Rishikesh (via Haridwar)

So we boarded the ten hour train to Haridwar with our unreserved tickets, hoping for the best but expecting the worst. The good thing was that we did manage to find somewhere to sit, although it was very tightly squeezed, generally with five people sitting on a bench meant for three, with others sitting on the luggage rack overhead. This is definitely one thing that never ceases to amaze us- how Indian people seem to be able to squeeze in to the smallest gaps and how resourceful they are with space- I guess there isn’t much choice when you live with 1.2 billion people. If something looks full then it’s really only at half its capacity. Anyway, we contorted ourselves on the benches with our bags stuffed at our feet, and settled in as best we could for the next ten hours. The seating also had zero padding, so after only half an hour and already with numb bums it wasn’t looking great. At least there was no shortage of people watching. I managed to befriend a local retired teacher who was travelling with her husband of forty years who was an arranged marriage, and had some interesting conversations about the differences between arranged and love marriages and the differences between India and England in general. It always interests me how people always romanticise other lifestyles; I was saying how sad it was in England that families often don’t live with each other and can be on different ends of the country, and she said she lived with her two sons and their families but she would prefer it if they lived separately. Also on the train journey on one of my trips to the toilet I had to walk past a group of children who were obviously a gang of street children. They were using the flooring around the toilet as a hangout area and were also carrying around cloths with something that smelled like white spirit to get high with. Some of them looked as young as seven or eight. I gave them a packet of biscuits and they all then wanted to shake my hand and were giggling (mostly from being off their face), but I felt so sad for them. I’m sure all of those children had been through some horrible times to end up in that situation, and there probably wasn’t much hope for their future either. We are so lucky in the western world that we have the government to support us and this happening to children would be unheard of, but in India this is quite a common occurrence.

So after the uncomfortable but thought provoking train journey we finally arrived in Haridwar. We were heading for Rishikesh which was about one hours drive away, but it was already 9.30pm and we had both had enough of travelling for the day, so arranged for a night in a hotel in Haridwar. This hotel, which online had given promises of a hot shower, free toiletries and breakfast provided, turned out to be in the non touristy area of Haridwar but with some gesturing we managed to check in for the night and went straight to sleep.

The next morning we were so ready for the hot shower and breakfast. I went downstairs armed with a hindi phrasebook to ask about these amenities, and was met by a dwarf (Luke and Mum- I didn’t get close enough to smell the mothballs!) who shook his head to breakfast but did turn on a switch for the hot water. I got back to the room and turned on the shower, but only ice cold water came out from the shower. The only hot water that ran was from a tap at about knee height in the bathroom, which I guess was a shower for the dwarf. After putting my yoga to good practice in order to have a wash and paying the dwarf for the room on the way out, who was posing on a sofa in a strangely provocative way, we were ready to complete our journey to Rishikesh.

We headed out onto the main road and luckily within a few minutes of walking a largish rickshaw pulled up and asked us if we wanted to go to Rishikesh. There was already eight people in the rickshaw but with the Indian mentality we managed to get ourselves and our bags successfully into it too. After one rickshaw change halfway through due to the first one breaking down, we were dropped off somewhere in Rishikesh to try and get our bearings and also to find somewhere to stay. A guide book and online reviews had all said it was easy to find budget accommodation in Rishikesh, so we didn’t think it would be too hard to wing it. We had 300 rupees in mind for our budget, about **3. Unfortunately what we did not realise was that this was the peak season for this area, so hotels were either full or unwilling to negotiate a lower price for rooms so the hunt was more difficult. One hotel fairly tucked out of the way said they did not have any rooms but to try the next hotel, and pointed across a field. I went across the field in the direction given, and found myself jumping over a mini stream, climbing up some rocks and ducking under washing lines, and came across a building which initially did not seem like a hotel and the only sign was in Hindi. A man popped out and said he had one room available, and was prepared to take 350 rupees per night and seeing as we were tired and bored of room hunting, we agreed. The only issue was that the room had a single bed in it, but apparently a double bed would be able to be put in there in 1-2 hours. Realising that an Indian 1-2 hours could be about 5-10 hours, we volunteered to help sort it out instead of waiting, and ended up moving furniture to make our room and carrying beds and mattresses around the hotel.

After the stressful room hunt, we decided to explore the area. Rishikesh is a town built around an area of the ganges, and has both Indian and Foreign tourists visiting. It was made famous for tourists after the beatles spent time there, and it is also a famous place for yoga. There are an abundance of cafes and restaurants overlooking the river, surrounded by mountains. It is also an enforced vegetarian area and alcohol is banned there too. After having dinner at a rooftop restaurant and listening to the people on the table next to us discussing their experiences of colonic irrigation, and finding a yoga class for the next morning, we bought some fruit and headed back to the hotel, which was about a forty minute walk away. Unfortunately the fruit was in a plastic bag and I had forgotten that there are greedy eyes waiting to pounce in this situation. Casually strolling along, I heard a cry of ‘MONKEY!’ from Jonno and turned around to see a fully grown monkey charging at me. I whisked the bag away just in time and gave the monkey my best roar to try and scare it, which thankfully worked. Not that we fully learned our lesson from this occasion, as a few days later Jonno decided to buy an ice cream and flaunted it for all of the monkeydom to see and then had to try and dodge pouncing primates whilst on a very narrow bridge.

We were planning to spend a week in Rishikesh as we were quite tired of constantly being on the move. I had decided to book myself in to a week of yoga classes, so every morning I left Jonno to his beauty/beard growing sleep and took the forty minute walk into town for the class. The instructor was very nice but brutal, and seemed to take enjoyment in pushing me further into postures which was fine until one attempt in the second session where whilst being manipulated into the splits, my hip gave a loud pop and left me with pain for a week afterwards. Apart from being broken, it was nice to be able to get back into a routine of doing yoga which is difficult whilst travelling. Jonno would then meet me after the session and we would go to a riverside restaurant for the most amazing breakfast of fruit, muesli and yoghurt, and relax in a pile of cushions for a few hours with a view of the Ganges and a book. We spent quite a few days with this as our main activity, which was nice, and also sometimes necessary as the temperature rose to about 36 degrees Celsius some days.

View of the Ganges from a cafe

Best post yoga breakfast

Cake shops are popular here for both humans and cows

We also booked one day of rafting on the ganges, which seemed a popular thing to do whilst in Rishikesh. This part of the river Ganges is higher up than Varanasi, and thankfully before the chemicals have been pumped into it and the rubbish and corpses have been deposited in it too. We were taken in a jeep to a high point in the mountains and armed with a helmet, life jacket and paddle and given instructions on how to work together to keep the raft moving. It turned out to be good fun as there were points with rapids, a chance to swim in the ganges and we stopped off at a set of rocks to jump into the river.

We also were told that near our hotel was a short walk up to a waterfall, so we decided to investigate. The short walk turned into a few hours and was not a waterfall as such, but a mountain stream which was a series of tiny waterfalls. It was a really lovely walk though, and along the way we were given a mission by a man on a moped that a lady had lost her socks somewhere up the mountain and could we please look for them. Sadly we were not successful though, and some poor lady is sockless.

After a few days of this routine and walking past numerous posters advertising yoga teacher training courses, Jonno brought up in conversation if that was something I wanted to do. I had been thinking about it, but didn’t want to desert him for a whole month and leave him being bored, and also was not sure about the cost of it. Jonno reassured me that as long as he had somewhere to go with wifi and cheap chai he was quite happy for a month and that it was cheaper here than anywhere else, and the opportunity to take that amount of time off may not happen easily when we get back to England. So we went in search of a course, and found one that was a bit of a walk away from the town but in a peaceful area, and runs yoga teacher training courses every month for a reasonable price. So I signed up and paid a deposit, and will be starting the course on the 15^th April. The days are likely to be pretty intense, the day runs from 7am to 6.45pm, there are yoga sessions morning and evening, with lessons and lectures in between and I will be tested to be able to gain the qualification. But by the end of it I should have a better understanding of yoga and also gain a new skill of being able to teach it, which is very exciting! We have changed our plans slightly as we were originally going to catch the flight to Nepal we had to book at Heathrow on the 30^th March, and then return to finish the north of India after Nepal, but we are missing the flight to do north India before the 15^th April, then going from Rishikesh to Nepal after the yoga course.

It was all going well until the last day, when I started my walk down to my final yoga class of the week. Only 5 minutes into the walk and my sandals broke and were unwearable, and to go back to the room would have made me late for the class. So I decided to carry on the remaining 35 minutes barefoot, managing to dodge all sorts of rubbish and excrement that were dotted in the streets like an assault course, and having 2 spare minutes before the class to wash my feet in the bathroom. During the class we could hear the rumble of thunder outside and it started to rain, but was just a light drizzle so I thought I would be fine for the walk back. Unfortunately as soon as I started the walk back the sky decided this was a good time for a downpour, and there was no escape. Every set of stairs became a waterfall, and every street was a river. The rivers were not just made up of rainwater, but also had gathered all the rubbish and excrement that I had so delicately dodged before, to create a nice flowing brown concoction for me to wade through…in bare feet. When I finally got back to the room I was not a happy bunny!

Anyway, poo rivers aside, we really enjoyed our time in Rishikesh, which is lucky because we will be back in a few weeks for a month!

Varanasi and Agra

The 17 hour train journey flew by, fortunately for us it was a proper overnight sleep without having to make sure we woke up for 4am or something silly. We got to wake up in a reasonable amount of time, a bed each. Luxury..!

We arrive in the morning and work out how best to get to our location. A rickshaw driver approaches us at the platform and offers to take us as close as possible to the hotel we have booked, and realising half way to his rickshaw he wanted more than we were paying in accommodation to get there, we quickly refused him and found another guy next to him asking for under a third of the first guy. We were on our way.

The traffic was actually a bit of a shock compared to what we had been used to recently. Gridlocked, nobody could move, even pedestrians struggled to get through the bumper-to-bicycle-wheel jam. But, eventually, we were dropped in the middle of nowhere and told we had to walk the rest of the way. We got out, assuming this was indeed the case, and walked on.

To be fair, we didn’t seen many more auto rickshaws up ahead, but there was definitely a road, so we can’t work out if he didn’t want to drive the last kilometre or there was an actual regulation in place (and if there were, it was the first time we’d seen anyone in India care about a traffic regulation). Once we’d cleared this area of road however, it was clear that no vehicle other than a bike would have had a chance of negotiating the narrow labyrinth of streets towards the Ghats. Our hotel was amongst these, and armed with my trusty inaccurate Google Map of the location we were headed, we soldiered on.

Narrow and full of bovine pals

Within seconds we were attracting all kinds of attention, one guy saying he had a hotel and trying to ask us to go to his. Once we confirmed to him we already had a hotel booked, called the Golden Palace, he looked disappointed, but in true Indian fashion proceeded to help us find it the fastest way possible, which was lucky as my map was saying we were a good distance away, but it turned out we were just around the corner. Once we got closer, signs were on every corner of the labyrinth, so fortunately finding our way back to it again after this point was very simple, even though on a couple of occasions we were unable to navigate certain roads due to people queueing up for temples.

We checked into our hotel, a tiny little stuffy room with a bathroom that did have hot water if you could work out which switch in the room operated the boiler, and made ourselves at home. Unfortunately at this point I was still battling with the remnants of my migraines, a strange drunken and disorienting feeling. Another feeling that isn’t ideal when trying to navigate narrow corridors of cows, people, dogs, excrement of all the above, and the occasional joker who decided their Royal Enfield was a perfect fit. I ended up spending a long while sleeping apparently, I don’t really remember this but I’m reliably informed this is the case by my incredibly patient and caring fiancée, and we wandered out in the evening, unfortunately too late for the evening ceremony that’s held on the Ghats daily, but we decided to explore anyway, and wanted to organise a boat trip for the morning.

After a short walk, the river Ganges was in clear sight. We walked down towards the large entrance to this main ghat off of the main road. Unfortunately this particular part of the story, at least for me, takes quite a downward turn from here. I am actually quite fortunate I am still able to tell this tale, as I honestly believe this moment of my life could have been my last.

As we walked down the ghat trying to take in the sights and bustle of what was going on, an elderly man stood and offered to shake my hand. Now, not being rude, and being quite used to this by this point of our trip as we’ve been heralded as minor celebrities due to our incredibly pale complexions, I took the hand of this gentleman in order to shake it. At this point, a vice-like grip took itself upon the fingers of my right hand. Unable to break free, his left hand begins to strongly and vigorously work up my currently trapped arm, in what some would refer to as a ‘massage’. Diana, looking upon the whole situation with a bemused smirk and nothing in the way of sympathy, did little to help me from my attacker.

Not content with the reckless assault on this arm, his snake like reflexes reach for and successfully capture my other hand. Before I know what’s going on, this arm is also being kneaded like freshly prepared chapatti dough. Figuring that I was now running out of arms, I planned my attempt at a ‘sincere’ thank you for this invasion of my appendages, ready to be on our way. Oh no. Not just yet. We’d only just begun.

Within seconds my entire being had been body slammed, face down onto an old cloth. It’s possible in the delirious stupor of my migraine postdrome that I was hypnotized into doing said action, I can’t fully remember, but my recollection of the attack was this elderly gentleman temporarily turned into a world class wrestler and forced me into said position.

At this point, I look up at Diana. She’s now talking with some lady who only spoke Hindi, her entire attention diverted away from my current state of emergency. Above me I could now tell an accomplice had joined, hands, or possibly large drills, boring down into my very soul via my back. I believe at this point, Hulk Hogan had begun removing my sandals. ‘This is it’ I thought to myself, ‘my time is up, and we’re right by the holy river ready for my cremation. Goodbye world’. The man speaks – “This is a full Ayurvedic massage! Very good for body and circulation!”. Yeah, right. I know a cannibal group when I see one.

God knows what was happening now, my arms and legs were being twisted out of all alignment, a vicious method of tenderisation began on my back muscles as I assumed I would become the main course for a hungry family of 6 in the morning. I tried to steal one last glance at Diana for her to come to my aide – no luck, she’s eating Rice Krispies out of the ladies scarf.

As my thighs and bum get viciously attacked, and Diana’s now being shouted at in a language where we can only just about understand ‘water’ and ‘how much’, I began to slip out of consciousness. My near lifeless body is flipped, and my face is now being aggravated. Accepting my fate, I lose all recognition of my current state. It felt like it was coming to an end, but I couldn’t care any less at this point, I was numb to it all.

Until the man began to speak. A disgusting abomination of a sentence, one that instantly made my blood boil and my fighting spirit return. “This costs 3000 rupees”. Over 30 British pounds for what some people get for free in Guantanamo Bay.

I leap to my feet, suddenly more alive than I had ever felt before.

“Excuse me? I only shook your hand! I didn’t ask to be physically assaulted!”

“Okay sir okay, 1500”

I look over at Diana, who at the mention of this obscene amount of money has realised the severity of my current affair. At the mere mention of 3000 rupees she had spat out her late night neckwear sourced breakfast cereal.

“No, not 1500, I didn’t want it at all”

“No problem no problem, 300!”

Attempting now to walk away - “No. Not 300.”

Wanting to get rid of them, we hold our 100 rupees to get them to leave us alone. They refuse, and say “Ok ok, no charge.”

About to walk away, another guy who didn’t seem to be involved in the process at all asked us for 150. Holding out just the 100 again, he scoffs and turns away. I also turned away, only to have him them ask for the 100 again. Handing it over, we attempt to get as far away from the Ghat as possible, but not before a man came over to fill Diana’s pashmina with her own puffed rice treats (This time with added chilies).

Some of you may think I’m over reacting. That I should have paid their demands. But you weren’t there. You weren’t there…

Anyway, we went onwards to a restaurant along the ghat and got a very cheap meal. Diana managed to offload her rice puffs onto a beggar who clearly wanted money but got what he was given. I spent the rest of the evening consoling myself that it would all be okay now, and getting through the 80rs of chai we got at the restaurant, that turned out to be around 10 cups of sweet caffeinated goodness.

Scarf pops avec chilli

On the way back we managed to find a place to book an early morning boat tour. Up at the crack of just-before-dawn, ready to get the boat for sunrise. Well, almost, it was a bit late and the sun was already coming up by the time we managed to sit in the vessel. We’re shown the different ghats, their purposes and some of the history. Half way along, we pull up alongside another ship in true pirate fashion and plunder their oarsman for our own, in a swap that was never really explained to us.

Here she comes!

Our new sailor friend took us to the burning ghats, about as close to them as possible without actually singeing our eyebrows off. This is where people are brought after death to be cremated and put into the River Ganges, in order to break the cycle of reincarnation and allow the soul to rest (or so I believe – if anyone has better information on this please let me know). It felt a bit too close for comfort, as if we shouldn’t be here and we were imposing a funeral, however nobody seemed to mind or say anything about it.

Preparing bodies for the cremation ceremony

A body being burned to be placed into the river

Knowing that we (the 4 of us foreigners in the boat) considered the river to be full of pollutants, including but not limited to toxic chemical wastes, human remains, animal remains, general plastics and food waste, our guide set about proving to us how clean the water actually is. Using the paddle to scoop the thick scum off the top, revealing the murky water below, he proclaimed “Look! You move this away and it’s clean!” We smiled and nodded, but I don’t think any of us fancied having a mouthful or wash amongst it, unlike some others we saw.

Cleanliness is next to godliness...

I didn't fancy joining in so much

Very little else occurred during the day, however we made plans to go see the ceremony that takes place every evening on the ghats. Whilst not entirely sure what the ceremony was for, but assuming the worship of ‘Mother Ganga’, it involved a lot of incense, flowers, fire and singing. Interesting, even with little idea what was actually going on.

Lassi''s made to order - chocolate and banana and an apple one. With a great view of bodies being carried to the burning ghat,

People everywhere for the late night ceremony, even filling up boats

After this we quickly dashed away before the masses of people could gather and make things difficult, and retired to a restaurant we had been to previously, and Diana had been to on a previous trip, that offered live music. Turns out, the live music is the same performer as the last time Diana had been 2 years ago, playing the same riff over and over. We didn’t buy a CD, but the food, which a guy spent a good 10 minutes describing and dressing up to sound as appealing as possible, was in fact amazing and one of the nicest we’d had in a long time.

Our next plan was to go to Rishikesh, however we’d been told we can’t just simply not see the Taj Mahal and should factor this in. Vaguely en route, we get an overnight train to Agra, sleeper class, which was conveniently timed to arrive at around 6am. This way, we could go straight there, see it, get back and hopefully be in time for one of the trains or coaches to Haridwar, worst case scenario going via New Delhi. We pack up our stuff and head to the main road from the narrow streets and are instantly flagged up by an old man with a cycle rickshaw. Bearing in mind we have quite a few KG of baggage, and two people, we looked at each other as if to ask if this was going to work. He seemed keen though, so we precariously balanced all our bags and our bodies onto the back of the rickshaw. Credit where due, he did very well until a very potholed uphill road struck out of nowhere, and he had to push the bike for the distance. Diana, worried we might be about to kill an old man, gave him a bottle of our water and more money than we originally agreed, and we were at the station.

A little rodent friend who kept trying to nibble through someone;s bag where we were sitting

The train journey started fairly uneventfully, until a group of guys got on and sat in our berth. For some reason, they seemed fascinated by me and made a big group, asking me all the normal questions we expect and others we’d not heard before, such as how much money I made. Eventually I managed to shoehorn Diana into the conversations, where it progressed to her showing one of the guys what music she listened to other than Hindi music, which both intrigued and terrified him. The train ticket inspector came around, and after a short discussion where people started getting up and sitting down again, left. One of the guys who was good at English explained they didn’t have a ticket for the train. Interestingly, this didn’t seem to matter too much. Eventually, after the guy who listened to the music offered to buy Diana’s earphones for 1000 rupees which worried her into thinking he may be serious, we settled down to sleep.

A somewhat disturbed sleep later, with mice and cockroaches scuttling along the carriage floor, I was awoken to find out the guys we were talking to were being kicked off, as the people who actually paid for those beds needed them, shouting ‘DINNER DARLING?’ at Diana as a last ditch attempt at a pick up line. Getting back to sleep again, just, we arrived in Agra around 2 hours later than we’d planned, but hoping our plan would still work out we took our bags to the luggage office at the station (Which was 24 hours but for some reason locked when we got there and nobody would let us in) and headed out to get a prepaid rickshaw to the Taj Mahal.

After working out where we were supposed to go as it was far less obvious than we expected, we got our ticket and our free little bottle of water and white shoe coverings and went to get our bags checked. Not wanting to leave our valuables in the luggage office, I had a backpack containing most of our electronics. The guy searched my bag and told me we can’t take a laptop in to the Taj Mahal, not sure why, but that was that. Trying to work out what we can do about it, we walked up the stairs again where a child insisted we could leave valuables at their shop for free, an obvious ploy to get us to go back there afterwards as everyone was trying incredibly hard to get us to buy their tat on the way there. So we head back to the queue, where we’re now told we can’t even have writing paper, and I still had another electronic item on me. The guard looked at me, laughed and let me in anyway. I’m not sure what the concern was, but I didn’t intend on threatening anyone with a paper cut or minor electric shock.

So we’re in, we’ve done it. In my honest opinion, it’s nice, it clearly took a long time to build and get perfect as we all know, as with most of the palaces and temples we’ve seen. But I’m not a massively architectural person, and with the sheer amount of tourists there all trying to get the best photo opportunities (which we ended up trying to do to some extent as we were there), there wasn’t a lot for me there. Had our whole trip been based around it I’d have been fairly disappointed. Still, obligatory tourist shots were taken, and it’s another one of the 7 crossed off. Worth seeing if you’re in the area, don’t get a trip to India just for it though in my opinion!

A photo you may have seen versions of before

There it be! 

That white girl was just as much of a tourist attracting as that white building

Realising if we didn’t hang around too long we could catch the next train, we make a mad dash back to the station, get a ticket (unreserved 10 hour journey – pray we get a seat!) and go gather our bags to prepare for the next long journey. 

Obligatory sitting-on-the-bench shot!

Bundi

We boarded the bus to Bundi, after readying ourselves for bed at the roadside, and went to find our ‘bed’ for the next 7 hours. We were pleasantly surprised to find that we had a mattress in a small cupboard, reached by a ladder, and it had sliding doors and curtains so we could shut ourselves away. After getting out our sleeping bags and inflatable pillows, it actually was pretty cosy and we couldn’t believe we hadn’t discovered this luxurious way of travelling before. The bus did move around quite a bit but it was a soothing rocking kind of motion, so it didn’t seem to matter. Ten minutes hadn’t even passed after boarding the bus when my stomach began to gurgle and all of a sudden the rocking motion of the bus didn’t seem so soothing after all, it was making me feel like I was going to be sick, possibly attributed to the cheap restaurant we had eaten in an hour before. However, there was no toilet and no escaping the bus, so I sat myself up and prepared myself for a long, not so comfortable night, with a small plastic bag in hand. We did have one toilet stop along the way, which I eagerly ran to. This turned out to be one of the finest indian squat toilets that many people had been in and missed the hole, and been left to fester for a while. This only enhanced my nausea, and after a quick spell of ‘chundering everywhaaaar’ I returned to the bus and continued to count down the sleepless hours. The only good thing about not sleeping on the journey was that the weather decided it would put on some entertainment for me, in the form of a crazy lightning storm with bouts of hail and downpours. We eventually reached Bundi at about 6am, collected our bags from the luggage compartment which was not waterproof so our bags unfortunately got soaked, and picked up a rickshaw to take to the hotel. The rickshaw was also not the smoothest ride, and after being thoroughly shaken around while still trying not to vom, we arrived at the hotel and were greeted by a half asleep man who showed us straight to a room with a bed which was thankfully static.

Getting comfy in our nest...before the sickness!

The rest of the day was mostly spent hiding in our sleeping bags and watching films in the room, as I was still not feeling well and the rain and thunder was unrelenting. The hotel had also not been designed with rain in mind, and had a roof with an open area in the centre, so it was raining inside the hotel. It was also not soundproof at all, and we overheard a British woman complaining about her tea that she had been given as it was not the way she likes it and she didn’t think it had been made with fresh milk, which made us cringe with embarrassment at the stupidity of this first world problem, and we hoped that the hotel staff did not think that all British people were like this.

We eventually emerged from our sleeping bags at 5.30 pm, feeling a bit better, noticing the rain had stopped and wanting to explore Bundi as we only had a few days here. We wandered the streets for a while, which seemed to have more pigs, dogs, cows and monkeys on the streets than people. It was a fairly laid back, small place which was obviously used to tourists as it had guest houses, restaurants and cafes, but had not been too ruined by tourism. We found a restaurant for dinner, called Tom and Jerry’s restaurant, a lovely name to entice the kids in. Oh, and they also serve ‘special lassi’ aka marijuana milkshake.

Dog trying to take shelter from the rain

After dinner, we continued walking down the streets, and bumped into one of the guys we had met in Sadhana Forest who had been here for a few days. After having a catch up with him, he said that he had found a great little chai shop, and we should go there with him. As we never turn down an invitation for chai, we followed him and found ourselves at ‘Krishna’s Chai’, with a very smiley, eccentric chai man – Krishna- who brewed up all sorts of ingredients and spices and was in fact, the best chai we have had so far in India. He also made ‘special chai’ which apparently gives you ‘full power 24 hour’ (see special lassi) although we did not try this one! Krishna also provided us with entertainment to go with our chai, he brought out a harmonium and serenaded us with songs. It was then that I realised that my mum had been to Bundi 2 years ago and had sent me a message saying that there was a man who made the best chai there called Krishna, and we had now found the same man. After explaining this to him, he brought out a big pile of visitors books with messages and drawings, and sure enough there was an entry from them in January 2013. Krishna was also very pleased with this, and wanted me to have lots of pictures with him to show them. And of course we returned there a few more times for the amazing chai and the good company!

Learning how to be a chai wallah

Krishna power 24 hour!

The next morning we had planned to spend the whole day seeing what Bundi had to offer as we had limited time there before moving on to the next place, but unfortunately Jonno was suffering from migraines so did not feel up to much at all. While he was resting, I went to get some lunch on the rooftop restaurant which was also undergoing some electrical repair work, so after dodging sparks, ducking wires and weaving around tools I sat myself at a table. The waiter brought me some food and also gave me a complimentary bamboo stick “for monkeys” that were prowling around the rooftops. Luckily none of them came close enough for me to require the stick.

The electrical work going on in the hotel...not much health and safety here!

We had heard that Bundi had a fort which was worth going to look at, and even though Jonno was still feeling really rough, he didn’t want me to be stuck in the room so I went in search of the fort. It was quite a steep climb uphill, and I was given another monkey stick along the way because apparently it was overrun with monkeys- although I hardly saw any. The fort was in ruins but it made it quite exciting to explore, especially because apart from one local goat herder, I barely saw anyone else there.

Entrance to the fort

Bundi Palace and its gardens

The next day we had booked a train from the nearby town Kota to Varanasi. So after one last visit to Krishna’s chai, we headed off in search of the local bus that would take us from Bundi to Kota. We thought that we had left a lot of time and would probably be hanging around the station for a while, but things weren’t that easy. The local bus took a long time to arrive, and after fighting through the crowd to get onto the bus, the journey was longer than expected. It also didn’t help that we had no idea how close to the train station the bus went, and nobody on the bus seemed to speak any English. The bus was also nearing its end, as it struggled to start up after every time we stopped, but did manage to reach its destination. However, it was not as close to the station as we had hoped and we had to then find a rickshaw to take us the last part of the journey. After the usual chaotic search for the right platform at the train station, we got to the train with 7 minutes to spare. It’s a good thing we didn’t leave it any later to leave Bundi, a bit of panic always adds to the experience anyway.

The train journey to Varanasi- only 17 hours- was at least more comfortable than the bus journey. Even though Jonno was still not feeling great, we at least managed to get some sleep. We also had one Indian guy that came to sit next to us and ask if it was okay to have a conversation with us. We said we didn’t mind at all, and he then became shy so we had to do most of the talking. A girl that was sitting nearby also joined in, who was more confident which made the conversation easier. After discussing music and films (apparently Robert Pattinson is too white) we then asked to learn some useful Hindi phrases which ranged from food (Khana) and water (Pani) to ‘Dum hai pota hai mai kohn hu’- Do you know who I am? Apparently an essential phrase in a conflict. So armed with this new knowledge we were ready for our next destination, Varanasi, the oldest and most holy place in India.

Jodhpur

Don't tell me you guys haven't heard of this shop, it's world famous for crying out loud

So back on the road we were. After attempting to book a coach ourselves and failing at the final hurdle as apparently our international cards are only good for around ~60% of card machines in India, we managed to get our ticket booked at a travel agents of a guy who we’d befriended a couple of days before, who also gave us some great recommendations on where to go and how long for. Our coach was due to leave around 7.30am, but to be entirely sure we were there with good time (Not knowing where the coach stops were and praying the rickshaw drivers knew their stuff) we decided to leave our guest house at 6am.

As we hadn’t checked out at this point and were also locked into the place (Thankfully no fire broke out..!) we had a tired conversation with the owner of the guest house, paid up and were on our way. Within a minute or two we were loaded into a rickshaw which seemed to have two people in the driver’s seat, and on our way at a remarkable pace. Within no time we arrived at a stretch of travel shops, one of which did bear the name of the company on our booking slip, so we were confident we were in the correct place. After handing over the agreed 100rs to the driver, who then looked at me and said ‘100 each’, prompting a laugh from me and a smirk from him as if to say he was only joking, honest. Any attempt, of course…

Not anticipating how fast we would actually get to this point, we ended up hanging around for about an hour, fortunately with a chai in hand. The coach eventually arrived, and we boarded. This was our first experience of a seater + sleeper bus, so unsure of what to expect other than two levels of seating/sleeping, we climbed aboard. The layout was quite clever, with a level just above the seats of beds, which allowed for minimum headroom but a bit more capacity. The bed sections even had little doors and curtains around them for maximum privacy on public road transport. But I digress – we had no such luxury, we had seats. Seats 20 and 21 to be exact. Which appeared to be the seat numbers for 3 other people also. Typical India. We grabbed the next seats along and got as comfortable as possible for our 7.5 hour journey.

The most accurate word to use to describe the journey would be hell. Perhaps with an ‘utter’ thrown in also. I believe the coaches suspension had been made of what used to be parts of the road surface, as it certainly wasn’t any form of spring or dampening in the slightest, and coupled with the abundance of holes, rubble, cliffs and roadwork’s on the road allowed for us to recoup none of the sleep we had lost from a very early morning. The amount of times my head bounced around and rebounded off the incredibly low ceiling/window/Diana became too numerous to keep track of, and I was counting down each excruciating hour hoping for the journey to come to an end as soon as possible.

Thankfully, we eventually arrived. Upon leaving the coach we were accosted by about 20 rickshaw drivers, all trying to attract our attention. We had no choice but to ask one of them to take us to our destination, but as per usual when first arriving to a town in India we had no idea if they’d have meters or we’d be playing a game of guess-a-fair-price. It seemed to be the latter. We haggled to a price we figured could be reasonably fairish, and hopped in the rickshaw. The noticed immediately a difference, these rickshaws seemed incredibly long and thin compared to all the others. Quirky.

Unfortunately the driver had no idea where we wanted to go, although of course, he said he did. After some stops and passing around my phone, we ended up going straight into the heart of the market. Here it became apparent the reason for the long, thin rickshaws, instead of the standard shaped ones – the market was just wide enough for two bikes and maybe a pedestrian to pass each other. This meant massive traffic, incredibly hectic navigation, and as our driver had no idea where we were going, somewhat annoyed people behind us.

Shockingly the coach didn't take us down this far

Eventually after asking more people, and me pointing out a sign for our hostel to him, we found the place tucked down a side street in the market. No complaints about location, it was certainly in the middle of the action. The hostel was named the ‘Bob Marley Hostel’, however using my deductive reasoning I came to the conclusion this was a fairly new name, as there were signs in a very similar wording and typeface everywhere saying Jagdamba Hostel/Restaurant was in this location, also backed up by the Wi-Fi name being JAGDAMBA. This may have accounted for why the driver had no idea where it was.

My only guess is that George Bush had a stab at decorating this place (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKgPY1adc0A)

Once inside we were shown to our room, which was basically in reception. The room was fine though, and although it had its own bathroom, it appeared to have a 7 foot partitioning wall that didn’t quite reach the ceiling by another foot or so, which seemed to be a neighbouring bathroom. The room contained many cupboards and doors, doors to the window which seemed to overlook the car park, double doors to the bathroom, and doors to absolutely nowhere. It was painted blue, probably something to do with Jodhpur being mostly blue, but also had a blue lightbulb fitted which was pretty ineffective at anything other than creating puzzled expressions on our faces. Pretty good all in all, and we were only planning to be here one night as we were told there wasn’t much to do for longer than a day.

A few moments later the guy knocked on the door again, asking if we had paid our rickshaw driver. We replied yes, but apparently he was still hanging around outside. Diana went out to speak to him and he seemed not to be after anything, although after a conversation Diana had with someone she believes he was expecting to be paid by the hostel also for bringing us to the hostel, even though we booked it ourselves and practically showed him where it was.

So, introductions done and we’d moved in, we took this opportunity to explore. As Diana mentioned in the last post, I was ill at this time, with some form of sinusitis. Whilst I had little pain, and the constant nasal block was annoying, I had a problem far more prominent. Whilst in India, you really need all (well, most) of your senses about you. I was lucky enough that my sense of smell had diminished, and reliably informed by Diana that this was indeed a fortunate occurrence, however, one of my ears seemed permanently blocked. In a country where there is noise all around you, traffic alerts you to its presence not by slowing down, but by sounding a horn, and people are constantly shouting at you, there is little more disorienting than not having a correct sense of hearing. This, combined with the very narrow streets of Jodhpur, left me feeling incredibly vulnerable a lot of the time and a lot more guarded than I’d otherwise have been. But we only had a day, and it was now lunch time so we moved onwards to a rooftop restaurant down the road, where we got our first glimpse of the hilly area, multitude of buildings and the nearby hill fort.

Foreboding clouds also... 

After lunch, we proceeded along the market area. Diana had a requirement for sandals, after finding some good sandals previously in Pondicherry and the straps holding them now starting to fail after a month of trekking around in them every day. For anyone who somehow doesn’t know Diana’s footwear requirements, they’re fairly specific. This caused a situation of entering perhaps 15 shops, and holding the following conversation, whilst I sat quietly in the corner and played a game on my phone, knowing we would be here a while:

Diana: I’m looking for sandals in green colour.

Shopkeeper: Ah yes yes, no problem, sit down.

*Sitting occurs. Shopkeeper produces first of many boxes*

Diana: No no, not pink colour, green colour.

*I point at any part of her clothing to indicate the colour we meant*

Shopkeeper: Oh oh GREEN colour! No problem!

*Another box arrives*

Diana: Without the toe bit, with a strap.

Shopkeeper – now looking a little panicked: No problem!

*More boxes dragged down from shelves, shopkeeper frantically looking through them. Produces another for Diana’s perusal*

Diana: No this is more blue, light green only.

Shopkeeper: Okay okay.

*More boxes arrive, shop starts to look like an episode of Deal or No Deal*

Diana: No only green, this is red and yellow also.

*Another*

Diana: No heel, flat only, doing lots of walking!

*Shopkeeper gets desperate*

Diana: Well no, these are gold.

Shopkeeper: Yes but these are very very good price, normally 500 rs, I can sell to you especially for 200.

Diana: But these are gold, with a toe bit and a heel.

Shopkeeper: But very very good price, best in all Jodhpur, you won’t find this better price!

Diana: But I don’t want this... *Gets up to leave, I follow suit*

Shopkeeper: Okay wait one more one more.

Diana: Okay…

*Shopkeeper frantically produces anything he can, which is usually a chunky rubber croc-like sandal in turquoise*

Diana: No, more lady-like..! Sorry.

And we finally leave. This almost exact scenario happened in almost every establishment. In the end out of pure desperation, she settled on a pair with a bit between the toe, knowing that she hates the feeling and it is uncomfortable and will probably cause blisters. But the shade of green was right, so that’s the important bit anyway.

Whilst looking around we spotted signs mentioning a ‘Bishnoi Village Safari’. This seemed fairly interesting, so we made a note of it for later to look into how this operates, hoping to cram in as much as possible before we leave Jodhpur. On further discussions that evening, we decided rather than to rush it all we would ask to stay another night, as we weren’t in a massive rush and there was at least a little more to do than we first envisaged. We headed back to the hostel, and settled for bed, when we got a knock on the door and a load of people went into the bathroom, muttering the hot water was broken in the room and they were going to try and fix it. After 2 men, 1 lady and a child wandered through our room, they decided it couldn’t be fixed and if we wanted hot water we could ask them and they’d find us a free bathroom we could use. We didn’t even realise when we booked it we’d have the potential to get the luxury of hot water so I took note of this for later.

The following morning we confirm another night, and Diana casually asked about booking the village tour. Unfortunately we were then informed that there was other people who went that morning, had we said earlier we could have split the cost with them. With that in mind, we got the cost from them and figured we’d ask anywhere we could to see where the cheapest we could get it would be. Our main focus for the day was the famous fort, which we decided was in walking distance and we’d be silly not to do so.

After some wandering up narrow residential streets, up hills and being greeted by locals, I spotted a tiny sign saying ‘To Fort’. Somewhat confused by the lack of tourists in what was apparently the biggest attraction of Jodhpur, we continued along the path, up long hills and through imposing gates. After a while, it seemed we’d approached the back way, as suddenly we were on a path with hundreds of tourists, mostly from other parts of India, and we hunted down the ticket office as we were already 3 ‘audio guide’ stops through.

After finding the office and coughing up more than we pay on two nights’ accommodation, and leaving my credit card behind the desk as a deposit for the audio guide headsets which I was less than keen to do, we proceeded through. We popped our head into the cafe which cost a small fortune (they offered a snack they referred to as 'Samosa Bread', which intrigued me. I wanted to try it until I actually saw what it was, see below...). The fort was actually kept in very good condition considering its age and the sheer amount of tourists pushing through, and very interesting artefacts such as Elephant Howdahs (seats for Maharajah’s placed on elephants), colourful decorative rooms where the Maharajah would have been entertained, and some history on the surrounding area. The fort also provided an amazing view of the surrounding areas.

The legendary Samosa Bread. I have no idea if it tasted as good as it looks

All a bit blue really. No smurfs in sight

Seems this one somehow managed to sneak through proof reading, be more consistent!

Once we’d dominated this particular fortress, we decided to wander some of the lesser known streets on the way back to town, and found a little restaurant hidden on a rooftop up a very windy path out of the way of anywhere. Here we asked about the village tour also, as every guest house seemed to have a contact for it, but it was more expensive unless they found others to do it also. We took their number to ask later.

Heading into town, we were now also thinking about our onward journey. Our next stop is a town called Bundi, one we hadn’t planned on visiting, or even heard of until we spoke to the guy who gave us recommendations in Udaipur. After telling him what we were looking for in India, he immediately said we should check this place out, so we started looking up coaches, which I wasn’t looking forward to owing to the past experience. Once again, we did our research, tried to book the ticket and were kicked out at the final stage. We hunted down a travel agent and managed to find one near the centre of the town, by the clock tower.

Entering the room, a fairly small room with three people already inside who I assumed worked there as they were behind the counter, I asked about getting a coach to Bundi, knowing full well what the options were. The lady behind the counter, on her phone, said she could find out no problem, and continued playing a game on her phone. Not sure whether she would look into it soon for me or if she actually even heard, and not wanting to disturb her, we waited for a few seconds to see if she was just wrapping up. She carried on playing, but the guy next to her picked up his phone and made a call, which fortunately was related to our enquiry. Owing to the fact our journey would be overnight and we knew how uncomfortable seats were, we were planning to opt for sleepers this time, hoping it would be a little more pleasant. The guy quoted us for the tickets, almost double what I was expecting, and we left to hunt down another place, leaving the staff to play their games in peace. We found another travel agent, who managed to book the seats we actually wanted for only a small commission and was very helpful, and asked him about the village tour. He started recommending we didn’t do it and recommended something else miles away for far more money, so we thanked him and left before we were roped into something else.

Sorry, are we disturbing you?

Eventually we decided we’d book the village tour through our hostel, so returned and confirmed the price with them. All arranged, we headed to the rooftop where the hostel had its own restaurant, with a somewhat limited menu. The food was fine however and whilst we were up there, a German guy asked us if we could recommend a website for booking coaches. Letting him know our experiences, we end up chatting with him for a while and helping him work out the best route to Jaisalmer. Turns out, people had told him there were no trains so a coach was the only option, but a quick search revealed loads of trains available, I can only imagine someone getting a cut from a coach company was involved.

After a while two people he was currently travelling with turned up and somehow we end up converting the restaurant into a personal cinema, watching Slumdog Millionaire on one of their laptops plugged into the sound system, whilst the restaurant staff were sat around a table drinking whiskey. They seemed quite excited about watching it, until they realised the film was in English and hard for them to understand. There were no subtitles in either language, so we did our best to explain the English parts they didn’t get and they translated the Hindi parts.

We awake early the next morning to meet up with our driver who would take us around the villages and various other stops around Jodhpur. First stop was a place they made pottery. Unlike other pottery places we’ve seen where they use a motor or pedals to turn the wheel, this place had a stone in a rut on the ground which they turned using a stick, building up momentum, with the stone eventually just continuing to spin by itself, which seems a far more efficient manner of handling it to me. Within a few minutes he’d produced a very neat and tidy pot and a money box, and asked if we’d like a go, to which we didn’t take up the offer as I’d had a go before and I wasn’t particularly good at it. We had a look among all the items they had made, an obvious attempt to sell us items although no pressure on us at all or even a mention of money, which was nice. He showed us a ‘magic pot’, where he poured water into the bottom of it, turned it over and no water came out. He then showed us one that had been smashed open so the magic didn’t last long, and apparently they had a practical purpose to burn oils, so that mystery was solved fairly quickly.

Next stop was the Bishnoi village. The Bishnoi way of life involves following 29 specific rules and has focuses on protecting trees and the environment. The lifestyle is very simplistic and requires them to prepare their own food, shelter animals who require it and have a minimal impact on their surroundings. We had a look around their house and living conditions, were given tea, we asked some questions on their lives and were shown a ritual they perform where they drink opium in a certain way. He made a ritualistic turban which was shortly placed upon my head, and we watched the guy getting off his face. A couple of photos taken and we left before his utter inebriation kicked in. It wasn’t even lunch time yet.

Bishnoi kitchen with all modern amenities

Wacky head gear - a child looks on in awe

Also unisex - wonderful!

More grace and finesse than shooting up in an alley, same great buzz

Onwards, to a place that weaved rugs. En route our driver said we may see wild animals, such as peacocks and gazelle and deer. He seemed to promise we’d see them a few times, and each time state we might not as they’re wild animals. We tried to explain we understood the random nature of animals, and just looked out the sides of the jeep (I say sides as the jeep was completely open, about as basic as you could expect a vehicle to be. Certainly no doors). After a few moments of seeing absolutely nothing, we came to the conclusion this would not be a successful animal safari for us, however the driver had other ideas and pointed off into the distance. ‘Look, gazelle!’ he exclaimed. Diana and I both peered into the distance, unable to make out anything at all, and asked if he was sure as we couldn’t see them. Again it pointed to the same place. At this point I figured he’d had a few swigs of the opiates provided earlier, as there was nothing to be seen, but humoured him and took out my camera to try and zoom in and see it. Lining up the photo on 26x zoom to where he said, and showing him the screen with him excitedly saying ‘Yes there’, I took the picture and zoomed in further. Sure enough, there, highly camouflaged and what looked like a half marathons distance away were two gazelles. This stunt occurred three more times, with gazelle and peacocks perfectly camouflaged in the far distance, and the driver spotting them as if they were casually sat on the bonnet posing for us. I’m not entirely sure what other super powers he had, but his eyes were certainly incredibly on point.

The picture doesn't do justice to just how far away these were

Boo! Peacock! Honestly

We arrive at the weaving place and are greeted by three tiny puppies who seemed very excitable and friendly, as such, we didn’t actually get through the gate for a few minutes. Once we finally made it in, we went into a room with a man working on a type of loom, about 3 by 1 metres. The weaving was a very manual process, and involved a layering process where each alternating string was raised/lowered after each weave, locking the thread into place. Very interesting to watch, and apparently depending on the size of the piece, can take up to a month to complete. After showing us a wide range of rugs they’d made, again with a subtle hint of ‘buy something’ to it, we left, making sure to say goodbye to the puppies again.

Diana, leader of the pack

Some serious patience required. And string

Our final stop was a place that dealt with fabrics, but seemed to be a local community initiative, where local people would create pieces or alter pieces and they’d be bought by the company and inspected, tidied up where required and sold on. We first went to a room to see people working on improving the pieces, tidying up loose ends and re-stitching where required, and then taken to a room with seats to be shown all the pieces they had. Some of these items were sold in the local markets, others exported to large retailers all around the world and were clearly very carefully inspected for a more western market.

The tour was finished, and our driver took us back to the clock tower in the centre of the market, as it would now be impossible to drive a jeep down the narrow local streets. Not that I think that would have stopped him if we’d insisted, but we were quite happy to walk it and we wanted lunch at this point anyway. We found another hotel with a rooftop restaurant at the other end of the town, for what we hoped would be a fairly uneventful lunch. Unfortunately, almost as soon as we finished eating, the heavens opened and a torrential downpour ensued. Taking shelter in the reception until it passed, we decided we’d retire to our hostel for the rest of the day until we needed to get the coach.

We just about managed to make it back before the next rainstorm hit. We’d now checked out of our room so sat in reception for a while, working out a plan of action. At this point, one of the employees at the hostel thrust a letter into my hands, asking me to explain what it meant as it was English. The letter was on a nice paper (for my ex colleagues, around 150gsm, US Letter size, watermarked, off white but not quite conqueror) and looked very official. Within a few seconds I realised I was reading a cease and desist letter from California, on behalf of the Marley family, informing them they must stop using the name Bob Marley in any of their trading going forwards. I passed this information to the hostel owner without the legalese jargon and watched the colour drain from his face. As per my original suspicions, the name had only been changed 3 months prior. They had just finished getting signs made, business cards, new menus, decorations, and the part that actually landed them in trouble, online listings. Attached to the C+D letter was a print out of a page from TripAdvisor, where they’d evidently done a search on ‘Bob Marley’ and found this establishment.

After giving incredibly poor legal advice, as we are in no way shape or form lawyers, we believe the hostel is changing its name simply to ‘Bob Hostel’. The whole reason for the change in the first place was due to Jagdamba being hard for tourists to remember, to the point one tourist apparently got completely lost, couldn’t find the place after checking in and leaving his bags there, and having to crash at another guest house for a night to try and find it in the morning. The owner kept stating there was a similar named place in Pushkar was trading without problems, but we weren’t quite sure what he wanted us to do about this.

We retired to the rooftop, still raining heavily but with comfier seating, and waited for the hours to pass until we needed to leave to get our coach. I managed to wrangle a hot shower even though we were no longer checked in, and eventually the time came to leave. We found the closest rickshaw, who wanted a small fortune to take us even though we believed the stop wasn’t too far away, but he insisted otherwise. Not wanting to be ripped off, we found another rickshaw driver a little further down, except he spoke little English and had no idea what we wanted. He then took our coach ticket into a shop to ask someone else, at which point we had no way of telling anyone else where we wanted to go and were a little stuck but to wait and see what he said. As we weren’t sure exactly how long the journey would take, we wanted to get a move on as quickly as possible, but this guy was starting a small argument amongst 4 men as to where we wanted to go. Eventually he decided he’d known all along and took us for cheaper than the first, but at this point we were feeling the rupees we’d saved in the form of stress, so perhaps we should have just gone for the first guy after all. Either way, we made it to the coach stop and everything checked out okay, so after a short wait, we boarded our night coach to Bundi with our sleeping bags and pillows at the ready, looking forward to seeing what joys a sleeper coach would bring.

Bye bye you little posers