WARNING: this post is not suitable for kids without cutting out a few of the more gruesome facts!
Wow, I'm a bit behind with my blogging, we've been so busy for the last week or so, taking 12 - 15 hour train journeys here there and everywhere! I'll try and get my photos up as soon as possible but at the moment I'm in a funny little cubicle in the funny city of Chennai. More of that later.
So, after Jaisalmer was Jodhpur. We only had a day there, so tried to fit in as much as possible. We got up early and went in a jeep to a Bishnoi village just outside of Jodhpur. Our driver had only a sprinkling of English but boy did he like to use it. He repeated everything he said at least 5 times until we were ready to batter him with his own turban. It took forever to get to the village as he was very overexcited by wildlife on the journey, and kept insisting on us taking pictures of everything, including sheep! Very exotic. We went to a few little houses on the tour, the most interesting of which was a few huts with a family in, where the mans job seemed to be amusing tourists but drinking opium all day. He was almost blind from it I presume, and completely out of it. We had a sniff of the solid stuff and then politely refused to have a drink of the opium water. It felt too rude to turn down their chai as well so we drank that, in the hopes that it wasn't opium tea! No hallucinations occurred afterwards so I think we were safe.
We had our jeep driver drop us off by Jodhpur fort, which was imposing but less so than the fort in Jaisalmer. The views of the blue city were impressive though (apparently they all painted the houses using violets to repel mosquitos, amongst other reasons). We had dinner at a lovely tranquil restaurant in the heart of a crazy market, and then went back to our hotel with the delighful 'Indian comfortable' bed (i.e. a 1-inch thick mattress which you could feel the wooden bed frame through. Great for my back as you can imagine).
The next day we headed off to Agra. It was quite dark when we arrived, and the first thing that struck us was the smell - thus the name Eggra (thanks Richard for the pun!) We then spent the next 2 days getting up for sunrise and staying out until sunset just staring at the wonder that is the Taj Mahal. It's impossible to describe how a building can be so breathtakingly beautiful, but it was from every single angle. I have literally hundreds of photos of it, but I'll try and not put too many on here, as the pictures really don't do it justice. We had a great time in Agra though, thanks to Richard and Sanj making us laugh all day!
After Agra came Varanasi. The Lonely Planet had made us think that it would be awful there, being constantly bothered by touts and beggers, but it was actually very relaxing and tranquil down by the ghats. Watching the Indians wash themselves in the Ganges was very interesting, mainly because the water is so filthy its apparently septic in some areas, yet this didn't stop them from completely immersing themselves in the water to wash away their sins. We took sunrise and sunset boat trips, and of particular interest was the burning ghat. This is where hundreds of corpses each day are first dipped in the Ganges and then cremated in a very public way. Apparently not everyone has to be burned and then have their ashes sprinkled in the Ganges - children for instance are already seen as clean of the sins, so they apparently have rocks tied to them and are then sunk in the river. Its hard to imagine how many bodies there are at the bottom of the river. What an incredibly interesting and different place to be.
Next stop was Calcutta, a very short stop before getting a flight down south. I was expecting to see real poverty there, much worse than anywhere previously, but actually I think the worst slums are kept very much away from the eyes of tourists. In fact, we had a very middle-class Indian experience here, as we went to watch a Bollywood film in a mall. The mall was completely Westernised, with pick and mix shops amongst the clothes shops (I was very excited by that!) and lots of chain restaurants. We enjoyed a Subway for dinner, it was so nice to eat something not saturated in oil. You know something is wrong when Subway is the healthiest dining option around! Anyway, we got our popcorn and headed in to the cinema to watch Patiala House, which was set in England, and about a Sikh man's journey to becoming an England cricket player. Although it was in Hindi, without subtitles, we were able to follow the plot as they strangely interspersed English sentences in the dialogue throughout, just enough to keep us involved! We actually really enjoyed the film.
The next day, we went to Mother Teresa's tomb and old room that she lived in from the 1950's until her death in 1997. There was a lot of information there about her life and her work, and it was incredibly inspiring to see what she had achieved in her lifetime, and difficult to imagine how she coped with all the desperate poverty and illness that she saw in the slums every day. I'll definitely be donating to her charity when I return to England.
So, finally, if you're still reading, we're up to date. We had a 2 hour flight to Chennai yesterday afternoon, and are planning a quick escape to Pondicherry in the next couple of hours for some French colonialism and promenade walking. It will be great to see the sea, it feels like we've been trapped inland looking at forts and temples for far too long!
Wow, I'm a bit behind with my blogging, we've been so busy for the last week or so, taking 12 - 15 hour train journeys here there and everywhere! I'll try and get my photos up as soon as possible but at the moment I'm in a funny little cubicle in the funny city of Chennai. More of that later.
So, after Jaisalmer was Jodhpur. We only had a day there, so tried to fit in as much as possible. We got up early and went in a jeep to a Bishnoi village just outside of Jodhpur. Our driver had only a sprinkling of English but boy did he like to use it. He repeated everything he said at least 5 times until we were ready to batter him with his own turban. It took forever to get to the village as he was very overexcited by wildlife on the journey, and kept insisting on us taking pictures of everything, including sheep! Very exotic. We went to a few little houses on the tour, the most interesting of which was a few huts with a family in, where the mans job seemed to be amusing tourists but drinking opium all day. He was almost blind from it I presume, and completely out of it. We had a sniff of the solid stuff and then politely refused to have a drink of the opium water. It felt too rude to turn down their chai as well so we drank that, in the hopes that it wasn't opium tea! No hallucinations occurred afterwards so I think we were safe.
 |
| We had a really tasty lunch at the jeep driver's house in a little kitchen/hut thing. |
The next day we headed off to Agra. It was quite dark when we arrived, and the first thing that struck us was the smell - thus the name Eggra (thanks Richard for the pun!) We then spent the next 2 days getting up for sunrise and staying out until sunset just staring at the wonder that is the Taj Mahal. It's impossible to describe how a building can be so breathtakingly beautiful, but it was from every single angle. I have literally hundreds of photos of it, but I'll try and not put too many on here, as the pictures really don't do it justice. We had a great time in Agra though, thanks to Richard and Sanj making us laugh all day!
 |
| How to spoil the world's most beautiful building - stick us in front of it being stupid! |
Next stop was Calcutta, a very short stop before getting a flight down south. I was expecting to see real poverty there, much worse than anywhere previously, but actually I think the worst slums are kept very much away from the eyes of tourists. In fact, we had a very middle-class Indian experience here, as we went to watch a Bollywood film in a mall. The mall was completely Westernised, with pick and mix shops amongst the clothes shops (I was very excited by that!) and lots of chain restaurants. We enjoyed a Subway for dinner, it was so nice to eat something not saturated in oil. You know something is wrong when Subway is the healthiest dining option around! Anyway, we got our popcorn and headed in to the cinema to watch Patiala House, which was set in England, and about a Sikh man's journey to becoming an England cricket player. Although it was in Hindi, without subtitles, we were able to follow the plot as they strangely interspersed English sentences in the dialogue throughout, just enough to keep us involved! We actually really enjoyed the film.
The next day, we went to Mother Teresa's tomb and old room that she lived in from the 1950's until her death in 1997. There was a lot of information there about her life and her work, and it was incredibly inspiring to see what she had achieved in her lifetime, and difficult to imagine how she coped with all the desperate poverty and illness that she saw in the slums every day. I'll definitely be donating to her charity when I return to England.
So, finally, if you're still reading, we're up to date. We had a 2 hour flight to Chennai yesterday afternoon, and are planning a quick escape to Pondicherry in the next couple of hours for some French colonialism and promenade walking. It will be great to see the sea, it feels like we've been trapped inland looking at forts and temples for far too long!
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