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. After 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.

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 car, 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 when 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 shoe 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.

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 booked 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 was 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.