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!

Rishikesh - Part 2

Looking over to Laxman Jula in Rishikesh

We stayed in Rishikesh for just over a month, and I am so pleased we had the chance to change our plans to fit this in- one of the benefits of not having a fixed plan or anything booked! I have completed my 200 hour yoga teacher training course, which technically means I can now teach yoga. I wouldn't say it has been enough for me to start my own studio straight away, but it has given me an understanding of the basics and with some practice on some (hopefully) willing friends and family I think I would be able to teach it. Not that I have decided in exactly which way I will use it in the future. I might try teaching an evening class locally, or might just use it as another one of my skills in my Occupational Therapy practice- relaxation, meditation, mindfulness and gentle stretching would benefit some of my patients I am sure! The biggest benefit to the course so far is how I have developed in my own practice and a deeper understanding of what yoga is. In the west, yoga is something you do a few times a week, you attend a class, do a sequence of postures, get a good feeling from your body being stretched and then continue your daily life as usual. In India, yoga is something you are. It is a mindset, a way of life in which you are trying to achieve a union with the higher consciousness and a feeling of being one with the universe. This happens through meditation, and all other practices in yoga are to perfect your meditation. So the postures or ‘asanas’ are to enable your body to stay in one position for a long period of time while you meditate, the breathing techniques are to help your body to use oxygen in the most efficient way so you can make your breathing slow down in meditation, the cleansing techniques or ‘kriyas’ are so your body is healthy enough to meditate. The ultimate goal is to reach what is called Samadhi, in which a person has prepared their mind and body so that they don’t need to eat any more and can just live off sunlight, and can stop their breathing for hours while they are in meditation. Of the two camps, the western and Indian ways, I have not quite decided which one I belong to. I am far too sceptical to believe that a person can actually live off sunlight and not breathe for that long, or that as one teacher claimed, if you practice a breathing technique every day, you will be cured of all diseases including cancer. I also personally do not want to meditate for ten hours every day as some yogis do, I would miss the outside world too much. But I do believe in the peaceful lifestyle that yoga promotes- shanti, shanti (peace). I do think that you need to develop an awareness of yourself and take some time to calm your mind (which I find the hardest thing to do). So I guess I am somewhere in the middle.

So the course itself was at AYM Yoga school- www.indianyogaassociation.com It was over a four week period, six days a week and including breaks, eleven and a half hours a day. It was pretty intense. There were 28 of us students which initially I thought it would be too much, but actually I really loved having so many people to talk to and share ideas with. We started the day with a meditation class, then an Ashtanga yoga session which is an energetic, dynamic yoga. Then we had lectures which later became teaching practice, then more lectures- on yoga philosophy and anatomy. Then we would finish the day with Hatha yoga which is more about holding postures for a longer period of time, and we also analysed the postures, including alignment and correction for students. By the end of the day I was generally pretty worn out, and had just enough energy to go and meet Jonno for dinner and then walk back to our guest house before going to sleep ready to do it all again the next day.  We had five different teachers- some were amazing and inspiring, and some had no clue what we were actually supposed to be learning and couldn’t really care less anyway. And I definitely had some interesting experiences. We had to practice two of the kriyas (cleansing techniques) during the course. One was called neti which was clearing out the nasal passage. This is done using warm salt water and a small pot with a spout. The spout is put in one nostril and then you pour the water into your nostril until it comes out of your other nostril. I can’t say it was a nice experience but my nose did feel pretty clean afterwards. It was also pretty entertaining doing while hanging over the rooftop so it didn’t pour onto your feet, but also trying not to pour your nosewater onto the children on the road that were walking to school. Some of the other people tried another version of neti where you stick a piece of string up your nose and down towards your throat, catch the other side and pull it out of your mouth and give it a good old flossing- nice! For some strange reason this did not appeal to me to try. One of the other kriyas was called shank prakshalana which is where you flush out your whole digestive system by drinking as much warm salt water as you possibly can (I think I managed nearly 5 litres), doing a series of exercises and then continuing this until you have induced diarrhoea and it comes out as clear water. And yes I was equally as horrified at the idea. But we all did it, and while it was really not what I would choose to do for fun, doing it as a group was a strange type of group bonding exercise and once it was finished there was a weird sense of achievement. And whilst I would definitely recommend it for anyone who has constipation, I don’t think I will be doing it again in a hurry. Some of the other kriyas which we did not try were going into a river and sucking up water through your rectum and shooting it out again, and eating a long piece of cloth until it reaches into your stomach then pulling it out again. It takes all  sorts…

We also tried a few different meditation exercises, one of which we had to close our eyes and shake our bodies and dance which was fun, and another called ‘gibberish meditation’ where we had to sit in a corner or facing a wall and basically babble like a baby for fifteen minutes. It was pretty weird actually doing it, but then afterwards when we sat silently I couldn’t actually think of anything as I could not think of any normal words so I guess it worked. We also learnt some mantras to chant in Sanskrit, an ancient language which Hindi is derived from, and some pranayama which are breathing techniques to focus your energy.

One of the biggest things I am going to miss about the yoga course is the people. We were a diverse group- from the USA, Spain, UK, Israel, Canada, Poland and more. We had all come to the course at different levels- from current yoga instructors to people fairly new to the practice, and all having had different experiences and perceptions of yoga and life in general. But there was no pretentiousness or hierarchy, everyone was valued the same. And despite the majority of us being female, there was no judging or bitchiness. I felt truly at ease with the group and I loved that we kept each other going when it got hard or stressful. And it was difficult not to bond when you are all self-inducing diarrhoea together!

Loitering around the local shop during breaktimes!

Everyone was also willing to share their talents and skills too, which made us closer as a group. One girl who is a yoga instructor at home offered to lead some sessions which were beautiful, and on the last night another girl lead an ecstatic dance workshop which was a great new experience, especially as we did it in the dark with a big thunderstorm going on around us, and to finish another girl brought her guitar and played some lovely relaxing music. So many others had great advice about other places we are planning on travelling to, and a few have offered us places to stay if we are in their country in the future. These are the people that I was looking forward to meeting when travelling, and I learnt so much from all of them!

Burning all sorts of things in the final ceremony

Getting my certificate

On the last Sunday of the course, seven of us decided to go on a hike up to a temple which we had been told was about two and a half hours each way. I did ask Jonno if he wanted to join, but at the mention of a 6am start time the disgust on his face said it all. So on our only day off in the week, aching from the previous six days of yoga, we set off bright and early so that we could get up and down before it got too hot. We were also accompanied by a 3-4 month puppy called Tango which one of the girls had adopted and had made arrangements to take back to the USA, and our ‘yoga dog’ who we named Bear/Doggie who insisted on following and protecting anybody at the yoga school. 

The dream team lead by Bear and Tango

The beginning of the walk was fine and the temperature was not too hot, with a nice breeze. After an hour or so it began to get pretty hard, but we carried on and encouraged each other. After two hours we arrived at a village in the mountains and were directed by the residents to go through cow sheds and living areas to carry on. After three and a half hours we finally arrived at the temple, only to discover we had to climb a few hundred steps further. Once we had hobbled up these, we collapsed under a tree in the temple and laid out our celebratory feast of brown bread, peanut butter and bananas, to the interest and amusement of some of the Indian temple goers. On our way out of the temple, a local man stopped us and pointed to the yoga dog, asking us if he came with us. He said that the dog belonged to someone he knew and he used to accompany them on treks a few times a week. This explained why he wanted to follow us whenever we went out walking! He seemed to have decided that we were more incompetent than his old friend at trekking, and continued to stay with us for the way back too.

Having a power nap before the descent

By the time we started our walk back down, the temperature had risen quite considerably and it was about 40 degrees Celsius. One of the girls was really affected by this and became exhausted, nauseous and dizzy, and between me and the guy that was with us we managed to guide her down. At a few points he even scooped her up in his arms and almost ran with her so that we could get down quicker. Tango the puppy was also struggling, and a few people took turns carrying him in his doggie bag (not the type you ask for in restaurants!) We finally made it most of the way back and were rewarded with a small waterfall and pool area which was so refreshing to sit in- as long as you didn’t disturb the cow poo at the bottom! The trek in total took us about eight hours, a lot longer than we expected but a great experience!

Some beautiful views

Trying to be a handbag dog

I also got the chance to achieve a personal goal during our stay in Rishikesh- to go to an Indian wedding. We had seen an area being set up near the yoga school and I was desperate to go and even though I had been told many westerners had just turned up at Indian weddings and been welcomed in, I was too scared to gate crash the wedding. When we got to our guest house that evening I started asking the girls who live there about it, fishing for an invite, and sure enough one of them said we could go along with them, the celebrations were the next evening, and to meet them at eight. Success! The next evening I hurried back from yoga so I had adequate time to put my saree on (I still need a few attempts at getting the right amount of folds and tucks and need a fair amount of safety pins to keep it in place) and we rushed downstairs at 8, not wanting them to go without us. We really needn’t have been so time conscious, as we were waiting until 9.30pm for the family to be ready. The teenage girls were all giggling and exclaiming ‘wooooww so beautiful!’ at the sight of a white girl in a saree, and Jonno got told that unfortunately the relationship had to be over because I now had Indian girlfriends. We entered the wedding celebration- kind of like an open air tent- and were lead to the lower level for the first part- dinner. There were tables all around the edge with a vast array of curries, rice, chowmein, breads and desserts. There was no seating area to eat, so we ate standing around, hoping that the little children who were running around and weaving in between us would not knock us over. After we had finished dinner, we were lead to the upper area where there were rows of chairs looking onto a sofa at the front, and a dancefloor. We looked around, and realized neither the bride nor groom were actually there. We sat there for a while, watching the little children dancing with some crazy amazing dance moves, and took in the atmosphere. All the women were dressed in beautiful colourful sarees and even though we initially felt very out of place as we were the only white people, a few of the girls from the yoga school had managed to get invited in at the entrance so we felt a bit more at ease sitting with them. 

So many colours!

Wedding crashers

At 10.30pm the groom finally appeared, with a procession of drums and being carried by male friends and family, which was very kind of them as he seemed to be missing his footwear and was only wearing white socks. He was taken to the sofa area at the front, and then the event carried on without much change, apart from being overseen by the groom who looked exhausted and like he would much rather be sleeping or at least tucked up in a duvet watching Netflix. Anyway, after this one of the girls suggested we go and dance, and I didn’t need much persuasion. I joined the group of girls from our guest house and a few other ladies in sarees and took to the dancefloor. The DJing was a bit strange, he would only play half of a song before skipping to the next song, but played the same songs numerous times. This was one particularly catchy one they played about 10 times which was popular- http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2hos3z . At about 11.45pm the girls suggested we head back home, as they all had school in the morning and so did I. As we were leaving, we walked past the bride who was just arriving, she had probably got a message from her new husband saying that it wasn’t worth hurrying for and decided to have a cheeky nap before arriving. Apparently the party only carried on until about 12.30 so she didn’t have much time to appreciate it, although I am sure I would feel the same if my wedding carried on for a week.

The guest house where we stayed for the month was definitely a find that we were pleased with. It was about a twenty minute walk up into the mountains from the main road, which should have meant it was very quiet. However, with the Indian family also living there not having much awareness to the volume of their conversations, the air was often filled with the shrieking calls of ‘Honeeeeyyy!’ (the little boy) or ‘Dabuuuul! (the dog) at all hours. There was also another set of guests staying there who seemed to be studying massage and decided the corridor was the perfect place to practice on each other. So every time we went in and out of the room we would have to tiptoe around some intense massage session. Apart from that, the place was lovely, and we felt very at home there. The little boy who they called Honey was about 3 years old and seemed to enjoy following us around and blowing us kisses. There was one occasion we were walking into town and he decided to follow us, and his mum had to run after him to catch him. It was a better reception than the baby who turned up with his mother the week before we left who was petrified of us, not that I blame it really.

Our little hilltop castle!

The lovely family who owned the guest house, with a petrified child

We also happened to be not too far from the earthquakes that happened in Nepal. In fact, I felt both of the big ones. The first one I was in a meditation class, laying on the floor and my whole body started shaking which at first confused me. I sat up and looked around, and the others in the class were doing the same. One of the teachers then received a call about the scale of the incident. The earthquake affected us quite a bit because of its close proximity and a lot of the staff working in the cafes in Rishikesh were from Nepal and had their family homes destroyed. I hope that there are no others to come and the people of Nepal manage to rebuild their lives soon.

We had a few days in Rishikesh after the yoga course finished, which we spent sorting through our luggage, posting some things back home and donating the rest of the things we didn’t need to one of the restaurants that was collecting items for the Nepal Earthquake. Also, as Rishikesh was made popular by the Beatles who spent time there, there was an abandoned Ashram where they went where we could visit. So we set off in the general direction that the map showed us, and  after taking some unknown paths through the woods, we arrived at a set of gates with no name on the but a few guards. After looking a bit confused for a few minutes the guards told us that this was the Beatles Ashram. Hoping that they were right and this was not some kind of foreigner trap, we entered the gated area and started to explore. At first all we could find was an overgrown pathway leading up to some bland derelict buildings, but when we carried on up the path we found some more ruins but these had been artistically graffitied  and had pictures and quotes from the Beatles, most of which had been done recently as a project. As we explored further in the many rooms that once was the accommodation of the ashram, each a bedroom with an ensuite, a local guy attached himself to us, loitering around us and occasionally pointing at bits of graffiti and telling us to take pictures of it. We did have some suspicion he would be after money in some way but tried to ignore him for a while. After about 45 minutes, he came up beside us and said ‘For guide…200 rupees’. After telling him that firstly we didn’t ask for a guide and secondly he didn’t even do a remotely good job at it anyway, he still would not leave us alone so we decided to take ourselves off and sit down, hoping he would go away. But no, he sat down next to us, staring at us. After 10 minutes of awkwardness, some other tourists came along and asked him a question so we took our chance, grabbed our bags and ran away. I don’t know if he tried to catch up with us but he failed, and we were free.

The Ashram accommodation

The overgrown Ashram

Sun and Moon- Ida and Pingla

Many people who I have spoken to have asked me the very important question of- But what did Jonno do for a whole month while you were intensively studying yoga? The answer is- what didn’t Jonno do! He got into a very leisurely routine of waking up at 10.30-11am, took a stroll down to the town, found a few cafes which had cold coffee, cake, wifi and plug sockets, and spent a few hours on a computer programming course and learning Spanish (this will be the most useful language for us when we get to South America). One café he frequented so regularly that his phone began telling him how long it would take to get to ‘work’! He also dedicated a large amount of time on the development of his facial hair, and I was met every evening after yoga by an increasingly hairy man shouting Spanish phrases at me.

Its the fuzz!

                                                                                                                                       

So that was it. We had our last fight to get across the very narrow bridge over the river to get into town (it was always full of families taking pictures of themselves, cows, monkeys and scooters), had our last chai at our favourite riverside café, and our last cheap meal at the restaurant that became our local. We got up early the next morning to get a rickshaw to the bus terminal for our journey to Delhi. As we were trudging down the hill towards the main road, the yoga dog comes bounding up behind us and walks us down to the rickshaw stand, cocking his leg at every corner in a very, well, cocky way, and making sure we get a good send off. He waits with us very patiently for a ride, and once we climb into the rickshaw he gives us one final check, turns around and trots away back up the mountain to go and see to his new group of yogis that have begun their 200hour course. There was something strangely emotional about a dog coming to ‘wave’ us goodbye, and we did get some pretty funny looks from the rickshaw driver. But we had a bus to catch, to make our way towards the end of our time in India.

Goodbye hugs with Bear

Yoga family!