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! 

Dharamsala / Mcleodganj

Fairly sure I caught him up to something...

The bus to Dharamsala was long, bumpy and along some of the most dangerous roads we’d been on so far. Sheer cliff faces, narrow roads and crazy drivers made for some interesting points. But all in all, we arrived in one piece. We’d received some details for a reasonably cheap hotel from the gentleman we had spoken to in Dalhousie, a place in Mcleodganj. This, we realized, was the main place to go, as everything was based there. So after disembarking the coach and having a man lift our bags out of the back and onto the floor, asking us for money for having done so, we were approached by an Indian couple who were on the same coach as to whether we would like to share a taxi with them. Sounded good to us, reducing costs where we can was something we were a fan of.

The taxi pulls up and the couple start loading in their bags. The driver, clearly unaware we were getting in also, looked very surprised when we started putting our bags in also. I have a feeling he’d negotiated a good ‘Indian’ price, and wasn’t happy he hadn’t had a chance to put a foreigner tax on. No problem for us, anyway. We make the way up the mountain side towards Mcleodganj, when it became a little more apparent why he didn’t expect us, the first incline we got to the taxi ground to a halt and couldn’t get up (Well, not with the way he was trying to use the clutch anyway…) so me and the guy got out and ran along side until the road evened out a little. We got back in, and just about managed to avoid having to do the same again on the following hills, although it was touch and go for a few points. It turned out the couple were travelling India due to them having just got wed and this being their honeymoon break. They asked if we had found a place to stay yet, to which we said we kind of did, and they said they planned on looking around to negotiate prices with people.

The narrow streets of Mcleodganj

The taxi arrived at the centre of Mcleodganj. We paid up and called the hotel to find out where it was. Once we worked out which direction to head in, we grabbed our bags and prepared to start walking. The couple asked us to wait up as they planned to come with us to see our hotel. Fair enough, we wait for them, and meanwhile someone approaches us and asks if we want a room for cheaper with all the same facilities. Seemed fine to us, apparently it wasn’t far, so we decided to go with him. The couple also decide to come with us, although they had two people carrying their bags for them now, I have no idea where they found them but they seemed happy about it.

We head down the hill following the man to his hotel. On the way, the newly wed guy went with the bags into another hotel. We approached a set of steps leading down a long way, although half way down they were no longer steps and more just mud and gravel. We followed down, the girl who was still with us to check the hotel out leading the way and not seeming very happy about it. Up to them, we thought. We finally get to the room, and it’s fine for us, so we say we’ll stay there. The girl checked out the room next to us, complaining a few times about the distance from the market and other points. After a while, her husband arrives and says about how great the other place was and the price of it. They talk for a while and then, bizarrely, decide to stay in the room next to us. At this point, we realised we had a pair of stalkers on our hands. I couldn’t think of a good reason you’d want to hang around with two strangers whilst on your honeymoon, but they seemed to. We closed the door to our room and waited until they were settled in theirs and snuck out to go explore. The area is home to many Tibetan refugees and Buddhist monks, and most famously the home and temple of the Dalai Lama. We took a look around to get our bearings and find something to eat.

A beast that greeted us in our room one night. T'was about the size of a human head, I swear.

The next day, we get up and go to sort out actually checking in to the hotel, as the day before they hadn’t been around to take our passports. Whilst we were doing this, our stalker couple must have heard us as they suddenly sprung up from nowhere. Whilst I was sorting out our check in, Diana was busy getting her photo taken with them, as is traditionally when you are foreign in India. They told us they had booked a taxi to take them around to all the temples and asked if we wanted to come and pay half. Not being too fussed about the walk, wanting to save money and not wanting to hang around our stalkers, we politely declined and went to see what the town had to offer.

After getting some breakfast and Diana exploring all the trinkets and clothing the markets had to offer, we decide to visit the temple in the centre of town. On the outside were a number of ‘prayer wheels’, an invention I can only guess was developed by a lazy monk, as spinning these once is the equivalent of saying a prayer. Upon walking around the temple, you can say the equivalent of maybe 40-60 prayers in no time. Genius!

Prayer wheels and a street momo vendor

On the subject of walking around the temple, clockwise seems very popular to the religion. The wheels spin only clockwise, you walk around the temple clockwise, there was a definite theme occurring. We entered the temple, after one clockwise lap, which appeared to be being renovated as people were repainting the main, huge golden statue in the centre. We climbed the stairs up to the top, where a statue surrounded by bowls of water was placed for some form of worship.

Our thirst for local temples not yet sated, we headed towards the temple of the Dalai Lama. A little further away, but with a little bit more going on. We arrived whilst a gaggle of monks were mid sing song, which was nice and we had another go on the prayer wheels. The dedication to their faith was incredible, at least until you realise almost all of them had a smartphone or a tablet. Considering the Slightly took away some of the magic.

Prayer wheels at the Dalai Lamas temple, along with instructions

Monks need to catch up on Facebook too, after all

Monks performing a ceremony at the Dalai Lamas temple

We saw some posters advertising a Tibetan folk show by an organisation called Tibet World www.tibetworld.org that evening and decided to take a look. We turned up to what seemed to be a volunteer run project to help raise awareness of the situation in Tibet and to teach skills to people such as languages, music and cooking. The show was interesting, one lady in particular didn’t seem to have an understanding of how small the room actually was and produced the most deafening high pitched shout it was hard to watch without wincing a little. We were also told a traditional folk tale, about a man named Uncle Emptiness.

Apparently quite a popular character in Tibetan folk lore, it’s about a man who is clever at tricking and scamming people. This particular story I’ll keep short and sweet, Uncle Emptiness has no food or shelter, another man has a stomach problem and needs surgery. Uncle Emptiness tells him he can perform the surgery for free if he can have food and somewhere to stay. They go to the mans house and he asks when they can do the surgery. Uncle Emptiness says tomorrow, and starts sharpening a huge carving knife. The man, worried, looks at it and asks if he’s done it before. Uncle Emptiness says he’s done the surgery over a hundred times. The man, a little more relieved, asked how often it was successful. Uncle says once. The man, now very worried, doesn’t want the surgery anymore, but because he offered the food and shelter, so feels he should still provide it.

Now, personally, I’d recommend against untrained, unlicensed surgeons you’ve simply bumped into who can’t afford their own food and shelter, but apparently there’s a meaning behind this story other than that. At the end, we are taught some traditional dancing and they ask the group for suggestions on dances and games to play. A game of Grandma’s footsteps ended the session, which was in all very interesting.

On the hunt for food, we tried a traditional Nepalese/Tibetan food called momo’s. These little bundles of delicious cheap joy are now one of my favourite foods. They’re simply shredded vegetable, usually cabbage and carrot, wrapped in a thin dough and then either steamed or fried. They’re awesome and only 40rs from street vendors for 10 of them. We then spotted a cake stall and had the greatest cake in the entire world. No kidding, we’ve had some disappointing cakes in India so far, but this was insane. In the end I had to ask what was in it, and got the reply:

• Dark chocolate
• Milk chocolate
• White chocolate
• Coffee
• Nuts

The result is the tastiest, moist slab of carbohydrate I’ve ever had, and I ended up getting one of these most nights. Amazing. If you go to Mcleodganj, don’t worry about Mr Lama, find these gorgeous cakey beasts.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm... The picture doesn't really explain anything though.

The following day we decided to go visit Dharamsala, for three reasons. Firstly, Diana had her usual fascination for buying random apparel and there were markets down there. Secondly, we wanted to do lots of walking in preparation for Nepal. Finally, we had a prepaid phone SIM card, where we’d received a text saying it was going to expire due to our visas running out. Our visas still had a good 2 months left on them at this point, so we called up Vodafone who told us we’d have to visit our nearest Vodafone store to resolve this.

We headed down the mountain which took a fair amount of time and were greeted by a few market stalls and shops. Diana had a look around everything she could spot and we headed in the direction of the Vodafone shop on the map. Not finding the one we were after, we head to the nearest shop that seemed vaguely relevant and tried to establish with them what could be done. 

A hospital for torture survivor victims on the way down

After a few more calls to the main telephone number, they told us to visit a place back where we’d come from, further up the hill. At this point, we were aware we were on another of our famous Indian wild goose chases, which usually end with very little success, but we needed to try something. So we headed all the way back, and, after being unable to find the place we were looking for, went in the next place with Vodafone written above it. After mentioning to this guy, he barely let us continue before he wrote down a name and mobile number, saying we need to go see this person. He showed us on a map where to go, irritatingly back in the direction we just came from but further down.

After reaching the rough area on the map he’d pointed at and finding nothing, we called the number to find out we’d been sent in only vaguely the correct direction. Tired and fed up at this point, we walk towards a hotel he said was nearby and after many, many kilometres of walking at this point, eventually arrive. Expecting to see a shop, or office, or anything, what we actually found was a man stood next to a tiny Vodafone sign by an alleyway. We explain our problem, confident we were now talking to the right person. He asks where we bought the SIM and we tell him Mumbai. “Sorry, nothing you can do”.

Silent rage builds up after walking around 10km and being told there should be a way to resolve it. It wasn’t particularly serious, but as we’d be spending the next month in different places, it was the first time having a phone to use would be incredibly useful. Resigned to the fact we failed, we headed back up the hill, and treated ourselves to a small bottle of rum and more magic bars (Did I mention how amazing these were?).

We had one other goal in mind for while we were in the area. A place named Triund, up in the mountains around 9500 ft, only accessible by trekking. We headed first from Mcleodganj to a place called Bhagsu, another nearby town with more distractions for Diana and a waterfall. Our guidebook had informed us that the trek was just past the waterfall, so upon reaching it we asked some of the shop keepers there which way to head. The last shopkeeper we saw informed us to be careful, as there were not many people around and it was dangerous. No problem, we thought, although a little confused as we understood it was quite a popular trek that takes around 5 hours there and 4 hours back.

The Bhagsu waterfall

Well, approaching the first hour we understood what he meant. The climb was sheer, the path barely highlighted to us by a light gravel track. Up and up we went, not seeing a single soul until around the 1 hour mark, when we bumped into a few people on the way down. Good news, at least we’re on the right trail. We came across a few derelict buildings, god knows who would have lived in them as they were in the middle of nowhere. The path was now gone, we had no idea where to go, although we assumed up. I took a look at my phone, where, as luck would have it, Google Maps had the vague trail mapped out. Orienting ourselves back onto the trail, we finally managed to pick up a further light gravel trail, and we were back on track.

Not a simple walk in the park

The climb was incredibly steep. This was certainly not planned out well, and as we got to the second hour, we wondered if we’d actually make it the whole way. The views were absolutely spectacular, panoramas all around of the nearby towns. However, we were getting exhausted and had barely got half way. We ate half of our food rations (that was the grand total of four bananas) and pushed on. The trail itself was starting to fade, and instead, large piles of rocks were dotted around in the distance, vaguely marking out a path. Every time we’d see the peak of the part of mountain we were currently climbing, thinking it would be close to the top, we’d climb over it just to see another, far taller peak ahead. It was beginning to look impossible and we were conscious of how long it was taking, not wanting to try and negotiate the steep climbs and loose rock in the dark later.

Certainly a scenic route!

Approaching hour three and we’d seen a few more people on their way down. These people had been trekking a couple of days, sleeping in places further up. They told us we were only around an hour away, which was great news as we were expecting it to take 5 hours. However, we were also aware that this may not be the case, as an hour downhill is not the same as an hour up. Cloud was forming over us, which soon turned to thunder, and within 20 or 30 minutes, rain. We took shelter in the porch area of a building for a moment, gathered our thoughts and finished off the last of our nutritional items (that’s two bananas in layman’s terms). It was a lot colder now, we’d climbed perhaps 2500 feet and were getting more and more conscious of the time. Hail fell around us, we waited for it to calm down and carried on, deciding that if we didn’t make it in the next 30 minutes, we’d abandon and turn back.

Pretty awesome views though!

Continuing further, it was significantly colder now, ice and snow patches around us. But in the distance we saw some buildings and tents, it had to be it and we still had 20 minutes before we were at our ‘deadline’. Our legs were at this point getting tired and painful, but with the goal in view, along with more incredibly steep mountain sides, we carried on until we eventually managed to reach the camp, in just under 4 hours.

Feeling a sense of accomplishment, we found a chai shop and had an incredibly rewarding cup each, along with a bottle of water and a pack of biscuits, all overpriced but now beyond caring. A guy also sat in the shop was preparing himself a joint and smoking away, whilst we were struggling to find ourselves the basic necessity of oxygen. Takes all sorts I guess.

Victory chai!

We made it!!!

It was at this point, we had finished our chai and eaten our biscuits, the guy asks us which way we came. A little confused, we pointed over in the direction we had come from. He then points the other way, and tells us there is another path that takes around 2 hours. So we decided to try this way back, as a quicker way sounded ideal.

We had just scaled a mountain, at times literally having to climb up with our hands as well as walking, slipping on loose rock and putting our legs through 4 solid hours of uneven up hills. This route was literally a stair case. Hundreds of people climbing both up and down, this is why we never saw anyone..! They were all taking the easy way! However frustrating it was to find there was basically an escalator to the top, we did feel a sense of accomplishment that we’d taken the more “hardcore” route. We earned our chai.

You call this route a challenge?!

On that note, at the bottom we celebrated with further chai. It took a little more than 2 hours down, but certainly a much easier way than going up. The views were nowhere near as good however, so we didn’t feel cheated for long. The only thing left to do was to purchase our coach ticket back to Rishikesh, in time for Diana’s yoga training.

The coach back to Rishikesh was late in the evening, so we still had another days activity to partake in, which was mostly taken up with Diana doing some shopping, eating more momos and sitting in some café’s for a while. Getting ready for the journey ahead, we stocked up on more magic bars and were off, ready to ground ourselves for just over a month!