India 2010

'TII' - This Is India. This is what we say whenever we get ripped off or a train is 4 hours late or we see someone urinating on the street or we're in a place where alcohol is illegal yet Marijuana is legal or when I order a banana chocolate pancake and it's made with nutella instead of chocolate sauce. It is what we say when there is nothing else that can be said, TII fits perfectly.

The journey from Rishikesh to Delhi was horrendous for a number of reasons. The first was because it was the morning after the night before. We'd been on the lashtrain with the girls as it was our last night with them. We were up at 6AM and it was pissing it down (Indian monsoon style) and we needed to cross the Ganges, get a taxi to the bus station and get a public bus to Delhi. As we were sprinting to the footbridge a guy asked if I wanted to purchase a rain mac. I said yeah, quickly threw my bag down without looking, put the mac on and picked up my rucksack to reveal half a cow shit on the ground (the other half was on the bottom of my bag). TII. We ended up paying 300 rupees for a 15 minute taxi and 330 for the 7 hour bus to Delhi. TII.

We managed to locate a tuk tuk driver who knew how to get to the village of Khera Khurd, where the base for Child Survival India was located. It was 27km out of central Delhi, essentially in the countryside. After arriving, we were led down the road to meet our host family: mother Babita, brother Ishu, sisters Likhi and Nidhi and dad Braham. They were the best hosts ever, providing an endless supply of our choice of food (especially chipatis), cooking Lee special (supposedly) mild curry, giving us a clean room, taking us to their Grandparents for chai, teaching us Hindi. Staying with the family alone was a great experience.

Our work at CSI was somewhat disappointing. We didn't actually do all that much although considering we sorted it at such short notice it was good of them to allow us along for the ride. We were in the Mobile Health Van visiting some pretty slummy parts of the outskirts of Delhi. We did get involved weighing and taking the heights of babies from 0 to 18 months. It's shocking how many were marked as 'malnourished' - some one year olds weighing just 5kg (11lb). I also admitted I was a medical student so on Saturday when we were at a 'Health Camp', I was told to help the Pharmacist dispensing drugs. Anatomy, Phisiology and Biochemistry (all the medical knowledge I have) was of no use.

We left the family and raced to a tailor in the centre of Delhi where I spent just shy of £200 on 2 shirts, a brown suit (styled on the 10th Doctor) and a tweed jacket (styled on the 11th Doctor). We bought a £2.50 bottle of rum, had dinner at Wimpy and then headed to '@live', an Indian Bar/Club thing where we had banter with the locals and partied with the expats.

We were staying out of the rat race in the Tibetan Colony in the North. On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday we managed to fill our time shopping and eating mainly. Many of the Lonely Planet recommended shops were a disappointment yet I managed to purchase a fair bit. Coming home my bag is at capacity with purchases: 12 Tshirts, 4 pairs of trousers, 1 pair of jeans, 1 pair of shorts, 2 jumpers, 2 hats, 2 coats, a tweed jacket, a 3 piece suit, 3 shirts, a scarf, a mug, a set of head phones, 1 typical traveller top, a deck of cards, 4 packs of tea, 4 pirate DVDs, 1500ml Indian Rum, 2 ties, 6 packs of Henna, 10 vanilla pods, 2 toy tuk tuks, 4 sets of Tibetan prayer flags, 2 notebooks and 1 new bag to carry some of it. We managed to keep ourselves amused doing childish things. Our favourites were tapping yokles on the shoulder and looking in the opposite direction, shouting 'JELDICARO!' ('FASTER' in Hindi) at people while getting on the metro, and when people would ask us 'From which country?' (which happened many times a day) we would ask them back but before they had time to answer say 'Pakistan?' and then tell them how Pakistani they looked. These jokes would never get old or tiring as the diversity of responses would be as diverse as the people of India itself, some just taking it as a joke and laughing, some stunned, some joining in and one man: "I would rather die a thousand times over than be from Pakistan".

Getting to the airport was bloody stressful (we arrived 62 minutes before our flight took off), partially because we were stupid and didn't book a taxi in advance, but mainly because of the torrential rain that morning in Delhi, the general traffic congestion and the destruction of the city for the Commonwealth Games (it has not yet been reconstructed despite the Games kicking off in 5 weeks). For all it's faults however I've grown to love the city of Delhi, much like in the last 8 weeks I've grown to love the incredible mix of people, food and places in this great nation. I feel if there is one message I bring home it is that the worlds largest democracy does not work and I don't believe in my lifetime it ever will. Maybe I'll be proved wrong in 50 years but I urge you come and see it, taste it, smell it, hear it and feel it for yourself.

Until I travel again (USA, Iceland, Egypt and South America are on the shortlist), TWI - That Was India. July 1st - August 25th 2010.

My travelling party has increased from 2 to 6 and is now 4. Lee and I were with 4 girls called Nikki and Terese, who are human, and Manali and Leh, who are puppies we adopted and de-flead and have brought with us on bus journeys and are nursing up to health. Unfortunately, last night, despite our best efforts, Manali passed away. She had a fever of some sort and for her funeral we committed her body to the Ganges (in keeping with many thousands of other Indians). Keen to not let the same thing happen to little Leh, we called out the vet who gave her some injections which will hopefully make her strong and ready for the world. I have grown rather fond of Leh; she settles to sleep on me and is just the cutest thing ever. (NB. Since writing this little Leh has died, may she rest in peace.)

We just finished a yoga class in a place called Rishikesh, the so called 'Yoga Capital of the World'. Our yoga instructor was quite simply hilarious. He was so proud of his (wrong) anatomical knowledge, like I have been in many a supervision last year. I think I stopped listening to him when he said the heart was predominantly located on the right hand side of the body, but then changed his mind to the left. Maybe he was just a bit of a joker. I'm not sure. Anyway, despite his flaws he was super flexible and made me want to take up yoga next term. However, maybe all the chanting and channelling energy bullshit will make me stay away.

After leaving Manali we went to Shimla (before coming back to the sweltering heat of the Indian plains at Rishikesh). Shimla was pretty dull. The only redeeming, interesting selling point was the fact that it was home to India's 2nd oldest church and numerous other British style buildings which essentially made the main part of the town look like Great Yarmouth or somewhere quintessentially British but overall a bit shit.

In Rishikesh we've not been up to much. There isn't actually that much to see, but it is a pretty atmospheric place and nice to just stand and look out on the cool mist creating a blanket over the Ganges. All the restaurants serve up the same traveller food, priced between 70 and 110 Rupees (1 pound to 1.60): Falafel, Gnocci, Salads, Pizzas, Burritos - I've had them all in the last couple of days. We 'broke in' to a hotel and went swimming on the rooftop pool. That was fun. And we got a tuk-tuk to drive us 15km to the nearest beer and wine shop, as it's not legal/available in holy places in India although Bhang (Marijuana) is. That was, well, desperate.

Tomorrow we head back to smelly Delhi. We managed to fire a few emails off to NGO's and have secured three days of volunteering in a public health van which travels around slums. It should be really interesting and we'll be staying with a local family so it'll be good to get a taste of some genuine Indian cuisine again and to chill with genuine yokles. Here is the website of the organisation: http://www.childsurvival-india.org/. It'll be good to be doing something productive with our time - we had planned to volunteer in the far north but as we didn't make it we're going to fill our final week in Delhi. We're gonna have a few days R&R, hopefully get some stuff tailored before flying back Wednesday. Boy has it gone quick.

It's been a long 10 days.

Really long. The tale of getting stuck between landslides in the Himalayas is long, treacherous and would benefit from being told in person. However, I will give an outline of how I, along with many other foreign nationals got trapped.

We left Manali on Tuesday, on a 2PM bus, with one seat between us. So I stood for a good 7 of the 9 hours to a place called Keylong. We spent the night on wooden beds in a 50 rupee dorm (I say the night, I slept 11PM til 3.30AM) then got a bus at 5AM (again no seats) and stood for a further 10 hours, progressing only 50km. Then we hitched a lift with a Buddhist monk trying to get home. Slept in a place called Sarchu, left in the morning to be confronted with about 15 landslides. Managed to drive over 2 but had to hike 13km to an army base called Pang where we had tea with the Indian army (who BTW do fuck all, all day, every day - if I was Pakistan I would attack. We even asked an officer why there are so many bases in the Himalayas, all he said was "I don't know. But China is only 100km away.") Then we got in the back of an open top lorry, travelled along the worlds 2nd highest road where it started to hail, and then rain as we descended so we pulled into a place called Rumtse, 75km from our destination of Leh. When we set off the following morning there were more than just landslides - the valley side had come down, washing the road into the river. Dead bodies hung out of vehicles which had either been caught up in the weather, or tried to cross. There was no way of going forward. No way of going back.

We hung out for 3 days in Rumtse when on Sunday afternoon Lee and I made a fire to boil some water to have a shower. While standing naked with the Himalayas in the background, news came through that the way back to Manali was open. Even though we'd come 399km we had to go back. So we did. It had been exhausting.

We spent three days back in Manali, just hanging out, enjoying western comforts, getting coats tailored. It was nice. And yesterday we came to Shimla, an British hill station with India's 2nd oldest Church. How British.

The journey from Varanasi to Amritsar was surprisingly pleasant despite it taking over 26 hours. The reason for this is we got conned with our tickets and ended up paying more, but getting to travel in the AC compartment of the train. This was a blessing in disguise as it made the journey much more bearable. Especially as our last night in Varanasi we paid less than a pound for dinner for the 4 of us from a street stand. The consequence of this was felt on the train journey. (If you wish not to hear about bowel movements, skip to paragraph 2). In the 24 hour period from the morning of leaving Varanasi to the next morning on the train, between 4 people, there were 40 bowel movements. 40! Given that I can take credit for only 2 of these, well, you do the math. 40! All I could do was lol.

We only really did 2 things in Amritsar. When we arrived a guy came up to us, offering to take us to the India Pakistan border. We thought it could be a laugh so we bundled in a taxi and went. When we arrived the sight that greeted us was pretty gob smacking. The last 100m of road leading up to the India-Pakistan gates was lined with tiered seats, like an arena, going back maybe 25 rows. There were maybe 2000 Indian people sitting and cheering while women ran around with huge India flags, men marched about and shouted into microphones with interspersed with chants of "Hindustan! Hindustan!" (With the faint sound of "Pakistan! Pakistan!" coming from the other side of the fence.) It was completely surreal.

After this was over we returned to the city and entered the Golden Temple complex. It was stunning and amazing to see this site of pilgrimage I remember learning about from Mrs. McDowell in RE in year 6. We ate at the communal dining hall where there was all you can eat daal, potato curry, chapatis and Sikh sweet dessert stuff. The food wasn't bad either, considering they feed about 70000 people a day. And it was free. And the kitchen was 24 hours. After dinner we went inside the temple and admired its intricate design and decoration.

After leaving the girls at the bus station in Amritsar, I found myself, with Lee, in a community centre in McLeod Ganj in the Himalayas in front of 3 Tibetan refugees. Two of them were monks, the other was dressed like my dad circa 2001. On the whiteboard was today's topic of conversation: Influences. I'd been given no instruction, but I tried to explain what an influence was to these three adults. It was difficult. I then had to ask them questions based on this word. Who is your biggest influence? "The Dalai Lama". What influenced you to leave Tibet? "The Chinese". After settling in, we had a laugh, it wasn't easy though. I'm not cut out to teach English.

McLeod Ganj was great. It had such a different feel to it than the rest of India, due to the fact that there were very few Indians there. It's clean, it's organised, people don't drop litter, people smile. It's just a good place. It's full of Tibetans who have fled the Chinese regime in their homeland, pretty much all of them having trekked for 3 weeks through the Himalayas avoiding the Chinese army to get out. They hang about in this neck of the woods because it is the HQ of the Dalai Lama, their spiritual and political leader. It is an easy place to get caught up, we could've stayed for weeks volunteering but we managed to draw ourselves away. Living is so cheap here. I thought I would breakdown how much I spent on 30.7.2010 (in rupees, exchange rate is about 70R to 1 pound):

115 - room
60 - banana chocolate pancake breakfast
30 - banana flapjack
45 - tibetan noodle lunch
95 - Pride and Prejudice book (mistake)
45 - 3 x 1l drinking water
70 - 375ml Rum
10 - 4 Momos for dinner
80 - 4 x cokes in restaurant

= 550R (i think) - so less than 8 pound.

We're currently in a place called Vashisht, near Manali. It's a bit shit compared to McLeod Ganj, but there is enough for a couple of days. We've watched a few films (Gran Torino is worth a watch) and yesterday I went zorbing, in one of those huge inflatable balls rolling down a hill. The greedy men running the show were to wrapped up in getting more tourists in the balls that they forgot to charge me so that was nice. As this is morally questionable as of course I'm probably better off than they are, we ended up speaking to a guy who fixes and shines shoes for a living on the bus home who said he earns 3000R a month and saves 300R of it (just over 4 pound). I paid for his and his cousins bus ticket. It all swings and roundabouts.

Walking along the banks of the Ganges river in Varanasi is an experience like no other. It's one that is difficult to put into words. The banks are busy with people going about their business. There guys who want to sell you hashish. There are beggers with leprosy who ask for "one rupee". There are the occasional stereotypical "travellers" with dreadlocks and facial hair. There are men asking "What country?" and "Your name?" and then shake your hand but don't let go and start massaging you (I fell victim to this and ended up 50 rupees worse off). There are old men with beards sitting in orange robes, smoking hashish. There are Buddhists, Hindus and Jains all visiting this pilgrimage city.

The best adjective to describe Manikarnika Ghat or the Burning Ghat is: holy. I've never been too keen on religion so I couldn't give you an objective definition of the word but there was something truly sacred about watching the ritual that occurred there. It also all felt oddly commercial and uniform with families purchasing wood, bodies arriving on bamboo stretchers before being washed in the sacred water (which was brown with humans and cattle and dogs bathing in just metres away) and then carried to a pyre which was always too short so meant that once the burning commenced and the thin layer of fabric shielding the body burnt away, the head and feet were visible for all to see. When we arrived there were 10 pyres in different stages of burning. An 11th was constructed while we were there, and another later on the embers of one of the original ones.

After leaving Mumbai we went to the city of Aurangabad. With India, there seems to be a lot to do round the edges of the country but the middle, especially this time of year, is hot and uneventful. We were stopping at Ajanta to a see a collection of 30 two thousand year old caves carved into a cliff face. They were uncompleted and uninhabited for most of this time, until they were rediscovered by the British in the 1800's. They were really impressive but really hot. Most caves were maybe 30m deep into the rock and had huge statues of Buddha inside. We had a spare day in Aurangabad and I saw a water park advertised on the notice board at the hotel. We went. We were the only people there. It wasn't completely shit, I'd say it was better than most indoor water parks in England. It had 4 slides, and a play area and a lazy river, but the water was browner than the Ganges so we steered clear.

Our next stop was at a group of temples in Khajuraho which are both Hindu and Jain. The Hindu temples had carving of Karma Sutra on the walls. We were told their were 4 theories for the (quite frankly) pornographic images.
1) The first is that the ruler at the time of building bloody loved tantric yoga as a way of reaching God. Of course the highest state of tantra can be achieved in the act of sex hence, lots of pictures. So the Karma Sutra is a religious thing rather than a sexual thing (yeah right...)
2) In the town where the temples were built the young Hindu children left the town in favour of Buddhist and Jain children so to promote more children there was lots of sexual imagery.
3) The King of Heaven in Hindism is also the King of Rain. In heaven there are lots of women who like to pleasure so to attract the King of Heaven (and Rain) to come to the region they depicted all these pictures.
4) The King of Lightning/Electricity is a bachelor (and therefore can't have sex as isn't married) so to keep lightning away they have images of sex.

My favorite is the 1st, Lee's is the 3rd. It was for us to decide which we believed. In the afternoon we went to the Radisson hotel, Khajuraho and used the swimming pool and fitness suite. It was sweet to just chill (and get sunburnt!) for the afternoon. The sleeper train to Varanasi wasn't too fun though.

In other news, Indian people seem to bloody love my sunglasses. Admittedly, they are pretty damn cool. They were purchased by my father in 1984. I don't think there is a day when I am wearing them that one of the yokles won't say "Nice Glasses". I've had 3 offers from people to purchase them, including one shop keeper who said I could have anything in his shop in exchange for them. Also, I decided to stop being one of those stereotypical traveller types and shave my facial hair. More specifically, I paid 30 Rupees (40p-ish) for a shave. He did a much better job than I do.

We leave for Amritsar on a 24 hour train tomorrow. Grim.