Breakfast was from 8am and I thought it finished at 10, so at 9:30, I rushed to get up, only to find it went on till 10:30. For breakfast, I grabbed some exotic fruits and placed some bread in the awesome conveyor toaster on the buffet table. A bird landed next to us while we were eating that was completely bald headed. We named him Patrick Stewart- he was really freaky and Hannah couldn't look at him.
After breakfast, we immediately hit the pool. We picked a spot in the corner of the pool area that was relatively shady. I read my book for a bit and then listened to my iPod. After a couple of hours, I decided to dip in the pool for a bit.
We could've had lunch by the pool, but decided to retire to the room for a break from the sun. I ordered another cheeseburger and the girls did the same. While we ate, we watched more Green Wing- we were a bit addicted.
Back down at the pool and someone had stolen my shady spot, so I had to sit in a bit of a sunny one. I had some sunscreen on, but felt the need to top up constantly. After half an hour, I fancied another dip. When I went up to change, I noticed very red shoulders, and as the light changed, very red knees and forearms. I don't know why I ever even try to tan; it just doesn't happen. Nevertheless, I hopped back into the pool and stayed in the shade. I stayed there for ages! I love swimming! Sarah said she thought I'm part fish.
In the evening, we had to order room service again because it was 'Elvis night' in the restaurant, which costed 400THB. Instead, we watched the green wing finale and ate pork noodles. Afterwards, we channel hopped, stopping on crappy Thai sitcoms, soaps and gameshows. We started watched 'Take the Lead' with Antonio Banderas, but switched off due to it being shite and slept.
Tuesday, 29 July 2008
Friday, 18 July 2008
Day 12- Wednesday 12th March- Phuket, Thailand
I woke up at 7:30am thinking it was 1am and trying desperately to get back to sleep. My alarm went off at 8 and really confused me. We got up and ready nice and quick and were out with all our gear by 8:45. We were planning on getting the MRT to the airport simply because it would cost us all about $3 each, but got lazy and hailed a cab, which came to $13.
At Changi airport, we were welcomed by an awesome old school board, flicking away with the next thirty or so flights, their gates and statuses. We waited around for our check-in desk to open, which happened an hour later than we'd expected. In the mean time, we had coffee and chatted. We checked in at 11 and were given rubbish paper boarding passes, which, i guess, was appropriate since we were flying with Air Asia, a rubbish airline. We passed through immigration for new stamps.
In the duty free bit, I was offered some free mint baileys, which was horrible, so I pulled lots of faces in front of the person who gave it to me. We then went searching for a puzzle book to keep us entertained, but everything was stupidly overpriced. Sarah bought some overpriced Milka chocolate. We did find some free internet terminals, so took full advantage of those. Our student finance could be sorted from today, so we knew that would be looming over us for a while.
Before long, it was time to go to the gate. My bag was fine going through the X-rays this time, but Hannah got stopped for having a bottle of Pepsi.
On board, we were allowed to sit wherever we liked. The plane was pretty small and the seats uncomfortable. Taking off was a bit scary because of the crappy weather in Singapore causing our tiny plane to shake. The flight was an hour and a half long. When we arrived in Thailand, it looked like we were going to land in the ocean because of how close the runway was to the coast. Getting through immigration was no probs, although we had a bit of a scare when we all thought we might need a visa and didn't have one. We were ok though, being British and all.
Outside, a man was waiting for us with a sign that read Sarah's name. He got his car and we hopped in. I was expecting a 'Welcome to Thailan
d!', but he didn't seem to speak English. The roads of Phuket (which, I was surprised to discover at the airport, is an island) were kind of reminiscent of India, but with fewer people and fewer cars. As we drove over a lot of hills and along a lot of twisty roads, I noticed a lot of 'Tsunami evacuation point's, which had, presumably, been set up since Phuket was heavily devastated in the boxing day tsunami three years before. We came into Patong beach some fifteen minutes into the drive and I began noticing a lot of tourists on mopeds, which must've been hirable nearby.
We arrived and checked into our hotel at Patong Lodge. Our room was lovely, overlooking the pool and a view of the sea through the tree. We immediately ordered room service and I had a nice cheeseburger for lunch. Afterwards, we decided to go explore the surrounding area. The roads were chaotic and hard to cross. I bought a pair of sunglasses for 200 baht (about £4) and we each bough flip flops for 300THB a piece. We realised that there was little
but hotels within walking distance, so we went back to the hotel. Hannah had a bath while Sarah and I chilled out by the pool. It was very pleasant down there. We ordered some drinks; I got a tiger beer and Sarah tried a Singapore sling cocktail. I think we were the only backpackers staying at that hotel, all the other people looked like holidayers, most of them over fifty.
After an hour or so by the pool, Sarah and I went back to the room and found Hannah. We all decided to go for dinner. We sat in the hotel restaurant just as a man named Mr Dingh started playing classic songs on his guitar. He loved us because we were the only people who always clapped. Hannah and I ordered really spicy ceasar salads and Sarah ordered chips. I had banana pancakes for dessert. Yum!
We retired to our room and watched two episodes of Green Wing followed by some crappy Barbara Streisand movie. We were asleep by 11.
At Changi airport, we were welcomed by an awesome old school board, flicking away with the next thirty or so flights, their gates and statuses. We waited around for our check-in desk to open, which happened an hour later than we'd expected. In the mean time, we had coffee and chatted. We checked in at 11 and were given rubbish paper boarding passes, which, i guess, was appropriate since we were flying with Air Asia, a rubbish airline. We passed through immigration for new stamps.
In the duty free bit, I was offered some free mint baileys, which was horrible, so I pulled lots of faces in front of the person who gave it to me. We then went searching for a puzzle book to keep us entertained, but everything was stupidly overpriced. Sarah bought some overpriced Milka chocolate. We did find some free internet terminals, so took full advantage of those. Our student finance could be sorted from today, so we knew that would be looming over us for a while.
Before long, it was time to go to the gate. My bag was fine going through the X-rays this time, but Hannah got stopped for having a bottle of Pepsi.
On board, we were allowed to sit wherever we liked. The plane was pretty small and the seats uncomfortable. Taking off was a bit scary because of the crappy weather in Singapore causing our tiny plane to shake. The flight was an hour and a half long. When we arrived in Thailand, it looked like we were going to land in the ocean because of how close the runway was to the coast. Getting through immigration was no probs, although we had a bit of a scare when we all thought we might need a visa and didn't have one. We were ok though, being British and all.
Outside, a man was waiting for us with a sign that read Sarah's name. He got his car and we hopped in. I was expecting a 'Welcome to Thailan
d!', but he didn't seem to speak English. The roads of Phuket (which, I was surprised to discover at the airport, is an island) were kind of reminiscent of India, but with fewer people and fewer cars. As we drove over a lot of hills and along a lot of twisty roads, I noticed a lot of 'Tsunami evacuation point's, which had, presumably, been set up since Phuket was heavily devastated in the boxing day tsunami three years before. We came into Patong beach some fifteen minutes into the drive and I began noticing a lot of tourists on mopeds, which must've been hirable nearby.We arrived and checked into our hotel at Patong Lodge. Our room was lovely, overlooking the pool and a view of the sea through the tree. We immediately ordered room service and I had a nice cheeseburger for lunch. Afterwards, we decided to go explore the surrounding area. The roads were chaotic and hard to cross. I bought a pair of sunglasses for 200 baht (about £4) and we each bough flip flops for 300THB a piece. We realised that there was little
but hotels within walking distance, so we went back to the hotel. Hannah had a bath while Sarah and I chilled out by the pool. It was very pleasant down there. We ordered some drinks; I got a tiger beer and Sarah tried a Singapore sling cocktail. I think we were the only backpackers staying at that hotel, all the other people looked like holidayers, most of them over fifty.After an hour or so by the pool, Sarah and I went back to the room and found Hannah. We all decided to go for dinner. We sat in the hotel restaurant just as a man named Mr Dingh started playing classic songs on his guitar. He loved us because we were the only people who always clapped. Hannah and I ordered really spicy ceasar salads and Sarah ordered chips. I had banana pancakes for dessert. Yum!
We retired to our room and watched two episodes of Green Wing followed by some crappy Barbara Streisand movie. We were asleep by 11.
Wednesday, 16 July 2008
Day 11- Tuesday 11th March- Singapore
The girls woke up early and popped to the 7-Eleven around the corner for various things while I continued to sleep. I eventually got up at about 11:30 and we mooched around the hostel asking people where we should go. Eric told us about a nearby post office for us to send our stuff and another guy told us about a shopping street called Orchard road
It was still raining from the day before, so I donned my coat, but immediately regretted it because of the heat outside. We hopped on the MRT to the post office, which was in the very centre of a large shopping mall full of restaurants and food courts. In the post office, we paid for the postage and packaging of the things we wanted to send. I sent my Mum's pashmina and a few postcards. Back outside and the rain had seemed to pass so now I had to carry my coat around, which was even more annoying. We caught the MRT back in the other direction towards Orchard road.
Getting off the MRT at Orchard street was cool because we had to go through a temporary passageway with ambient music and funky lights. Walking out into the street, we were taken aback by the height of surrounding buildings. The pavements were heaving and the roads were crazy. I felt extremely weak from lack of food and drink, so we searched for somewhere to have lunch. We looked in a few malls, but were only met by expensive shops. Any restaurants we did find were very upper class and way too expensive for us. We should have eaten back at the food courts next to the post office! Eventually, we decided on Burger King. Not very adventurous, but it was our only option really.
We felt much better after our lunch and decided that Orchard road was a bit expensive for us, and that we should go
browse around Bugis, the cheaper part of town. We hopped back on the MRT towards Bugis, but on emerging from Bugis station we found a torrential downpour. We waited twenty minutes for it to clear up, but it showed no signs of doing so, so we got straight back on the MRT and went back to the hostel. It was only 4pm.
All night it poured down, getting stronger and slower in turns. We sat in the room all night, sorting our bags for the flight to Thailand the next day and occupying ourselves with books and journals. We were all asleep by 10pm.
It was still raining from the day before, so I donned my coat, but immediately regretted it because of the heat outside. We hopped on the MRT to the post office, which was in the very centre of a large shopping mall full of restaurants and food courts. In the post office, we paid for the postage and packaging of the things we wanted to send. I sent my Mum's pashmina and a few postcards. Back outside and the rain had seemed to pass so now I had to carry my coat around, which was even more annoying. We caught the MRT back in the other direction towards Orchard road.
Getting off the MRT at Orchard street was cool because we had to go through a temporary passageway with ambient music and funky lights. Walking out into the street, we were taken aback by the height of surrounding buildings. The pavements were heaving and the roads were crazy. I felt extremely weak from lack of food and drink, so we searched for somewhere to have lunch. We looked in a few malls, but were only met by expensive shops. Any restaurants we did find were very upper class and way too expensive for us. We should have eaten back at the food courts next to the post office! Eventually, we decided on Burger King. Not very adventurous, but it was our only option really.
We felt much better after our lunch and decided that Orchard road was a bit expensive for us, and that we should go
browse around Bugis, the cheaper part of town. We hopped back on the MRT towards Bugis, but on emerging from Bugis station we found a torrential downpour. We waited twenty minutes for it to clear up, but it showed no signs of doing so, so we got straight back on the MRT and went back to the hostel. It was only 4pm.All night it poured down, getting stronger and slower in turns. We sat in the room all night, sorting our bags for the flight to Thailand the next day and occupying ourselves with books and journals. We were all asleep by 10pm.
Day 10- Monday 10th March- Singapore
We woke up much later than we'd intended, simply because it was so dark in our room, what with the lack of windows. At 10am, we got out of bed and head straight for the MRT station. The plan had been to go to the Singapore Bird Park followed by the zoo, but upon reaching the station, we realised we had no idea where the bird park was, so scrapped that part of the plan.
When we arrived
at the MRT station closest to the zoo, we saw a sign for a free bus ride to the zoo when you buy the joint tickets for the zoo and night safari, for $45, about £15. We didn't really think about it and tried to find the zoo ourselves. Two minutes down the road, we realised that we didn't have a freaking clue where we were going, so went back to the station for the free bus. A man told us about the ticket deal, and upon thinking about it, we realised it was actually very good value. We hopped in the minibus and set off.
The journey was about 15 minutes long, along motorways, in the rain. There was no way we could've walked it.
We arrived at the zoo and head straight for lunch at KFC. I had popcorn chicken, which wasn't good as the same in England, and Sarah had 'chicken crunch', which seemed to be covered in corn-flakes.
The rain started really coming down as we started our trip around the zoo with some parrots ad then moved onto proper animals. We saw otters, monkeys, orang-utans, lions, gira
ffes, rhinos, polar bears, crocodiles etc etc. It rained all the way, which kind of dampened our spirits, and the contents of Sarah's bag. Also, my camera battery died, which was just a pain in the arse.
We finished off our visit to Singapore zoo with a trip to the gift shop. I bought some postcards of Singapore and a toy Orang Utan with magnetic hands and feet.
Next, we waited outside for the Night Safari to open. It was still raining pretty hard and whenever Hannah pointed out that it was slowing down, it would rain even harder. The night safari opened at 6, so we had a good hour to wait. When it did open, we went inside and ate dinner at a place called 'Bongo Burgers', where the staff all dress in safari unifo
rms and the drinks are served in jars. My burger was amazing, but I wish I'd stolen one of the jars.
We queued up for the safari while tribal folk did a dance nearby. We were on the first tram, so the sun was just setting. We saw deer running about freely and a tapir really close up. From afar we saw lions roaming, rhinos soaking and a huge elephant with massive tusks having dinner.
The safari was wicked, and we caught a cab back to the MRT station feeling happy, even though the rain was still pouring.
When we arrived
at the MRT station closest to the zoo, we saw a sign for a free bus ride to the zoo when you buy the joint tickets for the zoo and night safari, for $45, about £15. We didn't really think about it and tried to find the zoo ourselves. Two minutes down the road, we realised that we didn't have a freaking clue where we were going, so went back to the station for the free bus. A man told us about the ticket deal, and upon thinking about it, we realised it was actually very good value. We hopped in the minibus and set off.The journey was about 15 minutes long, along motorways, in the rain. There was no way we could've walked it.
We arrived at the zoo and head straight for lunch at KFC. I had popcorn chicken, which wasn't good as the same in England, and Sarah had 'chicken crunch', which seemed to be covered in corn-flakes.
The rain started really coming down as we started our trip around the zoo with some parrots ad then moved onto proper animals. We saw otters, monkeys, orang-utans, lions, gira
ffes, rhinos, polar bears, crocodiles etc etc. It rained all the way, which kind of dampened our spirits, and the contents of Sarah's bag. Also, my camera battery died, which was just a pain in the arse.We finished off our visit to Singapore zoo with a trip to the gift shop. I bought some postcards of Singapore and a toy Orang Utan with magnetic hands and feet.
Next, we waited outside for the Night Safari to open. It was still raining pretty hard and whenever Hannah pointed out that it was slowing down, it would rain even harder. The night safari opened at 6, so we had a good hour to wait. When it did open, we went inside and ate dinner at a place called 'Bongo Burgers', where the staff all dress in safari unifo
rms and the drinks are served in jars. My burger was amazing, but I wish I'd stolen one of the jars.We queued up for the safari while tribal folk did a dance nearby. We were on the first tram, so the sun was just setting. We saw deer running about freely and a tapir really close up. From afar we saw lions roaming, rhinos soaking and a huge elephant with massive tusks having dinner.
The safari was wicked, and we caught a cab back to the MRT station feeling happy, even though the rain was still pouring.
Tuesday, 15 July 2008
Day 9- Sunday 9th March- Singapore
The flight continued as any flight does- boringly. The old Indian man next to me kept falling asleep and I had to wake him twice to get to the loo because of my dodgy belly. Food wasn't bad- I had a chicken something or other with a great lemon cake for dessert. The entertainment selection was pretty cool, but you couldn't choose when to start the movies. There was a great SNES emulator built in, though, so I played Mario World, Mario All Stars and F-Zero.
When we finally landed and got off the plane, we were shocked by the quietness of the airport. Sure, it was 7am (two and a half hours ahead of India, so 8 ahead of the UK), but it was completely deserted and we'd been used to the chaos of Delhi. We went through immigration and got another new stamp in our passports. My card was, thankfully, still working, so I withdrew two hundred Singapore dollars, about £70, for the next few days. Outside, a man hailed a cab for us. A mean looking driver got out and took our bags and shoved them in the boot. He had a look at my hostel booking sheet and we hopped in.
'Welcome to Singapore!' he said.
Singapore smelt of noodles, in the same way that India smelt of curry.
'Thanks!' I said 'Do most Singaporeans speak English?' I asked, seeing as I had no idea about the country at all and whether we'd be stuck, language-wise.
'Ah! You are very clever!' He laughed.
The city is lovely and clean, wherever you look. It was very humid, despite the early time of day. The streets were near deserted though and everything looked very American in the design of buildings and signs.
The driver asked again where he was taking us. My directions said to tell the taxi driver to go to 'sims avenue and then turn left at (pronounced) Her Jee Pow's shop. I told him this and he burst out laughing at me and snatched the directions off me. He was quite scary, with a shaved head and menacing, tiny beard. His cab license said his name was Tay, which just reminded me of Tay Zonday, so that made me less scared.
We finally arrived and got out of the cab. I paid the driver and was very pleased when he didn't ask for a tip. We were pointed up some stair which came to a door on the second level of this building. There were simple printouts all over the door, confirming that this was 98SG, our hostel. The printouts said to ring the doorbell, so we did, but got no answer. We kept knocking and ringing and eventually, a youngish Australian guy answered. He was a traveller, too, and he and his travel mates had just flown in from India and were waiting for a room. They pointed out a sign which said 'back at 2, Eric.' We all assumed that Eric was the owner and were a bit annoyed that we'd have to wait till 2, seeing as it was only 8:30am.
After half an hour or so, two more travellers joined us- two welsh girls who were on our flight- I remembered them because I'd seen them in Delhi airport and one was very good looking and the other had the biggest jaw-line ever. We all chatted about India before deciding to do something rather than just hanging around. I was starving, but completely shattered from not sleeping at all on our over-night flight, so we didn't get far. In fact, we circled the block and bought a bottle of water each before walking back to the hostel.
9am and Eric still hadn't emerged, although apparently he was just asleep in his room. The hostel basically looked like an apartment, with a cool little living area and everything. We sat on the sofa and I kept drifting off, but every time I fell asleep, I would twitch and wake up again. Eventually, I got up and went on the internet- it was 11am by now and still no Eric. I sent some emails and tried to upload some photos, but had no joy.
When it got to 12, the aussie guys decided Eric had had a long enough lie-in and knocked on his door. After a while, a stocky little Singaporean man came out looking sleepy. He checked the aussie guys and the welsh girls into a dorm and sorted them out. He then asked me to fill in a form about deposits and that kind of thing. We then had to pay, which wiped out the money I'd withdrawn.
We were shown to our room, which consisted of two bunk beds. When we went in, a guy was already asleep on one of the beds. Eric kicked him out and moved him to another room, to which he complained a lot. There was no window in our room, but there was a decent air-con system. I dumped my stuff and fell asleep nearly straight away.
I awoke at 6p
m because Sarah was playing her music quite loud. It was time I got up anyway. Apparently it had rained quite a bit earlier but was ok now. We decided to venture out a
nd explore a bit. We got to the nearby MRT (subway) station before Hannah decided she still felt a bit dodgy and went back to the hostel. Sarah and I bought our tickets and hopped on the train. The tickets are reuseable plastic ones, so you have to pay a deposit on them, which you get back when you return them. We went two stops down the line and got off in a district called Bugis. Immediately, we spotted a Mcdonalds and, upon further exploring, a Topshop. We went through a busy marketplace and found a food court where we bought some very nice chicken and rice. The rest of our exploring was just looking around the market, but not buying anything. Before getting on the MRT to go back, we popped into a 7-Eleven store to buy supplies.
The MRT was quite busy returning to Aljunied (the station next to our hostel). Hannah was up and still feeling rough. We all had showers and then hit the hay at 10:30pm.
When we finally landed and got off the plane, we were shocked by the quietness of the airport. Sure, it was 7am (two and a half hours ahead of India, so 8 ahead of the UK), but it was completely deserted and we'd been used to the chaos of Delhi. We went through immigration and got another new stamp in our passports. My card was, thankfully, still working, so I withdrew two hundred Singapore dollars, about £70, for the next few days. Outside, a man hailed a cab for us. A mean looking driver got out and took our bags and shoved them in the boot. He had a look at my hostel booking sheet and we hopped in.
'Welcome to Singapore!' he said.
Singapore smelt of noodles, in the same way that India smelt of curry.
'Thanks!' I said 'Do most Singaporeans speak English?' I asked, seeing as I had no idea about the country at all and whether we'd be stuck, language-wise.
'Ah! You are very clever!' He laughed.
The city is lovely and clean, wherever you look. It was very humid, despite the early time of day. The streets were near deserted though and everything looked very American in the design of buildings and signs.
The driver asked again where he was taking us. My directions said to tell the taxi driver to go to 'sims avenue and then turn left at (pronounced) Her Jee Pow's shop. I told him this and he burst out laughing at me and snatched the directions off me. He was quite scary, with a shaved head and menacing, tiny beard. His cab license said his name was Tay, which just reminded me of Tay Zonday, so that made me less scared.
We finally arrived and got out of the cab. I paid the driver and was very pleased when he didn't ask for a tip. We were pointed up some stair which came to a door on the second level of this building. There were simple printouts all over the door, confirming that this was 98SG, our hostel. The printouts said to ring the doorbell, so we did, but got no answer. We kept knocking and ringing and eventually, a youngish Australian guy answered. He was a traveller, too, and he and his travel mates had just flown in from India and were waiting for a room. They pointed out a sign which said 'back at 2, Eric.' We all assumed that Eric was the owner and were a bit annoyed that we'd have to wait till 2, seeing as it was only 8:30am.
After half an hour or so, two more travellers joined us- two welsh girls who were on our flight- I remembered them because I'd seen them in Delhi airport and one was very good looking and the other had the biggest jaw-line ever. We all chatted about India before deciding to do something rather than just hanging around. I was starving, but completely shattered from not sleeping at all on our over-night flight, so we didn't get far. In fact, we circled the block and bought a bottle of water each before walking back to the hostel.
9am and Eric still hadn't emerged, although apparently he was just asleep in his room. The hostel basically looked like an apartment, with a cool little living area and everything. We sat on the sofa and I kept drifting off, but every time I fell asleep, I would twitch and wake up again. Eventually, I got up and went on the internet- it was 11am by now and still no Eric. I sent some emails and tried to upload some photos, but had no joy.
When it got to 12, the aussie guys decided Eric had had a long enough lie-in and knocked on his door. After a while, a stocky little Singaporean man came out looking sleepy. He checked the aussie guys and the welsh girls into a dorm and sorted them out. He then asked me to fill in a form about deposits and that kind of thing. We then had to pay, which wiped out the money I'd withdrawn.
We were shown to our room, which consisted of two bunk beds. When we went in, a guy was already asleep on one of the beds. Eric kicked him out and moved him to another room, to which he complained a lot. There was no window in our room, but there was a decent air-con system. I dumped my stuff and fell asleep nearly straight away.
I awoke at 6p
m because Sarah was playing her music quite loud. It was time I got up anyway. Apparently it had rained quite a bit earlier but was ok now. We decided to venture out a
nd explore a bit. We got to the nearby MRT (subway) station before Hannah decided she still felt a bit dodgy and went back to the hostel. Sarah and I bought our tickets and hopped on the train. The tickets are reuseable plastic ones, so you have to pay a deposit on them, which you get back when you return them. We went two stops down the line and got off in a district called Bugis. Immediately, we spotted a Mcdonalds and, upon further exploring, a Topshop. We went through a busy marketplace and found a food court where we bought some very nice chicken and rice. The rest of our exploring was just looking around the market, but not buying anything. Before getting on the MRT to go back, we popped into a 7-Eleven store to buy supplies.The MRT was quite busy returning to Aljunied (the station next to our hostel). Hannah was up and still feeling rough. We all had showers and then hit the hay at 10:30pm.
Monday, 7 July 2008
Day 8- Saturday 8th March- Delhi, India
We awoke very late at 11:30 to the sound of splashing water; a sound I welcomed with opened arms since it meant the toilets were working again as my stomach was still a bit ill, the girls being the same too. We took our time getting up because any sudden movements disagreed with my stomach. When we were finally up, we walked to the office to ask about the whereabouts of a post office. Ali told us it was further into the city and that he would have someone take us there.
A driver emerged and led us down the road to his very retro car, with bench seats and heavy doors you really had to slam. He asked the usual questions along the way. It was very busy and smoggy on the roads, presumably because it was the weekend. The post office was in the middleof a roundabout which, needless to say, was hell getting to because of the sheer craziness of the roads. When we got inside, it was typically Indian: people everywhere, but no real sense of order anywhere. I wanted to send the pashmina I had bought for my mum as it was her birthday, but I had no idea where to go or what to do, so I just bought some stamps and sent my postcards. We hopped back in the car and told the driver to take us back to the office.
'Ok,' he said, 'I will take you to a nice shop first.'
We were on a tight schedule, since our flight out of India was later that day: 'No thanks,' we said, 'just the office, please.'
He said something about it being our final day in Delhi and before long had stopped at a shop that seemed to sell jewellery and statues. We knew that if we went in, just for a few minutes, we'd end up taking forever trying to politely tell the shop keepers 'NO, WE DON'T WANT ANY OF YOUR FUCKING STUFF'.
'Go in.' He said.
'We have no money.' We said.
'It is free to look!' He insisted.
'No. Just take us back to the office please.'
Reluctantly, he started driving again.
'You are hungry?' He asked.
'Yes, but we're going to buy food at a supermarket.' I told him.
'I will take you to a very nice restaurant.' he said confidently.
At this point, I realised that all the places he wanted to take us and all the random places KP insisted on taking us, are probably the businesses of friends or family who want to cash in on the wealthy, gullible foreigners.
He really wanted to take us to this restaurant, but we firmly told him: 'Office. No restaurant.' and he dropped us off in a sulk.
From the office, we walked the same sort of direction as the one we had been with SG the night before because we had spotted a supermarket there. I bought muffins and crisps and the girls bought similar junk. The supermarket employees are just as annoying as any other shop owners! 'Would you like to buy this?' they would say as they followed us all around the store.
We walked back to the guesthouse and chilled out for an hour or so with our food. After this hour, it was time to go, so we packed our bags and walked back to the office. We'd found this place by accident, and they had kind of just kidnapped us, but it had given us such an amazing week. Ali, SG, Billy and the rest of the crew said goodbye and wished us well. We then got into the same retro car with the same driver to head to the airport.
It'd been an eventful week, and an amazing one at that. India is so vibrant and exciting, but man it can be an effort.
Our flight wasn't until 11pm, but we'd been told that sometimes airlines get overbooked in India, so it comes down to the first to arrive. We arrived at about 4 and head to the departures lounge. Before we found it, we bumped into a nice English guy who was on his way back to London. He told us where to go. An Indian guy showed us the way and told us he could give us a tour of Delhi in the time before our flight. No thanks.
The departures lounge was wholly boring, just rows upon rows of uncomfortable seats. The English guy sat next to us and we chatted about India and previous travels. After about an hour, he left for his flight and we still had another two hours to go. In that time, I wrote my journal and tried to ring Mum, but got no answer, so I left her a happy birthday message. Our call eventually came at 8, so we left and checked in.
The Singapore airlines groundstaff were very helpful and efficient and sorted us out with checking in, no probs. On going through immigration, we walked past a man sitting at a mounted assault rifle and then recieved a new stamp in our passports. For some reason (NOTE: I later found out this is because I had my swiss army knife in my hand-luggage), my bag had to be searched after going through the X-rays. The guard who did it just kind of rummaged a bit, didn't find anything and then shrugged and let me go. That's comforting, how thorough airport security is here.
Next step was more waiting. Boarding was delayed from 22:15 to 22:50, so it dragged on and on. I bought a subway, but then became a bit scared when some american girls in the queue next to me reminded me that Indian salad can be dangerous. We finally boarded after what seemed like forever.
I was sat next to a nice man from Jodhpur. I chatted to him about India and Singapore- he had a furniture business or something there. We finally took off at around 23:30.
A driver emerged and led us down the road to his very retro car, with bench seats and heavy doors you really had to slam. He asked the usual questions along the way. It was very busy and smoggy on the roads, presumably because it was the weekend. The post office was in the middleof a roundabout which, needless to say, was hell getting to because of the sheer craziness of the roads. When we got inside, it was typically Indian: people everywhere, but no real sense of order anywhere. I wanted to send the pashmina I had bought for my mum as it was her birthday, but I had no idea where to go or what to do, so I just bought some stamps and sent my postcards. We hopped back in the car and told the driver to take us back to the office.
'Ok,' he said, 'I will take you to a nice shop first.'
We were on a tight schedule, since our flight out of India was later that day: 'No thanks,' we said, 'just the office, please.'
He said something about it being our final day in Delhi and before long had stopped at a shop that seemed to sell jewellery and statues. We knew that if we went in, just for a few minutes, we'd end up taking forever trying to politely tell the shop keepers 'NO, WE DON'T WANT ANY OF YOUR FUCKING STUFF'.
'Go in.' He said.
'We have no money.' We said.
'It is free to look!' He insisted.
'No. Just take us back to the office please.'
Reluctantly, he started driving again.
'You are hungry?' He asked.
'Yes, but we're going to buy food at a supermarket.' I told him.
'I will take you to a very nice restaurant.' he said confidently.
At this point, I realised that all the places he wanted to take us and all the random places KP insisted on taking us, are probably the businesses of friends or family who want to cash in on the wealthy, gullible foreigners.
He really wanted to take us to this restaurant, but we firmly told him: 'Office. No restaurant.' and he dropped us off in a sulk.
From the office, we walked the same sort of direction as the one we had been with SG the night before because we had spotted a supermarket there. I bought muffins and crisps and the girls bought similar junk. The supermarket employees are just as annoying as any other shop owners! 'Would you like to buy this?' they would say as they followed us all around the store.
We walked back to the guesthouse and chilled out for an hour or so with our food. After this hour, it was time to go, so we packed our bags and walked back to the office. We'd found this place by accident, and they had kind of just kidnapped us, but it had given us such an amazing week. Ali, SG, Billy and the rest of the crew said goodbye and wished us well. We then got into the same retro car with the same driver to head to the airport.
It'd been an eventful week, and an amazing one at that. India is so vibrant and exciting, but man it can be an effort.
Our flight wasn't until 11pm, but we'd been told that sometimes airlines get overbooked in India, so it comes down to the first to arrive. We arrived at about 4 and head to the departures lounge. Before we found it, we bumped into a nice English guy who was on his way back to London. He told us where to go. An Indian guy showed us the way and told us he could give us a tour of Delhi in the time before our flight. No thanks.
The departures lounge was wholly boring, just rows upon rows of uncomfortable seats. The English guy sat next to us and we chatted about India and previous travels. After about an hour, he left for his flight and we still had another two hours to go. In that time, I wrote my journal and tried to ring Mum, but got no answer, so I left her a happy birthday message. Our call eventually came at 8, so we left and checked in.
The Singapore airlines groundstaff were very helpful and efficient and sorted us out with checking in, no probs. On going through immigration, we walked past a man sitting at a mounted assault rifle and then recieved a new stamp in our passports. For some reason (NOTE: I later found out this is because I had my swiss army knife in my hand-luggage), my bag had to be searched after going through the X-rays. The guard who did it just kind of rummaged a bit, didn't find anything and then shrugged and let me go. That's comforting, how thorough airport security is here.
Next step was more waiting. Boarding was delayed from 22:15 to 22:50, so it dragged on and on. I bought a subway, but then became a bit scared when some american girls in the queue next to me reminded me that Indian salad can be dangerous. We finally boarded after what seemed like forever.
I was sat next to a nice man from Jodhpur. I chatted to him about India and Singapore- he had a furniture business or something there. We finally took off at around 23:30.
Thursday, 3 July 2008
Day 7- Friday 7th March- New Delhi, India
Sarah and Hannah were up at some ungodly hour showering and stuff but I decided to sleep in as late as possible, and was up at about 8. We went downstairs for our usual breakfast of toast before meeting KP outside at 9. The military man on the door saluted us as we left.
During the journey back to Delhi, I watched a few shows on my iPod and read some of my George Orwell book, but my eyes started to hurt, so I rested them for a bit. We got into Delhi at about 2:30pm. KP told me he would take me to HSBC in Delhi so I could sort my card. We stopped next to a bank called HDFC, which is not HSBC at all. The girls took out some money while my card was still blocked. Around the corner, KP asked for his tip, reiterating the story from the night before about supporting his family. We'd generously decided to scrape together 1000 rupees each, about £40 in total, which is a lot of money in India, and a lot of money for us considering our budgets.
'That's ok,' KP said with a h
int of disappointment in his voice 'no problem.'
Cheeky bastard! I felt pretty offended by this since we'd given him quite a large amount and he clearly wasn't grateful at all! To add insult to injury, he told us we had to pay him £25 for the use of his air conditioning! He had joked about this earlier in the week, back at the Taj Mahal, and we'd laughed it off, but now he was very serious indeed. We gave him a ten pound note and another thousand rupees. He then told us not to tell anyone that he'd charged us for the air con. We'd clearly just been scammed. Bastard. I thought he was cool. However, Karma hit in minutes later (if Hindus believe in Karma?) and his car broke down around the corner.
We went back to the old tourism office and said hello to everyone and a few new faces. Apparently a power cut that morning had left the whole area without water. We lugged our stuff back up the four flights of stairs to the guesthouse and relaxed for a bit. We were starving and weren't entirely sure what to do. Billy, one of the office employees, and the old man who owned the guesthouse told us they would order us a curry from a nearby famous restaurant. They told us it was good, safe food, so we agreed. It arrived minutes later and we ate as much as we could.
After food, we went back round to the office to try and get some net time. I sent out a message to my facebook group, a few emails home and checked the status of my bank. It was look
ing stable, probably mostly because I'd only paid for our tour and Anna's necklace. While Sarah and Hannah surfed (the internet), I tried to find a phone with which to contact HSBC. I asked SG, a guy who works in the office, to top up his mobile and then I'd pay him back when I get access to my money. He led me to a top up point and then expected me to pay. Doh. Hannah lent me the money and I called HSBC and explained everything about how I was away, I did tell the bank and I really really needed some moneys. I kept being put on hole and the battery on the phone was bleeping every minute or so. I was so worried I was going to lose it and my bank wouldn't be sorted, but then a voice came on the line and told me my card had been 'marked' so that it could be used wherever. Yay!
When Sarah and Hannah were done, SG led us to see the Delhi markets. They were completely crazy- overcrowded, of course, with people offering us stuff at every turn and cars weaving in between the tiny gaps. We passed a few familiar logos, like McDonalds and Levis, but didn't stop anywhere, just walked in a big circle. On our way back, we passed an ATM and, alleluliah, it worked! A thousand rupees was mine!! I was very happy and celebrated with a large bottle of orange Fanta, which all the Indian men back at the office told me was a 'girl's drink'. Outside the office, we bumped into KP, who was still waiting for his car to be fixed. Good thing he had lots of money, eh? Bastard.
Back at the guesthouse, we played some card games. I tought the girls to play 'Snap Crackle Pop' and they tought me rummy and beggar my neighbour. Later on, the new girls, Jodi and Lucy, arrived and we all had a few drinks. After just half a bottle, my stomach seemed to turn. I'd survived a whole week, but Delhi Belly finally caught up with me. I spent a fair while making a mess in the toilet, only to realise that there was still no water thanks to the power cut during the night, so flushing would be the last thing the toilet would be doing at this point. Oh dear. Still feeling rather ill, I collapsed into my bed and fell asleep in my jeans.
During the journey back to Delhi, I watched a few shows on my iPod and read some of my George Orwell book, but my eyes started to hurt, so I rested them for a bit. We got into Delhi at about 2:30pm. KP told me he would take me to HSBC in Delhi so I could sort my card. We stopped next to a bank called HDFC, which is not HSBC at all. The girls took out some money while my card was still blocked. Around the corner, KP asked for his tip, reiterating the story from the night before about supporting his family. We'd generously decided to scrape together 1000 rupees each, about £40 in total, which is a lot of money in India, and a lot of money for us considering our budgets.
'That's ok,' KP said with a h
int of disappointment in his voice 'no problem.'Cheeky bastard! I felt pretty offended by this since we'd given him quite a large amount and he clearly wasn't grateful at all! To add insult to injury, he told us we had to pay him £25 for the use of his air conditioning! He had joked about this earlier in the week, back at the Taj Mahal, and we'd laughed it off, but now he was very serious indeed. We gave him a ten pound note and another thousand rupees. He then told us not to tell anyone that he'd charged us for the air con. We'd clearly just been scammed. Bastard. I thought he was cool. However, Karma hit in minutes later (if Hindus believe in Karma?) and his car broke down around the corner.
We went back to the old tourism office and said hello to everyone and a few new faces. Apparently a power cut that morning had left the whole area without water. We lugged our stuff back up the four flights of stairs to the guesthouse and relaxed for a bit. We were starving and weren't entirely sure what to do. Billy, one of the office employees, and the old man who owned the guesthouse told us they would order us a curry from a nearby famous restaurant. They told us it was good, safe food, so we agreed. It arrived minutes later and we ate as much as we could.
After food, we went back round to the office to try and get some net time. I sent out a message to my facebook group, a few emails home and checked the status of my bank. It was look
ing stable, probably mostly because I'd only paid for our tour and Anna's necklace. While Sarah and Hannah surfed (the internet), I tried to find a phone with which to contact HSBC. I asked SG, a guy who works in the office, to top up his mobile and then I'd pay him back when I get access to my money. He led me to a top up point and then expected me to pay. Doh. Hannah lent me the money and I called HSBC and explained everything about how I was away, I did tell the bank and I really really needed some moneys. I kept being put on hole and the battery on the phone was bleeping every minute or so. I was so worried I was going to lose it and my bank wouldn't be sorted, but then a voice came on the line and told me my card had been 'marked' so that it could be used wherever. Yay!When Sarah and Hannah were done, SG led us to see the Delhi markets. They were completely crazy- overcrowded, of course, with people offering us stuff at every turn and cars weaving in between the tiny gaps. We passed a few familiar logos, like McDonalds and Levis, but didn't stop anywhere, just walked in a big circle. On our way back, we passed an ATM and, alleluliah, it worked! A thousand rupees was mine!! I was very happy and celebrated with a large bottle of orange Fanta, which all the Indian men back at the office told me was a 'girl's drink'. Outside the office, we bumped into KP, who was still waiting for his car to be fixed. Good thing he had lots of money, eh? Bastard.
Back at the guesthouse, we played some card games. I tought the girls to play 'Snap Crackle Pop' and they tought me rummy and beggar my neighbour. Later on, the new girls, Jodi and Lucy, arrived and we all had a few drinks. After just half a bottle, my stomach seemed to turn. I'd survived a whole week, but Delhi Belly finally caught up with me. I spent a fair while making a mess in the toilet, only to realise that there was still no water thanks to the power cut during the night, so flushing would be the last thing the toilet would be doing at this point. Oh dear. Still feeling rather ill, I collapsed into my bed and fell asleep in my jeans.
Wednesday, 2 July 2008
Day 6- Thursday 6th March- Jaipur, India
We were all up and ready for KP to pick us up at the agreed time of 8am, but when, by 8:30, he hadn't shown up, we began to worry that his vodka binge the night before had left him passed out and sleeping late. However, just after 8:30, he showed up and said he'd been waiting outside for us since 8, but we didn't believe him.
KP took us up to the Amber Fort and parked up. It was here that we were to ride an elephant up into the fort itself. Sarah said she had a bit of a fear of heights and unstable things, so decided not to take part.
The queue took the best part of an hour and contained many tourists. In front of us,
a sunburnt Australian man explained cricket to some Americans and behind us, another Aussie was chatting to an Englishman about their businesses. It wasn't even 9am yet, but it must have been at least 25 degrees. Several people walked up and down the line trying to flog tacky souvenirs with elephants on them.
When it finally came to our turn, Sarah hopped back in the car with KP and Hannah and I hopped on our elephant. We paid the elephant man (the man riding the elephant, not John Merrick) for our ride and we started moving. It was lots of fun! I'd never been so close to an elephant before and
realised just how huge they are. The elephant kept spraying himself (and us) with water, and flicking his tail about so it hit my feet. The ride took about fifteen minutes and was just as crazy with elephant traffic as the roads were with cars. As we arrived in the fort, the elephant driver (for want of a better word) asked for a tip. We gave him 50 rupees and a pen and he trotted off happily. We caught up with Sarah and KP before going into the main building of the fort.
To get into the Amber Fort, we had to pay a hundred rupees each. I still had no money thanks to damn HSBC, so Hannah had to pay for me. Inside the fort, we bought some cool drinks and sat in the shade before exploring and checking out the awesome views of Jaipur. After wandering around the fort for half an hour, we left and found KP in the car park. By now, it was 11:30 and we decided to go back to the hote
l, via a few places that KP wanted to show us.
First stop on the way back was a jewellery workshop. A young guide with glasses showed us around. He said he was a student of some kind of science and took a keen interest in our studies, especially Hannah's, since she's studying chemistry. We were shown the raw stones from nearby mines, how they are cleaned and cut and finally taken to the shop below. There, we were shown a lot of different kinds of jewellery at very reasonable prices. I took this opportunity to buy Anna's birthday present, and bought her a nice Aquamarine necklace. We paid for our jewellery and left, worried that we'd spent too much.
Next, KP drove us further into the city centre and told us we could get out to take some pictures. It was so crazily busy, so we decided no to bother as we were completely exhausted.
Finally, we stopped at a small artist workshop. A man wrote our names on a grain of rice for 100R. We were then offered many different kinds of paintings, from silk to camel bone. The sales technique in India is really quite annoying and kind of pathetic. They treated us like honoured guests, which was nice, but then they just kept showing us stuff and lowering prices until we buy something, expecting us to buy loads since they thought we were rich, white folk, and this is the case in all shops! As Hannah was pestered to buy paintings, even though she'd bought one the day before, I deliberately acted completely uninterested and KP giggled at paintings of the Kama Sutra and acted like I would be interested too because I'm a man. He was getting on my nerves a bit. When the painting people finally got the message, they started showing us tea and perfumes. Hannah was actually interested in buying some tea, but even when she'd bought the stuff she wanted, they continued to push. They seemed incredibly annoyed that we bought so little and we left with our tea and rice grains.
KP told us we could go to a temple later on to see prayer time. I was pretty interested by this, but so completely exhausted from the heat and early morning, so we stayed in the hotel and went on the internet for a bit. It was painfully slow. I was on for 25 minutes and, in that time, managed to read 2 emails, change my facebook status and find the number for Singapore Airlines. I tried sending a couple of emails and checking my bank account but no dice.
After the internet fiasco, we ordered more chips and rice from room service and watched Green Wing. The afternoon disappeared as we listened to music and entertained the kids who were outside again. As he sun set, we went up on to the roof again. KP was up there and told us that it was the festival of Shiva, so people were out celebrating which is why there was music playing over the city again. KP offered to buy us beer, but we weren't in the mood. He then went off on an awkward but moving tangent about how he has to support his five siblings and widowed mother through his job and how he wouldn't get any work over the summer months. KP was a decent guy, but I knew this was a rehearsed speech to get us to give him a large tip the next day or feel guilty if we don't. After a while he went away and we went back to our room. We were out cold by 9. Hardcore!
KP took us up to the Amber Fort and parked up. It was here that we were to ride an elephant up into the fort itself. Sarah said she had a bit of a fear of heights and unstable things, so decided not to take part.
The queue took the best part of an hour and contained many tourists. In front of us,
a sunburnt Australian man explained cricket to some Americans and behind us, another Aussie was chatting to an Englishman about their businesses. It wasn't even 9am yet, but it must have been at least 25 degrees. Several people walked up and down the line trying to flog tacky souvenirs with elephants on them.When it finally came to our turn, Sarah hopped back in the car with KP and Hannah and I hopped on our elephant. We paid the elephant man (the man riding the elephant, not John Merrick) for our ride and we started moving. It was lots of fun! I'd never been so close to an elephant before and
realised just how huge they are. The elephant kept spraying himself (and us) with water, and flicking his tail about so it hit my feet. The ride took about fifteen minutes and was just as crazy with elephant traffic as the roads were with cars. As we arrived in the fort, the elephant driver (for want of a better word) asked for a tip. We gave him 50 rupees and a pen and he trotted off happily. We caught up with Sarah and KP before going into the main building of the fort.To get into the Amber Fort, we had to pay a hundred rupees each. I still had no money thanks to damn HSBC, so Hannah had to pay for me. Inside the fort, we bought some cool drinks and sat in the shade before exploring and checking out the awesome views of Jaipur. After wandering around the fort for half an hour, we left and found KP in the car park. By now, it was 11:30 and we decided to go back to the hote
l, via a few places that KP wanted to show us.First stop on the way back was a jewellery workshop. A young guide with glasses showed us around. He said he was a student of some kind of science and took a keen interest in our studies, especially Hannah's, since she's studying chemistry. We were shown the raw stones from nearby mines, how they are cleaned and cut and finally taken to the shop below. There, we were shown a lot of different kinds of jewellery at very reasonable prices. I took this opportunity to buy Anna's birthday present, and bought her a nice Aquamarine necklace. We paid for our jewellery and left, worried that we'd spent too much.
Next, KP drove us further into the city centre and told us we could get out to take some pictures. It was so crazily busy, so we decided no to bother as we were completely exhausted.
Finally, we stopped at a small artist workshop. A man wrote our names on a grain of rice for 100R. We were then offered many different kinds of paintings, from silk to camel bone. The sales technique in India is really quite annoying and kind of pathetic. They treated us like honoured guests, which was nice, but then they just kept showing us stuff and lowering prices until we buy something, expecting us to buy loads since they thought we were rich, white folk, and this is the case in all shops! As Hannah was pestered to buy paintings, even though she'd bought one the day before, I deliberately acted completely uninterested and KP giggled at paintings of the Kama Sutra and acted like I would be interested too because I'm a man. He was getting on my nerves a bit. When the painting people finally got the message, they started showing us tea and perfumes. Hannah was actually interested in buying some tea, but even when she'd bought the stuff she wanted, they continued to push. They seemed incredibly annoyed that we bought so little and we left with our tea and rice grains.
KP told us we could go to a temple later on to see prayer time. I was pretty interested by this, but so completely exhausted from the heat and early morning, so we stayed in the hotel and went on the internet for a bit. It was painfully slow. I was on for 25 minutes and, in that time, managed to read 2 emails, change my facebook status and find the number for Singapore Airlines. I tried sending a couple of emails and checking my bank account but no dice.
After the internet fiasco, we ordered more chips and rice from room service and watched Green Wing. The afternoon disappeared as we listened to music and entertained the kids who were outside again. As he sun set, we went up on to the roof again. KP was up there and told us that it was the festival of Shiva, so people were out celebrating which is why there was music playing over the city again. KP offered to buy us beer, but we weren't in the mood. He then went off on an awkward but moving tangent about how he has to support his five siblings and widowed mother through his job and how he wouldn't get any work over the summer months. KP was a decent guy, but I knew this was a rehearsed speech to get us to give him a large tip the next day or feel guilty if we don't. After a while he went away and we went back to our room. We were out cold by 9. Hardcore!
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
Day 5- Wednesday 5th March- Jaipur, India
We started the day relatively late, meeting KP downstairs at 9:30. We set off straight away for our journey to Jaipur, the bottom left corner of the golden triangle. The journey was uneventful but passed nice and quickly, probably because we were so used to the long car journeys.
We arrived at our hotel in Jaipur at 2pm. A man in some kind of random military uniform was at the door and ran down to greet us and help us with our baggage. We checked in and then checked out our room, which was a very nice surprise. We had quite a large room with a beautiful view over Jaipur and the Amber Fort, a decent TV, good bathroom facilities and an elegantly painted floral ceiling. As I looked out at the view, I noticed loads of monkeys climbing all over the wall of peoples houses, just below our window. Several of the monkeys had tiny babies clinging to them which looked like Gollum. I watched them for a while and made noises so they would look at me.
I got spotted by a group of kids in the streets below. The kids here love us! They alway
s wave and shout hello. Eventually, a group of about ten of them had gathered and were waving to us. Whenever we walked away from the window, they would shout 'HALLO!' until we came back.We connected Sarah's iPod to the TV and watched some Green Wing before meeting KP for a quick tour around Jaipur. He took us to a huge lake with a palace right in the middle of it and then a small textiles factory where we were shown how prints for clothes were made. Upstairs in the factory, we were shown a large range of pashminas, throws and silk paintings. Between us, we ended up buying seven pashminas and two painting, damn cheap!
Back at the hotel we had a dinner of room service chips before heading up to the roof to watch the sun set over the Amber fort. A wedding party was going on in the street, so we had some background music while we stargazed and had drinks. KP was staggering around with a friend, drinking vodka. When we got bored, we went back to our room and were asleep by 11.
Wednesday, 25 June 2008
Day 4- Tuesday 4th March- Ranthambhor, India
Another annoyingly early start today because as part of our golden triangle tour package, we could go on a tiger safari. Getting up was difficult. We were down for breakfast at 5:30 (toast and corkflakes, of course) and outside on the safari truck by 6. It was pretty darn cold, so I donned my blue hoody and my buff. Everyone we'd chatted to about the tiger safari had said it was fun, but the chances of actually seeing a tiger were slim. We were worried that waking up at 5:30 might have been a bit pointless if we didn't see anything.
Shortly after we'd got onto the truck, it set off and we had a tour around the hotels of Ranthambhor, picking up more tourists for the safari, including an english couple, a german family and a french pair. Also, a weirdo in an anorak who never spoke. By the time we'd picked everyone up, the sun was rising, but we quickly got to the safari area, which was in a valley where the sun's heat hadn't reached yet. The french bloke was picked to select a zone for us to explore, since the entire park is way to big to see all of it. He selected zone 4 and we set off, all eyes peeled.
I was thinking that, surely, a bright orange tiger would stand right out against the dull, dusty, brown forest we were travelling though. Just as I thought this, a tigress lazily appeared from a bush and walked straight across the truck's path and into another bush, camoflaging easily. We could still see it, and soon it emerged into an open area and sat down for all of us to gaze in wonder at and take pictures. After a good two minutes, she strolled away into the bushes beyond. A
fter just five minutes on safari, we had seen an elegant tigress with no effort at all. Waking up at 5:30 had been worth it after all.
We continued our safari up rocky roads next to dodgy drops. We stopped for a while to look at a group of deer, the tiger food. A few cheeky birds flew down from the trees and stole food from peoples hands. Apparently another tiger was spotted, but I didn't see it.
Another few minutes on, we stopped for a rest in a nice open area with no danger of being pounced on and mauled. We saw more deer and more birds, including two green parrots that kept kissing. Back in the truck, we spotted a few monkeys in the trees. We were now heading back the way we came and when we got to the point where we'd seen the tiger, all the other safari groups had gathered on hearing about our encounter. After a while, nothing had happened and they all disappeared. We were the only group to see a tiger! We head back to the hotel at this point.
The combination of the uncomfortable, bumpy truck ride and the early morning left us shattered, so we head straight to bed when we got back at 10am. We were woken again two hours later by the room phone going off. I answered.
'Hello sir. Would you like some lunch?' the voice said.
I was still half asleep: 'Three plates of chips. And three cokes!'
I hung up, collapsed back into bed and hoped it was free. We were woken up again when the food arrived, paid for it, and scoffed to our hearts content.
The rest of the afternoon was spent lazing about and writing journals until we decided to go exploring the surrounding area by ourselves and see what we could find. A man outside our hotel offered us expensive internet services, then we found a small family shop where we bought water, fizzy drinks and crisps and then went back to the hotel due to finding nothing else. We grabbed a couple of seats next to the pool, drank our drinks an talked about the trip among many other things. We managed to spend a good 90 minutes here before going back to our room for an uneventful night only lit up by a game of music trivial pursuit, won by moi.
Before we went to sleep, a very large gecko came into our room. I went downstairs to ask the staff to get rid of it. The guy at reception didn't seem to understand what a gecko was, so I had to stick my tongue out and do an impression. It had already gone by the time we got back upstairs. Nice early night.
Shortly after we'd got onto the truck, it set off and we had a tour around the hotels of Ranthambhor, picking up more tourists for the safari, including an english couple, a german family and a french pair. Also, a weirdo in an anorak who never spoke. By the time we'd picked everyone up, the sun was rising, but we quickly got to the safari area, which was in a valley where the sun's heat hadn't reached yet. The french bloke was picked to select a zone for us to explore, since the entire park is way to big to see all of it. He selected zone 4 and we set off, all eyes peeled.
I was thinking that, surely, a bright orange tiger would stand right out against the dull, dusty, brown forest we were travelling though. Just as I thought this, a tigress lazily appeared from a bush and walked straight across the truck's path and into another bush, camoflaging easily. We could still see it, and soon it emerged into an open area and sat down for all of us to gaze in wonder at and take pictures. After a good two minutes, she strolled away into the bushes beyond. A
fter just five minutes on safari, we had seen an elegant tigress with no effort at all. Waking up at 5:30 had been worth it after all.We continued our safari up rocky roads next to dodgy drops. We stopped for a while to look at a group of deer, the tiger food. A few cheeky birds flew down from the trees and stole food from peoples hands. Apparently another tiger was spotted, but I didn't see it.
Another few minutes on, we stopped for a rest in a nice open area with no danger of being pounced on and mauled. We saw more deer and more birds, including two green parrots that kept kissing. Back in the truck, we spotted a few monkeys in the trees. We were now heading back the way we came and when we got to the point where we'd seen the tiger, all the other safari groups had gathered on hearing about our encounter. After a while, nothing had happened and they all disappeared. We were the only group to see a tiger! We head back to the hotel at this point.
The combination of the uncomfortable, bumpy truck ride and the early morning left us shattered, so we head straight to bed when we got back at 10am. We were woken again two hours later by the room phone going off. I answered.
'Hello sir. Would you like some lunch?' the voice said.
I was still half asleep: 'Three plates of chips. And three cokes!'
I hung up, collapsed back into bed and hoped it was free. We were woken up again when the food arrived, paid for it, and scoffed to our hearts content.
The rest of the afternoon was spent lazing about and writing journals until we decided to go exploring the surrounding area by ourselves and see what we could find. A man outside our hotel offered us expensive internet services, then we found a small family shop where we bought water, fizzy drinks and crisps and then went back to the hotel due to finding nothing else. We grabbed a couple of seats next to the pool, drank our drinks an talked about the trip among many other things. We managed to spend a good 90 minutes here before going back to our room for an uneventful night only lit up by a game of music trivial pursuit, won by moi.
Before we went to sleep, a very large gecko came into our room. I went downstairs to ask the staff to get rid of it. The guy at reception didn't seem to understand what a gecko was, so I had to stick my tongue out and do an impression. It had already gone by the time we got back upstairs. Nice early night.
Tuesday, 24 June 2008
Day 3- Monday 3rd March- Agra/Ranthambhor, India
A very early start came at 5am, which was kind of odd since we were still on english time, which was 11:30pm. We packed up our bags, washed a little and felt our way out of the darkened guesthouse. We got to the tourism office minutes later and sat down inside. Across from us, a man was asleep on a couch. He stirred as we entered, but it wasn't until his phone went off fifteen minutes later that he woke up, noticed us and looked very confused. He looked like Nicolas Cage, but a moustachiod, Indian version. He spoke on the phone for a while before asking if he was our driver. We shrugged.
Eventually we were told our driver had arrived and we bundled our bags into his car. He introduced himself as KP and asked the usual questions about us, how we know each other and our travels.
On the way out of Delhi we passed a huge statue of Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god. It was awesome, and I took this opportunity to ask KP about the religion and the cows all over the place. He simply replied:
'Cows are holy.' and stopped talking as if it was a sensitive issue, so I didn't ask any more.
We were given more of an insight into India's attitudes towards driving. One sign we saw said 'It is your right to drive' and another said 'Remember not to drive on the wrong side of the road', which a hell of a lot of people do. On top of this, KP told us that all you need to drive in India is 'good horn, good brakes and good luck'.
KP was quite chatty and told us facts as we went along, but his thick Indian accent was hard to get through so often we just nodded and made interested noises even if we didnt understand.
After two hours of driving along the crazy roads, we stopped briefly because KP needed to pick something up. Next to the c
ar, some men had monkeys on leashes. One of the men looked at me and pointed to the monkey. I took out my camera and took some pictures as he made the monkey pose. He then came up to the window (the man, not the monkey) and said:
'Picture charge, 300 rupees'.
I kept refusing, but he was very persistent and tried to open the car door. I pretended to delete the photos but he was having none of it, so I passed him 10 rupees. He sai it wasnt enough and kept asking. After a few minutes, KP got back in, shouted something to the man in Hindi and drove off. He told us we should ignore street people entirely.
Shortly afterwards, we stopped again at a restaurant for breakfast. In true english style, we were offered a vibrant range of Indian breakfast dishes and we went for toast and jam. It wasn't that we didn't want to try the food, it was that we didn't want to get ill. After breakfast, we continued our journey.
It reached 12pm and we got into Agra, the south east corner of the golden triangle. We stopped by Agra fort for a bit, which was impressive, but all the more impressive was the view over the Yamuna river to a silhouette of the Taj Mahal. After a little more driving, we stopped at the entrance of the Taj and KP told us to call him or meet at a designated meeting point wh
en we were finished.
On the walk up to the Taj Mahal, there were hundreds of street vendors. A small boy pestered me to buy a Taj Mahal snowglobe for 300R, then 100R, then kept upping the number of snowglobes for 100R. What am I going to do with 8 snowglobes? I also had a guy approach me and ask if he could see my camera. Nice try, mate.
We paid our entry fee and the girls put their bags in safe lockers since they weren't allowed inside. Walking around the corner and catching a first glimpse of the Taj through the entry gate is unlike anything I've experienced before. It's so beautiful, it can't really be described with any justice. We were all in awe, but jokily picked out petty faults, like 'it's too white' and 'there's a few too many stairs'. It constantly looks picture perfect, and all the photos I took just look like any photo of it ever.
I think it would have been cool if opposite the Taj, they'd made an anti Taj, which is exactly the same, but black. That would look awesome.
A lot of locals requested to have photos taken with us, like we're big movie stars or something. We walked up to and around the Taj, having to wear little s
hoe covers when we actually stepped onto the marble. It was baking hot, so I slapped on some sunblock and my Buff. It was also so bright and the building is such a dazzling white that when you step into the darkness inside the building, we could barely see. We had to stand still for a few seconds for our eyesight to come back before wandering around the middle. Inside it's completely hollow and echoes a lot. There are replicas of the tombs buried beneath. Stepping back outside was even worse. It was so freaking bright, my photic sneeze reflex went into overdrive! After a few more wondrous gazes at the Taj, we left.
Yet more street vendors approached us. I was offered more snowglobes and then 18 novelty pens. We couldn't get through to KP's mobile, so we sat at the meeting point, attracting a lot of attention from street vendors, cab drivers and children. The Indian kids seemed fascinated by us, either because of the way the girls were dressed or simply because we're white. After about half an hour, we became worried that KP would never show up and we would be stranded, but he appeared out of nowhere and saved us from some creepy street vendors.
We began our journey on to Ranthambhor. By now it was nearly 2pm. As we left Agra, we stopped at an ATM and my card was still blocked, which was entirely gay. The traffic leaving Agra was choc-a-block. Lots of people stared at us when our car was stationary, including a young girl who stared at me for a good two minutes. I looked in my bag and discovered a pool of chocolate that had formed from a mixture of the heat and a creme egg from heathrow. KP saw it and said 'your bag likes chocolate!' I listened to my iPod for a bit and tried to sleep, but kept being woken up by the honking and the terrible road conditions. When I woke up, we stopped at a restaurant for lunch. Again, in true english style, we ordered chips and Hannah bought chicken noodles. Outside were lots of world clocks that were completely wrong. Dehli was set to 4:15, which was correct, and London was correct at 10:45, but then Rome was at 9:15 and New York was at 4:15 too.
We left the restaurant for the last leg of our trip to Ranthambhor. I only remember the name of Ranthambhor because I thought KP was calling me a rentboy when he said it. We passed through many small villages and moved into desert land, the roads of which were pretty scary because everyone used full beams and the road conditions were awful; most of them seemed unfinished and rocky, with lots of speed bumps and sudden dips which sounded like they were destroying the underside of the car. I'd noticed along the way that there were a lot of swastikas painted everywhere. I asked KP what it meant and he said good luck, which makes sense really, I assumed that India wasn't a Nazi country.
We stopped for a bit in a small village to stretch our legs. KP took me aside for a minute and asked which of the girls I was sleeping with, and didn't seem to understand when I told him neither. He told me we should have a few drinks and then I'll pick one of the girls and KP will have the other. He said 'It is my dream to make sex with white woman'. Oh lord.
The last few roads were unbelievably bumpy and it made us all feel rather sick, but eventually (after getting a bit lost) we made it to our hotel at 10pm. It was better than we expected. Our bathroom had been invaded by a strange yellow bug and I had to kill it. We all crashed out pretty quickly, ready for another early morning.
Eventually we were told our driver had arrived and we bundled our bags into his car. He introduced himself as KP and asked the usual questions about us, how we know each other and our travels.
On the way out of Delhi we passed a huge statue of Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god. It was awesome, and I took this opportunity to ask KP about the religion and the cows all over the place. He simply replied:
'Cows are holy.' and stopped talking as if it was a sensitive issue, so I didn't ask any more.
We were given more of an insight into India's attitudes towards driving. One sign we saw said 'It is your right to drive' and another said 'Remember not to drive on the wrong side of the road', which a hell of a lot of people do. On top of this, KP told us that all you need to drive in India is 'good horn, good brakes and good luck'.
KP was quite chatty and told us facts as we went along, but his thick Indian accent was hard to get through so often we just nodded and made interested noises even if we didnt understand.
After two hours of driving along the crazy roads, we stopped briefly because KP needed to pick something up. Next to the c
ar, some men had monkeys on leashes. One of the men looked at me and pointed to the monkey. I took out my camera and took some pictures as he made the monkey pose. He then came up to the window (the man, not the monkey) and said:'Picture charge, 300 rupees'.
I kept refusing, but he was very persistent and tried to open the car door. I pretended to delete the photos but he was having none of it, so I passed him 10 rupees. He sai it wasnt enough and kept asking. After a few minutes, KP got back in, shouted something to the man in Hindi and drove off. He told us we should ignore street people entirely.
Shortly afterwards, we stopped again at a restaurant for breakfast. In true english style, we were offered a vibrant range of Indian breakfast dishes and we went for toast and jam. It wasn't that we didn't want to try the food, it was that we didn't want to get ill. After breakfast, we continued our journey.
It reached 12pm and we got into Agra, the south east corner of the golden triangle. We stopped by Agra fort for a bit, which was impressive, but all the more impressive was the view over the Yamuna river to a silhouette of the Taj Mahal. After a little more driving, we stopped at the entrance of the Taj and KP told us to call him or meet at a designated meeting point wh
en we were finished.On the walk up to the Taj Mahal, there were hundreds of street vendors. A small boy pestered me to buy a Taj Mahal snowglobe for 300R, then 100R, then kept upping the number of snowglobes for 100R. What am I going to do with 8 snowglobes? I also had a guy approach me and ask if he could see my camera. Nice try, mate.
We paid our entry fee and the girls put their bags in safe lockers since they weren't allowed inside. Walking around the corner and catching a first glimpse of the Taj through the entry gate is unlike anything I've experienced before. It's so beautiful, it can't really be described with any justice. We were all in awe, but jokily picked out petty faults, like 'it's too white' and 'there's a few too many stairs'. It constantly looks picture perfect, and all the photos I took just look like any photo of it ever.
I think it would have been cool if opposite the Taj, they'd made an anti Taj, which is exactly the same, but black. That would look awesome.
A lot of locals requested to have photos taken with us, like we're big movie stars or something. We walked up to and around the Taj, having to wear little s
hoe covers when we actually stepped onto the marble. It was baking hot, so I slapped on some sunblock and my Buff. It was also so bright and the building is such a dazzling white that when you step into the darkness inside the building, we could barely see. We had to stand still for a few seconds for our eyesight to come back before wandering around the middle. Inside it's completely hollow and echoes a lot. There are replicas of the tombs buried beneath. Stepping back outside was even worse. It was so freaking bright, my photic sneeze reflex went into overdrive! After a few more wondrous gazes at the Taj, we left.Yet more street vendors approached us. I was offered more snowglobes and then 18 novelty pens. We couldn't get through to KP's mobile, so we sat at the meeting point, attracting a lot of attention from street vendors, cab drivers and children. The Indian kids seemed fascinated by us, either because of the way the girls were dressed or simply because we're white. After about half an hour, we became worried that KP would never show up and we would be stranded, but he appeared out of nowhere and saved us from some creepy street vendors.
We began our journey on to Ranthambhor. By now it was nearly 2pm. As we left Agra, we stopped at an ATM and my card was still blocked, which was entirely gay. The traffic leaving Agra was choc-a-block. Lots of people stared at us when our car was stationary, including a young girl who stared at me for a good two minutes. I looked in my bag and discovered a pool of chocolate that had formed from a mixture of the heat and a creme egg from heathrow. KP saw it and said 'your bag likes chocolate!' I listened to my iPod for a bit and tried to sleep, but kept being woken up by the honking and the terrible road conditions. When I woke up, we stopped at a restaurant for lunch. Again, in true english style, we ordered chips and Hannah bought chicken noodles. Outside were lots of world clocks that were completely wrong. Dehli was set to 4:15, which was correct, and London was correct at 10:45, but then Rome was at 9:15 and New York was at 4:15 too.
We left the restaurant for the last leg of our trip to Ranthambhor. I only remember the name of Ranthambhor because I thought KP was calling me a rentboy when he said it. We passed through many small villages and moved into desert land, the roads of which were pretty scary because everyone used full beams and the road conditions were awful; most of them seemed unfinished and rocky, with lots of speed bumps and sudden dips which sounded like they were destroying the underside of the car. I'd noticed along the way that there were a lot of swastikas painted everywhere. I asked KP what it meant and he said good luck, which makes sense really, I assumed that India wasn't a Nazi country.
We stopped for a bit in a small village to stretch our legs. KP took me aside for a minute and asked which of the girls I was sleeping with, and didn't seem to understand when I told him neither. He told me we should have a few drinks and then I'll pick one of the girls and KP will have the other. He said 'It is my dream to make sex with white woman'. Oh lord.
The last few roads were unbelievably bumpy and it made us all feel rather sick, but eventually (after getting a bit lost) we made it to our hotel at 10pm. It was better than we expected. Our bathroom had been invaded by a strange yellow bug and I had to kill it. We all crashed out pretty quickly, ready for another early morning.
Monday, 23 June 2008
Day 2- Sunday 2nd March- New Delhi, India.
I'd bought one of those travel pillows you put around your neck, but I'd left it in my bag up in the overhead compartment and the guy next to me was asleep and I didnt want to wake him just for that. Because of this, I couldn't sleep at all. I played a few games on the entertainment screens with Sarah before watching 'the Darjeeling Limited', or at least most of it- the screens were switched off twenty minutes before the end. The old lady next to me was now being rude to the guy behind her and refusing to put her seat up while he ate.
We landed in New Delhi airport at about 11:15am (+5.5 hours GMT) and it was really quite strange being there. The airport seemed to be half finished! Loud bangs of sledgehammers were constant, wires hung from the ceiling and while we queued for immigration, some scaffolding nearly fell on some people behind us! We passed through passport check and picked up our bags, nervous as to what could happen next.
A man in a booth summoned me over, waving a sign that said 'Pre-paid taxis, Government approved'. I approached him and asked how much it would be to be taken to our booke
d hotel. He asked to see booking confirmation and asked us lots of questions like 'How long are you in India?' and 'where are you going next?'. After giving us the third degree, he told us 400 rupees (£1 = about 70 rupees). I sheepishly agrees and he filled out some kind of form before summoning a driver. The driver led us to his car and along the way, some men jumped out of the crowds and helped us with our bags. We thought they were simply being kind, but when we and our bags were in the car, they stared at me through the window asking for tips. I gave them about 20p in english coppers, and they gave it back. We drove off.
'Welcome to India!' the driver said.
'Thanks!' We all replied.
He asked about us, our trip and told us a bit about Delhi.
The roads in India were mental. There appeared to be no rules at all and no-one really paid atention to oncoming traffic at junctions or roundabouts. Like back in Ecuador, horns were used constantly as a way of saying 'coming through!' rather than a sign of annoyance like back home. There were loads of motorbikes, often carrying two or three people without helmets, and auto-rickshaws as well as cars, jeeps and lorries. This caused a horrible smog all over the place which, combined with all the desert dust and sand, didn't look too nice for breathing.
It took us ages to get from the airport to anywhere that looked vaguely like there could be hotels around. The cab driver stopped and said he needed help from a tourist office to find our hotel and ushered us inside. He insisted on leaving our bags strapped to the top of the car saying 'don't worry, it's safe', but I made him take them down out of not wanting to lose ou bags on our first day.
Tired from the flight and completely confused by the chaotic nature of the city, we followed him into the tourist office and were seated in a cubicle. A man turned round in his seat to look at us.
'Hi! My name is Ali G' he said and shook our hands. Next to him was a white guy with curly hair who looked about our age, I forget his name.
Ali told us that the hotel we had booked (and fully paid for) was rubbish and we should stay in his guesthouse. We didn't want to be rude, but also knew that we would have wasted money if we didn't show up to the hotel. Ali told us we could claim off our insurance for that, and that his guesthouse was very cheap and there were other travellers staying there. Eventually, we realised they weren't going to take us to our hotel and reluctantly agreed to stay at the guesthouse.
The guesthouse w
as a few streets over and then up four flights of steep stairs. We were shown to our room and took a second to relax and get our heads into place. This city was so completely different to anything I'd experienced before and it was a major culture shock. Sarah seemed dubious of our decision to go with Ali's advice. I had a wander around the guesthouse and found a living area with two indian men sitting down, the younger of the two being the guy who led us from the office and the older being the owner of the guesthouse.
'Take a seat!' The young guy said. 'Everything ok?'
'Yeah,' I told him 'we're just a bit confused by everything that's going on.'
'There is a saying here in India:' he began 'don't worry, have a chicken curry!'
Genius, I thought. In one sentence, this man had managed to unashamedly sum several stereotypes of Indians, and I loved it.
An english girl called Hannah came in and said hello. She was from Stoke on Trent and had been in Delhi for about 4 weeks. She said the guesthouse was great fun and there is filtered water that is safe to drink. I had a glass whilst chatting to her and another girl called Kelly, who was from New York.
When I went back to our room to tell Sarah and Hannah what I had found, they seemed to perk up a bit. We were still completely exhausted though, so before long we had crashed out.
Two hours later, we woke up. It was about 6pm. We decided to walk to the tourist office and chat to Ali about various things.
'Sorry, I will be a while.' Ali said as we sat down in his office. He pointed to the oriental looking man across the desk from us and said 'Chinese man ruin everything! You know that saying?'
'Erm, yeah.' We said, and waited for the chinese man to stop ruining things. When he left, we asked Ali about a trip to the Taj Mahal. We had planned to spend the week in Delhi and just go to the Taj for a day, but Ali was trying to pursuade us to do a trip called the 'Golden Triangle', which includes other places, accomodation and a personal driver for the week. We were hesitant due to cost, but eventually began to sway. The cost would be about 15000 rupees, or about 200 pounds and 100 pounds over my India budget already.
Ali also told us about a light and sound show at the Red Fort in the city, with a spice market nearby. This sounded like an exciting and interesting way to integrate us into a bit of Indian culture. We waited around for our driver to take us into the city. After a while, Ali told us it actually might be a bit late for the light and sound show, but we could still go to the market. Fair enough, we thought. Our driver turned up and it turned out to be the young guy from the guesthouse earlier.
'Come and eat with us later!' Ali said.
'Hm, we might.' we said, but we all knew we were too tired.
'We will have food ready for you!' He said, and we were led by our driver to the car. As we got in, I noticed there were no seatbelts. I asked if there was one and he said:
'No seatbelts. You are in India now!' and he blasted down the road at 80km/h. 'I am craziest driver in office!' We gripped on for dear life. He dodged in-between rickshaws and lorries, honking all the way.
'Do you need to pass a driving test in India?'
'No.'
'Didn't think so.'
We told him that his driving would get him arrested in the UK. He told us that there are rules on the roads, but no-one tends to enforce them at night. I knew that, with the lack of seatbelt and the speed we were travelling at, I would be killed if there was any kind of accident, but I got a weird thrill out of it. Not a mentality I should be taking back to the UK, that one.
We eventually arrived somewhere in the city, expecting to see some kind of large market but instead found ourselves in a residential area being led by our driver and another man. They took us down into a bizarre, white basement and several indian men surrounded us.
'Take a seat' one of them said.
It was completely weird and felt like we were being kidnapped. The main guy summoned someone who brought out a carpet and laid it out infront of us. It was an amazing, beautiful carpet made of cashmere, or something. The man told us about the carpet and how it was made. More carpets were brought out and they kept coming until there was a large pile forming infront of us. The man asked us which ones we liked, genuinely expecting us to buy one. It was very awkward as we didn't want to offend them, but we knew we couldn't afford them, let alone carry them around for the next three months.
'How much is this one?' I asked, to show interest.
'In pounds?' The man said.
'I guess so.'
He summoned a calculator and tapped on it for a few seconds.
'Three hundred english pounds.' he said.
I nearly burst out laughing at the crazy situation we were in and politely told him we couldn't afford them at all. We left the basement, being shot dirty looks from all the indian men- they seemed very offended indeed.
On the way back to the tourist office, we chatted to our driver more and he told us that his 11 year old brother drives trucks in Cashmere, and that we should come visit some time. We stopped at an ATM to withdraw money for the golden triangle tour. My card didn't work, which is not a good sign at all. On arrival back at the office, we were taken into a back room where the employees were watching the news. India had beaten Australia at cricket a few days before and there were constant replays on because it was such a big thing for them.
We were served lamb curry with rice. The girls and I ate it with spoons, but the other guys happily ate with their hands. We chatted about cricket and they all said they didn't believe I was english because I said I don't follow it.
We excused ourselves and paid Ali for our golden triangle trip. I paid using my card, which did work, thankfully. Ali was clearly drunk as he did it.
Back at the guesthouse, we met a group of three english guys who were sitting around playing cards. It was one of their birthdays and they asked us to join them. We were so completely shattered at this point, it being 11:30pm, but joined them for a quick beer. They told us about their travels and gave us some tips. By 12:30am, we could take no more and were wary of the fact that we had to be up at 5am for our Taj Mahal trip. We said our goodbyes and got ready for bed. I was out as soon as the light was.
This had been one of the most confusing, but amazing, days of my life.
We landed in New Delhi airport at about 11:15am (+5.5 hours GMT) and it was really quite strange being there. The airport seemed to be half finished! Loud bangs of sledgehammers were constant, wires hung from the ceiling and while we queued for immigration, some scaffolding nearly fell on some people behind us! We passed through passport check and picked up our bags, nervous as to what could happen next.
A man in a booth summoned me over, waving a sign that said 'Pre-paid taxis, Government approved'. I approached him and asked how much it would be to be taken to our booke
d hotel. He asked to see booking confirmation and asked us lots of questions like 'How long are you in India?' and 'where are you going next?'. After giving us the third degree, he told us 400 rupees (£1 = about 70 rupees). I sheepishly agrees and he filled out some kind of form before summoning a driver. The driver led us to his car and along the way, some men jumped out of the crowds and helped us with our bags. We thought they were simply being kind, but when we and our bags were in the car, they stared at me through the window asking for tips. I gave them about 20p in english coppers, and they gave it back. We drove off.'Welcome to India!' the driver said.
'Thanks!' We all replied.
He asked about us, our trip and told us a bit about Delhi.
The roads in India were mental. There appeared to be no rules at all and no-one really paid atention to oncoming traffic at junctions or roundabouts. Like back in Ecuador, horns were used constantly as a way of saying 'coming through!' rather than a sign of annoyance like back home. There were loads of motorbikes, often carrying two or three people without helmets, and auto-rickshaws as well as cars, jeeps and lorries. This caused a horrible smog all over the place which, combined with all the desert dust and sand, didn't look too nice for breathing.
It took us ages to get from the airport to anywhere that looked vaguely like there could be hotels around. The cab driver stopped and said he needed help from a tourist office to find our hotel and ushered us inside. He insisted on leaving our bags strapped to the top of the car saying 'don't worry, it's safe', but I made him take them down out of not wanting to lose ou bags on our first day.
Tired from the flight and completely confused by the chaotic nature of the city, we followed him into the tourist office and were seated in a cubicle. A man turned round in his seat to look at us.
'Hi! My name is Ali G' he said and shook our hands. Next to him was a white guy with curly hair who looked about our age, I forget his name.
Ali told us that the hotel we had booked (and fully paid for) was rubbish and we should stay in his guesthouse. We didn't want to be rude, but also knew that we would have wasted money if we didn't show up to the hotel. Ali told us we could claim off our insurance for that, and that his guesthouse was very cheap and there were other travellers staying there. Eventually, we realised they weren't going to take us to our hotel and reluctantly agreed to stay at the guesthouse.
The guesthouse w
as a few streets over and then up four flights of steep stairs. We were shown to our room and took a second to relax and get our heads into place. This city was so completely different to anything I'd experienced before and it was a major culture shock. Sarah seemed dubious of our decision to go with Ali's advice. I had a wander around the guesthouse and found a living area with two indian men sitting down, the younger of the two being the guy who led us from the office and the older being the owner of the guesthouse.'Take a seat!' The young guy said. 'Everything ok?'
'Yeah,' I told him 'we're just a bit confused by everything that's going on.'
'There is a saying here in India:' he began 'don't worry, have a chicken curry!'
Genius, I thought. In one sentence, this man had managed to unashamedly sum several stereotypes of Indians, and I loved it.
An english girl called Hannah came in and said hello. She was from Stoke on Trent and had been in Delhi for about 4 weeks. She said the guesthouse was great fun and there is filtered water that is safe to drink. I had a glass whilst chatting to her and another girl called Kelly, who was from New York.
When I went back to our room to tell Sarah and Hannah what I had found, they seemed to perk up a bit. We were still completely exhausted though, so before long we had crashed out.
Two hours later, we woke up. It was about 6pm. We decided to walk to the tourist office and chat to Ali about various things.
'Sorry, I will be a while.' Ali said as we sat down in his office. He pointed to the oriental looking man across the desk from us and said 'Chinese man ruin everything! You know that saying?'
'Erm, yeah.' We said, and waited for the chinese man to stop ruining things. When he left, we asked Ali about a trip to the Taj Mahal. We had planned to spend the week in Delhi and just go to the Taj for a day, but Ali was trying to pursuade us to do a trip called the 'Golden Triangle', which includes other places, accomodation and a personal driver for the week. We were hesitant due to cost, but eventually began to sway. The cost would be about 15000 rupees, or about 200 pounds and 100 pounds over my India budget already.
Ali also told us about a light and sound show at the Red Fort in the city, with a spice market nearby. This sounded like an exciting and interesting way to integrate us into a bit of Indian culture. We waited around for our driver to take us into the city. After a while, Ali told us it actually might be a bit late for the light and sound show, but we could still go to the market. Fair enough, we thought. Our driver turned up and it turned out to be the young guy from the guesthouse earlier.
'Come and eat with us later!' Ali said.
'Hm, we might.' we said, but we all knew we were too tired.
'We will have food ready for you!' He said, and we were led by our driver to the car. As we got in, I noticed there were no seatbelts. I asked if there was one and he said:
'No seatbelts. You are in India now!' and he blasted down the road at 80km/h. 'I am craziest driver in office!' We gripped on for dear life. He dodged in-between rickshaws and lorries, honking all the way.
'Do you need to pass a driving test in India?'
'No.'
'Didn't think so.'
We told him that his driving would get him arrested in the UK. He told us that there are rules on the roads, but no-one tends to enforce them at night. I knew that, with the lack of seatbelt and the speed we were travelling at, I would be killed if there was any kind of accident, but I got a weird thrill out of it. Not a mentality I should be taking back to the UK, that one.
We eventually arrived somewhere in the city, expecting to see some kind of large market but instead found ourselves in a residential area being led by our driver and another man. They took us down into a bizarre, white basement and several indian men surrounded us.
'Take a seat' one of them said.
It was completely weird and felt like we were being kidnapped. The main guy summoned someone who brought out a carpet and laid it out infront of us. It was an amazing, beautiful carpet made of cashmere, or something. The man told us about the carpet and how it was made. More carpets were brought out and they kept coming until there was a large pile forming infront of us. The man asked us which ones we liked, genuinely expecting us to buy one. It was very awkward as we didn't want to offend them, but we knew we couldn't afford them, let alone carry them around for the next three months.
'How much is this one?' I asked, to show interest.
'In pounds?' The man said.
'I guess so.'
He summoned a calculator and tapped on it for a few seconds.
'Three hundred english pounds.' he said.
I nearly burst out laughing at the crazy situation we were in and politely told him we couldn't afford them at all. We left the basement, being shot dirty looks from all the indian men- they seemed very offended indeed.
On the way back to the tourist office, we chatted to our driver more and he told us that his 11 year old brother drives trucks in Cashmere, and that we should come visit some time. We stopped at an ATM to withdraw money for the golden triangle tour. My card didn't work, which is not a good sign at all. On arrival back at the office, we were taken into a back room where the employees were watching the news. India had beaten Australia at cricket a few days before and there were constant replays on because it was such a big thing for them.
We were served lamb curry with rice. The girls and I ate it with spoons, but the other guys happily ate with their hands. We chatted about cricket and they all said they didn't believe I was english because I said I don't follow it.
We excused ourselves and paid Ali for our golden triangle trip. I paid using my card, which did work, thankfully. Ali was clearly drunk as he did it.
Back at the guesthouse, we met a group of three english guys who were sitting around playing cards. It was one of their birthdays and they asked us to join them. We were so completely shattered at this point, it being 11:30pm, but joined them for a quick beer. They told us about their travels and gave us some tips. By 12:30am, we could take no more and were wary of the fact that we had to be up at 5am for our Taj Mahal trip. We said our goodbyes and got ready for bed. I was out as soon as the light was.
This had been one of the most confusing, but amazing, days of my life.
Day 1- Saturday 1st March- Leamington Spa/London.
I woke up today with my first feeling of anxiety about this trip. After a shower and something to eat, I still felt shaky. I was going away for three and a half months and this morning was the first time that fact had hit home.
During the morning, I did the remnants of my packing but tried to chill out the best I could. I always freak out that I’ve missed something important, normally when I’m out for the day, but if I’d missed something this time, it’d be a wee bit more serious.
At 12pm, my dad and I set off. I said goodbye to my brothers, my house and my cat. The trip down south flew by and I was convinced that I’d forgotten my bag of mains chargers. We arrived at Sarah’s house at 2pm and Hannah was just arriving- these are the two girls I would be spending about 95% of my time with for the next few months and was kind of nervous about that. I said my goodbyes to my dad and he left us to it. We wasted the afternoon going over last minute things and playing Wii- we were all just desperate to leave by this point.
Eventually, it was time to go and at around 6, we left Sarah’s house and her dad gave us a lift in his van. I sat in the back, which was a bit like being kidnapped- a feeling I thought I might need to get used to, just in case the worst happens in India. There was a lot of traffic and I nearly fell asleep in the back, but we got to terminal 3 of Heathrow in plenty of time.
We tried to use Virgin’s self-check-in, but they predictably cocked up. After a manual check-in, we found ourselves in a crowded departures lounge buying last minute essentials, like bagels. The sunglasses hut proved to be a bit expensive, so I was lift sunglassless, but managed to change some pounds into Indian Rupees.
We boarded the plane at 9:45. Sarah and Hannah sat in the row in front of me while I sat next to a really rude, old, disabled lady who kept telling her mother to shut up. The inflight entertainment was awesome: I watched an episode of ‘Curb your enthusiasm’ and then began watching ‘No country for old men’, but it proved to be a bit much for me as it got late and I got tired, so I didnt finish it. I couldn’t sleep at all- sleeping upright is ultimate effort.
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