Hello strange world..
It turns out that every cliche about India is true. It really is a love hate place. One minute I will be cursing (inwardly) the hawkers who appear from no where and intercept every second step trying to sell everything from tea to t-shirts but then an old man will approach us simply to shake our hands and ask if the people of India have been kind to us.
It is so strange to constantly be objects of attention. Men will come up and stand next to us just to look at the strange white people, many will take photos on their phones while others will just giggle uncontrollably. It would also appear that there isn't a man in India immune to my boobs - I am relieved Hamish isn't the jealous type.
Our few days in Kathmandu, when we dropped our trekking gear before entering India, were a real eye opener. Nepal is going through a pretty rough time at the moment - there are scheduled power cuts throughout the day and the streets are literally littered with rubble. Generators try to compensate during the power cuts but petrol is sparse and expensive meaning many people just sit in their shops in the dark. We enjoyed many a warm bottle of coke - turned out these were not to be our first.
A whirl wind few days in Delhi saw us take in Agra and the Taj Mahal as well as a side trip to stay with friends of Hamish's parents in Tiki where they run a beautiful guest house, Tiki Bottom - the heat was almost unbearable giving Hamish the change to firmly established himself as the sweatiest man in India. The Taj was beautiful, I secured my 'Princess Di' shot and we had a good look around but we had made the fatal error of getting ourselves tied up with a tour guide and quickly found ourselves whisked off to his uncles stone carving factory followed by his friends gem stone jewellery shop. We didn't make any friends when we refused to purchase anything at either stop but I certainly learnt a quick lesson on tough love India style.
Tikli Bottom was a little bit of heaven among all the madness. Martin and Annie, who run the private guesthouse, are total legends who have established a local school that started with one class room and now has 12 (I think?) we went along to assembly one morning and I fell in love with the gorgeous little children all dressed up smartly in their school uniforms desperate to shake our hands and greet us beautifully "good morning Mam, how are you today"? I could go on forever about Tikli so I might have to save that for another post.
The 28 train journey from Delhi to Goa went off without a hitch, almost to my disappointment. We were in three tier berths and it was all rather civilised. They have banned hawkers from trawling the trains at stations selling goods because things were being stolen and one tourist was murdered in their bunk. The only excitement was a small man, with a very high voice, kicking off very aggressively because he didn't want to pay 25 rupees for his bottle of water. In true Indian style we all crowded the corridor to watch the action unfold and then giggled about it for a good half an hour.
The south has proven to be much cooler which is a welcome change, Palolem beach in Goa where we are staying is a bit of a ghost town - the tourists come in November - this has good points and bad points. It is nice to have the beach almost exclusively to ourselves but when there are only six tourists sunbathing and four ladies trying to sell us jewellery there really is no escape! The monsoon season is still in full force and leaves us scrambling from the beach with our books to find shelter in one of the beach bars, not always a bad thing.
My words have got away on me so I had better sign off but one conclusion, that I think you will all appreciate, is that countries that sell sodas in glass bottles are still countries worth visiting. Why a coke tastes better in glass I do not know, but it puts a smile on our faces every time...simple minds!
It turns out that every cliche about India is true. It really is a love hate place. One minute I will be cursing (inwardly) the hawkers who appear from no where and intercept every second step trying to sell everything from tea to t-shirts but then an old man will approach us simply to shake our hands and ask if the people of India have been kind to us.
It is so strange to constantly be objects of attention. Men will come up and stand next to us just to look at the strange white people, many will take photos on their phones while others will just giggle uncontrollably. It would also appear that there isn't a man in India immune to my boobs - I am relieved Hamish isn't the jealous type.
Our few days in Kathmandu, when we dropped our trekking gear before entering India, were a real eye opener. Nepal is going through a pretty rough time at the moment - there are scheduled power cuts throughout the day and the streets are literally littered with rubble. Generators try to compensate during the power cuts but petrol is sparse and expensive meaning many people just sit in their shops in the dark. We enjoyed many a warm bottle of coke - turned out these were not to be our first.
A whirl wind few days in Delhi saw us take in Agra and the Taj Mahal as well as a side trip to stay with friends of Hamish's parents in Tiki where they run a beautiful guest house, Tiki Bottom - the heat was almost unbearable giving Hamish the change to firmly established himself as the sweatiest man in India. The Taj was beautiful, I secured my 'Princess Di' shot and we had a good look around but we had made the fatal error of getting ourselves tied up with a tour guide and quickly found ourselves whisked off to his uncles stone carving factory followed by his friends gem stone jewellery shop. We didn't make any friends when we refused to purchase anything at either stop but I certainly learnt a quick lesson on tough love India style.
Tikli Bottom was a little bit of heaven among all the madness. Martin and Annie, who run the private guesthouse, are total legends who have established a local school that started with one class room and now has 12 (I think?) we went along to assembly one morning and I fell in love with the gorgeous little children all dressed up smartly in their school uniforms desperate to shake our hands and greet us beautifully "good morning Mam, how are you today"? I could go on forever about Tikli so I might have to save that for another post.
The 28 train journey from Delhi to Goa went off without a hitch, almost to my disappointment. We were in three tier berths and it was all rather civilised. They have banned hawkers from trawling the trains at stations selling goods because things were being stolen and one tourist was murdered in their bunk. The only excitement was a small man, with a very high voice, kicking off very aggressively because he didn't want to pay 25 rupees for his bottle of water. In true Indian style we all crowded the corridor to watch the action unfold and then giggled about it for a good half an hour.
The south has proven to be much cooler which is a welcome change, Palolem beach in Goa where we are staying is a bit of a ghost town - the tourists come in November - this has good points and bad points. It is nice to have the beach almost exclusively to ourselves but when there are only six tourists sunbathing and four ladies trying to sell us jewellery there really is no escape! The monsoon season is still in full force and leaves us scrambling from the beach with our books to find shelter in one of the beach bars, not always a bad thing.
My words have got away on me so I had better sign off but one conclusion, that I think you will all appreciate, is that countries that sell sodas in glass bottles are still countries worth visiting. Why a coke tastes better in glass I do not know, but it puts a smile on our faces every time...simple minds!
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