Week Ten.

It was a great leaving Dehli, the areas I saw of the city were good and was useful for supplies but by the time I had organised moving on the heat and pollution were starting to get to me. So I skipped my planned day trip to the Taj Mahal and got the train to Simla, capital of Himachal Pradesh. The journey involved changing halfway and getting on a 'toy train' to travel up the mountain. It was a really scenic journey and pretty surreal arriving in cold simla after being in a Desert town less than a week before. I was still finding sand everywhere and having to wrap up well at night was a complete contrast.
Simla is a really nice town, but couldn't spend too long there.It's the high tourist season in this part of India and the place was packed out with native honeymooners and holiday makers. There weren't many travellers about and even though it was great finally being amongst the himalayas, it seemed impossible to find anywhere isolated to relax, there were people and monkeys everywhere. It was also surreal seeing heavy rain, made me a bit homesick. Shimla is a ery 'english' town, it was the summer capital during the British occupancy and it filled with very British looking churches and ol tudor style buildings. It also bought back memories of family holidays as there were ice cream parlours and video arcades everywhere.
After a couple of days of looking around I headed to Dharamsala, home of many many tibetan refugees and heavily influenced by budhism. The area was lovely, you could see snow covered peaks in the distance and even if you just wanted to go and buy some bread it was a scenic trip. I spent a fair amount of time in the nearby village of Bhag Su, a lot less populated and really laidback. There was a similar scene here to Goa, a load of hippies enjoying the scenery and sitting about alot. I participated in this activity too muh myself, in fact I think I reached new levels of dozy laziness. I actually stayed in Mcleod Ganj, halfway up the valley between Dharamshala and Bhag Su. The population seemed evenly split three ways between Indian locals, travellers and Tibetan exiles and everyone seemed to have a smile on they're face all the time. There was a real atmosphere of peace and contentment about the place, and there was a constant soundtrack of gentle pipe music or the standard Bob Marley selection. It was also very sunny there and wandering far into the valley discovering waterfalls and obscure cafes was a great way to spend the day. After about five days decided that I was okay for inner peace, and got the bus to Manali, my final resting place in India. Most people I've met throughout the country are planning on ending up here, and it's perfect for a final holiday before leaving the country. It has a reputation for adventure sports and may go on an organised trek at some point but funds have become tight, so much so that my plan was to stay in the woods. I changed my mind within one second of arriving here, it is freezing. This has it's advantages, as I've heard that many holiday makers have been put off by the unusual cold weather and opted for Dharamsala, which was a bit clogged in spite of the collective calm. So I'm staying in the nearby village of Vashisht and although this is my fourth day here haven't managed to venture out much. Now that I know I'm not going to do much more exploring my lazy holiday mood has kicked in, and that seems to be what this tiny village is all about. Days are spent chilling on a friends balcony drinking chai, staring at amazing snowy views from rooftops drinking chai, or lazing about in hippy movie cafes drinking chai. I never thought that I'd spend any time in India doing what I did in the UK, but it's just too tempting to lay about on cushions choosing films and seeing if they have the DVD. I'm going to be here about two weeks, so there'll be time for exploring and trekking later. For now it's nice just cruising around meeting people (way too easy here) and watching loads of dodgy films. Tonight we've been promised Terminator 2, it's taken three days for them to sort out, and surreally most western travellers I've met here really want to see that film again, and ave endless discussions on why T3 is terrible, so tonight should be THE night in India. Yeah, it's pretty shameful that I'm just sitting about watching films but once this era is over I'll have to go pretty much straight to New Zealand to start working to earn more travelling money so now it's good living the easy lifestyle and eing reminded what goosebumps look like. Everyday I've promised myself I would go exploring amongst the mountains but haven't quite managed it yet, by the way 'I Robot' with Will Smith is really good and worth watching. I supposed I'd better go and sit about drinking chai somewhere, Joy who I met in Jaisalmer is about and I'm going to teach her karem (that sri lankan flicky pool-type game), which should be interested as I'm pretty useless at it. To conclude, life is great here, and you can all be smug that as summer begins in the UK I'm spending my days freezing and avoiding major rain. None of the guesthouses seem to ave hot water, so I wash communally in the natural hot springs they have here, they have separate sections for gender but I've been told that it is possible to see a tiny corner of the female section from the one of the rooftops, so maybe I will do some exploring today after all. Either way, next time I update this log I'm guessing not much will have changed. My one 'event' for today was going to be learning the basics on a motorcycle, something I've been planning the whole time here as it's a great way of getting to know a place. But the loose arrangement I had with Simon (irish guy) was that I'd see him at some point this morning so he could teach me, but reckon I must have missed him, which is probably for the best as tey don't have horizontal roads here. Anyway, as long as I end the day with Arnold Schwartzeneggar it'll be a success.

Week ????

Finally made it to Dehli where once again my plan has been foiled by poor organisation! I was going to go on a day trip to Agra today to see the Taj Mahal, but it's closed on fridays and I'm itching to head off to Shimla in the mountains tommorrow so the Taj will end up being my final stopin India before flying out in Mid-May.
Jodphur was an okay place, not as blue I expected a blue city to be, but there were plenty of beautiful buildings to see. While visiting one of the them (Jaswant Thada, I think) I stopped at a drink seller's place, he invited me in and went into carefully graphic detail about his hobby, the kama sutra. He talked about it for about forty five minutes before I left, and he asked me to come back later so he could continue.
At the guesthouse I stayed at I met Misr Khan, a waiter who's brothers work in a guest house in Jaisalmer, the Golden City, my next stop. He got me a room there and I ended up having a great time, the rooftop restaurant was run by Lucky Khan, who I'm gonna stay in touch with and possibly open a guesthouse with him (he wants to call it 'Martin Evergreen', as apparently 'Neil' means Green and 'O' means ever, or something.) For the first couple of days in Jaisalmer I was on a Camel Safari, the main reason people go there. The advice everyone gave me was to try and meet people beforehand to go with, but I ended up signing up at the last minute with four other solo travellers who I didn't have much in common with, and spoke varying levels of english, so it could have been a much better experience but it still great being outin the desert which was surprisingly chilled for the summertime. Each of the camels had a distinct personality, I got Johnny the Greedy one, who stopped at every single bush or tree for food, so I was left far behind the group fairly often. Sleeping out in the desert was fantastic, only fifty percent of our group drank alcohol, so could have been more of a party, but staring up at the stars while the Camel's farted in the background was magical.
I was pretty sore when I returned to Jaisalmer, met an english couple, Nick and Joy, who I ended up going to the Government authorised Bhang Shop, famous for it's Bhang Lassi's. Lassi is a type of yoghurt drink really popular over here and Bhang is a derivative of marijuana, so is illegal in many parts of india but this place was an official operation and is run by Doctor Bhang (No kidding!) After we'd been there we went to a rooftop restaurant (pretty much every restaurant is on the roof in Jaisalmer, so great views are always guranteed), the Bhang didn't really have a hug effect, just felt very mellow and we started to discuss how we had all expected Rajasthan to be unfriendly but it's actually one of the nicest places about. At this point someone somewhere started chucking stones at us.
After several waves of pebbles had been thrown we realised it was the guy who worked at the rooftop cafe next door, obviously in competition with the italian place. That was pretty funny, and reassured us that Jaisalmer is not that friendly after all. Had a greatr time there though, ended up spending two days longer than I'd planned, chilling on the rooftops and learning to play Karem, that Sri Lankan pool style game where you have to flick counters about. After two days careful tuiton from Lucky I can proudly claim to kind of understand the rules, so if I keep practising I may oneday learn how to be good at it. I was sad to leave Jaisalmer, met a lot of people there who I'll stay in touch with, the Khan Brothers all got me presents (Clothes, Jewellery etc.) when I left, whenever I return to India I'll make sure I go back there again, desert lifestyle is really laidback, and only about half the population want all my money and possessions, which is a major bonus.
Next stop was Rajasthan's Capital, Jaipur, the Pink City. This place reconfirmed that Jaisalmer was my kind of place, as after five days of good health my gut pain returned as soon as I got to Jaipur. Because of the pains and general sleepiness I didn't do much of interest in Jaipur, except I got my palm read. The guy was fairly accurate in describing my personality, saying I am not very mathematical or technical, but he told me I had no friends, and when I told him that I did he just gave me a pitying smile like he didn't believe me! For the future, he advised against suicide (no kidding!) and said that things will start happening for me when I am 28, which gives me an unexpected bonus four years of bumming around. Apparently I should look into being a Chartered Accountant, as that would suit me best (he obviously forgot about the lack of Maths skills), but when I am Thirty Five I will change careers and head abroad, changing country and career whenever I get bored. But I'll have two kids, at least one daughter, so may end up being a bastard who abandons his family to jaunt around the world, who knows? Finally, he said that I lack inner confidence and can remedy this by wearing a ruby on my finger, and luckily enough he had a ruby ring for just Rs 400!! I declined his offer, but will keep his prediction sheet to see how accurate it is, it would take a lot of crazy events over the next four years for me to end up as a chartered accountant, but at least I'll probably get my old swivel chair.
Got to Dehli yesterday, and wanna save funds so won't be doing much sightseeing, I'm staying in the Paharganj district, known as the seedy part of town. From what I've seen of the Capital it's not as bad as I've been led to believe, the pollution is oppressive but it's got that Capital City feel that I always like, and plenty of places to go out at night. This time tommorrow I should be in Himachal Pradesh, where I'll stay untill it's time to fly, got arrangements to meet various people about the place, and hopefully, like all my favourite places so far, my guts will be calm.

Week Six (That Damn GCSE Maths still elludes me.)

Somehow, I'm actually getting somewhere now, Spent a day in Pune, didn't like it. It was a big dirty City just like other big dirty cities and there wasn't much point in sticking around except that the nightlife is supposed to be pretty good. Unfortunately my guts betrayed me and going out at night was not an option so the next day I headed for Aurangabad, near the fantastic Ellora Caves.
I've been pretty touristy this week, can't see myself having as much fun as I did in Hampi till I get to the Himalayas so it's been a time of photos and sightseeing.
The Ellora Caves were amazing, it is a large range of caves temples and shrines cut into solid rock, created by Buddhists, Hindus and Jainists over a thousand years ago, they took about five hundred years to complete and even through centuries of erosion they are pretty stunning, been a tight git I didn't take a guide so didn't learn much, but it was a great half day mission accidentally going the wrong way up the hill and wandering about till I found myself in another cave with a big Stone Elephant staring at me.
After that I finally made the decision to skip Mumbai (Bombay). I've been changing my mind about that every five minutes since I got here, but realised that it wouldn't be worth the time or money as I'd only be able to stay there a few days.
My next destination was Ahmedabad in Gujarat, Home State of both Mohandas Gandhi and the guy who runs the Post Office in Hanborough. The Lonely Planet book bemoans the fact that most travellers miss out on exploring this wonderful State and just skip though it to get to Rajasthan.
Twenty Four hours later, I was in Rajasthan. To my shame I didn't do much in Ahmedabad, known as the dusty city, as I started getting the dodgy pains again, but while I was there I did visit the Subermati Ashram, set up by Gandhi at the beginning of the last century. An Ashram is a sanctuary set up by a Guru where strict disciplines are adhered to and the community work together to produce various ammenities such as rope and food, then indulge in meditation, yoga, reiki etc... (Before I got to India I'd been told that an Ashram was a kind of Brothel, but luckily was wise to this before I got to the place.) It was a really tranquil place, and as it is not a tourist attraction (though anyone's welcome) no one paid me any attention unless I approached them, which was really refreshing for half an hour before I headed back to India's most congested city.
Next day I left for my first stop in Rajasthan, Udaipur. This romantic city is famous for the stunningly beautiful Lake Palace whihc rests in the centre of the majestic Lake Pichola. Sadly, when I got there the Lake had gone on it's summer holiday and the Palace sat in the middle of a dry field full of kids playing cricket and Cows dropping dung. That didn't take away the magic of the place though, it's a fantastic city with friendly people and plenty to do. When I got to my guesthouse I noticed that the rooftop restaurant was advertising a 'Nightly Octopussy show, 7pm' this aroused my interest, I had no idea what an 'Octopussy Show' entailed, but was definitely up for it so I ascended the stairs for some sort of action, when I got to the roof I discovered that every night at 7pm they show the Bond Movie 'Octopussy'. I was slightly disappointed, but then noticed from looking accross the city from the roof that nearly every rooftop restaurant was showing Octopussy, turns out that it was filmed in Udaipur. Interesting, I guess.
NExt day was spent wandering around the museums and fortresses, hardcore tourist style. Then, in the evening I finally satisfied a personal quest of mine. I was promised Elephants at the Hindi Festival in Kochi, but onlyt saw the end of a trunk over a wall, I was promised Elephants at Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary, but they'd left for the day. But last night in Udaipur I finally rode an Elephant. Rajid (the Elephant) took me through the dry lake for a few minutes then dropped me off on some steps where his mate proceeded to rip me off. Nevermind, at least I can cross that off my things to do list.
Most of this may seem dull to read, it didn't seem dull to me as all the time I'm in India and random things will always happen. Got to Jodphur (the Blue city) today, hooked up with a NOrwegian girl and a guy from Brighton, my first company in ages, and went to the Meherangarh Fort, a huge place that overlooks the city. While we were there they were filming a chewing gum advert destined for western audiences, so if you see a new chewing gum advert set in India, you will know that I.... urrr... walked past it. Still, that's the best claim to fame I've got so far. NExt I'm off to Jaisalmer for a two (maybe three) day Camel Safari in the great Thar desert, so if there are no more entries on this site assume that I'm still there trying to find a cigarette shop.
Keep Smiling Buddy...