India - Week Two

Our second week in India has been just as busy and bizzare as the first! On our last night in Pushkar, there was a freak hail storm which cut power to the whole town and made it impossible to go outdoors for about an hour. When the heavens had subsided, we caught a freezing cold, 8 hour overnight bus to Udaipur - a beautiful lakeside city littered with wonderful old palaces, including a floating palace where parts of the James Bond film, Octopussy, were filmed. It was an amazingly charming place and felt like an Indian Venice! Before catching our next overnight bus, we had a lovely Indian meal in a Parisien-esque garden restaurant, looking over the lake towards the palaces. Unfortunately, we only had one day in Udaipur, but I easily could have stayed there a week and will definitely return in the future! The 16 hour bus ride from Udaipur to Mumbai was probably the most uncomfortable and difficult - we came too late to get sleepers, so we had to sit for the whole journey and, after almost 36 hours without being able to lie down, my feet had swollen beyond recognition by the time we reached Mumbai! As soon as we left the bus station in Mumbai to catch a taxi to our pre-booked hotel we were

caught in a massive downpour of rain and all of our clothes and most of our bags were soaked. To make matters worse, by the time we got to our hotel they had increased the prices of the rooms by 300 rupees, so we had to walk the streets of Mumbai, sopping wet, heaving our luggage, until we found a reasonably-priced (but very very basic) hotel. Nonetheless, I still really enjoyed Mumbai - it is a crazy, huge, and busy city but being by the seaside gives it a relaxed and easy-going feeling. One of Tara's university friends showed us around the city and treated us to a wonderful meal. We were hoping to be able to watch a Bollywood movie while we were there, but we couldn't find a 4 hour block of spare time to do it in! Instead, we went to the post-office where, much like in Chinese government-run stores and offices, you have to go to a different counter to buy stamps, another for weighing your packages, another for buying the envelopes, and another for the final sending off! On our way out of Mumbai (this time on a sleeper bus for 14 hours), we watched the massive city continue to pass by for hours and were very UN-gently rocked to (very little) sleep until we arrived in Goa. For the past few days in Goa we haev just been relaxing by the beach, swimming in the warm ocean, sipping cocktails while watching the sunset, making friends with the cows on the beach, and having long Ayuvedic massages. Tomorrow evening we head off the Hampi, several hours West of Goa, to explore ancient ruins!

India - Week One

Ah, where to start? I arrived in Delhi to a warm welcome from Tara, Emma, and Eimear on Saturday night and after a few drinks with some of Tara's friends we all had to rush back to Tara's house to get what sleep we could before catching our 6am train to Agra the following morning. After sorting out the kurfuffle with taxis, we finally made it to the Taj Mahal (where, interestingly, women and men had to stand in different lines at the entry gate...and, luckily for us, the women's line was much much shorter!). The Taj Mahal was so so beautiful - so much more than what you see in photographs....it had a very serene feeling, despite the tourists. Agra also houses the huge and stunning Agra Fort, where the man who comissioned the building of the Taj Mahal was imprisoned by his own son but (at least) was given a cell facing the Taj Mahal so that he could look out to where his wife was buried. After an excruciatingly uncomfortable train ride we arrived in Jaipur where, luckily, our hotel was wonderful and clean with a great rooftop restaurant looking over the whole town. On our second day in Jaipur we were taken on a hilarious auto-rickshaw ride by a tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee pair who then took us to their brother-in-law's silver shop and tried to scam us (unsucessfully). That night we also went to a Rajasthani culture park that was set up like a Rajasthani village. We dined on yummy food, rode camels and elephants, watched a traditional magic show, and went on a make-shift ferris wheel. The next day I was feeling ill and the others tried to do some shopping but didn't get very far. Of all of the sights to see in Jaipur we, unfortunately, only saw Tiger Fort, placed high above Jaipur. It was beautiful, and gave a great view of the whole area, but it would have been nice to see more of the palaces and temples. By day 4, however, we were all ready to leave the traffic-jams and constantly beeping horns of Jaipur so, with Bjorn now united with us, we set off for Pushkar on the bus. Pushkar (where, 3 days later, we still are) is a little hippy oasis on the edge of the desert with a beautiful holy lake in the middle said to be created when a god dropped a lotus flower here. It is full of hippy, soul-searching foreigners, but it has heaps of great shopping, internet, and nice cafes, which makes it a very easy place to get stuck in for quite some time. On our first night here we were invited to a jam session by a French-Canadian guy who has been here for a month learning to play the sitar. So, we huddled together under the stars and around a fire and listened to a sometimes bizzare medley of sitars, drums, flutes, songs, and fire dancers, as the music echoed against the surrounding mountains. After a whole day of shopping yesterday (following a free rooftop yoga lesson in the morning by a newly-graduated and very impatient yoga teacher), I have decided that I better not buy too much more here, as all of our bags were already full before we arrived! So, tomorrow evening we push off to Udaipur on the overnight bus.