely, especially the quiet Indian girls next to me who also had luggage and had managed to bag some seats with space to store it, helping me to secure mine with theirs even though it would blatantly clog up their space.  They couldnt speak English but spent half the journey smiling up at me and at one point even tried to free up a couple of inches of space for me to sit on the edges of their seat - I didn't have the heart to accept and impose even more, but they were so sweet to offer!  The trip wasn't even as long as I'd been told, though very rickety and the driver was useless - I'm obviously becoming more accustomed to Indian driving, as I found myself thinking that even I could squeeze a bus through some of the spaces he wimped out of!  He kept missing turning points and driving further and further out of our way to get to a quieter one, and all of the other passengers seemed to be getting a bit agitated with him too.  Honk honk, hurry up!  As we got closer to Tundla several people kept me updated on how many kms we had to go, when we got there they all made sure I knew where to get off, and one of them even hailed me a rickshaw to the station!  Aww.

It has to be said though, if I never hear of the existence of Tundla again it wont be too soon.  It was easily the most polluted place I have ever passed through - my poor rickshaw driver cough cough coughed the whole way to the station (I almost wanted to give him my asthma inhalers as baksheesh) and I could barely see beyond 50 metres ahead of me for all the smoke and fumes.  By the end of the 10-15 minute ride I felt completely choked.

Being on the road in such conditions (I haven't even mentioned the heat), passing through chaotic streets sometimes so busy that a passenger would occasionally hop off the bus to walk into the traffic and clear some space for us up ahead was a totally mad experience, so except for the chuntering smoky end I felt chuffed that I had held out in getting the bus.   Not only was it twenty times cheaper than a taxi would have been but it was most certainly twenty times more interesting.  I definitely got to see some of the real India and, for me, that made it priceless.

April 19 - 20, days 18 & 19:  Agra

Now, I wasn't sure what to expect with Agra, given that I'd heard so much, but I was still pretty excited to arrive.  It wasn't set to be a long stay as the overwhelming consensus was to go, see the Taj Mahal, and then get out as the rest of the city was a dump and full of touts.  The sick part of me that takes sadistic pleasure in torturing myself with anticipation - the Taj was one of the things I was most excited to see in India - had deliberately placed Agra at two thirds of the way through my trip, rather than near the start which may have made more geographical sense.  I'm pleased it did; everything I'd heard about touts was totally true, and if I had gone straight from Delhi I think they would have cast a very dark shadow over my time there.  As it is though, I'm fairly used to them by now and wasn't particularly bothered by the million and one kids in the street shoving postcards and mini Taj mock-ups in my face.

My plan was to visit the Taj on my second day there, as it was my only full day, but I had enough time left in the afternoon after arriving to go and visit Agra fort.  I seem to have visited so many forts by now that I thought one more would more or less wash right over me, but how wrong I was!  I actually really liked it, and it was completely different in style to the ancient forts I had seen already, with some pleasant gardens, and it was especially moving to see the place from where Shah Jahan, who designed and commissioned the Taj Mahal, had spent the final years of his life gazing wistfully across the river at the tomb of his favourite wife as a prisoner of the fort.  Awww.

Not too far from the fort was a mosque that I could easily visit on foot, but on my way there I wandered into a maze of streets taken over my a Muslim market, absolutely rammed with people and traffic, plus the inevitable filth born from the breeding of the two.  I never did make it to the mosque - the only way there was by passing through a low tunnel packed to bursting with people and rickshaws and unknown fluids running through it alongside a heft pile of stinking junk.  That was an easy decision!  It was absolute insanity (I only wish I could convey the rabble!) and I had jaw-dropping fun marvelling at the utter chaos of it all!  The slums backing these streets were a different story though; we all know they exist, somewhere out there, but seeing them for myself - people living out of tents pitched on mounds of mud - shocked me.

The next day I was up at dawn in order to watch the sunrise from the river behind the Taj Mahal, going it alone seeing as the British boys I'd met the day before who seemed uber-keen on the same never showed for dinner to set a time.  Boo!  When I got to the ghat though, there was one other foreigner - British again! (did the Raj ever leave?) - who had found a boat already and was even more determined that I was having been there since 4am!  I hopped on board and we floated off.  This was my first close up view of the Taj, though from the back and outside the context of its grounds I must admit it appeared a little smaller than I had expected.  Still though, it was incredibly peaceful, not to mention surreal, just bobbing around on the boat with it immediately in my foreground, with the rising sun casting some lovely light over it.

As my only plan for the day was to visit the Taj grounds, with only one entrance allowed (FYI - Indian tourists: Rs20, Non-Indian tourists: Rs750) and no food inside, I took my time over breakfast and drank lots of water, finally entering at 11am.  Even after sunrise, I was still feeling skeptical that surely there was no way it could possibly live up to its own hype, but when I walked through the main gate.... wow.  It literally knocked the breath right out of me.  Whether it was the bright sunshine, the gardens, the scale or the pure symmetry of it all, I don't know, but it really was stunning.  I think that because the river in the morning had been so quite that there had been nothing to scale the tomb itself against; seeing it with its gardens and with people milling at its base therefore brought more sense of perspective and it really was huge, looming larger the closer I got.  Meeting David and his giant camera on the boat in the morning also turned out to be a stroke of luck, as I ran into him again inside and he offered to take some proper photographs for me so that I didn't need to succumb to the bartering licenced photographers in the grounds - he has promised to email them to me! 

I ended up spending a good 4hrs taking it all in - the gate, gardens, the building itself and adjacent mosque - and still didn't want to leave.  I wasn't the only person throwing one last longing look behind me at the exit gate.

Saturday 18 April - day 17

A day (or two) in the life of....

22:20 (17/4):
Train from Udaipur to Ajmer has just departed, with me in the top bunk of the overnight AC sleeper car.  The train is due to arrive in Ajmer at 03:45, which means me setting my alarm to wake up at 03:30 to get off in the middle of the night.  I know I should be getting to sleep ASAP, but I'm not feeling at all sleepy and the trains here generally seem to run late anyway, so I'm hoping for maybe an extra hour...

Later: I managed to get my head down at around midnight and slept a little, but fitfully, before being woken by the conductor at 03:15 telling me that we had arrived.  It was very kind of him to do so, but I was not impressed at having arrived early!

03:20 (18/4):
As I stepped off the train, the first thing I both saw and heard was, from waaaay down the platform, a scrawny little Indian boy pelting it straight for me.  He was at my side in seconds with his hands outstretched, asking over and over again for money.  I refuse to give the street kids any money because not only does it condone their behaviour and encourage them to continue, but the money would go straight into the pockets of whichever ganglord was making them beg.  I don't mind giving them something to eat (and opening it first so that they can't sell it on), but I didn't have anything with me, plus, where do you stop?  He was no the only kid around, and a few more followed his lead in badgering me around the station as I tried to find out where I could go from  there.

03:30:
Need a bus to Pushkar, my final destination, about 40mins from Ajmer.  Guide book was a fat lot of good in telling me what time the buses run until, but not what time they start.  Found a ticket office (still with my little entourage) and asked for times; not until 6am.  Great.  After multiple arguments with riskhaw drivers in the station insisting that I did not want to pay them Rs300 to drop me off alone in a new place in the dead of night with no guarantee of a hotel, I sought sanctum in the Ladies only waiting room at the station, where I could wait safely for a couple of hours.  The kids (still following me) hung around by the door for a few minutes, knowing they weren't allowed inside without a ticket, before giving up and going away.

03:40
Tried to get comfortable on the floor.  There were chairs, but hardly comfortable if I wanted to sleep for a while.  I put my backpack in a corner, positioned so that I could rest my head on a softer part of it, and used my blow-u travel pillow to cushion my hips on the hard floor.  I wrapped myself in a sarong as a blanket and set my alarm.  There was only one other woman in the waiting room and she too was sleeping.  It may not have been comfortable, but I felt safe.

05:15
Managed to get a little sleep, interspersed with station announcements.  Woke before my alarm went off but was groggy so snoozed for another 30mins.

05:45
Yet more rickshaw wars!  Exited the station and, of course, the taxi mafia were waiting.  Some of them were asking Rs50 to get to the bus depot (which was 1km away and the going rate is meant to be Rs10 per 1km, though tourists always pay a little more).  I got them down to Rs30 and they would go no lower, so I hailed one who was happy to take me for Rs20.  They were pissed off :-)    My driver was happy, I was happy.  The underdog always wins?

06:05
Boarded the bus to Pushkar, which was easily spotted by all the white faces getting on it.  It was also worth waiting for at a fare of only Rs9 (ha ha, stubbornness prevails!), and didn't take long at all to get there.

06:35
I got off the bus and could have quite easily buddied up with one of the other foreigners to find a hotel, but couldn't be bothered with the inevitable backpacker life story conversation, so headed off on my own, following the map in my guide book.  Pushkar seems small, so it was easy, and I managed to find a room for only Rs50!  It is basic to say the least and pretty shabby at that, but it's friendly and clean enough considering, and at the end of the day I literally only need somewhere to have a quick hot shower and dump my bags for the day; I'm only here for the day and will be leaving again in the early hours!

12:00
Got settled into the room after doing a double take at a bunch of tortoises croaking around in the sandpit of a courtyard outside, then enquired next door about their advertised yoga classes.  They do them at 9am every day for whoever shows up which, being low season, was only me!  So I bagged a 1:1 session pretty cheaply and got taught some new poses, properly supervised (and in some cases yanked into place!) in ones I already knew, and even got a couple of tips for asanas that will help my asthma.  I just have to remember them...  Came out feeling refreshed and stretched after aching from sleeping on the train.

When I went into town the market was in full swing and I randomly bumped into Adam, an English guy I'dmet in Jaisalmer, and he gave me a few tips on the town.  I wandered up and down the main bazaar - lots of shopping could be done here! - and am now having a brunch stop before going on the hunt for a scooter for the afternoon.

16:45
Oh my God, I am so, so dirty.  I think I could actually draw on myself and it would shop clearly, like a car that hasn't been washed in five years.  Uuuuugh.  I found a scooter quite easily, hence the dirt - driving along 'roads' that are in places just sandy tracks, with the added novetly of Tata trucks blaring past every 5 mins choking everything in their wake, is not good for a girl's complexion!  Or clothes, or hair, or feet.... oh my feet!

Scruffbagness aside though, it was fun.  I couldn't go far on the time I had, but I drove to the base of a hilltop 'temple' (gaudy hole in the wall shrine in a rickety old house) which had stunning overhead views of Pushkar and its surroundings.  It was a 40min uphill struggle from the base, the latter half on rocky steps, and flip flops were possibly not the approproate choice of footwear.  Just driving into the open road was fun too, snapping villages and fields along the way, armed with sweets to dish out to anyone happy to pose for me. After a few hours I was running low on gas and getting seriously thirsty, so called it quits to zip back to the town attack the first ice cold drink I could flay my hands on.  I've no idea what the temperature is, but bloody hot would be a good description!  Myself refuelled, I'm now going to take the bike back, go "home" and wash!  Then shop :-)

20:50
Wow.  I've never seen so much muck come off of me before.  Even after five days at Glastonbury I'm sure I went home cleaner than that!

Watched the sun set over the lake with some ice cream (saffron & pistachio, mnmnanmanmnam), so good that I have returned to the same restaurant for dinner - wood fired pizza that is actually quite good!  I need a break from Indian food.  Also did a bit of shopping and have been bargaining hard; I didn't get a lot, but some cheap essentials for the remainder of my stay - new trousers and a top, so that I will now only have to do laundry every four days instead of every three, some shoes and a book.  Bargaining is fun, but there's only so much I can do before I get tired of every shop owner asking me to come in - "looking is free", "madam, you need this or that or whateverthehellelse".  The Yes Man sure as heck never came to India, or he would have spent a fortune on tat and have never been able to leave!

There also seem to be a few sleazes here - as the town is so small I've inevitable walked past some of the same people a few times over, and every time they shout the same things "madam, you smile so beautiful", "you look so wonderful today", "tell me your name, you make me so happy".... puke, puke, puke!  Ignoring them generally works, but sometimes they then attempt to up and walk down the street after you yelling "why like this, why?" in overdramatic Bollywood wannabe style.  Don't they ever get bored of it??  Lol, anyway, despite my bugger up of the railticket dates I think one day here was enough.  There are still plenty of things to do if I'd wanted to stay longer, but there are only so many temples you can see before they all start to look the same.

Rajasthan has been really, really lovely, but I'm ready to move on now.

23:57
Nap time.  All packed and alarm is set for 2:15 ahead of my 2:30am taxi pick-up.  Tired.

02:58 (19/4)
Groggy.  Back at Ajmer station, once again in the ladies' waiting room, except this time there are lots of women huddled onto the floor.  The platforms outside are filled with passengers either sleeping, or just waiting.  I have bags under my eyes and my body clock seems to have given up.  I need sleep.

03:47
Train was due two mins ago, but has been delayed by one hour.  Sort of dozing, but can't sleep as need to listen for announcements.  I keep jerking awake.  Buh.

12:20
The train arrived at 5am, 1hr15mins late.  By 05:15 I had my bed made and my ticket had been checked, but, probably because of my totally disjointed sleep pattern, it took a while to drop off.  Once I was out I slept through, but not for long enough as I was rewakened at 8am by the train conductor - I was in the bottom bunk and had to move so that the bed could be made up back into seats for daytime travel.  A top bunk was free so I climbed into that, but had pretty much been woken up by then.

We seem to have gained more lateness and are going to be a couple of hours late getting into Agra now, which is a bit annoying as it will cut into my day.  I'm grumpy and want a shower... but am still looking forward to Agra :-)

April 15 - day 14

I arrived in Udaipur last night and, after a long day, wanted to get straight to me hotel and was in no mood to explore.  I had booked ahead and was expecting something a little better than what I found, as both my guide book and the fiendly hotelier in Jaisalmer, plus some other people I had met, had recommended it.  It's not bad, per sey, but the room is very basic and the whole place just feels a bit lacking in character.  Still though, I needed a bed and they had a bed, so I took it.  My instincts were confirmed at the rooftop restaurant (of which Udaipur has many) which, although has good views, was catering to a very run of the mill backpacker crowd; my fellow diners all seemed to be fresh out of uni, drinking beer only at their hotel with either little inclination or no imagination to look elsewhere, whilst ranting about politics and boasting about the places they had "done" so far.  I considered checking out as soon as I could, but when it came down to it.... well, I couldn't be bothered to shift all my stuff again!  It's at least in a quiet part of town, it's cheap and I don't need to spend a lot of time here other than sleeping.

I granted myself a slight lie-in in the morning as a reward for my journey, and decided to have an easy day exploring the city, which could be very easily done on foot, taking my time in the surprisingly mild 40 degree heat.  It's weird to me that so many other people I've met here think that the heat is unbearable, but there's no humidity whatsoever so to me it feels fine!

After getting my bearings I spent the early part of the afternoon at the city palace, which was a nice building and had lovely views (although the lake is mostly dried up following a poor monsoon last summer), but Jodhpur spoiled me with its audio tour and I foudn myself wanting more information than my guide book had to offer!  Afterwards, I headed down to the lake for a boat ride (shorter than normal due to the low water level), along with three Swedish women with whom I got talking.  Two of them were working in Delhi, and it was interesting to hear about their experiences of living and working there - very different to my experiences!  It also turned out that two of them were looking to go on a day trip tomorrow to a nearby fort, as was I though I hadn't yet found anyone to split the fares with.   They invited me along and I was more than happy to do so as it was refreshing to meet some people who weren't just off out on the backpacker trail!

I later went on the hunt for some yoga classes, but with no luck.  As it is low season now, most places have stopped doing evening classes, and morning is just not practical what with day trips, hotel checkout times etc....my dream of yoga on a rooftop at sunset is crushed, boo hoo!  What's a girl to do, but chill?  I found a cafe by the lake and whiled away the evening there.  It was pleasant enough, until the owner began telling me all about his hatred of Muslims...

In all, I had quite a relaxing day, which I think I had been much in need of.  Udaipur has a rather ambient feel about it; so far I like it, and am looking forward to spending a couple of days here.

Day 15 - Kumbalgarh and Ranakpur

About a 2hr drive from Udaipur are the fort of Kumbalgarh and the Jain temples at Ranakpur, which together make quite a comfortable and worthwhile day trip.  I was picked up at 8am (which on Indian time meant 8:40 - I think perhaps I was born here in my first life!) by Karin and Miam, and our driver for the day who seemed only to understand us when looking directly and intently at us when we spoke.  We were a little wary of speaking to him at all for fear of diverting his attention from the road...  As always though, the drive was one of the best parts of the day and not just for me this time - with Karin busy working in Delhi and Miam just visitjng for a week, neither had really had the chance to get out of the cities and they were enthralled by the villages we passed through.  I think I enjoyed their reactions almost as much as the scenery itself!

The fort at Kumbalgarh was made up of a small palace section and surrounding fort plus wall, apparently the second largest in the world after China.  Impressively, the fort was only ever conquered once when outsiders poisoned the water supply, and even them they were booted back out within two days.  I especially liked the doors at the top of the winding entrance path, designed with elephants in mind.  The twists and turns in the path would stop charging elephants from building up any speed, and when they reached the top the doors were laden with iron spikes at exactly theuir head level.  Clever!  Perhaps not so clever, but highly amusing, was the tactic to give horses wee fake trunks so that the attacking elephants would think they were babies and thus be nice to them.  Aww!  The palace itself was a bit on the bland side, but the walk up to the roof was completely worth it for the surrounding views.  Aside from the temples clustered at the bottom and a farm or two nearby, we could see nothing but countryside and hills for miles around, literally as far as the eye could see at which point it muddied into a sunny haze.

We took a break for an unforunately bad and overpriced lunch in the middle of nowhere (captive market) on our way to Ranakpur, where we arrived an hour later.  I had been led to believe that there was a mass of temples tucked away in a valley, but at first glance there didn't appear to be much to see.  Once we were passed the entrance though (where Karin and Miam were asked to wear some charming pink frocks to sover their skirted legs), the trees opened out into a clearing, at the centre of which was one BIG temple!  Even from the outside it exerted a certain stealth, and inside we were taken fully aback by its onateness, and the sheer scale of detail that had gone into the carvings that covered every surface except the floor.  It was telling from our silence that none of us had ever seen anything like it.  Before we knew it, an hour had passed and it was time to go, and I think we each left feeling slightly converted!  We returned to Udaipur feeling tired but calm, and agreed that it had been a memorable day.

Day 16 - Udaipur

My last day in Udaipur has been a little up and down, but I'm the first to admit that it is partly my own fault.  Staying up too late last night meant I was too lazy to get up at first light for a yoga class, and also that I was late having breakfast thus spoiling my appetite for lunch a bit when I was going on a cooking class from 11am until 2pm - I hadn't expected to be eating until 1:30 ish, but the lady had me chomping almost straightaway!  The course was run by my hotel and delivered by the owners wife in their family kitchen - quaint! - and it had been recommended by some people I had met earlier, plus my guide book.  I'm quickly realising though that these things don't always mean they will also be suited to me!  I was disappointed as the class was more like a demonstration when I'd been really looking forward to scrubbing in, but the instructions were very good and I've come away with some very thorough notes.  The food was good, but not as good as I had expected and I think some tweaking would be in order to make it more suited to the Western palate.  Not that I want to de-Indianise it in any way, but I like my heart and don't think that deep-frying everything is really essential!  I took away some good base tips and learned how to make masala chai, but value for money it was not.

Speaking of money, I'm noticing at this point in my trip just how much I have adapted to the currency.  I'm pleased with myself that I'm not constantly converting back to GBP - a complete waste of time when the cost of living is so different - but it's on the odd occasion when I do consider how much I'm spedning that I have to laugh to myself at just how small the amounts are that I'm quibbling over.  A little can go a long way here, so it's worth it (more to come later on how my stubborness prevails!), but I think what I'm saying is that it's funny jusy how quickly you can become tight fisted!

After my huge lunch I was pretty much good for nothing, and wandered around the shops for a while before giving up and crashing out on a rooftop in the sun with some cold drinks and a view of what remains of the dried-up lake.  Nice as it was, I eventually (probably when my food had digested) snapped out of it and realised that sitting in a tourist trap surrounded by all the usual hippy clothes and backpacker cafes was boring the crap out of me, so I went for a walk.  I picked a road leading away from the town and decided to follow it, knowing roughly where it went.  I didn;t go too far though; far enough that I was away from the tourist enclave of the town centre, but not too far that I would get lost or end up somewhere unsavoury.  All I really came across were streets and markets, but I was happy enough that at least these were real Indian streets and real Indian markets.  There was no harrassment here as few people spoke English, so all I really got were curious stares.  This little jaunt was probably the first highlight of my day.  The secnd was dinner.  Yes, I know, I shouldn;t have even had rtoom to contemplate food, but I had a long night of travelling ahead of me and plus I'd found an amazing little cafe the previous night.  Though on the outside it looked like a proper little hole in the wall joint, insdie it was a really cute (and really tiny!) family run place, with out of this world home cooking.  It was set out on two levels (i.e. two corners above and below each other), with a table in the lower one and some floor cushions laid out in the top as there wasn't space for a table.  Obviosuly space was limited, meaning that on the night before I had shared the table with a very enthusiastic English couple , and tonight my only other companion was the owner's grandaughter, who I had to step over as she was sleeping on the cushions.  Like I said, cute!  I can't describe how yummy my banana curry was tonight, suffice to say that it was by far the best meal I have had yet in India, and I think it will be hard to beat.  I bought up a stash of their speciality chocolate-coconut balls, and have them for company with me now on the train before sleepies.... YUM!  Goodnight :-) x

April 14: Day 13 - Jaisalmer to Udaipur

Although Jodhpur (yes, the birthplace of jodhpurs) had been on my original itinerary before arriving in India, after visiting Jaipur I pretty much decided to skip it as the prospect of facing another busy and polluted city hardly excited me.  However, my train ticket had been booked and so I planned to just get the bus straight to Udaipur, rather than staying for even one night.  However, my train arrived late (8:30am as oposed to 5:20), just missing the bus to Udaipur and there wasn't another until 2pm.  I found a hotel that was happy to store my bags for the day, and decided to visit the fort for which Jodhpur is also famous - I'm so pleased now that I did as it really was well worth seeing, plus the entry fee included an audio tour so it was educational too!  The tour was outstanding, the fort was excellently maintained and massively impressive, with some fantastic views over the blue-washed city below.  I almost regretted the decision to move on so quickly, but when passing back through in a rickshaw I didn't spy anything I hadn't already seen elsewhere.

Boarding the bus made me laugh, as I seemed to have well ad truly slipped into Indian/traveller mentality; I looked like a raggedy-Ann doll, with dishevelled hair, dirty feet (I've redeveloped permadirt, that lovely stamp of Asia), was still wearing the clothes I had slept in the night before on the train as I'd had nowhere to change, and the 6-7hr journey ahead of me on a non-AC bus didn;t bother me in the slightest!  Once I had gotten used to the driver shouting at rather than talking to the person immediately next to him and his constant honking on a rather tuneful horn (gotten used to = iPod saves the day), it actually passed quite quickly and I enjoyed watching the world go by.

The Rajasthani countryside was truly fascinating to pass through, and it was on this journey that I awakened to the role of women in India (in this state, at least).  As I've said before, the city streets are totally male dominated, but I really saw the women come out in force along the road to Udaipur (where Octupussy was filmed, so I've been told - just a useless fact for anyone interested!).  While the men in the towns sat in their stalls selling snacks, watching Bollywood films and drinking chai, the women were out in the bazaars shopping and pulling their children along the street.  This is normal, yes, but on the stretches of road between the towns it was the women who were collecting rubbish from the roadside, shifting rocks for roadworks, washing clothes in the rivers, milking cows and goats, carrying water back home from wells in bowls on their heads and other general field work.  I loved watching them as I went by, especially their bright saris contrasting starkly against the barren countryside.  Seeing them made me feel, again, how comfortable our lives are in the West but also made me feel somewhat deprived; these women deal with real hardship every day, getting food and water for themselves direct from the land, and they are happy to work outdoors and apply themselves, something which must produce real grit and strength of character.  I could travel or live here for years on end, and I still don't think I would get a true picture of the shapes of their lives.  One of the shopkeepers in Jaisalmer had already struck me in telling myself, Tim and Roberta that once he had purchased fabrics, he passed them straight to his mother, wife and sister, who would spend their days stitching away upstairs, on a wage of 80 rupees per day (the minimum here for official paid work), while he spent the day in the shop selling the garments, but also chatting with customers and friends.  The sights of rural Rajasthan confirmed my suspicion that, while the men might act as India's limbs, the women are undoubtedly its backbone.

P.S. Apologies for any appalling typos and other errors in my India entries - the keyboards here are useless, and I'm tired!

April 11, 12 & 13 - Jaisalmer, days 10, 11 & 12

Something happened to me on my last day in Jaipur, something that has changed my outlook and subsequently my whole experience of India so far.  What was it?  I slowed down.  Without even realising it, I developed a whole new mindset and found myself walking - and thinking! - obnoxiously slowly, my feet dragging my body along, flip-flops first, barely batting an eyelid at any of the rickshaw wallahs or anything else random in the hustle and bustle around me.  I'm now taking everything at Indian Pace and, you know what?  It's sooo much better this way!  This is what I came for.  As cliched as this will sound, I've felt myself becoming increasingly dislodged over the past few months and I needed to get away from everything to take a step back and regain sight of myself.  I realise now that it needn't even have been India, it could have been anywhere; I needed somewhere that would jerk me right out of my comfort zone and shock the hell out of the numbness that has cast over me of late.  Now that I am here though, I'm more than happy with my choice - India is certainly doing the job!  It has shocked, awed, humbled and amazed me in many ways over only two weeks.  I referred to this Indian Pace as a new mindset for me but, in sincerity, it is a reawakening of a side of me that has been a little lost, a side that I think got partially left behind in Taiwan (and so there it lives on!), and that quite simply does not have room to breathe in England.  (This, incidentally, is the same side of me that always cringes when admitting that back at home, I now hold down a 9-5 office job.  Shudder!)  That's not to say that I'm unhappy in the life I am building there, but a fire needs three elements to burn - without this side of myself, my fire was burning out.  Suddenly a month here doesn't seem like long enough...

Philosphy for the day over though - let me tell you a bit about Jaisalmer, and why I loved it so much there.  I arrived at the station of this far flung desert town in the early afternoon, stepping quite contentedly off of the train and absorbing the heat under the belief, according to my guide book, that hotel touts and rickshaw wallahs were not permitted inside the station area, thus allowing me plenty of time to find my way into town by finding a rickshaw on the street to get to the hotel I had picked out.  What the guide book didn't tell me was that this was actually a load of b***s***, and that the police are quite happy to accept bribes from any touts wanting to get near the station.  On a couple of points in my trip so far I have felt like a minor celebrity, being snapped at sneakily in public, being stared at incessantly and even being asked for my autograph (seriously), but these instances were nothing compared with this.  I looked out from the station front at a sea of male Indian faces, all hungry for my money, and within seconds of stepping out had been ambushed by at least six of them - beyond them there were more, but I couldn't see - all shouting hotel names at me and vying for my attention.  Some were grabbing my arms and some even tried to grab my bags so that I would have to go with them - this really pissed me off, so I beat my way back out of the huddle and into the safety of the station to work out what to do next.  There was no way I was going to be able to get past them to find a rickshaw myself, and the town was a 2km walk, factoring in the heat and my luggage.  Of course, by going back into the station I had trapped myself and, sure enough, when I turned back around they were all waiting for me like a pack of starved dogs.  I followed my instincts, took a deep breath and plunged back in, barging through them towards the first white faces I could see, and ended up jumping into a jeep with Tim and Roberta, PhD Economics students from Belgium and Italy.  They were headed towards a hotel from their guide book and were happy for me to join and, even though once we got there I didn't especially like the hotel, it was at least clean and I was just releived to be away from the station!

You're probably wondering why I started by saying how much I loved Jaisalmer!  Well, once I got into the town it was a completely different story.  The town centres on an ancient fort which rises out of it on a hilltop in sandstone, which is actually still lived in, and wandering around and getting lost in its maze of winding lanes of shops and cafes was a pleasure.  Everything was golden, and the sun shining through onto the walls with brightly coloured Rajasthani handicrafts draped across them was just gorgeous.  What really made this place though, were its people.  High season has passed now, so with less tourists passing through many of the shop owners had more time on their hands than usual and they were so relaxed!  Their attitude was almost the reverse of some of the people I have so far come across, and it was the first place I have visited where I didn;t feel that people were only interested in my money.  Of course, some of them would ask if I wanted to look in their shops, but if I didn't, or if I didn't buy anything, they didn't mind in the least and were genuinely happy to just chat.  Quite a few people offered me cups of chai as I was going around, and I took a couple of them up on it, including the locally famed Mr Desert (I'm sure he's googleable), and a random hotel owner, who booked me a hotel in Udaipur even though I wasn't staying with him.  It was the kind of place where the only way of telling the time was by the position of the sun in the sky; no one was in any hurry.

Afetr a relaxing afternoon and a good night's sleep, I rose early for my camel safari on the edges of the Thar desert.  What an experience!  My camel was named Julian, and I was super nice to him seeing as he was to be my nearest and dearest for the next day and a half.  I don't think it mattered though, as he (and all of the other camels!) was so incredibly chilled and didn't seem to mind who or what he was carrying on his back!  So long as he had a stalk of something or other to chew on, he was happy.  He thrust me up ten feet into the air (giving me a shock!) and we were off.  This was the perfect way to complement my new-found attitude; lapping up the sun and being carried around with nothing but the sound of camel bells and goats in the background.  After visiting some local villages we stopped for lunch, cooked outdoors by our guides and eaten by hand, and I couldn't resist a little siesta under a tree - although I did get rudely awakened by a brief sandstorm.  We spent the afternoon on the camels again and quickened up the pace from the morning - it was fun, but ouch!  We ended the day on a stretch of untouched sand dunes, where we watched the sun set, had dinner and set up camp for the night.  Our guides got a campfire going and sang some hindi folk songs for us, and they even tried a couple of Beatles songs!  We lay down to go to sleep under the stars, the sheer amount and clearness of them equalling only one other night of my life, when Steven and I were camping in the country.  When the full moon rose, I was astonished by how much it lit up the sky, and actually sleeping right under it was unforgettable.

We were up for sunrise the next morning with a cup of chai, and after nreakfast got straight on our way.  My thighs protested slightly at the prospect of three more hours on the camel (the contents of my stomach also thereatened!), but there was no choice.  It wasn't too bad once we got going, and I will absolutely remember the fun more than the pain - it was well worth the trip.  We gave soncere thanks to our guide, shared some lassis with him and parted ways.  I spent my afternoon in Jaisalmer (after hijacking Tim and Roberta's room for what felt like the best shower ever seeing as I was to become a nomad for another day) again just idly exploring, this time going further afield into the market outside the fort where I sampled some delicious Indian sweets (oh so sweet), soaking it all up before a final dinner with my desert family, and then off to the station feeling a little sad to leave. 

Next stop, Jodhpur.

April 10: Day 9

A couple of days ago Sarah, one of the Americans I was with, cracked an in-joke about the Indian Head Bobble. "What's that?", I wanted to know. When they explained, it made perfect sense... When Indians get happy, for example, from helping someone - and I refer to the average Indian citizen, not the savvy ones who deal day-in, day-out with tourists - they do this funny little head bobble where their head bobs from side to side, kind of like a little weeble perched on top of their neck. The weird thing was, earlier that same day I had been chatting to an oldish Indian man on the train, whose English wasn't great but he was getting by and seemed keen to practise. All through the conversation, he had kept wobbling his head in this jellyish way, particularly whenever I gave the desired answer to question, a sure sign that his English had been correctly understood. I noticed this wibbling, and thought it was just an odd but quirky character trait of his but no, it was the Indian head bobble! Sarah was right, I'm going to be noticing it everywhere I go now - I'm now on my next long train journey (from Jaipur to Jaisalmer), and someone in the station who helped me find my platform did the exact same thing. When they do it, they've got this polite and somewhat restrained half-smile on their face, but you just know that in the inside they're going "Yippeeee!"!

I'm yet to see someone in a turban do it, but I would imagine it to be immensely satisfying!

April 8, 9 & 10:  Jaipur, days 7, 8 & 9

I seriously wish I could put some of these sleazy Indian guys in my shoes, just for a day, and see how they like being a lone white woman in an Indian city.  Anywhere I've gone on Jaipur (and Delhi was the same) I can't go for more than two minutes down any given street without someone or other (always a man!) shouting after me.  The most common bothers are the general "Excuse me madam"s and the "Where you come from?" of "You, which country?" questions.  These seem harmless enough and often are, except when it is a seller of something or other, who will then try to lure you into his shop to buy something - "But please, madam, looking is free!".  Yes, yes, but it's also a waste of time if I'm not going to buy anything!  At a lot of the tourist sites there are also people who will try to offer you a guided tour.  Some of these are official and they are easy to say no to, but some of them are not and they will just latch onto you, telling you anything and everything they can about the place you are and then demand money from you, despite the fact that you may have just spent ten minutes of your time asking them to go away.  I must admit though to being slightly amused by one such man, a guard working at the fort on Jaigarh.  I was obviously in need of directions and so he showed me which way to go.  I thanked him and moved on, thinking that because he worked there that that was perfectly okay, but no.  He managed to get ahead of me so that I couldn't get past him,showing me the whole way through the fort, saying "Please madam, look here", and then talking in incessantly fast broken English.  I asked him I don't know how many time to leave me alone, and he eventually got the hont.  Sure enough though, when I left, he was waiting for me... he jumped on fromt of me saying "Tips? Tips?".  I was a bit exasperated with him by this point and almost wanted to just thgrow money at home to go away, but cracked up laughing at him when I saw that he was, quote unfortunately, standing beneath a sign woith general tourist guidance on the fort, the first point of which read "No Tips Please".  I pointed at this and he just stared blankly at me, looking ready to explode!  Then there was the guy yesterday who, on seeing my kneel down to tie my shoe, was straight over with over-dramatic cries of "Oh, madam, what happened?"  Come to my jewellery shop and I can help you." - yeah, right!  Points for effort though!

Then there are the rickshaw drivers, who cannot understand the concept of using ones legs to get anywhere, be it even just to cross the road or go somewhere five minutes around the corner - they make a beeline for anyone on foot, especially anyone white who is on foot, shouting "Rickshaw, rickshaw!  Lady, where you go?  You want rickshaw?".  The cycle rickshaws are particularly persistent, and are quite content to ride alongside you for anywhere up to ten minutes before giving up.  I've almost gotten lost a couple of times, cutting off my nose to spite my face because a surefire way to attract these drivers, and any other randoms on the street, is by getting a map out.  Do this, and you will be surrounded in seconds!  The annoying thing is that the drivers won't tell you which way to go, only a price for taking you there.  Else they will just tell you that it is very far, so that you think you have no alternative; it's not even as though the rickshaws are expensive, and at times I will gladly hail one, but I'm not giving money to these vultures lurking to take advantage of me. One day, after becoming lost and realising that I needed some help, I decided that the best thing to do would be to find a woman and ask her for assistance - ha, good luck Claire!  It was then that it hit me, quite suddenly, how male dominated the streets here are.  It took me a solid five minutes on a busy city street to find an Indian woman, and I must have looked so relieved when I did that she got scared and went the other way!

The worst ones to atch out for though, are the so-called 'Eve Teasers'.  These are the men who might not always speak, but of whose presence you are acutely aware of as they linger nearby. peering out lecherously from behind their sunglasses and spangly shirts.  The when they do speak, it's quite often a slow but confident "helloooo" muttered just below their breath, making your skin crawl.  Although these men aren't dangerous per say (I've found ways to combat them - more later!), the feeling of their eyes on you is repulsive - even giving them the "you are making me wretch" look doesn't always deter them.  In the jeep ride to Jammu the other day, the guy sitting in the seat in front of me started looking behind him just a bit too frequently.  I was hoping that he was looking at he scenery behind us, and didn't want to look his was, just in case he thought I was trying to make contact with him.  After a while though I looked back and, sure enough (lol, that makes me sound vain!), he was giving me the eye.  Ick!  I GLARED back at hime and, when he attempted it again, gave him an even harsher look, which made him stop - or so I though.  About half an hour later he started up again, only this time, he had shifted himself around a bit so that he could lean back a bit with his arm resting over the back of his chair.  When he had the nerve to let his arm drop and I could see his slimy fingers griping around the back of the chair for where my leg might be (which, I might add, were fully covered up by my most unattractive jogging pants for comfy travel!), I was having none of it.  I slapped his arm and yelled at him to keep his hands in front of him, which he got angry at but which also got the attention of everyone else in the car, and they were not impressed with him at all - you can be sure he didn't try anything again!  Aside from stares or being asked if I want to go for a coffee, that's the worst I've experienced, but I've heard both from travellers and locals that if a man so much as puts a finger wrong towards a woman, it is he who will suffer the consequences and it's a big public shame.  All girls I have met agree on this - and also on how sleazy they are!

Although a lot of the people who speak to me are harmless and often just curious, and they are not difficult, to handle, constantly batting people off or answering the same questions again and again gets really tiring, and it's a shame that this has had such an influence over my tiime in Jaipur, and that my memory of the city is going to consist largely of busy streets and harrassment.  It kind of has its weord advantages though - as I said earlier, I've found ways of getting around these little bothers.  One of my favourite tactics is, if I see another male foreigner and they look to be heading the same way as me, to latch onto them for as far as I can; the Indians perceive that I am with him and I therefore score a few minutes of peace, with the extra advantage of it being a good way to talk to other foreigners.  Sometimes too they are also really funny to listen to; I've had a number of drivers trying to get me into their rickshaw by telling me it is air-conditioned(!), and when one asked where I would like to go we had a bit of a laugh when he said Paris was fine by him!  Being constantly harangued myself has also helped me to lose all inhibition when it somes to talking to other new people, like the German girl who looked lost and needed a hotel so I walked her to one, the Israeli guy I shared a rickshaw with, the girl from Hong Kong I had dinner with tonight, or the Americans I ended up spending an entire day with when arriving in Jaipur.  Jaipur has some nice sights to see too; Amber fort, where I spent a day yesterday, was lovely and peaceful, with some very panoramic vuewpoints from the top.  Hawa Mahal, in the city, is a small building where Muslim women used to have to hide at important religioud times, when they were in purdah and could not be seen by men.  The bilding was full of tiny little steps and peepholes, and was fascinating, as was the observatory near the centre of the pink city.  Just wandering idly around the bazaars in the sun, watching ladies shop for saris, was fun - the choice of colours is blinding and they are very hard bargainers!  Overall, I am happy to have visited Jaipur, but also happy to move on; next stop, Jaisalmer - the desert town.

April 7:  Day 6

Today was a long day, but feels even more so now I am getting towards the end of it because, although my tummy felt way better this morning, by this afternoon I was feeling sick again.  Tummy disruption is not at all fun when having to use public squatters in dingy dirty "bathrooms" (a very loose term!) on the roadside, in stations and on long distance trains.  Ick.  Luckily it could have been ten times worse, and I thik I've helped myself by barely eating today - in this country that centres itself around food, I am able to sample nothing!  Bread for breakfast, a few dried snacks in between, a banana (let's see how that goes down), and a couple more slices of bread.  By the time I got to the train I thought I should probably eat something more substantial, but there wasn't exactly much choice, and after two spoonfuls of spiced rice my stomach seemed to rouse in anger again.... ouch.  I hope this isn't too much info for people, but hell if I can deal with the reality, you an deal with the words!  Hehe, I'm looking on the bright side anyway - tried driking some coke so see if that settles anything, but otherwise just lots and lots of water - well, since late afternoon that is...

At 5:30 this morning, after being woken by the 5am mosque calls, I was ni a car and ready to go, and was dropped off at 6:15 at the main town near the lake in Kashmir, from where I got on a hired jeep taking me and some others to the nearest station in Jammu - 9hrs away.  From there I would board the 16hr overnight train to Jaipur.  Given that for the next 8hrs my only available option for peeing would be any conveniently hidden roadside spots, I was hardly looking to fill myself with water!

As the journey began I was dreading the day ahead of me - my company in the jeep wconsisted of four men, all Indian/Kashmiri, and only one of whom spoke any broken English.  Great!  I had been assured by Hameed that they were safe and the driver seemed fine, so, sceptically, off we went.  Imagine my relief when 20mins later we stopped again to pick someone else up, and a young Isreali woman, who could speak perfect English, got in!  We rearranged ourselves so that we could sit together, and I think she was as relieved as me to have another female present.  It turned out that she was incredibly interesting to talk to; we got along well and the journey was actually okay!  I think everyone in the car nodded off at some point, and the views were stunning.  Some of the driving had me clinging to the sides, but all in all that was quite amusing!  Not more amusing than the signs of advice for drivers along the way though.  Some of the best were:

Speed Thrills but Kills
Whiskey makes Risky!
For a bend, go slow my friend
Be Gentle on my Curves
 - but that last one didn't make me giggle so much as this beauty -
Better to be Mr Late than Late Mr!

Aiyo...  Anyway, when we arrived in Jammu I still had 3hrs to kill until my train departed, but again this time passed surprisingly quickly.  Oranna (the Israeli girl - not sure if I got the spelling correct) and I walked around for an hour or so before her train left for Dharamsala, after which I spent some time hunting down some safe looking bananas and water for the trip before heading to my platform.  The platform was a great place to just watch the world go by (I think I'm going to have to do a whole seperate post on the trains here, they are something!) and once on the train I again got chatting; this time to an Indian lady who had moved out to California and was back home on a 6 month work project, and then, via her, to the old couple next to us and a bunch of college kids.  It was a little difficult getting to sleep what with the three tenor snorer in the next berth to me, but once I was out I was out!  I woke up with not far to go until our arrival in Jaipur and got off the train with only my guide book for a map, and with no hotel booking...

April 4:  Day 3 - Arrival

My first impression of Kashmir, after an amazing flight from Delhi with fantastic views of the snow-capped peaks of the south-western tip of the Himalayas dominating the cloudline, was that it was going to be like no place I had ever been before.  On the drive from the airport, street life in Srinigar looked fairly in keeping with other parts of Asia; busy traffic, dusty roads, shop fronts opening out onto the street, bustling markets etc, except for the women.  There were plenty of men walking and scooting around jovially, but the vast majority of women I spotted kept their heads down and were mostly very covered up - some were literally covered from head to toe in black, with only an embroidered gauze over their eyes from which to peer out.  Kashmir considers itself a Muslim state, and even though I was modestly dressed and inside a car, I stood out as an outsider and was very conscious of that fact.

I arrived at the lake on which I would be staying on a house boat, and was pleasantly surprised - the lake area looked like a lovely spot from which to watch the world go by, I had a view of an old fort across the lake on a hilltop, and the weather was bright and sunny, although the boat itself was pretty musty.  My instinct to get straight oto the roof and spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing in the sun with a book was banished rather abruptly, along with my positive outlook on the next few days, with the arrival of a pushy tour operator trying to sell me way overpriced guided tours, who had the gall to get annoyed at me when I point blank refused to give him a scrap of anything.  It was then that I learned what a false impression I had been given of the trip; there were no more people due to arrive so I would be completely alone on the boat - there were a few other Europeans on my flight but they had been whisked away somewhere else and were probably finding themselves in a similar situation - and I was told that I could not go out alone as it was unsafe, so I would basically have to be hand-held wherever I went.  Those of you who know me well will understand how this made me feel!  The owner of the boat, Hameed, seemed to have excellent local knowledge and was friendly, but without being pushy and seemed genuine so, when he offered to take me on the same day trips as the tour guy had but at a fraction of the cost (everything in India comes down to cost it seems), I took him up on it.  He then took me for a walk around the town, which seemed fairly small, again dusty and with random cows going about their day, but had a stunning mountain setting and the people seemed friendly and interested in me.  I got some curious looks and saw only one other caucasian - they were also under escort.

I felt refreshed after a walk but returning to the empty houseboat was strange, especially after Delhi, and this feeling was amplified when being served a lone dinner by Hameed.  He left me alone to eat, but the food was barely edible.  I felt bad as his wife had cooked it and it was probably an extension of their family meal, so I did my best to be polite (why am I so damned English?!), but couldn't even finish half - it was all very oily and school dinnerish, and so I resigned myself to rice.  I wondered how I would cope with spending the days ahead in the sole company of only one other person, a stranger at that, and went to bed feeling hungry, lonely and isolated.

April 5:  Day 4 - Mountain Life

Today was a beautiful, eye-opening and emotionally intense day.  Hameed took me to a mountain village from where we could go for a walk in the valley and see the local way of life.  The 2hr drive to get there was nothing short of spectacular; we passed farmers working in their fields, planting mulberry trees for silkworms, looking after mustard seed plantations, cows and donkeys ambling along with their loads, and children playing by streams.  I was in awe of the many women carrying basketloads of various things on their heads with perfect balance!  Nothing awed me so much though as the scale of the setting for these scenes, as the flat plantations and rice paddies gave way in the near distance to the sudden incline of the mountains.  I could see valleys twisting into them with rivers and small towns, and those highest and furthest away were all topped with snow, the last thing I expected to see in India!  I took photos along the way where I could, but it would be impossible to capture their sheer magnitude.

Contrasted with the lush countryside were the towns; I say towns, but it was hard to say where one ended and another began, as rather than being sprawled or grouped, the houses and shops mostly lined the roadside.  They all looked pretty drab, dusty and grey, in no way brightened by the fact that the locals were all dressed in similarly dull colours.  The only washes of colour here came from shop fronts, and the very eclectic looking goods vehicles that kept passing by, with big red trucks covered in stickers ad other paraphernalia.

As we continued the towns grew fewer and farther between, until we were on a rocky road into the valley ahead, twisting and climbing.  On a few occasions we had to drive over streams!  Of the people we encountered along the way, either in passing by or having a photo stop, the men were the least afraid to approach us but it was the women I was most interested by.  They were mainly sitting quietly outside their houses either having a break from their day or sewing, preparing food and tending to children.  Some looked at me with a hint of contempt, and others, especially the younger girls, with warm, open curiosity.  I wished I could have talked to some of them.

We stopped at the village, which was also where the road ended.  Even in this remote part of India, as soon as I stepped out there were children abound, chasing me with their cry of "Rupees!  Rupees!", though there obviously weren't anywhere near so many as in the city!  We walked in the valley for a couple of hours, where there was still some snow on parts of the path and mountainside - it was cool but not as cold as I had anticipated, but Hameed had brought along an extra jumper and insisted on me wearing it!  The scenery was, again, stunning, adn as well as villagers gathering wood in preparation for next winter, we saw goats and sheep grazing, and a few people camping.

After the walk, Hameed wanted me to meet a family he knew and see their way of life; I was happy to go along and felt privelaged that they would welcome me into their home, but I was totally unprepared for what I was to see.  Their two storey house was built from a combination of stone and mud with a metal roof, and they had minimal electricity, nothing shielding the windows, and I was told that only a few houses in the village now had gas.  I didn't get or even ask to see their bathroom or where they slept but, sitting in what e would call their living room on a cishioning of several musty old rugs piled onto a corner of the stone floor, I found it hard to find words for what I felt and it was difficult to not be overcome.  The family - a young couple with four children under ten, who were all dressed in ragged hand-me-down clothes that were dirty and ripped - were sat around an open hearth, with the mother keeping the fire going and tending to the children.  This is where they would cook and eat, with the father going out to farm, which the children would also do when old enough.  I drank some tea with them while Hameed chatted, interpreting some things for me, while I observed in a humbled shock.  What struck me most, and commanded my respect, was the fact that, as a farming family, they were more or less wholly self-sufficient, and that despite having sacrificed some of their own food over the winter to give to their horses, they were accepting of and satisfied with their day-to-day lives.  I can only wonder what they must have thought of me.  Although we often loosely acknowledge it, and I have seen other things that have affected me similarly, today was the first time in my life that it really hit me hard (sledgehammer hard) how lucky we are in the western world, and how little we appreciate it.  We have clean, hot running water, gas and electricity on tap, centrally heated comfortable homes, plenty of clothes and blankets, and easy access to good food, giving us long and healthy lives; and yet there are still, and will always be, some people who are determined to throw their lives away completely.  I felt dwarfed.

It is the end of the day now, back at the boat, and I feel as though my eyes have taken in more than they can manage in a day, and very emotionally worn out.  I will sleep well in my warm bed.

April 6:  Day 5 - Nature doesn't call.  She Screams.

This is decidedly not fun.  I am sitting in the house boat and it is a rainy day.  Both inside and outside are very cold, especially seeing as I packed for hot weather!  I'm curled up in a blanket with a cup of ginger and saffron tea (yum) and a gas heater on the go to keep warm.  The good news - unpleasant personal details coming up now! - is that my belows finally moved.  The bad news is that they then moved, and moved, and moved.  Ugh.  I have chills, my stomach hurts and my back is aching.  If ever there was a moment when I was in need of some home comforts (and, good lord, I'm less than a week into my trip) - this is it!  I'm sure it will get better but, right now, all I can do is try to get myself better, and wait. 

I did get out a bit this morning to see some temples, ancient gardens and some historical gardens, which would have been lovely were it not for the weather, my tummy, and the fact that in the tulip garden, as the only whitey around, I seemed to be a bigger attraction than the flowers themselves.  Not good for a ratty mood, and I also didn't like the mega-heightened security at all the entrances to anywhere in the vicinity of the nearby government residence - I was frisked and searched numerous times.  I got tired of it all in the end and we came back so I could feel sorry for myself!  Now, there are 8hrs until bedtime and early in the morning I leave for Jaipur, a journey consisting of 9hrs in a jeep to the nearest station, followed by 16hrs on an overnight train.  I'm seriously hoping that there will be some decent food along the way... my meals here yesterday were:

Breakfast - tough naan with butter and overly sweet jam, 2 boiled eggs, tea.

Lunch - rice, with potatoes, green beans and pumpkin.

Dinner - rice, with roasted potatoes (although roasted actually meant deep-friend to the point that when I stuck a fork in one of them, oil spurted out.  They went uneaten!) and curried eggs.

Can you spot the pattern?  While lunch actually sounds okay, every single one of my means here has been swimming in oil.  As I said when I arrived, I aimed to eat as much as I could to be polite, though I'm not doing very well at all and after yesterday's lunch my stomach refuses to take ay more.  You know when a baby is eating and they push the food back out of their mouths?  That's me, and it's a totally involuntary reflex!  So, aside from bread for breakfast, I've pretty much only eaten plain rice, plain rice, plain rice. Oh, and lunch today was rice, with potatoes.)  Get me out of here!

Distressed?  Disoriented?  Totally, utterly, exhausted?!

I'm back!  I guess this is likely to be kept more as a travel journal than anything else, given that day to day life in England seems to take over from much opportunity to write, or even provides much new to comment on.  I've changed all that for now though, and dull drab same same England has been swapped for the subcontinent - I'm in India!  I'm here for one month only (then work need me back, dammit), and want to make the best of it!  I'm here alone and will be travelling to several parts of Northern India, before heading towards Mumbai for my flight back to the UK.  Along the way, I will be keeping a little travel diary (both keeping myself occupied and good for memory retention), and when I can, I will try to post exerpts of it on here.  I doubt I will be able to add pictures, as the connections here are slow and I would end up adding thousands, so they can wait until the end when I will pick out the highlights(for the same reason, my profile pic may also have to stay!).  You can read, or not read; my ramblings will be as much for my own benefit as much as anyone else's :-)

April 2: Delhi, day one

My trip here was made in steps, baby steps,  Step one - catch bus into town.  Step two - take metro to airport.  Step three - go to lounge and wait.  Step four - board flight to London, and so forth.  It was when I got to step seven - board flight to Delhi - that I admitted there was no turning back!  I was on my way... excited yes, but also feeling some trepidation; it's been a while since I travelled anywhere, and I've never tackled anywhere as frenetic as India!  Good choice, Claire.  Anyhoo, the flight went by quite quickly and in what seemed like no time at all, we had landed in Delhi.  The wait for my luggage seemed to take forEVAH but, when it finally came off the converyor belt, my first thought was "shit, now I have to go outside...".

My hotel pick-up was waiting for me at the arrivals gate, as promised, and he gave me my first of the many impressions I would get of Delhi as the day went on... summed up as best I can.

Roads
Lanes, what lanes?  I found it quite amusing that my driver squeezed through every gap possible, speeding in ahead - as was everyone else - and yet ground almost to a complete halt an inch ahead of any road humps.  Accompanying us on the roads were cars, taxi rickshaw, cycle rickshaws, buses - completely dilapidated with rust hanging off them, but jam-packed full with passengers' arms hanging out - horse/cow-drawn carts, bicycles, and pedestrians.  I did a couple of double takes when I spotted full families strolling across these roads in full traffic, as if they had all the time in the world but, hey ho, why wait for a gap when you can make one? 

Senses under attack
Colours, people, smells, heat and above all, noise.  Honk honk honk!  I was only able to sleep with ear plugs.

Lady! Lady! Madam!
I had been warned by various people about Delhi scams, people harrassing you to buy things, and improperly dressed women being stared at by men.  I don't think there was any way I could have prepared for this, and have realised quite quickly that, regardless of what I'm wearing, in their eyes I'm a female tourist here alone; that, again in their eyes, makes me an easy target.  Some of these men just want to talk, but they don't see it as being unwelcome or intrusive.  I lost count of how many times today I repeated "I am from England", "No, thank you", "No, I don't want a ticket/rickshaw/hotel", or "Yes, I know where I am going".  My favourite one was "No, I don't want my ears cleaned" - I at least had to give that guy credit for trying!

Street kids
They will try anything.  It's sad, but it's true, and it's because they are so totally impoverished.  Seeing a two year old clamber over rubbish in the street is not a pleasant sight, to say the least.  There are kids grabbing at you in the street pointing at their mouths, begging at traffic lights by knocking on car windows, cleaning alleyways, probably for pennies.  Other (think Slumdog Millionnaire), will chat with you as if genuinely interested and then charm you into taking a picture of them, and follow-up by putting their hands out and asking for Rupees.  One of them, when I refused, then asked for a kiss (poppy, poppy!).  Cheeky bugger!

Foreign kids
I'm suprised by the number of parents who have brought young childen here (8 to 10yrs old maybe).  I've noticed several of them around, and can't help wondering who would bring their kids to such a city.

Cows in the Road
Fairly self-explanatory, I think!

That pretty much sums up the things that struck me on my first day here.  I ended it by hiding out at the rooftop restaurant at my (thankfully clean!) hotel, and felt better after a good cry!  A lot to take in in one day I suppose, not helped by jetlag.

April 3: Delhi, day two

I awoke after another fitful sleep, not feeling very well rested at all and thus dreading the day ahead and whatever the outside world would bring.  But I end it feeling a lot better than yesterday!  Although I haven't done heaps, I feel I have accompished a few things - my fear of dirty, stinky Paharganj for one!  It felt a whole lot different after a sleep, even if not a good one.  It's weird, but I think all the scammers loitering in corners waiting to jump out at foreigners to sell them something can smell the newness of people who have just arrived - I was hassled a LOT less today, and when I was I had learned enough from yesterday to just ignore them completely - saying "No, thanks" just seemed to egg them on.

Today I went to Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in India, and it was well worth visiting.  I could have taken up the offer of an escorted guide to show me the sights of Delhi, offered to me yesterday at the government tourist office, but turned them down (to much bewilderment - I have booked my rail tickets with them and thus the offer was complimentary) as I'd rather see things myself - I don't want to see Delhi from inside the shelter of an air-conditioned car!  So, I took a taxi-rickshaw from Paharganj to the mosque.  It was hair-raising, totally insane, and I loved it!  The mosque itself was lovely, really peaceful and relaxing, except that I felt like a prioper celebrity when several people asked to have pictures taken with me ("Here, with my son.  Now with my sister...")!  Some just kept standing around near me, and anytime I looked at them they would be conveniently looking the other way - you know when you can just feel eyes on you?  Most people were really friendly though (this excludes the Chinese lady who, later in the day somewhere else, grabbed me and before I knew it a photo had been taken).  Being a woman, I was also made to wear a rather garish gown covering me frm the neckline down before I was allowed in - bright pink, with gold flowered patterns all over it!  Unfortunately though, I don't have any photographic evidence, as when I asked the muslim family who had just insisted on having photos taken with me if they would mind taking one for me, they gathered together in pose, obviously having misunderstood... oh well!

I moved on to the Red Fort via a walk past Chandni Chowk, where the rickshaw drivers couldn't fathom the fact that I was choosing to walk - one of them drove behind me for a good few minutes before I snapped at him to go and find someone else!  The fort had various old buildings within its walls, built at the order of one of the old Mughal rulers, and they were set in lovely grounds,  They were a nice escape from the city and again worh visiting, but didn't leave as lasting an impression as I think Jama Masjid has on me.

I retreated back to Paharganj for some shopping, have fixed up my rail tickets for my whole, and am ready to leave Delhi in the morning...  then, just as I was eating dinner in one of the restaurants, a random buddhist parade blasting out hindi music began to make its way through the tiny, already overcrowded streets.  I couldn't resist a peek, and it was a great way to finish up in Delhi.  My final thought here is that seeing has to be believing - scammers aside, Delhi has nothing to hide; it quite literally throws it all out at you on the street.  The less expectation you have, the less the city has to fight you with.

Oh Gawd, I WISH I had decent pictures to illustrate this post with.  The truth is, I was too scared to pose as a press member and risk a mauling by 17 year old and (potentially) sexually starved adolescent boys flaunting their 'Event Security' jackets...

The Date: Monday 26th May 2008
The Venue:  Newcastle-Gateshead Quayside
The Event:  the now annual bank holiday outdoor music festival, Evolution

With a ticket price of a measly £3 and a line-up that included Crystal Castles, New Young Pony Club and CSS amongst others across two venues (The Streets, Kate Nash, some bird called Duffy who tries her hardest to be a 21st century Dusty but whatevah, there was good stuff to be found), only the niggliest of folks could complain.  ESPECIALLY when it was a bank holiday weekend, the sun was shining, drinks were flowing...

I emerged from my bed quite happily somewhere around midday and, after a lazy breakfast and being almost caught in my underpants by bf's flatmate, I got myself spruced up and off we went.  We probably arrived at the festival site at around 4pm (like I said, looong lazy breakfast!).  The nearby pubs were spilling with happy people in sunglasses, and off we tottled to find out what was what and where our most desired bands would be at.  We were met by a rather tightly squeezed queue, the end of which I could not see (nor could I see the back after a few minutes).  When we DID eventually reach the end.... we had our bags checked and were sent to ANOTHER* queue.  At the end of this queue, someone actually took our tickets, woot!  Wait, hang on a minute... took??   But what if we want to leave and go to the other venue?? We were (ahem) reassured - by a security man who looked like he had nothing better to do than hold a growing wadge of paper tickets to his chest, looking as though they could be blown away by the slightest breeze and, well, it DOES get breezy up here - that on exit we would be given a ticket back to re-enter with or take other venues.  Well then.

We decided the best course of action was to find a programme and work things out for ourselves.  Easier said than done.  I asked another staff looking type person if he knew where I could find one.  He pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket, pointed at a list and nodded toward the stage: "I think that's who's on now".  Great!  Super fantastich!  Luckily, embedded in squashed chips and beer cups, we spotted a programme and had a peek at the times, committing them to memory should any security forget where they were...

I could have dealt with all of that though.  I've roughed it plenty of times myself and shoddily organised events, well, they happen.  What DID bug the absolute CRAP out of me was the sheer volume of children.  And when I say children, I DON'T mean the usual 3 year old variety to which I am used.  They at least would have been supervised by adults.  Nooooo, these were TEENAGERS, scabby rotten teenagers rotting all the more under their piles of make-up and hairspray.  They looked like CLONES.  I think someone in the head offices of Topshop is having a good old laugh (and rubbing their overspilling wallet) at the cult they seem to have started.  I think also that perhaps this was done in partnership with the Klaxons to convince these kids that they have the best taste in music EVER and doubly enforce the fashion-music link.  Oversized and ridiculously coloured t-shirts with glaring slogans like 'MADE IN THE 80s' (90s would be more accurate) and 'FRANKIE SAYS RELAX' (seriously), bunched up with elasticated belts over equally ridiculously coloured leggings.  Then there are the girls in teeny weeny neon tutus prancing around like prats as they blow bubble gum in each others faces (some of them even accessorised with matching sweatbands and glowsticks).  I remain unsure as to how they see anything beyond their eyeliner.  Girl power may seriously have taken over though, as many of the boys huddled in little groups, standing well back in their polo shirts idly stroking their faint efforts at moustaches.  Boys they definitely were, but they were seemingly divided (i.e. slashed violently to either side) into being either the scared side-parted type or the screaming wrist cutting emo type.  Of course though, if ever faced with a REAL confrontation (i.e. one not within a synchronised moshpit) they'd probably run crying back to their mothers, peeing their overtight pants and dropping their hair wax in their wake.  They also seemed to think it perfectly reasonable to hold conversations at ridiculously obnoxious voices, so that basically all I could decipher were screeches.

We promptly LEFT.  We attempted to endure the other venue, where Crystal Castles were actually quite good and the New Young Pony Club cheered my spirits a little, despite Tahita Bulmer donning THE least flattering catsuit I have ever seen.  We couldn't hear much though seeing as the northerly winds were blowing the sound every which way but ours, the beer was flat and overpriced, and it looked like rain.  We didn't even stick around to see CSS.

Maybe I'm getting old, but I was beyond happy to get home with some pizza and a cuppa, and get cosied up.

I got some pics, anyway:



Spiller's Wharf



Newcastle's sunny quayside.... being trampled on by drunks



The Millennium 'blinking eye' Bridge.... also being trampled




NYPC trying but failing to take over the Tyne.

Bah.

* I realise my use of CAPS in this post is becoming EXTREME, but they are NECESSARY.

I can't for the life of me fathom how I didn't die wearing these shoes but, by golly, aren't they beautiful?

It saddens me that so many people around us just don't seem to realise that there is a WHOLE WORLD out there beyond their tiny little bubbles of existence.  They go through their day-to-day lives doing the same mundane things with the same mundane people in the same drab old dreary places, and to what end?  It seems to me they have very little purpose other than searching for ways to kill time until it is time to die*. How exciting! 

This can be both a very depressing (what is the point? why go on?) type thought and a slightly angrifying one (come on people, wake up!!), but I've decided to settle on motivating.  If nothing else, these wage slaves spur me on to do something a bit more with myself than wishing I lived in a soap opera (though there are times when it feels like actually do! - another story...)

Yes my feet are itching but, stuck in my current situation as I am, I try to make the most of it :-)


Durham with Cathedral surrounding quaint townage:
















Rothbury - pretty Northumbrian village, another favourite of my Grandad and his paintbrush :-)























And finally, Dunstanburgh, ruined castle on a rugged coastline:






















I really do live in a beautiful place... it's just a shame about some of the people at times.  Sigh.


*This revelation was inspired by a) lairy drunks on the street, particularly but not limited to football hooligans and their WAGs, and b) a fussy and not-so-old lady on the bus who bitched about old ladies stealing seats and then spent half an hour discussing the new butcher in town.

So I've been enjoying a somewhat random mix lately of good days and bad days, good weeks and bad weeks.  Last week was a bad one, this week is so far shaping up alright.  I think maybe what it comes down to is that I'm a little bored.  Being back at home - and by back at home I mean, more specifically, living with family - is point blank driving me to destruction.  Maybe I'll have a teen hissy fit and decide that if there is no entertainment here worthy of my attention, then I shall make some!  But then maybe I'll wake up and realise that things aren't so bad after all and have myself a cuppa.

Some of the things driving me crazy:


Commuting
Otherwise known as My Free Time. 
I like my new job, but almost 3 hours travelling daily does get a bit dull.  Especially when I come home and it's dark and 2 hours later its time to go to bed if I want to stand any chance of dragging myself out of bed the next day.

My cupboard
Other people call this my bedroom.  I call it the inverted black hole where at least two things collapse and/or disappear everytime you breathe.  My possessions versus space ratio is slightly unbalanced.  To be fair though, it is a little bigger than a Hong Kong hotel room.

Family
and telling certain members that having a degree no longer brings wealth, but rather the opposite.  Seriously, buy me a house!

Routine
Routines just don't suit me and, no matter how hard I try, they won't fit without numbing my brain completely.  So why would I want to try?


With regard to the final point my weekends have been... not what they used to be.  A bit too much the same (same people, same places) and it doesn't always excite me.  Sometimes I have a great time, but most of the time it's just alright.  My feet are itching.


I think a large part of why I'm feeling how I'm feeling is, purely and simply, sluggishness.  For a number of months now I've been in jobs that have me sat on my arse in front of a computer all day, and then sat on the bus to and from work.  I get home tired, plus it's cold and dark so I'm not motivated to do much.  The result of this and the fact that there's always easy access to decent cheese is that - despite whatever cleverly angled photographs may incline you to believe - I have gained weight.  I decided some time ago that enough was enough and am joining wunderbaum in fighting the flab!  I've done some much needed cleaning up of my diet (and I hope you appreciate the difficulty of this in a country that near insists on boiling vegetables to the brink of death) and ohmygoodgodyoullneverbelieveit I've joined a gym!  Some of you will be surprised, some even shocked and horrified, but I used to be quite good at this, going three times a week and I actually had that thing... what's it called?  Stamina!  As an asthmatic once accustomed to tropical humidity the English winter has beaten me down.  I can barely even run for the morning bus without wheezing like an old man in the thin frosty air; something had to be done.  So I'm squeezing time in a coupla times a week to take out some frustrations on a treadmill.  Flab be gone!

Just one vice that I can't seem to kick though...



Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggggggggluglugluglugsplutter

Watch this space and I might tell you what I've been doing to stay this sane :-)

That's it really.  Very sad and pathetic isn't it, I haven't written in ages and that's all I can think of to say!  Well, that may be just a teeny little white lie, but for now, it's a start, cos I can't think where else to start.....

Good evening and a Merry Christmas eve to all!

I agree with Simon.  The youth of today is abysmal, and I am starting to feel old.  I was at a gig last week where I found myself looking around and wondering what the F everyone was wearing, and restraining myself from running up to them and screaming "Does your mother know you're out this late?"!  It was strange, because, first of all, usually I like to be the one being screamed at "Wow!  What are you wearing?", and, second of all, there is no way I looked that stupid when I was at university.  Tsk.

But onto more exciting things.  I am currently writing from my bed, and I am NOT allowed out of it because on the other side of my door my parents are playing Santa Claus.  I haven't done this in yeeeears!  I can hear them sneaking presents past my door, and in the morning we all have to get up together to see if we have presents or not.  I feel like I am five years old all over again!! (...almost:  I came home from the pub in my drunken state half an hour ago promising promising promising not to peek!).

In all seriousness though, it is so nice to be home for Christmas.  I remember this time last year writing about all the things I would miss, and this year I'm actually getting them :-)  Presents are being put under the tree, dinner is being prepared, lights are everywhere (I close my eyes to the bad baaad tacky ones), and everyone is festive and merry.  I'm appreciating it so much more having had near enough three years without a Christmas.  I gaze adoringly at our (tastefully decorated) Christmas tree; I've even put presents under it!;  I have contributed to the making of the dinner; I have pulled crackers; I have not only bought the best and most extravagant presents possible for people but I have also wrapped them beautifully in ribbon; I have visited all my aunts/uncles/estranged cousins/grandparents; I have kissed under mistletoe, and I have even dyed my hair pink in honour of the occasion.  Yesterday I even went to church!  And no, I didn't burst into flames as soon as I set foot across the threshold, but I accompanied my young cousins in singing some carols and even helped the youngest one in lighting a Christmas candle before singing Away In A Manger with the rest of the church in total darkness:  not usually my sort of thing, but it really was pretty with all those candles lit up in the dark, and it reminded me of when I was younger and my grandad would do the same with us every Christmas.  I was happy, and even the vicar shook my hand :-)

Now though, I am looking forward to my dinner, and of course a week's leftovers of turkey sandwiches.  Yum!  I am also looking forward to spending some time at Christmas with my lovely boy (there are cards and even a small cluster of presents under their tree just for me!  Apparently it is also time to meet the grandparents... eek!)), and it occurred to me today that it hasn't, until now, even crossed my mind what he might be giving me, but that for me this year I've been totally concentrated in showering him with gifts without a second thought.  I've hit an age where giving gifts has become my pleasure, and where all I want is a stocking, my dinner, a bit of wine, and a snooze on the sofa.  I might even enjoy the brussel sprouts :-)

But now, a frost is growing outside so I'm going to get comfy in my blankets.

Merry Christmas loveys, especially to those with whom I shared it last year x

Traffic lights that only change when there are no cars on the road, so you may as well have waited for forever in the freezing bloody cold anyway.

My job.  Ha!

My hairdresser when she said I couldn't have all pink hair.  Spoilsport, grr.

Old ladies who insist on knowing absolutely every little thing about everything that everybody else is doing and then discussing false eyelashes at length, with demonstrations. (but not all old ladies!)

Christmas shoppers who seem to think their shopping bags deserve a seat on the bus more than I do.

Christmas shoppers.

People who expect me to do maths.

Television.

My ownership of too many clothes, hence making my wardrobe collapse.  I mean really, actually, collapse.  The inside sort of imploded.

The fact that beer has calories.


Gawwwwd life is so dull sometimes.  Feel free to add to the list folks!  In the meantime I'm off to (touch wood) watch England beat Croatia, but not in the pub because none of my friends are allowed out after dark.  Buh.


***edit: 22.24pm

England 2, Croatia 3.    Well that blew up in my face, didn't it.