INDIA & NEPAL Day 16 - Jaipur to Jaisalmer

Magic sheets

Today started as many others have...on a train! We boarded at 01:00, finding our lower bunk occupied so taking the two top ones, which are rather chilly. As usual, very little sleep was had by myself - train beds remind me of most sofa beds: terribly uncomfortable as either a seat or a bed - but I was starting to feel a bit less Delhi-belly sick, phew!

We pulled into Jaisalmer just 2.5 hours late, a new punctuality record for us and Indian trains. The station itself was small but fairly cared-for I noticed, although I made it my business to escape as quickly as possible, I'm sure I'll be seeing much more of the station in a couple of days.

We were collected and taken to our hotel, which is situated just outside the entrance to Jaisalmer Fort. We had initially booked somewhere within the fort actually, but having done further research it appears that accommodation within the Fort is having a very negative impact upon its conservation, so we changed our reservation to what seems an overpriced but nicely decorated place outside.

Train days have a habit of putting meal times out of kilter, so I ended up with a very small lunch at 4pm, before wandering up the Fort. This Fort is different to the others I have seen, being inhabited. It is both honey-coloured and honey-combed with alleyways, full of stalls boasting their colourful fabric and metal wares. The views from the top were great too, even if I was disporportiantely out of breath.

We descended out of the Fort, and by sunset made it to Gadisar Lake, to the south of the town. The lakeside was a hive of activity, yet kind of peaceful at the same time. Lots of locals were out in boats and pedalos, enjoying the lakeside character of ruined temples, stairs and trees. From the lakeside itself, the temple structures within the lake looked striking, calmly rising from the surface.

I'm the failing light, we wondered back into the town, enjoying the increasing prevalence of light decorations on the intricate buildings. Dinner was had with an excellent view of the floodlit Fort on the hillside, and was the first meal we had managed to have together in a good few days. The woodfired pizzas we had were a welcome (and hygienic!) change from curry, and the restaurant terrace a calm introduction to the new year.

Happy New Year!

INDIA & NEPAL Day 15 - Jaipur

Palace of the wind

The start today was rather leisurely, with a breakfast of porridge, banana and honey (my daily staple and so nice to find something familiar) at the Peacock Rooftop restaurant of our lovely hotel. Peter seemed a bit less satisfied with the delicacy that was four slices of brown toast and not-enough of the weird jam they have here, but I could have told him that before he chose it...

Well fuelled (or so I thought) we headed via tuk-tuk to Jantar Mantar, which, despite its lyrical name, is a very scientific place. It is one of five observatories built by Jai Singh and consists of many bizarre-looking giant sculptures, which are mainly sun-dials. We hired what was possibly the world's worst guide (he slowly shouted and repeated random words like "sun, moon, September, March, shadow" to us, we weren't any the wiser afterwards) to show us around, so can't really say much more about the fascinating instruments.

Next stop was City Palace, in the adjacent courtyard. This was a blend of Rajasthani and Mughal architecture which housed collections of textiles, pictures, embroideries and weapons. My favourite part was the Chanda Mahal courtyard, which had four beautiful gates to represent the seasons - Peacock, Green, Lotus and Rose. The latter was for winter - a little surprising for me!

Once we had finished at the City Palace, we wandered through some of the city's bazaars (me having to fend off people waving scarves and saris at me) to the Palace of the Wind, known as Hawa Mahal. Jaipur's most popular landmark presented itself as a delicate and ornately painted almost honeycomb-like facade, bursting five storeys upwards (it looked more) straight off the street. We could have gone in, but the frontage was the main attraction, and the description of "narrow, claustrophobic corridors" inside was entirely appealing in the middle of the day heat.

Instead, next for us was lunch at Hotel Sweet Dreams. Sweet it was not, and we popped to a supermarket on the way back to our hotel to pick up some train snacks (not getting caught out again!). Back at the hotel and looking forward to chilling out, we perched ourselves in a room, awaiting our midnight train to Jaisalmer.

INDIA & NEPAL Day 14 - Rural Rajasthan to Jaipur

Jaipur for aliens

A little reluctantly, I got into our taxi this morning, leaving behind an exquisite hotel (and good proximity to the loo...). What felt like a very short nap later (actually circa 2 hrs!), I awoke to the bustling hubbub of Jaipur city, a striking contrast to the rural Rajasthan I had nodded off in!

My first impression of the city was that it looked more affluent, or developed, than either Varanasi or Agra. The streets were more finished, locals clad in western clothes, and I even spotted a few traffic lights being obeyed, as well as a prevalence of helmets being worn. The people walking around somehow seemed to have more purpose, giving the city a sort of ambitious feel. The traffic itself was terrible, and it was another half hour until we reached the entrance to Amber Fort, just 5km out of the city.

The narrow pavement leading to Jaipur's top sight was heaving with people, and looking up the cliff I could see why - a honey-toned mass of buildings were perched impressively on the hillside, overshadowed only by Jairgarh Fort behind. After buying some water, we soon began climbing the staircase to the main courtyard. This I found really quite tough  having been ill and not really eaten for a couple of days I was really struggling with the combination of stairs, heat, crowds and occasional elephant to navigate too. Indeed upon reaching the top I needed a little rest in the shade of the tree-punctuated yard.

Tickets purchased, a few more steps (d'oh) lead into the main Fort area via the Sun Gate - which in name only reminded me of Machu Picchu where we had been just over a year ago. I will admit, with the effort of getting to the top having taken its toll, the majority of the detail of the Fort passed me by a little. I became an expert at spotting and subsequently utilising some lovely, cool, marbly shady spots for sitting in whilst Peter took in the Silavedi Temple, maharaja's apartments and what must have been the biggest latrine in the world given the amount of time he spent in there!

I did take note however, of the muklltimirroed ceiling of the hall of victory, as well as some intricate paintwork and lots of frescoed arches. Given the height we had gained walking up to it, the views were also magnificent, and on the way down I really appreciated the stunning lake at the bottom, which created a fantastic setting.

Back in the taxi, we went on to our hotel, which turned out to be a lovely place in a fairly quiet suburb. On arrival I was handed a guide called "Jaipur for aliens.com" which made good reading during lunch. Lunch itself consisted for me of a waffle and a banana - an odd meal but I was determined to stick to 'safe' foods and that seemed the best pick on the menu. Thankfully this sat well with me and I felt much better a little while after, which was useful as our room was on the third floor (more stairs).

I then spent a fairly chilled afternoon reading up about Jaipur and India from the handy guide (India has 17% of the world's population - a much higher figure than I expected) as well as exchanging my "Book of Dust" for a thankfully much smaller version.

INDIA & NEPAL Day 13 - Rural Rajasthan

Castle life

Today's photos are dominated by some of our hotel. I don't normally do this (a room's a room really) but there are a couple of reasons why I have here. Firstly, I think this will probably be the nicest hotel we stay in on our trip, such is the beauty of the place (even better in the daylight), and secondly, I must have yesterday eaten something disagreeable, meaning I have not actually left the thankfully extensive grounds of the hotel. Keeping facilities nearby has been a fairly high priority.

They've done a lovely job of restoring the building, with peaceful courtyards, terraces and roof areas. There are a number of surprises too, including a swish reading room as well as a sometimes overly-friendly emu. The pool looks lovely and felt, er, refreshing when I dipped my hand in. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be giving it a proper try today now, which is disappointing (sorry coach)!

Whilst I have been busy convalescing indoors, Peter has apparently been feeding e-numbers in the form of sweets to the local village children, who followed him around on a walk. He was also being set up with a number of young Indian ladies (/girls) who are on the lookout for an "English boyfriend". I guess it's slim pickings for British men in this rural location so they have to take their chances when one appears!

INDIA & NEPAL Day 12 - Agra to Rural Rajasthan

Taj Castle to Taj Mahal to Talabgaon Castle

After a pretty decent sleep and a lovely, and more importantly, static, bed, we arose to our 06:00 alarm,grabbed some snacks and set off for the West Gate of the Taj Mahal. This was just a 15 minute walk from our handy accommodation, and the snacks may have disappeared by the time we got to the queue.

I joined the tourist women's queue, and bought our tickets soon after the office opened at 6:45. I was then given two bottles of water and some shoe covers (you can't take big bags into the Taj Mahal so perhaps if it had been warmer I would have been grateful for the water) and joined the tourist women's entrance queue. I had expected this (from others' accounts) to be shorter and faster moving than the local's queue, but it wasn't. In fact, when the gates opened at 07:00 (an odd time as the sun had already risen despite this being advertised as "Taj at sunrise") it was the slowest moving queue. However, this did provide opportunities to chat with those in the adjacent queue - a young family had been playing "guess where she is from" behind my back (no one seems to know here, weird!) so I chatted to them for a bit to give them their answer.

The final barrier was a metal detector archway - a bit like they have at airports. Unlike airport versions however, this seemed to have been shrunk to fit the local population, and when I stepped in I banged my head very hard off the top of it! I felt a bit of an idiot, but I had assumed they were person sized....

We met the other side of the queue and headed towards the entrance where we were immediately treated to a hazy but spectacular view of the Taj Mahal. The still water leading towards the main building absolutely makes the view, and I found it had a pleasing symmetry (as did everyone else, barging each other out of the way for the most central photo spot). At this point there were people around but it wasn't too hectic, and we wandered in a leisurely way towards the mausoleum, admiring the surrounding red stone buildings looming very atmospherically from the clouds.

Once up on to the Taj Mahal, we donned our shoe covers (I very nearly slipped over, oops) and walked the guided route through the mausoleum itself. This had quite spectacularly intricate marble work and carvings, and was lovely and warm too. However, the best views were to be had outside, so we were soo  back in the rather fresh air, enjoying the scenery and taking photos before the crowds.

Back at the hotel, I had a rather odd and not tasty breakfast involving pot noodle, weird pakora and some toast (eurgh) before our driver picked us up very promptly at 10am. Gulfan Khan was his name, and he owned a nice little Hyundai with seat belts front and back (wow) and an unusual reticence to overtake in small gaps or use his horn, all of which was very welcome. Also welcome was the good quality of roads in Rajasthan we were to travel on, many many times better than most of Nepal's, although littered with toll booths, presumably to pay for the upkeep. I also saw the first speed limit sign (90 km/h on a dual carriageway) I've seen since the trip began.

Our first stopping point was Fatehpuri Sikri, a fortified ancient city with a selection of beautiful old buildings and couryltyards. These included a palace, ornamental pool, pavilions, gates and mosque. There was also a white marble tomb of Shaikh Salim Chisti which had a sea-shell decorated canopy inside, to which people tied red and yellow threads in order to ask for a blessing for their family.

Further along the road, and after a very touristy lunch spot selected for us by our driver, we arrived at Chand Bori in Abhaneri, a small village with an interesting temple that seemed to be made from ruins. Chand Bori was described as a set of zigzagging steps around a well, which I was only medium enthusiastic about seeing. But, it was much more impressive than I thought, as the steps went down about 13 storeys from ground level in a geometrically-pleasing and almost optically-illuding (is that a word?) fashion. There was also a slightly crumbling palace on one side, and some vivid green parrots.

Final destination for today - the Talabgaon Castle Hotel. This was one I'd been looking forward to, as it was off the beaten track and occupied the quarters of an old palace. Once we had found the entrance (a bit of an experience of the type where you are very thankful for Google maps being accurate) after a lovely sunset drive, I was not disappointed. The arches and columns of the building were floodlit and inviting, and the heritage room extensive and luxurious, a big change from our trip standard. Dinner was served outside next to the pool, with some very (almost too) attentive service and a log fire to keep us cosy.

INDIA & NEPAL Day 11 - Varanasi to Agra

Timekeeping on the Indian Western Railway

So boxing day began as Christmas day ended...on a train. I slept relatively ok - it was rather chilly up top but the other pair of bunks in our section of the train were empty so I borrowed a blanket! At around 6am I woke up, thinking that this was the time we had been supposed to arrive in Agra, but given we had left Varanasi around 3.5 hrs late, I wasn't expecting to be there for another few hours.

Looking at our location on the map, we were a bit surprised to find though, that we were in  small town we were meant to have been in at midnight, running a good 7 hours behind schedule. Frustrating! The train trundled on at a painfully slow pace, and at around 9am we got ourselves some roommates - a much older Indian couple. These two made themselves at home and then decided to munch on some breakfast. This I found irritating for two reasons; firstly, we had not expected to need a meal on the train and had therefore brought only a couple of snacks which had long since been devoured, and secondly, their munching was of the horribly loud mouth-open variety and was followed by a bit of equally annoying burping. Breakfast evidently made them sleepy, and soon some loud, intermittent snoring added to the ambience.

I lay in my bunk, reading a book (finishing my fourth!) and dozing where possible. The temperature seemed to fluctuate between freezing and boiling (not unlike British trains I suppose) and the train's speed fluctuated between slow and stationary. We were running 8 hrs behind schedule, then 9 hrs, then....

With hopefully just a couple of hours to go, I started looking more keenly at the scenery out of the window (unavailable on the top bunk), sitting on the bottom bunk. It still seemed incredibly flat, with lots of rice fields and villagers going about their daily lives. Lunchtime came and went, and we bought pretty much anything that was being pedalled along the train at its regular stops, including biscuits, cake and some 7 rupee samosas. We were so desperate for food by this point that our carefulness surrounding street food had to be temporarily suspended!

Once (and thankfully) done with lunch, I took a small nap and awoke to discover that one of our roommates had in the intervening period somehow sliced off the end of his finger (I have a photo, it's not going on here...) and was casually dripping blood around the floor, his bed, the table, sheets etc. This just added to the general ambience of the train (although it did seem to reduce his snacking ability) making me incredibly glad to get off at Agra Fort at about 15:30 - just the 9.5 hours late...

Off the train, we were acutely aware we had missed most of the day earmarked for exploring, so we made a fast turnaround at our lovely looking hotel, and headed straight out to the Fort. This was a huge red sandstone Mughal Fort, lying between us and the railway station. It had been constructed for military purposes before being converted into a Palace by Shah Jahan in the 1650s, before his son seized power and imprisoned him in it, eight years later.

I'd imagine there are worse places to be imprisoned, as inside it was much more delicate and beautiful than it imagined. The mix of warm red sandstone and cooler white limestone gave a lovely character, and some of the features were both beautiful and technically well thought-out (such as various water systems using pressure head for flow, ventilation windows and cavity walls). Although the public can only see about a quarter of the Fort, I was impressed by the vast number of structures, arches and gates.

We'd hired a guide to show us around, and explored til it closed at sunset. Then, feeling extremely hungry after our epic 19 hr train journey, we had dinner at Joney's Place (recommended by our hotel) which was alright, if a bit mild, and then headed back to Taj Castle Homestay for a hopefully less broken night's sleep.

INDIA & NEPAL Day 10 - Varanasi

Happy "Chritmas" to you all

We got up this morning at 4.30 in order to go to the Assi Ghat on the river for some sort of ceremony. With no idea what to expect, we arrived at a fairly dark and deserted riverside at 5.00. Looking around I decided we were far too early for whatever "it" was, and so we gingerly perched on a bench to wait. Gradually more and more people gathered, and by 5.30 there was quite a crowd.

Soon afterwards, some young men placed themselves onto individual platforms, and then the singing began. To the women's singing, and bell ringing, these men waved various items around, including a Christmas-tree shaped candelabra, bells, incense, a sort of teapo shaped torch and what may have possibly been a fan (it was hard to tell!). It was all in time and quite a spectacle!

I think this happens every day before sunset, so although I was grumbling about the early get up after such a late night, I guess it would have been much earlier in the summer months...

After the ceremony I was very keen for breakfast, having not really had any lunch or dinner yesterday. However, given the not so clean nature of the city (and that's putting it nicely) I was prepared to be picky about where I ate. We hence sought out a recommendation from our guidebook called the Brown Bread Bakery. This proved tricky (we tried two different supposed locations and failed, then happened upon it by accident) but worth the wild goose chase as I had some tasty muesli (with hot milk, as ever here) followed by a huge pancake. They also had some nice-looking pastries which we avoided but a cow outside looked very interested-in!

Having finally eaten, I headed back to the hotel for a very welcome (albeit tepid - fairly standard) shower. The clean feeling lasted all of two minutes once I was checked-out and outside again, but hey ho! Now the sun had risen fully, it was really quite warm. We opted for a leisurely boat ride along to the centre of the old city, and it was brilliantly peaceful on the water, observing the mela of daily life from afar.

As soon as we disembarked we were engulfed by the crowd, wandering along to the second burning ghat, where bodies from many castes were being burned. Our boat man had told us that although most people are burned, some are considered already purified and get the honour of being dumped straight in the River Ganges. Oddly, these included those with chicken pox, snake bites and the under fives. He also said that the very poorest struggled to afford enough wood or electricity for the required fire duration, so not all corpses were reduced to ashes. I was careful to not look too closely at things floating by in the river after these comments!

We ventured into the old city itself, it's small streets and alleys presenting us with numerous colourful stalls and bizaars as well as many motorbikes, fighting their way through the crowds. Needing a break, we headed off to Dolphin Restaurant (pretty random name compared to most institutions here) where we had a lovely Christmas lunch involving paneer hyderbadi curry, dahl makhani, rice and nan. I can honestly say this is the least festive Christmas I've ever experienced, but the meal was delicious.

Feeling a bit lazy (the harassing we get is hard work) we haggled for another boat, this time going further along to a not-so-impressive looking mosque. I was just enjoying being out on the water though, and even got a go at rowing (fixed seat, bit awkward as he wouldn't relinquish both oars so it was like trying to use a single sculling oar). Obviously there was a tip required for this but it was fun anyway. This boat man again dropped us somewhere short of our destination, something of a theme here.

We walked back along the increasingly busy riverside to near the hotel, where a final drink was had before grabbing our bags and getting a tuktuk to drop us (nearly) to the station. On arrival we found out our train was delayed by two hours. This made me a bit disgruntled, but we were then shown to the "foreigner's waiting room" which was a surprisingly plush area. Tiled floors and gold-papered walls surrounded a large number of faux-leather sofas (I'm better condition than mine at home!), glass coffee tables and charging points. Certainly the most luxorious train station waiting area I've ever been to.

INDIA & NEPAL Day 9 - Lumbini to Varanasi

Diversion

The most this morning seemed stronger than ever, and our taxi was giving me a few morning HR spikes with his overtaking manoeuvres in just 5-10m visibility. I'm getting used to it though, and he was kind enough to take us straight to the Nepali Immigration office which may otherwise have been hard to find. Here, we were stamped out of Nepal, and after an extremely thorough bag search (the guy seemed very amused by the spare loo roll and 5 litres of water we happened to have in our bags) we walked through the border to the Indian side of Sonauli.

For some reason this immediately felt a tad less friendly, as we were approached for buses, taxis and tutus whilst we walked to the Indian Immigration Office. We were directed 500 m down the road, which seemed a bit odd but turned out to be correct. I filled in the forms and before long we were stamped back into India (after our earlier unexpected trip to Delhi). I heard someone ask the couple behind me in the queue where they were from, and when they replied "Russian" he simply said "Good luck!".

We haggled for a tuktuk, and this took us to Nautanwa, a filthy, horrible village that happened to have a train station in it. We had discovered the day before quite by accident that our train was being diverted at a town 100km from our destination (very helpful!) so awaited the train at Nautanwa knowing we faced a long journey ahead!

The train itself left 30 mins late, and was formed of 14 or so sleeper (3rd non AC) carriages, a 3rd class AC sleeper and a 2nd class AC sleeper. Our seats were in the latter, and we were lucky enough to have the whole of our cabin (normally 4 people) to ourselves. I enjoyed the passing views of flat farmland and village life, as well as finishing my second book.

On arrival at Mau (pronounced "mow" we had a 2 hr wait until the next train to Varanasi. Here we risked a couple of samosas, having not really eaten all day (it was 18:00), and swatted some mosquitoes until our train arrived. This was not a service we had booked on, and consisted only of "CC" class carriages. I am not sure what this stands for, but I would perhaps describe it as "Cattle Class"...

Our section of carriage was alive with noises, varying from children crying, to a man watching a very gory film loudly in his phone, to regular burping, spitting and snoring. Lovely. A very helpful man did help us find some seats (or just squash others up) but needless to say we were glad to reach Varanasi at 22:00!

Varanasi. Wow. When I said earlier that Delhi had thankfully underwhelmed in terms of smells and bells, Varanasi was the complete opposite. I was hit by the stench of the city, driving, then walking, past piles of rubbish, dung as well as many people urinating. Very forlorn looking cows were grazing on the rubbish, whilst simultaneously excreting (quite a maze to walk through), dogs were eating dead dogs, mice were scurrying around, all fairly harrowing to witness.

This probably comes across as a slightly scathing review but having spent 15 hours travelling did not catch me at my most open-minded. Varanasi made Nepal seem clean, chilled, safe and friendly in comparison - here in India the horns were louder, stares more intense and motorbike drivers were no longer helmet-clad as they had been. I guess a city in the dark is often not at its best, but Varanasi has a lot to live up to tomorrow if it is to meet the Lonely Planet's description of "pulsing, vibrant and spiritual"....