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Well, not quite an airborne ride as the last time in a sleeper compartment on a bus but there were other problems. At some point in the night, the bus picked up what appeared to be an entire village. When I peered out of the compartment, the entire aisle and every seat and every compartment was occupied with someone in a blanket. At least 30 people. 3 were stretched out in the aisle fast asleep. I woke to a silent bus with a bursting bladder (me, not the bus). After a fair degree of deliberation I got down from the eyrie and trod on a variety of humans to get to the front of the bus.

There, an entire rugby team was wedged in the manner of the photos of extermination camps one sees - stretched out, vacant eyes, open mouths, an apocalyptic tableau. Having barged and shoved past I realized that the reaon we were stationary was that there was a traffic jam. I started to relieve myself on the dirt at the side of the road only to be hooted at by a lorry and verbally shouted at by the driver as the piece of dirt apparently constituted a highway. I would have responded in kind but was not inclined to engage in such confrontational activity with part of my anatomy in full view of the bus and assembled vehicles.

Got to Delhi about 9am - late - and argued with the local rickshaw wallahs and tuktuks about how to get from wherever we were - no idea - to the hotel we used last time but eventually got there.

Yesterday was a trip to the Red Fort - waste of R100 - and Chandni Chowk in Old Delhi. Very fascinating - you could spend weeks in the alleys. Jettisoning time again today - towel and polonecks etc. Taxi is ordered to the airport - R80, a bit much and a final pack and weigh and we’re ready. The hotel wouldn’t let us check out after lunch but I haven’t finished with them yet. Sonali is definitely unwell for what may be a variety of reasons so is in bed. Still nothing opens here until 11am. Apparently it takes ages to get through IGI airport so although the flight is at 21.30, the taxi is at 15.30.

Tonight, will be in Paharangarj Road - backpacker central and where you can buy anything from Indsa without travelling there, a good meal and agood sleep so this will be the lasgt ‘on the road’ post. I will re-edit and complete the pages and add visuals as soon after we get back as I can. I have a huge mailbox of problems to get rid of first.

The last stop in Rajasthan. A very holy city as Gandhi’s and Nehru’s ashes were scattered in the small lake. There are 52 ghats around the lake - one for eery maharaja in Rajasthan. We were ripped off for the 15km trip from the bus stopin Ajmer - Rs400. We only paid Rs220 for the both of us for the 222km trip from Jodhpur. To compound it we pulled a pulled a place off the Internet that bore no resemblance to the description there. Indian operations on the Net just seem to lie - not even exaggerate. It was sort of OK but fortunately right across the lane (we’re just out of town) there was a much better place for another Rs100. The owner of the first place was not impressed as we had insulted his entire ancestry. I’ll add pics of the places we stayed at when all the blog entries are updated in a week or two. We’re on our 4th hour of video.

Not only is it present buying time but also jettisoning time. We have got rid of a coat and now, when socks/pants get dirty, they’re jettisoned. We always dress like beggars so we can ditch just about everything if we’re short of luggage room - which we always are. There are several thngs that will be given to beggars in Delhi. Some useful things to take:

• A basin plug. Not only are there none in the basins but you cannot buy them. Take two - one secured within a case;
• Always roll your clothes - you’ll get far more in your case;
• Secure clothes and anything else with big elastic bands - take at least 100
• A small electric boiler for tea/soup etc. We even used ours in the train;
• India uses the 15A/round two pin system (which is the usual). Instas of adaptors for things that don’t have the two pins, I chocolate block a plug from one thing to the next with a small jewellers screwdriver with a plastic handle
• A chain and padlock per case for securing bags whilst on sleeper trains - loops are provided under the seats;
• Only one tube of toothpaste - save weight;
• Several photocopies of passports/visas kept separate from the originals.

Pushkar is a pretty place, located around the holy lake, which is in the process of being de-silted. Lots of religious restrictions about shoes, dress & behaviour. Sonali is still out buying presents - mainly for the kids. God knows where it will go. Current cost of accommodation per night is R170 per room so far. Some good and some not so - but not backpacker level that we have used in the past. Food is around R40 per meal but we could have reduced that quite a lot by ordering a single meal - they’re big enough for two and the proprietors don’t mind. Beer, when you can find it is R20 a bottle. A fair amount of cash goes on tuktuk journeys - always between Rs30 and Rs60 (R6 & R10) but it adds up.

We’re booked out on the night sleeper bus to Delhi on Independence Day, 26th Jan at 7pm. There are still plenty of things to see there. We want to get there at least a couple of days before we return to SA on the 30th and not be dashing about at the last minute.

We decided to take the overnight sleeper bus to Udaipur. They’re very cleverly organized with some seat and overhead sleeping compartments - a sort of not-quite double decker. However, there was not too much sleep on the 12 hour journey as most of it was spent airborne due to the poor roads.

Udaipur was on the list of places to see, then off it and then on it again. The town rose to fame on the back of Octopussy - which is still shown every night in some of the local backpacker joints. However, the lake laevel is low for whatever reason and there is some dry ground - used to play cricket on - and a fair amount of rubbish. We found a place that was reasonable and overlooking the lake and for the very first time, I started to haggle the room rate with some success.

The tourist end of the town, adjacent to the lake is small, narrow and very noisy with the traffic. We actually saw some backpackers! The hotel on the island will allow you on there if you take a R2,000 meal. However, there is another island which is worthwhile going to on a lake boat tour. The palace here is the largest in Rajasthan if not all of India amnd is a massive affair (also a part hotel) that has been successivley built on by various rulers.

‘Scuse the typing but at usual this keyboard is finished.

Most of the hotels/backpackers have rooftop restaurants and on our last night we had the most romantic meal on top of one. The night is the best time in Udaipur because you can’t see the rubbish around the lake and the palace is floodlit.

Sonali wanted to see what the countryside was like so we took a day bus to Jodhpur, about 300kms to the north. The road is like the Tugela Ferry road in Natal for those who know it but the road surface is really poor - which accounts for the airborne night on the way down. We got in Jodhpur yesterday at 2pm and got a place at the Sun City - believe it or not. I haggled the room rate from Rs3000 to Rs1200 but it is still overpriced for what it is. Still, its only for a couple of nights and then off to Pushkar tomorrow. Jodhpur is the first place we’ve seen a proper local market. Sonali wants to buy some copper bowls. I’m writing this from the local fort -  a massive affair that’s worth looking up on Google images. Jodhpur is known as the ‘blue city’ as many of the houses are painted blue. We ‘ve an audio guide to get through after this that will take a couple of hours.

BTW I finally lost in in Udaipur. I handed in a pair of trousers to have a small rip repaired. I was quoted Rs50 (R10) which I thought was a bit high but not worth haggling about and was told to come back at 5pm. At 4pm, I returned and was told to sit down for ten minutes. I let rip at these two guys telling them that I could have repaired the rip in ten minutes and told them to “F… off and get the trousers NOW!”

Right, to find accommodation in Pushkar . . .

Got into Jaisalmer in the evening to be met with the usual gaggle of touts as the train had originated in Delhi and had a load of tourists on board. It’s worth looking Jaisalmer up on the internet or Google Images because it’s really fascinating. It has the only occupied fort in the world - occupied by householders, hotels, shops and restaurants. It has come under siege on a number of occasions in the 16th century from tribes in the north because it straddled the old silk road. On three of those occasions it failed to survive (once after a seven year siege) and finally the soldiers decided to ride out to certain death and the women and children built a huge bomfire in the square and committed ‘johar’  and jumped into the flames. It’s a big fort too - 3km of battlements.

The inside of the fort is a photographer’s paradise with little lanes and dead ends and beautiful architecture. We went for a short trip to the desert with the local tourist board. Trying to get the whole Lawrence thing - you know, the sweeping vistas, solitude etc., we were dogged by bloody kids and traders wanting to dance and flog cans of Fosters. So we sat amongst the empty water bottles and chip packets and had our moment. I’ll expand when we get back.

The thing that happens at some stage or another - typically after three weeks of trying to communicate with the locals in pidgin English is that you start to talk to each other like it. “You want food?”; “Yes, velly nice food for you”; “OK, we go in”; “Is food good price?”; “Yes, I think food good price”; “You want sex?”; “Yes, you come inside and sit down”. And so it goes. We’ll be lucky to find the right lane to Durban.

Anyway, Jaisalmer, a bit remote but well worth going to. jaisalmer-in-jeopardy.org is also worth a visit. The hotel Palace-Hight (sic) was the last of 5 that we looked at and still had the bloody foam mattress. Lots of Indian jets in the air as the Pak border is only 50 kms. away. Tremendous moonrise in the desert too. They have a government bung shop in Jaisalmer so I had a bung drink and bought a bung cookie. Sonali was mortified.

Next stop is Bikaner, 300 kms further north and yet another night train trip. Sat on the freezing station at 10.30pm. Fortunately, the carriage was nearly empty.  This time it was a three tier sleeper andthe trip was freezing. Absolutely bloody freezing and sand kept getting in from somewhere. We had a couple of blamkets from Etihad thank God. Picture shows Evers eagerly anticipating the delights of a night trip across the desert.

4.10am on the freezing Bikaner station. We waited an hour amongst the huddled masses in the waiting room and got a tuktuk to the Palace View. Not bad for R140 for the room and very quiet until an American group arrived this morning.

Sonali hadn’t slept for three nights so she stayed in bed all morning yesterday while I went to the temple with the hundreds of rats. In the afternoon we went to the market where she bought some material and got ripped off as she doesn’t haggle. Except with tuktuk drivers and she’s very good at it.

Today we are going (nearly wrote ‘we go’) to the camel breeding centre.

First thing this morning we booked an overnight coach ticket to Udaipur in the south. Now we really start the homeward journey. It’s another 12 hour trip. Sonali really wanted to see it for its romance. Its a sleeper coach so should be a decent journey.

Bikaner has a fort but nowhere near as spectacular as Jaisalmer’s. I’ll take a trip there tomorrow. There’s also very little English here - all Hindi. I had to get a tuktuk to find this cafe and even he had to ask somebody else.

The next missive will be from Udaipur.

It had to happen one day - that day was yesterday. On the way back from town on Thursday, we discovered a trade fair. While Sonali was mooching about, I bought some Kashmiri honey and had one of those potato croquette things you can see all over town. Middle of the night, I’m on the loo - again and again. No cramps or vomiting, just unabated trots. Then I became dehydrated and then came the cramp. Anyone who has had their thigh go into cramp will know how painful it is. We were due to go out that day (Fri) so Sonali had to cancel and got the advice to eat bananas - lots of bananas. with fluid, the cramps stopped after lunch. we spent the rest of the day in the room.

Today we got to go out with Sunny in his pink Austin Ambassador. We saw a fantastic palace cum fort, graves, and Sonali bought some clothes and jewellery.

We have been at least one day too long in Jaipur and can’t wait to get on the train tomorrow night to Jaisalmer. The noise in the room from the kitchen staff and the exhaust fan was too much to take and I got a change for the last night. Yet another hotel advertises it takes credit cards and then sticks up a bit of paper saying it doesn’t because of ‘technical difficulties’. If I get my way with the duty manager tomorrow, I’ll wring out a late checkout as a compromise as the train is at 11.57pm.

Talk soon. BTW we just missed the snow in Kashmir - very pretty but we would have been stuck there as the road out was closed.

Yesterday was the first full day in Jaipur and if the rest of Rajasthan’s towns were to be like this, we would shorten the trip or change the itinerary completely. The main roads are an unending, deafening cacophony of horns and hooters. Some vehicles set their hooters to be permanently on. The general rule of the road is that whoever is microscopically in fornt can do what the hell he wants - stop, turn in any direction without warning, absolutely anything.

Most of the male population chews betel nut so there are large, gooey red spit stains everywhere - to go with the ordinary spit stains. They spit all the time - sometimes you just see a stream of red spit crossing your path from inside some shop to the edge of the pavement. Urinating of course can be anywhere. Beggars of all ages and sex rap on the car windows to gain attention. Sonali told me to move my foot today as I was standing on a dead rat. There are piles of rubbish all over and cows that feed on it - so much for pigs being dirty. Street vendors set fire to small piles of rubbish to keep warm and when almost out, you’ll generally find  a mangy dog on top of the smouldering heap. Both cows and goats attack the marigolds left at shrines almost immediately. Greengrocers carry long sticks to fend cows off their veg - a favourite haunt.

We passed a couple of hundred homeless settling down for the night on the way back today with their little fires, washing out of small pots on the pavement. The weather is exactly winter in Durbs.

Yesterday caused a major policy decision to be made about the trip. We found that we could return home on the 19th but talked about the options and have decided - in the absence of any more horrors - to stay the course and set an itinerary. we are due to leave here on the 11th for Jaisalmer on the sleeper. Then to Bikaner, Jodhpur, Pushkar and finally Ajmer where we can get an overnighter to Delhi.

In contrast to the bedlam of yesterday, today was much better. After redoing the plan, it was 12 noon before we left the hotel and we got a tuk tuk to the Monkey temple - 6,000 macaques. And I got to hold a cobra. After that, back to the shops in the old city but the back alleys this time; a nice curry on the rooftop of a backpackers (where we would have stayed if they had vacancies), a refill of ground coffee and back to the hotel.

Tomorrow, we have a driver for the day to take us to the outlying villages and forts.

Welcome from the capital of Rajasthan a pleasant change from the interminable hassling of Delhi. Sonali only now feels that her holiday has started. I booked the Unique Castle Hotel over the Net last night not really sure of what it would be like. As it turns out, it is really nice - new and not yet stuffed up.

Another early morning was required to get here (excuse this crappy keyboard by the way) but the journey on the train was via ‘chair class’ - with plane seats and a decent breakfast. All very civilized compared with the bedlam of the previous trip. The countryside changed into a much drier appearance once the mist had lifted.

Trying to look less wild

Jaipur seems to be much more laid back than Delhi and appears to be a major conference venue with 17,000 doctors descending on it. The cab driver will take us out for he day for 1,000 rupees (R200) so we will take him up on it later. We explored this bit of the town this afternoon and indulged in a local curry. I managed to get brekkie thrown in a the hotel too. I feel like something sweet so after I finish this, I am off down the road to see what I can find.

Sonali is busy revaming our itinerary yet agin so who knows where our next stop will be. There was no hot water in the hotel this morning and for two nights in a row there were sounds of an altercation coming from the reception area. They wouldn’t let me store my bag with them so we had to take both bags. I don’t think we’ll stay there when we get back to Delhi but it will be in the same area.

I hae developed a full-on stinking cold over the last couple of days together with a nagging cough so am feeling up to maggots. Tomorrow we will visit the fort and all the bazaars inside it.

Another classic journey here.

Pandemonium in 2nd Class Unreserved

Early morning Amritsar station

Because of the New Year, we couldn’t get out of Amritsar until the 5th except via 2nd Class train for the six hour trip back to Delhi. As you see, the itinerary is in pieces already. We were due to go to Bikaner and points south but this wasn’t possible so we decided to go to Delhi and decide where to go from there - it’s sort of on the way south anyway.

We reserved seats 2nd class and the carriage was only half full until Jalandar when a horde invaded the train. They crammed up the aisle and I reckon there were 50 of them between the two doorways. Instead of staring at an empty seat, I had to look at the father of a family that wore a sort of busby that had lost a fight with a Rolux. The family lunch was sliced bread on which tomato sauce was liberally poured. However next to his son was a fellow truly spoilt by his Mum. Only vacuum packed bags of tasty curry. As we had to be at the station by 6am on a freezing morning, we had only trailmix.

The calm before the stornm in 2nd Class!

Amongst the horde were two gents sitting on their suitcase in the aisle. The one furthest away sat with one leg point up the aisle and the other between the two sets of seats so I was playing with his right knee for the trip. The closest on the suitcase suffered apparently from narcolepsy and ended up with his head in my crotch before he woke up. I actually preferred that because when he was actually upright, every 2 minutes, there was a loud ‘ngngngngngngrgrGRHGRHGRH’ from a distance of about a foot as he cleared his throat. The two also got into a fight with the ‘chai wallah’ with the tea because they were bunging up his way.

There were numbers of fights because although one side of the carriage said D7 (right) the other said D8. At several points during the trip, some woman started singing but I couldn’t possibly see her. There was suddenly a stir amongst the packed populace and amazingly, a fellow with no legs on a trolley appeared, pushing his way up the train. Later, another stirring in the Brownian motion and a guy with no hands emerged with a blue bag strung between them. Later, a priest pushed and shoved his way through the packed humanity, liberally blessing everyone - at least that is what I thought he was doing.

At each of the ten or so stops to Delhi, more and more people pushed aboard. Unlike English trains where the doors open out, these opened inwards. Those who wanted to get out couldn’t and those who wanted to get in simply pushed like hell. The poor sod behind the doors was lucky to escape alive. Although my backside was numb, I couldn’t stand up because there would have been another backside on the seat when I sat down. Every so often wallahs with food, drink and other unmentionables pushed through the throng. At no point were any tickets checked so I think most people paid nothing.

After 8 hours and two hours late, the train pulled into Delhi and the scramble started. Actually, it started before. People were jumping off the train while it was still moving.  We left it until almost everyone was off and I coulod reintroduce two lost friends - my numb backside muscles with their blood supply. Amazingly, there was a small number of people trying to get their bags into the carriage. I’m sorry - by this tiime I had had enough launched myself out of the carriage with the two cases. There were Indians sprawled over the platrform but I got the cases out.

Delhi - at last

Getting up the stairs to the bridge over the platforms was another spectacle. Yet another fellow with no legs was trying to get up the stairs and holding up the throng. One thing about India I like - you can push a shove, knee and elbow your neighbours with great delight and they are used to it. I haven’t quite got to eye gouging yet.

Sonali had been recommended a hotel near the station and there was the usual fight with the taxi drivers. It was only a couple of hundred metres from the station but we had to get a taxi as the only way of getting across the road. Still, a much better place than the Amritsar place, warm and quiet. Today we booked tickets to Jaipur and onwards to Jaisalmer four days later on a sleeper train. This is the furthest point of the trip and we will then work our way back to Delhi.

We have been plagued by touts the entire day. Strangely, nearly all the shops shut and even stranger, all the markets on Sundays. We will attack them tomorrow.

It’s cold and perpetually foggy here but warmer than the north.

Under the blankets on the shikkara

On the last day in Srinagar we luxuriated - well, under a blanket - on a shikkara ride on Lake Dal and visited a couple of handicraft places on the lake. The lake is not all water and houseboats, there are numbers of small islands with houses and small factories. We visited a weaving place, a paper mache place and a textile place and you have to feel sorry for the guys there. We saw not a single other tourist, not even a backpacker and they get everywhere.

The dreaded Pashmina shawls

Sonali bought a couple of things but largely out of sympathy. the quality of everything was excellent but we have enough junk in the house already. Pic at right is Sonali looking at the Pashmina shawls. These things are apparently made from the chest hairs of the mountain ibex. You can - supposedly - tell if a shawl is Pashmina by pulling it through a wedding ring or by setting fire to one of the tassles. There should be no ash.

The day before we left, we checked out the buses out of here, where they left from and the prices. Consequently, we found ourselves alone on a long very cold very  and very dark empty shoreline at 6am with our baggage. A single car stopped, which happened to be a taxi that did the route we wanted - Srinagar to Jammu. He wanted INR2000 (R400) to take the two of us together with two others in a Ford Ikon. We told him to shove off as we would take the bus (R100) and he disappeared down the road.

Five minutes later (and not a single vehicle later) he reappeared and quoted INR1500. After some haggling and under condition that he would pick up no more than one other person, we settled on INR800 (R160). He did pick up one fellow very quickly and we were off. The advantage of the car was that it would take around 7 hours as opposed to the bus at ten hours. This meant we had a reasonable chance of getting onward transport in Jammu to Amritsar rather than spending the night there (it’s a dump). The journey is around 430kms and the extended travel time is because fully two thirds of the journey is spend traversing two huge mountain ranges.

Going over the first range on the way to Jammu

The driving was of the most hair-raising type - typical to southern Asia. There were several stops for various reasons - now once the queue gets going in a civilised part of the world, everyone changes into gear and moves off as a queue.

Not a chance here mate - just like Le Mans, everyone who thinks they can overtake any of the twenty vehicles in front immediately pulls out into the oncoming lane. Everyone who thinks they can overtake anyone in that lane pulls out onto the extreme right of the road. Bugger any oncoming traffic.

Fully half the overtaking (and there was a great deal of it over 300kms of mountain roads) was on blind corners. If I did just one, Sonali wouldn’t talk to me for a month - and Sharon, you wouldn’t last a kilometre! There were hundreds of soldiers up & down the road with mine detectors and sniffer dogs. Sonali thought we should pay our driver a little more because of the arduousness of the driving - and it was heavy going. However, after having 100W of bloody Hindi music 6 inches behind my head (and getting the first headache for years) I decided against it.

Part of the dirtiest bus station in Kashmir

Anyhoo, as they say in Canada, we arrived at the filthiest bus station in the world in Jammu at around 2pm. We organized a coach in ten minutes - a ‘luxury 2×2 seater with pushback seats’. Right. I sat on six seats much to the amusement of the seated passengers until I found one with decent legroom - the very front behind the driver. I wanted to take a leak before we left so paid a visit to the open men’s urinal - half a dozen concrete stalls in the open. Two of them had piles of shit so I took an extremely long distance leak. Christ knows what I was walking back to bus on the soles of my shoes.

Middle of the ROad conference on how to proceed.

Before we left Jammu we were delayed about an hour because some burke had diverted traffic through a road that was incapable of taking large vbehicles because they had planted three huge girders upright in the carriageways. After reversing and using the other carriageway and then reversing again to the original, the bus squeezed through with millimetres to spare. The conflab in the middle of the road was quite amusng. Consequently we were over an hour late - 9.30pm in Amritsar. Sonali amused the passengers by sprinkling essential oils all over the seat and curtains to get rid of the flies and noenoes.

The free water leak in the Grand

For the first time, our tuktuk driver got lost. He took us to The Grand Legacy Hotel (R1000 per night) instead of the Grand (R300 and very much a shadow of its former glory). After a l  o  n  g trip, the fuse was short.

I asked the desk clerk for the tarff sheet. He told me that a colleague would show me a room. I replied in a loud voice that he was wasting my f . . . . g time -  ’Just show me the tariff!’. The Grand, he knew nothing about. We were warned that there was a New Year function on the central lawn - which we were just off. At least we have hot water although the bed is still a freakin’ foam mattress. I’ve just bought ten sleeping pills (no prescription required) - No Name brand - for R2. If this is the last bulletin, I’ve died in the night. Sonali didn’t sleep at all last night.

This morning, I took off my T shirt for the first time in a week and shaved three days’ growth of beard.

We decided not to go to Dharamsala simply because it would have been as bloody cold as Srinagar.

The horde outside the Golden Temple

We surfaced at 9.15 this morning and tried to book a ticket to Jaipur, again a deviation in our itinerary, but couldn’t so we went to the Golden Temple. There were huge hordes trying to get in and as we’re not temple people we amused ourselves in the nearby streets. I gather it was something to do with New Year.

At least this place sells likker - I had a couple of the local brews last night and got two more different ones to wash the sleeping pill down with.

The Wagha Border Post

You must have seen this place on TV at some point. The latest showing the place is the Michael Palin ‘Himalaya’ series. The controlled aggression between the border guards of India and Pakistan has developed into a choreographed drama. A display of the most testosterone without busting a testicle.

It has grown so popular that arenas have been constructed on each side of the border (15kms from Amritsar) for the 5pm show. We took a taxi out there - too far for a tuktuk - to enjoy the spectacle. What is not shown on TV is that there is a whole lot more going on.

The horde of several thousand are not let in until 30 minutes before the border closes and have to be searched. There is such a crush that a half full water bottle in an inside pocket had somehow rocketted away into the air in the melee getting through the gates. One thing you learn in India is how to push, elbow and gouge back!

Long before the border closes the crowd are whipped into a frenzy by an MC, volunteers take it in toruns to run up to the border with Indian flags, flag wavers are positioned at the highest point of the stadium where the Pakistanis can see them. There are lots of Indians but not many Pakistanis. Before the proceedings a disco breaks out on the road with thirty or so youngsters leaping up - I think it’s the only reason they come. The stadium is divided into ordinary rubberneckers, little VIPs (us), closer and big VIPS sitting at road level next to the border gates.

The border troops spend 20 minutes loosening up and limbering up behind the offices. Both the Indians and the Pakistanis choose the tallest blokes they can find. After the flags of the two nations are lowered at precisely the same rate and the gats finally closed for the night, numbers of Indians are allowed in small groups to mill about the border gates.