On our way to Varanasi we had discovered that the insane driving in Nepal had actually been quite tame. The 9 hour bus ride from the Indian side of the border to Varanasi
had been the longest bus ride of my life. The roads were unbearably uncomfortable due to them being tarmacked once, I can only assume 100 years ago. An unsurfaced road would've
been much more pleasant that a semi tarmacked one. It was also hot and the use of the horn was enough to drive you mad. Our driver was clearly nuts which also didn't help.
He deliberately cut people up who were overtaking and were already half way down the side of us practically forcing them off the road. He also kept the horn fully depressed
throughout almost every village, almost using it to the point that I thought it would surely burst into flames and fall onto the road and take out a passing motorcyclist.
Having picked up a cold from someone in our group only made this even less bearable. Thankfully the bus was large enough for a group twice our size and therefore we each got
two seats each. This was needed in order to maintain backside on seat.
Varanasi was a manic place hardly accustomed for welcoming westerners or foreigners at all. When you first meet Indian people you assume they are all unfriendly or dislike
tourists. This is because they always seem to be annoyed at something and they behave as if everything must happen at the earliest possible point it can. Having said this
once you actually start having conversations with the right people who have the time to relax a little you are pleasantly surprised by how welcoming and friendly they are.
The first day after arriving in Varanasi we had a 4:30am start in order to see the sunrise on the ganges. This was irritating since we had only just arrived with no chance
of being able to get enough sleep, I had an irritating cold and I hadn't had a good nights sleep in several days by this point. This was aggravated further by the Hotel staff
where we had dinner being deliberately uncooperative, unfriendly and actively incompetent. Anyway the morning boat trip was nice and we saw the sun rise over the ganges while
we were on it. This combined with the smell and sight of the burning bodies on banks of the ganges made for a eerie scene. Next we went had to the Silk Market and were taken
to one of those shops which you know is a setup and the tour guide is receiving commission on. Anyway they had some nice stuff and went through detailing how to identify real
and fake clothes. Nothing unexpected here but still a nice touch for those not scientifically inclined. Needless to say the Pashminas here were 4 times the price of the real
ones we had brought from a market in Nepal, Kathmandu. We had the afternoon free and so a group of us decided to go and view several temples and unexpectedly a museum. There
isn't really anything to add about this since they were all so so. That evening we went on a sunset boat trip on the ganges to see the ceremonies where they prepare their dead
to be burned. We also got an opportunity to light our own candles and set them off into the ganges. This was made especially nice by the fact it coincided with the 11th January
by fluke. Apparently it takes 2-3kg of wood to burn a human body since the fat accelerates the ferocity of the fire.
The next day we had a lay in and visited a western cafe for a late lunch and a welcome break from curry. We then proceeded to take a stroll down the banks of the ganges where we
were offered every drug from chinese speciality opium to hash. We also got within ten feet of a body burning and the heat combined with the smell of burning flesh and hair made
it soon unbearable and we had to move on after only a few minutes. That evening we departed on a basic sleeper train to Agra. While we waited for the train on the platform all
the blokes had to stand guard around the luggage to avoid anyone trying to steal anything. Needless to say there were some dodgy characters.
The Red Fort
We arrived in Agra at around 7:00 am after having been ill-informed by our tour guide of our arrival time, we had gotten only 2-3 hours sleep at most.
We had breakfast straight away and managed to get 1 hours more kip. This was needed since we knew we would have a long day today as it was our only day
in Agra and we had to see both the Red Fort and the Taj Mahal.
The Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal was an incredible place and although it was very busy there we were still able to get some great photos. This was aided by the nice gardener who
helped us get some great photographs in the limited time we had by showing us all of the best angles. Going inside the Taj was however largely pointless since
you can only see the real tombs for 4 days a year. I can only imagine during this time it is also unpleasantly busy. The next morning we departed early by public
bus for 4 hours before stopping for lunch where we changed to 4x4 since the roads to Tordi Garh are not accessible via bus.
The drive to Tordi Garh was uncomfortable, hot and amazing. We saw some awesome aspects of Indian Village life, transport and suicidal driving. Upon reaching Tordi Garh we were staying in a palace. This certainly wasn't a palace by european standards, but compared against the local compounds I could see how it was described as such. We were offered a brutal 6:00 am hike to see another fort here, most of us turned this down. We did since we've been caught out too many times saying we'll do these and then finding out they are difficult and a waste of time. We did however go on a village tour which enabled us to see the real village people and gave us a chance to socialise with them. This was one of the best experiences of Indian life we had in the whole of India. The next we were back in the 4x4's on a 4 hour drive to Jaipur.
Upon arriving in Jaipur we were surprised as too how much more civilised the people here were. They appeared to adhere to both traffic lights and familiar motoring
laws which was almost strange to see in India. People on motorbikes were even wearing helmets. That night several of our group went out for a meal in a cheap place
recommended by the lonely planet. This was the cheapest place we had been to in all of India and yet it had the best food we had had. This generally reflects on our
guide who seemed to only take us to restaurants so he would gain commission. This was especially annoying given how easy it is to eat great food cheaply in India.
That night we spent about 30 minutes looking around the hotel since it had the weirdest layout I've ever seen with many corridors and passages leading to secluded
locations. Needless to say between dark roof tops where we heard footprints but no one ever appeared, to the random pitch black stair cases littered with random
plastic chairs, the horrible scary face ornaments and the communal chairs wrapped in old newspapers, we managed to eventually scare ourselves.
The next morning we went to see the Jaipur Fort which had the hall of mirrors among other things. We then thought that we were going to be taken to the old Palace,
to our surprise we were taken to about 3 different places where our guide got a commission on every single sale. I don't know what our guide really expected to achieve
from this, but needless to say hardly anyone brought anything. I can only assume that our guide was either new or used to having tour groups who were relatively
inexperienced travellers. Next we demanded to be dropped at the local markets where we able to browse for stuff within our price range and as the locals do. This
should've been the experience our guide wanted us to have if he had been passionate about his country. We found some great little gems here. The next morning we
departed via day train to delhi. This was a welcome surprise because we were supposed to be getting a very long day bus. Next Stop Delhi!
On the train into Delhi we rolled right through the middle of some of the slums. People were literally bathing in between the train tracks, children were running back and forth on the tracks and woman were doing washing and cooking on the side of the tracks. It was a compelling sight and a side of Delhi that we would of otherwise have missed if we hadn't ended up on the train. From when we arrived in Delhi the tour had ended. It wasn't supposed to but it had. This actually pleased us. We and a couple of other people ended up going to see a couple of markets including a tibetan one, a local mosque, Gandhi's memorial museum which was built on the site where he was shot dead and akshardham temple over the next four days. Our next stop was Mumbai via flight.
We stayed in Colaba in Mumbai. This was the tourist central area with the cheap eateries and markets. On our first day here we visited the markets, the hotel designed to look like the Taj Mahal and the port. On the second day we caught a boat across to Elephanta Island to see the Elephanta Caves. We've never seen anything like this before and it was an awesome experience. It was however even hotter on the island than it was on the mainland and we had to be careful not to get sun burnt while on the doxycycline. That evening we headed to the train station to catch our train to goa only to find out that our seats had been brought out by a higher bidder. Luckily a nice local was on hand to help out and he later explained that no one ever buys a rail ticket in India, they simply bid for it and then at the time the lists are drawn up the seats go to those with the highest bids on the seats. The local guy helped show us to several local tour shops which we needed to use in order to book a last minute flight to goa. Thankfully we got everything sorted out for a reasonable price and the next day we were on a flight to Goa.
The weather in Goa was HOT HOT HOT we landed at 16:30 pm and the temperature was still 31 celsius. After an hours drive we got to our hotel in the Calangute area. The hotel was nice and a little of the main strip which meant it wasn't too noisy. Being the beach people we are we made no use of the pool and pretty much only used the hotel for sleeping throughout our entire stay in Goa.
Calangute Beach
On our first day in Goa we headed down to the local beach. This beach was nice, however it was packed with shacks, sunbeds and touts much like any tourist destination
in the rest of the world. The shack rented our sunbed's from had two Nigerian Gangsters employed who on many occasion managed to move on 5-15 locals who were up to no
good. In India because the woman our often covered up some of the local men seem to need to stop and take pictures of foreigners in beach attire since they are generally
scantily dressed. On Calangute outside of the realm protected by the shacks bodyguards woman could be overly harassed. That night we planned to head to some of Goa's more
northerly beaches which were supposedly as of a few years ago nicer to visit / less well known about even by the locals.
Mandrem Beach
On the second day in Goa we visited Mandrem and Ashwen beach. We were supposed to also stop at Arambol beach, but we could see this from the edge of Mandrem and it looked
way to much like Calagute so we spent most of the day at Mandrem before heading back with a brief sunset stop at Ashwen beach. Mandrem was rated as the best beach in Goa
and this was not far from the truth. Quite often on this stretch of white clean sand there was nothing but you and a dodgy sunbed made from wood and fishing nets for over
150 metres in each direction. We enjoyed Mandrem so much we decided to come back on our last day as well. You will never see a local teenager cooling off his Ox in the
sea at Calangute!
Ashwen Beach
Our brief stop at Ashwen was nice and still better than Calangute, but it had a more piss-up vibe and was more busy. It did however provide
some awesome sunset photos with the tides though.
From Goa we left India on a flight via Delhi to Beijing.
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