Apologies in advance for the monster probable length of this message I shall endeavor not to bang on too much but there's loadsa stuff to tell since my last message 2 weeks ago!
First of all I should explain that I
am now in Delhi...and contrary to the guide books, I rather like it here. It's
tons better than Mumbai and loads of quirky funky stuff going on amongst the
mass pollution and traffic but hey that's India for ya...maybe I was just a
bit too spun out in Mumbai to appreciate it but Delhi is off it's head!
Anyhow, stepping back in time somewhat...I finally managed to tear myself away from Goa shortly after Easter. I didn't actually know it was Good Friday until when I was quite innocently walking along the beach minding my own business when I was ambushed by a crowd of kids who hurled pink, purple, green, yellow (you name the colour dye) at me and then doused me in water just to ensure that it stuck! This I was later told is Holi and it is a great festival of celebration marking the end of the winter and the arrival of spring....needless to say I looked like a painters palette walking back along the beach. However, I didn't feel out of place one iota as just about everyone was covered in dye and having a great time. I even saw a few colourful cows along the way!
I met a chap in the bar in Goa, Matt he was staying with his Dad who is one of the local expats there and I was talking to him about my plans and he decided to come along! Cracking guy, very funny, sings all the time and has got an amazing voice (Gareth and Will eat your hearts out!) he's a musician and chef. He left this morning at 5.30 to catch a train back to Mumbai and head off back to Blighty poor thing! Before leaving South Goa we went off to Vasco da Gama, Panaji and Old Goa on his bike for a look around which was worth it just for the thrill and sheer lunacy of the roads!!!
Anyway Matt and I headed off on the
overnight bus from Margao to Hampi in Karnataka. It is here that the ruins of
Vijayanagar are situated amidst a magical boulder strewn landscape that
stretches for miles. It is an awesome ruined ancient royal city that was at
the height of its power in the 16th century. It is full of temples and covers
an area of about 60 km sq. Hampi itself is a small village in the middle of
the site with a temple marking one end of the village and a wide main street.
Running off from this is a rabbit warren of narrow dusty lanes and
accommodation most with roof top restaurants. By night it is a sleepy place,
as a holy centre no beer! (Although it is possible to sneak a few beers in) By
day it was a roasting furnace of 45 degree heat but it was so worth it. Matt's
Dad had been before hence his reluctance to return in the heat and he told us
that when we got there to look for a rickshaw driver called Bollox who had
looked after his Dad when he was
there!!! Well just one word to another driver
and lo and behold we find him! He was a great chap and had the plushest
rickshaw I have been in so far!! So we had Bollox drive us around the ruins of
the ancient city for a much reduced fee and more comfortable ride.
We spent
three days there in the intense heat and although it is somewhere, like Goa
you could go and chill out, it was way too hot for that. Have got loads of
photos. The best thing that happened here was that in the main temple in
the
bazaar is Laxshmi the elephant and you go up to him and hold out a rupee coin
and he gently takes it from your hands (the dexterity of that is impressive)
gives it to his keeper and then raises his trunk and gently rests it over your
head and blesses you! and he is so gentle and well it was just a cool thing
for basically 1 rupee. So we were all blessed by Laxshmi!!! There were also
some rather large monkeys there too but they only pitched up at night once the
heat of the day had subsided.
We remained there for a few days and then headed off to Hospet to hopefully hop on a train to Delhi. However this plan came a cropper when we arrived in Hospet and discovered the train was full for the next two days so we couldn't leave until Monday night! Oops! So we had to stay there and we actually stayed in a real hotel !!! How posh is that???? Still a bargain for about 3 quid for the room for the night! Although we didn't really want to be there the bonus was that after a few days in Hampi there was beer and vodka so we ended up getting spectacularly pissed and met a chap called Graham too and had rather a fun juvenile night pretending to order all sorts of random crap from the waiters who couldn't understand a word of what we were saying, bit mean but highly amusing!
We left Hospet on Monday evening to catch the overnight train to Hyderabad...this journey entailed going about one hour down the track, stopping in Guntakal for three hours while waiting for another train to join ours and then leave for Hyderabad. We finally left Guntakal at 10 p.m. and got into Hyderabad at 4.45 a.m. Took me several large slaps to get Matt moving as we had to change stations to catch a train to Delhi. We were going to stop off in Hyderabad but as we had already lost two days hanging out in Hospet decided to get straight to Delhi. That was another 24 hours on a train. But the food on the station and on the train was awesome. Loads of chick pea and spicy fritters and these amazing potato dough balls with loads of great spicy and curd based sauces to eat with them and they were 15 rupees for 6 which fed us both. The habitual chai wallahs trotting up and down continually and fruit and nut sellers. The train journeys here are worth it just for the great food. Matt was as usual asleep so I ended up chatting to some guys who were in the same sleeper section as us and they were quite fun. One of them is going to the UK in the summer and wanted our address to come visit and we briefly contemplated giving him the address of someone Matt didn't like so much but decided against it. They thought we were married so we let them think that and in the brief moments of consciousness Matt took full advantage of telling them how I spend all his money and am expensive to run and I don't do any cleaning and am refusing to have children and they were all suggesting that perhaps it was time he slapped me around a bit...Very, very funny!
So we eventually arrived in Delhi on
Wednesday morning and got a place to stay after seeing the usual selection of
"choice" venues. We're only 10 minutes from the station in an area called
Paharganj in Old Delhi. It is bustling and lively and am rather enjoying it.
It is much cooler here only about 30 degrees which is a blessing. The hotel is
ok but two things are it's saving grace and they are 1) it has a great rooftop
restaurant with low wicker tables and chairs to chill out and it's open 24
hours. During the day they put up colourful awnings to protect from the sun.
In the evening it is lit up and the food is really, really good and cheap and
they do some Thai food as well and really great pizza!!! 2) they have an
entire fridge full of chocolate!
We got here on Wed morning and had a massive fried breakfast and then decided to go on a reccy around Connaught place which is down the road. It is in New Delhi area which was built by the British and consists of tree lined avenues and a whole lot more open planned than Old Delhi although still very busy. Heavy goods vehicles are banned from this area so it is significantly quieter. It was here that we happened upon Starbeans coffee shop! In we go for a bottle of water...two slabs of warm chocolate brownies and vanilla ice cream, two mocktails, a bottle of water and a pot of Earl Grey (yippee!) tea and some shortbread later we roll out of there (cost us an absolute fortune in Indian terms about 5 quid but worth it!)....One thing you should also know about Matt is that it is possible that he is more of a chocoholic and can consume more chocolate than me. Connaught place is where the classier establishments and bars are shall we say but I much prefer the craziness of where I am now.
Matt had to see the Taj Mahal before he went so we decided to go on a trip from Delhi rather than go to Agra and stay there as the reports about the place are none too favourable at all. Still full of poisoning travelers scams, robberies and incessant touts Walking back to the hotel we booked a trip to the Taj Mahal for Thursday and this is where life started to go a bit wrong! Basically we got completely shafted by a Kashmiri travel agent and both of us should have seen it coming but nah! Ah well you live and learn!
Everything was fine the guy came to the hotel at 6 a.m. picked us up we got on the bus and then it went downhill from there. Basically from what I understood the driver was having a strop because there were people sitting up front with him and he was refusing to leave Delhi...we got on the bus at 6 a.m. and by 9 a.m. we had circum navigated Delhi several times taken loads of wrong turns had a few fists thrown, one guy shoved off the bus only to get back on later when the driver who wouldn't leave Delhi went past him again. The Indian tourists on the bus were getting well upset with it too. Eventually and for unknown reasons the dispute was settled and off we went. SEVEN hours later we arrive in Agra (it should take 3 hours by "luxury" coach!!! Matt and I then get approached by our English speaking guide who tells us that Agra Fort (one of the 2 reasons to go to Agra) is boring and expensive and we shouldn't go in !!!!! and wouldn't we rather go with a rickshaw for 20 rupees straight to the Taj? We ignored him and go into the fort and it is amazing as it is from the battlements of here that you look down the river and see your first glimpse of the Taj. We then get into said recommended rickshaw drivers rickshaw and are told we'll see how marble is decorated on the way to the Taj....hmmmmm. To cut a long story short the rickshaw driver goes off in the opposite direction to the Taj takes us to some crappy shop where (yet another Kashmiri) tries to scam us into being his export partners in sending marble products to his contact in Solihull....so we get out of there eventually still in tact and tell the guy to take us to the Taj. He drops us off and tells us where our bus goes back from. Then demands 20 rupees from each of us! He gets told where to go with the only 20 rupees he's getting from us.
Finally we make it into the Taj.....and
wow! You have got to see it to believe it. It is the most stunning and
beautiful building I have ever seen in my life and it simply bowls you over.
You walk through the gates of the outer area and you are just confronted with
the classic view of it in all it's beautiful glory...it stops you dead in your
tracks, it takes your breath away and it makes the hairs on your body stand
up. Words don't even begin to describe the place or emotions you feel when you
first see it. This is a definite must see and I think I will go back on my way
to Varanassi to spend an entire day there as you could just sit in awe of the
place for hours. Sadly because of the bus journey and subsequent goings on we
had nowhere near long enough there. I had my first taste of
celebrity as lots
of Indian people, guys and their families for some bizarre reason wanted to
have their photos taken with some stupid English bird with red hair....and
lots of Indian guys wanted to take my photo so I spent some time posing with
random people....I should have charged them 10 rupees per photo!!!! So we left
the Taj and headed back to the bus stop to meet the bus. We met our guide who
told us there were problems with the bus and it would now leave at 6 p.m. from
the same place. Needless to say there were no problems with the bus, the bus
left shortly after we went back to the Taj to spend more time there. As we had
not fallen for the scam, only paid the rickshaw driver 20 rupees it seems they
decided to teach us a lesson by leaving us in Agra....we subsequently found
out from another rickshaw driver that they were all in cahoots together and if
suckers like us don't buy from this marble shop then you basically get
shafted. But the guide and the rickshaw driver are OK as they still get a
kickback for sending us there. So basically we were shafted. We walked back to
the bus stop in plenty of time and no bus. So we walked back up to Agra Fort
and another rickshaw driver explained what has happened to us. So we then have
to pay him 30 rupees to go to Agra station to book ourselves on the train back
to Delhi that takes 2 hours and gets us into Delhi and thankfully only 10
minutes away fom our hotel at 10 p.m.!!!! Well and truly shafted !!!! However,
none of this bullshit could detract from seeing the Taj. So it may have cost
us a couple of hundred rupeees to get the train home but we saw what we saw
and it was awesome!!!! I guess you've just got to smile at the audacity and
move on.
So yesterday we spent time in Old
Delhi around the Red Fort and went to India's biggest mosque. The red fort is
undergoing a large dose of tender loving care at the moment so it kind of
detracted from it's significance in
Indian history as the hub of the British
rule and the subsequent parliamentary and political speeches that have been
delivered to the masses by Indira Gandhi and Nehru from the Lahore entrance
gate. We walked from our accommodation to Old Delhi to the Fort and that was
something in itself. We thought where we were staying was busy but the Chandni
Chowk leading down to the Fort is jammed full of rickshaws, taxis, spice
stalls, market stalls, lorries, cars and of course cows!!!! What more would
you expect for a main road in Delhi! The only thing I can liken it to is it is
like being in a mosh pit and a heavy metal concert. To make life more exciting
in the evenings the pavements are strewn with additional vendors making it
impossible to get through the congestion. But it all makes for an interesting
time and clearly maximizes arse pinching opportunities for the blokes! The
reason we went to the mosque was to climb one of the 40m minarets to see the
views over Delhi but sadly we arrived too late. However we did get pestered
for money by kids until some nice chap chased them away and then they were
waiting outside and demanding kisses so they got told where to go.....last
night we chilled and then at 5 o'clock this morning Matt had to go the short
distance to the station. We stayed up chatting until he went so I am feeling
rather knackered today even though I didn't surface until 11ish. Have done
bugger all all day and am just about to walk the 5 yards back to the hotel for
fodder and to crash for the night. Tomorrow I am heading to the Gandhi museum
and Indira Gandi's house (complete with blood stained sari she was wearing
when she was assassinated and the blood stained grass where she was killed by
her body guards in '84 and the Raj Ghat where Gandhi was cremated... all open
on Sunday and for once free to get in...the day in Agra cost me a massive
amount of cash so gotta be a bit frugal for the next few days!!!!
On Monday I am going to try and put my flight back to Hong Kong another month until sometime in June so I can spend at least a full month in Nepal as it takes 3/4 weeks to do the Everest base camp trek alone. So am heading down to Connaught Place again to find a reputable recommended travel agent and one who isn't Kashmiri and likely to try and cancel my full ticket!!! Then off to the Nepalese embassy and will probably have to spend an entire day there in a queue!!!! What's new. Once this is sorted I'll be looking into sorting out some transportation to Jaipur and heading for Rajastan for a few weeks before maybe visiting the Taj again and heading to Varanassi and then on into Nepal.....That's a story for another day....
Anyway that's enough for now folks, hope all is well and groovy with you guys and keep smiling..
loadsa lurve
Lisa/Lillie
xxxx