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India and Nepal - 1999
India was an experience and a half....amazing experiences and memories never to be forgotton. I was blessed by the dribble of a Temple elephant, had a bus accident and fought in the Holi day celebrations...
- January 1999 - Curries... to da loo
West coast - Indian ants, holy cows, beaches, surf, Hampi - January 1999 - Curries... I've wrecked my
trousers!!
Southern - Indian bureaucracy - wallets that are pick pocketed are misplaced, not stolen! Maharajas Palace - February 1999 - Dribble and temples
Posh hotel in Madras, yoga, backwater, hugging mamma, elephant dribble blessings - March 1999 - Teeth and toenails
Rajasthan, bus accident, wonderful colourful holi festival, camel safari in the desert - Nepal - lost information?!?
Anapuna circuit (>5000m!), my bday surrounded by mountains - June 1999 - Hot pools and rock munching
!
Nepal -Kayaking grade 3.5 rapids (days away from a hospital), India - heat wave, beautiful Himachal Pradesh- favourite relaxed part of India - skiing (I kid ye not!)
Curries... to da loo
January 1999
Curry bloody curry! We're slowly and rapidly getting sick of curry b'fast,
lunch and Tea - hmmm 5 months yet to go! Ants/z have also played a main
part of our life style in India: Eating lotsa them in our muesli (yum
yum! crunchy bits with the cashew nuts), and today at the Movie 'Antz'
there was a power cut halfway though the movie. Everyone started whistling
and singing?!?!!? (At least we
didn't have to stand for the National Anthem or something?)
Our first week in Goa was great! Sun, sand and cows! They're everywhere - beaches, main roads.... except where they should be - in a green field -> it's not natural! They do play an important part as the garbage disposal (no one else does it!)
We went down to the southern beaches- Benalium (sp). The room cost one quid for both of us - so the budget is looking good. Here we feasted on plenty of seafood, lassi's, and swam and body surfed the Indian Ocean. There was Volleyball on each day which was most fun, I even met someone from my home town Lower Hutt there - small world!
We dragged ourselves away from the beach (10 hour no-suspension bus ride) to Hampi. This use to be the capital in the 15 century, lotsa amazing ruins spread out over 33km to cycle around and explore. Astonishing to think that hundreds of years ago this town use to have a fully functioning sewage system, but now with all this modern technology it has open sewers and pits!!
We're now in Bangladore. This is meant to be the yuppie-ville of India so we're in for an even bigger shock than I thought when we reach Calcutta??! Apart from these small tummy troubles all is well and we're loving India and all it's glory - Temples to the West of here next b4 hitting the beach again (sad I know!)
Curries... I've wrecked my trousers!!
January 1999
What a day?!!?!?? Woke up extra early to watch NZ get destroyed by the Indians in cricket (and for this we paid an extra one pound for a room with a TV!)
We walked to the wrong bus station (there's 3) in Mysore in the heat of the day, it took us an extra hour walking past 392 beggars, 756 Lepers, 1067 cows (painted aluminous yellow?!?!) and dodging 2378 tuk tuks (Rickshaws with scalectrictic (sp?) engines!)
Boarding the bus which Jonah Lomu would struggle to get on, Stu had his pocket slashed and our wallet stolen!!! It only had about 10pound in it. The problem was it also had our tickets for tonight's super deluxe (haha) 13 hour bus journey to Cochin in it. These tickets took 2 hours of hard bureaucracy to obtain and were sadly missed!
To receive replacement tickets, we had to report the matter to the police
who pointed us to the travel agent -> Bus Stn -> Bus Stn2 ->
Police stn2 -> Bus Stn2 -> hotel (check-out) -> police stn1 ->
who made us write that the wallet had been misplaced NOT stolen?!!?!?!?
this way it would take us 3 less hours on top of the 5 we'd already spent
playing with Indians!!! The day hasn't got much better (arguments with
Tuk tuk drivers....) and we've still got the pleasant bus journey tonite
(fingers crossed ah'!)
MORE UNFORTUNATE TRAVEL STORIES FOR THOSE WHO ARE JEALOUS THAT WE'RE OVER IN INDIA...... The flight from London to Goa took 72 hours!!!! including 31 hours in Bangkok airport, missing connecting flight to Goa (paying $30 bribe to get onto a flight), a drive thru the thickest fog we've ever seen in a car with no lights @ 3am to get to Delhi airport for a 7 hour delay!!! (we're getting pretty good at sleeping in weird locations!)
However it's not all bad - we are actually having a good time! Yesterday we visited the Maharajas Palace - a stunning building quite out of place in it's surroundings!! As yesterday was a festival - it was lit up by thousands of lights (Harrods eat your heart out!) Off to the beach (yahhhhhh!) in Kerela. Don't know how long we'll be (sun tan's fading a bit!)
Dribble and temples
February 1999
Welcome to another enthralling episode of the adventures in Curry land....: Currently we're sitting next to 3 spotty Indian school boys using this fine medium of modern technology to visit soft porn!! The smiles on their faces are priceless! We're in Madras, preparing for the city celebrations. We will be staying in a posh hotel - playing with the highly modern facilities such as hot running water, clean sheets and insulated wiring! Yah!
Then we have the delights of a 30 hour train journey to Bombay! Oh joy! Actually they're not too bad - apart from a guaranteed baby crier and fat man snorer! What about the last month we hear you cry?? Well the answer's beach, beach and more beach with a few temples thrown in! (These are of course palm fringed, great surf, bril' seafood and curries and hard work leaving).
The dreaded coach journey to Cochin turned out to be comfortable. In Fort Cochin we saw Katakahli dancing, met some amusing Italian comedians filming in Madras, saw NZ destroy India in cricket and won myself 10Rs off the hotel manager in a well placed bet, and lay on the beach (of course!).
We took the backwater's down to the beaches of Kerala, met a nice ozzie lass (who we later turned into a fellow baldy - the hair clipper's strike again!). Passed by the infamous hugging mama who makes people cry and change their way of life, by hugging! After eight days of beach we decided we'd better get back to the joys of India travel.
Saw a great temple festival complete with 7 elephants, floats and dancers. It was a fine example of semi-organized chaos! Have also been blessed by elephant's who dribble on your head for 1 Ruppee - yuk!
Train to Madurai - major temple, then straight up to Kodaikanal @ 2200m. This was an old British hill station with breath taking scenery from our bedroom door and a delicious bakery with real bread! We then did a mammoth temple tour through Tamil Nadu - 3 temples and horrific train-bus-coach-car journeys getting to some ridiculous small towns at 0130am to get picked up by a friendly Indian who kindly drunk drove us at 80 km/h all the way to Pondicherry, hitting a rickshaw off the road and skidding (when possible!)
After this hardship, we decided it was time for more beach - and of course
temples - Mahabilpuram. I took up Yoga in the tranquil surroundings, and
have been practicing putting both legs behind my head!
Teeth and toenails
March 1999
At 30 hour train journey across the country from Madras to Bombay the Bollywood capital. This was a modern city with lack of cows, noise and even people cleaning the street! The outskirts however, contain some of the worst slums in India. Here we meet a really nice Dutchie couple, Saskia and Marc, and a lovely Brazilian - Carolina, who we conned into including us on their tickets to Udaipur with (or else wait two days!) This journey was 30hours and included a relaxing stop on the filthy floor of platform #7's at Amadabad train station, between 3-7am!!!
Udaipur was amazing!!! James Bond's Octupussy was filmed here - so we had to run around as 007 agents in all the forts! We had an outstanding High Tea over looking the lake in one of the Raj hotels surrounded by chandeliers, plush carpets and regal fittings - the queen wouldn't have felt out of place. Since we were in the splashing out mood, we 'Visa treated' ourselves to a dinner at the Lake Palace - one of the most famous luxury hotels in India! Wonderful food on a supa dodgy tummy!
Leaving Udaipur was also a story. The bus we were in swerved to miss
a green car and went smack bang into a stationary tree!! I was thrown
forward and hit my upper front teeth on the seat in front. The horrific
hospital in Udaipur, just gave me some painkillers, mouthwash and said
"you'll be right!!"
Good job there was a private dentist open who wanted to remove two of
my teeth - but opted for a plastic/plaster guard to support the teeth
for 2-4 months. It feels funny eating, drinking, smiling and breathing!
At 3000m up a mountain a particularly nasty tomato sandwich took a section
of my plaster off one tooth!! (meanwhile, the local dentist was performing
operations in public with a pair of pliers!!!)
When we finally got to Pushkar (after our bus broke down and another near
death/exciting journey), I bumped into someone I knew from Prague '96
and '97!!! Small world ah'! Pushkar was relaxing but we decided to push
on to Jaisalmer.
This place was a Jem!! We organized a Camel safari with our 2 Dutch friends, Kevin an American lady, and Rolf a Dane. 4 days/ 3nites of roaming through the dunes, relaxing to the sway of 'Tiger' and 'Hernia' the camels, and playing silly games around the camp fire at nite. It was a tremendous experience - especially the colossal thunder and lightening storm. This is when we were instructed to huddle under a tree!?! - Lived to tell the tale!
Once back in Jaisalmer it was the Hindi Holi festival. This involves people throwing coloured water and powder at each other to celebrate friendships. We armed ourselves with guns, bottles and balloons and took on the locals!!! We lost! and ended up very pink, red, green, purple and sparkly - one week on, we still have pink toes and fingernails. It was a great chance to see how friendly and loving the Indian people really are. (This may be due to the large quantities of Bhang ice-cream that is handed out for all to gobble with the spotlessly clean policemen looking on and smiling - we had to join in all the customs obviously!!!)
Then onto Jodpur, where we said good bye to Marc and Saskia, not before
visiting one of the
most impressive, huge forts/castles we've ever seen! We're now in Jaipur,
having spent today with Mel and Alex (Jill's friends from London who just
happen to be in the right place at the right time!) loadsa fun looking
at the Amber fort and palace and ridding tuk tuks everywhere!
Well that's about it!!!! Rajasthan has been by far the most impressive part of our Journey so far! It's beautiful and the people colourful! Next it's off to see tigers (finger's crossed!), Taj Mahal, Varanasi b4 Darjeeling and Nepal.
Nepal - lost information?!?
Anapuna circuit (>5000m!), my bday surrounded by mountains
Hot pools and rock munching!
June 1999
This time the message comes from Smellie Delhi where it's currently 44 degreesC and India is in the middle of a heat wave - 180 people dead already yet we managed to get rain, the first in 4 months by doing our washing yesterday!!! - Typical India, if something can go wrong it will!!
After Trekking in Nepal we did a 4 day Kayak clinic with a highly trained instructors (and Graeme - who did the rafting with us the week before and showed us what damage an eye can get from 'rock munching'!)
Now, some say learning to Kayak in a 3rd world nation, along a river with major rapids, with top class hospital facilities available 4 hours away isn't a particularly clever idea (but it only cost $100 for 4 days all inclusive and we're the budget lovers so so what!).
Kayaking is bloody hard work we discovered! (amazing how easy it looks on TV!). After the strong Rum punch (yet again!) on the first night our heads already felt 'rock munched'! This was b4 our first experience of swimming down rapids trying to hold onto your kayak. We survived Grade III+ rapids (just!). Stu had the most trouble in still water - he also had a serious fight with a rock on the last day - the rock won and cut above his eye which resulted in a lovely shiner! It was an absolutely knackering experience (constantly emptying kayaks full of water isn't easy) but great fun!
Jillian would like to point out to everyone that it has been almost a whole entire year since she has worked - gloat gloat I love it! Using e-mail every now and then is soooooooo hard!!
Back in Katmandu, we saw the sights, watched loadsa footie (guess who's influence>?) and drank in a real bar! yippee! A 36 hour bus/bus/train journey down to Smellie Delhi where we booked a flight with an exclusive, executive airline to Thailand. It was too hot and far too boring to hang around so we zoomed off on a 18hour bus journey up to the Indian Himalayas (3 nites out of 4 without a bed - the joys of traveling!!)
Manali/Vashisht was bliss :-) We were surrounded by snow capped mountains, great restaurants, and natural hot pools (full of hair, grime and floating skin - India comes up trumps again! - it was absolutely brilliant!!)
The best fun was going up to Rhotang pass (4000m) where the snow line is and the Indian holiday makers go to see snow!! This had to be the funniest thing we have seen since traveling!! They hire out full length fur coats and gumboot/Wellington boot (we spent 15 mins arguing about the real word for these!! - lets hear your vote!?) and stand posing behind skis pretending that they're 'Eddy the Eagle' before falling and sliding back down the slope into a yak!! and a good cup of tea!
We then spent 3 days trekking up Parvatti Valley. This was beautiful surrounded by pine forest, snowy mountains and a grade V rapids we were ready to tackle!! (amazing how easy it looks from a path!). At 3000m we sat in a sacred hot pool, eagles flying overhead, mountain views and peace and tranquility (mannnnn!) Not a bad way to end our stay in India - it is the most beautiful part of India and the place we most want to come back to.
We're going to the Taj Mahal tomorrow b4 flying out with Aeroflot?!?!?
the next day to Thailand for a bit of pampering - can't wait!!
Contact: me@jillianreichenbach.com