Exploring India, Bangladesh and Jordan.

Hello Heathrow!

2009-05-18T15:19:00.000-07:00

Well we’ve made it! The flight on Royal Jordanian was five hours and thirty minutes: the plane was fantastic, and the drinks’ service was great: they came around twice with a very gluggable white wine which was poured copiously from the bottle rather than in those measly little individual bottles! With the plush red seats and perfectly attired stewardesses, it actually eclipses our experience on Virgin Atlantic on the way out. But anyway, onto the final section of our interview:

Jon: Hello Simon

Simon: Hmm. Hello Jon.

Jon: What were your expectations of India before you went?

Simon: Oh very high actually. I had heard that Francis Grier had a spiritual experience when he visited India, and ended up staying and trying to explore Indian music and various alternative therapies. This is what I was searching for, but sadly there was nothing there, it was entirely hollow on a mystical level.

Jon: How did real India compare with your imagination?

Simon: The heady aromas of rose petals in Hindu garlands often filled the air just when we walked down the street: this was even better than the dream! But there again, there were other scents which would always compete with this: often the smoke of simple cooking fires, either burning coals or simple wood fires, and of course the smells of bodily functions which punctuate your progress down the street with every step. We were under-prepared for much of this, but we managed to take this all in our stride.

Jon: Were you particularly shocked by the poverty in Bangladesh?

Simon: At first, it was NOT self-evident. Our first experiences of Bangladesh involved the amazing scenery of West Bengal and then over the border. The flatness is VERY green, and punctuated by small settlements and massive palm trees, together with much water, either in rivers or streams. This scenery immediately evokes the world of Rabindranath Tagore, and was both serene and magical. And then our arrival in Cox’s Bazar made us wonder at the great natural scenery and the warmth of the people. It was only gradually, as we scratched away at the surface that we began to perceive the full horror of life here; yes of course it’s a third-world country, this we knew before setting out, but the reality stops you in your tracks. Even in Cox’s Bazar, just below the surface of the beach life, lies a grim and hideous reality: once beautiful streams now still and overflowing only with rotting garbage and effluent. People continuously discarding all household waste into these addits, and alongside every street, flows open sewers. All this comes as a matter of course in daily life. And then our visit to the shanty settlements, where normal life attempts to take place under great hardships. The beaming smiles of the local people tend to disguise, or at least distract from, the reality of a tiny country, barely forty years into its independence with a population of over 140 million, many of whom suffer overcrowding, poverty, starvation and arsenic poisoning.

Jon: What did you find special about Bangladesh that you can’t find in any of the other countries that we visited?

Simon: Optimism.

Jon: What was the most extreme part of the trip for you?

Simon: By extreme, perhaps you are thinking of the white-water-rafting? Well that was awesome, and we must, must, must try it again over the world. But there was something else extreme: remember the Hindu watermelon festival on Maheskhali Island?

Jon: Ummm…. Yeah?

Simon: The demonic trance of those women, that look was something I’ve never seen before; it was like possession. And I never want to see it again.

Jon: Did the Himalayas in Nepal live up to your expectations?

Simon: Up near the Tibetan border, it exceeded them. It was JUST what I was looking for (minus the monastery).

Jon: What monastery?

Simon: The one in the dream I’ve had since I was a boy, walking in the mountains of the Himalayas in breathtaking scenery and stumbling upon a little Buddhist monastery with candles, prayer wheels and chanting.

Jon: How did you feel when we were wandering lost around the Holy City of Jerusalem?

Simon: For the first time ever, found!

Jon: The Lost City of Petra was spectacular! It is one of the seven new wonders after all. But did that beat the Taj Mahal? And was there anything that particularly grabbed you in Jordan?

Simon: Yes, I think that it DID beat the Taj, by a narrow margin of course. And Jordan grabs you not by its other must-see features, but by its overall atmosphere and great people.

Jon: How does it feel to be on your way home?

Simon: Oh it’s a very special feeling, because travel doesn’t just teach you about what’s out there: it also shows you what’s inside, and what you’ve got already. We’re lucky, aren’t we?

Jon: Oh yes! Well, thanks Simon for a great trip and I really hope that the next one will be just as great!!!

Simon: I’m already off to buy another guidebook…

So thanks for following our exploits. We are glad that you all enjoyed reading up on our antics. All that remains is for a few photos to help jog our memories of some really great times. But keep watching, because who knows, before too long the intrepid duo may be off to another continent. And this time, it’s going to be REALLY extreme!

The Final Countdown!

2009-05-18T01:30:00.000-07:00

We’re on our way home at last! It’s been fantastic, but now we’re really looking forward to getting back to family life! Now that we’re back at the airport in Amman, it’s time for a little interview:

Simon: So, Jon, what are your most powerful impressions of India?
Jon: I was particularly impressed with the architecture in Mumbai as it was like stepping back a few years in London, but the more basic slums were amazing because millions of people had built their own houses from whatever materials they could find and did great jobs, actually. Jaisalmer was probably the best part of India with the sandstone fort in which we stayed and the havelis of course. Makhania lassi was plentiful and I wouldn’t mind going back for a couple, but it was the winding streets that really did it for me.
The Taj Mahal was greater than every expectation that I had. It was a huge learning curve as I never knew that the Q’ran was inscribed into the smooth marble of the monument, but I also learned that the four minarets on each corner of the Taj are designed to fall away from the centrepiece in the event of natural disasters i.e. earthquakes.
Varanasi was a unique experience; being able to see burning bodies on the ghats and floating our prayer candles in the Ganges, whilst on a small wooden boat was not to be missed.
The Indian people were not how I’d expected them to be. I had created this stereotypical vision in my head that they were all very warm and friendly. A few are. But I found that a lot of them tried to do us out of money and are very aggressive in queues and when driving. There were some very nice Indians too though, of course.
Simon: Yes, of course. And do you remember our first trip on the Indian Railways? Wasn’t that amazing?
Jon: Yep! Really cool to meet that Indian family who gave us free food, which was delicious by the way. I am really amazed at how easy the long journeys were. I found it really easy to sleep generally and it was quite comfortable. And the breeze coming in through the windows was a real treat in that scorching Indian heat!!!
Simon: How about Bangladesh, did that live up to the way you had imagined it?
Jon: I hadn’t really thought a lot about Bangladesh before. It was a place that I never thought I’d see. In certain ways, it was better than I had imagined. For a start the language is beautiful and the spoken basics are easy to pick up. The people are extremely friendly and the countryside is beautiful, but I was shocked at the state of Dhaka and the abundance of people who are in distress, fighting constantly for survival below the poverty line. Cox’s Bazar beach was amazing and I thought it seemed strange that the palm trees we’ve seen in places like Goa have been replaced by evergreens. Up in Srimangal, the cycling around the Lowacharra Forest and the tea plantations was really awesome, and I must admit that I have never tried a cup of six-layer tea before. The friends we made, Russel and Michael, were really great and I hope that we all remain in touch and that Michael in particular fulfils his dream of making it to England one day. The big downside of Bangladesh is that we ate the same food for two weeks solid due to the little variation in dishes. Daal Fry? Never again!!! (Barfs).
Simon: The way we went to Nepal quite spontaneously, that was a superb way of doing it. What struck you most about the place?
Jon: Our experience on Nagarkot was very striking and memorable. Ascending from a baking hot environment down in the large and dusty city of Kathmandu and getting caught in a wind/rain/hail storm up in the higher reaches. It was a moment that I will never forget. And the mountain bikes we hired that day were awesome and we certainly picked up speed, weaving in and out of busy Kathmandu traffic!
Lets not forget the Last Resort though, where I did my first bungee jump! Will it be my last? The surrounding Himalayan landscape there was spectacular too and I am itching to return for more trekking!
Simon: Did Delhi manage to live up to the expectations of a world-class capital city?
Jon: Where we were, not really. It was nice enough but, where our hotel was, the ground was bumpy just like we saw in poorer parts of India like Bihar. In our locality there was not much going on either, except for the amazing gym we went to and a couple of great restaurants. Maybe they put all the real cool things in old Delhi? The folklore dance show we went to was absolutely amazing though, and it was exactly what I wanted to see whilst in India!
Simon: Our chance trip into Israel, even though it was only a few days long, what did you feel about our visit to Jerusalem?
Jon: That was the best decision we ever made! On the King Hussein Bridge border crossing, it was nice to see other like-minded travellers too. I confess that I developed severe Delhi belly-ness during our time in Jerusalem, but I battled it out and I am glad because I have now been to the holiest place on the planet. I would have been really gutted if the pains had kept me in bed. It was great walking the Via Dolorosa and imagining what it was like at the time Jesus walked it, before Old Jerusalem was even built. But on the Jewish spectrum, it was great to see the Wailing Wall as I had only ever heard about it in a religious education lesson when I was at school… I never thought that I’d actually be going! And finally, the narrow and cobbled streets of Jerusalem were great just to aimlessly walk around on and get lost in.
Simon: And finally Jordan: In a single word, what’s it like spending time in an Arab country?
Jon: Sorry Simon, but one word just doesn’t do any justice! It was different to any experience I have ever had and perhaps it was the best idea coming to the Middle East on the way home! Good call!
Simon: So if you had to choose two things, one natural and the other manmade as the best aspects of our trip, what would they be?
Jon: It’s a close call between the Taj Mahal and the Lost City of Petra, though Petra wins!!! It is the most marvellous wonder I have seen on our trip! In terms of the natural phenomenons, that thunderstorm in Bangladesh was really great to walk around in! Otherwise, probably coming tops are the natural dunes of the Thar Desert in Rajasthan!
Simon: Eek, our plane is about to go! Cheers Jon, thanks very much!

What's Amman to do in Jordan?

2009-05-17T11:56:00.000-07:00

Perhaps we should have renamed this blog ‘IndiaBangladeshNepalJordanIsrael’ but would that have been a bit of a mouthful? Well it’s certainly had plenty of unexpected moments! Often it’s been the unplanned bits which have been the most thrilling and fascinating. Today is our last full day, and we spent it in Amman Downtown. It’s great looking forward to coming home, but things aren’t quite over yet. So look out tomorrow for our final blog entries, and you never know, we might even do a summary of all the best bits, with some photos you’ve not even seen yet!

Today reached even greater gastronomic heights: we went to Habibah, which is THE best cake shop in the whole of Jordan. I like a bit of cake. We indulged in chocolate cake, cheesecake, chocolate éclairs, washed down with lemon tea and Arabic coffee. It just so happened that Habibah also sells fantastic ice cream, so it would have been foolish not to have sampled lots, purely for the sake of research of course. We tried chocolate, cream, mango and lemon ice cream. After some serious shopping, it was time for fresh orange juice. We found a great juice bar on a busy street corner close to the largest mosque in Downtown, where a huge glass of tasty and refreshing juice which he squeezed right there and then cost only 1 JD. Next week we’re going to invest in juicers, that’s for sure!

The Desert Highway

2009-05-16T10:28:00.000-07:00

What a stroke of luck! Last night, the owner of the hostel said that a car was going back to Amman at 9.00 a.m. and that it would cost us only 20 JD. At 9 sharp, we met Ali, who was a very cheerful and light-hearted soul who bundled us into his Toyota and thus we began the three-hour slog northwards along the Desert Highway towards Amman.
The roads were all so straight and each stretch seemed to reach the horizon and beyond, excluding where small desert mountains popped up here and there. On our right, admittedly rather along way past the horizon, was Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
Ali, our driver, handed us a card, which gave details on one of the many hotels in Downtown Amman. It was much better value than what we had an idea of, based on what we were recommended in Wadi Musa. The room we are staying in costs 10JDs per night; it is a twin room and breakfast is included. We were expecting to pay 18JDs per night without breakfast, so we feel very lucky.
Besides our travel from Wadi Musa to Amman, not much else was going on today, so we trekked up the steep ascent from Downtown Amman to Mango Street, where there is a fantastic café. It looks like a popular hangout for like-minded travellers and, although the drinks are way, way, way overpriced, it comes with free wireless internet access, which kind of works. Sometimes.
We're sitting on the terrace watching the lights twinkle on one of the seven hills of the city, eating great food: Caesar Salad, fettucine with a creamy mushroon sauce and huge pizza. Why not Arabic today? It's cosmopolitan here, with awesome music on the sound system, and after all, we played two games of chess earlier in a locals coffee-den. Happy days!

Little Petra

2009-05-16T10:22:00.000-07:00

Actually, we will not be making it to the Dead Sea because the King of Saudi Arabia has decided to pay Jordan a visit. I don’t know why they have to close off all access to the Dead Sea just because he is here, but what can we do? And what, exactly, makes him MORE important than us?
Today though, things were looking up for Jon and he was feeling a lot better since taking his medicine, so we teamed up with another man called Baz who was staying at the hotel and we took a taxi to a place known as ‘Little Petra’.
As we left the hotel and walked downwards towards town, we flagged down a taxi and prepared ourselves for some hard bargaining.
We asked the driver “How much to Little Petra and back?”
“Oh… It is seven JDs there and seven back, plus I wait there for one hour, so twenty-five JDs.”
The JD (Jordanian dinar) is roughly the same strength as the British pound. Through winding roads of steep ups and plummeting downs we sped in the taxi, gazing out at the marvellous rock formations that surrounded the Lost City of Petra and extended all the way to the horizon.
To cut a long story short, we ended up going to Little Petra for fifteen JDs (not twenty five) and we spent about an hour-and-a-half there, wondering through deep, sandy gorges where rivers probably once gushed water in between the natural, sand-coloured, rock formations.

Lizards scurried across the sand as we explored by walking through the ravine and climbing up rocks, with spectacular views each time, without fail. Baz and Jon revelled in the ascent up to the fantastic view-point, and Simon made it there eventually, if a little miffed…

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

2009-05-16T10:18:00.000-07:00

Today we didn’t exactly make it to Wadi Rum. This place we’ve chosen to hole up in is just SO laid back we can’t seem to break out! Sometimes, local politeness can be astonishing: the shopkeeper just a few moments walk away is always helpful and refreshingly welcoming. After giving us a knockdown price on some bread, he repeated “Yes, you are most welcome; very welcome; you are welcome, enjoy your day; you are very welcome!” The furthest out that we went today was down to the local convenience store to get some breakfast and then to the pharmacy, where Jon got a hefty wad of pills against travellers’ diarrhoea and amoebic dysentery. Jon is not one for going to the doctors easily, but it finally clicked after going to the toilet every half an hour or so for the last six days, that he needed some treatment.
Moving on, the terrace is a great place to meet other travellers and exchange tales of mysterious locations the world over, for Petra is one of those magnetic draws which attracts fascinating people from all over the globe.
Our first character this afternoon was meant to be on a plane back home to California, but instead had decided to begin the next chapter of his life right here. And what a fascinating life, taking in the setting up of a school in rural Burma, as well as travels in South East Asia, Nepal and Spain. Good conversation always tends to draw in worthy participants, and soon another transatlantic guy was relating to us his odyssey from Egypt, via Jordan all the way to Taiwan.
An Australian also joined the group, but was strangely cagey when we asked him where he lived now. “Somewhere else” came the blunt reply. As we all started on the all-you-can-eat buffet (yes, you’ve now guessed the REAL reason we’re still here…) the conversation turned incomprehensibly peculiar. “Do you speak Swedish?” said American 2 to Australian 1. “No, but I live there and my mother is Lutheran”. How weird. American 2 then announced that he was going to live in Sweden because he could get citizenship because his father was Lutheran, although he had never been there. This would have baffled us all night if we had not quickly cottoned on to the fact that they were talking in code. For these guys were really talking about Israel and their Jewish parentage. How careful people need to be, even in Jordan!
There’s one other little fella we met here at the hostel. He’s so curious for everything he even once ended up marooned inside the rubbish bin!

Then it was time to go to the movies. What was showing? Well, ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’ of course, for the real star of the film is the Lost City of Petra. After the movie, we saw the girl at reception. “Can we stay tomorrow night as well please?” Ah well, we’ll make it to the Dead Sea eventually…

Wadi Musa

2009-05-13T08:56:00.000-07:00

Why are the guidebooks so tough on poor Wadi Musa? It’s a great hillside town, with the echo of an amphitheatre, which magnifies the glorious calls to prayer, which punctuate the day. Here, the muezzins seem to intertwine their beautiful songs, both with the other mosques, and with their own chanting. Sitting on the balcony under a Bedouin tent, feeling the gentle breezes wafting across the valley, watching the sun move downwards towards the mountains of Petra and listening to the funky Arabic music as we await another tasty all-you-can-eat-buffet: well, this is as close as we have made it to paradise so far on this adventure! So, after our day of exploration around Petra yesterday, what, exactly, have we done today? Absolutely nothing!
Well, that’s not entirely true, but even intrepid travellers sometimes need days in their busy schedules when they are not haring around from A to B, or looking at the must-sees of B, or jumping off B… So today we decided just to sit back and chill! But before the big chill, we desperately needed to get our hands on some cash. Jordan is surprisingly expensive, and everybody seems to round prices up, which means that we have, admittedly, been caught out on money.
Simon had trouble getting cash in exchange for his travellers’ cheques today. The banker was very reluctant and, infact, refused to exchange them for him because Simon didn’t have the receipt slip with the cheque denominations and numbers written down. The banker later noticed the unmarked receipt, upon which Simon should have written the cash values down and stowed away somewhere, but he still refused to carry out the exchange. Must be a security thing. Without cash, Simon foresaw a tricky scenario, so much miffage then ensued!
We left the bank and Jon grabbed Simon’s bag and took out the travellers’ cheques, the unmarked receipt and a pen, and he copied the serial numbers from the cheques to the receipt, not forgetting to write the cash denominations as well. We returned to the bank and presented the newly marked receipt and Simon got his cash. So, the banker’s routine wasn’t very secure at all really, because anybody could have done it! Well, this team strikes again!
Although Jordan seems to be very expensive, can it be that this is the price that we have to pay to be in such a beautiful location? We may very well treat ourselves to yet another day of chillage tomorrow, for soon our programme is to encompass the Wadi Rum in all its glory (site of much Lawrence of Arabia shenanigans) and the Dead Sea. So keep your eyes peeled for more antics and special pictures!

Petra by Day

2009-05-13T06:57:00.000-07:00

We’ve changed hostels and are now ensconced at the place Jon originally found on the internet back in January and also recommended by Willem and Renne. It’s more central and with a great vibe, with lots of interesting guests. And the food is awesome, but all in good time: more about all that later!
Seeing Petra by night FIRST was probably a good strategy, like only gradually revealing something: first in the dark where details, colours, the size of the siq (gorge) are all impossible to make out properly. But now in the morning light, WHAT a revelation!

The journey down the siq was punctuated by donkeys and horse carriages going about their early morning business.

When Burckhardt first clapped eyes on this majestic city, he must have had just the same feeling that we had. And when the words ‘rose-red city half as old as time’ were penned by Burgon, what a feeling of expectation the poet must have undergone, for he had to wait another fifteen years to see the great Treasury, the magnificent ruins and the beautiful, multicoloured marbling in the golden sandstone. Well, ‘rose-red’ it actually isn’t, but does that matter one jot?

Our experiences so far on this epic adventure have taken in some of the most spectacular scenery in the world in Nepal, the great Taj Mahal, the world’s longest beach, countless palaces and forts and the holiest place on Earth. Where does Petra rank alongside all this? Well, it’s certainly an experience of a lifetime, that’s for sure! Infact, it was so breathtaking that we actually visited the site three times in all. The nearby marbled sandstone was particularly impressive!

We were very careful in avoiding swarms of tourists. It paid to wake up at six o’clock because we were able to view all that we could in a more natural environment and we could hear the odd birdsong as we strolled down into the Lost City of Petra. The Treasury itself stood magnificently as the sun rose to bathe the top section, shining down obliquely, leaving the lower sections shaded by the surrounding rocks.

Jordanian food is fantastic! We sat down to the all-you-can-eat buffet and were amazed at the variety and the choices. There are twenty-five different types of salad alone! We filled our plates high and returned a number of times to sample many unique and enjoyable tastes. What Arabic cuisine can do with an aubergine would take an entire blog entry in itself! The humble lentil and the simple chickpea are also transformed in this style of cooking, and a basic chopped tomato salad was lifted with the inclusion of some chopped red chillies. A variety of dips with cucumber provided a cooling effect, and cous-cous had chopped mint for some extra ‘zing’. A couple of different pasta dishes completed the buffet, one of which was plain macaroni and the other was jazzy-tasting spaghetti that had flavoursome tomato every now and again.

Petra by Night

2009-05-13T06:45:00.000-07:00

The gruelling bus journey with the rancid toilet stop may have been enough to put anybody off. Not us though! And what the evening had in store for us made it all completely worthwhile.
But first of all, we learned a valuable lesson. No matter how brilliant the guidebook says the hotel is, never check into one that is situated right out of town. The chap at the reception was very friendly. “Salaam alykom”, he greeted heartily with a wide smile. We felt very welcome! “Walykom asalaam”, we chorused in response. The journey from this hostel into Wadi Musa was a fair old hike: downhill all the way, but a crippling climb to get back! The taxi service in the area is hilarious: they quote us three JDs just for a short ride, then get offended when we offer just one JD, then look quizzical when we say “Ok, we’ll walk then instead” as our stock response when they refuse to do it for the one dinar. Half of them immediately relent and we get in; the other half drive away empty…
That evening, before our famous duo went out to visit the Lost City of Petra by candlelight, they decided to ‘go native’.

Jon elected to disguise himself as a Jordanian Bedouin, whilst Simon decided to go Palestinian. Do you think that they were able to blend into the scenery? Or did countless Jordanian men stop them and rearrange the headgear into the correct manner?

On the way down into the depths of the Wadi Musa valley towards the legendary Petra, the sun sank behind the phenomenal rock formations of the desert landscape.

Few people are privileged enough to visit the Siq and Treasury of Petra after nightfall, and to do this by the light of 1,700 candles is a truly magical experience. We were accompanied by a crowd of roughly two hundred people, but we fell back away from the crowd so we could hear the night time noises of the gigantic gorge on the way to the Treasury. Following the warm, yellow glow of the candles was equally as great, turning each old bend in the ravine.

And then, unexpectedly, there through the next tall fissure in the rocks of the siq, without warning and looming majestically upwards yet still concealed by the rock so that we can only see a fraction of the main façade, there is the Treasury. It’s massive. Much, much bigger than we had at first imagined. How stunning this sight must have been to those weary travellers two-thousand years ago, and how stunning right now to these two weary travellers as it begins to materialise through the candlelight. As we approach, everybody else is still and silent, sitting on the ground listening to Bedouin musicians. Suddenly, from far within the Treasury, there floats down the distant sound of a simple flute. This flute incantation gradually becomes more rhythmic, more hypnotic and mesmerising as the player gradually moves towards us and the impressionistic sounds slowly become more distinct.

As luck would have it, some Brazilians were filming there and Jon got into conversation with one of them. It turned out that they were from São Paulo and they were filming some kind of professional documentary for the television. The young lady, with whom Jon was talking, suddenly pulled her cameraman towards him and shoved a microphone to his face. At this stage, Jon didn’t know what to say in English, let alone Portuguese. Anyway, we think that he will be on Brazilian TV soon. It could only happen to Jon!

Downtown Amman

2009-05-13T06:33:00.000-07:00

As we set out from the Old City of Jerusalem on a chilly but sunny Sunday morning, all the bell towers of the churches tolled joyfully as a summons to prayer, just as the muezzins had done the night before, each one competing for supremacy! But we did not have time to linger, for our goal was, in the words of The Seekers, to move on and cross that Jordan River.
We managed to take a rapid ‘Sherut’ (or in the Jordanian equivalent, ‘Serveece’, which is a shared taxi with a fixed fare for each person) back to the King Hussein Bridge, or Allenby Bridge, as the Israelis call it. In order to get out of Israel (or to be more accurate, the Occupied Territories, for Israel has only claimed this land since the conflict of 1967) we had to pay the sum of one-hundred-and-sixty-one Shekels. Already.
The Jordanian Immigration didn’t really even take place at all, for of course we hadn’t really left Jordan at all, and after all, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem still appears of the twenty Jordanian Dinar bank note. By coincidence (or fluke) we met up again with a young Dutch couple who had been with us on the outward journey to Israel, and as they too were travelling back to Amman, we decided to share a serveece together back into the city.
“Where are you staying?”, they asked us.
“We haven’t booked into a hostel yet, so we still don’t know”, shrugged a confused Simon.
In an instant, Willem was on the phone to his sister, who is currently living in the centre of Amman. We couldn’t understand what the conversation was about… It was all double Dutch to us, although didn’t Jon say “Ik spreek vloient Nederlands” to them earlier? Well, Willem hung up the phone and he gladly said that we could stay the night in his sister’s student apartment. Great! It just so happened that one of the students sharing the apartment is away until the end of May, so we crashed in her room.
And so the afternoon was given over to a full exploration of Downtown Amman. We started by walking from Rainbow Street to Mango Street, where we found the most amazing bookshop with a funky upstairs café to while away an hour or so. Here we drank some more of the Middle East’s fantastic signature beverage: it’s called ‘fresh orange juice’. We also had the world’s best strawberry milkshake, which contained a strawberry syrup-juice right at the bottom of the glass, giving a different flavour and texture as you sucked whilst moving the straw up and down through the drink.
Another tradition throughout the Middle East is to smoke flavoured tobacco through what is commonly called a “shisha”. There are no drugs inside the tobacco; the only thing different is that this particular tobacco tasted like cherry. It is to be smoked by breathing through the mouthpiece on the long hose, which is attached to a large glass compartment that has water inside. Lying above the water in a small metal case is the tobacco itself, which is then covered by tin foil on which burning hot coals rest. As one takes a puff, the sound of whirling bubbles going through the water creates the final authentic touch to being inside a Middle Eastern bar/café. All I can say is that it just had to be done!

Feeling curious, the four of us trundled into the busy shopping district with a local electrical engineer/media enthusiast, called ‘Blue’. He is a friend of Rian (Willem’s sister) and he showed us to a few souvenir shops, where the Dutch couple bought themselves a shisha!
Feeling peckish, we headed for a falafel sandwich and some chips. It was all very good, but the sandwiches were so big that Jon couldn’t eat a whole one, so Simon gobbled it instead. Rian was to receive a surprise present for putting her brother up for a few weeks: a table for the flat, so off we headed to a fascinating part of town specialising in second-hand furniture. With the table safely stowed on a delivery van with Willem navigating back to Rainbow St., the rest of us set off on a white-knuckle taxi ride back to the flat. Jon took the front seat with the driver, safely belted up, with Simon, shisha and Renné, Willem’s better half, in the back. Pulsating Arabic rock and radio announcements blared out of the car’s stereo as we sped across Amman at that twilight time of evening where the stones of the city reflect the orange of the setting sun and the mosques seem to spring into life once more.

We all watched the taxi metre as it slowly made its way upwards towards one whole JD! Taxi rides across town are great value here. But then as we hurtled along a dual carriageway, a large, ominous black Mercedes pulled out from a small side street and began to make its way in our direction. What happened next probably took place in under one second, but as we later discussed it, we all remember the whole incident unfolding before us in slow motion, like a frozen ballet. The elderly Mercedes driver had completely misjudged his angle of turning and which lane he wanted, and probably hadn’t even seen our taxi bearing down upon him from his left. CRUNCH*!*! as our taxi driver swerved to HIS left to avoid the collision, but this took us into a concrete central reservation wall. The Merc continued to veer left as well, sandwiching us between the wall and the Stuttgart armoury. The air filled with the sound of grinding metal as we decelerated to a standstill in a remarkably short period of time. Silence. The taxi driver was in such shock that he was speechless and motionless. What a lucky escape: we walked away unhurt!
Tomorrow we start early, for we have a long journey southwards: the lost city of Petra awaits us!

A quick message to Janet!

2009-05-09T22:46:00.000-07:00

You were wondering if we would find lassi in the Middle East... Well, so far we have not discovered any, but we have found something that we appreciate much more at the moment! On the side of just one of the many winding streets within the Old City walls, we stumbled across freshly squeezed orange juice. We realised that this was not to be missed as we saw the tower of large, tempting oranges alongside his juicer. This fresh orange juice was no doubt the best we have ever tasted! X

Via Dolorosa

2009-05-09T21:38:00.000-07:00

The way of suffering. It was along this route that Jesus last walked before his crucifixion. Through winding streets of sandy limestone cobbles, typical of Old Jerusalem, it was fascinating to involve ourselves fully by following in Jesus Christ’s final footsteps. The Via Dolorosa has fourteen stations, each of which bear significance to the day of the Crucifixion, around the year AD 30.

From nearby the starting point of the Via Dolorosa, we stood in awe as we gazed towards the Mount of Olives. The first station is tricky to locate, in the middle of an Islamic school, whilst the second is somewhere at the ‘Ecce Homo’ convent. But at the Chapel of the Flagellation we arrived at a significant time: the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. For just a few moments we joined the small group meditating in the Real Presence and we realised that this was THE perfect start to our walking of the Way of the Cross, for Christ wasn’t just here two thousand years ago, he was here right now! The third station is marked by a small Polish chapel where we had earlier witnessed a violent fight, right infront of five armed police, whilst we were then able to continue underground to the fourth station, where we once again found a small chapel with the Blessed Sacrament, this time displayed in a stunningly vivid and modern way.

At the fifth station, we saw where Simon of Cyrene carried the cross for Jesus, whilst at the sixth station, Veronica received his image. The seventh station is marked by a tiny chapel built into the wall of a souq: during the 1^st century this was at the edge of the city and from here a gate led out into the countryside. Therefore the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was certainly situated ‘without a city wall’, and our visit to the true site of Calvary seemed all the more probable. At the eighth station Jesus met with the Daughters of Zion, whilst at the ninth station, a Coptic church conceals a massive underground water cistern where we discovered a fantastic echo.

For the remaining five stations, we entered the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Much of this building is in the control of the Greek Orthodox community, and it is certainly a wonderful experience to explore, complete with the smells of incense, the flicker of candlelight, the magnificent oil lamps and the lavish decorations in silver and gold. We ascended to the site of the Crucifixion and lingered at the chapel on the spot where Christ died, marvelling at the many candles and looking directly down onto the bedrock of Calvary to the place where the crosses were anchored into the ground.

Downstairs again, we witnessed the close of an Orthodox liturgy in the main part of the building, complete with numberless monks, nuns and priests. Joining the queue to enter the site of the tomb, we heard the singing of various traditions of Christianity, from the Franciscans, to some simple chanting of Eastern Orthodox priests, whilst echoing round the building was the sonorous Byzantine melismas of the Greeks.

And then we had reached the head of the queue and suddenly there we were, crouching slightly to enter the tiny chamber illuminated by multicoloured oil lamps on the ceiling on the way in, and solely by devotional candles as we knelt. Were we really here? It seemed so unreal. But there before us was a stone slab, perhaps on the exact place of the Resurrection. But this building has undergone sacking, earthquake and fire. And of course, we are still assuming that St. Helen herself had identified the correct location back in the fourth century. But if not the exact location, we were certainly closer to the tomb of Christ than we had ever been on any other day of our lives, and so this place for us was the holiest spot on the planet.

Ye Old Trip to Jerusalem

2009-05-09T21:25:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been to Nottingham, where there is an ancient inn with the name ‘Ye Old Trip to Jerusalem’? Here is their website: www.triptojerusalem.com

Well, you will doubtless be as surprised as we were to find out what has happened to us next on our epic journey of discovery!

But first, a little summary of our final few hours in Delhi and onwards to the Middle East.

We arrived with many hours to spare at the airport, so that we could relax and enjoy all the facilities of the departure lounge. At this point, we were perplexed to see the long queues simply to gain access to the check-in zones. We were eventually herded to the front of the line and told to go away by a security officer with a machine gun. Apparently people are only permitted into the building no more than three hours prior to the departure time of their flights. We had arrived eight hours ahead of time, and were waved over the road to a pokey little area with uncomfortable seats and a food hall serving reheated slices of pizza. After some games of chess (in which, incidentally Jon adopted some startlingly new, aggressive tactics which resulted in a 2-0 victory for him) we were asked to leave even this area because we were occupying a table. Simon commented to the restaurant manager in a rather brusque way his opinion of this policy. On our way to the second attempt at penetrating the check-in zone, a very pretty but unbelievably rude young lady again tried to stop us. Once past her, another security guard attempted to fob us off once more, but Simon was having none of it. “Go away”, said the guard, by now worn down by the persistence of the weary travellers, pointing them in the direction of the other security guard. Perhaps the next one would be more of a soft touch?

Staff training SHOULD become a priority at this airport in the very near future. More specifically, training the armed guards to read and understand an airline ticket. It’s not rocket, is it? This final guard was completely flummoxed by the concept of an e-ticket and by the idea of a stopover. He was unable to ascertain even the dates on which we were to fly. Simon adopted the tactic of repeating over and over again the same, simple information, in a very forthright manner. Eventually the guard realised the only way to get rid of us was to let us pass. And pass we did, into what can only be described as the paradise of the Indira Gandhi International Airport. Check-in was smooth and perfect, as was our passage through security and into the comfort of the departure lounge. Perhaps this must count as one of our best ever experiences the world’s airports?

The Royal Jordanian flight was on a brand-new Airbus A-319, painted in ‘One World’ alliance colours. There were very few passengers, and a very helpful and attentive crew on the six hour flight to Amman, during which there was a great breakfast service, followed by cakes with tea and coffee. On reading the in-flight magazine, we quickly realised that we were not to be the only important visitors to Amman that morning: Pope Benedict XVI was also arriving in town! But would we get to see him?

Our onward plans within Jordan took an unexpected turn: yes, we WILL get to explore Jordan, as you will soon find out, but first, something else was beckoning. Something with deep spiritual significance.

Many people visit India for its spiritual and mystic qualities. Perhaps the holy Hindu city of Varanasi offers a certain depth to travellers seeking a profound experience. Or perhaps the meeting with Buddhist monks and the visiting of Buddhist monasteries gives the weary traveller a glimpse of some spiritual peace. But for us, these expected experiences didn’t quite happen. There was something quite alien and false about the mumbo-jumbo of Hindu practices we had witnessed, both in India and Nepal, whilst this emptiness also seemed to be at the heart of Buddhism. Strangely, we longed for a fix of some Christianity.

And so as we smoothly negotiated our passage through the Queen Alia Airport in Jordan, buying our Jordanian visas and getting our hands on some Jordanian Dinars, we decided on exactly where to head next!

“Taxi!”

“Where you go?”

“The King Hussein Bridge!”

This border crossing would then be just a short shared taxi ride from our goal. Exiting Jordan was perfectly simple. Gaining entry to the most security-conscious country on Earth was to prove far trickier and far more time consuming. Would it be worth it?

After much queuing, multiple passport inspection, disinfection, photography, finger-print taking, answering of personal and intrusive questions (for which, incidentally, Jon took the lead with his diplomatic expertise…) we were in. “Welcome to Israel”, beamed the pretty young lady.

We passed right by Jericho, then saw signs for Ramallah and Bethlehem: we were in the heart of the West Bank, and the beautiful scenery of the side of the rift-valley was often punctuated by heartbreakingly simple Palestinian shanty settlements. Then on the hillsides, the Israeli developments came into view: apartments with balconies juxtaposed with massive concrete walls, redolent of East Berlin. And then on the top of a hill, the campanile of a church. Once through a long road tunnel, the scenery all changed: here was a massive city. And suddenly there was the Dome of the Rock as we looked down upon the Holy City. Our first view of Jerusalem was spectacular!

Dropped off by the Damascus gate, we marvelled at the scope and size of the city walls as we headed into the Old City with its different quarters: Arabic quarter, Jewish quarter, Christian quarter, Armenian quarter and so on. And later we marvelled at the moonlight casting its beams over the white limestone of the magnificent fortifications.

We stumbled across the Golden Gate Hostel, a converted mediaeval brewery, and couldn’t believe our luck in finding a small room complete with exposed ancient brickwork and a gothic-vaulted ceiling. And then out to explore in the streets of the Old City, with its myriad, teeming bazaars selling all manner of goods from tempting sweets, to pungent and aromatic spices, to souvenirs, ancient icons and carvings, oil lamps and textiles. How magnificent!

The muezzins began their call to prayer, each mosque interweaving and intermingling with the sounds of the others to create an otherwordly, slow harmony. And as the sun began to cast its final, golden rays of Friday afternoon sun onto the stonework, we found our way to a small balcony overlooking the Wailing Wall. Making our way down onto the Plaza we mingled with vast numbers of Orthodox Jews as Shabbat commenced, and covering our heads as a mark of respect we made our way over to touch the sacred wall. Later, as darkness descended we passed hundreds (possibly thousands) of Orthodox Jews as they walked in procession out through the Damascus Gate. What a memory of a lifetime!

Fitness First

2009-05-07T14:37:00.000-07:00

Starting the day with a huge, delicious breakfast was the best thing that we could have done. This was to be a day of strenuous activity. We began by walking a great distance, browsing through the bazaars and stopping in at various cafés. Once again we spent a good time in the Saravana Bhavan where we tried a selection of tasty drinks (and onion bhajis!). The bhajis were accompanied with the best curry sauce that we have had throughout the whole of our journey, the only problem with it was that there wasn’t enough! Back to the fluids though: we had carrot juice (that’s as orange as drinks go!) and fresh lime soda, which came with some sweet syrup in case we didn’t want it too bitter.
As we were mooching through the small handicraft bazaars, the multi-tonal sound of frantic bongo beats crept up behind us. This reminded us of yesterday, when we were followed by a young lad playing one of his many bongos skilfully as he tried to make sales. When we looked around we found that it was the same persistent chap and that he was having a second go at selling us a drum for one-thousand-two-hundred rupees or so. We continued exploring the stalls, wandering in and out of shops, but, without fail, he would always be outside waiting patiently. And then the funky rhythms would begin all over again.
Come the evening, we found just what we had been looking for all day, to cure an immense feeling of exercise deprivation. Infact, we hadn’t been to any gyms for the whole of the trip, so we seized the moment and had a blast. When enquiring about the entrance fees, we found that it was pretty expensive. It was almost six-hundred rupees per person, but to our surprise the manager admitted two of us for the price of one. The gym was amazing: full of fantastic machines, complete with a sauna, steam room and loads of people. The atmosphere was buzzing and, in some corners, it was as if people were treating the gym as a social event rather than just a work out. All in the medium of English… Was this the Delhi high-society?
A cycling class was taking place just as we entered, so in we went for one hour of intense pain. The young Indian woman instructing the class was a barrel of laughs and she was really enjoying her job. Her smiles never stopped coming and she was forever singing with the music. We were pleasantly surprised that the classes and general announcements at the gym are spoken in English, which meant that we knew what to do and when we had to leave the gym. In previous parts of the journey, we have been slightly left in the dark on things like bus journeys where they only made announcements in Hindi, or Bengali during our time in Bangladesh.
We enjoyed the other machines in the gym too, whilst we were training independently. Time went by unbelievably fast, and before we knew it, we had completed two-and-a-half solid hours of intensive, gruelling exercise. I have been missing that!
The drinks’ corner provided complimentary soft drinks, so we took a Mirinda out onto the roof of the gym to watch the pulsating night-time cityscape of Delhi unfolding beneath us, with its glitzy lights and frenetic traffic. What a cosmopolitan area Connaught Place is!
As we tried to leave, the doormen erupted into a mighty argument involving pushing, punching and raised voices. “Call security”, said Simon, helpfully. “They ARE Security”, sniggered the manager, adding: “These poor Indians, they have no education, so this is how they behave!” He himself, of course, was Indian to the core.
After a stroll around the immense circle of Connaught Place, we discovered ‘Shanghai Express’. Curried-out once more, it came as a welcome relief to tuck into some amazing oriental food: a flavoursome roasted-garlic soup, and a Thai style soup with coconut milk and red curry paste really hit the spot, whilst a chop suey gave a great post-exercise hit. Just to spoil your perception of the Chinese cuisine, chop suey is actually an American concoction and was not actually invented by the Chinese. It originated in a San Francisco diner in the nineteenth century, when the owner received some hungry last minute guests. With only a few leftover vegetables and some noodles, his creativity sparked as he threw the lot into a huge wok, creating a wonderful tasting dish.
And then back at the hotel, it began to dawn on Simon what was happening: Tim and Tom, take note! Wouldn’t it be ironic to have journeyed through the entirety of South Asia and NOT have contracted ‘Delhi-Belly’, only to have arrived in Delhi at the end, and fall victim to this nasty little affliction? For the full story, we need to rewind just a little:
At breakfast on our first morning in the capital, after paying the bill, Simon had a peculiar verbal exchange with the waiter. He tendered the EXACT money to pay the bill, yet the waiter seemed perplexed by this strategy. “No tips?” mumbled the irate steward. “No tips!” confirmed our traveller. “Where you from?” continued our café assistant, before the duo chirped in unison: “England!”
“England: rich country”, observed the waiter as he stumbled away, and Simon tried to add: “India: poor country spending too much on its space and nuclear programmes to help the poor.” But it was all in vain; he had disappeared before the first words were out. We didn’t think much more of it, but slightly in guilt, we tipped reasonably for the subsequent two breakfasts.
But yesterday, Simon ordered a very enjoyable Mango Lassi. As he sucked enthusiastically at the straw to hoover up the last remaining mouthfuls from the bottom of the glass, there it was, forlornly staring up at him. An ice cube. The others had melted, leaving the final, incontrovertible evidence for all to see. Now we can only surmise how the ice made it into Simon’s lassi, and whether or not this ice was made from sterilised water would be very hard to prove. And the biggest suspicion: that the waiter had put it there deliberately to cause the convulsions of agony as a means of punishing the tight-fisted bourgeois westerner: well this must remain pure speculation. BUT, intrepid travellers beware, and learn from the mistakes of the ‘India, Bangladesh (plus Nepal) and Jordan’ explorers. Exploring on YOUR behalf: NEVER, never, never get complacent, and NEVER let your guard down as the finishing line approaches.
And so here we sit at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, awaiting our flight to Amman on Royal Jordanian Airlines. For the trip is far, far from over: the next exciting instalment awaits us!

Delhi Delights

2009-05-07T00:36:00.000-07:00

Our walk along Janpath and around the Rajpath area revealed the immense scale of Sir Edwin Lutyens’ plans for New Delhi: this must equal or surpass Paris, London and Washington in its pretense of grandeur. But the most powerful image was that of two Indias: the one with its massive boulevards and vast, imperial buildings including the triumphal arch; the other, right beside it, of grinding poverty, squalor and social deprivation. Right now, at the time of national, presidential elections, we wonder what, if anything, could be done? On our way to this elegant part of town, we passed the headquarters of the Marxist Party of India…
We gave ourselves a well-deserved pit-stop at a branch of Saravana Bhavan, a South Indian café where the Dil Kushi Lassi was just like the Rajasthani Makhania Lassi we used to rave about, with its candied fruit and rosewater. The flavour of this drink was satisfyingly sharp so as to pummel the tastebuds into submission!
We then formed the core of a tiny, but highly appreciative audience at a magnificent show: folk dances of India! To get there we hopped into a CNG and headed for a complex, which forms the centre of the Parsi community of Delhi. We thought about the Towers of Silence that Roma mentioned to us when we were in Mumbai: maybe they are here too? The Parsis do not normally cremate or bury their deceased loved ones. Instead they leave them on the rooftop where vultures may devour the corpses.
The folklore was truly excellent and we felt that our mission to connect with Indian music was accomplished! There were traditional dances from many of India’s states. The beautiful women, dressed in their colourful saris, completed the image of real India but also the men who, depending on which type of dance, wore turbans or were rapidly and rhythmically beating bongos. Accompanying these wonderful dancers was the tabla player, who was probably the best drummer we have ever heard! He is likely to be over seventy, but he certainly hasn’t lost any of his ability to control the dancers with intricate and brilliant cross-rhythms. Let’s not forget the gentleman singing who seemed to pitch his notes perfectly. The women looked very happy and their smiles shone out towards each other and also to the audience as they frantically spun themselves around in circles, interweaving between one another.

An unexpected talent was the solo ‘Devil Stick’ juggler, who used two thin drumsticks to control a larger baton as he whirled around the stage. It was amazing to see him angle his body precisely as he twirled the baton behind his back, under his legs and high into the air. This talented individual also was the star of another dancing act, more specifically a drumming duet. The two drummers were busting out complex rhythms whilst jumping majestically into the air and around in circles, with their heads closer to the floor than their feet at times. It was an all round superb performance!

As we left the building we were thrilled to shake the tabla player’s hand and congratulate him on providing such stunning music. “Danyavaad”, said Jon, which means thank you. He responded to us both, “Namaskar”.

Back into India: Delhi!

2009-05-05T08:47:00.000-07:00

After a great week in Nepal, which certainly wasn’t enough, the time came to go to Delhi where we will be spending the next four days. We were originally going to take the bus from Kathmandu to the Indian border and proceed to Delhi by train, but the current high risk of violent strikes increased the likelihood of roads being closed. We sought advice from various travel companies in Kathmandu and most of them suggested another bus route to the same border crossing, which sounded absolutely fine until we discovered that the journey would last for fifteen hours. We learned from our last grueling bus journey that fifteen hours probably means about twenty-two or so. Alas we decided to play safe and take a flight, which lasted for just an hour.
But before the afternoon flight on Jet Lite, there was time to hit the Kathmandu streets once more, for some last-minute souvenir shopping: this town really is an Aladdin’s Cave of Himalayan treasures! In the street some days ago we had met a flute-seller, with his beautiful wooden transverse flutes inlaid with Nepali decoration. He wouldn’t really take no for an answer, and would appear magically infront of us at five minute intervals. I suppose our first mistake when he originally crossed our path was to take up two of his carved instruments and to have a mini jam-session right there in the street: he knew he’d hook us eventually. Gradually his price came down from Rs 1,000 to Rs 200. But did we really need a delicate flute to carry in our backpacks? So that day, we declined, declined and declined, and walked on with money intact. But now here he was again, sporting his massive grin and beckoning us to buy his wares.
Doing business with Hindus can sometimes be advantageous. We have managed to work out that they have a handy little superstition that the first sale of the day is a gift from the gods, and promises more sales to them as the day goes on. This first sale is always accompanied by the kissing of money and the rubbing of a grubby bank note on the forehead, along with other ritual gestures and the shaking of hands. So desperate is a merchant for this first sale, that it may be possible to beat his price down to genuine bargain levels, especially if this transaction occurs after a day of zero business: Simon managed to bag a wonderful gift from a textile salesman only a few days ago as it was his only sale that day!
Back to Flute-Man: here he is again, keen for us to become the proud owners of a wooden flute. But the one Simon has his eye on is larger than the rest and is made from a rich, black wood. Flute-Man won’t let this one go for less than six-hundred rupees, but today he hasn’t sold any flutes yet. “Ok, ok ok” he says, just like everyone else in South Asia, always in groups of three. Maybe they say “achar” in exactly the same way? “No problem, no problem!” (They always say this too…) So the flute is sold for three-hundred rupees. Result!
As we disembarked the aircraft and collected our luggage, we spotted the green bus that runs from the airport into the centre of Delhi. This bus looked a whole lot better than all of the buses we have been on in this trip. We kept a look out for a stop called ‘New Delhi Station’ and from here we could easily walk to our hotel.
When the bus conductor loudly shouted the name of our stop, we were very surprised not to see a large train station but rather a solitary, brightly lit bus shelter, which was on one side of a dark avenue. A storm had brewed up in Delhi and was there to greet us as we got off the bus, so we listened to the rustling of the leaves in the trees and the howling wind as we walked whilst being accompanied by irregular, but frequent, strikes of lightning. Thousands of leaves were forced through the air by the wind and millions had already fallen onto the ground. Have we suddenly jumped to autumn?
Since the bus kindly left us in the middle of nowhere, we walked a couple of hundred metres where the gloomy area was becoming more built up with restaurants and travel agents. We stopped into a Japanese tourist company for directions to ‘Main Bazar’ where our hotel is situated, and the man who helped us was very friendly and had a good command of English.
On we walked and as we continued to Main Bazar, we left a lonely, smooth tarmac road and were soon following a bumpy, muddy street with small rocks making it difficult for the rickshaw wallahs to get around, not to mention the huge crowds of people browsing around the bazaars.
Eventually we found the Hotel Vivek where we will be based for three nights. Although our room is slightly shabby, the hotel has a fantastic rooftop restaurant with great sweet lassi, which boasts the vista of Delhi’s cityscape as well as marvelous food. The time to go up to eat is in the late evening when the atmosphere is at its best. The most amazing part of the day was as we were eating in the green garden high above the city whilst looking at the mixture of the city lights; some glowing modestly alongside others that shone competitively. So we tucked into delights such as “Chips-Chilly”. Now these were seriously sensational! Our Indian fare consisted of Butter Chicken, Vegetable Curry, Garlic Naan and other wonderful tasty dishes. We’d ordered far, far too much food. Again. I am dreaming of what breakfast will be like!

Mountain Biking in the Mountains!

2009-05-03T08:32:00.000-07:00

Once more we woke up in the darker hours of the early morning, but it was truly worth it. We had arranged to go mountain biking and we fixed up transport to take us, and our bikes of course, right into the countryside of Nepal. We learned more about Nepal as we were driving through the dark streets, which were only lit up by a few dim street lamps here and there. We have seen street children sleeping outside in small groups, sometimes in which stray dogs are included. During the daytime we haven’t seen many signs of poverty, but under the surface it’s there in exactly the same way as the rest of South Asia, if not worse!
We kept our eyes peeled for the rising sun as it began to appear triumphantly from behind the surrounding hills. Would this be the day on which we see the snow covered High Himalayas? We noticed that this cycling party was being shadowed by a grim, dark cloud all the way from Kathmandu, but we thought nothing of it.
When we reached the start of our mountain bike ride, high in the area of Nagarkot, no sooner had we removed our bikes from the van and were ready to go, the cloud had swarmed over the high peak on which we were standing. That was goodbye to taking in a panorama including Everest.
But on we went regardless, with the man who dropped us off following us at a discreet distance. We didn’t really fancy having a minder following us for hours, so we craftily gave him the slip. We bombed it down the steep and winding stretch of road until we found a clearing on the edge of the mountain, just off the side of the road. Whilst taking in a spectacular view of the valley below, full of terraces and villages appearing small enough to be like a toy town, we also listened to the buzz of the van disappear around the corner and down the other side of the mountain. Did we really need him?
Well, as we stopped for about five more minutes admiring the beautiful view, we noticed the black clouds moving extremely quickly, creating a moody atmosphere. Then came the crash of thunder immediately followed by light drops of rain. Looking up at the inky black sky, we both concluded that we had better seek shelter. FAST! So we took to the hill and the weather became worse. Luckily we found cover underneath a corrugated iron shelter at the side of the road nearby a military training centre, where we intended to wait for the storm to pass.
Well, we waited for at least an hour, unequipped to cope with the harsh, cold squall. We were wearing only our shorts and t-shirts, rather than Himalayan trekking gear. It didn’t help when some training soldiers wearing all their warm clothes also took cover under the same shelter. Time was ticking away and conditions were only getting worse. Large hailstones began to pelt down heavily and the wind speed increased enough to take whole branches clean off the trees in the nearby pine forest. What should we do?
As if by magic, a small local bus rolled up just in the nick of time. It was heading back down into the valley so we placed the bikes on top of the bus and clambered aboard. Our idea was to take the bus just to escape the high clouds and we got lucky in a large town called Bhaktapur.
We got off the bus and unloaded the bikes before setting off once more. We started cycling towards the centre of Kathmandu, but we got distracted by the idea of cycling through small villages in the flatter countryside. There we saw women carrying huge sacks of freshly harvested wheat. The wheat would be balanced on their backs, like a tortoise and its shell, but a thick band joining both sides of the sack went around their foreheads for added support. Although it looks painful, they believe that if they take the weight on their heads then their gods will remove the burden from their shoulders.
As we looked back to the mountain range from which we had come, we saw the snow for the first time. We couldn’t believe our luck, and it was stunning! The frosted Himalayan peaks, poking out from behind the green foothills framing the Kathmandu Valley, was just how we imagined it. We spotted the beauty just in time, before the afternoon haze erased any view entirely.
The town of Thimi gives a first impression of being a miserable ribbon-development along the dusty and polluted main highway out of Kathmandu, but this is just the modern road. The REAL town of Thimi lies on an incline, perpendicular to this , and is an amazing array of vernacular architecture, with its riot of temples and merchants’ houses. Here lies the ‘Backdoor to Kathmandu’ and was the way we decided to enter the city on the bikes.
Weaving in and out of the dense traffic demanded considerable skill, and we were possibly the fastest vehicles on the roads! Once inside the city we navigated the narrow lanes and passageways of the Old Town: a true rabbit-warren of ancient streets, thoroughly exhilarating to traverse by mountain bike. We passed a low-running river, heavily laden with garbage and effluent, beside which was what can only be described as a bovine graveyard, where brooding, black birds feasted upon the decaying carcasses. The smell alone of this might possibly be the worst of our many, many experiences this far! Then onwards to the famous Durbar Square, with its temples. Kathmandu certainly is a fascinating place!

Kathmandu Chill Out

2009-05-02T07:50:00.001-07:00

Stumbling across an interesting music shop tucked away in a small, shady side street was probably the most amusing event that happened in our day without plans! Inside the shop were instruments that we have never seen, let alone heard of. There was a rather alien-looking instrument that was a cross between a guitar and a mini-keyboard. To play it, we had to pluck the strings on the lower end of the instrument to create sound, whilst instead of frets we could press wide, piano-like keys to change the pitch.

Other instruments included several huge drums, Tibetan style violins, sitars and Tibetan trumpets. Jon made himself heard by squeaking out a brief fanfare, before laughing as usual! He also gave the sitar a go, but it was the trumpet that was the real success.

Other than this, of course we drank more lassi but we also organised our escape route from Nepal back into India. This was none-too-easy, as I'm sure you will already know, as Nepal is in the midst of a particularly volatile political situation. The golden rule for foreigners is NOT to get caught up in a Maoist demonstration. We had managed to do exactly this only a few hours after arriving... The strikes and turmoil caused by Maoist insurgents mean that our bus journey back into India will not be possible. How on earth will we make it to Delhi in time to fly onwards to Jordan? Well, keep following and all will soon be revealed! (We are OK!).

We also decided to visit some other fascinating locations in the Kathmandu Valley. Pashupatinath seemed like a mini version of Varanasi: an array of Hindu temples, Sadhus (some sporting trendy shades and being more interested in baksheesh than spiritual devotion), and burning ghats where there was a constant flow of funeral rites. And then we met a gentleman with impeccable English, great anecdotes and perfect good manners. Had he been a Gurkha we wondered? Yes, of course, and in the course of our lengthy chat he described his time in England and service in his regiment. On then we moved to Boudha to visit the Tibetan community in exile, with the massive stupa, prayer wheels, monks of all ages adorned in their red robes, and the thriving monastic communities. Perhaps on another trip we'll make it into Tibet?

Nepali-Newsflash!

2009-05-02T07:40:00.000-07:00

Feeling the Vibe in Kathmandu

2009-05-01T05:52:00.000-07:00

Today we decided to take it slow! Kathmandu is a great place just to stroll, look, chat and maybe bargain or haggle for amazing Himalayan-style souvenirs. So the day kicked off with a breakfast at The Yak Café. Here the sweet lassi is made from yak yoghurt, which imparts a lip-smackingly sharp tang to the already tasty treat! We also had Tibetan bread, both fried and simply baked, but the highlight of the meal proved to be vegetable momos: these are like spring rolls, but the casing is pasta-like dough, with the whole thing being steamed. We had about ten of these dumplings with THE most amazing brown sauce, which looked like Hoi-Sin, but had the biggest chilli kick of the entire trip!

A walk around the emporia and market stalls of Thamel led us to try out a whole range of things: Jon was able to demonstrate his prowess on the Tibetan trumpet, as well as managing a few notes on a large Sitar! In Thamel there are many small shops selling a whole range of Buddhist artefacts, such as prayer wheels, gongs and carvings, but the most impressive examples of local carving must be the awesome masks of both Hindu and Buddhist-related characters. The entire city is also full of stalls selling textiles, and it would be really impossible for many travellers to leave town without some…

Another feature of the local shops is the bargaining power of the merchants: their sales techniques are second to none. One over-zealous salesman shouted down the street to Simon if he required a pashmina. “No, I don’t want one…” was the slightly sharp reply. “How about two then, my friend?”, shot back the merchant, and everybody in the street laughed! Many similar dialogues have ensued between our pair of explorers and the local people: the vibe here is nicely laid back, so unlike India. About twenty times some shady looking guys have sidled up to us, and without stopping have whispered offers of substances which surely could not be entirely legal around here. Needless to say, they have always received short-shrift. Even the rickshaw-wallahs have a great sense of humour: “Ricksahw, rickshaw!” they often observe, whilst Simon informs them with a pointing action towards the floor: “Ground!”

Jon decided to enquire with a local trekking agent about the time and cost of a climb up to the summit of Everest. Apparently it takes one-and-a-half months and costs $30,000. Maybe next year, then?...

The Last Resort

2009-05-01T05:49:00.000-07:00

Far out of the dusty city, we discovered the true beauty of Nepal in the peaceful, higher reaches of the Himalayas in the gorge of the Bhote Kosi River, just a few kilometres from Tibet. We had an idea of what to expect, but what we experienced exceeded every expectation that we had.

The three-hour bus journey from the city to our haven of tranquillity was indeed a learning curve for every traveller. Burned out buses lay sorrowfully on the unforgiving sides of the narrow roadways; this is probably as a result of the crazy way of driving here: I mean, who, in their right mind, overtakes vehicles on approaching a sharp bend, which has a drop of several hundred metres below?

In order to reach our night’s stay we had to leave the narrow road, which wound itself around the mountains, and cross an even narrower footbridge that was suspended high across the Bhote Kosi. Shortly after arrival, we unpacked our things inside the tent that we stayed in: simple, yet probably the best accommodation we have had, complete with a corrugated iron roof to block out any rain. And then came the moment of truth: the briefing for our first extreme activity. Jon didn’t truly know what he had let himself in for until the activity had been completed. Simon, however, had a fair idea of what might be involved, which is why he (wisely) decided to be a mere observer.

Standing on a slightly wobbly wire bridge, looking down into a narrow gorge one-hundred-and-sixty metres below where the fiercely gushing river raged, Jon took the leap with only a bungee cord tied to his ankles. As soon as he had made his jump from the platform, he let out yells of surprise and amazement. The speed at which he fell was tremendous, and he became fully aware of this as he felt air rushing past his whole body whilst he fell closer to the rocky river beneath. What was just as scary was the elastic energy in the bungee cord that caused Jon to spring back up, allowing everybody on the viewing platform to see him again, and hear a whole new scream.

After being released from the bungee chord and the harnesses, Jon was feeling very relieved that all the blood that had rushed to his head was allowed to the rest of his body again. He couldn’t believe that he had finally done a bungee jump! Before taking the scenic half-hour trek back to the viewing platform to meet everybody else, he stood looking up at the bridge in awe, and in pride.

Back at the camp the atmosphere was very friendly and the food was very scrumptious. What’s more is that where we ate had a unique feel to it: tables with short, stumpy legs with decorative bolsters and cushions for seats, all raised on a slate platform. We felt like Nepali kings! And when we were outside the candlelit, sheltered bar, lying in the hammocks gazing at the solo star that was framed by the surrounding mountains, we felt like Nepali deities.

Just as we thought it couldn’t get any better, waking up the next morning was great. To peer out at the rising sun through wooden shutters whilst having our first hot showers in the Himalayas, followed by the best breakfast for a long, long time! There was a selection of cereal with hot milk, fruit and yoghurt, chilli omelettes and toast, heavily spread with yak butter. The yak butter was interesting. It was sweeter than the butter that we are used to, though the texture was similar. We filled our bellies to the max to gear up for another exciting day!

What was it going to be? Well, it had to be white water rafting in the roaring rapids that we could hear from our tents. Perhaps it was the Bhote Kosi calling us to play. Following a quick briefing of how to respond to commands of the raft captain, we were soon off into the boiling cauldron! As we neared towards the fast-flowing descents, we picked up added speed by paddling forwards as fast as possible. Most of the time we all got absolutely drenched, but nothing stopped us! We couldn’t get enough of the rapids. As we descended down some of the rapids, our raft started spinning and we mostly ended up in reverse, adding to the thrill. This is possibly going to be a new hobby!

After yet another exciting day, in possibly one of the most beautiful locations on Earth, we headed back to the polluted environment of Kathmandu, where we will be based for our next adventures.

On the Spur of the Moment

2009-04-30T06:31:00.000-07:00

The last remaining weeks of our time here is South Asia could well have taken a number of different turns. Fran was adamant that we should spend at least a week in Ladakh, but that would have meant internal flights as the Manali-Leh Highway is still snowed-in. We thought about Darjeeling and Sikkim, but rejected this plan as the trek to view Kanchenjunga takes at least fifteen days. We also rejected a trip to Rishikesh and Gangotri as the bus journey would be intolerable. Terry recommended northern Pakistan, but it seems that it’s a bit dodgy there at the moment, and it could all kick off at any time. So Jon then had a blindingly inspired idea. Why not go north to plan a week of action adventures and bask in the glories of the Himalayas?
On our final day in Kolkata we walked past Macdonald’s and felt a sudden urge to sink our teeth into a juicy burger, so we did! But not just any hamburger; cows are sacred in India so the traditional hamburger, as we know it in the western world, was out of the question. Can you believe that in Macdonald’s Kolkata branch you can get a fantastically tasty “McChicken Maharaja”? No? Well neither could we! It is evidently possible that you can go to a Macdonald’s in another country and still get a taste of the local culture! As we ate, we discussed our next leg of the journey more thoroughly. Hmmm… Where to?

After further exploration of the city, which included a brief visit to the Queen Victoria Memorial where we were followed by a young lad and his two mischievous looking pet monkeys, we decided to head back to squeeze in a final lassi drinking session before catching our next train. After all, were we going to be getting lassi so good anytime soon? The staff at the Blue Sky café may not forget us for a little while as we were regulars and caused great amusement there. Like the time where Jon had his sunglasses resting on top of his head and forgot they were there. Dare I continue? Well, Jon leaned back on his chair during a huge stretch and the glasses slipped off the back of his head, but the big mystery remaining to everyone else in the juice bar is, “How did the glasses fly fifty-feet into the air and land with a clatter on the table in front of him?”
The Bagh Express from Howrah station was a free-for-all, but the journey over the mighty suspension bridge over the Hooghly River was superb. It was an epic journey as the train was overcrowded and what didn’t help was a man from Bihar taking up all the space in our coach with boxes and boxes of dresses. There was not even room for him to sleep on his own bunk in the sleeper coach until he moved all of the boxes down to the centre, taking everybody’s legroom in the process. Numpty! What’s more is that these boxes had now created a whole new bed for some other tramp who, once asleep, elbowed Jon as he rolled over.
When we woke up, the train was still going but there were completely new faces. There was a family of four (a young, beautiful woman in an elaborate sari, a husband and their boy and baby daughter) and they seemed much calmer and happier than our previous fellow passengers. At the next stop, we noticed a middle-aged woman boarding the train whilst heftily dragging the largest basket of runner beans we had ever seen. As she forcefully crammed this case under the seat for storage, one of the runner beans must have fallen out as the mother of the child sitting opposite reached down to the floor to pick it up. Whilst the child was peering longingly out of the window in his own little world, his mum had great fun in taking the beans out of the pod and playfully chucking them at his head, and each time she then looked away innocently like a cheeky schoolgirl.
The very helpful gentleman at Indian Railways had told us that getting to where we wanted to be from Muzaffarpur was a doddle. Well, was he right? Not quite… The autorickshaw ride to the distant bus station (whatever happened to the idea of a joined-up, integrated public transport network with a seamless flow between media?) was the bumpiest and dustiest thus far, whilst the local bus to Raxaul was overcrowded and moved at a snail’s pace along rural dirt tracks, covering around 60km in over five hours. The picturesque tiny round huts with thatched roofs in every village we passed caused us to speculate on their function. Kitchens; latrines; grain storage: who knows? But rural Bihar does have a form of picturesque beauty, difficult for us to appreciate as the temperature under the collar rose sky-high from the painfully slow progress. Had we been sold a pup?
Yes: Raxaul was revolting. The air pollution was quite unbelievable. We cheered up a little, though, when we saw a wonderful wedding celebration, complete with Himalayan trumpeters and funky drum beats: perhaps they celebrate here to make up for the drudgery of everyday existence on the plain. After a smooth passage through Indian customs/immigration, we had managed to do it again: exit India!
The elaborate, oriental-looking triumphal gateway heralded us into another country. Sadly this massive gate is shrouded in huge dust clouds, partly as a result of a legion of gaudily painted Tata trucks belching filthy fumes from their convoy, and partly as a result of the incredibly dusty, unsurfaced roadway. After paying thirty dollars, we were in. The border guard was very friendly and was interested to know where we are from, and following a pleasant chat he proudly said, “Welcome to Nepal”.
Our first impression of Nepal was shattered by dust clouds, not to mention the roaring vehicles, none of which would even be considered for an MOT test. It would be straight to the scrap yard! Especially this decaying bus-shaped box of rusty iron, which took us to Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, in fifteen hours even though the journey should have been ten hours. We’d paid for the ticket on the Indian side, but a discrepancy arose as we tried to board on the Nepalese side. The bus representative demanded 100 Rupees more. Jon maintained a steady, calm and level-headed course throughout the negotiations: that it simply wasn’t fair moving the goal-posts just because we were tourists. Jon’s constancy also worked a few minutes previously with a greedy rickshaw wallah, who demanded 500 Rupees but only received 300 from us, going away with a flea in his ear. Simon, on the other hand adopted the tactic of shock and awe with the bus company official. Nepalese people are calm and polite, even when they are lying, swindling cheats out to pull a scam on some poor, unassuming foreign tourists. But our two travellers knew better! When Simon actually ‘lost it’, the bus swindler was genuinely surprised. So were we, for the verbal assault he received began in the style of Arthur Scargill, and moved via Adolph Hitler to a pit-bull on ecstasy. Needless to say, the 100 Rupee surcharge miraculously vanished into the ether.
Arrival in Kathmandu came as a relief after spectacular Himalayan scenery which, with our rickety, old bus haring around high mountain bends, was just like the closing scene from “The Italian Job”. Was Kathmandu the paradise of temples, scenery and glorious old shops and stalls selling wares from Tibet and Nepal? Oh yes! Did our intrepid pair find a fantastic little lassi bar? Oh, yes.

Saturday in the City

2009-04-26T00:58:00.000-07:00

Well no, we didn’t exactly make it to pay homage to Mother Theresa. But we’ve had a great day nonetheless. The Blue Sky has become our local, and we are so regular (every few hours, infact) that the waiter always greets us like long-lost friends! Many, many sweet lassis have been consumed, closely followed by pineapple juice. When they ran out of that, we opted for papaya juice. But the pineapple juice rules. How do they get it so tasty and with a massive frothy head?
It’s hot here; exceptionally hot. Even sitting here in the Hotel Paramount, all the fan can achieve on full power is to circulate hot air around the room. And that’s even when Simon’s not talking… Leaving the paradise of air-conditioned shops and bars, you’re greeted with a wall of baking-hot air. In the evenings there might be a slight cooling breeze, but then it’s gone again and the stifling heat returns. But this doesn’t stop the city from pulsating to its sometimes stately, sometimes frenetic beat. If only we could spend a whole week here, but if we were ever to return, it wouldn’t be quite the same again. Nothing ever can quite recapture the special magic second time around, and these few days here are simply far too short!
Well it’s a shame that we didn’t get to see the Motherhouse, but actually they don’t really want tourists there gawping at the tomb: it detracts from the work of the order. And WHAT work that must be, for alongside the majestic colonial and commercial buildings of this elegant city is the constant presence of the outcast. It’s as if they have some kind of interdependent relationship and that they BELONG together. Beside a magnificent neo-Georgian bank sits a huddle of street boys cooking simple snacks over glowing hot coals; lying on his front on a mat outside the Indian Museum is another one-armed beggar, clearly in distress; covered by frayed tarpaulin shelters a young mother with three small girls, all asleep on the pavement in the heat of midday.
In a simple telephone booth at BBD Bagh we make calls amidst the reek of paraffin: it becomes obvious that this is their simple abode as well as business premises. The massive cockroach on the floor making a beeline for my flip-flopped foot causes the woman in a bright sari to laugh heartily! The antiquated sign writing on the door of the telephone booth, the rancid smell of fuel, the rickety staircase and massive wooden doors all with elaborate art-deco carvings, the almost-burnt-out electrical wiring and the filthy old typewriter. All this conjures up a sense of groaning nostalgia, but for what? And then it hits me. Surely London must have been just like this in the Blitz? Yes, that’s it. We’re almost in a time capsule, and the entire scene is just like England might have been around 1940. The only difference being the little Hindu shrine in the corner and the heated discussions all in Bengali. So maybe nothing has changed here since independence. Well apart from their space-programme, that is…
Well we HAVE achieved things today. Like the important admin for the next (and very demanding) leg of our journey. Plus some great taxi rides: one driver must have been around 80. I think that one day he will die at the wheel of his lovely classic car. With a horn that really did honk like a wheezing Canada goose.

So we decided to explore another side of the civic psyche: cosmopolitan Calcutta! We went to the Forum shopping mall to hang out with the jet-set (with whom we dined in style last night, at THE happening joint: Pizza Hut…). There we found a concept food hall called “Burp!” where you charge up a swipe card and get feasting. The best taste of the day? A Rose lassi. Perhaps one of THE best tastes of the trip so far.

Well, then it was back to the Blue sky for more juices and lassi. Perhaps we will spend the morning there tomorrow. If we were feeling pious, perhaps we should spend our time at the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Kolkata (The Church of North India: Anglican by any other name…) but we won’t. The Blue Sky will be our cloud nine for the morning. And in the afternoon it will be time to bid Calcutta farewell, for we must travel again: this time to reach of our final destination before flying out of Delhi on the 8th May. Where are we going? Well, no clues now. You’ll find out in the next few days…

The Jewel of West Bengal

2009-04-24T08:27:00.000-07:00

There are some cities of the world which immediately weave their magic spells upon us: Habana in Cuba, for example, with its crumbling old town, intriguing street life, amazing and varied public transport, but above all great and unusual things to drink. St. Petersburg in Russia, for example, with its once crumbling old buildings, fascinating street scenes, historic trams and trolley-buses, but above all the taste of its food and drink. And now, here in Kolkata (lets give it its new name: new for our new millennium, with a phonetic spelling which hardly disguises the fact that it’s exactly the same place it always was) the magnetic draw is to its majestic and crumbling old buildings, compelling street life in all its varied hues and full glory, the full repertoire of public transport, from rickshaws pulled along on foot by old, bearded men, to tuk-tuks; classic Ambassador taxis; luridly painted buses and graceful old trams. Just as we found in Mumbai, in some quarters, this city has a debonair feeling of London about it. Wide boulevards, elegant trees, parks and open spaces, vast and historic monuments and buildings. And it has a pulse. A pulse we haven’t quite found anywhere else in South Asia. The street life here is unique. Where else in the world could you possibly be crossing the road, when you swerve in order to avoid an antique bus bearing down upon you, only to be now in the pathway of an old man lying on a rickety cart supporting a greasy tractor engine and pulled by a wheezing donkey? He missed us only by inches. Where else in the world could you find people sleeping in the streets? Well, many, many places of course. But here it’s different for a certain sector of the homeless society. Do you remember back in Jharkhand, at Daltonganj, we remarked on countless people bedding down on the railway station concourse? We thought back then that it was all to do with the impending elections, and that perhaps these people had travelled into town for voting, and that they would soon be returning to their villages. But as we approached Dhaka just two days ago, at 5 am, we noticed something else at a small suburban station called Tungi. Here too were rows upon rows of sleeping bodies, neatly occupying their few square centimetres of station platform. But here there were groups of people perhaps not important or significant enough to be allowed to sleep on the station platform, and they were banished to sleeping along the railway tracks themselves, bedding down upon lengths of rusting iron rails. As our train waited at signals on the approach to Tungi station, its noise and lights must have awoken a man whom we watched silently for a few minutes. He did not belong in the group of parallel, sleeping bodies. He tried to lie at the end of the group, farthest from the platform. With no bedding or pillow he tried to make himself comfortable. All he wore was a pair of trousers. He tried to lie his head down on his left arm, but kept tossing and turning in an attempt to sleep. He was unable to do the same on the other side. He had no right arm at all. Such was our impression of Dhaka, and I digress to make a point. Now of course Kolkata must have identical cases, but we are unlikely to witness them. The homeless of Kolkatta have created an entirely different impression upon us. Around our small hotel there must be a colony of hundreds of men who are living without a roof. But they are smart. Most wear a white vest and the traditional Bengali cloth (usually blue) tied around the waste. Now they may sleep in the street but they have beds. Yes, beds. In the street. Perhaps they are rickshaw runners; perhaps they are low-caste workers. But they certainly have a sense of purpose about them. The temperature here in April during the day is baking-hot. At night, the temperature seems to stay the same. This seems to render the whole idea of a roof somewhat pointless, but soon the monsoon will be approaching. The picaresque (and, infact, picturesque) nature of this gamin-like life may not quite be so attractive during the rainy season. In Bangladesh, the oppressive dullness of a Muslim society seemed to create a hopeless feeling of meaningless poverty. But here, with the vibrancy of little Hindu temples on every street corner, wafting incense over the sugarcane grinders, would it be too fanciful to talk of a feeling of MEANINGFUL poverty? I’m not too sure, and perhaps we will feel differently after tomorrow morning’s visit. For tomorrow we are to visit the Motherhouse of Blessed Theresa of Calcutta.
And finally, some food. (Yes, did you think we had forgotten about the TASTE of the place?) We craved tastes which would banish the incessant monotony of Bangladeshi restaurant tucker. Supper was Chinese: lip-smackingly spicy chilli-chicken, then sweet&sour vegetables and some chow mein, all washed down with jasmine tea. Breakfast was great and unusual: mango porridge and Tibetan bread and honey. Throughout the day we made constant pit-stops for lassi and juices on Sudder St. Banana lassi gets a thumbs-up, as does mango lassi and sweet lime juice. But the winners are pineapple juice, coolly tying for first place with the simple sweet lassi. This sweet lassi at the Blue Sky Café is, without a doubt, THE best lassi we’ve had since leaving Jaisalmer. Yum!

Leaving Srimangal, but to where exactly?

2009-04-24T08:24:00.000-07:00

Our final day in relatively peaceful Srimangal was spent having a small snack with our friend Russell, taking it easy at the internet café, and haggling for pineapples, mangos and lemons so that we could make a fruit salad. There seems to be little variety in Bangladeshi food and we were craving fruit, so we prepared a juicy salad mixture for our journey leaving Srimangal. The market from where we bought the fruit was situated on many dusty smaller roads and fly-infested alleyways away from the main town. We made sure to look very thoroughly at the fruit before buying it, as we did not want the pineapples into which creatures had bored holes.
On Thursday morning, just after midnight, we boarded our train to get to Dhaka; and, thankfully, this train looked far better than the Jalalabad Express that we took last time. Before getting onto the train we were trying to make sense of our tickets that were typed out in Bengali, but not having a lot of luck. Fortunately, a kind man called Shuhel Iqbal Chow, who is currently serving in the RAB (Rapid Action Bangladesh: the most honest and reliable police force in the country) came to our rescue and directed us to our coach, and ultimately to our seats. Bangladesh is legendary for the way its people show countless acts of kindness to visitors: this man was on his way to Dhaka not just to get back to his home and immediate family, but to meet his aunt and uncle, not to mention his cousin who was flying in from London that very morning. But something was more important to him: getting us onto our onward connection safely! So he joined us in the taxi to the bus company offices, sat with us chatting as we waited to depart, and finally joined us for a few miles on the bus.
Here he told us about the great tragedy in his life, the fact that his seven year old son was seriously ill with heart and lung problems. Whilst his time in the army had taken him to many fascinating locations, including Saudi Arabia, where he was able to complete his Haj pilgrimage, his son back at home had been very ill. Shuhel also asked about fitness and training, and what he should take to get himself into better shape. As a small way of repaying his diligence we gave him a month’s supply of multi-vitamin tablets, which clearly bemused both him and the bus steward as they were called ‘A-Z’. Is there a vitamin Z?
Our journey was to be another epic one, including crossing back over the border point at Benapole, and again into India. But this time, things did not quite go according to plan. Nobody at Shohagh Paribahan buses, nor in the Lonely Planet guidebook had mentioned ANYTHING about a departure tax at this land crossing. And we needed the money to change into Rupees on the other side. Oh dear…
“I do not think you are listening to me,” said the bearded boarder official.
“No, I’m not, and I don’t think you’re listening to me, either” said Simon. The might of Bangladesh officialdom was making it clear that nobody would be going anywhere until 600 Taka had been paid at the strange little window entitled ‘Departure Tax’. The determination of our fearless travellers was making it clear that there was NO cash to cough up. Stale mate? We were passed from uniformed official to uniformed official, and each time declined to splash the cash. But this time the insistence was more forceful and the official, more official-looking:
“Right then, we’ll just sit here for the rest of time” was Simon’s final trump card, at which point he folded his arms and plonked himself down upon the large desk with a dull thud. After a short but painful pause, ALL the boarder guards and official staff erupted into cackles of spontaneous laughter. “OK, you can go now…” sniggered the one with the most stripes, and our crafty pair legged it. Without paying the baksheesh due to the poor lads carrying their backpacks…
After nearly four more hours of bumpy and painfully slow bus journey, the daring duo arrived back somewhere which, hitherto, was only briefly hinted at, some weeks ago. Somewhere now to be tackled in much more depth. Perhaps the most captivating and fascinating city in the world, with its quaint yellow, antique taxi-cabs and its vivid and compelling street life. Somewhere which immediately conjures up false prejudices in the mind’s eye of those who have never been here, and somewhere which, once visited, has already formed an indelible image in the imagination: an image of nostalgia and dreams. Where are we now then? Oh, Calcutta!

Srimangal Crash-Course!

2009-04-22T01:22:00.000-07:00

What kind of time is five in the morning to be waking up?! Well, today it was certainly worth it. Our guide, Russell, arrived at our hotel with three bikes for us all to ride directly through the tea plantations and to the Lowacherra Rainforest. Although we went through there yesterday, today was the big day of exploring deeper inside the jungle.
It was interesting to notice the orchestral harmony of the different forest-dwelling animals as they naturally called out to each other. What seemed to be a musical masterpiece, started with monkeys softly howling to one another as they swung through the elevated maze of branches and leaves; then as the monkeys became quieter, sounds of loudly humming insects echoed through the forest, and then came the multi-tonal birdsongs that put the icing on the cake.
We stood for ages, watching the monkeys in awe whilst they sprung themselves high through the air as they leapt from one tree to another. It was especially amusing to see baby monkeys hanging onto their mothers for dear life as they jumped around and balanced on the thinner branches of the trees. Infact, it was so intriguing that we didn’t realise that the sun had already risen by the time we had to leave to see a village that is home to the Kashia tribe.
On the way though, we came across the “Bash Bagaan”. Before the guide mentioned this place, these words only meant to us a small Indian restaurant, ran by Bangladeshi nationals, in the small town of Wadebridge, in Cornwall. Today, we learned that these words translate from Bengali to English as ‘Bamboo Garden’. The garden was packed full of an unordered arrangement of green, giant bamboos that grew to great heights and crossed over each other. Although it was unique and magical, we marched on to visit the Kashia tribe.
Their homely village, nestled in the deep jungle, had houses that were made of light-coloured mud with corrugated iron roofs. All Kashia tribal villages, including this one, are built on top of hills surrounded by betel nut trees. It was surprising to see how awake everybody was at eight in the morning. A man was already at work, sawing the largest bamboo we’d ever seen, and the women were starting their domestic chores. There were also young, happy children playing. One child was very content as he ran around, dragging an old cake box with a pair of flip-flops inside. It is wonderful to see that so many people here, who don’t have much, appreciate what they do have. Of course we made sure to say a hearty “Koblai!” as we met the different tribal people because this is ‘hello’ in their language.
On we went, through the forest towards a mixed fruit plantation where we saw pineapples, jackfruits and lemons being grown. The plantation was high up on a hill overlooking extensive fruit gardens and far out above the peaceful forest. It started to tip down with heavy rain and so we sheltered underneath the roof of the mixed garden inhabitants until it passed, discussing with Russell the difference between life here and back in England.

It was time to proceed to another tribal village, also belonging to the Kashia tribe, where we met friendly people who offered us chairs to sit down on and some washed fruit. We politely declined the fruit of course, because the consequences could have been severe. This village was quite similar to the first one we visited, only it was larger and it had a small, white church within. It was EXACTLY how you might want to picture an ideal, quaint tribal village: infact, almost TOO perfect: clean and tidy, complete with decorative shrubs with stunning red flowers.
We also went to a village inhabited by people of the Indian state of Tripura: these are the tea pickers. They were very shy, infact, too shy even to say hello. Some women were in the middle of putting together a simple hand-woven cloth, but they disappeared inside as they saw us approaching.
We cycled to the Zareen Tea Estate, which is probably the most beautiful of them all! It was much hillier, and many different shades of green greeted us from all sides. We were also greeted by the loud croaks of frogs that were hiding in the tea bushes. On the way out of the tea estate, we saw the tea pickers going out to work, wearing their unique straw hats and moving silently.

Meanwhile, back in town, booking tickets to get OUT of Srimangal proved to be quite demanding, if not amusing. At first, the booking-clerk at the railway station gave us completely the wrong train times. He recited the daily trains to Chittagong instead of Dhaka. The difference in sound between these two places is hardly rocket, is it? After this confusion was sorted out, we attempted to clarify on which day we wished to take the night train out of town. It departs at 00.12hrs, which of course is technically Thursday morning for us, and NOT Wednesday night.
All this investigation of pineapple plants earlier had caused a deep-seated craving to kick in: pineapples! Here in Srimangal they are cheap (only Tk 20) and locally grown. We found a huge supply on the station platform and snapped up two there and then! It only remained for us to buy a Tupperware container and a knife to allow the rest of the expedition to have a new, regular feature: fruit of the day. Today’s pineapples tasted especially good for the simple reason that they were only grown just down the road. Maybe tomorrow will see a fruit salad of pineapple, mango and lemons!
And finally, more food: Simon was very keen to have a complete break from curry today, especially Bhuna. Within thirty minutes of him relating this desire, the intrepid duo were seated in the salubrious Shah Restaurant eating, amongst other things, a very fiery and tasty chicken Bhuna.

Exploring Srimangal

2009-04-22T01:07:00.000-07:00

Sure enough, Russell was at our hotel room at half past eight in the morning with our bikes. Both of the bikes were very basic and only had one gear. Jon’s black, Chinese-style bike creaked as he pedalled but it was impressive how fast it went! Simon’s bike looked like a western mountain bike and gave a generally gave a smoother ride, except for when the chain kept coming off!
We went for a small breakfast in the sweetshop where we saw all of the cakes. Jon had a small yoghurt-like sweet that was made presumably from condensed milk mostly, but Simon went for the cake option and had two scrumptious looking spongy delights, which were injected with syrup and then all sprinkled with milk powder. This breakfast may seem like nothing but it gave us energy to take on the whole day!
We just couldn’t wait to get on the bikes and leave the town’s traffic and noise, so off we went in the direction of tranquillity. Within ten minutes or so, we were right out in among the tea plantations where a few lonely women, dressed in bright saris and pointed hats made from dry leaves, were carefully picking the tea leaves from the greenest bushes we’ve ever seen. Although there was the occasional humming of the CNG (an environmentally friendly three-wheeled auto-rickshaw), as well as the high pitched sound of bicycle bells on the cycle-rickshaws, there were beautiful moments where the only noise we could hear was that of the wind gently brushing past the tea leaves. Having spoken to Mr Suhel, the owner of a small grocery shop in Srimangal town and active in NGO (Non-government Organisation), we already have an idea that this unique green beauty of the tea plantations is clouded by a darker misery of labourers who earn a mere thirty taka (about thirty pence) per day, but also lack access to basic sanitation.
As we cycled further past tea bushes that seemed infinite, we eventually neared the Lowacherra Rainforest where the large and small trees reach up, forming canopies; and tiny winding pathways with deep carpets of dead foliage meander randomly through the vast vegetation.
We cycled on the twisting road through the forest until we reached a small village called Kamalganj. With the smoky, acrid odour of smouldering firewood, this tiny village had no electricity and an air of subsistence rather than enjoyment. We stopped for a ten-minute break, taking a few mouthfuls of the water that we took with us in our bags, before turning around and heading back.
As we went back through the forest we heard the peculiar sounds of gibbons that called out to each other in the trees, probably to warn one another that we were there. But today this colony of gibbons got something it wasn’t bargaining for: somebody was calling back. The gibbon calls are part shriek, part unruly school-class, and part beautiful music. When they are all shouting at once, it sounds like a massive cacophony, but two curious gibbons brachiated their way through the treetops towards us with their stunning three-note theme tune. “Eeeeeeeeee Oooo Aaaaah!”, they cried, even more incessantly in response to the cheeky monkey on the ground. Can you guess who this was?

It was an experience to see the black Hoolock gibbons looking out from between clusters of leaves with their distinct white eyebrows set on their sooty-black faces.
After a fascinating time hanging out with these creatures, we went for a cuppa. But no ordinary cuppa, for we went to Nilkantha. This small café, in the middle of a tea plantation, served us up the most colourful and unusual drink imaginable. This cup of tea was served in a transparent glass, as if to show off the beauty of how one layer of one type of tea sits on top of another, altogether forming six layers of different teas.

We stayed for another and chatted to Hasan, a second generation Bangladeshi immigrant from London, who told us the interesting story of his family’s relocation to England.
After another great day, we arrived back at the hotel where we negotiated some discount with the friendly hotel manager, and before Jon knew it he was on the phone speaking to a young lady from the Khashia tribe. The words he started with were “Koblai”, meaning ‘hello’, and “Wong”, which means ‘come here’. Jon then found that his Khashia language was very limited, so he switched to Bangla using phrases such as “Bomi-Bhab”, “Amar mirghi rog a-che” and then he counted to ten. Thank goodness for the Lonely Planet guide book, which helped him with these essential phrases.
We finally decided that it was time to eat so we tried a new delicacy called Moghlai, which is like a flaky pastry containing onions, chillies and eggs; all deep fried. Where have they been all my life?!

The Jalalabad Express

2009-04-20T04:37:00.000-07:00

Just as in the name of the Macdonald’s ‘Big Tasty’, only one word of the title is actually accurate, so it was with our epic journey on a train calling itself the ‘Jalalabad Express’. Surely this one train journey was to be the most unusual journey of our lives?
At the reservation counter, the clerk seemed amazed that we were proposing a journey on the Jalalabad Express. He barked: “No first class”. We said that we didn’t travel first class, so he interrupted: “No a/c”. Fine, as we like the wind blustering in from the open windows. “No Sulob” (This means second class.) How about a bunk then? “No sleeper” Ahhhh, this wasn’t going very well really, was it? “No electricity”. Oh dear. But Jon and Simon aren’t going to be put off by minor details such as comfort and lighting are they? “Then you go counter number nine”. So we did. There was nobody there…
After a chat with the Station Master and his assistant, they were very anxious to put us on a more luxurious train the following day:
“No, this is no good train. This dirty train.” Oh dear. But it’s travel experiences our two intrepid explorers are after, and no amount of fobbing-off would work. Eventually they end up on the correct platform, where, to put the icing on the cake, the guard blurted out:
“This dangerous train”.
Our hearts sank as the train pulled into the ‘old station’, a short walk with our cumbersome backpacks from the modern concourse of the station for the intercity trains. This old station was strewn with sacks of produce, boxes of iced fish, weird old men eager to chat in Bangla and broken English, whilst the platform was awash with thick, black grease. Then the powercut kicked in.
We were, once again, left in the dark with all of our valuables, about to board a dark, dingy, dirty, dangerous local train. The train guard approached us and he kindly took us onto the train; into the carriage closest to where the train guards sit, in case we were to have any problems. This was reassuring, and to be on the safe side, we chained our huge backpacks to the overhead metal racks using chains that we bought in India.
Luckily for us, we boarded the train about half an hour before the train was due to depart so that we could get good seats. Well, “good” is certainly not the word, but what I want to say is that our seats were together and by the window. The seats were made entirely of stained and rusting metal. There was no cushioning and we weren’t relishing the idea of travelling for eleven hours like that. Thanks, Simon, for bringing inflatable pillows that we used as cushions.
Joining us on the train were armed security guards who were very interested to find out about us and what our country is like. The engine initiated our departure to Srimangal with a huge roaring sound, and upon moving we could feel ‘bump’ ‘bump’ ‘bump’ under our seats as the wheels of the train moved across the joints in the ancient rails. The engine also provided just enough power for a single, sorry-looking light bulb in the ceiling to glow slightly, barely illuminating the sea of dull faces surrounding us. Fortunately, as the train picked up a little speed, a dynamo gave the bulb much more power. Unfortunately, this allowed us to see our travelling companions in more detail…
We managed to doze occasionally on the train, but what sleep we did have was no compensation for a good night’s sleep in a decent bed. There is something very different about Bangladesh railways in comparison to India (or for that matter, everyday life). Here in Bangladesh we still have the chai-wallahs, pani salesmen, snack vendors and beggars, but it’s not done with anything like the same panache and vigour. There’s a deep dullness to the grind of scraping a living here, and the travelling musicians who make the Indian trains pulsate with vibrancy are entirely absent. All we hear is the mournful intonation of Islamic beggars. The fragrant smells of Hindu garlands and incense, of course, are also missing. The only compensation is the individual warmth of all the people: whilst milling around with blank looks on their faces, the moment they spot us, suddenly they smile.
Having left Chittagong city with a mental picture of hectic, noisy Bangladeshi life in our heads, it was extremely pleasant waking up after another small doze at dawn, only to be surrounded by tea, tea and more tea. A savannah-like lanscape of sparse tall green trees with a low covering of tea bushes surrounded us. It was a unique moment that made us feel so far away from it all!

We stop at Satgaon and two men get on, carrying two huge churns balanced across their shoulders, and for the rest of their short journey, they keep the churns slowly in motion. This is rural Bangladesh at its very best.
When we finally reached Srimangal, it was so easy to locate everything. This town, although dead at six in the morning when we arrived, livens up to be a small but happening town nestled in amongst the tea plantations.
We checked into our hotel and had a snooze before getting to know this quaint, little town and taking a rickshaw out to the Bangladesh Tea Research Institute (BTRI). Before we left, there was a knock at our door and it was a young man named Russell. This is a man who works for Classic Tours, a company who we may have spent a couple of hours trying to find. Isn’t it great that he so happened to find us first?!
At least we have our bicycle rental sorted out for tomorrow now, so we will meet him here, at the hotel where we are staying, before setting off into the rolling hills of tea. The final thing that HAD to be done was to seek out some cake!

Lunch at Michael's

2009-04-20T04:34:00.000-07:00

The day started with gloomy skies and we figured that it was most probably going to pour it down with rain again. Well, Michael Fish would be very impressed at our weather forecasting abilities as we were spot on!
We had arranged to meet Michael for lunch at his house because it was to be our last full day in Cox’s Bazar. We began walking and reached about halfway between our hotel and the meeting point; and that’s when it started. A torrential downpour of rain that caused all the open sewers to overflow. We took cover in a small arcade in the town and waited for the rain to pass over. It didn’t completely pass over but conditions lifted so we could carry on and meet our friend at a lake in the backstreets of downtown Cox Bazar. We met up as planned and continued towards Michael’s house.

We got caught out because it began to tip down with rain again, but even harder this time. We sought cover once again in a small shop where a scruffy man with very dirty hands was fixing old radios and cassette players. We stopped for about ten minutes, watching rickshaw wallahs frantically pedalling by, as well as fruit sellers sitting in the street, some of whom had made small half-tents out of sticks and dustbin liners, and some whom were readily equipped with ponchos. Still there were rivers of dirty brown sludge flowing down towards the main street.
We dashed to Michael’s house after agreeing that the rain wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. We entered his house via a tiny, muddy path and up some steps made from slippery sandbags. His house is made mostly from wood, with concrete flooring, and large leaves making up the ceiling. From the outside, the roof was made of corrugated iron upon which the rain drummed out an urgent rhythm to the background of thunder and lightning. It was great being sheltered, looking out at streaming rain and towering, swaying palm trees as we ate our scrumptious lunch.
Lunch consisted of a spinach and green bean side dish, a bowl of smoky potatoes with the occasional prawn, and a watery lentil concoction, all accompanied with rice. We took to the traditional way of eating once again, and ate with our right hands without any cutlery. Since we arrived in Bangladesh we have been converted to eating solely with our hands. The big question is, will we be converted back to using knives and forks?
Our entire time in CB has been both fulfilling and fascinating. It was sad saying farewell to our new friend, and hopefully we will see him again: certainly we will be looking at raising funds for his projects, as humanitarian issues in Bangladesh seem to be absent from the consciousness of the bourgeois west. Michael presented us with some great gifts

Ali Baba's Rickshaw Ride

2009-04-17T02:29:00.000-07:00

Meanwhile, back at the Nabanna we started the day with another big breakfast and then took some take-away shingaras for our lunch. What a treat they were!
Millions of rickshaw wallahs were waiting outside our hotel and as we walked onto the street, we became the centre of attention (yet again!). At this point we met Ali Baba; well, that’s what all the other rickshaw drivers call him. He was friendly and had no problem taking us down south in the direction of Inani beach.
The rickshaw ride turned out to be longer than we’d expected, and poor Ali Baba looked a little knackered towards the end. Finally we went just past Himachari, where we went before, and went to the beach again. We did not forget to leave Ali Baba a healthy looking tip for all his hard work. This actually made him so happy that he was waiting for us halfway up the beach to take us back again. However, we had very sore behinds from the one-and-a-half hour rickshaw ride outwards, and so we relished the opportunity to take a long walk back home.
As we walked up the beach the weather became very dramatic with clouds of doom and gloom. Up to a certain point we thought we were in the eye of the storm as not only could we see heavy rain and choppy waves out at sea, but also bucket loads of rain pelting into the sand ahead, creating an atmospheric mist. Just when we thought we had got away with it, the rainy weather turned in our direction and soaked we were, with several miles still to walk. The rain was a cooling relief from the hot and humid environment.
We later met some herdsmen with their cattle walking along the beach, which was marvellous. The old herdsman spoke to us in Bangla and we responded with our basic knowledge of this beautiful language.

As we carried on up the beach towards Cox’s Bazar we suddenly heard some fishermen shouting to us and miming things with their hands. It soon became clear that they needed help recovering their boat from the water’s edge so we made our way over to help. We noticed a modest catch of small, bright, shiny fish glistening on the deck of the boat. It didn’t seem like much, but it was enough to feed their community and make some extra money
As we gradually pushed the lumbering gondola up the beach we all sang to the command of the captain: he chanted poetic phrases and we all responded heartily with “Hey-ya”. They were grateful for our help, but alas, we trundled on towards the Angel Drop for a lassi. However, we did not drink lassi due to yet another power-cut in the region.
By the time it was time to eat again though, there was electricity all over Cox's Bazar.

Teknaf

2009-04-17T02:03:00.000-07:00

Intending to get a bright and early start, we failed miserably and had our breakfast as usual at the Nabanna restaurant. We then headed to the main bus station in Cox’s Bazar by means of cycle rickshaw. As we approached the bus station there were loads of men shouting place names excitedly, hurrying people onto buses. All we had to say was “Teknaf” and we were onto our two-and-a-half hour journey immediately. The countryside was amazingly beautiful, but somebody needs to teach this bus company what legroom is! We motored through the everyday hustle and bustle of dusty market towns, alongside the Chittagong Hill Tracts, and before long, the mountains of Myanmar were clearly visible. The view of Myanmar was closer and more beautiful than we had hoped for.
When we got to Teknaf, we noticed that the bus stop was on the outskirts of the small town, but after such a long time sitting down we decided to turn down the rickshaw offers and walk it. Whilst the town nestles on the River Naf, which here forms the Myanmar/Bangladesh border, our aim was to get to the beach, although the beach was further than we thought. The beach here is the southern part of Inani beach: around 90km of sand, and the world’s longest and broadest beach. Would it be worth the trek? It took us ninety minutes to walk there but it was certainly worth it! On the way there we met countless boys carrying, balanced across their shoulders like a set of scales, two bucketfulls each of small fish, shaded from the scorching sun with small leaves.

There were scores of old, wooden gondola-shaped fishing boats lined up on the foreshore with waves brushing the ones still in the water. We didn’t have long there before turning back because we had to catch our bus.
The return journey gave a much greater insight into rural Bangladeshi poverty. There were small homes made from the most basic materials. I am convinced that many of them were solely made out of large leaves. Around the huts were strewn large heaps of rotting rubbish. But all this is to be found within a landscape which is incredibly beautiful; at each stop street children tried to sell us spicy snacks through the windows of the bus and they laughed and joked with us as if they did not have a care in the world. This truly is a country of smiley faces, and wherever you go the shout of “Brother” or “Bondu” greets you.
We stuffed ourselves again at the Nabbana restaurant before getting caught in some serious rain. The streets literally became rivers with bits of litter floating at the sides of the roads, and later, we realised that the rain had been a real wake-up call to the mozzies.
We also tried some traditional Bangladeshi sweets, most of which were quite nice except one that tasted exactly of cold soggy Weetabix! The favourite was a ball of sponge soaked in a thin syrup, a sweet that the Indians call Gulab Jamun.

Angel Drop

2009-04-15T08:22:00.001-07:00

The best place to watch the sun go down over the Bay of Bengal is at Angel Drop Café! We have taken lots of great sunset pictures here throughout our stay at Cox’s Bazar as it is, after all, our lassi local!

Maheskhali Island

2009-04-15T08:05:00.001-07:00

Today is Bangla New Year and the streets of Cox’s Bazar have an extra festive feel to them. But we have something even more special in store: a boat trip out to the fascinating island of Mahaskhali. Leaving Cox’s Bazar, the small landing stage in the mud of the river is made from tiny rowing boats all tied together. Some of these wooden boats had several planks of wood missing and were sinking slightly into the silt of the riverbed as we stepped on them. We made it onto the boat and set sail for Mahaskhali.
On arrival we were literally swamped by rickshaw wallahs: the landing jetty is in the middle of a mangrove swamp. We decided to walk into town but we were hassled and hassled. Our friend Michael last visited his auntie and uncle who live on the Island six years ago, so we decided to pop in on them for the Bangladesh New Year. They were very welcoming and before we knew it we had a table full of Bangladeshi snacks in front of us. Most of the snacks were dried cereals, but there were also a few unusual tasting biscuits. Once introduced properly to this side of his family, we arranged to meet back for lunch, and headed out to explore the island. I must add that their house was amazing, although basic. The light brown walls were made of mud and there were a few other family members there, with their bedrooms divided up into what looked like another little house inside. The house came complete with a dog barking half-heartedly at us as we approached the yard.

As we explored the island, we first wandered to a Hindu temple, which was dedicated to the Hindu god Krishna. As we got closer, the fast banging of drums and gongs became much louder. Little did we know that we would be beating the latter in just a few moments time. A young boy beating the gong in a 1, 1-2, 1-2 rhythm passed Simon the gong first and it turned out that Simon was leading the whole ceremonial music with the same beat that the boy was making. He did very well and this was evident in the surrounding enthusiasm.

Soon after, the gong had been passed to Jon who also beat the same rhythm; he also did very well in having a jam with an old man playing a large drum that hung over his shoulder. The old man was busting out a very complicated rhythm around Jon’s basic one, and together they made awesome music for the ceremony. There were women dancing in the centre to the point of exhaustion: even though their dance was in time with the energetic music, they seemed to be in a trance, almost like zombies. Some women, clearly already past exhaustion, writhed on the floor. There was a large pole being worshipped with gifts of copious watermelons and in a small pit, fire burned fervently. The smell of incense pervaded the air.
We then left the Hindu ceremony and walked on to a quieter side of the island, where Adinath, a temple to Shiva, lies about a third of the way up a small hill. We had to wait for about ten minutes before we could really enter the temple due to people paying their respects to Shiva with prayers. Following the prayers we entered the temple, and again the wonderful aroma of incense surrounded us as we peered into a small shrine, which was decorated beautifully.
After taking a good look around we hiked the remaining distance to the top of the hill and it was pleasant to be in the shade of trees during the climb. The view from the top of the hill was fantastic and I was convinced that we saw the whole island from there. It was also a very magical experience to see a golden Buddhist monument on the peak, which had sculpted lions standing proudly on each corner. All of this, with the surrounding greenery and small descending paths to the real world below was real tranquillity.
Walking for miles deserves a really good treat, such as a huge lunch, the Bangladeshi way. So we made our way back to Michael’s uncle’s house, and tucked into some rice, curried lentils (dahl), and vegetable curry. The food was really amazing. Jon thought so, and for Simon, it was an experience so to put it. Just as we thought we’d finished our feast, Michael’s uncle brought out a crab dish. The water in which the crab was caught is brown and full of parasites due to the effluent from as far afield as India. It looked nice anyway…
Stuffed silly, we waddled out of the house and thanked the family for their hospitality before going to the Falgoon fair. This was packed full of people celebrating the New Year as well as the drummer, gong player and dancers that we encountered earlier. To sum up our trip to Maheskhali Island, it was a great experience and we are very lucky to have become involved with the locals, thanks to Michael. It was the best time to visit the island as there was so much festivity. But should YOU wish to follow in our footsteps and become intrepid explorers immersing in local cultures, DO remember three basic rules of travel advice: Never eat any cold produce; never take all your valuables to a crowded place; never board an over-laden speedboat without life-vests in a choppy sea...

Himachari

2009-04-15T07:59:00.000-07:00

This quiet beach was paradise with its extending sands and surrounding forest. I would say that it was deserted, but I’d be wrong as we met many street children along the way, not to mention clusters of bright red sand crabs with their pokey eyes, that scurried sideways as they fled from us.

After waking up this morning we went directly to our favourite food joint and had our breakfast. We stuffed ourselves with four spicy “shobji shingaris” and three delicious parathas. It was then possible for us to face the long expedition ahead of us!
We tracked down an autorickshaw, or “tempo” in Bangla, and we took a ride down to another small beach village called Himachari. As the driver pulled over, we were immediately greeted by a young boy shouting, “I am tourist guide!”. We weren’t born yesterday! We sussed that he was just a lad wanting all the money he could scrounge.
We walked along the beach with this boy following us, accompanied by a younger lad of about six years old. Before we knew it, we had drawn so much attention, and it was like being the Pied Piper of Hamlyn! The children were singing songs for us as we were walking and we sang one back for them. Ours was good, but the children knew that theirs were so much better.
In total we walked for about six hours along the stunning beach and we reached our favourite café, the “Angel Drop”, come sunset. Just when we thought we had escaped the barking dogs of the Cornish country lanes, we bumped into some fierce dogs that came from underneath the restaurant. Luckily, the dogs were owned by the restaurant owner and he kept them under control. The last thing we want is a rabid dog biting us!
Talking of rabid, when we were taking a cycle rickshaw back to our hotel, there was an on and off noise that sounded like two pieces of sandpaper being ground together next to a microphone. We then noticed a mangy, old sheep running next to our rickshaw and into the oncoming traffic at great speed, which could only be described as rabidly insane.

Bangla Phrasebook (Part 1)

2009-04-13T07:09:00.000-07:00

We are using our linguistic skills to the full, and we are learning more Bangla (Bengali, the language of the Nobel Prize winning poet, Rabindranath Tagore) every day. Here is OUR Bangla phrase-book:
Bishi bishi donobad (said with extreme gratitude, because it means “Many many thanks”)
Amar nam Jon/Simon (is “My name is Jon/Simon”)
Amar desh United Kingdom (this means “My country is the UK)
Jao! (This means “Go away”)
Mare mare vou! (This is a more extreme way of saying “Go away!” or “Stop hassling me!”)… Of course I enjoy being hassled here, just because I can say that!
Bishi gam! (Said as you wipe off your forehead, because it means “Very sweaty”)
The phrasebook will be continued, I’m sure!

Happy Easter!

2009-04-13T06:44:00.000-07:00

What should we do on Easter Sunday morning here in Bangladesh? Well, go to church of course! What a stroke of luck that on our first day here we met a guy who was a Christian: two years ago he had been part of the local Hindu population, but he and all his family converted to Christianity. There are only two types of greeting that Simon and Jon hear around here, being the only westerners and therefore standing out like sore thumbs: from the beggars and people on the make, it goes: “Hello! Hello, hair-low… hair-low.” (With the verbal stress on the ‘hair’.) As they say this, they approach you with an outstretched hand and blank gaze. The second greeting, from almost everyone else on the streets is: “How are you?” spoken quickly, in an up-beat way, with the most massive grin possible. Quite frankly, the people of Bangladesh are warm, open and happy. They all have two follow-up remarks before the language barrier hits hard: “Which country?” and “What is your name?” We spend hours each day in this form of communication, but it’s great. Smiles all round! But Michael (his name at baptism: his original name being Suronjit) immediately came across as being more interesting, for his follow up question was: “what religion are you?” And so here we are, going to a small mission church with him and his family to celebrate Easter. Simon would have preferred a Catholic Mass somewhere, but here in a Muslim country, that might have been asking too much? And in any case, this guy actually found us, so let’s go with the flow. At 7.30am here he is at our hotel room to take us by rickshaw into his home part of town, a part of town that no intrepid traveller would ever find, and to the little church they have established there with about 30 worshippers. The area of Cox’s Bazar where they live is called Ghonar Para, and the small church family is called Bethany Baptist Church.
The service had lots of enthusiastic singing, the usual balance of non-conformist readings, prayers and long, enthusiastic preaching. And a Baptist version of the eucharist with small slivers of bread and some grape juice. Of course we took part, partly to be in communion with our fellow worshippers here in Bangladesh (where, incidentally, the funky young guys all call us ‘brother’) and partly to connect us to the global church throughout time and the risen Christ at Eastertide. And still no Delhi-Belly!
For us the best part of the lengthy service was the bit that featured us! Jon gave a presentation about the Cornish flag (which coincidentally resembled the banner at the front of the church) and talked about himself and his home life, to give the congregation a glimpse of life in the developed world.

Simon taught them all to respond to “Alleluia, Christ is risen!” with “He is risen indeed, alleluia.” The shouts of ‘Halleluia” were very enthusiastic. After the service, we were given a snack called Shingara. This was possibly the most awesome food we’ve tried since the early morning chilli pakora back in Deshnok, which seems like years away now! We had another Shingara, just to make sure that the standards were uniform! They indeed were! We had no luck in getting a third one though.
Michael then took us for some exploring around Cox’s Bazar. There is a belt of five-star hotel development, which distorts the balance of this third-world community. But away from this fairy-tale world is another reality. At once grim and shocking, but also homely and proud: the REAL Cox’s Bazar is a reminder of what life is really like in this country. The open sewers and mass of rotting garbage seems far worse than in any Indian settlement. But the narrow maze of winding streets is also captivating and sometimes hopelessly beautiful, particularly the night-time market stalls lit by candles and oil lamps. Couple this with the openness and warmth of the people, and you just can’t help loving Bangladesh!
We returned to the church for lunch: a massive feast prepared communally for all the church members, with us being honoured guests. We ate in traditional Bangladeshi style, with the fingers of our right hand, of course! There was bhat (rice) with dahl (lentils) and shobji bhajee (mixed vegetables), whilst the highlight was a goat bhuna. We were tremendously impressed with the powerful tastes and wonderful textures, and had seconds. And thirds. Did Jon have fourths? The whole experience was really fantastic: to have immersed into a real Bangladeshi community in a favela. The pastor here is interested in some sort of financial aid for the children. Perhaps when we return to the UK we can arrange some form of link with Mevagissey. But this needs to be done with care: it’s important to make sure that any funds raised actually DO make it to the children we met. Misappropriation of funds is rife in South Asia. Still wouldn’t it be nice to do at least something for them?

Another Great Day in CB

2009-04-12T08:46:00.000-07:00

We left the fleapit hotel and moved to the one that we are in now, which is fantastic! We had to make the move by cycle rickshaw as it was quite far to walk. It was impossible to get us both into one rickshaw with all of our luggage, so we took two cycle rickshaws. We told the rickshaw drivers the name of the hotel that we wanted to go to and, due to a language barrier, he took us in completely the wrong direction. The ride was fun though.
When we got to the SeaView Hotel, we managed to bargain a room for 350taka per night, which is half the price that the hotel manager first mentioned. 350taka is more or less £3.50. After checking in, we did our first set of laundry!!! We were able to hang the clothes outside to dry too, and they were dry in just a few hours.
We spent the day walking the beach again and walking through the forest. Just outside of the forest, on the sand, was a small stall with the green coconuts and we just had to have one! Out came the stall owner’s machete and he sliced the top of each coconut clean off! The coconut water inside was refreshing and is apparently very good for health.
We stopped later in the Angel Drop restaurant again for our lunch (and more laccy!) and we had parathas, chicken pakoras, rice, chicken tandoori, dopiaza and vegetable curry. This really hit the spot and it boosted our energy levels, enabling us to explore more of the beach. We came across a small area of the beach where there was a shrimp farm, and we saw spectacular boats lined up on the sand, like mini-gondolas. From out of nowhere came a few young children playing football and before he knew it, Jon was getting stuck in and passing the ball to them skilfully. The children were enjoying themselves and were pleased to have Jon on the team! The atmosphere on this little stretch of Marine Drive was perhaps EXACTLY what we were hoping to find at Cox’s Bazar: small, picturesque favelas, amazing, tiny roadside stalls and lush vegetation.
As the sun went down once again, we stopped for more laccy before our 1 hour walk back to the hotel. On nearing our hotel, we saw a small kitchen on the side of the street with a couple of young lads inside making naan breads. Neither of us had seen how it’s done before so we stopped and watched for a while. One boy took handfuls of dough and rolled them up into little balls. He then rolled each one out with a rolling pin before putting them into a tandoor oven. The tandoor oven had burning coals in the centre of it, and we watched as the boy stuck the rolled naan bread dough to the sides and roof of the furnace. Each naan needed less than one minute to cook and we had to get one! For freshness, they were the best naans we have had on this trip!

Cox's Bazar

2009-04-12T08:37:00.000-07:00

Well, did they make it to Cox’s Bazar on the night bus? Yes, of course they did, but only just catching the last bus out by a whisker. Luckily, the bus made plenty of stops in service stations, which look nothing like ours, where we could get food. Our first taste of Bangladeshi food was a pizza, which was microwaved to the point of perfection. It did us fine, but we couldn’t wait to see what real Bangladeshi food was like.
When we arrived in Cox’s Bazar, we got off the bus and located a hotel that is mentioned in the guidebook we have. We checked into the place but it was not all what the guidebook said it would be. In fact it was a bit of a fleapit! But today we are in a much nicer hotel for just one pound more per night. We have moved up from fleas… We are onto ants now.
The beach here is the longest stretch in the entire world and it has a unique beauty to it. It has nice sand and behind it there are many fir trees, which make up a small forest. We walked and walked along this beach until we came to a restaurant called Angel Drop, which is raised and supported by wooden stilts. This restaurant is painted bright yellow so it is kind of hard to miss. We sat down and tried laccy, which is the Bangla version of the Indian “lassi”. It was great! Smoother and very sweet, but I think that we have been rather spoilt in Rajasthan with those makhania lassis!
We have already mixed quite well with the locals. Simon made a friend called Michael who sat down with us to watch the sunset. He was awesome and he accompanied us to the Poussee Restaurant where we filled three of our hungry stomachs for £2! Walking back to the fleapit, there was a bright full moon shining, which complemented the tiny glows from the rickshaw drivers’ oil lamps.

The Journey to Bangladesh

2009-04-12T08:17:00.000-07:00

From Jharkhand to Bangladesh

2009-04-12T08:15:00.000-07:00

The long journey from Jharkhand to Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, was
possibly the longest continuous journey that either of us have done at 38 hours of travelling, not including stops! We did 14 hours by train from Jharkhand to Calcutta, followed by a 3 hour train to Bangaon (on the India – Bangladesh border), and then 11 more hours to Dhaka, with our final leg to Cox’s Bazar taking 10 hours.
Before getting on the train in Jharkhand, the hotel escort said that he would drop us at Barwadih Station as opposed to Daltonganj, as we had previously planned, due to current elections and the possibility that they could turn violent. We heard that the state of Jharkhand was “lawless” so we agreed that this was the best idea. We arrived at the station and caught our train to Calcutta safe and sound.
Before boarding the train, it was mission critical that we stocked up on food supplies to get us through the night. We had to resort to a healthy diet of biscuits and one of the spiciest Bombay mixes we’d ever tried!
A few hours after we caught this train, we stopped at Dhanbad to collect more passengers, and shortly after the train had departed once more, we heard a cry from a lady sat just two bays behind us on the train. It was hard to understand, but apparently, according to a young Indian chap sitting across from us, the woman was being mugged for her mobile phone. I guess you can’t be too careful in Jharkhand! We had been playing our travel scrabble and chess, and we even acquired a small audience! After packing the games up, we went to sleep until our 4:15am arrival in Calcutta.
We had to take a taxi from the station to another train station across the city because we needed to take a local train to Bangaon. The taxi driver was a little crazy on the roads at this early hour. My guess is that he’d certainly had his coffee! We were weaving in and out of small gaps in between cars and people. It was early but it wasn’t the quietest place. People were already beginning their day of hard work. We saw an uncountable amount of coconuts ready for sale, infact some streets were full of them!
On arrival at the station, we went to get our tickets to get to Bangaon and the queue was already growing. We joined the queue in order but we noticed that people were occasionally trying to push in at the front. None of them succeeded. Finally we reached the ticket booth and an Indian man tried pushing in front of us from the side but Jon put his arm over onto the counter to stop him getting through. That’ll teach him! Our ticket was easy to get and very cheap for a 3 hour train ride! As Jon handed over the money an old woman standing next to him put out her hand and began wailing “Hari Krishna, Hari Krishna”. Instead of getting money, what she actually got was Simon wailing back at her “Harry Potter, Harry Potter”. Whilst we were waiting to catch our train we met a professor of Environmental Sciences, who was very interesting and was one of the first people we met who had a good command of English.
The journey outside of Calcutta was very scenic. There were houses made from bamboo and long leaves, such as palm tree leaves, as well as wood. These little houses had just enough space in them to hold a small family and a few necessities. Nothing more. They were nestled among palm trees and nearby fields with small brown paths running between the houses, where little children were playing happily.
As we pulled up into Bangaon a rickshaw driver met us conveniently from the train to take us to the border crossing. The journey was slightly cheaper because we had to share with 3 others. We were 6 people, plus all our luggage, in a rickshaw that is designed to take about three people and half the luggage that we stowed.
The border crossing all went smoothly, although our passports were checked several times by different people. We had to go through Indian customs to leave India and then through Bangladeshi immigration to enter Bangladesh. A member of staff in customs was collecting coins from all over the world so we left him a few examples of his first English money.
As soon as we had crossed the border into Benapole, a small town in the east of Bangladesh, we took a cycle rickshaw to the bus stop, where we caught the bus to Dhaka just in time! On the way to Dhaka we had to cross an arm of the River Ganges on a small ferry. There were tiny markets on the ferry, just like in typical streets in India and Bangladesh, and the surrounding scenery was stunning! The moon was bright and red until darkness fell, before turning white and gleaming. It was great seeing other boats passing us on the river as silhouettes in front of the moonshine.
As we reached the other side of the river, and journeyed closer to Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, we noticed road traffic increasing tremendously. On the way to the bus station in Dhaka, our bus was trying to overtake everything possible, from large trucks to cycle rickshaws. Would Simon and Jon make it to take the bus to Cox’s Bazar that night? Or would they have to spend the night in Dhaka?

Palamau National Park and the Fort

2009-04-12T07:58:00.000-07:00

Palamau National Park, Jharkhand

2009-04-12T07:57:00.000-07:00

Our morning safari into the forest started at 6.00am. It really WAS just like the Jungle Book, and the sound of the dawn chorus emerging from the misty undergrowth was superb. We spotted a decent array of wildlife: many species of birds, a grey fox, groups of deer, a family of bison in search of water, and hundreds of monkeys. The elusive tiger is now in great danger across the whole of India. We later discovered that here in Palamau there are now only 17 tigers left according to an ecological survey in 2007.
We later went to the Betla Fort, which was probably the most amazing fort out of the four others we have seen so far. The ruined fort contained many features of its Muslim past, such as intricate decoration and arches in which the two sides met at a sharp tip. We went inside the redbrick bastion, which was surrounded by loose bricks on the ground that had been lost over time, not to mention a vast array of vegetation, most of which seemed quite dry as a result of the current arid climate.
As we explored, we found a small archway tucked into one of the interior walls and we saw some very irregular steps, so we decided to try our luck climbing onto the ramparts. On reaching the top, the view around was fantastic, as we could see other areas of the fort lying within the greenery. We wanted to follow this wall-less path around the top to reach the distant remains, but after a little walking time we found ourselves having to turn back due to the collapse of the fortifications. We showed no fear of falling over the sides!
Next to be explored were the grounds of the fort and we noticed a couple of large cylindrical pits that descended many metres below. One was probably used as a dungeon as it had no escape route; whereas the other looked like it had an underground tunnel that was linked to other areas of the fort. Surrounding all this was the magnificent scenery of Jharkhand: what a tragedy that the internal political unrest here has stifled the massive potential of development. We are staying in a bizarre complex, complete with possibly the world’s most creepy manager, together with hourly power-cuts or flickering lights and women up on the roof completing the tiling.
On our return we walked around the village of Betla. Some schoolboys tagged along for a short while, one with a scowl and two with smiles! The old village houses provided shelter for both man and beast, and beneath the roofs were large shelves for the storage of firewood. In a courtyard on a table lay the body of an old man, surrounded by his family and being attended to by either a doctor or cleric. Perhaps it was already too late? In the next yard goats grazed, children played, and across the street women gathered by the well to perform the ritual of washing. Here nobody asked ‘What country are you?’ but instead they just stared blankly.
Our final jeep expedition was to be to the confluence of two majestic rivers in an area of outstanding beauty. As we approached the rivers, it became obvious that only sand was to be found now in the riverbed: for 9 months of the year, there is no water at all. Thinking back to our time last week on the Sam sand dunes, there was nothing else to be done but take an action shot and return to our base. Tomorrow is going to be another early start, and an exciting prospect: we are to delve deep into the jungle on the back of an elephant!

Juhi the Elephant

After rising early at 5:40am we intrepidly explored the dense undergrowth of Palamau National Park the Indian way. We clambered onto Juhi the elephant and onto a rickety wooden platform ready for take off. The mahoot (elephant driver) closed the door of the fence that bordered the base on which we were sitting, not that it made us feel any safer! As the elephant marched forward we were being swayed due to an imbalance of weight and we are surprised we didn’t fall off!
It was much better to explore on elephant back because we went through small tracks and low-lying canopies of vegetation, where we met another bison, and deer seemed fairly abundant. The tranquillity here was outstanding and when the elephant stopped, the only sounds we could hear were birds twittering, and creatures of mystery scurrying through dense dry vegetation. Oh! And the occasional monkey call!
We saw many more of the langurs today and some rhesus monkeys, but also kingfishers were spotted in a clearing. The kingfishers were beautiful in colour. I would describe most of the ones we saw as a fluorescent grass green colour, but we also spotted one that was electric blue.
Prior to ending our elephant trek, we went to a small waterhole where the elephant could take in some much needed water. The elephant walked into the small lake slightly and we both fell to the front of our wooden cage because the elephant’s front feet had sunk more than its hind ones.
It was quite uncomfortable riding on top of the elephant because our legs were rubbing on the side of the elephant and the wooden base. Not only this but as the elephant walked past a tree deep inside the forest, Simon’s foot got caught between the side of the elephant and the tree, leaving Simon very confused and Jon as well. I mean, are ankles supposed to twist that much?!
As the elephant made it through parts of the jungle where there were almost no more paths, it would create accessibility by grasping the vegetation with its trunk and forcefully pushing it all to the side. More often than not though, this was not necessary as the elephant could just barge his way through. Never mind any high-reaching thorny stalks that caught onto our clothes and skin! It would have been nice for you to clear that for us Mr Juhi!
The morning on the elephant was absolutely amazing and to top that off we had 2 onion and potato filled parathas each with ketchup, plus masala chai and water. They don’t do lassi in the place we are staying so we are waiting to find a lassi bar as soon as possible! Mind you, if this place did do lassi, the consequences would probably be very severe following consumption!
Today we are heading towards Calcutta and we are due to arrive there at around the 4:00am mark, but the trains always seem to arrive later than scheduled.

Sunset on the way to Jharkhand

2009-04-12T07:52:00.000-07:00

Jharkhand

2009-04-12T07:49:00.000-07:00

Our journey onwards from Varanasi began in confusion. Finding the correct platform and then making sure that the train would take us to Daltonganj was no mean feat! Eventually we were underway, across the Ganga, and able to enjoy once more the spectacular views of the Indian countryside. Travelling in Second Sleeper Class needs patience, tolerance and a liking for dust. Virtually no foreigners ever travel to Jharkhand, and so we felt very out-of-place on this crowded train. Our destination is one of the poorest and most lawless parts of India: this was clearly reflected by our fellow-passengers. As darkness fell, the stations became gradually more intimidating. The atmosphere at Garwha Junction was typical: crowds of people milling around but moving slowly, clad in dirty and basic garments both western and Indian-style; the vendors selling simple vegetables with their portable stalls lit by basic candles; a feeling somewhere in the pit of our stomachs that we shouldn’t really be here. As we approached Daltonganj, the feeling of apprehension grew. Once off the train and onto the platform we found ourselves in a sea of sleeping families, camped out on the tiles of the station floor. The railway police tried to get us back into the safety of a station waiting room. Was this REALLY so threatening? All these people, with their slow, zombie-like manner, were far more helpless than threatening. It was then that we met the Kumar brothers with their smiles, good-natured wit and healthy curiosity. We managed to pass about half and hour with nods, jokes and simple sentences based around ‘What country are you?’ and other usual Indian ice-breakers. The Kumars’ friend asked us one astonishing question: “What caste are you?” This alone demonstrates how the majority of Hindus see the rest of the world, and how they relate to it! We tried to explain our “castelessness”, but he then asked about our religion. “What is your god then?” Simon risked the answer: ‘Jesus’. After a few minutes, Jon had gone off to find our lift to the wildlife sanctuary. Simon was musing on the fact that we must be the ONLY foreigners in the entire state. The Jharkhani guy then said something rather unexpected: “So you are Pentecostal then? We are!” And as Simon spun around, he saw Jon talking to a tall Australian gentleman. Simon’s understanding of protestant missionaries was suddenly enhanced. Here was a single, ageing bourgeois westerner (even if only antipodean…) taking it upon himself to tell the members of one of the most ancient, complicated and richly diverse world-religions that they had been doing it ALL WRONG. Way to go, progressive west! As our jeep pulled out of Daltonganj, the smell of open cooking fires and the rancid garbage by the food vendors filled the air. We sped towards Betla and the Palamau National Park scanning the darkness for bandits!

Varanasi

2009-04-05T11:01:00.000-07:00

The night on the train was hell. We decided to try and get some sleep at about midnight, after checking that our luggage was safe under the seats on the train. At just before 3:00am we were woken up by police carrying large guns because they wanted to check which luggage was which. “How many peaces you have?!”, they shouted. “How many pieces?!”
We then pointed to our bags and they passed them up to our bunks on the train. The big question running through our minds though was how would it be possible to sleep with the huge backpacks taking up all the space in each of our beds? Well, try we did! Jon curled into a ball taking up about two thirds of his bed, leaving the other third for his luggage; and Simon laid on his side using up that tiny strip of remaining room where his luggage wasn’t. But then things seemed to go from bad to worse. We found out that the train had been diverted onto a rural line, and wouldn’t be arriving in Varanasi until 1.00pm. But wait, the countryside on this diversion was absolutely magical. We rolled at a stately pace through the most picturesque and agricultural part of Uttar Pradesh, past fields of wheat, villages and homesteads keeping goats and cattle, women working in the fields, peacocks pecking at the ground, and trees offering shade for the occasional man on a bicycle. Kipling would have been proud. We eventually made it as far as Faizabad. It was there we encountered our first monkey colony of the day. There they were, scampering along walls, sliding up and down vertical girders, and I am sure there was a game of “tag” happening somewhere there.
On arrival in Varanasi, we were immediately pounced upon by another rickshaw driver wanting our business. We reckon that the rickshaw drivers know exactly where to find the foreigners on the train because our names are written on a large board, usually displayed on the platform. All Indian names are written in Hindi and then translated to English on these notices, unlike our names, which have no Hindi transliteration. We let him play the “hotel scam” on us because he took us to a nicer one, which was cheaper and in a safer looking area than the one we originally selected. After settling in, it was time to take a walk along the ghats. On the way, we felt privileged to enter the small gateway into an ancient Sanskrit College to chat with a local guy feeding another large colony of monkeys.
This city is the most holy site for Hindus and is one of the world’s great spiritual centres. The ghats, which line the River Ganges, are used for ritual bathing, prayer, and cremation. It was incredible to see how the ghats were sectioned. The first section we walked onto was a cremation ghat, which had piles of chopped wood ready for the funeral fires. It is at this first ghat where anybody could be cremated, but further along the Ganga at Manikarnika Ghat, only Hindu people can be cremated. On approach to this ghat, we noticed four fires in progress, with a fifth about to be lit. We saw large sets of weighing scales used for weighing the wood used to burn the dead bodies. Depending on the wealth of the family of the deceased relative, they could afford different types of wood, some more valuable than others. The “dons”, who deal with the bodies, know exactly how much wood to use during the cremation of each body. We were intrigued by the vast amounts of remaining ash on the ghats from previous cremations.
We decided to take a boat ride on the river as the sun went down. The boat was made of wood, and we felt dubious about whether or not to get in because of a few holes we saw in parts. We decided to go for it, but just before we got in, we bought small candles that were in bowls made from dried leaves, which held rose petals. These are prayer candles that are lit and released into the Ganges as a prayer is made.
We timed this boat ride more or less perfectly as we managed to catch part of the evening ceremony of Hindus coming together on the sides of the ghats. There were seven Hindu Brahmin priests dressed in orange, gently waving fire around, as others rang small, high-pitched bells. The ghats were illuminated by the glowing lights of the ceremony. Now, as we reflect upon another amazing day of new experiences, we are writing this on the rooftop of the Sai Kripa Guest House, watching a firework display and eating the HOTTEST curry so far...
Tomorrow we head for Jharkhand and elephants (hopefully)!

Agra and the Taj Mahal

2009-04-05T10:53:00.000-07:00

After broken sleep we awoke half an hour before the train arrived at our stop to find that the countryside was no longer the sand, nor the sorry looking trees that stretched out in the never-ending landscape of Rajasthan, but the more lush vegetation and arable land of Uttar Pradesh.
As our train made its approach to Agra Fort station, the railway tracks were lined
with hundreds of people squatting, doing daily routines that we would only consider doing behind our locked bathroom doors. They were mostly in small groups of friends or family members during this ritual, and we have learned that going to the toilet in public is no big deal in India, unlike at home. Leaving the station, for once we weren’t thronged with dozens of rickshaw drivers hassling us, just one young man who looked like he needed the business. An older man then came over and tried to undercut him heartlessly, so we decided to go with the first guy. All ok so far? Well, not quite… Simon said ‘Shanti Lodge, please!’ and the young man them fumbled for a small card in his wallet. ‘No, no, no’ he said; ‘the Sai Palace is much much better’. Oh dear, what to do? Well, we decided to go with the flow, for after all, our time in Agra was to be short: just one day. Enough time to relax, have breakfast, do the Taj justice, try a few curries and then take the train onwards for our next experience. Off we trundled, and it was THEN that it finally happened. After all the dreaming and mental images, there it was, appearing out of the morning mist in a glow that was illuminated by the rising sun. We took a quick snap from across the River Yamuna before checking in at the hotel to get some shut-eye, after a sleepless night on the train.
We woke up later in the morning and had a quick look around Taj Ganj, a suburb of Agra, which had a bazaar of small winding roads bustling with life, and we stopped by at Sheela’s Bar for a naan and a lassi (you should know us by now…). Simon tried a chocolate flavoured lassi and Jon had a papaya lassi. We never knew that there we so many more flavours so we had to try something new.
At about 4:00pm we went to the Taj Mahal. We went late to avoid the majority of the tourists, though there were still too many. Neither of us could believe it when we saw it. From a distance it is very beautiful and almost white. But seeing it close up and in more detail really changed our ideas. One of the most amazing aspects was noticing that the words of the Koran had been inscribed on all arches of the Taj Mahal, and it is from this ancient scripture that the Arabic language is derived. This wonder is made of marble and, when close, it is possible to see little detailed carvings and inlaid decoration. If you are really nosey, you can look through decorative carved holes in the marble walls to some rooms inside, though all we could see was a few logs of wood.
We walked up some more steps and approached the entrance to the building itself where the apparent tombs of the creator of the Taj Mahal, Shah Jahan, and his second wife, Mumtaz Mahal, lie together. However, word has it that the real tombs are beneath the ground on which we were standing. The Taj took about 23 years to build with 20,000 labourers.
In addition to the building, the gardens were very well kept and home to wildlife including green parrots, and we even saw a monkey on one of the walls.
We watched the sun go down at a rooftop restaurant with loads of other people from all parts of the globe, over the best vegetable passanda known to man! On the roofs of houses nearby were children flying kites and one boy lost control of his, resulting in it almost ending up in some guy’s dinner! As the Taj Mahal became shrouded in darkness, the glowing lights of the suburb came on as the muezzins chanted their exotic call to evening prayers from the surrounding mosques. Also the moon, though not full, was giving off a brilliant glow.
To end another great day, we had to go to the station to catch the train to our next stop in Varanasi. Since we only booked the train a few days ago, our names had been put on a reserve list so the thoughts of not being able to get on the train were unwelcome. But luckily, there were seats for us and here we are writing this blog. Tomorrow is to be yet another thrilling and exciting day, for we will wake up in the ancient city of Kashi, the city of light known as Benares, the holiest site in Hinduism, and known to us as Varanasi.

Rahul Jain’s Secret Recipe from the Kanchan-Shree Café

2009-04-05T10:50:00.000-07:00

On our quest for the perfect lassi, we got chatting with Rahul, whose family have been running this great bar since 1984. When we get back, our mission is to get them into Lonely Planet or Rough Guides. So Fran, take note. Anyway, here is THEIR definitive way to make the PERFECT Makhania Lassi:
1 kg youghurt,
150-200g sugar (yes, it’s a sweet one),
10mg real saffron dissolved in 25ml rosewater,
15g cardamom,
Finally, mix all this together and leave it to infuse in the fridge for a few hours. This makes enough for 4 people unless your names are either Simon or Jon.

Rats, Temple and Cooking for rats - Deshnok

2009-04-05T10:43:00.000-07:00

Deshnok and Bikaner

2009-04-04T02:53:00.000-07:00

After managing just 3 hours sleep or so on the train from Jaisalmer to Bikaner, we succeeded in storing our bags in a cloakroom at the station so that we could explore. We arrived in time to buy tickets to travel from Bikaner to Deshnok, where the famous Karni Mata (Rat Temple) is situated. We arrived there at 5.30, before dawn, when it was still dark and it was great to see lights around the temple building and the glows from the surrounding market stalls. Before entering the Rat Temple we had to respect Hinduism and take off our shoes as well as going through a security check. Entering inside, we saw a huge bowl of milk left out for the rats and many were gathered around the edge of the bowl drinking. An extra special atmosphere was created by two people rhythmically banging drums, and by the fires lit for the busy morning puja (Hindu prayers), but being able to watch more people cooking things (presumably food for the rats) whilst the rats were scurrying around them was spectacular! The intense, hypnotic pounding of those three drums, together with the ritual fire, created a dramatic and fervently spiritual atmosphere. Take a look at www.karnimata.com if you would like to find out more about this unique temple.
We were starving when we left the temple so we went and ate a typical Indian snack made from chillies stuffed with spiced potato, all fried in batter. I could taste a lot of cumin seeds, and thinking about it, I haven’t had anything so spicy as that so early in the morning before. In Hindi, Mirchi means chilli.
We then hopped on a bus back to Bikaner, 31km away. When we arrived the first thing we did, as you have all probably guessed by now, was to track down a lassi. It was difficult to find a place that didn’t look infested with germs, but we found one! The lassi was good, but another lassi we had later was even better. However, none of the lassis matched the sheer quality of the Makhania lassis that we had in Jodhpur and Jaisalmer.
Bikaner as a place hasn’t been number one, actually, because the city doesn’t have anything to see besides a nice looking fort, unless you are into heavy traffic and shabby looking shops and markets. We had a look all around but we find ourselves back on Station Road having curry as we speak now. The curry here is amazing! Jon reckons it’s the best curry he has had in India so far or, at least, it’s close. But at least it’s a real and honest city: as we are typing, watching the street chef cook his papadums over an open flame on the pavement, camels glide majestically by, pulling carts driven by their owners. Suddenly our afternoon here in the dusty and windy town of Bikaner took an unexpected and tasty turn: we passed a massive sweets and dessert emporium, and no sooner than Simon had tried to make it past the beckoning open doorway, was Jon already inside, placing a hearty order for tempting sponge balls in syrup and sugary coatings. Luckily, should any dental mishap have presented itself at this particular juncture, we spied Dr. Sanchdev’s Dental Practice immediately opposite the Chapan Bhog sweet shop.
Although we’re tired, there is an amazing sense of expectation. Tomorrow we are to visit the Taj Mahal.

Farewell Suraj!

2009-04-02T04:16:00.000-07:00

As we prepare to leave Jaisalmer and the fantastic Hotel Suraj, we think you need to see a picture of this magnificent room that Chimmy organised for us. Try and make it yourself one day to this hotel, it's awesome. But also take a look into the problems Jaisalmer fort is now experiencing due to the influx of tourists. Hopefully time is not running out for this magical place.

Jaisalmer - Rajasthani Puppets

2009-04-02T04:10:00.000-07:00

In jaisalmer and in Rajasthan generally, puppets are very traditional in entertainment for small children or as hanging decorations for houses and restaurants. We saw these in Jodhpur and Jaisalmer already and they are different to the puppets that most of us had as children, I would say.

Jaisalmer Day 4 - The Music Shop.

2009-04-02T04:07:00.001-07:00

Oops, I spoke too soon. Today we stumbled into an Aladdin’s cave of Indian musical instruments. It was impossible to resist having a mini-concert there and then! The harmonium-type instrument was very gentle and delicate, but was tuned in equal temperament so it was possible to play some western music on it. Simon had a bash with a short improvisation in A minor and then the Kyrie of the Missa de Angelis, whilst Jon tried his hand at a Russian folk song and then he improved his skills on another Ravanhatta, this time succeeding in convincing vibratos. The large sitar mounted on the wall was also there waiting to be plucked and neither of us could resist.

Ravanhattha Lesson in Jaisalmer (Day 3)

2009-04-02T04:03:00.000-07:00

On our way back to the fort, Jonny stumbled upon a master Ravanhattha player. This is a traditional folk musical instrument of the desert regions of Rajasthan. Not only does this master musician make and play the Ravanhattha, but he also gives lessons on the instrument to inquisitive, musical people! So Jon accepted the challenge to learn to play the Ravanhattha. First of all, the body of the instrument is constructed from a long tube of bamboo, which supports all the tuning pegs but also increases the resonance. The sound-box of the instrument is made from a coconut shell, whilst many sympathetic strings (ones which simply vibrate but are not actually played) stretch down along the bamboo. The one string which IS played is made from horse-hair (as is the bow) and the different pitches are made by the left hand stopping this string as it is bowed. The bow is decorated with a few bells to add a rhythmic splash to the performance. Jonny took to this like a duck to water! Actually the teacher said that with five days of practice he would be a virtuoso Ravanhattha player. Just wait until we reach Kolkata and Jon finds a sitar shop……..

A recipe for Makhania Lassi... As promised

2009-04-02T03:55:00.000-07:00

First you need yoghurt: thick, natural yoghurt with the kind of tang or sharpness which really sets your mouth watering. Just like citrus juice, but with a creamier consistency! Next you need Rose Water. Not too much, just enough to flavour and loosen the texture of the yoghurt of course. But not too much: this lassi may be served in a glass, but you must eat it with a spoon! The Rose Water will impart a flavour just like Turkish Delight! Then add some cardamon to give a few flecks in the finished drink, just like real vanilla would if you used a vanilla pod. And then the ingredient which makes this drink so special: it will turn the finished lassi a nice yellow or slightly orange colour. It’s the MOST expensive commodity in the world, so go sparingly (and it’s an acquired taste: in this recipe it’s only used for colouring, NOT for flavouring….): Saffron. I think that in order to get the right colouring, powdered saffron rather than strands is what they use here. Don’t forget to put in lots and lots of sugar. This is India, after all!
Whip up your lassi to make a rich, creamy liquid, and pour into glasses. The garnish now is key! A big spoonful of thick, white curd is stuck to the top of the glass and then floating on the surface is either candied peel or dried fruit, such as sultanas.
So that you all can get into the spirit with us, try making this at home as soon as you can, and post some comments. We both think that drinking these lassis is actually one of the BIG highlights of our trip so far. So wouldn’t it be great if you could recreate the taste back home and then tell us about it? The first thing that hits your tastebuds should be a sharpness, then a deep sweetness, then the Rose-flavour. We had four each today!
So get your blenders out!

Temples and Haveli

2009-04-02T03:44:00.000-07:00

Jaisalmer Day 3 - Temples, Havelis and Vyas Meal Service

2009-04-02T03:42:00.000-07:00

Breakfast of Paratha and Masala Chai is proving to be a big hit: it’s exactly what people here in Jaisalmer like to eat, and coupled with a hefty dose of Makhania Lassi later in the day, it’s all we really need in this baking hot Rajastani weather. The spicy, hot curries can come later, although we did chomp our way through a fantastic dish of stuffed chilli peppers back in Jodhpur! And come to think of it, on the roof of Saffron Restaurant here in Jaisalmer we had the BEST vegetable Jalfrezi we’ve ever tasted. Today was a day for seeing more of the wonders of this timeless city: timeless because it really IS like stepping back into the medieval world; our fort her dates from the twelfth century, and all the artisan’s shops huddle together in narrow alleyways around the base of the fort. All this seems like we are being transported in a time machine back eight hundred years. That, and the open sewers, of course. Jaisalmer was a noble and proud trading city on the silk route between South Asia and Afghanistan and Iran. It was only eclipsed in its power by the growth of Bombay with the development of sea routes to India rather than the arduous trek overland. But here the mercantile past still lingers on; the Brahmin caste is dominant in the fort and wealthy Jain merchants financed the building of some of the most magnificent Jain temples in the whole of India. Rather handy, then, that they are right next-door to our Haveli, the Suraj. The Suraj is owned by Chimmy, and his surname, Vyas, also gives our street its name. His family have been in the personal service of the Maharaja of Jaisalmer for centuries.
The temples took a fair amount of our time; we were shown around by a Jain monk, and whilst we bought our tickets a bystander said he thought Simon was a very spiritual person. He must know about Simon’s CD perhaps? The most important feature of the seven Jain temples we saw is the riot of lavish carving. The detail of sculpture here even includes many representations of Shiva, and the Jain monk pointed out that it was a Karma Sutra in stone.
We then moved onwards to the fort’s Hindu temple, Laxminath. Less ostentatious than the Jain temples, it had a constant flow of passers-by who simply popped in offering prayers, their lips moving silently as they gazed on the particular deity within the shrine.
In the nineteenth century the Jains also demonstrated their financial and trading powers by building the Patwa-ki-Havelli. The most impressive building outside of Jaisalmer fort, it towers over the surrounding houses with an array of shuttered balconies and intricate decoration. Sometimes it’s difficult to reconcile the grandeur of these buildings with the narrow, fly-infested alleyways overflowing with emaciated cows and their ‘calling-cards’!
In the evening we decided to try and really get a feel for what it’s like eating in an Indian household. Within the fort, in an even smaller street impossible to get a car down, lives a widow who earns her living by inviting people into her home and cooking scrumptious traditional meals. Last night we were a bit full of lassi, so there was only room for a naan each and a vegetable curry. Great food and full of flavour! As soon as we entered the house we noticed the steepest set of steps ever… Goodness knows how this woman gets in and out of her house. Maybe she doesn’t. Before eating we also drank an aromatic masala tea, which was slightly spicy and sweetened. We ate our meal in the window space and looked onto the street below. It was interesting to see from a different perspective how people selling their wares interact on the street and then to see people leaning out of their upstairs windows talking to each other.

On the dunes of the Great Thar Desert

2009-04-01T01:31:00.000-07:00

Jaisalmer - Into the Great Thar Desert

2009-04-01T01:27:00.000-07:00

We woke up and ordered our breakfast, which was potato and onion paratha with curd and “masala chai” (a sweet spiced tea with milk). After walking out of the hostel we realised that it is almost impossible not to be dragged into at least 4 shops. The stool/shop owners are forever shouting things along the lines of “My friends! Come to my shop! I have things for very cheap!”
We have quickly learned the art of haggling. Jon bought a souvenir today (not going to say what because we know that his family is following the blog too) and he managed to get it for about half the price at which we started bargaining. Simon also got 1/3 off an item he bought. We have walked empty handed out of shops because the prices they charge are too much even by our standards! However, it is most likely possible that we can get the same thing for much less in another shop around the corner. I guess the real key to getting a good deal is to make it look like you think that their prices are ridiculously expensive, even in those cases when they actually aren’t. In the end you will pay sensible prices and the sellers will earn a profit that they are happy with.
In the afternoon we went by jeep into the Great Thar Desert. We briefly visited a couple of small villages, where the houses were made of materials like mud and thatched roofs: and children asking constantly for rupees. After visiting the villages we drove to meet Hanib who took us on a camel safari and on the way we picked up two women wearing magenta veils over their faces and a young girl who had obviously been walking for miles. They lived in a village close to the place we were going to. It became quite cramped in the back of the jeep, but it seems that there is no limit to how many people are allowed in a vehicle. We saw an autorickshaw later that night carrying nine or ten passengers (they were all squashed in together so it was hard to count) and the driver.
The camel ride was great. It is actually amazing to have found out how high off the ground you are when you are on a camel’s back. At the starting point there was desert all around us with a hard, dry and slightly sandy terrain with sparse trees and shrubs. We spotted a few gazelles running in this part of the desert as well as cows.
As we continued into the wilderness Hanib took us to some natural golden sand dunes, which we rode over and also rested on. It looked like nobody had ever been there before because our camels were making fresh footprints in the sand and there was nobody else in sight. We managed to meet up with a couple of dune beetles though. Just before dark we left the dunes by jeep and returned to the fort in Jaisalmer.
We went in search of a lassi bar and we each had 3 makhania lassis (defined in the blog post for Jodhpur) at the Mohan juice bar and then two more on the way home in another lassi bar, called Kanchen Shree. The lassis were all equally amazing! We are going to try and get the recipe!
After drinking a grand total of 5 lassis each there was just enough room in our stomachs for some naan breads so we bought a couple and took them back to the hostel. We then got showered and here we are writing this post. It has been another amazing day.

On the roof of Saffron restaurant with fort in background

2009-03-31T00:55:00.000-07:00

Jaisalmer

2009-03-31T00:54:00.000-07:00

Our train pulled into Jaisalmer station at 6:00am, where we were surrounded by crowds of people trying to get us to use their taxis or to stay at their hotels. In the end we chose to climb into an old jeep driven by an old man with earrings and a big moustache. After roughly 10 minutes of driving, the jeep drew to a halt in the centre of a small square in the ancient fort. It was dark and the only sounds we could hear were those of a few twittering birds and barking dogs. As we walked up a lonely alleyway some stray dogs followed us from the square whilst barking furiously. The streets were old and cobbled and the walls high with many narrow paths branching in all directions. We finally found our hotel and to our relief we were greeted by Chimmy who owns the rooms inside this “Haveli”. The Haveli is 500 years old and actually, the floor of the room we are sleeping in is made of dried mud. From our room we can see a sacred temple and the small street below, and it is noticeable that all of the buildings are made of sandstone.
Later that morning we decided to go and explore Jaisalmer. The moment we stepped out of the hostel we saw a cow roaming the streets. Is it totally safe to walk past a sacred cow? No, not, if, like Simon, you don’t like being gored by its massive horns.
The further we walked, the more people we saw in their shops selling small ornaments, tapestries and throws for chairs or walls. Jon managed to haggle a small gift down from 250 rupees to 110 rupees. Bargain! Now lets hope he can fit it inside his backpack so that he can bring it home.
We were lucky enough to be in the square of the fort when a special festival, unique to Jaisalmer, was taking place. We noticed that a large representation of the Hindu god Shiva’s, wife was paraded through the small square, out of the Fort and down to Lake Gadi Sagar. Normally, in other processions, the king (maharaja) of Jaisalmer rides at the front, but in this particular one he rode behind because he is not higher than Shiva’s wife. In Jaisalmer the maharaja is viewed as a God in human form. In olden days he would ride in the processions on an elephant, but these days he rides a white horse. Amazing that we should stumble upon this yearly event!
Following the procession we went up a small cobbled street inside the fort and up some stone steps where we finally reached the top of one of the forts towering walls. It was great to view the city from so high up and to see the sun go down. We could clearly see that the sandstone houses almost matched the colour of the sand in the desert surrounding the town. It was at this point that we truly understood why the nickname for Jaisalmer is “the Golden City”.

Lassi drinks and a view from the fort over the "Blue City"

2009-03-31T00:47:00.000-07:00

Jodhpur

2009-03-31T00:46:00.000-07:00

On arrival in Jodhpur we managed to leave our bags in the station for the day, whilst we had a look around the city. We visited the Meherangarh Fort, which towers over Jodhpur and the view from there was breathtaking. We could see a palace in the distance and the whole of Jodhpur’s blue city beneath. The fort was our escape from all the hustle and bustle and it was great to take our time and chill with coke, fanta and cool, cool water.
We can’t believe how busy the small and winding streets here are. There are loads of autorickshaws, motorbikes, cars and people, not to mention the camel and all the sacred cows. There are more markets with people selling spices, clothes and crafts.
We took a shortcut up a dark narrow street where families socialised with one another in their doorways. There were more cows here and a load of flies!
We’re writing this blog right now in the Mishrilal lassi bar in the market in Jodhpur right next to the clock tower. Everyone is really friendly, and Manish Borana has given us some great Indian music to play in itunes. The makhania lassi here must surely be the BEST in the world; and at only 15 rupees (21p) we thought we should at least try it. Yum! We’ve had six right now already, and we had 4 for breakfast.

Then we stumbled upon a shop selling traditional Rajasthani puppets in many bright colours, all sold in pairs so that the maharaja puppet comes with his matching queen. This style of entertainment must surely be centuries old? And then it was time for our first real taste of restaurant food in India. Would it be different from the style of food we love so much at the Taj Mahal restaurant in St Austell? Lots of people say that Indian food in India is very different from that served back home, and boy were they right!
We found our waiting train for Jaisalmer in very good time: our carriage was in pitch darkness and it was a little intimidating settling into our dusty berths with no light. Eventuallly we got underway and gradually the air coming in through the window began to change: we were entering the Thar Desert, and the sand was getting everywhere! Jon woke up half way through the journey to find that loads of sand had blown in through the window and all over him. Ears included!

Indian family who gave us food on the train

2009-03-31T00:38:00.001-07:00

Mumbai to Jodhpur on the train

2009-03-31T00:22:00.001-07:00

When it was time to leave Mumbai to reach our train at Bandra Terminus station, we were greeted in the town with a taxi driver shouting, “Where do you go to?”; and following our reply he said “10 dollars”. We tried haggling him down and little did we know that another taxi driver was watching us. This other taxi driver shouted “200 rupees!”, which is a little less than 3 pounds, so we took that. We drove past the Dharavi Slum where clips of the newly released Slumdog Millionnaire film was based. These slums are home to over 1 million people and it was impressive to see how creative the Indians living there are. They use anything they can find to build their homes; corregated iron as roofs or walls, slanted ladders as steps and so on. The driving was absolutely manic with cars, small bikes and the occasional push-bike weaving in and out of each other, but we trusted the driver not to crash.
When we finally got to Bandra Terminus Station we were pleased to locate our second class sleeper coach easily. Our names, ages and berth numbers were posted on the board: so the online booking had actually worked! During the day the chairs are folded up for seating and as from 9:00pm we could unfold the chairs to turn them into beds. Sitting adjacent to us were an Indian family who were very friendly. They were giving us information about the trains, and where to get water, food etc. In the evening they offered us food that they made up, which included chapatti, roti, chutney, vegetable curry, Bombay mix and golden Halwar for dessert!
Jon decided to get off the train at Vadadora to buy some more water, because they said that the stop would be for about half an hour. After five minutes, the train started to move out of the station……. Luckily, Jon got back on in time with the water. Mission accomplished! The journey through Gujarat had large towns lined with slums and open fires burning at night, and the smells of heavy industry sometimes pervaded the air. But when we awoke in the morning, the scenery had changed; the air was purer. We were in Rajasthan!

How cricket is done in Mumbai.

2009-03-27T22:25:00.000-07:00

Mumbai

2009-03-27T12:30:00.000-07:00

Before we reached Mumbai (formerly Bombay), we had it in our minds that it was going to be a city full of modern looking skyscrapers butchering the beautiful Indian landscape that once existed there. How wrong were we??? In fact we were very impressed with the leafy avenues that lined the hustle and bustle of street beggars and traffic, particularly taxis. It seemed that everywhere we went there would always be somebody trying to sell us a taxi ride or a tour of the city in their "air conditioned" taxi: by "air conditioned" this generally meant that the taxi had windows that opened to let a breeze in. We walked.
A friend of ours, Fran Sandham, joined us on our Mumbai adventure and we walked for miles. We found ourselves walking among all kinds of people from rich businessmen to poor vagrants, as well as market traders trying constantly to impress us with their handicrafts, clothes, trinkets and... well... you name it.
As a taster of Indian creative skill, we saw a poor looking man sitting on a bike that had its back wheel raised off the ground, pedalling like mad as a way of sharpening knives. He had created a kind of pulley system between the back wheel and a circular piece of metal, which he had placed on his handlebars. When the metal rotated as a result of his pedal-power he pushed the blade of one of his many knives into the spinning metal. Sparks were flying everywhere, and it was great to see the satisfaction written on his face as he held each knife high for closer inspection.
We also got a feel for the national sport, cricket. We walked through a ginormous maidan where there were an uncountable number of cricket matches taking place. It was great to leave the streets where the poor seemed to scrape by and to see people having fun and time for themselves. We stopped and watched for a few minutes but then decided to continue exploring the city. We were later following a main road called Marine Drive, which curves around the bay and we saw a few people playing cricket in the street. We got invited to play and we couldn't say no. So Jon started off by bowling, followed by Fran, and then Simon tried his hand at batting. I think they were impressed, but we decided to leave it to the professionals.
We found the Gateway to India, a famous landmark on the coast of Mumbai, and we were being asked to have our photos taken with other Indian tourists. We stumbled across a famous nearby restaurant called Leopold's and stopped for a naan bread and a lassi (a fruity smoothie-like drink made from milk, yoghurt and mango). We found out that this restaurant had an attack of terrorism in November, 2008 and this was evident from the bullet holes in the wall.
After a late lunch we wandered to the CST station, which was used as part of the film set in the newly released film, Slumdog Millionaire. The architecture of the station and many of the important buildings around Mumbai were fairly gothic. There were even stone gargoyles stretching out from a small tower on the roof of the station.
As we continued walking into the evening, we saw traders packing up their stalls and some people sleeping in the streets, but the roads remained busy and loud.