India

We left Delhi early enough for our SpiceJet flight to Mumbai. Fortunately there are now many cheap airlines in India (Goair, Kingfisher, Spicejet, Decan Air), offering no-frills flights at 25% of the normal price. Our type of travel.

TV crews were lining the road as we arrived at the airport - not just to film us, but also to broadcast the delays because of the fog. The previous day was especially bad. Only 1 airline's pilots are trained to use CATIII auto landing equipment designed for poor visibility. Our airport bus transferred us to the wrong plane, but we were quickly whisked off to the right plane - and then we were delayed for another 1.5hours, while sitting in the plane!

We eventually made it to Mumbai and Joe, our friend Peter Carswell's driver, was there to pick us up in a brand new blue car (sorry forgot the make). Peter and Bryce (his flatmate) are working as actuaries in Dubai on long-term contracts. They live on the 29th floor of a great apartment block with views over Mumbai.

Our time in Mumbai exceeded our expectations - Peter and Bryce were amazing and treated us non-stop. We had a driver at our convenience; fantastic food and drinks in some of the most famous and upmarket spots in Mumbai (frequented by Bollywood actors!) - Peter even arranged a massage for Johan!

Mumbai, the 4th largest city in the world with 19 million inhabitants, is very different from Delhi - very cosmopolitan, more expensive, much warmer at this time of the year, next to the ocean, less pollution, and surprisingly no cows in the streets!

We decided not to do much sightseeing, but rather spend the time just enjoying being treated! We also sent yet another parcel home and even watched a great Bollywood movie called Lagaan.

Culture shock: sending a parcel is quite a process - first pack in a box, then go to a few stalls outside the post office to get it sown up in cheap linen, then to the customs office who opens it again and inspects everything, then resown at the customs office, then weight, paid for and sent - all in all about an hour's outing with various people along the way demanding money for their services!

We watched an interesting program on TV in Delhi about a certain "holy man" called Ludkan Baba. He is extreme. He is a sadhu, or Hindu ascetic, "a person who undergoes extreme forms of penance and physical hardship to achieve 'moksha' - the liberation of the soul from the endless cycle of reincarnation".

He first stood still in the same position, just hanging from a swing with his feet resting on the ground, for a remarkable 7 years during which he only drank water and ate grass! He never left this position for any reason whatsoever.

Then he decided to go on a roll - literally. He rolled for 7 months, 7 days a week, over a distance of almost 4000km to promote world peace. He would not stop for anything, rolling 8 hours a day, stopping only for water and cigarettes during an extended lunch break to avoid the worst of the Indian heat. He would only eat at night...

Believe it, or not.

Bikaner is a town halfway on our route back to Delhi. We arrived in the afternoon. There is not much to say about this town except that a bit of a way out of it there is a bizarre rat temple where thousands of rats reside in their place of worship. We unfortunately did not make it that far as our time on Bikaner was limited to just a stopover. We did, however, venture out onto the streets to go try out some of the goodies in one of the typical Indian sweet shops. The shop owner gladly made us taste a range of his produce. The Indian idea of sweet things is so different to ours so it was quite an experience to try it out.

The next morning we hit the road again. There was lots distance to cover and quite a bit of traffic to negotiate as we approached Delhi (the place we affectionately call the armpit of the universe). Our journey took us 11 hours. We were thrilled to be back though. We stayed in the same hotel we had stayed in almost 2 months earlier! The hotel had been revamped and was quite a bit fancier than we remembered. We indulged in our favourite indian food and did some last minute shopping before heading off to the airport for our cheap flight to Mumbai...

Jaisalmer is called the Golden City - literally everything is built out of this caramel coloured sandstone. There is again a fort on a hill but this fort is completely inhabited and one can find many hotels, restaurants and shops inside the fort walls. We stayed in a beautiful place again - two nights inside the fort walls.

Built in 1156, the Jaisalmer Fort is the second oldest in Rajasthan. Rising to almost 90m with strong and imposing crenellated sandstone 10m high wall, the fort has 99 bastions, 92 of which were built between 1633 & 1647. The wells within the fort are still a regular source of water.

Jaisalmer fort offers the usual tourist shopping opportunities (albeit more expensive than previous towns along our route). Janine managed to find a traditional Indian painter who would sell her some of his rock colours, which he had already ground to a fine powder. This is the same mineral powder that they mix with gum resin and paint in fine detail on silk and special paper. She also went for a heena painting on her hands. She loved her time with the woman who painted her hands as she learnt a lot about the life of an Indian women in India. One thing about arranged marriages in this part of India is that girls get married off from ages 7 to 17! The girl is only allowed to go to her husband after age 11, but if the parents manage to marry their young daughter off to a much older man then they bypass the need to pay a dowry. Men appose women having their own businesses and women often have to attempt these ventures in secret.

We managed to chill here and do very little - mail, eat well, the usual.

We were sad to leave Jodhpur, but we had the promise of camels in the desert to spur us on. One knows that you are getting deeper and deeper into the desert when all you see is camels and the shepherd kids beg for water. Johan even took a go behind the steering wheel. Our driver was (naturally - Johan) quite impressed. We had a really good time with our driver. He gave us insight into the Indian way of living which involves a still fully flourishing caste system as well as pre-arranged marriages.

One of those unexpected moments happened while we settled down for some lunch in Ranakpur. He announced that his dad had given him a call the previous night and informed him that he was engaged and that his wedding would be somewhere in February next year. He is 21 years old. Although he has only met the girl once before and much prefers his (secret) girlfriend to her, he seemed quite happy about the idea and said that he will just forget about his girlfriend!

Khuri is a little desert village just outside Jaisalmer. It is quite a tourist site, but we got a camp pretty much to ourselves. We opted for the tent option (with en-suite bathroom of course!) and wasted no time to get our camels saddled up to head off to the dunes! Johan held onto his camel for dear life. His camel's clutch was a bit sticky, so he didn't want to try his luck - and it is quite high up there on a camel! Janine's camel seemed to have problems with its choke, but the steering bit through his nose was enough leverage to get him going again. Janine's camel's name was Babaloo - Johan did not enquire as to the name of his camel. The dunes were fantastic - very photogenic. A strange feeling to be so close to the Pakistan border - especially with all their conflict over Kashmir.

We had a great home cooked meals before we climbed into bed. The night in this little desert town turned out to be of the noisiest of our time in India - cell phones ringing during the night was one thing! The CD that was played through at 5:50 in the morning for all the town to 'enjoy' (we assume it was some sort of Hindu worship music) was quite another thing!

On our journey to Jodhpur we passed through a place called Ranakpur. There is a spectacular Jain temple here, but we did not visit. Here we also started noticing beautiful Indian durries (a coarsely woven type of carpet) for sale by local craftsmen lining the road. No, we did not buy - we can't carry the whole of India in our backpacks! This reminds me of a friend we met on Easter Island who bought 35kg of marble in India (Indian marble is ridiculously cheap) which he carried around with him for quite a while! Anyway - we stopped at a nice peaceful spot for lunch and headed on to Jodhpur - the Blue City.

Jodhpur was a highlight for us in Rajasthan. Our driver fought his way through the tiny old city streets right up close to the fort where our guesthouse (also a very old building) welcomed us warmly. We again opted for a very quaint room (see photo) with a TV and headed to the rooftop restaurant for a view of the Blue City. This old city is really blue and such a treat to behold. Most of the buildings are covered in a mixture of whitewash and indigo powder. Johan had specially worn his blue shirt for the occasion and blended very nicely with the terrain. Janine wore pink!

The next morning was great. We had an early breakfast and walked through the wakening narrow streets twisting our way up to the wall of the Mehrangarh fort. It was one of our more authentic historic site experiences as we walked the ancient trail with only one or two other locals heading their way over to the other side of the city. Once on top we paid our entrance fees and received our audio guides for exploring the fort museum. The audio guides were actually very well done as well as very entertaining. The Mehrangarh fort is a great way to get exposure to so much of what makes Indian history and culture so unique. We took lots of photos and did a tad of shopping. Janine was looking for very specific and very delicate silk shawls for her sister to use for her wedding. The shop outside the fort did not have the exact shade of blood red fading to darker red that she was looking for, but that was no problem. Later that afternoon the shop owner dropped off the three shawls - made and dyed to order - at our hotel. Now that is India!

Culture shocks: Some TV channels display ads in the bottom third of the screen, cutting off much of the scenes; we saw ads advertising pencils that will improve your handwriting; tele-ads also promoted a huge shell with special magical powers; there are frequent advertisements of light switches and bulbs on TV.

Udaipur's claim to fame is a fancy hotel palace in the middle of its lake. The 1983 James Bond film "Octopussy" was filmed there and people just seem to hold on to that for all its possible commercial potential. It was in Udaipur that we first began discovering a form of Indian painting which is quite extraordinary. Traditional themes are depicted in the finest of finest hand-painted detail on small mounted pieces of silk or specially treated paper. The pigment used to create these masterpieces is made by the painter from rock minerals which he/she grinds and combines with gum resin and water. The paint is applied by using a super small paint brush made of squirrel hair.

We stayed in a cute room for 2 nights - our view of the Octopussy hotel was great. The city is also called the "Venice of the East". Janine took the opportunity to brush up on her Indian cooking skills. A couple of hours was spent in a cooking course where Janine learnt one-on-one how to make a couple of her favourite Indian dishes. We both feasted on the produce of her labour for lunch. Otherwise Udaipur is again a desert town with a holy lake and the lake is again lined with ghats (washing platforms or steps leading into the water). We walked around, took photos and noticed some very elaborately designed Jain temples. We also went through the resident palace museum - lots of the typical gaudy relics of the Indian bygones - very interesting to explore! We did some more shopping as well - of course.

Culture shock: Wherever we go in India the rooms are usually fitted with a variety of light bulbs and fixtures (with corresponding rows of light switches) to choose from. All these rooms, however, have had all but one or two of these light bulbs removed - probably for power saving. Which brings us to another culture shock - scheduled power cuts are a normal everyday thing - in Udaipur, for instance the power is out from 9:00 to 11:00 everyday. All internet cafes keep their computers switched off until a client arrives - very annoying.

Apparently Pushkar, a desert town built around another holy water body - a little lake, was going to be a bit of a Varanasi experience where we could expect to be accosted by many a "holy man" offering blessings for your family at 100 Rupees (about US$2) a family member!

Pushkar was really actually very peaceful. We ate exceptionally well - did lots of shopping (purchased, amongst others, 26 cushion covers for Janine's sister's wedding) and enjoyed our stay next to the lake.

Pushkar is also home to one of the very few Brahma temples in India. Legend has it that his wife did not pitch for some or other do he was holding there and he promptly responded (in true Bollywood style) by marrying some other woman. Wife number one retaliated by vowing that Brahma would be worshiped nowhere else. Worship activity here tends to generate quite a din! We stayed in great room with a view where we could take in all the sights, sounds and smells of this religiously active little desert town. Pushkar incidentally is also the site of an enormous camel fair but we missed that by about a month. Two nights in Pushkar and we were ready to push off again.

Culture shock: The Indians really mistreat the street dogs. There won't be a day that passes where you don't hear a dog wailing in pain after being struck by some vehicle or stone or stick, and we usually hear quite a few a day. The percentage of dogs that are maimed in some or other way seems to be astronomical.

Our first stop was in the capital city of the state - Jaipur. The wonderful thing about a country like India is that due to its scale, its diverse geography, its mass of people with its still flourishing caste system as well as its rich and ancient history - every part of the country contributes something else to the tourist industry. Except for in the main cities, each region offers unique products and what you are able to find in one town you may very well not even be able to find in the next. Jaipur is one of the world's major gem producers and you can find precious and semi-precious gems everywhere.

Of particular interest to Janine was a specific style of hand-blocked cotton fabrics that she had spotted before...which comes from Jaipur. We set off for a morning walk about inside the walls of the old city of Jaipur (also called the pink city because the buildings are predominantly made from a pink/brown coloured stone), which is bursting at the seems with bazaars and old buildings. We then visited the Hawa Mahal in the old city. Built in 1799 by Maharaja Sawai Pratap Singh, Hawa Mahal is supposedly the most stunning sight in the city of Jaipur. The palace, part of a huge complex, overlooks one of Jaipur's main streets and was originally constructed to offer women of the court a vantage point, behind stone-carved screens, from which to watch the activities taking place in the bazaar and the surrounding streets. This practice of having women confined to their homes is called "purdah".

We also managed to make quite a few purchases. On the list was a pair of matching toe rings which we bought to help communicate Janine's marital status to the Indian male population.

A little cultural moment was when Janine headed off to the post office to post her brother a letter. You purchase the stamps for your letter inside and then you walk out of the building, to the other side of the parking lot where a table stands. On this table is a grimy pot of gum glue which you then use to fix your stamps to your letter. The letter is then posted inside the building again.

The afternoon was splurge time as we headed to the revolving OM Tower restaurant with views of the entire city. The food was fantastic - just the right way to kick off an evening that was going to prove to be something quite exceptional. Johan had managed to book us a room in the tower of the fort high up on the hill overlooking the city. The fort only has one room to offer and this room was it. Once all the tourists had left the scene and the fort was locked up for the night - we were its only residents. Magical! The only other company up high around the fort is cute monkeys who slept outside our window.

The next morning our driver took us to the Amber Palace. We decided to employ the services of a local guide because this palace has little passages and rooms attached to it that is something to be witnessed - apparently, with the servant quarters alone amounting to 1200 rooms - one can easily get lost! Nothing was planned on a grid system or anything like that, the whole place is a maze! The particular king had twelve wives and there is a courtyard with three royal living spaces on each side of this courtyard. There were watch guards placed in watchtowers to ensure the wives did not enter into each other's rooms - to prevent jealousy. Also the king had secret passages to each of these women. He was a man in control!

The palace is rigged with all the necessary purdah infrastructure and different palace living areas - some heated and some cooled in the most elaborate ways to help the nobility cope with the different seasons. The queens had to be carried or pushed around the palace because even their saree alone weighed more than 9 kg!

From here we hit the road again and we were on our way to Pushkar.

After a good lunch in Agra, we met the man we were going to spend the next 2 weeks with - our driver, Naveen. Our hotel in Delhi had convinced us to tour through the state of Rajasthan (reputedly the most beautiful of all the 22 Indian provinces) by means of a hired car complete with driver as opposed to our usual travel style. We were exceptionally happy with Naveen as a person and with his driving...

We left Bandhavgarh for Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. The train (a different company) was on time this time which was great because we were quite tired. We quickly upgraded our cheap 3rd class tickets where our seats were already occupied and where we were stared at continuously to something more private. Fortunately it was an overnight train and we could stretch out and only wake up just before Agra.

Our accommodation was a mere 5 minutes walk from the famous Taj Mahal. We visited this spectacular monument in the afternoon and also again early the next morning.

Neither of us are terribly enthusiastic about touring from building to building, but even Johan was blown away by the beauty of this 350 year old building. Some 20 000 workers spent 22 years constructing the glistening white Taj Mahal - all out of white marble. The cost of building the Taj would amount to about R500million in today's money terms. Made entirely of marble with millions of intricate stone inlays, the structure was designed as a mausoleum for the favourite wife of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. She died giving birth to their 14th child. The building is symmetrical from all 4 sides and surrounded by huge grounds with 4 enormous gates. Parakeets and other birds live in the many tree in the well maintained gardens of the grounds.

The white marble reflects the sunlight and changes colour with the changing light. It was great to see so many local visitors and their colourful clothing reflecting on the white marble. Janine was a real hit with her saree and we were asked to pose for many many photos!

Culture shock: camels wander through the streets; everyone tries to sell you precious stones; you pay extra for cameras and even more for video cameras when entering any of the tourist sites.

We took the train from Varanasi to Umaria, some 30km from the Bandhavgarh National Park, where we planned to make our last attempt at seeing a tiger in the wild. The train was delayed by 3 hours and we arrived at 2am, but managed to get a lift with some other travellers to a cheap home stay near the park gate.

Bandhavgarh National Park boasts with the highest tiger density in the world - some 55 tigers in an area of 450 sq km. This is also the place where the first white tigers were found and sets the scene for the story "The Jungle Book".

After a day of rest, we moved to a more upmarket resort called the White Tiger Forest Lodge - great food and a great view from our room on the park boundary. The next day, we set off early for an open jeep safari into the park. It was a bit of a circus, really. A whistle is blown and more than 30 jeeps race into the park at 6:30 am, all trying to see tigers. Fortunately routes are allocated, so it is not as crowded as it could have been. After the route has been completed (often at speed), all jeeps gather at a specific point to exchange information about their tiger sightings, if any. Surprisingly many saw tigers as well as sloth bears. Then everyone sped off again. Elephants are also used to track down a few tigers and one can then go for a short (expensive) elephant ride to see the tigers that had been tracked down. We decided to go to a remote area of the park and rather try our luck there than choke in the dust of the other jeeps...

Every now and then we would stop and listen. Deer sound alarm calls when a predator is on the move and that is the sign we would wait for. We heard a call and drove in that direction. We then heard the call again, this time behind us and realized that we had driven too far. We turned back along the same track and could not believe our eyes when a tigress was walking in the road where we had just driven! We followed her for more than 1km and it was just us - fantastic! She was quite a bit bigger than what one may have expected and even more beautiful than in the pictures.

Johan was ecstatic and Janine very relieved as Johan declared earlier that we are not going home without seeing a tiger in the wild! We did not see any more tigers on our next two game drives, but the memory of that tiger will forever be etched into our minds. Mission accomplished.

What a flight! India had apparently received outside terrorist threats and airport security was accordingly jacked up almost to the point of asphyxiation! Tired and irritated, we eventually found ourselves safely back on Indian soil - this time in the "holy" city of Varanasi - built along the banks of the Ganges river. This is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The 1 hour taxi journey through the pollution and the traffic brought us close to the ghats (a 'ghat' is platform next to or stairs leading to a "holy water body". Each ghat has a name and each exists as a site of some ceremonial activity - from sacred ritual bathing to riverside cremations) and we walked the last stretch through the bustling back alleys to our hotel overlooking the river. Arriving at sunset made the river scene look actually quite romantic. Johan had booked us into their deluxe room with a view over the river and balcony which was caged in to protect us from the roaming monkeys.

The Ganges river (the "Great Mother") is considered the backbone of Indian culture. Pilgrims from all over gather in droves to take a holy dip in the river's suffering waters. According to our guide book (the lonely planet) the stats are quite alarming. Each day the area where we stayed next to the river receives about 60 000 pilgrims wanting to wash there. According to the guide book in the same area, 30 large sewers continuously discharge into the river. The water in the Ganges is so badly polluted that the water is septic. While water safe for bathing should not contain more than 500 faecal coliform bacteria per 100ml of water, river water samples show a figure of 1.5 million! This water travels further through a large section of India, reaching the lives of over 400 million more people with it's water borne diseases. Not pretty.

The next 2 days were surprisingly peaceful. We ate well, took a paddle down the river at sunset to watch the evening ceremonies and cremations getting underway, bought train tickets, managed (after much of a mission) to draw cash and even bought Janine a saree. Janine thoroughly enjoyed her encounters with the local retail people (English is often quite well spoken in India) - especially during the process of purchasing her saree and associated apparel. The religious atmosphere ranges from bizarre to totally insane. The overcrowded city spaces are packed with shrines and ceremony as well as holy cows and monkeys. Everywhere some or other priest is busy exploiting his sacred power for financial gain and at any given time a yoga session is on the go. Foreigners from all over the world congregate here (and indeed in a few spots in India) to gain from the spiritual "enlightenment" this particularly spiritually dark spot of India has to offer. We came, we saw and we left - all in all a vivid memory to say the least.

We wanted to get to Nepal asap as some of the trekking rules were about to change, forcing independent travellers to hire either a guide or porter. So we set off to Nepal early on the morning of 16 October 2006.

The Indian railways impressed us tremendously - very organised and on time - easy to book and to find your train. We were on the 6am fast train to Lucknow - various meals were included and served together with the daily newspaper. We read that the Indian police were unable to find someone who could translate the Afrikaans used in their recordings of Hansie Cronje's conversations with Hershell Gibbs in the match-fixing scandal. The "case was lost in the translations". Johan is still considering offering his services for a small fee of course. The train ride was surprisingly fast. The rails are much wider apart than that in South Africa, allowing greater speeds.

We saw the most amazing bird life as we sped over some swampy lands towards Lucknow. Lucknow was also very crowded, but we quickly managed to find a taxi for the 5-6hour drive to the border at Nepalganj for only US$20. India is a land with stunning natural beauty amidst the overcrowding. We loved the ride and scenery while the drive drove well into the night without using his headlights...

Upon arrival at the border town around 8pm, we hopped onto a rickshaw for the ride to the immigration offices. The rickshaw driver woke the immigration officers who helped us through at 9pm(!) and then cycled us the last 6km to the 1st Nepali town of Nepalganj where we stayed for the night. Both immigration offices seemed quite surprised to see us as this border post had seen fewer and fewer tourists since Maoist bombings earlier in the year. Fortunately there has been a ceasefire since May 2006. Nepal was instantly quieter and more tranquil that the Indian side of the border.

We did a short tour of Delhi in a car with a driver and went to the Red Fort, the Gandhi memorial and a state owned clothing emporium.

We do not know too much of the detail, but the Red Fort was built during some earlier dynasty and seemed to have been a fortified royal palace or city - big spacious gardens with impressive masonry and stone carvings - like a little peaceful haven in the midst of the Delhi chaos.

When the driver parks, he just hands his keys to one of the parking attendants - they move the cars around so that everyone can get out even though you may become terribly parked in in the two or three rows of cars in front of a wall - no problem.

The Gandhi memorial is in a big garden where a flame burns on a simple block of black marble. Nothing too exciting to see - the gardens, however, have trees planted by numerous heads of states. There is one by Bill Clinton and Margaret Thatcher, as well as presidents from every imaginable country - just a pity that the biggest tree we saw was planted by the ex-dictator Kenneth Kaunda from Zambia!

Outside the gardens, we had our first encounter with a snake charmer. When we asked him what the name of his snake is, he said "his name is Cobra". The snakes seemed lazy, although they did rise after been hit a few times - they one guy had a huge plaster on his cheek - possibly concealing a snake bite?! Janine was brave as usual and wanted to hang the snake around her neck, which she did!

We went to the clothing emporium to get an idea of the typical quality and price of Indian clothing - Janine was very impressed with the quality and Johan was very impressed with the price! By this visit was purely educational for the invariable future purchases that will follow...

Culture shocks: people stare at one as if you are the last human on earth; the mild spicy food is so hot that Johan develops a rash on his chest for up to 1 hour after the meal; even in budget hotels, all the floors, steps and bathrooms are made from marble; buses proclaim to be "the largest eco-friendly bus service in the world" and "propelled by clean fuel" while smoke billows from under the buses; there are many many children begging and they are quite aggressive; saw our hotel manager in his small office - typical Mafia set-up in a big chair with 4 large TV screens facing him with different TV programs showing.

"Where did all these people and traffic come from?" was the question that raced through Johan's mind as our driver zigzagged us through the most chaotic traffic we have ever seen. It was already 11pm. Roads are not signposted and everyone drives the way they want. More than half of the cars did not have rear lights (note, not just out of order, but "removed" by other cars). Roads are NOT even.

As we sped into the polution, our driver (merrily chatting away to us in the rear-view mirror) chose to drive in the lane of oncoming traffic as the 2 lanes that go in the same direction as us, were just too slow. Johan braced himself for a few accidents that fortunately never happened.

Our hotel is in downtown Delhi (sort of the whole city is downtown) and we ended up in a small room where the fan just moves hot air from one place to another. We were told that we are fortunate to have arrived in their winter (although the temperature at the airport was 30 degrees at 10pm).

After a great night's rest, we woke up at midday, just in time for the last scraps of breakfast. We managed to upgrade our room for a mere $6 to 3 times the size and with much appreciated aircon. India is cheap, I mean really cheap. Janine bought some woman's clothes and snacks and water and apples and we have not yet spent R50 (US$7).

The whole place is really a culture shock - we are already having a great time!

Culture shocks: Rice called Airplane Rice; more staff in the hotel than visitors; ohh the traffic; ohh the polution; ohh the filth!; cattle everywhere just feeding fom the fruit stalls; some very very very poor people; some very very very weird looking people...

After a great 5 weeks of socializing, braaing, surfing, visiting family, doing the washing and filling-up, we left South Africa for India. Our Singapore Airlines flight took us to Singapore from where we flew the evening to Delhi, the capital of India.

Singapore has always been a highlight - just the airport alone is a city worth visiting. We stocked up on consumer electronics and booked us in for a few hours nap at the airport hotel.

An uneventful (I have been told that "uneventful" is good for when you fly) 5 hours flight took us to Delhi where we were picked up by a hotel representative of our cheaply-booked-on-the-internet hotel.