Right, I've been home a week now and it's time I tried to summarise my trip, so here goes. South America is the most naturally beautiful place on earth. Geysers, fjords, lagoons, deserts, glaciers, mountains, waterfalls, beaches, moonscapes... It would keep any geographer happy for a lifetime. South East Asia is above all, fun. From partying all night in Saigon to drinking beer on the beach in Nha Trang and shopping in the night markets of Laos, there's nowhere better to kick back and put a smile on your face.
India is the biggest challenge of all, but also the biggest reward. As Lonely Planet so rightly put it, 'This extraordinary country has the ability to inspire, frustrate, thrill and confound all at once.' And it has changed my perspective on life. Without my permission. I didn't go on this trip to 'find myself,' I just wanted to be awed by the beauty of Iguazu falls, Angkor Wat and the Taj Mahal. To see the world and all it has to offer. To break out of my little bubble. But it did. And most of it comes down to India. So here's just a little bit of what I learnt...
Once you've seen the grace and serenity of Indian women you will forever know that it is possible to stay peaceful and positive whatever is going on around you. The external situation is irrelevant. Many families do not have any running water to wash their clothes or themselves in. They sleep on the road side, or in one room in a slum with twelve other family members. They have never known privacy, or silence. But they glide through insanely chaotic streets littered with potholes, shit, litter, dirt, noise, pollution with an elegance and beauty that is nothing short of remarkable. They are a lesson to us all in resilience and mastering your own state of mind.
Also, a simpler life with less money can actually be a happier and more rewarding one. You meet so many travellers who don't have much financially but are out there living life the way they want to, doing something that matters and makes them feel good, whether that's working for a charity or rescuing turtles on a beach in the Galapagos. You realise a different way of life is possible. You don't have to have a complicated, stressful 9-5 office job (if you don't want to) just because that is all you have ever known and believed to be acceptable. There are many people in India who have very very simple jobs and very little, but they are happy. And it makes them appreciate the small things. This came to be true of us too. Buying a cup of chai on the railway platform for 5 rupees was something we were grateful for, rather than just taking it for granted.
As an atheist (I still am) it would have surprised me so much to hear that I'm saying this, but we could learn an awful lot from Indian spirituality. I sometimes wonder if the pervading spiritual atmosphere is there as a coping mechanism because life is so chaotic and intense, but techniques like yoga, meditation, ritual and holy worship hold a hugely important place in daily life, and unlike here, India's atmosphere is very supportive of such practices. Whether you believe in god or not, whatever religion you are, the themes that run through yogic and meditative practice in India are inspiring. I think the most important ideas are a oneness with the world and everyone in it, so you treat everyone as you wish yourself to be treated, and it eases feelings of ego, jealousy, anger towards other people. At the very least it certainly makes you less judgemental of others. It stops you comparing yourself to anyone else, because you realise that everyone is the same inside. It's also about having a direct experience with yourself, and learning what really makes you happy, rather than defining who you are through other people's opinions or how much money you have, or how thin you are, or what shoes you're wearing. Finally, on a simpler level, as introduced to me by a teacher in Rishikesh, meditation is just wonderful for taking some time out to give your mind a BREAK, to stop it working overtime and be still and silent for fifteen minutes every day. The results can be astonishing.
And finally, possibly the most important thing is perspective. To actually think about what is important. Does this really matter? When you've seen people struggling day in day out to survive, the answer to that question is more often than not, no. And it's a great lesson, because once you've learnt it, not much can stress you out. When I stood in a cow pat in my flip flops in Varanasi I thought, oh well. When I got a fly in my drink, I fished it out and carried on drinking. When I got food poisoning for the third time it was no big deal.
And so, I will say goodbye with an Indian head waggle and some quotes I came across and loved while I was away...
'Live dangerously if you want to develop your personality.' Nietzsche
'Somewhere in the five or more millenia of its history the culture had decided to dispense with the casual, nonchalant glance. By the time I came to Bombay, the eye contact ranged from an ogling gaze to a gawping, goggle eyed stare.' Shantaram
'Enlightenment is freedom from delusion, selfishness, attachment, insensitivity, pride, arrogance, hostility, perturbation, envy and greed.' Meditation teacher
'Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.' Henry David Thoreau
'In all its chaotic glory India is an eternal, and if you tune into its unique rhythm, curiously melodic work in progress.' Lonely Planet
'If the roots are taken care of the flowers will be taken care of automatically.'
'Fearlessness is the total presence of fear, with the courage to face it.'
'Surrender to all of life. Without accepting the mud there is no possibility of growing the lotus.' Osho
'It's the challenge of getting up close and personal with one of the planet's most confronting and intriguing countries, and quite possibly unravelling oneself along the way.' Lonely Planet
Thursday, 15 April 2010
Mumbai II, India...
And so, after six months on the road, it was time to start the long journey home. We took the Konkankanya express from Goa and arrived back in Mumbai at 6am, and with the help of a friendly, commission-seeking Indian guy, found a bed in the (by Mumbai standards) pristine Sea Shore hotel in Colaba, near the Taj Palace Hotel and Gateway of India.
I hadn't been looking forward to going back to the city, but after a sleep we headed out into the 38 degree heat and I instantly fell back in love with Bombay. I still can't put my finger on what it is about this city, but it has worked magic on me. This time around it felt familiar, and even friendlier and I'm sure it's all about mindset but we just seemed to blend more. Probably because we were more relaxed, so everyone around us was more relaxed. We had an amazing lunch in the air conditioned and very fancy oasis of Basilico on Arthur Bunder Road, before picking up a couple of hookah pipes and finally heading to Fabindia for some last minute shopping. We spent the night cramming 6 months worth of shopping into our bulging backpacks, and mentally preparing to come home.
I think both of us felt ready. While we were away we only met 3 people who were travelling for a full year, the average time seemed to be two or three months, and if it was longer they had generally stayed put in one place and worked for a while. Most people thought six months of constantly being on the road was a long trip, and looking back I think they're right. The first two months were unbridled excitement, months three and four were harder because the homesickness had kicked in a little, and the last two months were incredible because India was so exciting everyday, and also probably because we knew we would be home soon, so we had to enjoy every last minute. We covered so much ground on this trip that I doubt I will feel the need to go away for such a long time again, maybe a month here and a month there. You can also always have too much of a good thing. Had we done a year I think I would have got to the point where if I'd seen the hanging gardens of Babylon I would've said, 'Hmm, yeah, quite nice.'
So, soon it was time for the cab to pick us up at 8am the next morning to take us to the airport, and we drove through the city streets saying a final goodbye to Bombay and watching all of India go by. The British colonial architecture and the crumbling, high rise blocks. The endless sprawl of Dharavi, the world's biggest slum (where Slumdog Millionaire was filmed), and the women who live there walking their immaculately dressed children to school. The sunny old tree lined streets of Colaba which feel like they could be in London. The stench of the docks and the markets and the beauty of Marine drive and Chowpatty beach. The bright lights of Bollywood and the cocktail bars and coffee shops. The Hindu offerings and the piles of litter. The ragpickers and holy sadhus. The lepers and the stray dogs. The businessmen and the glamorous young Indian girls in their salwar kameez and designer sunglasses. It's so strange to think that it's all still going on even when you're not there. It feels like it was another planet. And I miss it everyday.
I hadn't been looking forward to going back to the city, but after a sleep we headed out into the 38 degree heat and I instantly fell back in love with Bombay. I still can't put my finger on what it is about this city, but it has worked magic on me. This time around it felt familiar, and even friendlier and I'm sure it's all about mindset but we just seemed to blend more. Probably because we were more relaxed, so everyone around us was more relaxed. We had an amazing lunch in the air conditioned and very fancy oasis of Basilico on Arthur Bunder Road, before picking up a couple of hookah pipes and finally heading to Fabindia for some last minute shopping. We spent the night cramming 6 months worth of shopping into our bulging backpacks, and mentally preparing to come home.
I think both of us felt ready. While we were away we only met 3 people who were travelling for a full year, the average time seemed to be two or three months, and if it was longer they had generally stayed put in one place and worked for a while. Most people thought six months of constantly being on the road was a long trip, and looking back I think they're right. The first two months were unbridled excitement, months three and four were harder because the homesickness had kicked in a little, and the last two months were incredible because India was so exciting everyday, and also probably because we knew we would be home soon, so we had to enjoy every last minute. We covered so much ground on this trip that I doubt I will feel the need to go away for such a long time again, maybe a month here and a month there. You can also always have too much of a good thing. Had we done a year I think I would have got to the point where if I'd seen the hanging gardens of Babylon I would've said, 'Hmm, yeah, quite nice.'
So, soon it was time for the cab to pick us up at 8am the next morning to take us to the airport, and we drove through the city streets saying a final goodbye to Bombay and watching all of India go by. The British colonial architecture and the crumbling, high rise blocks. The endless sprawl of Dharavi, the world's biggest slum (where Slumdog Millionaire was filmed), and the women who live there walking their immaculately dressed children to school. The sunny old tree lined streets of Colaba which feel like they could be in London. The stench of the docks and the markets and the beauty of Marine drive and Chowpatty beach. The bright lights of Bollywood and the cocktail bars and coffee shops. The Hindu offerings and the piles of litter. The ragpickers and holy sadhus. The lepers and the stray dogs. The businessmen and the glamorous young Indian girls in their salwar kameez and designer sunglasses. It's so strange to think that it's all still going on even when you're not there. It feels like it was another planet. And I miss it everyday.
Kerala & Goa, India...
Talk about feeling like you're in a different country. The difference between Kerala and Goa in the South of India, and the big cities of the North, is like the difference between night and day. Not only does the pace of life slow down to something that is mildly familiar, but the infrastructure (especially in Kerala) is far more successful. It's cleaner, quieter, land and income are more equally distributed, and the state has health and education record is excellent in comparison to the rest of India. I call the south 'India lite.'
We spent the day on a canoe, and a houseboat lazily travelling down 900km of Keralan 'backwaters,' or inland rivers which have been used by locals since long before there were roads, and which they still ply today. Lazily floating along the shady, palm fringed inlets in a canoe, watching kids playing in the waters and women knee deep in the water scrubbing their clothes against the rocks, or making coir (rope from the fibre inside coconuts) was one of the most relaxing things I'd done in six months. We also took a houseboat out into the Arabian sea where we sailed over to the islands of Appeley and Kollam, and docked there to see traditional 'toddy tappers' extracting palm feni from flowers high up in coconut trees. It tasted fantastic, and apparently the longer you leave the liquid the more alcoholic it gets, so after 6 hours it is 3% and after 6 weeks it's 40%.
Next, we took an overnight train ride to Goa. We were ready to just kick back and relax, and had heard that Palolem was a pretty, chilled out beach so after an early cup of chai we hopped off the train in darkness at the little station of Canacona (at 5am, ouch). Instead of the usual insane crush of rickshaw drivers vying for our business there was one guy who said he knew some beach huts on stilts that had room, so we hopped in with another Indian guy and shared the 3km drive to Palolem beach.
It was still dark when we arrived, and not really knowing what our surroundings were (we just knew we could feel sand beneath our feet and hear the sea) we checked out our little wooden coco hut, which cost 350 rupees a nigh (£2.50 each). It had everything we needed. A bed, mosquito net, power point, bathroom and a little balcony out front. Then we took cold water showers and fell into exhausted sleep after the long journey, lulled by the sound sea.
When we woke up we strolled out of the hut and onto the perfect, palm tree shaded sandy crescent of Palolem beach which was our home for the next ten days. There's not much to say about those ten days other than that we spent most of our time sunbathing and playing beach sports (I literally AM the world champion at beach bat and ball) and shooting the breeze in the evenings, watching movies on the outdoor beach cinema, eating tandoori food and enjoying a glass (or two) of feni while gazing out to sea. Oh and watching the stars (we even saw shooting stars) from our blanket on the beach at night. They were so clear and made me feel so small and insignificant.
Sounds idyllic, and it was. Until two days before we were due to leave and I got my third and final bout of food poisoning in six months, which put me out of action for about a day and a half. Fortunately we'd picked up some antibiotics in Bangkok which helped me along. Horrible, but I was so used to getting sick by that point (and so shocked that it hadn't yet happened in India) that my first thought was a resigned 'Ok, here we go again. Just deal with it.' It's just one of the cons that you have to put up with if you want to travel.
On our final night we met a very nice couple from Cornwall who had been travelling for two and a half months in India and spent the evening chatting to them. They had decided against going to Northern India (as they thought it would be too hectic) and had stayed in Goa, Hampi and Kerala. They had flown everywhere, as they took the train once and found it too unsettling. And when they said that they were ready to go home and just looking forward to a normal life again, I wasn't surprised. To get the most out of India you have to hold your nose and dig right in, jump in the river, stay relaxed and let the flow carry you along, no matter how alien it seems to you. And just trust that everything will turn out ok. It was always more than ok for us.
We spent the day on a canoe, and a houseboat lazily travelling down 900km of Keralan 'backwaters,' or inland rivers which have been used by locals since long before there were roads, and which they still ply today. Lazily floating along the shady, palm fringed inlets in a canoe, watching kids playing in the waters and women knee deep in the water scrubbing their clothes against the rocks, or making coir (rope from the fibre inside coconuts) was one of the most relaxing things I'd done in six months. We also took a houseboat out into the Arabian sea where we sailed over to the islands of Appeley and Kollam, and docked there to see traditional 'toddy tappers' extracting palm feni from flowers high up in coconut trees. It tasted fantastic, and apparently the longer you leave the liquid the more alcoholic it gets, so after 6 hours it is 3% and after 6 weeks it's 40%.
Next, we took an overnight train ride to Goa. We were ready to just kick back and relax, and had heard that Palolem was a pretty, chilled out beach so after an early cup of chai we hopped off the train in darkness at the little station of Canacona (at 5am, ouch). Instead of the usual insane crush of rickshaw drivers vying for our business there was one guy who said he knew some beach huts on stilts that had room, so we hopped in with another Indian guy and shared the 3km drive to Palolem beach.
It was still dark when we arrived, and not really knowing what our surroundings were (we just knew we could feel sand beneath our feet and hear the sea) we checked out our little wooden coco hut, which cost 350 rupees a nigh (£2.50 each). It had everything we needed. A bed, mosquito net, power point, bathroom and a little balcony out front. Then we took cold water showers and fell into exhausted sleep after the long journey, lulled by the sound sea.
When we woke up we strolled out of the hut and onto the perfect, palm tree shaded sandy crescent of Palolem beach which was our home for the next ten days. There's not much to say about those ten days other than that we spent most of our time sunbathing and playing beach sports (I literally AM the world champion at beach bat and ball) and shooting the breeze in the evenings, watching movies on the outdoor beach cinema, eating tandoori food and enjoying a glass (or two) of feni while gazing out to sea. Oh and watching the stars (we even saw shooting stars) from our blanket on the beach at night. They were so clear and made me feel so small and insignificant.
Sounds idyllic, and it was. Until two days before we were due to leave and I got my third and final bout of food poisoning in six months, which put me out of action for about a day and a half. Fortunately we'd picked up some antibiotics in Bangkok which helped me along. Horrible, but I was so used to getting sick by that point (and so shocked that it hadn't yet happened in India) that my first thought was a resigned 'Ok, here we go again. Just deal with it.' It's just one of the cons that you have to put up with if you want to travel.
On our final night we met a very nice couple from Cornwall who had been travelling for two and a half months in India and spent the evening chatting to them. They had decided against going to Northern India (as they thought it would be too hectic) and had stayed in Goa, Hampi and Kerala. They had flown everywhere, as they took the train once and found it too unsettling. And when they said that they were ready to go home and just looking forward to a normal life again, I wasn't surprised. To get the most out of India you have to hold your nose and dig right in, jump in the river, stay relaxed and let the flow carry you along, no matter how alien it seems to you. And just trust that everything will turn out ok. It was always more than ok for us.
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Calcutta and the 3 day train journey...
...And the answer to how you get from the very northernmost tip of India to the very southernmost when you can't afford to fly is this. A three hour jeep ride back down from the Himalayan mountains to Siliguri. A tuk tuk from Siliguri to the train station at New Jaipalguri. A 10 hour train from New Jaipalguri to Calcutta. And finally... an epic 42 hour, 2 night, 3 day train journey all the way from Calcutta down the Eastern coast of India and then reaching Chennai and cutting across Tamil Nadu to Ernakulum station in Kochin, Kerala. So that's what we did! The Indian train network really is fantastic, you can travel to absolutely anywhere from anywhere in relative comfort, and by our standards, for an absolute steal. It's so huge and extensive in fact that it's actually the world's biggest employer.
We stopped in Calcutta for 2 days, staying in the Sudder Street area, and other than the accommodation in the city being very overpriced (you simply can't get a bed for less than 600 rupees, and that's going to be dodgy) I really liked this friendly city. Calcutta, or Kolkata as it's now officially known, is like a microcosm for the whole of India, in that the gap between rich and poor is in your face like nowhere else. In the city where Mother Theresa taught at St Mary's High School, families with tiny children live on the side of the road and wash themselves from buckets, ragpicking litter to survive and hand-pulled rickshaw wallahs still remain (they're apparently the best way to get around in the monsoon) sleeping under their vehicles. Meanwhile just round the corner are air conditioned stores and restaurants where rich young Bengali's meet for coffee, wear beautiful clothes and speak to each other in English. Watching the streets of Calcutta is more fascinating than any movie.
Soon enough it was time to board the train that would be our home for the next three days. Usually we take 'sleeper' trains which are the cheapest class of Indian train and comprise of 3 rows of beds opposite each other, while the bottom two fold down to seats for daytime use (so if you want to sleep you book the upper berth) so you agree to put the beds up when you're ready to sleep with whoever else is sharing your section. In sleeper class there are no luxuries, the flat 'beds' are blue plastic pads and I usually use a jumper as a pillow and a sarong as a sheet. The windows are barred so natural air flows in (there are fans too) and you get a great view of the surrounding countryside. It's also incredibly noisy. However, as we knew that we would be on the train for SUCH a long time, we decided to book a 3 AC carriage, which means there are still six of you in a section, but the temperature is controlled, it's much quieter and you get a bed roll to sleep on. Most of Indian overnight train journeys don't cost more than £5, and this trip cost us about £18 each. Not bad at all when you consider you're getting 2 nights 'accommodation.'
So we settled in to the ride, reading, sleeping, drinking endless cups of chai tea from the chai-wallahs, buying bananas through the bars, gazing out at the beautiful and changing countryside beyond the window, stretching our legs on the station platforms (and even watching men having a wash on the railway line, oh how jealous I was!) and getting to know the families around us, who, as always were incredibly friendly and interested in our lives and telling us about Indian culture. They also kept us very well fed, giving us biriyanis and endless Indian sweets. The length of the journey didn't seem to phase them at all. It's just simply what you do if you want to get from one place to another. The Indian resilience never fails to impress me. On the whole they have never known privacy, or peace and quiet, so if someone starts talking loudly at 4am it doesn't bother them at all. That's just life.
Another note about Indian trains is that, like in all of India, you can pretty much do what you want. There are no health and safety rules, so if you want to open the train door and sit on the step watching the world rush by with the wind in your hair, waving at the kids playing cricket or living by the side of the tracks, you can. And that was one of my absolute favourite things to do, especially when they saw a white person and screeched at their friends to come and look and they all smiled and waved. In the same way, if the homeless, or young children want to take the train they can hop on and off, as long as they're not taking up anyone's bed or seat. It's a very common theme in India. No one (i.e. the government) seems to be looking out for the people, but no one's stopping them either. If they want to sleep inside the train station, they can. They won't be moved on.
So it was quite a challenge, and one we thought would never end, but of course it did, and actually it was a fascinating experience. Stumbling out onto the platform at Kochin we flagged down a tuk tuk and found a bed in Ernakulum before booking a houseboat trip on Kerala's famous backwaters for the next morning, ordered room service, switched on the TV and collapsed into our first good night's sleep in 3 days.
We stopped in Calcutta for 2 days, staying in the Sudder Street area, and other than the accommodation in the city being very overpriced (you simply can't get a bed for less than 600 rupees, and that's going to be dodgy) I really liked this friendly city. Calcutta, or Kolkata as it's now officially known, is like a microcosm for the whole of India, in that the gap between rich and poor is in your face like nowhere else. In the city where Mother Theresa taught at St Mary's High School, families with tiny children live on the side of the road and wash themselves from buckets, ragpicking litter to survive and hand-pulled rickshaw wallahs still remain (they're apparently the best way to get around in the monsoon) sleeping under their vehicles. Meanwhile just round the corner are air conditioned stores and restaurants where rich young Bengali's meet for coffee, wear beautiful clothes and speak to each other in English. Watching the streets of Calcutta is more fascinating than any movie.
Soon enough it was time to board the train that would be our home for the next three days. Usually we take 'sleeper' trains which are the cheapest class of Indian train and comprise of 3 rows of beds opposite each other, while the bottom two fold down to seats for daytime use (so if you want to sleep you book the upper berth) so you agree to put the beds up when you're ready to sleep with whoever else is sharing your section. In sleeper class there are no luxuries, the flat 'beds' are blue plastic pads and I usually use a jumper as a pillow and a sarong as a sheet. The windows are barred so natural air flows in (there are fans too) and you get a great view of the surrounding countryside. It's also incredibly noisy. However, as we knew that we would be on the train for SUCH a long time, we decided to book a 3 AC carriage, which means there are still six of you in a section, but the temperature is controlled, it's much quieter and you get a bed roll to sleep on. Most of Indian overnight train journeys don't cost more than £5, and this trip cost us about £18 each. Not bad at all when you consider you're getting 2 nights 'accommodation.'
So we settled in to the ride, reading, sleeping, drinking endless cups of chai tea from the chai-wallahs, buying bananas through the bars, gazing out at the beautiful and changing countryside beyond the window, stretching our legs on the station platforms (and even watching men having a wash on the railway line, oh how jealous I was!) and getting to know the families around us, who, as always were incredibly friendly and interested in our lives and telling us about Indian culture. They also kept us very well fed, giving us biriyanis and endless Indian sweets. The length of the journey didn't seem to phase them at all. It's just simply what you do if you want to get from one place to another. The Indian resilience never fails to impress me. On the whole they have never known privacy, or peace and quiet, so if someone starts talking loudly at 4am it doesn't bother them at all. That's just life.
Another note about Indian trains is that, like in all of India, you can pretty much do what you want. There are no health and safety rules, so if you want to open the train door and sit on the step watching the world rush by with the wind in your hair, waving at the kids playing cricket or living by the side of the tracks, you can. And that was one of my absolute favourite things to do, especially when they saw a white person and screeched at their friends to come and look and they all smiled and waved. In the same way, if the homeless, or young children want to take the train they can hop on and off, as long as they're not taking up anyone's bed or seat. It's a very common theme in India. No one (i.e. the government) seems to be looking out for the people, but no one's stopping them either. If they want to sleep inside the train station, they can. They won't be moved on.
So it was quite a challenge, and one we thought would never end, but of course it did, and actually it was a fascinating experience. Stumbling out onto the platform at Kochin we flagged down a tuk tuk and found a bed in Ernakulum before booking a houseboat trip on Kerala's famous backwaters for the next morning, ordered room service, switched on the TV and collapsed into our first good night's sleep in 3 days.
Darjeeling, India...
Yearning for some fresh air and a break from the heat and chaos of Northern India we headed next to the Indian hill station of Darjeeling way up in the Himalayas. After catching an overnight train from Varanasi to the closest train station, New Jaipalguri we were faced with two choices to reach our final destination. 1) The incredibly scenic Himalayan railway or 'Toy train,' which costs 700 rupees and takes 8 hours to chug 88km up into the mountains on the world's narrowest track. Or 2) A bumpy, 3 hour white-knuckle shared jeep journey along narrow, winding, sheer-drop roads for 100 rupees. In desperate need of some sleep and a shower we opted for the jeep (you just listen out for men shouting 'Darjeeling, DarjEELING, DARJEEEEEELING!') and waited an hour or so for it to fill up before we were on our way.
The change that took place in those three hours was staggering. New Jaipalguri was hot, dirty and quintessentially Indian, while up in the mountains the air became cooler and fresher with every passing kilometre. Foreign tourists seemed to be non-existent, and the faces of the people changed entirely from dark skinned and Indian, to the pale and more 'Chinese' features of the Tibetan and Nepalese. Young school girls wore jeans and hoodies, and women threw chunky cardigans over their sarees and salwar suits to keep out the cold. The winding roads were clean and tidy, with pretty and immaculately manicured pastel-coloured houses lining them. Signs of 'We want Gorkhaland' and 'Welcome to Gorkhaland' are everywhere - Nepalese Gurkhas have been campaigning for a separate state of Gorkhaland since the 1980s.
After hiking (there are no tuk tuks up there) through the ridiculously steep, winding streets with our enormous packs, and adjusting to the thin air at such high altitude, all with the help of a very friendly 10 year old schoolboy, we finally found a bed on the sixth try, and enjoyed a hot shower and a nap before heading out. We had dinner at Danfay Munal, a little family run place that served excellent Tibetan momo's (dumplings) and much needed cockle-warming tea.
The next morning was the earliest (and possibly the coldest) start we've had in the last six months, but we couldn't miss it. Every morning at 4am jeeps leave for the 11km drive to Tiger Hill, where as the sun rises you can view a spectacular 250km of himalayan mountain range including the mighty Khangchendzonga, whose snowy peak looks over Darjeeling (I believe it's the fourth highest mountain in the world) as well as 20 other mountains including, on a clear day, Everest. Wrapped up in blankets and sipping sweet coffee we watched as the sky turned from pitch black and starry to a beautiful blazing blue offsetting the white peaks. It was so beautiful and felt like such a privilege to see it I even got a little choked up.
The rest of the day was spent checking out the toy train, eating and shopping for Darjeeling tea at 80-year-old family run tea experts Nathmulls (I'm now well versed in plantations, flushes, soil types, brews and flavours) where you can buy the champagne of teas (apparently it's the best tea in the world) for 1400 rupees. As a budget traveller I settled for a 500 rupee package, but it's still the best tea I've ever tasted. Unfortunately the Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoo, which houses India's only collection of Siberian tigers, was closed that day, so we set to the task of figuring out one of our biggest challenges yet... Working out how to get from the Himalayas, to our next stop, Kerala, the very Southernmost tip of India...
The change that took place in those three hours was staggering. New Jaipalguri was hot, dirty and quintessentially Indian, while up in the mountains the air became cooler and fresher with every passing kilometre. Foreign tourists seemed to be non-existent, and the faces of the people changed entirely from dark skinned and Indian, to the pale and more 'Chinese' features of the Tibetan and Nepalese. Young school girls wore jeans and hoodies, and women threw chunky cardigans over their sarees and salwar suits to keep out the cold. The winding roads were clean and tidy, with pretty and immaculately manicured pastel-coloured houses lining them. Signs of 'We want Gorkhaland' and 'Welcome to Gorkhaland' are everywhere - Nepalese Gurkhas have been campaigning for a separate state of Gorkhaland since the 1980s.
After hiking (there are no tuk tuks up there) through the ridiculously steep, winding streets with our enormous packs, and adjusting to the thin air at such high altitude, all with the help of a very friendly 10 year old schoolboy, we finally found a bed on the sixth try, and enjoyed a hot shower and a nap before heading out. We had dinner at Danfay Munal, a little family run place that served excellent Tibetan momo's (dumplings) and much needed cockle-warming tea.
The next morning was the earliest (and possibly the coldest) start we've had in the last six months, but we couldn't miss it. Every morning at 4am jeeps leave for the 11km drive to Tiger Hill, where as the sun rises you can view a spectacular 250km of himalayan mountain range including the mighty Khangchendzonga, whose snowy peak looks over Darjeeling (I believe it's the fourth highest mountain in the world) as well as 20 other mountains including, on a clear day, Everest. Wrapped up in blankets and sipping sweet coffee we watched as the sky turned from pitch black and starry to a beautiful blazing blue offsetting the white peaks. It was so beautiful and felt like such a privilege to see it I even got a little choked up.
The rest of the day was spent checking out the toy train, eating and shopping for Darjeeling tea at 80-year-old family run tea experts Nathmulls (I'm now well versed in plantations, flushes, soil types, brews and flavours) where you can buy the champagne of teas (apparently it's the best tea in the world) for 1400 rupees. As a budget traveller I settled for a 500 rupee package, but it's still the best tea I've ever tasted. Unfortunately the Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoo, which houses India's only collection of Siberian tigers, was closed that day, so we set to the task of figuring out one of our biggest challenges yet... Working out how to get from the Himalayas, to our next stop, Kerala, the very Southernmost tip of India...
Sunday, 21 March 2010
Haridwar, Rishikesh & Varanasi, India...
From Amritsar we took an overnight train to the holy city of Haridwar, as usual accompanied by the little idiosyncrasies of Indian train journeys - like men sleeping on the floor/end of your bed and beggars at the windows. It's usually at about 5am that you get a visit from the eunuchs. Eunuchs are men who have been castrated (either as a child, so their families can make money) or by their own choice as an adult. They dress up as women in sarees (not very convincing as they're usually sporting stubble) and come round the carriages with their masters clapping very loudly and demanding money to make them go away. They always get it too. In Hinduism eunuchs are very bad luck. They'll often gatecrash weddings, dancing about and making a general nuisance of themselves until the families pay up to get rid of them so as not to curse the new couple. Luckily, they leave us Westerners alone, as they know we don't believe it.
So we pulled up in Haridwar, currently the site of the biggest religious festival in the world, the Kumbh Mela. It happens only every 12 years, when Sadhus (holy men who have abandoned their homes, families, possessions, everything, to wander India on a spiritual quest) descend upon Haridwar, and 3 other cities in India in their millions. It was very strange to see hundreds of similarly dishevelled, bearded men, sometimes naked, but more often in orange robes, wandering the city and its makeshift camps, collecting alms (and in the case of one chap, absolutely out of it on opium. Spiritual indeed).
The same day we pressed on to our final destination, Rishikesh, catching a rickshaw to the nearby bus station and then picking up a bus for the 30km to Rishikesh City, before taking a final rickshaw to Laxman Jhula, a beautiful town in the mountains, known for its hanging bridge and Hindu temples overlooking the beautifully blue Ganges river, which up there in the mountains is sparkling clean. We spent the next few blissful days wandering through the sandalwood incense-scented streets, where meditative Hindu music fills the air, shopping for trinkets in the Tibetan market and lounging at the Ganga beach cafe, sipping ayurvedic tea and gazing out at pilgrims taking dips in the holy waters.
Rishikesh is also known as the Yoga capital of the world, with more ashrams than you can shake an incense stick at, so we took our own pilgrimage to the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, where the Beatles once stayed and wrote the White Album. The ashram has long since been abandoned (the Maharishi moved to Switzerland before he died). The Beatles eventually became disillusioned with stories of him being a little over-friendly with young devotees (John Lennon later sang 'you made a fool out of all of us,') but it wasn't hard to see the appeal of the place. Set right on the banks of the river, the once grand building with its winding lanes through (now overgrown) gardens and forest, dotted with meditation cells and lecture halls must have been a very peaceful and pleasant place to be.
We also visited the Saint Sewa ashram to take yoga lessons, but most enjoyable of all waere the meditation classes. Led by a young Indian man who clearly felt a deep, genuine peacefulness he encouraged us to ask questions at the end of the session and patiently (long after the class had ended) told us all about how Sadhana (the quest for enlightenment through yoga and meditation) had changed his life for the better, explaining that he no longer felt any anger or envy towards others, and that it could be achieved by anyone, without a guru, no matter what religion or age they are, all the while maintaining a normal domestic life and work. And although I'm sure I was having a crazy moment, he seemed to keep answering the questions that I had in my head, just as I was about to ask them! Anyway, I've vowed to practice yoga once a week and make time for 15 minutes of meditation a day, and am reading some books on the subject by a famous Indian spiritual man named Osho. So hopefully a little of our teacher's contentedness will rub off on me.
All too soon it was time to leave the peace of Rishikesh (peacefulness in India is a very, very rare thing) and head for Varanasi, the oldest and holiest city in India. It didn't start off too well, stepping off the train still half asleep we were in the midst of a crowd of rickshaw touts clamouring for our business when I fell off a high curb, twisting my ankle, and my enormous backpack came crashing down on top of me. Then, typically, it took an age to find a bed in the intense heat and tiny, windy backstreets of the old city. But finally we dumped our bags at Eden Halt guesthouse on the banks of the (now very dirty un-blue) Ganges at Raja Ghat.
The room was very basic but fine, apart from the fact that it came with approximately 1 billion mosquitoes. But as we soon found out, there is absolutely no escaping the bugs, flies, mozzies, etc etc in Varanasi. They are everywhere. Probably because of the stillness of the Ganges here and also the many piles of litter and rubbish (and enormous cows and endless stray dogs) that line the old windy alleyways. That night we went to Dharawasmedth ghat to watch the nightly 'puja' ceremony where hundreds of Indian pilgrims place offerings of flowers and candles into the Ganges, along with lots of singing and dancing.
The following morning we rose at 4am to head down to the ghats to take a dawn boat ride, the quintessential Varanasi experience. We soon found a boatman who rowed us on his little boat all along the many ghats, including the main ghats where hundreds upon hundreds of Hindus come to wash, or take a sacred dip in the morning. It's a very, very surreal experience. Watching the women wading into the filthy river (right by the corpse of a dog), praying and then managing to wash themselves in their sarees (bearing in mind a saree is made up of a very tight cropped blouse called a choli, and 6 metres of fabric that is wrapped around them without any fastenings, and that of course they can't at any point be indecent). And the crazy thing is that these women wash this way every morning, and go to the washing ghats to scrub and thrash their clothes against the rocks, and then lay them out to dry on the cracked, dusty land, and yet somehow they always manage to look clean and elegant. It's nothing short of a miracle. Anyway, our boat guide showed us the grand buildings on the banks owned by Maharajas (who will come here to be cremated when they die) and the place where the father of legendary Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan was recently cremated, as well as Nepali and Shiva temples and more. And then it was time to visit Manikarnika, aka the major 'burning' ghat.
A guide from a 'home' by the ghat where the poor and destitute come to die (hoping to be cremated here and thus released from the endless cycle of resurrections) showed us around the rather spooky set up. (At one point a big puff of ash went into the air and landed in our hair, ugh!) Huge bundles of wood (banyan is the cheapest, and sandalwood the most expensive) are bought by the families, 85kg is enough to burn the average body, and the body is placed within it with all their clothes and most sacred possessions, so that their soul can be released from their body. The only exceptions to this, as our guide and later our boatman explained to us, are children. As their skin is deemed too soft and sacred to be burnt, they are simply wrapped in string and their bodies dropped into the lake. It's the same for lepers, as it is believed they will be reborn without leprosy. Sadhus too, go into the river whole as this is the most holy state. Strangest of all are people who have been bitten by a cobra. For some reason that I couldn't quite fathom, their bodies are placed on banana leaves and floated down the river Ganges.
And still, despite bodies melting into the water right there, a young man was in the water, scrubbing himself clean with soap. I asked our boatman if he ever washed in the water and he said 'Yes of course, and I will drink it sometimes if I get thirsty.' Water that is safe for bathing should have less than 500 faecal coliform bacteria in every one litre of water. Samples from the Ganges have shown 1.5 million, thanks to all the untreated sewage, dogs, bodies and such in the water. Finally, I asked him if he minded swimming when it was so dirty. And I will never forget his reply, 'Oh no, the Ganges is holy! And anyway, someone comes along after puja every night to clean up all the flowers.' Bless.
So we pulled up in Haridwar, currently the site of the biggest religious festival in the world, the Kumbh Mela. It happens only every 12 years, when Sadhus (holy men who have abandoned their homes, families, possessions, everything, to wander India on a spiritual quest) descend upon Haridwar, and 3 other cities in India in their millions. It was very strange to see hundreds of similarly dishevelled, bearded men, sometimes naked, but more often in orange robes, wandering the city and its makeshift camps, collecting alms (and in the case of one chap, absolutely out of it on opium. Spiritual indeed).
The same day we pressed on to our final destination, Rishikesh, catching a rickshaw to the nearby bus station and then picking up a bus for the 30km to Rishikesh City, before taking a final rickshaw to Laxman Jhula, a beautiful town in the mountains, known for its hanging bridge and Hindu temples overlooking the beautifully blue Ganges river, which up there in the mountains is sparkling clean. We spent the next few blissful days wandering through the sandalwood incense-scented streets, where meditative Hindu music fills the air, shopping for trinkets in the Tibetan market and lounging at the Ganga beach cafe, sipping ayurvedic tea and gazing out at pilgrims taking dips in the holy waters.
Rishikesh is also known as the Yoga capital of the world, with more ashrams than you can shake an incense stick at, so we took our own pilgrimage to the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, where the Beatles once stayed and wrote the White Album. The ashram has long since been abandoned (the Maharishi moved to Switzerland before he died). The Beatles eventually became disillusioned with stories of him being a little over-friendly with young devotees (John Lennon later sang 'you made a fool out of all of us,') but it wasn't hard to see the appeal of the place. Set right on the banks of the river, the once grand building with its winding lanes through (now overgrown) gardens and forest, dotted with meditation cells and lecture halls must have been a very peaceful and pleasant place to be.
We also visited the Saint Sewa ashram to take yoga lessons, but most enjoyable of all waere the meditation classes. Led by a young Indian man who clearly felt a deep, genuine peacefulness he encouraged us to ask questions at the end of the session and patiently (long after the class had ended) told us all about how Sadhana (the quest for enlightenment through yoga and meditation) had changed his life for the better, explaining that he no longer felt any anger or envy towards others, and that it could be achieved by anyone, without a guru, no matter what religion or age they are, all the while maintaining a normal domestic life and work. And although I'm sure I was having a crazy moment, he seemed to keep answering the questions that I had in my head, just as I was about to ask them! Anyway, I've vowed to practice yoga once a week and make time for 15 minutes of meditation a day, and am reading some books on the subject by a famous Indian spiritual man named Osho. So hopefully a little of our teacher's contentedness will rub off on me.
All too soon it was time to leave the peace of Rishikesh (peacefulness in India is a very, very rare thing) and head for Varanasi, the oldest and holiest city in India. It didn't start off too well, stepping off the train still half asleep we were in the midst of a crowd of rickshaw touts clamouring for our business when I fell off a high curb, twisting my ankle, and my enormous backpack came crashing down on top of me. Then, typically, it took an age to find a bed in the intense heat and tiny, windy backstreets of the old city. But finally we dumped our bags at Eden Halt guesthouse on the banks of the (now very dirty un-blue) Ganges at Raja Ghat.
The room was very basic but fine, apart from the fact that it came with approximately 1 billion mosquitoes. But as we soon found out, there is absolutely no escaping the bugs, flies, mozzies, etc etc in Varanasi. They are everywhere. Probably because of the stillness of the Ganges here and also the many piles of litter and rubbish (and enormous cows and endless stray dogs) that line the old windy alleyways. That night we went to Dharawasmedth ghat to watch the nightly 'puja' ceremony where hundreds of Indian pilgrims place offerings of flowers and candles into the Ganges, along with lots of singing and dancing.
The following morning we rose at 4am to head down to the ghats to take a dawn boat ride, the quintessential Varanasi experience. We soon found a boatman who rowed us on his little boat all along the many ghats, including the main ghats where hundreds upon hundreds of Hindus come to wash, or take a sacred dip in the morning. It's a very, very surreal experience. Watching the women wading into the filthy river (right by the corpse of a dog), praying and then managing to wash themselves in their sarees (bearing in mind a saree is made up of a very tight cropped blouse called a choli, and 6 metres of fabric that is wrapped around them without any fastenings, and that of course they can't at any point be indecent). And the crazy thing is that these women wash this way every morning, and go to the washing ghats to scrub and thrash their clothes against the rocks, and then lay them out to dry on the cracked, dusty land, and yet somehow they always manage to look clean and elegant. It's nothing short of a miracle. Anyway, our boat guide showed us the grand buildings on the banks owned by Maharajas (who will come here to be cremated when they die) and the place where the father of legendary Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan was recently cremated, as well as Nepali and Shiva temples and more. And then it was time to visit Manikarnika, aka the major 'burning' ghat.
A guide from a 'home' by the ghat where the poor and destitute come to die (hoping to be cremated here and thus released from the endless cycle of resurrections) showed us around the rather spooky set up. (At one point a big puff of ash went into the air and landed in our hair, ugh!) Huge bundles of wood (banyan is the cheapest, and sandalwood the most expensive) are bought by the families, 85kg is enough to burn the average body, and the body is placed within it with all their clothes and most sacred possessions, so that their soul can be released from their body. The only exceptions to this, as our guide and later our boatman explained to us, are children. As their skin is deemed too soft and sacred to be burnt, they are simply wrapped in string and their bodies dropped into the lake. It's the same for lepers, as it is believed they will be reborn without leprosy. Sadhus too, go into the river whole as this is the most holy state. Strangest of all are people who have been bitten by a cobra. For some reason that I couldn't quite fathom, their bodies are placed on banana leaves and floated down the river Ganges.
And still, despite bodies melting into the water right there, a young man was in the water, scrubbing himself clean with soap. I asked our boatman if he ever washed in the water and he said 'Yes of course, and I will drink it sometimes if I get thirsty.' Water that is safe for bathing should have less than 500 faecal coliform bacteria in every one litre of water. Samples from the Ganges have shown 1.5 million, thanks to all the untreated sewage, dogs, bodies and such in the water. Finally, I asked him if he minded swimming when it was so dirty. And I will never forget his reply, 'Oh no, the Ganges is holy! And anyway, someone comes along after puja every night to clean up all the flowers.' Bless.
Monday, 15 March 2010
Delhi, Amritsar & Attari, India...
After the Taj we headed North to spend a few days in Delhi, staying in the scruffy but backpacker-friendly Paharganj area of the city, in Hotel Rak International. Sounds kind of posh... the reality was 10 million gnats living in the bathroom, but other than that not bad! My first impressions of Delhi were that in comparison with Rajasthan and Agra the wide-avenues of the city seemed very clean (and even a little bit green). Our taxi driver said this was because of the upcoming Commonwealth Games. Anyway, Delhi for us was really just a jumping off point to head into the Punjab, but we had a fun few days eating the legendary Delhi food (no, it's not legendary because of Delhi belly) and shopping in Connaught Place, Palika Bazaar and the Tibetan Market on Janpath. I've been really impressed with the religious openness of the Indian people, and we got a great example of that in Delhi. We got chatting to a Hindu optometrist while I was buying contact lenses, and he was thrilled that we were going to visit Amritsar and told us how wonderful and relaxing the (Sikh) Golden Temple is.
Soon it was time to head to Amritsar, very close to the Pakistan border in the Punjab. We took our first 'Chair Car' train seat (instead of an overnight flat bed) for the 7 hour journey, which gave us quite the insight into the scrum it is to get onto an Indian train. This being India, the seat numbers were written above the chairs with marker pen, which in the main had been completely rubbed off and were now illegible, leading to lots of fuss, pushing and shoving and confusion over whose seat was whose. Of course, as soon as everyone was happily seated everyone became their usual delightful, polite, selves. I've been reading a great book about India called Shantaram which describes a very similar situation and he explains it like this, 'I knew the scrambled fighting and the courteous deference following it were both expressions of the one philosophy: What is necessary? That is the unspoken but implied and unavoidable questions everywhere in India.' Which makes sense to me, in a country where daily life can be a struggle that people deal with admirably well. And so we shared our food with the women and children on the train and had pleasant chats in broken English with them until our arrival in the cold, rainy North. We then took a cyclo to the appropriately named Tourist Guesthouse and enjoyed a hot shower and thali before bed.
The next morning we headed to the Golden Temple of Amritsar, also known as the holiest Sikh shrine in the world. A visit there for Sikhs's is the equivalent of the pilgrimage to Mecca for Muslims. To enter you must remove your shoes and cover your head, and then wash your feet in a shallow trough outside the temple (even the foot water is deemed holy, I saw plenty of Sikh's touching it to their heads and mouths!) all of which is presided over by Khalsa guards in brightly coloured turbans holding spears outside and inside the temple. Glittering in the sunshine, the gold plated Gurdwara, surrounded by a huge tank of water full of coi, with the sounds of priests chanting broadcast from inside the temple, is simply breathtaking, and a heavenly place to quietly wander around, or sit cross legged on the Parkarma watching pilgrims bathing and praying or quietly contemplating. The temple seems to reflect what I've learnt about Sikhs as peaceful, level headed, friendly and generous types. Refreshingly, Sikhism is based on equality, and Guru Nanak's level-headed, practical philosophies such as, 'A person who makes an honest living and shares his earnings with others recognises the way to god,' strike a real chord with me. As we stood outside afterwards a kind old man came over to hand us oranges, and when I tried to give him a few rupees he simply walked away. That's the first person in India who has ever refused our money (understandably), and we were touched by his gesture.
We then bought traditional steel karra bracelets for 10 rupees (they symbolise 'fearlessness,' something you certainly need on those Indian roads) and waited for our previously arranged jeep to pick us up and take us to Attari/Wagah, the site of the India/Pakistan border. We were driven by the wonderful Upal, who also gave us oranges and hugs, teased us mercilessly and wedged four of us into the front seat, with the gearstick between one poor chap's legs.
Every night just before sunset there is an elaborate border-closing ceremony of pure theatre. Lonely Planet calls it, 'a fusion of orderly colonial-style pomp, comical goosestepping (recalling Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks sketch) and, considering the two countries' rocky relationship, a stunning demonstration in harmony.' It was fascinating, sitting on the Indian side listening to the frenzied cries from the electric, flag-waving crowd of 'Hindustan! Zindabad!' (Long live India) and looking over to the Pakistani side (where the crowd were noticeably separated into men and women, and wearing much less in the way of bright colours) to watch the guards clad in black stomping their feet and yelling 'Jia Jia Pakistan!' At the end of it all the guards shake hands and slam the gate shut for the night.
Soon it was time to head to Amritsar, very close to the Pakistan border in the Punjab. We took our first 'Chair Car' train seat (instead of an overnight flat bed) for the 7 hour journey, which gave us quite the insight into the scrum it is to get onto an Indian train. This being India, the seat numbers were written above the chairs with marker pen, which in the main had been completely rubbed off and were now illegible, leading to lots of fuss, pushing and shoving and confusion over whose seat was whose. Of course, as soon as everyone was happily seated everyone became their usual delightful, polite, selves. I've been reading a great book about India called Shantaram which describes a very similar situation and he explains it like this, 'I knew the scrambled fighting and the courteous deference following it were both expressions of the one philosophy: What is necessary? That is the unspoken but implied and unavoidable questions everywhere in India.' Which makes sense to me, in a country where daily life can be a struggle that people deal with admirably well. And so we shared our food with the women and children on the train and had pleasant chats in broken English with them until our arrival in the cold, rainy North. We then took a cyclo to the appropriately named Tourist Guesthouse and enjoyed a hot shower and thali before bed.
The next morning we headed to the Golden Temple of Amritsar, also known as the holiest Sikh shrine in the world. A visit there for Sikhs's is the equivalent of the pilgrimage to Mecca for Muslims. To enter you must remove your shoes and cover your head, and then wash your feet in a shallow trough outside the temple (even the foot water is deemed holy, I saw plenty of Sikh's touching it to their heads and mouths!) all of which is presided over by Khalsa guards in brightly coloured turbans holding spears outside and inside the temple. Glittering in the sunshine, the gold plated Gurdwara, surrounded by a huge tank of water full of coi, with the sounds of priests chanting broadcast from inside the temple, is simply breathtaking, and a heavenly place to quietly wander around, or sit cross legged on the Parkarma watching pilgrims bathing and praying or quietly contemplating. The temple seems to reflect what I've learnt about Sikhs as peaceful, level headed, friendly and generous types. Refreshingly, Sikhism is based on equality, and Guru Nanak's level-headed, practical philosophies such as, 'A person who makes an honest living and shares his earnings with others recognises the way to god,' strike a real chord with me. As we stood outside afterwards a kind old man came over to hand us oranges, and when I tried to give him a few rupees he simply walked away. That's the first person in India who has ever refused our money (understandably), and we were touched by his gesture.
We then bought traditional steel karra bracelets for 10 rupees (they symbolise 'fearlessness,' something you certainly need on those Indian roads) and waited for our previously arranged jeep to pick us up and take us to Attari/Wagah, the site of the India/Pakistan border. We were driven by the wonderful Upal, who also gave us oranges and hugs, teased us mercilessly and wedged four of us into the front seat, with the gearstick between one poor chap's legs.
Every night just before sunset there is an elaborate border-closing ceremony of pure theatre. Lonely Planet calls it, 'a fusion of orderly colonial-style pomp, comical goosestepping (recalling Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks sketch) and, considering the two countries' rocky relationship, a stunning demonstration in harmony.' It was fascinating, sitting on the Indian side listening to the frenzied cries from the electric, flag-waving crowd of 'Hindustan! Zindabad!' (Long live India) and looking over to the Pakistani side (where the crowd were noticeably separated into men and women, and wearing much less in the way of bright colours) to watch the guards clad in black stomping their feet and yelling 'Jia Jia Pakistan!' At the end of it all the guards shake hands and slam the gate shut for the night.
Saturday, 6 March 2010
Agra, India...
Now where was I? Ah yes, Agra. Despite plenty of reports from fellow travellers that Agra was an awful city, and that a lot of people take a day trip there from Delhi rather than stay, we hopped on the train at Udaipur and headed to Agra. Four hours later, and after a rather confused journey - we bought a 'general' ticket which means you have to stand in what can only be described as chicken coops at the back of the train or pay for an upgrade once you're on board. We decided against paying the 300 rupees, feigning foreign confusion and carriage-hopping for most of the ride - until we rolled up to the Siddartha Hotel in Taj Ganj.
Taj Ganj has no luxury hotels, so is packed with fellow budget travellers and locals, and despite not being the prettiest place in the world, it's a good spot for enjoying a banana lassi at one of many rooftop bars and restaurants, and watching the sun go down behind the Taj, which was just a one-minute walk away from our front door. There's also an added benefit of staying so close to the building itself. Since the Taj got a beauty treatment in 2002 (it was cleansed with a traditional Indian beauty wash of soil, cereal milk and lime to clear away pollution), no polluting vehicles, or even cigarettes, have been allowed within 100 metres of it, making the air just that little bit cleaner than we've become used to in India.
And so we dragged ourselves up at 5am the next morning to head to the Taj for sunrise, and before the train-loads of tourists arrive from the 4-hour Taj Express train from Delhi. The milky white, turreted building, which Rudyard Kipling once described as 'the embodiment of all things pure,' looked just like a painting; and bathed in the misty morning light, really is just as breathtaking as you imagine it to be. The Taj was built by Shan Jahan in 1631 as a memorial to his wife Mumtaz Mahal who died during the birth of her 14th child, but shortly after it's completion Shan was overthrown by his son Aurangzeb and imprisoned in Agra Fort where he remained until he died, able only to look out the window at his beloved Taj. Nice son!
Anyway, we spent a lovely reflective hour wandering around the immaculate grounds and watching the colours and shadows on the beautiful marble building change as the sun rose, meanwhile Danny made friends with an Indian university professor who kindly invited us to lunch with him and his family. It wasn't the first or the last time. We've found the Indian people to be entirely friendly and fascinated by us, and apart from the intense staring (which you come to realise has no malice in it and is just their way of expressing intrigue) it's rather nice. Everywhere we go we're greeted with smiles and waves (it's a little bit like being a celebrity, which obviously we know all about) and asked by children, old men, shy groups of mothers in sarees and internet-cafe owning couples, 'What is your country?' and 'What do you think of India?' and it usually escalates into a long chat about where we are going, where we've been, the differences between Indian and English culture, and plenty of shocked faces when we tell them we're not married!
After our quiet, meditative morning we changed into old clothes to head into Agra for anything but. Holi is the Hindu's most exuberant annual festival, when the streets are alive with pounding Hindu music and dancing, and awash with bright coloured powder dyes, thrown everywhere and at everyone who dares to venture out on the streets. During our day out we learnt the Holi etiquette: that you either bomb unsuspecting people in the street (which happened to me three times during a 30 minute cycle rickshaw journey and left me blowing pink snot out of my nose) or the more civilised option of asking if your companion would 'like to play Holi,' and then wiping rainbow colours along their forehead, nose and cheeks before hugging three times, and wishing eachother 'Happy Holi!' It's a lovely day that brings everyone together, we had hugs from old policemen to sweet school kids in the street and everyone in between... And then some drunken youth bombs you right in the eye and forces three sweaty hugs upon you. (Hindu's aren't normally permitted to drink or smoke cannabis or 'bhang' so they can get a wee bit overexcited). Still, you can't have it all!
It was while we were chatting to our friendly and dry-humoured guesthouse owner that he mentioned the Indian national news channel 'The Voice of India' would be filming on the hotel rooftop that morning (as it overlooks the Taj) and asked if we wanted to be on it. Seeing as we're already rather famous in India, we thought, why the hell not, and found ourselves an hour later on the roof in front of a film crew, being interviewed, dancing, shouting 'Happy Holi!' and throwing coloured powder at an American couple. We caught ourselves on TV later that day as one of the headlines... What can I say? A-list!
Tuesday, 2 March 2010
Jaipur, Jodphur & Udaipur, India...
After all our fame and frolicks in Mumbai it was time to head North to a place I've always wanted to visit (well, ever since Liz Hurley married Arun Nayar there in a big pink palace) so we caught a 22 hour train to the Pink City of Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, a.k.a. the land of the Rajput kings. Now Mumbai is congested but Jaipur is something else, with rampaging rickshaws, eye watering pollution and streets littered with cows and lots and lots of lots of rubbish. It's a shame because it detracts from the beautiful architecture in the city. Built around 1730 and painted entirely pink in 1876 by Maharaja Ram Singh to welcome the Prince of Wales, it's now a decadently decaying maze of bazaars, palaces, observatories and temples, topped off by Nahargarh, or Tiger Fort.
We spent our first night showering and sleeping off our train lag at the Krishna Palace hotel, before meeting up with a good friend of Danny's the next morning who has been travelling for the past three years. So after a reunion lunch over thali and sweet lassi the three of us set out to explore the city and it's bazaars - all packed with sparkling jewellery and saris, jootis, trinkets, perfumes and shawls, and stopping for frequent chai tea breaks when the hustle and bustle got too much. We watched the sunrise from the peace and quiet Tiger Fort, high above the city walls and pink rooftops, before heading to the Peacock Rooftop restaurant for more thali and Kingfisher beer. Little did I know India was going to make me fat, I've been here three weeks now and I just can't get enough of the food. And not even a hint of Delhi belly as yet... touch wood. TOUCH WOOD.
After Jaipur we took a white-knuckle bus journey to another Rajasthani landmark, the blue city of Jodphur (founded in 1439 by a Rajput chief), which by comparison made Jaipur look relaxed... Taking an autorickshaw up the tiny windy alleyways to the Navchokiya district is akin to a kamikaze mission, but the tangle of lanes which make up the beautiful old city of crumbling Brahmin-blue houses is worth every moment. Rather than battle our way back down to the central bazaars around the Clock Tower we whiled away the days wandering the medieval alleys and sitting on the roof terrace at the Cosy Guest House (we had 6 power cuts in two days and this was the only place with candles) drinking chai tea and gazing out at mighty Mehrangarh fort which towers over the city.
Our final stop in Rajasthan was the easy, laid back city of Udaipur (which had a lot more Western tourists than Jodphur), and is known as India's most romantic city. Framed by the Aravalli hills, Udaipur is dominated by the white City Palace which lines Lake Pichola, along with ghats where a rainbow of sparkly sari-clad women wash their clothes in the sunshine. Again, we spent a lot of our time on rooftops, drinking chai and watching the world go by, and it was on one of these days that we met an amazing tiny little and very well-groomed 75 year old lady who became a bit like my surrogate grandmother for a few days! She was from Toulouse in France, but living in Yemen (for some unexplained reason) and we had fascinating chats with her about her life and travels. She was travelling alone in India for two months. She even invited us to stay with her in Yemen. I said, 'I'm not sure we'd be safe in Yemen, would you look after us?' and she replied quite matter-of-factly 'No. But I think you'd be ok.' I don't think we'll take her up on that offer, but we have vowed to remain penpals from now on.
After that we headed to Agra in Uttar Pradesh to celebrate Holi festival and visit the Taj Mahal, and become even more famous, and I shall tell you all about that another day when I'm not in such an incredibly warm internet cafe... this is my only clean t-shirt. Until then!
We spent our first night showering and sleeping off our train lag at the Krishna Palace hotel, before meeting up with a good friend of Danny's the next morning who has been travelling for the past three years. So after a reunion lunch over thali and sweet lassi the three of us set out to explore the city and it's bazaars - all packed with sparkling jewellery and saris, jootis, trinkets, perfumes and shawls, and stopping for frequent chai tea breaks when the hustle and bustle got too much. We watched the sunrise from the peace and quiet Tiger Fort, high above the city walls and pink rooftops, before heading to the Peacock Rooftop restaurant for more thali and Kingfisher beer. Little did I know India was going to make me fat, I've been here three weeks now and I just can't get enough of the food. And not even a hint of Delhi belly as yet... touch wood. TOUCH WOOD.
After Jaipur we took a white-knuckle bus journey to another Rajasthani landmark, the blue city of Jodphur (founded in 1439 by a Rajput chief), which by comparison made Jaipur look relaxed... Taking an autorickshaw up the tiny windy alleyways to the Navchokiya district is akin to a kamikaze mission, but the tangle of lanes which make up the beautiful old city of crumbling Brahmin-blue houses is worth every moment. Rather than battle our way back down to the central bazaars around the Clock Tower we whiled away the days wandering the medieval alleys and sitting on the roof terrace at the Cosy Guest House (we had 6 power cuts in two days and this was the only place with candles) drinking chai tea and gazing out at mighty Mehrangarh fort which towers over the city.
Our final stop in Rajasthan was the easy, laid back city of Udaipur (which had a lot more Western tourists than Jodphur), and is known as India's most romantic city. Framed by the Aravalli hills, Udaipur is dominated by the white City Palace which lines Lake Pichola, along with ghats where a rainbow of sparkly sari-clad women wash their clothes in the sunshine. Again, we spent a lot of our time on rooftops, drinking chai and watching the world go by, and it was on one of these days that we met an amazing tiny little and very well-groomed 75 year old lady who became a bit like my surrogate grandmother for a few days! She was from Toulouse in France, but living in Yemen (for some unexplained reason) and we had fascinating chats with her about her life and travels. She was travelling alone in India for two months. She even invited us to stay with her in Yemen. I said, 'I'm not sure we'd be safe in Yemen, would you look after us?' and she replied quite matter-of-factly 'No. But I think you'd be ok.' I don't think we'll take her up on that offer, but we have vowed to remain penpals from now on.
After that we headed to Agra in Uttar Pradesh to celebrate Holi festival and visit the Taj Mahal, and become even more famous, and I shall tell you all about that another day when I'm not in such an incredibly warm internet cafe... this is my only clean t-shirt. Until then!
Thursday, 25 February 2010
Singapore & Mumbai, India...
Hello from India!
Our journey here was epic in length. We left Bangkok in the early morning, flying into Singapore, and then had an eight hour wait on our hands until our connecting flight. Luckily I found shoe shops, perfume (I haven't smelt any for 5 months, I was spritzing like a mad thing) and a cinema screening Twilight, and Danny found a rooftop bar and a wide screen sports TV, so we were happy as Larry. So Larry-esque in fact that we forgot all about our flight and had to run to the gate (which of course was the one 18 miles away from where we were) while it was closing. But we made it in time to fly out of Singapore and see the night sky lit up by hundreds of tiny weeny fireworks all over the city to celebrate Chinese New Year. It's the year of the Tiger now.
After a couple of hours of disturbed sleep we arrived in Mumbai at 3am, which for our body clocks was actually 5am, and as usual without an idea of where we would stay or what to expect (and arriving India is challenging enough when you're fresh). Still, we had a little nap in the airport until it started to get light and then caught a taxi to the Colaba area of the city where after a few tries we eventually found an overpriced twin room and collapsed, exhausted into the one bed in the room that had clean sheets.
We spent the next day exploring the city and getting used to the sights, smells and sounds of India. Read: Non-stop, relentless horns, out-of-control rickshaws and heady mix of exhaust fumes, urine, spices, incense, coconut oil, sweets, curry and jasmine. Despite it all I found exhilarated by the city; with its beautiful grand old British architecture, swaying palm trees and a balmy climate. We did the whole sightseeing circuit, checking out the huge Gateway of India, from where the British left the country in 1947, the Oval Maiden (where even on a Tuesday afternoon hundreds of Indians were playing their favourite sport, cricket, they are obsessive about it), Mumbai University, CST station and the sea front along Marine drive.
After lunch at the famous Leopold's cafe, we were walking along Colaba Causeway when we bumped into Imran Giles, a casting agent for Bollywood, who asked if we would like to be extras in a big Bollywood movie called Housefull film being made tomorrow. Being cynics (who know of far too many traveller scams) we were reluctant at first, and had plans to travel to Rajasthan the next day. But Imran was persuasive, and after checking him and the movie out on the web and reading about the experience in Lonely Planet we decided to give it a go.
At 7am the next morning we, and around 40 other western travellers (they like to include a few white faces in the movies to give them an international touch) were picked up from Colaba and driven to the film studios on the outskirts of the city near the airport. After a quick breakfast and some chai tea we dove straight into wardrobe. The first outfit I was given was a tiny scrap of a white lycra skirt what can only be described as a bondage-esque metallic blue bra top. Not quite the attire of a fashionista/Bollywood star, so I budged the Indian men (who were suggesting outfits and adjusting them to fit) out the way and selected a not-entirely-horrendous black and white dress and lace up heels. We were then lined up and looked over by the wardrobe girl who kept telling us scruffy travellers to 'Neaten your hair! No put on some heels, think SEXY, think GLAMOUR!' My pushiness paid off when she went down the line repeating 'fine, fine, change your top, fine, no, fine,' then got to me, paused (which made me panic) but then flashed me a massive smile and gave me a thumbs up. 'Perfect.' A Bollywood career beckons, methinks.
Soon it was time for us all to go on set, which was a lavish nightclub, with a 'bar' (Danny was the barman, in a black shirt and trousers with his hair slicked back), huge chandeliers, booths and a dancefloor. Unfortunately the bar props were filled with water rather than spirits (probably a good thing, my dancing may have got a little sloppy otherwise), and our 'glasses of wine' were in fact apple juice, but the kindly crew kept us hydrated with bottles of water and chai breaks.
From then on it was a case of being directed by the crew. Dancing, chatting or walking around in the background while the choreographers and professional dancers (many of whom were English or Australian girls our age who live in Mumbai working on Bollywood moves) danced their straight-out-of-an-MTV-music-video routines over and over again for the demanding, shouty, scary director. 'What is that girl doing? All I can see is her flicking her hair. Get rid of her!' More than a little mortifying in front of 200 people. The big stars, including Indian Miss World, the too-beautiful-to-look-directly-at-her Deepika Padukone and India's King of Comedy, did their thing with the help of their assistants... One of whom's job it was to put their jacket on, another to scurry after them holding their peanuts, another to immediately hold a mirror up for them the second the director yelled cut, while another sprayed oil in their hair and another coiffed their already gleaming barnets into perfection. Brilliant!
It was an incredibly long 16 hour day (for the meagre sum of 500 rupees each) but we got a great lunch, bucketfulls of chai and the most amazing insight into the Bollywood movie industry. House Full is out in about four months (May 2010), and I think we're in the trailer too, so keep your eyes peeled for our Bollywood debut.
Our journey here was epic in length. We left Bangkok in the early morning, flying into Singapore, and then had an eight hour wait on our hands until our connecting flight. Luckily I found shoe shops, perfume (I haven't smelt any for 5 months, I was spritzing like a mad thing) and a cinema screening Twilight, and Danny found a rooftop bar and a wide screen sports TV, so we were happy as Larry. So Larry-esque in fact that we forgot all about our flight and had to run to the gate (which of course was the one 18 miles away from where we were) while it was closing. But we made it in time to fly out of Singapore and see the night sky lit up by hundreds of tiny weeny fireworks all over the city to celebrate Chinese New Year. It's the year of the Tiger now.
After a couple of hours of disturbed sleep we arrived in Mumbai at 3am, which for our body clocks was actually 5am, and as usual without an idea of where we would stay or what to expect (and arriving India is challenging enough when you're fresh). Still, we had a little nap in the airport until it started to get light and then caught a taxi to the Colaba area of the city where after a few tries we eventually found an overpriced twin room and collapsed, exhausted into the one bed in the room that had clean sheets.
We spent the next day exploring the city and getting used to the sights, smells and sounds of India. Read: Non-stop, relentless horns, out-of-control rickshaws and heady mix of exhaust fumes, urine, spices, incense, coconut oil, sweets, curry and jasmine. Despite it all I found exhilarated by the city; with its beautiful grand old British architecture, swaying palm trees and a balmy climate. We did the whole sightseeing circuit, checking out the huge Gateway of India, from where the British left the country in 1947, the Oval Maiden (where even on a Tuesday afternoon hundreds of Indians were playing their favourite sport, cricket, they are obsessive about it), Mumbai University, CST station and the sea front along Marine drive.
After lunch at the famous Leopold's cafe, we were walking along Colaba Causeway when we bumped into Imran Giles, a casting agent for Bollywood, who asked if we would like to be extras in a big Bollywood movie called Housefull film being made tomorrow. Being cynics (who know of far too many traveller scams) we were reluctant at first, and had plans to travel to Rajasthan the next day. But Imran was persuasive, and after checking him and the movie out on the web and reading about the experience in Lonely Planet we decided to give it a go.
At 7am the next morning we, and around 40 other western travellers (they like to include a few white faces in the movies to give them an international touch) were picked up from Colaba and driven to the film studios on the outskirts of the city near the airport. After a quick breakfast and some chai tea we dove straight into wardrobe. The first outfit I was given was a tiny scrap of a white lycra skirt what can only be described as a bondage-esque metallic blue bra top. Not quite the attire of a fashionista/Bollywood star, so I budged the Indian men (who were suggesting outfits and adjusting them to fit) out the way and selected a not-entirely-horrendous black and white dress and lace up heels. We were then lined up and looked over by the wardrobe girl who kept telling us scruffy travellers to 'Neaten your hair! No put on some heels, think SEXY, think GLAMOUR!' My pushiness paid off when she went down the line repeating 'fine, fine, change your top, fine, no, fine,' then got to me, paused (which made me panic) but then flashed me a massive smile and gave me a thumbs up. 'Perfect.' A Bollywood career beckons, methinks.
Soon it was time for us all to go on set, which was a lavish nightclub, with a 'bar' (Danny was the barman, in a black shirt and trousers with his hair slicked back), huge chandeliers, booths and a dancefloor. Unfortunately the bar props were filled with water rather than spirits (probably a good thing, my dancing may have got a little sloppy otherwise), and our 'glasses of wine' were in fact apple juice, but the kindly crew kept us hydrated with bottles of water and chai breaks.
From then on it was a case of being directed by the crew. Dancing, chatting or walking around in the background while the choreographers and professional dancers (many of whom were English or Australian girls our age who live in Mumbai working on Bollywood moves) danced their straight-out-of-an-MTV-music-video routines over and over again for the demanding, shouty, scary director. 'What is that girl doing? All I can see is her flicking her hair. Get rid of her!' More than a little mortifying in front of 200 people. The big stars, including Indian Miss World, the too-beautiful-to-look-directly-at-her Deepika Padukone and India's King of Comedy, did their thing with the help of their assistants... One of whom's job it was to put their jacket on, another to scurry after them holding their peanuts, another to immediately hold a mirror up for them the second the director yelled cut, while another sprayed oil in their hair and another coiffed their already gleaming barnets into perfection. Brilliant!
It was an incredibly long 16 hour day (for the meagre sum of 500 rupees each) but we got a great lunch, bucketfulls of chai and the most amazing insight into the Bollywood movie industry. House Full is out in about four months (May 2010), and I think we're in the trailer too, so keep your eyes peeled for our Bollywood debut.
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
Vientiane, Vang Vieng & Luang Prabang, Laos...
Well hello. Contrary to reports the journey from Siem Reap to the Thai border at Poipet was fine, which leads me to believe that they must have sealed the road at some point between now and when our guide book was written in 2008. (Full of fascinating facts aren't I). Anyway so we spent a week in Bangkok while we waited for our Indian visas to be processed, staying on Soi Rambutri just off the Khao San Road, first at My House which was great for film watching but our room looked like a prison cell, and then at the Green House, always a bonus to have BBC world news and see what's happening out there (it's the only television I've seen in months). When we picked up our visas at the embassy, where Danny and I met a fascinating Israeli woman who had just become a monk (well, I suppose technically she was a nun, but she had all the garb and the shaved head) and lives in a temple in Tibet, and she told lots about India which was really helpful.
The next day we caught a night train from Bangkok to Nong Khai, which is right on the border with Laos. We weren't certain we were going to go to Laos, but when we entered Thailand they had just changed the immigration rules so our passports were only stamped with 14 days so we needed to leave the country anyway, and it was a choice between Laos and Burma. Once we were at Nong Khai we took a tuk tuk to the Thai-Lao friendship bridge where you apply (and wait) for your Lao visa, and then a bus and a tuk tuk the 20km to Vientiane, the capital city which, handily is right on the border.
Delightfully laid back and with great weather Vientiane was a pretty, sleepy place to spend some time. We checked into Phonepaseuth hotel and wandered about for the day, ate a great Indian dinner at Nazim by the riverfront, and the next morning took the 5 hour bus north to Vang Vieng, a dusty little town in the north which is famous in Laos for its Tubing.
Tubing is basically sitting in a giant rubber ring (made from a huge tractor tyre's inner tube) and floating down the beautiful Nam Song river. On either side are tons of make shift bars that you paddle over too (or they kindly hook you in with ropes) where you can have a Lao beer (or ten) and play mud volleyball, wrestling, go on the zip slide, launch yourself from a terrifyingly steep slide etc etc etc. It's basically a big adults playground, and there are plenty of people who get so hooked they can't leave, clocking up 50 days or even 200 days worth of tubing. Being the sensible folk that we are (i.e. we forgot to bring enough money) we had a couple of beers each and then set about floating down the river past all the bars to the end of the tubing circuit, which was great at first but after a while the old arms begin to tire, especially when you see a sign that says '2km to go' and you're moving at a speed of approximately 3cm per hour. And also a little disconcerting when you realise the rocks you thought you saw in the water are actually a huge herd of water buffalos with giant horns that you're now floating perilously past. Or when actual rocks hit you in the bum during the rapidy bits. Still, the scenery is stunning, with huge limestone peaks covered in forest jutting up into the sky. We rested up that evening (well the part of it when they hadn't turned the electricity off in the town) in a bar watching 'Friends.' Weirdly enough the whole of Vang Vieng is completely obsessed with Friends, they play it non-stop, on loop, in every single bar and restaurant. But we haven't seen it since October so we didn't mind for one night.
The next day we took an extremely windy but picturesque 8 hour minibus up route 13 to Luang Prabang, passing through remote villages in the mountains dotted with little wooden houses with thatched roofs on stilts, and mothers working the land with their tiny babies strapped to their backs. Danny also noticed that there were a couple of guys carrying guns and I later read that the route has in the past been plagued by shootings, something to do with the Hmong tribespeople clashing with the government. You also have to be very careful when you get off the bus for a roadside toilet stop in Laos as the country is still covered with unexploded mines from the secret war between 1965-73 when the Americans bombed the hell out of it. Laos is actually the most bombed place on earth.
Lonely Planet calls Luang Prabang, 'perhaps the most sophisticated, photogenic city in all of South East Asia' and it didn't disappoint. Well, the city didn't. Something I had eaten certainly disappointed my insides, so I spent the first night vomiting from 7pm to 7am, after which Danny kindly moved us into a nicer hostel (putting the bags and then me on a tuk tuk for the five minute walk as I was completely incapacitated) where I spent another day and a half recovering before I could go and see the town. So on our third day, rattling about with a stomach full of antibiotics and anti malarial tablets we went and saw all the beautiful French shuttered buildings, glittering golden wats, temples and orange robed boy-monks who wander the immaculate, palm tree lined streets. It gets even more gorgeous as the sun sets along the Mekong river, the sky turns pink and the locals set up the fairy light and lantern laden night market selling Lao trinkets. It's such a relaxed, pretty place to while the evening away, with French restaurants left over from the occupation and great bars (we loved Hive in particular). Fortunately the town is also a Unesco World Heritage site so that means it should stay this way.
After that it was back on the road to Vientiane where we are now! We thought about catching the two day boat to Chiang Mai in Thailand, but met some girls who said after Luang Prabang Chiang Mai didn't impress them, so we decided to head straight back down to Bangkok (where we are going on a nightbus tonight). Once we're there we'll either be catching a flight out to Mumbai, India the day after tomorrow, or if we can get hold of STA travel who have been very elusive so far, we'll extend our stay here are go to the South of Thailand to see the islands of Ko Phi Phi and Ko Phangnan. So I'll let you know next time...
The next day we caught a night train from Bangkok to Nong Khai, which is right on the border with Laos. We weren't certain we were going to go to Laos, but when we entered Thailand they had just changed the immigration rules so our passports were only stamped with 14 days so we needed to leave the country anyway, and it was a choice between Laos and Burma. Once we were at Nong Khai we took a tuk tuk to the Thai-Lao friendship bridge where you apply (and wait) for your Lao visa, and then a bus and a tuk tuk the 20km to Vientiane, the capital city which, handily is right on the border.
Delightfully laid back and with great weather Vientiane was a pretty, sleepy place to spend some time. We checked into Phonepaseuth hotel and wandered about for the day, ate a great Indian dinner at Nazim by the riverfront, and the next morning took the 5 hour bus north to Vang Vieng, a dusty little town in the north which is famous in Laos for its Tubing.
Tubing is basically sitting in a giant rubber ring (made from a huge tractor tyre's inner tube) and floating down the beautiful Nam Song river. On either side are tons of make shift bars that you paddle over too (or they kindly hook you in with ropes) where you can have a Lao beer (or ten) and play mud volleyball, wrestling, go on the zip slide, launch yourself from a terrifyingly steep slide etc etc etc. It's basically a big adults playground, and there are plenty of people who get so hooked they can't leave, clocking up 50 days or even 200 days worth of tubing. Being the sensible folk that we are (i.e. we forgot to bring enough money) we had a couple of beers each and then set about floating down the river past all the bars to the end of the tubing circuit, which was great at first but after a while the old arms begin to tire, especially when you see a sign that says '2km to go' and you're moving at a speed of approximately 3cm per hour. And also a little disconcerting when you realise the rocks you thought you saw in the water are actually a huge herd of water buffalos with giant horns that you're now floating perilously past. Or when actual rocks hit you in the bum during the rapidy bits. Still, the scenery is stunning, with huge limestone peaks covered in forest jutting up into the sky. We rested up that evening (well the part of it when they hadn't turned the electricity off in the town) in a bar watching 'Friends.' Weirdly enough the whole of Vang Vieng is completely obsessed with Friends, they play it non-stop, on loop, in every single bar and restaurant. But we haven't seen it since October so we didn't mind for one night.
The next day we took an extremely windy but picturesque 8 hour minibus up route 13 to Luang Prabang, passing through remote villages in the mountains dotted with little wooden houses with thatched roofs on stilts, and mothers working the land with their tiny babies strapped to their backs. Danny also noticed that there were a couple of guys carrying guns and I later read that the route has in the past been plagued by shootings, something to do with the Hmong tribespeople clashing with the government. You also have to be very careful when you get off the bus for a roadside toilet stop in Laos as the country is still covered with unexploded mines from the secret war between 1965-73 when the Americans bombed the hell out of it. Laos is actually the most bombed place on earth.
Lonely Planet calls Luang Prabang, 'perhaps the most sophisticated, photogenic city in all of South East Asia' and it didn't disappoint. Well, the city didn't. Something I had eaten certainly disappointed my insides, so I spent the first night vomiting from 7pm to 7am, after which Danny kindly moved us into a nicer hostel (putting the bags and then me on a tuk tuk for the five minute walk as I was completely incapacitated) where I spent another day and a half recovering before I could go and see the town. So on our third day, rattling about with a stomach full of antibiotics and anti malarial tablets we went and saw all the beautiful French shuttered buildings, glittering golden wats, temples and orange robed boy-monks who wander the immaculate, palm tree lined streets. It gets even more gorgeous as the sun sets along the Mekong river, the sky turns pink and the locals set up the fairy light and lantern laden night market selling Lao trinkets. It's such a relaxed, pretty place to while the evening away, with French restaurants left over from the occupation and great bars (we loved Hive in particular). Fortunately the town is also a Unesco World Heritage site so that means it should stay this way.
After that it was back on the road to Vientiane where we are now! We thought about catching the two day boat to Chiang Mai in Thailand, but met some girls who said after Luang Prabang Chiang Mai didn't impress them, so we decided to head straight back down to Bangkok (where we are going on a nightbus tonight). Once we're there we'll either be catching a flight out to Mumbai, India the day after tomorrow, or if we can get hold of STA travel who have been very elusive so far, we'll extend our stay here are go to the South of Thailand to see the islands of Ko Phi Phi and Ko Phangnan. So I'll let you know next time...
Saturday, 23 January 2010
Phnom Penh & Siem Reap, Cambodia...
Well, as predicted Tuol Sleng, or S21 (the Khmer Rouge 'prison') was a difficult trip. Housed in what was an old High School, it's set around a courtyard that was surrounded by barbed wire fences. In block A the classrooms were converted into small cells, and today most are furnished only by rusty metal beds, ankle restraints and a single black and white photograph of some of the unthinkable atrocities that happened here. In block B there are headshots of many of the prisoners, including some of the 20,000 children the Khmer Rouge killed here and at the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek (about 10km away from Tuol Sleng) until 1975. The museum also has plenty of information about Pol Pot and the other Khmer Rouge leaders, some of whom are awaiting trial today. It was a fascinating trip but I think we, and most other visitors, were happy to leave the oppressive atmosphere.
On a lighter note, bizarrely we bumped into a couple there that we had originally met in Buenos Aires in Argentina. It really is a very, very small world. Afterwards we had a lovely lunch at Bodhi Tree, a restaurant where a percentage of the profits go to help the local people in Phnom Penh.
On our third day in Phnom Penh it finally stopped pouring with rain (despite the fact that it's supposed to be the dry season - I swear the English weather is following me around the world) so we were able to slip on our trainers and head out to explore the city. We walked down the Tonle Sap river and had a fantastic lunch at Khmer Borane, before heading to the Russian market to do some more haggling. My flip flops had 'mysteriously' disappeared from the hostel (you have to take them off before you go into the bar area, I think it's a religious thing) so I got a new pair for 3 dollars, and a 'krama' or checked scarf. All the locals have them and use them for everything, as dust protection, sun protection, as a bandage, a towel, round their heads, round their waists... they're very much a symbol of Cambodian identity. After that we had a happy hour drink at the Foreign Correspondents club at sunset, sitting on the balcony which looks over the National Museum and the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, where the King of Cambodia still lives.
The next day we hit the road again, taking the six hour bus journey to Siem Reap (which means 'Thailand defeated' - bet the Thais love that). We stopped on the way to get some food at a market where they were selling fried bats, cockroaches, locusts and spiders. Unsurprisingly (even I have limits) we didn't purchase any of those but we got a bag of mango and bananas from one of the young local girls selling them. Most of these girls don't have enough money to go to school and are probably no older than 8, but they can conversate with you in English and are very sweet (and cheeky!)
We dodged the awaiting hordes of tuk tuks at the bus station in Siem Reap and hopped aboard the free one already arranged for us by the hostel in Phnom Penh (they get commission from the hostel, so the deal is you get a free ride if you stay there, or pay if you don't like it) but the 6 dollar a night hostel was fine, with cable TV and a nice room, so we had a shower and dumped our bags before heading out to catch the sunset at Angkor Wat, which was stunning. After that it was back to Siem Reap for dinner, which was great - the town has a great bar and restaurant scene set along some bustling alleys and markets. And Angkor beer is just 50p!
The next day (today) was our full-on session at the mighty Temples of Angkor. Built between the 9th and 11th centuries, the temple complex encompasses thousands of enormous temples (many of them now swallowed up by the surrounding jungle) and was the centre of the Khmer Kingdom which once covered an area from Myanmar to Vietnam and had a population of 1 million when London had just 50,000 inhabitants. The temples were rediscovered about 100 years ago by the French, who set about clearing them out of the jungle and making them accessible, which continued until the Khmer Rouge came into power. As we were only spending one day we hired a tuk tuk driver for 15 dollars for the day to take us to the three most magnificent temples (there are miles between them).
First we took in Angkor Wat, which is the largest religious building in the world and just mindblowingly HUGE. Then we headed to Bayon which has hundred of huge stone faces staring down at you (the general consensus is that they bear a striking resemblance to King Javarama-something-or-other who was King at the time), before stopping for lunch and finishing with Ta Prohm, which was my favourite. As it's quite deep into the surrounding jungle Ta Prohm isn't as well preserved as the others, but it makes it even more fun. Gigantic tree routes curl between the huge mossy grey slabs and great piles of broken stone lie around (there are many areas that are out of bounds - you wouldn't want one of those falling on your head). The whole place is totally Indiana Jones. So Indiana Jones it just doesn't seem real. They even filmed parts of Tomb Raider here. Yes dad, that's right, Jolie was here.
After that we dragged our weary legs back to the tuk tuk for the half hour journey back through the palm trees and forests to Siem Reap. The weather is so perfect here, like a glorious English summer day, that I didn't want the journey to ever end. We'll head out for dinner tonight and to peruse the markets, and then at 8am tomorrow morning we are getting a bus bound for Bangkok. We should arrive at about 5pm... battered and bruised no doubt, it is supposed to be a very, very bumpy ride. I shall report again from the other side!
On a lighter note, bizarrely we bumped into a couple there that we had originally met in Buenos Aires in Argentina. It really is a very, very small world. Afterwards we had a lovely lunch at Bodhi Tree, a restaurant where a percentage of the profits go to help the local people in Phnom Penh.
On our third day in Phnom Penh it finally stopped pouring with rain (despite the fact that it's supposed to be the dry season - I swear the English weather is following me around the world) so we were able to slip on our trainers and head out to explore the city. We walked down the Tonle Sap river and had a fantastic lunch at Khmer Borane, before heading to the Russian market to do some more haggling. My flip flops had 'mysteriously' disappeared from the hostel (you have to take them off before you go into the bar area, I think it's a religious thing) so I got a new pair for 3 dollars, and a 'krama' or checked scarf. All the locals have them and use them for everything, as dust protection, sun protection, as a bandage, a towel, round their heads, round their waists... they're very much a symbol of Cambodian identity. After that we had a happy hour drink at the Foreign Correspondents club at sunset, sitting on the balcony which looks over the National Museum and the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, where the King of Cambodia still lives.
The next day we hit the road again, taking the six hour bus journey to Siem Reap (which means 'Thailand defeated' - bet the Thais love that). We stopped on the way to get some food at a market where they were selling fried bats, cockroaches, locusts and spiders. Unsurprisingly (even I have limits) we didn't purchase any of those but we got a bag of mango and bananas from one of the young local girls selling them. Most of these girls don't have enough money to go to school and are probably no older than 8, but they can conversate with you in English and are very sweet (and cheeky!)
We dodged the awaiting hordes of tuk tuks at the bus station in Siem Reap and hopped aboard the free one already arranged for us by the hostel in Phnom Penh (they get commission from the hostel, so the deal is you get a free ride if you stay there, or pay if you don't like it) but the 6 dollar a night hostel was fine, with cable TV and a nice room, so we had a shower and dumped our bags before heading out to catch the sunset at Angkor Wat, which was stunning. After that it was back to Siem Reap for dinner, which was great - the town has a great bar and restaurant scene set along some bustling alleys and markets. And Angkor beer is just 50p!
The next day (today) was our full-on session at the mighty Temples of Angkor. Built between the 9th and 11th centuries, the temple complex encompasses thousands of enormous temples (many of them now swallowed up by the surrounding jungle) and was the centre of the Khmer Kingdom which once covered an area from Myanmar to Vietnam and had a population of 1 million when London had just 50,000 inhabitants. The temples were rediscovered about 100 years ago by the French, who set about clearing them out of the jungle and making them accessible, which continued until the Khmer Rouge came into power. As we were only spending one day we hired a tuk tuk driver for 15 dollars for the day to take us to the three most magnificent temples (there are miles between them).
First we took in Angkor Wat, which is the largest religious building in the world and just mindblowingly HUGE. Then we headed to Bayon which has hundred of huge stone faces staring down at you (the general consensus is that they bear a striking resemblance to King Javarama-something-or-other who was King at the time), before stopping for lunch and finishing with Ta Prohm, which was my favourite. As it's quite deep into the surrounding jungle Ta Prohm isn't as well preserved as the others, but it makes it even more fun. Gigantic tree routes curl between the huge mossy grey slabs and great piles of broken stone lie around (there are many areas that are out of bounds - you wouldn't want one of those falling on your head). The whole place is totally Indiana Jones. So Indiana Jones it just doesn't seem real. They even filmed parts of Tomb Raider here. Yes dad, that's right, Jolie was here.
After that we dragged our weary legs back to the tuk tuk for the half hour journey back through the palm trees and forests to Siem Reap. The weather is so perfect here, like a glorious English summer day, that I didn't want the journey to ever end. We'll head out for dinner tonight and to peruse the markets, and then at 8am tomorrow morning we are getting a bus bound for Bangkok. We should arrive at about 5pm... battered and bruised no doubt, it is supposed to be a very, very bumpy ride. I shall report again from the other side!
Monday, 18 January 2010
Saigon, Nha Trang, Hoi An, Hanoi & Ha Long Bay, Vietnam...
Well, I can confirm that (other than the quite fun American tanks and planes outside) the War Remnants museum in Saigon was beyond harrowing - that place really should come with a PG rating. No, an 18 rating. Very very disturbing and very sad, but I'm glad we went as it's such an important part of Vietnam's history. Afterwards we picked up a coconut to drink and wandered to the Reunification (presidential) Palace, which is where the Communist tank crashed the gate on 30th April 1975, the day Saigon surrendered. We stayed in Saigon for about three days, and visited more sights, like the Jade Emperor Pagoda, a Chinese temple built in 1909 and filled with colourful deities and incense, and the French built Notre Dame Cathedral, but generally we just enjoyed the city for its food, bars and incredible energy which is addictive. We both came away totally in love with it.
Next stop was Nha Trang, a party-beach resort on the coast, about 8 hours train ride North of Saigon. Because our budget is so tight we try to travel overnight (which saves the cost of paying for a hostel bed) which meant pulling into Nha Trang at about 4.30am, so we hauled our huge bags down to the beach and sat watching the sunrise over the South China sea and Vin Pearl island under the swaying palm trees before making our way into town and finding a bed (an absolute steal at 4 pounds a night).
After a few days of relaxing and drinking beer on the beach in Nha Trang (in contrast to the frenetic hedonism of Saigon) we were ready to move on so headed for Hoi An. Going for the cheapest train option meant a 'hard sleeper' bed, which roughly translates as a shelf (above three others shelves) covered in an old piece of carpet and half a ripped sheet. Still, we arrived in Danang (the nearest train station) at ridiculous o'clock and shared a taxi to Hoi An with an American couple to cut the cost in half, and found a bed at a lovely hostel with a pool in the old town called Thien Trung.
Hoi An was an international trading port as far back as the 17th century, and the architecture is absolutely beautiful. It's like a Disney version of how you would imagine Vietnam to look 150 years ago, all lit up lantern shops and narrow cobbled lanes and old boats on the Thu Bon river. We spent three days in the town, looking in local art galleries, visiting the Japanese Covered Bridge (which was built in 1593) and taking a boat tour for a dollar past the market on the river from a local disabled man wearing one of those very-Vietnamese cone shaped hats. Much better to give the money to him than a big tour company. We also spent lots of time enjoying local specialities at the night market like wonton, white rose (steamed shrimp dumplings) and cao lau (noodles mixed with bean sprouts, greens and pork made with water from the Ba Le well) and fresh beer, which costs 3000 dong for a glass. That's about 10p to you and me.
Next, we took a 12 hour sleeping bus to Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. Sleeping buses actually have flat beds on them so it was probably one of the most comfortable journeys we've taken (well, for me anyway, Danny was snuggled against a snoring Vietnamese chap). The weather had gradually been getting cooler as we headed north, and Hanoi, which is only four hours from China, was positively cold. Walking around the city through the steamy street kitchens gave us our first Christmassey feeling - a month after Christmas! We stayed at the City Gate hotel in the Old Quarter for a night and then headed out early the next morning for the 3 and a half hour trip to Ha Long bay (a Unesco world heritage site like Hoi An). There we caught a junk out into the Gulf of Tonkin, with its beautiful emerald waters dotted with over 3000 islands hiding grottoes and caves. We visited a cave interior and it was stunning, the dripping water creates the most bizarre rock formations, it kind of looks a bit like enormous white coral and apparently they call it the cave of heaven for that reason. Next the boat took us to Cat Ba island, the only inhabited island in the bay, and we slept on the junk moored just off Cat Ba, before enjoying a night of Tiger beer and karaoke... sung by a bunch of Vietnamese, Chileans and a lovely gay couple from Croydon who work at Ikea. So quite a mixed bag! The next day we visited the cave where they filmed James Bond - Tomorrow Never Dies - before an idyllic trip back to Ha Long City where we did caught a return bus to Hanoi.
The next morning we hit the road again, flying all the way back to Saigon, and then picking up a 6 hour bus to Phnom Penh in Cambodia, stopping at the border for all the immigration formalities and to get our visas. We also met four very friendly Russians from St Petersburg on the way, and I can confirm that Russian's really do drink vodka ALL day. Maybe it's the way to go, they seemed to be having an excellent time.
When we got to Phnom Penh we caught a tuk tuk to Boeng Kak area of the city, where the wooden hotels are built on stilts and stretch out over the lake, and enjoyed a Khmer curry and an Angkor beer after being on the road from 7.30am to 9pm without any time for food. I can't tell you how good that felt! The hostel we're staying in screens Roland Joffe's The Killing Fields from 1984 at 7pm every night, so we'll watch that tonight and head out to Choung Ek tomorrow to see them. We're also going to visit Tuol Sleng (or S21) the school where the Khmer Rouge carried out so many atrocities, which I'm sure will be incredibly sad, but like the Vietnam war museum, necessary to understand Cambodia. That's it for now...
Next stop was Nha Trang, a party-beach resort on the coast, about 8 hours train ride North of Saigon. Because our budget is so tight we try to travel overnight (which saves the cost of paying for a hostel bed) which meant pulling into Nha Trang at about 4.30am, so we hauled our huge bags down to the beach and sat watching the sunrise over the South China sea and Vin Pearl island under the swaying palm trees before making our way into town and finding a bed (an absolute steal at 4 pounds a night).
After a few days of relaxing and drinking beer on the beach in Nha Trang (in contrast to the frenetic hedonism of Saigon) we were ready to move on so headed for Hoi An. Going for the cheapest train option meant a 'hard sleeper' bed, which roughly translates as a shelf (above three others shelves) covered in an old piece of carpet and half a ripped sheet. Still, we arrived in Danang (the nearest train station) at ridiculous o'clock and shared a taxi to Hoi An with an American couple to cut the cost in half, and found a bed at a lovely hostel with a pool in the old town called Thien Trung.
Hoi An was an international trading port as far back as the 17th century, and the architecture is absolutely beautiful. It's like a Disney version of how you would imagine Vietnam to look 150 years ago, all lit up lantern shops and narrow cobbled lanes and old boats on the Thu Bon river. We spent three days in the town, looking in local art galleries, visiting the Japanese Covered Bridge (which was built in 1593) and taking a boat tour for a dollar past the market on the river from a local disabled man wearing one of those very-Vietnamese cone shaped hats. Much better to give the money to him than a big tour company. We also spent lots of time enjoying local specialities at the night market like wonton, white rose (steamed shrimp dumplings) and cao lau (noodles mixed with bean sprouts, greens and pork made with water from the Ba Le well) and fresh beer, which costs 3000 dong for a glass. That's about 10p to you and me.
Next, we took a 12 hour sleeping bus to Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. Sleeping buses actually have flat beds on them so it was probably one of the most comfortable journeys we've taken (well, for me anyway, Danny was snuggled against a snoring Vietnamese chap). The weather had gradually been getting cooler as we headed north, and Hanoi, which is only four hours from China, was positively cold. Walking around the city through the steamy street kitchens gave us our first Christmassey feeling - a month after Christmas! We stayed at the City Gate hotel in the Old Quarter for a night and then headed out early the next morning for the 3 and a half hour trip to Ha Long bay (a Unesco world heritage site like Hoi An). There we caught a junk out into the Gulf of Tonkin, with its beautiful emerald waters dotted with over 3000 islands hiding grottoes and caves. We visited a cave interior and it was stunning, the dripping water creates the most bizarre rock formations, it kind of looks a bit like enormous white coral and apparently they call it the cave of heaven for that reason. Next the boat took us to Cat Ba island, the only inhabited island in the bay, and we slept on the junk moored just off Cat Ba, before enjoying a night of Tiger beer and karaoke... sung by a bunch of Vietnamese, Chileans and a lovely gay couple from Croydon who work at Ikea. So quite a mixed bag! The next day we visited the cave where they filmed James Bond - Tomorrow Never Dies - before an idyllic trip back to Ha Long City where we did caught a return bus to Hanoi.
The next morning we hit the road again, flying all the way back to Saigon, and then picking up a 6 hour bus to Phnom Penh in Cambodia, stopping at the border for all the immigration formalities and to get our visas. We also met four very friendly Russians from St Petersburg on the way, and I can confirm that Russian's really do drink vodka ALL day. Maybe it's the way to go, they seemed to be having an excellent time.
When we got to Phnom Penh we caught a tuk tuk to Boeng Kak area of the city, where the wooden hotels are built on stilts and stretch out over the lake, and enjoyed a Khmer curry and an Angkor beer after being on the road from 7.30am to 9pm without any time for food. I can't tell you how good that felt! The hostel we're staying in screens Roland Joffe's The Killing Fields from 1984 at 7pm every night, so we'll watch that tonight and head out to Choung Ek tomorrow to see them. We're also going to visit Tuol Sleng (or S21) the school where the Khmer Rouge carried out so many atrocities, which I'm sure will be incredibly sad, but like the Vietnam war museum, necessary to understand Cambodia. That's it for now...
Saturday, 2 January 2010
Jakarta, Indonesia...
Well, it's our last day in Indonesia, and it's 2010. Although we originally planned to spend New Years Eve in Jakarta we were actually in Yogya. We met an English guy at our hostel who had tried to get a train ticket the previous day and everything had sold out, and we were also a bit concerned about rocking up to the capital city on new years eve and finding a bed, and were really enjoying it in Yogya so we stayed put.
On the big night we went for dinner, then to a Ramayana ballet at Puriwisata (they've performed it every night for the last 37 years) accompanied by traditional Gamelan music. Then we started to make our way back to Jl Maliboro, the main drag, to see the fireworks but it was so so so so busy (Java is one of the most crowded places on earth with 950 people per square kilometre) you could barely move on the streets. Thankfully a group of young Indonesians about our age took pity on us, guiding us through the throngs and stopping us from getting our limbs burnt on all the moped engines.
I've been really impressed by the warmth of the Indonesian people, they're incredibly smiley and friendly, and although they are all excellent salesmen (they're so persuasive you have a really hard time working out how to say no) when you do say no, they thank you and smile and are very gracious. I mentioned to Danny one day that I had never seen anyone raise there voice or get angry or be rude the entire time we've been here and he told me about the concept of 'face.' Keeping face means never displaying anger, which is seen as the ultimate humiliation. Even the teenagers are polite and friendly and genuinely interested in you and where you are from. We've had young kids snapping our picture in the streets when we ride past on a tuk tuk, interviewing us for school projects and even asking shyly if they can have their picture taken with us. They're a stark contrast to what I was like as a teen! Pretty much everyone speaks English too, which says a lot in a place where the educational system and work opportunities aren't what they should be.
Where was I? Yes so we took in some fireworks on the streets of Yogya, and then headed back to Sosrowijian to see in the new year and have a drink before hitting the sack to get some rest before an early start on new years day when we caught a train to Jakarta at 8am. The train took eight and a half hours and wasn't too shabby, and I loved watching the lush, green scenery - all palm trees and paddy fields - whizzing past, but it wasn't air conditioned, just cooled by several fans and open windows so we were pretty flustered by the time we arrived. We took a taxi to Jalan Jaksa, the budget hotel centre of Jakarta, and then checked into Hotel Tator before having a much appreciated cold shower (I haven't had a hot shower for three weeks now, not that it matters one iota in this heat) before heading out for dinner and a drink. As usual we had a wrestling match with the mozzie net when we got home (Jakarta has dengue outbreaks in the wet season).
Today we explored the city (which is the fourth biggest in the world), walking first to Soekarnho's National monument in Freedom Square. The locals call it 'Soekarhno's last erection' thanks to it's phallic shape (there's another statue south of the city of Soekarnho with a flaming dish which they call 'Pizza man.') But it is rather impressive, a huge column topped by a flame that you can travel up to get magnificent views of the city, or, as Lonely Planet puts it you can 'whizz up the shaft.' Snort, snort.
Then we walked through the street kitchens of Glodok, which is Jakarta's rundown Chinatown area, before finishing up at the old Dutch Square in Kota with it's pretty colonial buildings and the famous Cafe Batavia which opened in 1805. We popped in there for a cocktail, incredibly grateful after such a long, hot walk, for the cool, air conditioned surrounds and deep sofas, and took in the rather bizzarre spectacle of a very friendly old Indonesian singer accompanied by a grand piano and various karaoke singing tourists belting out everything from Sinatra to old Thai folk songs. Even more bewildering was that on sitting down at this very well established, fancy place with immaculate, smiley, waitresses, we were presented with two menus and a heavily framed picture plucked straight off the wall of a celebrity from the 70s in leather underwear. Neither of us have any idea why. Maybe that's just Jakarta for you!
After that we hopped in a motorised tuk tuk back to the hotel, which brings me to a few facts for all you eager fact fans out there (I know there are alot of you): Since we started this trip we have travelled by plane, car, bus, train, bike, moped, boat, horse, cyclo and tuk tuk, slept in 29 different beds and on 17 different buses. We're flying to Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh city as it's now known) tomorow, so will report next from Vietnam. Until then!
On the big night we went for dinner, then to a Ramayana ballet at Puriwisata (they've performed it every night for the last 37 years) accompanied by traditional Gamelan music. Then we started to make our way back to Jl Maliboro, the main drag, to see the fireworks but it was so so so so busy (Java is one of the most crowded places on earth with 950 people per square kilometre) you could barely move on the streets. Thankfully a group of young Indonesians about our age took pity on us, guiding us through the throngs and stopping us from getting our limbs burnt on all the moped engines.
I've been really impressed by the warmth of the Indonesian people, they're incredibly smiley and friendly, and although they are all excellent salesmen (they're so persuasive you have a really hard time working out how to say no) when you do say no, they thank you and smile and are very gracious. I mentioned to Danny one day that I had never seen anyone raise there voice or get angry or be rude the entire time we've been here and he told me about the concept of 'face.' Keeping face means never displaying anger, which is seen as the ultimate humiliation. Even the teenagers are polite and friendly and genuinely interested in you and where you are from. We've had young kids snapping our picture in the streets when we ride past on a tuk tuk, interviewing us for school projects and even asking shyly if they can have their picture taken with us. They're a stark contrast to what I was like as a teen! Pretty much everyone speaks English too, which says a lot in a place where the educational system and work opportunities aren't what they should be.
Where was I? Yes so we took in some fireworks on the streets of Yogya, and then headed back to Sosrowijian to see in the new year and have a drink before hitting the sack to get some rest before an early start on new years day when we caught a train to Jakarta at 8am. The train took eight and a half hours and wasn't too shabby, and I loved watching the lush, green scenery - all palm trees and paddy fields - whizzing past, but it wasn't air conditioned, just cooled by several fans and open windows so we were pretty flustered by the time we arrived. We took a taxi to Jalan Jaksa, the budget hotel centre of Jakarta, and then checked into Hotel Tator before having a much appreciated cold shower (I haven't had a hot shower for three weeks now, not that it matters one iota in this heat) before heading out for dinner and a drink. As usual we had a wrestling match with the mozzie net when we got home (Jakarta has dengue outbreaks in the wet season).
Today we explored the city (which is the fourth biggest in the world), walking first to Soekarnho's National monument in Freedom Square. The locals call it 'Soekarhno's last erection' thanks to it's phallic shape (there's another statue south of the city of Soekarnho with a flaming dish which they call 'Pizza man.') But it is rather impressive, a huge column topped by a flame that you can travel up to get magnificent views of the city, or, as Lonely Planet puts it you can 'whizz up the shaft.' Snort, snort.
Then we walked through the street kitchens of Glodok, which is Jakarta's rundown Chinatown area, before finishing up at the old Dutch Square in Kota with it's pretty colonial buildings and the famous Cafe Batavia which opened in 1805. We popped in there for a cocktail, incredibly grateful after such a long, hot walk, for the cool, air conditioned surrounds and deep sofas, and took in the rather bizzarre spectacle of a very friendly old Indonesian singer accompanied by a grand piano and various karaoke singing tourists belting out everything from Sinatra to old Thai folk songs. Even more bewildering was that on sitting down at this very well established, fancy place with immaculate, smiley, waitresses, we were presented with two menus and a heavily framed picture plucked straight off the wall of a celebrity from the 70s in leather underwear. Neither of us have any idea why. Maybe that's just Jakarta for you!
After that we hopped in a motorised tuk tuk back to the hotel, which brings me to a few facts for all you eager fact fans out there (I know there are alot of you): Since we started this trip we have travelled by plane, car, bus, train, bike, moped, boat, horse, cyclo and tuk tuk, slept in 29 different beds and on 17 different buses. We're flying to Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh city as it's now known) tomorow, so will report next from Vietnam. Until then!
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