4 Months in India...

5027 miles as the crow flies!

Spending 4 months in India was definitely an experience. For a while I have been in love with the country and the culture and still find it amazing, there is never a dull moment! However, at times it nearly broke us and definitely has its challenges.

On our last night in India we sat down in a cheap restaurant and made a list of things we would and wouldn’t miss about the country. Here it is for your entertainment!

Will miss

• Chai- sweet, beautiful chai! This is generally in a shot sized cup and is the sugariest milkiest tea you will ever taste. If you are flagging while in the middle of a crazy hectic city, finding a chai shop is your savior, giving you a place to rest for half an hour and also the energy to carry on. It is best served by the chaiwallahs on trains who at every stop, jump on the train and in a very gravelly voice repeat ‘chai, chai, chai’, serve out as many as they can from an urn they carry, before jumping off the train as it is pulling out of the station

There is always time for chai!

• Low Prices- It is definitely a good country for travelling on a budget if you put any hygiene standards you have to one side. The cheapest room we got was 200 rupees (£2) which was basically a cave with a rock, and other people we spoke to who have been on their own have paid half that for a single room. They will never clean it though and the walls will be stained and your feet will be black if you put a bare foot on the floor. You can also get an extremely cheap meal for somewhere between 40 and 60p called a Thali, which is a dish with some rice, daal (lentil soup), vegetables and chapatti and depending on the place you can get unlimited refills on daal and chapatti. It’s great!

One of the cheap restaurants in Mumbai

• Momos- while technically Tibetan, many places in the north of India have adopted this food too. Vegetables, potato or paneer (cheese) in dough and shaped into small parcels, and can be boiled or deep fried. They generally also come with a hot chilli sauce, and are pretty cheap and nice as a snack (5 momos) or as a meal (10)
• Dosas- Another food which is south Indian and also cheap, dosas are very thin crispy pancakes and can be eaten plain with a dip or have a filling. The one that seems to be most popular with travellers, myself included, is masala dosa which has a potato based filling. And did I mention it is cheap!
• The Colours- India is full of colours, some houses are painted in blues and pinks and signify caste or background, there is colourful artwork drawn in chalks and powders on the pavement, the temples and the statues of the gods, even the trucks are painted and decorated. And the women- in sarees and salwar kameez of every colour and always looking beautiful and vibrant. It makes you realise how dull and grey London is, with most of the population wearing black or dark clothing.

An Indian wedding- so colourful!

• Bangles! For Diana anyway. Colourful, sparkly and they make pretty jangly noises, what more do you need?
• The head wobble- As mystifying as it is entertaining, no person Indian or otherwise has really been able to describe it completely. It generally means yes or I understand, but can also mean I have no clue what you are talking about but I do not want to turn away business. So when you ask a rickshaw driver if he knows where your hotel is and receive a head wobble, it could mean that he will spend the next 45 minutes stopping at various places and asking other people where it might be, but never admitting this to you. It is also very cute to watch a class of children all simultaneously wobble their heads when a teacher has given an explanation to them!
• Cows- In India, the cows rule. They wander wherever they fancy, sometimes choosing to have a rest in the middle of a busy highway and watch the chaos ensue of cars, bikes and rickshaws all swerving around it. Apparently some families even feed the cows the chapattis they have made before the rest of the family can eat! It definitely changes your perspective on these animals anyway, and we have missed them being part of a regular street scene now we have left India.

Won’t miss

• The train booking system- Whoever invented this system for booking trains is really sick and sadistic. You can basically either book a journey 2 months in advance, or the day before at 10am where you have to race to get the small allocation of ‘Tatkal’ tickets. If you try and book in between these times, you are pretty much guaranteed to be put on a waitlist which means if anyone cancels their ticket you are next in line but this might only be confirmed an hour before the journey so you can’t really base any plans on it. As we chose to not book our journeys 2 months in advance as we wanted more freedom, we had to play the Tatkal game. To be fair, it is great they have this emergency allocation otherwise we would have come a bit unstuck, but it meant only really having a journey confirmed the day before and also the booking website does not accept foreign card payments, so we had to go and find travel agents for every journey. There is one last option for train travel- unreserved class, which you can just book at the station the day of travel but it does mean no guarantee of even getting a seat and having to squash yourself into the smallest space, sometimes even perching on the luggage rack. Bearable for shorter journeys- the longest we did in unreserved was 10 hours and luckily we had somewhere to sit but that was still a challenge!

• Bangles! And other shopping- For Jonno. For some reason I really struggle to understand, Jonno does not seem to want to spend hours poring over the long line of bangle stalls and helping me look for the perfect kurta (long top). I’m sure with time he will come to love it!
• Spirituality- For Jonno. Jonno likes maths, science and evidence. And India can be a spiritual country, including the traveler community. There is nothing that irritates Jonno more than having to sit in a discussion about Auras or Horoscopes. Typical of a Capricorn…
• Random hippy travellers boasting about how spiritual they are or walking around with an instrument that they can’t really play but they do it anyway in public places- There are a lot of these type of people in India, and it’s pretty embarrassing to listen to them pretend to be something they are not to fit in with the ‘hippy vibe’ of India. Just stop!!
• Being a woman- For Diana obviously. India is a country that is dominated by men. Women are expected to be submissive, and even after the publicity that came from the Delhi Gang Rape case in 2013, there are still far too many reports of rape in the newspapers. We have met quite a few females who are travelling on their own who say they feel completely safe, but there are times I have felt uneasy even with Jonno with me (group of boys surrounding us on a train late at night- they were harmless but it still made me wary) and I have been groped in crowds before. Also that as a woman you have to constantly cover up and not wear anything showing your legs or shoulders, you get used to it but it does restrict your freedom.
• The dirt, dust and rubbish- India is not a clean country. People seem to take care of their own living space but anywhere else doesn’t matter- litter just gets thrown out of train windows and on the street- we have had some very funny looks by saving our rubbish and trying to find a bin. Also, public buildings, corridors and stairwells have a thick lining of dirt and stains where people have spat out their paan (chewing tobacco which comes out a dark red colour) down the walls. And I can’t even begin to describe some of the toilets we have had to use. As well as being dirty, it is also a very dry country and the air is pretty thick with dust in most places. The effect on its population is evident by the constant hacking and phlegm production noises you tend to hear.

The water in the river Ganges- 'Its clean underneath!' said the guide

• The noise- As well as being dirty and dusty, India is also noisy. This is mostly due to the unrelenting beeping of horns from the traffic- apparently there is an Indian law that if your vehicle collides with another vehicle and you did not beep your horn to warn them that you were there then the accident is your fault- a practice which has now been taken to the extreme of every driver pretty much constantly having the horn pressed throughout the journey. This can become very irritating, especially if you are not feeling too well and have a headache or if you are trying to sleep. Also, the daily tasks and conversations of the Indian population don’t seem to be done quietly, and the hacking coughs as I have mentioned, door opening and closing and conversations can reach the same noise level as a jet plane at around 2 or 3am.
• The smells- As well as being dirty, dusty and noisy India can also be very smelly. There are occasional wafts of lovely fragrant curries or samosas in the air but these are then quickly replaced with the smell of raw sewage and human waste which can often run in open sewers in the streets. You become an expert at not breathing through your nose for a large amount of time.
• The poverty and treatment of animals- A large part of India’s population lives below the poverty line, and it is heartbreaking to see families who have to live on the streets and have no toilet to use so have to go in the open. There are also lots of street children and disabled people who resort to begging, and some people who are in need of wheelchairs having to drag themselves along the floor. All of this can happen right outside of a five star hotel, and the inequality of wealth distribution is evident. Indian people have no benefit system to support them, and older people have to continue working if their family cannot support them as they do not get a pension. It really shows how lucky we are in the Western world as even though poverty exists it is nowhere on the scale it is in India. And even though the cows are sacred, they are not treated well by everyone and other animals such as dogs, cats and pigs get an even tougher time- with not many dogs being neutered the population of wild dogs is out of control, and they have to survive by going through rubbish and getting scraps. A lot of them are malnourished and often infested with fleas and get mange. It is not uncommon to see people kicking dogs, beating horses or throwing stones at pigs. India is a ruthless place for many people and animals.

 

People and animals both have to go through the rubbish to survive

We also decided on our best and worst places that we visited

Best

• Rishikesh, Laxman Jula- A fairly calm place around the banks of the river Ganges and surrounded by mountains, towards the north of India. It is visited by both foreign and Indian tourists as it is a holy place. It is also one of the biggest places for yoga and we ended up returning for a month so I could do a 200 hour yoga teacher training course there. Even if you are not into yoga, there are a large amount of cafes and restaurants along the river where you can spend most of the day relaxing with a chai and a book.

The river Ganges is a lot cleaner in Rishikesh!

• Dharamsala, McLeod Gange- Similar to Rishikesh in its laid back nature but further up north, McLeod Gange is also the residence of the Dali Lama and many Tibetans who came as refugees. There is a definite Tibetan influence and you can see Tibetan monasteries and monks, and eat Tibetan food. There are also some beautiful walks and treks, and afterwards you can treat yourselves to some amazing cakes from the cake stalls (the magic bar is the best by far!!)

• Udaipur- Another laid back place near the ‘golden triangle’ area of India, the town is built around a lake and has some beautiful views and buildings. You can easily spend most of the day in a café overlooking the river, and the traditional dance performance every night at the Bagore-Ki-Haveli is worth going to.

• Bundi- Worth a visit for a couple of days. Not too touristy and fairly quiet, a nice walk up to the ruins of the fort and you can spend evenings in the great company of Krishna at Krishna’s chai shop- a great character!

Krishna- the best chai wallah in India!

Worst

• Jaipur- It might not have been so bad if we had not booked 6 nights there and been there around Holi festival but by day 6 we had definitely had enough of this place! Apart from the Amber Fort there was not much else of interest and the city is full of people who try and pretend to just want to have a friendly conversation but really only want to sell you something. And Holi festival here was too chaotic and it felt like more of a violation with coloured powder rather than a celebration.
• Gokarna- We met a lot of people who were in love with this place on the south coast in Karnataka and spent months here, but we weren’t at all taken with it. There are two main beach areas with beach huts but not much else, and a town area with some temples but foreigners cannot go into most of them. There were a lot of the try hard hippy types I mentioned previously, who were too busy posing in their hippy clothes to be real people. But like I said, other people had different opinions of it. We only visited Om beach however, some people said that Kudli beach was a lot better.

Another thing that might be worth mentioning is how much we spent whilst in India- our average spending was ~£30 per day but this included a £500 yoga course and a £400 laptop (and losing money with Jonno being indecisive!). Most of our meals cost us £2-3 for both of us, our accommodation ranged from £2 (Gokarna) to £15 (Mumbai) but was mostly about £5 or £6 for a double room with private bathroom and fan but generally not very clean. We mostly travelled by train, but took two internal flights and a few buses. Trains were overall better, especially for overnight journeys but buses were more on time.

And that was our four months. There are still places we didn’t get to see and would have liked to, such as Kashmir and Darjeeling, they have to wait until the next trip. The main thing is that I still love India- and Jonno can still tolerate it too (just)! But also after four months we were ready to leave and have some new experiences. India is a crazy and beautiful country but it’s not for everyone and it does test your tolerance levels for pretty much every sense. I am glad for the experiences and the stories though, it’s a place like no other! 

Delhi and Kolkata

Onwards, to the final leg of our India journey. Our next stop as I mentioned in a previous post was supposed to be Nepal, however, especially owing to a second earthquake in the area, we opted to instead head straight to Thailand. We looked at flights a few days after Diana would finish her course and settled on a flight at 10.45am on the 20^th of May, from Kolkata, as it worked out that we’d get both our flights for the price of one leaving from here. This meant getting to Kolkata however.

Anyone who has ever booked an Indian train, it’s not simple. I’m not sure if we’ve mentioned this previously, but you basically have a few options:

• Book your ticket months in advance, before everyone else has managed to book out every seat
• Book an unreserved seat. This usually means standing amongst what feels like 10,000+ people in a mass crush and battle of wills
• Book your ticket on one of the non ‘general’ quotas. This includes a foreign quota for anyone on a tourist visa (Which seemed to be a tiny quota and only accessible in a few stations, so we never had any luck with this), a VIP quota, which we were not, or…
• The emergency Tatkal quota which becomes accessible 10am the day before. Our usual hope of onward travel

Option 1 is never an option. The whole idea of our journey was to plan as little in advance as possible, had we booked all our tickets like this we wouldn’t have had as much time to do what we wanted as we’d have liked and Diana’s yoga course would never have happened. Option 2 was a somewhat reluctant backup plan, we would have to stand/sit on what may as well be bare metal for 30+ hours. Option 3 never happens. Option 4 was our best chance.

So to interject a little missing portion from Diana’s post on Rishikesh, two days before we planned to leave, we headed to a few travel agents in the hopes of finding one who will book our Tatkal ticket to Kolkata, as our British payment methods won’t work on the Indian online system. We hadn’t actually failed to do this so far through a travel agent, but then, we also hadn’t had a 30 hour train journey before, so we weren’t quite sure what to expect. We found a travel agent who said they could book this for us, to leave our details with him and by 3pm the next day we would have our ticket. 100%. Diana and I exchanged glances – we knew how the train system works. The ticket window opens for purchase at 10am, it sells out by 10:01AM for short journeys, let alone long ones. We told him we’d be there before 10am the next day.

We head there and arrive by around 9:20am, plenty of time to get ready. The guy was incredibly relaxed about it, we started to doubt this was going to happen. About 9:30am, he looks at us and tells us just to leave our details and we’d have our tickets by 3pm, no problems. We told him, we’re here now, we might as well just wait until 10am. He looks confused about it all and starts making some phone calls. Eventually, someone must have told him how the train booking works as he started telling us he urgently needed our passport details to book the train, as it was almost 10am. Yep, we know that, we’ve been telling him this much. He takes our details, and asks for the money up front. We told him, again, we’d be here to check the tickets are confirmed – there is no physical ticket we’d need and we knew that, just PNR ID number. Again he told us to come back later, we’d definitely have the tickets, 99%. Hang on, we’ve dropped a %.

Time ticks on, 10am comes and our fate is in the, hopefully capable hands of this travel agents friend who knows exactly what he’s doing. 10 agonizing minutes pass, the guy tells us to come back later again. We tell him he’s either got the tickets now, or not at all, there’s no way 3pm will be any different. At this point, a call comes in. Some Hindi takes place, and the guy looks at us, apparently the train has been cancelled. Hmmmmm….

We start considering our options. We go to another travel agent who looked a little more competent and ask them if there’s any chance of getting a train to Kolkata, or close. No luck, they’re all booked up (not cancelled though, odd). We weigh up our options. Either we take an unreserved ticket the whole way and hope for the best, or we go back to the drawing board. I decided I didn’t think I could cope, the 4 hour journey before was enough of a killer, so I had a look into flights. Delhi to Kolkata worked out to about double the price we were looking to pay for the train, but it would be over in two hours. Far more preferable.

We now had two flights booked, meaning we had another day in Rishikesh, an extremely early flight in Delhi (3am wake up!) and then 3 nights in Kolkata before our flight to Bangkok. Being as Diana’s previous experiences in Delhi hadn’t been great and we’d heard quite a few stories of scams going on, we were quite wary about being there too long, not that we had to worry too much as we’d only have an evening and an early flight anyway.

We arranged to get a bus the following morning to Delhi. Cue the scene with Bear waving us off in the rickshaw as we headed down the mountain to the bus station. We had a look about and found out where our bus would depart from, had a quick chai and went over to the coach.

As is customary, a man was stood at the back of the coach where luggage is loaded, intercepting people trying to load their luggage to place it himself. Of course, this wasn’t a free service, at 10rs per bag a few cups of chai could be earned with minimal effort from the unsuspecting traveller. Watching the guy before us getting stung for 30rs to have his bags loaded into the back cack-handedly, I proceeded to load my own bag whilst the guy was busy and got Diana to quickly chuck hers over as quick as possible also. The man still had the nerve to ask me for 20 rupees, which prompted a quick chuckle and we got on the bus, whilst the guy who’d just had his bags loaded on was shouting about how his luggage contained fragile musical instruments and didn’t want it broken for 30rs. I don’t understand why people believe we can carry our stuff for thousands of kilometres but this last hurdle is hugely outside of our capability and we’d decide we need a hand about now.

The journey was fairly uneventful. It started off with an almost empty coach, Diana and I got to look like we’d had an argument and sat at opposite sides of the coach to spread out, something that was rare on an Indian bus. Fortunately, it wasn’t long before it was back to normality once we reached some of the more popular stops. People jumping on trying to sell us all sorts of things, including a small boy who held bags of popcorn in our faces for a good 10-20 minutes whilst the bus was stopped, not taking no for an answer. Eventually he got the message, but it wasn’t easy.

Around 7 hours later, we arrived in Delhi. Having been in Rishikesh so long, we’d forgotten what gridlocked Indian traffic was like, and the last hour was spent barely moving due to… Well, who knows. Cars, cows, bikes, cows and people. And cows. Shortly before we pulled up at the station, the guy with the musical instruments asked if we were going to the airport, which prompted us to decide we’d navigate it together, and being as he was South African we gathered a little bit of background from his country from him also, which was interesting to hear.

We got off the bus and another foreigner was also getting off and going to the airport. I had worked out a route, we had a hotel booked near the airport and it was only one stop before theirs on the metro (yes, there’s a metro, we had no idea as this was our first experience of one in India) so we set off. Only one small problem though, the South African guy had three bags as I’d mentioned before, however, we didn’t notice the actual size of them before. How he’d managed to carry them all to the bus stand alone, we didn’t know. So, foolishly, we offered to help him carry them. The one we took from him, a holdall, contained no less than seven Nepalese singing bowls. Not sure if anyone’s ever tried to carry this before, but combined these weigh no less than 300 tonnes.

Taking one strap each, Diana and I shared the burden and the guy was still struggling with his sheer amount of luggage. After talking to him a little more, I established he’d actually come with none of these bags, only a single change of clothing, and bought everything whilst he was there. I guess the inevitable part of the departure hadn’t occurred.

After navigating the airport style security checks, we managed to get onto our first metro train. This was very similar to other underground trains, except packed to Indian limits instead of London Underground type limits, which is around 10,000+ people more per carriage. Fortunately once we reached our first stop to get the airport line connection, many people got off and we could navigate our way out with our ridiculous amounts of baggage between us.

During this time, Diana had been talking to the other girl. It transpired that she was also just returning home from Rishikesh, except she’d outstayed us a little having been there for 7 months. That’s some commitment, and apparently she’d been there for a few months some time ago before also, so close to a year in Rishikesh as a tourist overall. How she managed to not go insane, I’ll never know.

We headed towards the second and final metro line, where we entered a state of shock we thought India would not be able to trump, until later that is. What we expected was similar to what we’d just been on, an extremely crowded underground train. What greeted us, was a clean, modern, sparsely populated shuttle we’d never experienced in ANY country before, let alone India. Completely caught unaware, we put our bags in the huge amount of baggage space, and took a seat each, watching the LED indicators above the train doors indicating our progress along the line to the next station, and lights showing which doors would open once we arrived.

Figuring it would be downhill from here, we said our goodbyes and relinquished our job as baggage mules as our stop was before theirs, and headed out to the open air. Dismissing the shouts from taxi drivers as our hotel was only 20 minutes up the road apparently, we headed on our way. As we approached the first corner though, we figured there had either been a mistake or we were going to have a problem. I was fairly confident it was the latter.

On this road were some of the fanciest hotels we’d ever seen. I had simply been looking for hotels near the airport to minimize the panic in the morning, and most of the ones I’d seen had been £15 - £80+. The one I’d booked was £6.50. Suspect, huh?

We walked along, our hotel was booked with some sort of chain of hotels known as ‘Oyo rooms’. It seemed there were quite a few of them, so I went into the first one which was incredibly fancy, and asked them which way it was to our hell hole of a room for under 7 quid. They pointed us up the road, telling us it was one right at the end. Suspicions confirmed, the one right at the end can’t be great surely.

We got to the end one, greeted by a porter and valet, huge gates and glass doors, knowing we’d be looking for alternate accommodation for the night. I thought I’d humor it anyway and asked at the desk about our reservation, showing them the email we had.

“No sorry sir, hasn’t come through to us I’m afraid”. I knew it. Game face was on, I calmly asked them how this could be as I had the confirmation in front of me. Another Dalhousie moment on the cards, I thought, they’ve seen the colour of my skin and they don’t want the hassle.

“We will look into it sir, please take a seat”. I’m fine standing thank you – this was I can see your computer screen and make sure you’re actually doing something. They brought up a phone number and make a call in Hindi. I wasn’t prepared to take no for an answer, and Diana was shattered at this point as her bag weighed approximately 9 Nepalese singing bowls.

“Ah, your reservation has been moved to another one, go down the road to the Hotel International Inn, they can help”. Mmkay. I left Diana behind with the bags, as I didn’t want them to think they’d completely shifted the burden yet.

Figuring we’d been downgraded at the very least, I wandered down the road, ignoring more taxi drivers desperate to take me somewhere cheaper. Not quite given up yet, I see in the distance the huge neon sign of the Hotel International Inn. No way we can afford a place with a sign, let alone a neon one. I walk in anyway to the largest, air conditioned marble lobby I’ve ever been in.

“Good evening Sir, how can I assist you?”

“Hi, I had a reservation at a hotel down the road but they have sent me here instead?”

“Let me see your reservation please Sir, and try to work out what’s happened”

“No problem” – I hand over my phone.

“Hmm, this reservation is for the hotel down the road on the right Sir”

“Yes, I know this, but they have sent me here saying you should have our reservation?”

“Let me look Sir”

Here we go. Another one of our famed Indian goose chases. I waited, he again asked me to sit, I think they’d all been to the same school for politeness, although this person did seem genuinely more helpful.

“Ah yes I can see, the reservation has been moved, we’re all part of the same chain you see”

“Okay, so there’s no problems? We can bring our stuff in and we don’t have to pay any more?”

“No problems sir, no more to pay, of course not!”

I head back to Diana, thinking it was too good to be true, but at least it was progress. We grabbed our bags and headed back and took a seat whilst three men talked amongst each other. One of the men approached me, saying there was still a problem as the reservation hadn’t come through here either. Tremendous. Apparently he was the manager for the Oyo rooms in the area though, so I had hopes he’d resolve something, maybe.

“Aha!! It’s in the next place! Come Sir, Madam!”

“Definitely, this time? This is getting a bit ridiculous now”

“Absolutely, come, come!”

We gather our bags again, back to the place we’d originally gone into to ask them where our room would be. Not even putting our bags down, I head to the front desk, my face probably a bit more ticked off than when we’d first gone in there to ask. The manager took a tablet from behind their desk, held it up to me and sure enough my name was on there. He beamed at me, happy he’d successfully achieved something I guess, and we were checking in to what, on the face of it, was an incredibly up market building.

We were lead up to our room. After 3 floors, the man said ‘That’s enough!’, as if he was also in on the game of ‘make the foreigners walk a long way’ and threw open the door. Diana and I exchanged a similar glance to the metro situation. What the hell was going on today. What IS Delhi?! It was clean. It was HUGE. It had a flat screen TV, fast Wi-Fi, it had room service, it had the COMFIEST bed, hell, it had a BED. Air conditioning. A bathroom with all the tiles still on the wall. PAINT! Paint on the walls!

The man showed us how to use the air conditioning and left. About an hour passed before either of us could find words. We’d had a room in Mumbai with boards over the windows and loose wiring hanging out, for £15 a night. This was incredible!

And short lived. We had until 3am to enjoy it, where we made the most of having a 24 hour reception and asked for a wakeup call and food delivered to our room. We then proceeded to have the comfiest few hours sleep of our recent lives, before solemnly realizing the dream was now, unfortunately, over. We headed outside, and upon discovering the domestic airport was a much further walk than we’d anticipated, got the nearest taxi to the terminal.

It felt strange heading for a flight again, after so many months of dysfunctional methods of transportation that just about get you to your destination, this felt like a clean, efficient and streamlined system, something I thought I’d never find myself saying about the ridiculous faff involved with airport security. Everything in fact, went incredibly smoothly, up until the point we thought we’d have a coffee whilst waiting and Diana started her 3 hour long rant.

Why, you may ask? Well, up until now we’d been used to the normal Indian rate of pricing things, rather than the no-mans-land of an airport Costa. When the bill popped up at 550rs, or £5.50 for two coffees, rather than approximately 10 you’d get for that price usually, the rational part of the brain that says “That was expensive, woops, won’t do that again” was overridden by the need to let me know just how expensive it was. Mood-swings, shouting, getting irritated by strangers just trying to make a normal line of conversation, you name it. This did not go down well at all. Add to that, part of the reason the coffee was expensive was because the guy behind the counter asked if we wanted ‘strong’, which Diana said yes to. We believe this costed extra, and although I thought it was probably the best coffee I’d had in months, Diana didn’t like it because it tasted of too much rupee.

Anyway, we made a new friend on the flight, who Diana immediately tried to bite the head off of because he helpfully pointed out to her she could pop her bag in the overhead lockers (still on a comedown after the huge expense, I believe). I think just wanted to practice his English, but is now added to our list of stalkers, this time by email. They’re everywhere!

We touch down in Kolkata, unsure exactly what to expect, what to do or how to get there. We had heard about a road that is very popular with backpackers, known as Sudder Street, although we really had no idea why but figured it meant cheap accommodation, so we headed straight for it. After a little bit of digging around on maps and working out where we were going, we checked the taxi price at the fixed rate booth and decided against it, we’d try the bus and metro lines of the city.

Seems reasonable.

One of the first things that struck us was how everything did seem different. Not much sign of rickshaws, although they did exist, instead, big yellow metered ‘No Refusal’ cabs, huge wide roads and semi ordered traffic (for Indian standards!) which seemed more reminiscent of a downtown Chicago than still within India. But the main thing we noticed was the heat. Although it was probably around 10 degrees cooler here than in Rishikesh, the humidity was off the scale, and you could barely walk a minute without a river forming on your face. We were used to heat by now, but this was something else.

Huge, pothole-less roads!?

The bus we took, having no idea what route we wanted or even, really, where we wanted, had a code name on the side which I could look up online to see the route it took. Finding the closest stop to where we wanted, we hopped off and went to the nearest metro line, as we were still somewhat of a walk away. Arriving at the gate of the subway, it appeared to be closed, with people stood outside telling us it would open in 10 minutes. This was at 10am on a Sunday, we can only assume it was a little more frequent on weekdays or it would almost be entirely pointless!  We paid our 10 rupees for both of our tickets, little chip coin tokens, and got on the first train that came past. A slightly more normal train experience, although not as crowded as we were used to.

Finally, we’re a couple of streets away from where we wanted to be. We begin the final push, walking through the busy street markets selling literally anything from T-shirts, to deodorant, to replica grenades and handguns that were really lighters (I think…). Avoiding being drawn into anyones shop was a difficulty, but we pushed on and eventually made it to the start of Sudder Street.

Goat complete with baking tray.

Unfortunately we had absolutely no idea what we were actually going to find. Although blogs and information online had heavily recommended it, it wasn’t until about half way down we could work out why, as it seemed fairly bare. Some women began asking us where we were from, where we were going, etc, which immediately made us suspicious. They did seem to generally point us towards where we could find a hotel or guest house though, and only at the end did they point out they did Henna and were always around this street if we wanted them. Handy…?

We approached the first guest house we could see and were greeted by an old shrivelled up man who spoke almost no English. We just about made the point we wanted a room and he showed us along a corridor to what was definitely one of the least maintained rooms we’d been in on our trip. Mould on the ceiling, the pillows were a grey brown mess and the windows barely closed. A tremendous start to our hunt. We figured at least it must rank pretty cheap. Nope, 600rs a night. Literally pennies less than we were paying in Delhi, for this???

We carried on our search, Diana staying with the bags whilst I went around every hotel and guest house I could find, melting all the while. First place I went to wanted far more than we budgeted. Next place was full. Next, full. Next, full. Found another with rooms for 400 and 500 which were in even worse condition than the first one, but with a shared bathroom instead, god only knows the condition of that, I didn’t want to find out.

By this point I’m a disgusting dripping mess of a human and enough was enough. I headed back to Diana to let her know we’re either paying well over the odds, or we live in the slime kingdom. Short of options, we headed back and handed over way more money than it was worth, and tried to forget the beautiful accommodation of the night prior. All in all, it wasn’t too bad if you enjoy living in a sauna environment supporting its own ecosystem, with no ability to stop flighted insects infiltrating the room to harvest your sweet, sweet bloody nectar. Yippee!! Still, this would only prove to be torture in the evenings. We did manage to swap our room to another, with no window in order to prevent the dirty needles with wings from reaching us, however this didn’t help with the sauna situation. Anyhow, onwards!

One of the main ‘attractions’ to Kolkata, other than the cheap flight to Bangkok, is the living and final resting place of Mother Theresa. This was our first point of interest we went to visit. The building itself was very unassuming, in fact, if it weren’t for the sign outside stating we were in the right place, I’d have believed my map had lied to me once again. We stepped inside to a place where strict silence was enforced. It was quite small, at least, the public areas were. Sisters were going about their business, whilst we and other tourists had three rooms of interest we could visit. A small museum, showing the work Mother Theresa had done, some of her belongings and awards, newspaper clippings and so on, the room in which she slept, did her work and stored all her files, and her tomb and final resting place. Of course, this didn’t take long to experience, but it was very much worth doing so and an incredible eye opener into the work she did and her views of the world. Unfortunately it would seem the location did introduce a number of people begging nearby, hoping the prey on the new found generosity of people visiting the house. We were encouraged to not give to these people, which was a difficult situation for all parties I’m sure as it wasn’t the message we’d really been given from the experience, but a necessary one to prevent the area becoming a real problem.

From here we visited a nearby cemetery, which, it quickly became apparent, consisted of passed British people from the 19^th century, back in the time of British rule. Whilst interesting, especially seeing so many British names in one area (many Williams), there’s only so many gravestones you can see and when you consider how incredibly fancy some of them were and realise they can only have been the product of some form of exploitation, we left quite soon. From here we’d planned to visit a few other nearby tourist attractions, one of which was the Victoria Memorial (the website of which looking like it was made back when Queen Victoria was still alive - http://www.victoriamemorial-cal.org/), however it was quite expensive for something we didn’t have a huge interest in and we arrived on the only day of the week where only the gardens are accessible. We carried on to another place we’d spotted on the map called Eden Gardens, which sounded nice, but apparently this is just a cricket stadium so another disappointment. A bit fed up at this point, we headed back and rested up and thought about our next move. Or actually, movie.

Snuck a picture of the Victoria Memorial though

One thing I hadn’t experienced in another country was the cinema. Now, as odd as it sounds going to another country and watching a film in another language, we figured we had a slight fighting chance in India as they typically talk ‘Hinglish’, randomly sentences of English just pop up amongst all the main conversation in Hindi. So we gave it a go.

We arrived at the cinema and the foyer was packed full with people who, in traditional Indian fashion, were trying their best to cram as many people as close to the door as possible. We managed to work out what the film was, it was called Piku (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piku), a comedy, so we had a chance to see what Indian humour was like also. We went to buy our ticket, which consisted of going to one of two booths, one for the rear seats and one for the upper balcony. The rear seats were the cheaper option so we were fine with that, and we got ready for the mass push into the cinema.

Sure enough, a man unlocked the door and everyone flooded in. We managed to pass our tickets on to someone who looked vaguely official and into the main cinema room where we were greeted by a room full of what looked like your typical hard plastic assembly chairs. A man with a torch shoved us in a general direction and we picked a seat right under a fan, which was great due to the ~40c temps and tightly packed room. The film began after some trailers and advertisements and everyone looked very serious. Sort of. The general cinema etiquette I was used to hadn’t quite reached this far. Someone’s phone rang – okay, no problem, just switch it of… Okay, just take the call, fair enough.

The film was basically about a girl whose granddad had constipation. Spoiler alert – at the end he goes on a long cycle ride, has a dump and dies. But the build up to this point was far weirder. Especially the random Hindi sentences where nothing seemed to happen on screen but sent the entire room into huge fits of laughter. Not just laughter, but applause. Rounds of clapping over and over. Most confusing but everyone was having a great time and we were having fun guessing what the hell was going on. Certainly an experience, would recommend trying it at least!

The only other ‘entertainment’ we could really find in the area were the markets. In the area we were in, the streets and centre were flooded with market stalls and this was Diana’s forte. Other than that, we definitely found it a different region of India, the vehicles, roads and general infrastructure felt a lot smoother running than other places we’d been. The accommodation was subpar, probably exaggerated by the previous night in Delhi being a whole different ball game for value for money. We’d found a new food in the area as well we’d not seen before, basically a paratha and egg, rolled up and filled with veg and optional meat, ketchup and onion. Only 20 odd rupees and nice and filling!

One part of the bustling markey

Eastern India 'Rolls'. Nothing healthy about this.

One 'Chicken Internet' please.

So that’s it. The grand finale of India. We got a taxi to Kolkata airport, used up all of our remaining rupees on some coffee, sandwiches and magazines and got ready for a short flight, only around 2 hours, where we’d hit our next culture. As much as we’d enjoyed India, it was time, we both needed a change and we’d spent longer than we’d originally planned already. This was it. Goodbye India!

So long and thanks for all the chai!

Dalhousie

Jonno developed some vampiric tendencies

Our next stop was a place called Dalhousie, another hill station. We had tried to book a hotel online, but all the hotels that we could book online were expensive ones, and the ones we found that were in our budget were not answering their phones. So we took the risk of winging it and finding somewhere when we arrived- this had worked for us in most other destinations.

We were dropped off by the coach in the town square at 5pm. As soon as we had put our bags on our back, a man approached us, claiming he could take us to a hotel which was in our budget, about a 10-15 minute walk away. Great, that was easy. We walked with him for about 5 minutes uphill, when suddenly he turned back and said he had to go collect some other people but if we carried on we would find it. We didn’t see why this was a problem, so carried on uphill for another 5 minutes. No sign of the hotel yet. We get to a crossroads and decide the most sensible thing to do would be to ask instead of getting lost, but nobody seemed to know where this hotel was, and we had been given a card but were not answering their phone. Instead of spending ages looking for this one hotel, we choose to check out the other hotels along this road, of which there were many. The first few said ‘no rooms’. That’s a shame, but we carry on moving from hotel to hotel. And each time, ‘no rooms’. When I walked in through the back entrance of one hotel so passed corridors of wide open empty rooms but the person on reception still said ‘no rooms’ we started to get suspicious. We went back out onto the street, and met a local man. When we asked him why we were not able to book a room in any hotel, he explained that many hotels do not want to take foreigners as they did not want to do the paperwork required for foreign guests. He did say he knew of a few hotels that definitely did take in foreigners, and pointed us in the direction of them. Jonno went to check them out while I waited with the bags, and came back shaking his head. Apparently they were full minus the guests as well. Feeling tired but still trying to be positive, we carried on our search. Hotel after hotel declined us, and even the International youth hostel of Dalhousie which was in the tourist guide book apparently ‘had a group coming’. It was at this point I became so fed up I actually said ‘I have had enough of this country!’ For those of you that know my level of obsession and love for India, you can only imagine how high my frustration was to utter those words. Luckily Jonno, the calm and level headed person he is, put his arm around me and reassured me that we would find somewhere and we just needed to keep trying. We walked back to the town square and he left me with the bags while he continued the hunt. After about ten minutes he came back, smiling. He had been offered a room in a hotel for a cheap price. Feeling relieved as it was now dark, cold and raining and we were both exhausted, we heaved our bags to the room, closed the door, and collapsed on the bed. But as soon as we had got ourselves comfortable, there was a knock on the door from one of the staff members to say that actually this room was taken. Trying to contain our anger but not believing this excuse at all, we told them we would stay in the room and if the guests come then we will vacate it, and closed the door on them. Then outside the room we heard lots of muttering, and there was another knock at the door, and a man with a suitcase was standing there and said ‘I have booked this room’. This was so obviously set up to get us out of the room, but we didn’t know what else to do. Apparently this had been the last available room in the hotel too, even though they we unprepared to prove this to us. So we had to collect our bags and keep looking. As we walked down the road, a man in one hotel that had previously been ‘full’ poked his head out of the door and shouted ‘room available’, but when we walked into the hotel, turned around and said ‘no rooms’ while laughing at us. An Indian couple walked into the hotel and asked if there were any rooms, and were immediately taken up to a vacant room. It was at this point that Jonno’s tolerance level had reached its limit too, and we started shouting at the man and his friend who had joined in with this joke that we were the butt of, which made them laugh even harder. Realising that this would not change our situation at all, we left the hotel and tried to work out what we should do next. We found a travel agent, who told us that there was a coach to our next planned destination- Dharamsala- the next day so if we could find somewhere that would take us for one night we could get on the coach the next morning. Luckily, we had the details of my mum’s friend’s aunt called Jane who lived in Dalhousie and whom we had been planning to pay a visit to whilst we were here. So I dialled the number to make a plea for some floor space for one night, feeling awful about disturbing her and making this request to someone I had never met before. I was so relieved when Jane answered the phone and said if we got a taxi to a nearby shop she would meet us there.

We asked a taxi driver to take us to the shop we had been instructed to ask for, which he did even though he had a very confused look on his face as even when he explained the shop was now closed we still insisted to go there. We were dropped off, and waited. After a few minutes we saw a torch light approaching us, and were met by Jane. We followed her down a steep, uneven path which lead to the house that she and her husband Maqbul lived in. We entered the cosy house and were amazed to find that there was a spare room with a bed made for us, with heated blankets and duvets as it was so cold, and that we were so warmly welcomed. We were introduced to Maqbul, who is mostly bed bound due to illness, and were encouraged to make ourselves at home and get some sleep. We thanked them again and apologised for the surprise phone call, and got into our nice warmed beds.

The next morning we were greeted by ‘bed chai’, a luxury which we were not used to! Jane then informed us that we would need to register our stay in Dalhousie with the police, and then we could go and explore for the day. They also said that we could stay with them for a couple of nights so we didn’t have to rush off, which was lovely of them. Jane took us up to the police station, where one police officer proudly showed us the holding cells for prisoners (always good to know the accommodation situation if you get on the wrong side of the law), and directed us to the foreigners registration office. We took our passports and after sitting in front of a very stern officer and playing a game of 20 serious questions, were told that our stay was allowed. After this was sorted, we explained to Jane that we wanted to do some hiking around the area and she arranged for a taxi to take us to a point we could hike back from. We jumped into the taxi and were dropped off at the peak of a nature reserve, which was approximately a 2 hour 45 minute walk from Dalhousie. However, we had also heard that a place called Khajjiar that was nearby was a nice area to visit, but it was a 2 and a half hour walk in the opposite direction to Dalhousie. In the end we opted for the Khajjiar direction, and picked up a taxi after about an hour of walking, so that we could do the whole hike from Khajjiar to Dalhousie, a 5 hour walk.

Why did the monkey cross the road?

Khajjiar, which is also known as the ‘mini Switzerland of India’, is a mossy plateau in the mountains with a few small buildings. Granted it was not as picturesque as some of the images we had seen as it was fairly muddy and the lake was dry, but it was still pretty and a nice place to sit and have a chai before the long walk back. 

One of a few chai breaks

Snow selfie!

Once we had fuelled up on chai, we were ready. The walk was not an easy one, with the first 2 and a half hours being mostly uphill and neither of our walking boots had yet been worn in, but the sky was clear and the weather was refreshingly cool. Every five minutes we had to stop to take pictures of the amazing views, and there were points where the path was lined with snow.

Khajjiar

Great views!

 We arrived back in Dalhousie five hours later, hobbling but satisfied. After getting a well deserved thali, we returned to Jane and Maqbul’s house. After showering and crashing out on the bed at about 10pm, there was a knock at the door. Maqbul had fallen out of bed and could not get back up. Thankfully we were there, otherwise he would have been on the floor for a few hours. With a bit of negotiation, we managed to lift him back into bed, luckily he had not hurt himself, and Jonno set about replacing a fuse on the electric blanket which had gone just before Maqbul fell. We returned to our room, feeling relieved that we had been around to help out.

It was just as well that we had done our hiking that day, as the next day it rained continuously. Jane had asked us for some help with a few things (many of them computer related- cue Jonno) so we made ourselves useful. Jane had also offered us use of their toploading washing machine, which we were definitely in need of by this point, but as the rain meant we could not dry the clothes outside, we had to drape our clothes around Jane and Maqbul’s bedroom. Maqbul had been given some exercises from a physiotherapist to maintain his strength and movement, which he had been doing with one of the staff they employed. As I was feeling like I had not been able to use my Occupational Therapy skills in a while, I offered to see if there was anything I could suggest or help with. While observing and giving advice about how to do the exercises, I suggested that Maqbul attempt to stand and march on the spot, which he could do really well considering he had not walked in months. With a bit of reassurance and support, he was then able to take a few steps with a zimmer frame and suddenly a look of determination came across his face and he asked to go to the en suite toilet. Without going into too much OT detail, this was not the easiest task as there was a narrow doorway, a step and an extremely low toilet in a corner of the room. If I would have been at work, I would have told him that this was not recommended until there was sufficient equipment around the toilet and he had been assessed as managing a step safely and had some more walking practice. However, this is India and I didn’t have time to gradually practice with him, so off we went, and with only a few dodgy manual handling techniques (you didn’t see this ESH staff!) he managed to get to the toilet and nearly all the way back again, which was amazing to see.

The rain had died down a little and Jane needed some errands doing around the town, so we offered to go out for her. We were given a list of things that needed doing, including purchasing a lightbulb, going to the post office and a grocery shop. So we set off with our list and with the instruction that we just needed to ask people if we got stuck. We started with the lightbulb, which was easy as we knew where the shop was. From there, we asked one of the staff for directions to the post office, and she pointed in a direction and said ‘5 minutes’. So we went the way she pointed to, but soon came across some crossroads and got stuck again. So we asked another person, who pointed down one of the roads, and we followed their instruction. About twenty minutes later, not quite the five minutes but it is India, and we reached a town square with lots of shops, including a post office. Hooray, we found it! Once we had sorted out the bits there, our next instruction was to go down the steps to the grocery store. But on looking around, there were no steps and three roads that went downhill. We called Jane and she gave us the same instruction. Baffled but certain we could work it out, we followed one road for about 1km but this lead away from the town, so we turned back around and returned to the town square. Jane had called us a few times and was worrying about us. It was only when we called Jane again and put her on the phone with a local shopkeeper that we discovered the reason for the confusion; There were two post offices in town and we had been directed to the furthest one. Feeling a bit sheepish, we returned to the house. Jane then said she needed to go out to get some cream but it was too difficult to explain the directions so she would go herself. I volunteered to make the dinner- macaroni cheese- while she was out. One hour passed and Jane still hadn’t returned, it was dark and had started raining heavily. I was the one now beginning to worry. After ten more minutes she returned, with a man in tow. Jane explained he was the son of one of her friends who had an adventure tour company in Nepal, where we were planning on going to after India. We spoke to him for a while and he gave us some useful advice, and told us he could set us up with a hotel in Dharamsala, our next destination.

Bit cold out there

The next morning it was time for us to leave, we had a bus to catch to Dharamsala. Jane made us a packed lunch of sandwiches and cake (far better than the crisps and biscuits we normally have to rely on!) and we said goodbye. It was so nice to have met both Jane and Maqbul, they made us feel so welcome and at home which is a rare feeling while travelling. Even though I initially felt awful about inviting ourselves to their house as we had never met them before, in the end it worked out well for all of us as we could help them out too.

So, onto our next stop, Dharamsala.

Thank you for having us!