Home Sweet Home

It was over 6 months ago that me and my brother James set off from Ainsdale in England on our journey around the world. We had been planning this trip for well over a year, but the idea had been lodged in our heads for many more. The time had come to take the plunge – we had moved out of our abodes and cleared it with work to come back in 2013 and were the proud possessors of two brand new Berghaus rucksacks, both full to the brim with everything we would need for the next 6 months.

I still think that one of the most amazing experiences was when we stepped out of Grand Central Station in New York City and were confronted with the unimaginably high skyscrapers right outside. Unbelievable. New York itself definitely goes down as one of the most amazing places that we visited and I would go back there in an instant as we certainly didn’t get to see all of it. Come to think of it, most of America was amazing, each city in its own unique way. I, of course, have to thank at this juncture Mr Don McFall of Birmingham, Alabama for being our first couchsurfing host. It was a bit of a leap into the dark to do this and he made it very much worthwhile and certainly an experience we weren’t expecting and will never forget!

My next thanks goes to Susan Lauer for letting us stay with her in Fort Worth. She not only put us up for the night but also took us round both Fort Worth and Dallas and gave us the grand tour. I would also like to mention that we would never have got around all the places in the US without the use of the Greyhound coaches. I would like to thank them for the journeys we went on……but I can’t. There were just too many flaws in the system, and we especially got narked with the full bus from Albuquerque to Las Vegas. But without that we would never have met Kwan in the bus stop (and subsequently got a lift to the LVH hotel) or got to ride in the back of the truck to the local Wendy’s in Flagstaff.

Whilst I am thanking couchsurfing hosts I cannot leave out Coco who was a most gracious host in San Diego. She had some truly fascinating thoughts and opinions on the world and that made our conversations and time with her truly memorable. Along with dancing the night away in Whiskey Girl, natch.

The next stop on our trip was one of my personal favourites…New Zealand. A place that I had always wanted to go to and did not disappoint one bit.  Careering round the north and south island in our Toyota Hi-Lux campervan is undoubtedly a highlight of our trip. A month is a long time to be cooped up in a campervan with just the two of us so it was a welcome break when we left to go to Australia.

I had been looking forward to the hot climate and the sandy beaches (James not so much!) and it was a nice change from the chill of New Zealand. The trip to Fraser Island was fantastic but I think the best bit about Australia was staying with my friends from university, Harry and Liam. They were fantastic hosts also, feeding us and taking us round their adopted country. I do feel the need to apologise for somehow letting their puppy learn how to get into the house by using the cat-flap. Oopsy! Thanks also got to Cass and Ti in Sydney for giving us such a good time in Australias biggest city. They really showed us a good time and what it meant to be a true Aussie, even to the point of having a barbecue out on the balcony with a couple of beers and a drop of goon!

And then it was time for Asia. We had not made as many plans as we had done for the first 3 stops and were going to very much “play it by ear” or “fly by the seat of our pants” as it were. It was a nice gentle welcome to Asia in Singapore and we really enjoyed the place. It meant that when we got through Kuala Lumpur and into Thailand we were already well aware of what travelling round Asia would be like. Thailand was amazing and my trip to Phi Phi Island with Svetlana still holds fantastic memories for me. I also thank the guardian angels (if there are any) that my foot didn’t get horribly infected when I accidentally gashed it open on a gate pin thing in the ground.

Cambodia and Vietnam opened our eyes in so many ways. Not just about the culture and the people, but the history too. Not all memories are happy ones, but they will all stay with us for a lifetime. One of the low points of the trip has to be the two day journey from Hanoi into Hong Kong, one that I really wouldn’t want to repeat at any time in the future. But it was a means to and end and it meant that we could begin our foray into China in great style. Chungking Mansions was a memory in itself and even though the movie that was filmed there was rubbish the whole place was just full of character……and characters.

What we also encountered in China was a dramatic drop in temperature. We fought through it with brave English spirit and came out the other side with a whole new winter wardrobe, amongst other things. One of our fondest memories of China is in Shanghai and the great Tea Scam. They thought that they could scam us……us for crying out loud! The story is in two parts and each one has a beauty of its own. But it taught us a few things and made sure that our eyes were wide open and that our spidey senses would be on high alert for the rest of our trip.

Our trip through Nepal was a great experience, if anything it just taught us to be grateful that we always have power at our fingertips in everyday life – those power-cuts were truly soul-destroying. And that led us in to India. I was prepared for what we would be facing but for James it was his first time. After already getting sick in Pokhara, Nepal, it came for James’s turn to look after me when I got the bug in Jaipur. It was a shame to come down poorly so close to the end, but we had been expecting it, and powered through with proper English grit and determination.

And that leads us to……home! Home, where we could recover from our 6 months round the world. The most amazing experience of our lives and one that leaves us with very happy memories. And they will hopefully keep us going......until the next trip!

Heading Home

And so we had done it! We had made it all the way from London to Mumbai and were to head home to England so long as we made it to the airport on-time.

Ready to go... 

We had pre-booked a taxi to pick us up from the hotel at 10:00am and he was waiting for us outside to our delight. The Mumbai traffic is pretty heavy at any time of day and it took us well over an hour to get to the airport, but we had left plenty of time to get on to the flight so we were happy with the progress we had made.

As I tried to check us in the lady behind the desk acknowledged our details for the flight from Mumbai to London, but she was struggling to see us on the flight from London up to Manchester. Oh dear. Neither James nor I said anything to each other, each of us realising that it would be just our luck that we get a cancellation at the very last hurdle and have to stay a night in London or get a replacement bus service up the M1. Apparently, the flight we were booked on “for some reason wasn’t running” and our stomachs turned as our eyes rolled. Within seconds she added that there was a flight 30 minutes earlier that we would be on, so everything looked like it would be alright in the end.

The flight was about 9 hours and the plane wasn’t even half full. We amused ourselves with the in-flight entertainment and snoozed as and when we pleased. There were mixed emotions up there in the air: happy to be on the way back home to everything we know and love, but also sadness that we would be leaving behind all the adventures and cultures from other countries.

A nice drop of Shiraz on the plane back home

It wasn’t long before we were making the change to get our short flight up to Manchester and edge that one last step nearer to home. A last-minute change of gate almost threw us out of kilter, but once we were through all the security and on the plane it was…well…plain sailing from there on in. The one last potential problem that I could foresee before I could truly relax was that maybe, just maybe, our bags wouldn’t have followed us to the north-west. But they turned the corner on the carousel and we breathed a sigh of relief. We had done it!

This is the end...

Thankfully our mum and dad had agreed to meet us at the airport and it was just great to see them again after all this time away. After hugs all round we jumped in the car and made our way back home.

It still felt very weird; like we had been away for a lifetime, but yet that we hadn’t been away at all. A spot of bubbly and some Pringles later and we were absolutely ready for getting some shut-eye in our all-too-familiar beds. It was about 5 in the morning for our body-clocks so we had no problem at all in drifting off to sleep, reminiscing at all the adventures we had had in the past half a year.

Home sweet home!

The Last Day

And so, on the 19^th December 2012, it was our last full day of travelling before flying back to England and home. One more final push to get everything we needed before jumping on the plane bound for London. A quick breakfast set us up for the day and then we were off to scour the markets for a last few trinkets that were still on our shopping list.

Another hot taxi ride and we were back at the No 2 Market we went to the day before. We knew exactly what we were after and how much we should be looking at to make the deal. We headed upstairs in one of the shops we had visited the day before and the portly gentleman welcomed us back with a smile and a handshake. We set about bargaining with the man and eventually got the price we were looking for, and he even got a small Chinese coin into the bargain to give him good luck. We still had a few Yuan left over from our tour of China and James had discovered that these little beauties could be easily introduced to a deal to lower the asking price, with the seller looking at the shiny little coin in awe. I wish I had whipped out a few Vietnamese Dong, we could have probably got everything half price!

Next up we headed back to the Colaba Market near to the Gateway To India and waded through the tourists looking for a few choice items. We managed to get a pretty much clean sweep of everything we were after, so there was just Fashion Street and the Thieves Market to go. The sun was still pretty hot and giving us one last chance of a tan. Topping out at 30 degrees (according to my laptop gadget) but not being overly uncomfortable means that we have probably acclimatised to the hot weather again, so it looks like all the cold-weather clothing we bought in China will be making an appearance once again.

Colaba Market...again!

With success at Fashion Street we then set our sights on the Thieves Market. It was a fair distance away but as we had time on our hands we decided to walk it and drink up that last few moments of the Mumbai street life.

After the lengthy trek we believed we had found the area where the Thieves Market would be, and after a short sharp trip into a covered market area that smelled like death we asked a young chap nearby where the market was. He pointed to the road across the street and we wandered down it. It wasn’t really what we were wanting. Not at all. If you need parts for your motorbike or such-like then you would be in heaven, but we didn’t really need any of that kind of stuff so we set off in search of a taxi back to the hotel.

Inside another dodgy, dirty, cramped Fiat taxi

It was early enough in the afternoon for us to get back and have a nap. It is another luxury that we will miss when we are back to normality in a few weeks time. And after that it was time to begin the packing of the bag for the final time. Trinkets were safely tucked away inbetween clothes and coats to shield them from the brutes at British Airways baggage handlers. It was the most emotional re-pack that we have done considering that most of the things within the bags have been with us for over 6 months and have become close friends along the way.

Once we had Skyped mum and dad for one last time we headed downstairs to the hotel restaurant that had also become a good friend in our time in Mumbai. Another cracking meal set us up for a nice relaxed evening with a couple of large, celebratory Kingfisher beers and undoubtedly another round of cards.

Nearly There...

Another lazy morning, sir? Why thank you, that will do nicely. James was off down to the leather shop again to pick up his custom-made jacket so that gave me another lazy morning to chill out and relax my way into the day. He didn’t leave til almost 11:00am and it was gone 1:00pm by the time he returned, just as I was about to tuck into mu “lunch” of a slab of chocolate spongecake. I had been happily watching the Arsenal v Reading game on the telly (a game that salvaged only a little bit of pride from a near-appalling game week thanks to Santi Cazorla) but now it was time to leave and get down the markets.

A short taxi ride and we were back in the south of the city, ready to hit the markets again. We got dropped off by the CST train station, which just looks amazing from the outside (not sure what the inside is like!). A short walk down the street led us onto Fashion Street. There were a few too many jeans, pants and shoes on sale for my liking as that just wasn’t what I was after at all. We did manage to pick up a few little things along the way, but not exactly what we went down there for. On the wander down to the other market nearby we took a shortcut through another park with a lot of cricket games going on, with a dash of football thrown in for good measure. The shortcut turned out not to be, so we had to do a 180 and go back out the way we came in, but we had time on our hands so we didn’t mind so much.

Name on a grain of rice, sir?

We found the other market and wandered through the maze of material shops offering us everything from reams of silk to tailor-made suits and shirts. It was a bit of a madhouse in there to be honest and we had numerous people telling us that they had the best shop and we should follow them, but they all turned out to be dead herrings. By this point time was getting away with us and it was hot and musty in there so we made for the exit and jumped in a taxi back to the hotel. As it was rush hour it took a little longer than usual, but we made it back in time for another slap-up meal in the hotel restaurant. 

Market No 2...if you see what I mean

A Stroll In The Park

Our first full day in Mumbai was to be a very relaxed one. Well, for me anyway. James had decided he wanted a custom-made leather jacket that he could get made for pretty cheap, so he had gone off down to one of the nearby leather markets to get measured up. I was gonna use to the time to relax as I realised that when I get back home I won’t have much time to chill out as I will need to get my head around Christmas and sort out somewhere to live in Leeds. So I spent most of the morning tying up a few loose ends and watching a bit of telly, waiting for James to return from the market.

When he did we grabbed a bite to eat and then headed out to try and find yet another market/bazar near to the hotel. We wandered through the local “park” and saw a few kids playing cricket, and you could see the tall new buildings towering over the small houses that is a mark of Mumbai and how on-the-up the place is.

Anyone for cricket?

We found another smaller park down by the sea shore, and yet more kids playing cricket. The view out across the water was amazing and the Mumbai skyline again looked fantastic. You can see the wealth that is present in the city just by looking up above the one and two storey buildings. Yet again the streets were not filled with people badgering us left, right and centre for everything and anything so we had quite a nice little wander along the coast.

Beautiful Mumbai

When we go to the bazar…it wasn’t. Well, it wasn’t quite what we were expecting/hoping. It just seemed like a typical street in any Indian city, selling functional stuff for the locals. With no souvenirs in sight we turned on our heels and headed back the way we came. It had been nice to get out of the hotel and into the 30 degree heat, but maybe the wearing of jeans had been a mistake. And it certainly didn’t feel that hot either, which means that the shock of getting back to England will be pretty bad. We shall just have to remember Beijing and prepare ourselves for the cold weather again.

Mumbai Magic

The thin red curtain to my bedroom was flung open by one of the train porters at half 7. I assumed that we were nearing our destination. Either that or I had been snoring too loud. But no. it seemed like everyone else was also being woken in readiness for the terminal station. We collected our things and jumped off the train that had unfortunately got in on-time. It meant that we had an early morning dash to the hotel and a potential few-hour wait before we could check-in, but we had little else to do so we set off for the taxi rank.

The bloke who got was an absolute idiot. He couldn’t find the hotel but that might be because the directions from Booking.com weren’t great either. But when we did eventually get there we were quite pleased. It was way out in the sticks and away from all the touristy areas, but the astronomical prices they can charge in Mumbai meant that we had struggled to find anywhere good near the south, where all the good stuff is. We took a seat while they made up the room and thankfully we were in there by about 9:00am.

James (pretend) reading the Indian Times

After a snooze and a quick scout of the area we jumped in a taxi and headed south to see the Gateway to India. We knew we were close when we spotted a few more Westerners hanging around the place, and then it was confirmed by the presence of a Pizza Express. Sure enough, a little further down the road, there it was. And what a sight it is. Standing proudly at the harbour front it is similar to the India Gate in Delhi but with more people around it as there is not so much space to mingle through the crowds. Almost opposite the Gateway is the Taj Hotel, which was the subject of the terrorist attack a few years ago. We didn’t even want to think about how much it would cost to stay there considering the price we were paying to be out in the sticks!

Gateway To India

Our next port of call was one of the many market streets nearby, so we followed the map and found it straight off. It wasn’t the most amazing street market that we have been to in our travels, but we managed to pick up a few items after some hard-bartering. Time was getting away from us so at that point we found another cab and bombed it back to the hotel. It isn’t too far to go from the hotel into the south and the view along the way is great. The streets seem so much calmer than Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, with a hefty dose of English colonial buildings along the way. I was already warming to Mumbai, and not just because the temperature was topping out at 30 degrees!

Some nice building in Mumbai...

To keep it simple (and clean!) we snuck down to the hotel restaurant for dinner and were surprised to find that it was an oriental restaurant. James still managed to get a curry though, and I went for the sizzling Japanese noodles, which were both pretty top-notch. Yes they were probably more expensive than we could have got somewhere else but it meant that we could get back to the room and see the end of the Spurs v Swansea match. And anyway, it’s our last few days and we have penny-pinched our way round the world so a couple of nice meals in the hotel restaurant has been well-earned I think!

Last Stop...Mumbai

And so it was time to leave Jaipur behind and get our final train towards Mumbai. Mumbai would be our last stop before going home and we were having very mixed emotions about the final day approaching. I had got a much stronger urge to go home during my “down time” in Jaipur, but now I was back to my usual self I felt that one last push for Mumbai was certainly in order.

Due to the taxi driver not turning up when we arrived in Jaipur the hotel owner arranged for his driver to drop us off at the train station as a mark of good faith. That was unexpected but was very gratefully received. At the station we found our platform and waited. We had the usual passers-by glaring at us in wonderment (more so for James than for me) and then we parked our bags near the end of the platform where our carriage was due to arrive. We needed to feed ourselves on the trip as it was only just gone noon and the jam/cheese sandwich we had got from the hotel wouldn’t go far. So we purchased a wide variety of crisps, snacks and cakes that would hopeful do us for lunch, dinner and breakfast the next day. This travelling lark, it really doesn’t do good for your diet.

Waiting for the last train...

With our names on the sheet of paper plastered to the side of the train we found our seat numbers and climbed aboard. After we had settled in to our two-up two-down booth we were asked if we wouldn’t mind switching seats so a family could sit together. We did so (after my initial protestations of “I can’t be bothered”) and if anything we got better seats/beds as they were along the side of the aisle and we got a curtain for each bed which gave us some privacy at least. We managed to pass the time with a few games of cards and a couple of movies before it was time to turn in for the night. It wasn’t the best of beds bearing in mind that I had all my luggage on the bed with me and had people walking past at all hours of the night, especially the chap selling chai tea, very loudly seemingly every 20 minutes.

My bed for the night...

Out And About

Thanks to the packet of Sour Cream & Onion Walkers crisps and carton of orange juice that James had bought me I was feeling much better. I managed to get a fruit salad down me chops at breakfast which put me back in the game. We had one more day to explore Jaipur and we knew we had to make the most of it.

First on our agenda for the day was the City Palace. We walked through the streets of Jaipur to get there and unfortunately didn’t see anything of note on the way there. Maybe it was because we had had a bit of a bad start to the whole Jaipur experience, but I wasn’t getting the warm cosy feelings that I got from Delhi or Agra.

When we found the beginnings of the palace, within the red fort walls of the pink city, we took a couple of photos of the famous palace front from the street. There was a couple hanging round outside taking pictures themselves and then asked us if we could take one of them. They were well dressed and their English was very good, possibly with an American twang, and when James had snapped them the guy approached to get his camera back and started a conversation with us. The usual questions headed our way and once again our spidey-senses were beginning to rumble. We had heard about the gem scam in Jaipur whereby they take you to a shop and show you precious gemstones but when you give them the money they switch the gems and give you fake ones. We were on red alert for this and made our excuses to carry on our way. Even if they weren’t scammers we didn’t really have the time or inclination to hang around and chat.

Jaipur Palace...with "scammers" just out of shot 

Once inside the palace we were greeted to a snake-charmer, showing off in front of a group of tourists. He seemed pretty good at his job but we weren’t going to hang around for when he finished and would be asking for money. The palace was great inside and we were treated to a few little museums and displays around the place. There wasn’t a huge amount to see there in all honesty and we weren’t allowed into the palatial chambers, but it was still good just to say that we had done at least something in Jaipur! We grabbed a quick bite to eat in the café and then set about trying to get a tuk-tuk up to the fort that overlooks the city.

What a charming man!

The taxis and tuk-tuks are supposedly pretty cheap in Jaipur so we were looking for around 100 Rupees for the journey, although it seemed quite far on the map. A persistent rickshaw driver kept asking us where we wanted to go, but we didn’t even tell him as he would’ve taken 2 days to get us there as it was all uphill! We managed to find a tuk-tuk guy that would take us for 100 Rupees, but after 20 metres along the way he tried to get us to pay 150. Basically, he just didn’t want to go all the way up there and have to come back under his own steam. After a slightly heated debate I barked 120 Rupees to just get us there and he begrudgingly set off.

That is until we got onto the main street where he stopped again to point up to the fort and claim that it was very far away and the fare should be 150. We ignored his pleas and forced him to carry on the journey. It was a long way, and as we climbed the hill we decided to accept his offer of 300 for a return journey, mainly because we didn’t know if there would be any other tuk-tuks up there and we didn’t want to get stranded up at the fort. That seemed to cheer him up a bit.

We walked round the fort and there were spectacular views all round. Unfortunately we had chosen the same day to visit as a load of idiots who were running round the place screaming and shouting. Some of them would also request photos of/with us which we posed for, but under the proviso that they would be quick. After exploring the buildings we took a walk around the walls and the surrounding area and were again accosted by people trying to guide us round the area. One thing I will remember about Jaipur is that they are persistent little fellas.

James saw a tuk-tuk for the first time...

On the journey back down the mountain road we happened to stop by a group of 5 people who appeared to have tried to walk back, but were now too tired and needed a lift. After a brief discussion and a few pleas from the kids we allowed them to clamber on and we all set off back down the mountain. We got to the bottom and dropped them off and then carried on back to the palace. He had been trying to get even more money out of us on the way back but after getting the little extra fare he was happy to get his 300 Rupees from us.

The fort on the hill

As my energy levels still weren’t back to normal we made our way back to the hotel to crash out for a while. In order to ensure we didn’t encounter any more food bugs we found a nearby Pizza Hut and that was our destination for dinner. OK it’s a bit of a cop-out but we are so close to the end it’s like conceding a goal in the 95 minute, so we want to make sure we make it through to the end in good health.

Sick

4:30am. Something didn’t feel right. Not right at all. One quick trip to the bathroom wouldn’t take long, just to be on the safe side. There was no safe side.

I had got the Delhi Belly again, just like James had got in Pokhara, Nepal. Thankfully it wasn’t as bad as the time I gave myself food poisoning from a chicken and seafood paella, but it still wasn’t pleasant. But thankfully we were in another nice hotel so the recuperating process shouldn’t be to bad.

In all truth there isn’t much I can say about the day. James looked after me like a trooper and I stayed in bed for the majority of the day. I did manage to catch the back end of Enter The Dragon which is always a bonus. By the end of the day I was beginning to feel a little bit more human but had missed out on a full day in Jaipur. Each and every day was precious now as it was officially 6 months to the day that we left England and also one more week until we would be arriving home. And after the morning I had just had home couldn’t come soon enough…

The Taj Mahal

We have a had a few early mornings in our trip, but mainly due to the need to travel to our next destination. But this time we were getting up at 5:45am to go and see one of the most amazing things in the world…the Taj Mahal.

I am fortunate enough to have been to the Taj once before and I was certainly OK to go back for a second look. So at just after 6:00am me and James walked through the dirty little side streets on the way down to the Taj. There didn’t seem to be many touts and tourists traps along the way which we found abnormal for such a massive tourist attraction. We queued up to get our ticket and waited in line with everyone else. The idea was to be inside and witness the sun rise and the changing colours on the white marble, but there were so many security checks in place that we only just about made in time.

Waiting....waiting....waiting....

There are few things in this world that compare to seeing the Taj at sunrise. Especially in winter when there doesn’t seem to be as many tourists around. Grabbing some pictures on “Diana’s Bench” whilst the white marble changes colour from orange through blue to white is just an amazing experience. The only problem that we could come up with was that the black Taj Mahal was never built on the opposite side of the river. It would have been mind-blowing!

At the Taj

We made it back to the hotel and showered and ate before walking down to Agra Fort. Agra Fort is similar to the Red Fort in Delhi, but I think that it tops it. There’s way more monkeys there too, and even one that decided to have a swipe at my leg as I got a little bit too close for comfort for it. Whilst we also managed to find some hidden bats hanging out in one of the archways and I fed some of the chinchillas. The sun was blazing down on us and it reminded us that we will be having a bit of a shock when we get back home and it is minus 5…

Entering Agra Fort

After the Agra Fort we had lunch at the hotel and prepared for our next train journey; Agra to Jaipur. We tuk-tuk’d our way down to the train station, found our platform and then waited. When the train showed we clambered on and found our rather nice looking seats – we could get used to these. But then came the other passengers. Once again we were lumbered with the kids – kicking the back of my chair and screaming blue murder every so often. But we had our music and that managed to make the journey just about bearable. We even got a “meal” on the train, but I only ate the peanuts and the juice box.

We were getting picked up by the hotel when we arrived so that was one less thing to worry about. But after 45 minutes of waiting for him we decided we should get a tuk-tuk and claim it back from the hotel. But that proved tricky. There weren’t any in the immediate area and when James came back from a scouting mission yet another local had sidled up to me and was trying to have a chat. James said that the drivers up the way could get us there for 60 rupees and the guy in orange talking to me claimed that he could do it for 50, so we followed him to his vehicle. Or so we thought…

When we arrived we stood outside what he claimed to be his tuk-tuk, but there were 3 old geezers in the back boozing away. They were babbling incoherently so we asked him where his tuk-tuk was again, to which he told us just to hang on a moment. At that point another chap came wandering up to us in the dimly-lit area of the car park and began asking us the usual questions – where were we from, how long were we in India, etc, etc. The guy in orange was reasonably dressed which is always a bit strange for a tuk-tuk driver, and in addition to the 3 guys burbling something like “ah, so sad, they haven’t come to pick you up” our spidey senses weren’t just tingling, they were ringing loud and clear.

It was at this point that I turned a 180 and stormed off to find another driver, we didn’t need this. James quickly followed and we stopped at the pre-paid booth to arrange for the short trip to our hotel. Guy-in-orange came running up to us claiming that he had his vehicle and we would be on our way but he had already lost our custom. The pink slip had been written and we climbing into a different tuk-tuk with a young lad called Irfan who, hopefully, wouldn’t be trying to take us to a dark alley to try and rob us blind.

We got to the hotel no problem and checked into the rather nice looking place. It was already late so we just hit the restaurant downstairs. That evening we just settled in to the room and checked out what delights Jaipur had to offer us.

Leaving Delhi

It was good to have a lie-in for a change, and a nice relaxed breakfast. There was only one problem though…it was raining! This just would not do, but it wasn’t all that bad, nothing on the Bangkok scale of things. All we needed to do was pack up our things and get out of the Aura Hotel, once and for all. It was a shame, as when we arrived it seemed pretty swanky, but it quickly took a turn for the worse after that. We hoped that the rest of our hotels in India wouldn’t have people shouting random things from outside our room (we think it looked out onto a mental asylum, but couldn’t be sure as the window was frosted), a very noisy water pipe in the wall and absolute numpties running the place.

Goodbye Hotel Aura!!

It was a short hike down to the train station and once we had barged our way through the other passengers we saw that our train was already delayed. We found a quiet place up near the Foreign Tourist office and sat on a dirty couch playing some cards to pass the time. Once it neared the time we were due to leave we headed to the platform and found our names on the sheet of paper plastered to the outside of the train carriage.

The excellent reservation system

We were sharing a bench/bed with two other chaps and/or a small child who was flitting between one of the chaps and her mum on another bed. The bed/bench opposite was occupied by 5 more people so the only thing to do was plug in the earphones and wait out the 3 hour journey. We would be arriving at just after 5:00pm which would give us plenty of time to get organised and fed at the hotel.

Our companions on the train

We didn’t get in til after half 7. It wasn’t a particularly nice journey either as the little kid was shouting and crying for most of it and we were cramped up against the window on a pretty uncomfortable seat. But arrive we did, and thankfully our man from the hotel was still waiting for us. We jumped in his tuk-tuk and sped down to the Maya Hotel, where I had stayed 5 years ago on my last visit to India. We checked in and got straight to the rooftop restaurant for some much-needed food. 

Trains, Tombs And Tuk-Tuks

Another early start. We needed to get to the Foreign Tourist office to book our train tickets by 8:00am. We delayed breakfast in the hope that we wouldn’t be too long and we could come back and have it once we had our trains booked.

We arrived just after 8:00am and saw there was no queue outside the office, which gave us a little skip in our step. That quickly faded when we opened the door to the office and saw a multitude of people sitting on chairs all with pieces of paper in their hands. It looked like there was some form of queue running round the room but it was unclear where it began. After standing around like wallies for a couple of minutes the queue started to move – one by one people shifted one seat to the right. We found the end of the queue, filled in our details on the paper forms and waited for our turn at the desk.

It took ages. And when I say “ages” I mean over an hour. In that time we saw all manner of people joining the seemingly endless queue, and they all did exactly what we did – stand in the middle of the room trying to work out just what was going on. We made it to the counter and managed to book all our tickets with minimal fuss. We both wished that we had gone straight there instead of wasting our time with that idiot in the hotel. But it was done and dusted so we pegged it back to the hotel to have our breakfast, and just in time too!

Enjoying the breakfast, James?

So then we could enjoy Delhi now that everything was booked. We would need some more money after paying for the trains with cash so the plan was to find a Standard Chartered bank near Connaught Place and find the local market. We did exactly that, but it was more of a market for the locals, selling clothes and loo brushes, so we marched on. We were heading towards the India Gate, just down the road. It was actually about 2 or 3 km down the road, but we had time on our hands and we fancied the walk.

Soon enough we had arrived at the India Gate and it was pretty impressive. I haven’t got any stats on it but it is big and tall and surrounded by foreign and local tourists alike. As soon as we arrived we were approached by a number of people asking for their photo taking or selling us something. With our spidey-senses on red alert we politely refused where possible, especially the gang of teenage school kids claiming that it was the custom for me to give them my camera to take a picture of me with them. Hmmmmm, I don’t think so chaps.

India Gate 

Once we had got our fill of the India Gate we wandered down the main road to Humayun’s Tomb. Again, I had already been here but I enjoyed it so much the first time that I felt James should experience it too so that he didn’t get the idea that Delhi is just all about the madness and chaos in/on/around the roads and main buildings. Inside it is beautifully quiet and serene…except for the huge gaggles of schoolkids we encountered that were just leaving as we arrived. The tomb is a pre-cursor if you like for the Taj Mahal and in itself it is a fantastic place to visit. All the traffic and noise is almost instantly removed from the atmosphere and you can hear the birds chirping and hushed voices as people wander round. Just what we needed after the mad dash round Delhi from Day 1.

The beautiful Humayun's Tomb

It was getting late in the day by then and we tried to find our way to the metro to get to somewhere else (as yet undecided) in the city but we got to a point where we ran out of pavement. Feeling the heat, lack of sleep and the energetic walks we decided to call it a day and grabbed a tuk-tuk all the way back to the hotel, which took ages but was ridiculously cheap so we were happy. It seemed that there were no good (clean!) places to eat by our hotel so we ate on the rooftop of our hotel. It was a cracking curry too, to the point where I ate far too much and felt far too bloated for the rest of the night. But then again, we were just packing our things and trying to book up our last hotel, in Mumbai, which proved very troublesome indeed!

Idiots, Ups And Downs

After having a disturbed nights sleep (sleeping in a double bed again and with the waste water pipe seemingly next to the headboard) we made it to the rooftop for breakfast. Nothing to report really apart from the fact we had to have warm milk on our cereal. Sounds like a small thing but until you try it you will never know how weird it is.

The next thing on our agenda was to speak with the in-house travel agent about booking all our train tickets through India. I had tried, and failed, with doing it online as it is a stupid flippin system that doesn’t work and we didn’t fancy chancing our luck down the presumably packed train station. We knew the rough prices and times of the trains, we just needed the seats. And any commission added on by the fella would probably not amount to much anyway. But as we descended the steps we saw a couple sitting there discussing their trip with the guy behind the desk. No problem, they wouldn’t be long.

They took ages. And when I say “ages” I mean over an hour. Another chap was floating around reception and claiming that he was part of the same group and we could go with him to get things organised as it was just round the corner. Our spidey-senses tingled and we politely refused as we were to be wary of anyone trying to divert us from our intended path for directions, tickets, etc. We ended up waiting for ages and in that time played a game of chess. James won, as I have never really been a great player of the game, give me Sensible Soccer any day.

James plotting his next move

We were also supposed to get a twin room organised to move into as per our booking, but they couldn’t even organise that. The phrase “couldn’t organise a p*ss-up in a brewery” sprang to mind. Finally the travel agent became free and we wondered what could have taken so long. We knew we wouldn’t be too long, it was only 3 train tickets.

We took ages. And when I say “ages” I mean over an hour. And we still didn’t get anything booked. He was an idiot. He kept trying to get us to book a minivan to do most of the journey as he would get a load of commission we assumed. Either that or try and add in extra journeys we didn’t want. Or take phone calls in the middle of dealing with us. Or get everything completely wrong and ask us the details again. Or just ignore our simple request for a ticket from Delhi to Agra. Gah!

In the end we had to run down to the train station to try and book the tickets through the Foreign Tourist office as they would have the ability to book the tickets and actually understand what we were trying to do. When we got down there it felt like Delhi again; the Delhi I had experienced 5 years ago almost to the day. Chaos. People, cars, tuk-tuks, rickshaws everywhere, and an occasional waft of urine (or worse) across the nostrils. The office closed at 2:00pm and it was half 1 by the time we left the idiot travel agent so we were against the clock. The clock won. Us and three other foreign travellers were turned away from the office as there were already too many people inside so we would have to return at 8:00am the next day.

So that left us with an afternoon, and a bit of a bad taste in our mouths, in Delhi. We had just about enough time on our hands to get to the Red Fort before it would close. We made our way there on the subway system, something that I hadn’t used the last tie in Delhi, and arrived at the nearby metro station. Without knowing which way it was we dallied for a while trying to determine which way to go. That was until a rickshaw driver attempted to take us there for only 20 Rupees. I knew it must be close for that price so I casually asked in which direction it was. He pointed and then I waved him away saying we didn’t need his services and then strode in the direction he had shown us. Sure enough there it was.

Red Fort, hooray! 

After paying our foreigner tax we jumped the queue (legitimately) and headed inside. It is so nice to get inside and feel the peace and quiet compared to the madness of the streets of Delhi. We wandered round and saw the sites within, along with hundreds of others that had chosen to visit that day. There were mausoleums and museums inside, but it was getting late and it was close to chucking out time so we made our way back to the hotel via the congested metro again.

Inside the Red Fort, with lots of birds

That night we ordered room service and settled down to watch the Manchester derby. At half time we nipped out to buy a couple of beers but the only place we could find that would sell us anything that wasn’t super-strength lager was a heavy pit of drunks and desperate-to-get-drunks that had a hole in the wall for express service. We managed to wade through the throng and purchase a few cans of Carlsberg, the only thing on offer that wasn’t going to strip our insides. We returned to the room to see a completely unjust victory for the red side of Manchester and some ugly scenes thereafter. As a bonus we flicked over and saw the mighty Liverpool triumph in the next game as we finished off the Carlsberg. Certainly a day of ups and downs!

Travelling Dot Com......Dot Org

It was 7:00am and the alarm was bleeping furiously at me from the floor of our room. I had put it there to make sure that we would get up and out of bed which would hopefully not lead to a repeat of the Terracotta Warriors fiasco. We crawled out of bed, got ourselves ready and headed down for breakfast. We ate as much as we could/dared so that we didn’t have to take lots of provisions with us on the road as we would be spending the entire day travelling.

After we had checked out of the hotel we jumped in nearby taxi (yes, it was the small Suzuki that we had become accustomed to) which took us to the micro-bus stand a couple of miles down the road. We were prepared for the madness of this place but thankfully it wasn’t as bad as Kathmandu and we managed to get seats on a fairly decent mini-bus. It filled up quickly and we even had a few women on board, which made it much less like a prison van, according to James. We set off and crossed our fingers that there wouldn’t be any delays so that we could get to the airport in plenty of time.

Fingers crossed we don't break down!

The journey wasn’t all that bad in the end, apart from having some bloke sat next to me (on a bucket) for most of the journey and there being loud bhangra music played for the majority of the trip. We made a stop-off for lunch and a couple of stops at fruit stalls where the drivers bought a variety of items which later ended up in the hands of one of the traffic/border police. We did see another Westerner at one of the stops, which was a change, as it seemed like these mini-buses were mostly used by the locals who didn’t want to get the local buses…and I don’t blame them!

An old Indian man looks at me and James

James’s digestive system managed to complete the journey without any mishaps, which was perhaps the best thing about the trip, and we climbed out of the mini-bus back in Kalanki Bus Park, Kathmandu. Instantly there were taxi drivers after our custom and, with a bit of haggling, we got a fairly decent price to the airport in (yes, you guessed it!) another Suzuki taxi. Somehow we made it there in one piece and looked for our flight on the Departures Board. 3 hours to wait, no problem.

We went through all the usual procedures, played some more cards and then got ready to board at half 6 in the evening. It had already been a long day of travelling and we were still only at the beginning of stage 4 of 5! Our Spicejet plane was called Dill (as all of them are named/labelled with a different spice, although I’m not sure that Dill is a spice, more of a herb isn’t it?) and we had been given the fire escape seats…bonus! Acres of legroom, even though the flight was only for an hour and 10 minutes. It was enjoyable and (because it was) uneventful and we landed in Delhi without any delays.

We were to be picked up from the airport by our hotel, after many an email between me and “Ravi”, and thankfully our man was still there holding the piece of paper with my name on it when we arrived. After apologising for being later than expected we jumped in his car and careered through the darkened streets of Delhi towards the hotel.

It looked pretty swanky and our room, although it was a double and not a twin as requested, was great. We made ourselves at home before heading onto the roof to order a late-night meal. They only had Indian food on so no snacks or sandwiches which was just what we needed – I didn’t want to eat a full meal at gone 10:00pm. And James certainly wasn’t wanting any spicy food, so we just ordered two big Kingfishers and supped them on the roof on our first night in India.

World Peace

James was nearly back to normal (whether that was good or bad is a matter of opinion) so we looked into doing what we were going to do from the off – boating on the lake. It is probably the one thing that everyone does, apart from the trekking, and there were plenty of places to get a boat from. It was only going to cost 700 Rupees, so only about a fiver or so, for the whole day.

Boats...

We paid the boat man his fee and he led us to our boat. It was nothing special, but looked pretty sea-worthy so we were happy enough. He then handed us two differently-sized oars which would probably make us go round in circles but we took them nonetheless. After a less-than-steady start we rowed away from the shore and into the lake. There were no life-jackets on offer, but I think we would have refused them anyway, the water didn’t look that deep. It was pretty hard going as there were no stirrups (or whatever) to act as a pivot, so we had an oar each and zig-zagged our way out into the middle of the lake.

James, who should be rowing!

There is a small temple out in the middle of the lake which we rowed past but couldn’t get onto as it was busy with locals ringing bells and suchlike, and also because we didn’t want to crash into any other boats, fall into the lake or lose our boat form not tying it up properly. There were lots of people rowing to and from the temple and most of them were locals who were happy to yell “Namaste” over to us, although there were also a number of Chinese tourists who would holler “Ni hao” to us to which we responded in our broken Chinese.

The temple in the lake

It was a glorious day for it too, which was great as the day had started with the usual hazy fog that seemed to linger over the lake as it did at the end of the day too. The haze had cleared and we were being baked in the hot sun, with one last attempt to get a bit of tan before returning to cloudy England. We made our way over to the docking area on the other side of the lake and tied up. Leaving our oars in the restaurant nearby we began our trek up the hills to the World Peace Pagoda that sits on top of one of the highest hills on that side of the lake.

Other boats following us to the shore!

Having heard that there had been some robberies along the way we took out multi-tools and made sure they were to hand, just in case anyone tried to jump us. But we never really thought that we would need them, just a bit of exaggeration on the Wikitravel page we assumed. It was a nice trek up too, although we had to rest a few times due to James’s lack of strength through lack of food intake.

But James, we've only been gong for 4 minutes...

We made it to the top and were pleasantly surprised by the pagoda. It had only been built in 1996 but it was a special place with fantastic views all round. The whole of Pokhara was visible to us and we tried to find our little hotel but couldn’t pick it out of the throng laid out before us. We were up there for a while, taking in the sights and trying not to spoil other peoples photos of the huge buddhas that surround the pagoda.

The World Peace Pagoda

The trek down was much better and thankfully there were no bandits that came charging out of the bushes. We grabbed our oars and rowed back out into the lake, and soon enough we were back on dry land with aching arms and slightly damp backsides. For the rest of the afternoon we made use of the market streets to do some more Christmas shopping and to barter hard, where appropriate. Back at the hotel we had another power cut, which was really unhelpful as we needed to charge laptops, cameras and phones. It wasn’t until we cam eback after dinner that we realised that there hadn’t been a power cut, simply that we had forgotten to put the key in the wall slot to activate the electrics. Whoops. But it meant that we managed to tie up a few loose ends and get ready for the last big push into India. We would be flying into Delhi, but we would have to brave the 5/6 hour micro-bus journey back to Kathmandu first.