BootsnAll Travel Network
Add this blog to: MyYahoo, Google, Bloglines, RSS


what the heck is this blog about?

This blog is for me to share with you all about the exciting adventures I am having while spending all my money on travel. When not sleeping in train stations and lugging a pack around you'll find me wishing I was, in the garden city of Christchurch, New Zealand. I'm an 20-something, wishing-I-still-was-one student, worth around 100 camels according to that guy in Morocco. Lucky enough to have already been on lots of global adventures but still looking for more countries to go to with unpronounceable names. On the right you can see my progress around the world. Blogs posts are grouped in countries and in different trips. The first block is from my 2006/2007 RTW trip, below that is my 2008 'overland trip', then lay travels since then. There is also links to all my photos, video's and trip expenses. Have a look around and please leave me a comment if you like what you read! *update* I am now living in London with a job that I love and taking a break from the travelling life, one day I will return but till then...

Kathmandu is a shop isn’t it?

December 1st, 2006

Probably what most kiwis/aussies think. In fact most of us are compleately kitted out in Kathmandu branded gear, I used to think it was just the name of a shop but no it is in fact the capital of Nepal.

I headed straight for Thamel, the major tourist area in Kathmandu and Nepal. Described quite accurately as a ‘tourist circus’ Thamel is a mess of internet cafes, trekking agencies, hotels, restaurants and rip off North face Gear. The tourists all seem a bit different, less hippies and more hardcore trekkers wearing the flashiest gear around. Almost everyone is wearing North Face which seems to be the brand of choice for all the shops around and pretty soon I have my Kathmandu style “North Face’ puffy jacket, ironically brought in the real Kathmandu. But at $40 NZ for a goose-down jacket, I’m not complaining. It’s hard to resist stocking up on Gortex jackets, which cost around $600 at home, but thinking of Philippines beaches in less than a month, I just stick with the essential items. Essential because it’s COLD here, OK so not freezing but pretty damn cold, and in the mountains to which I will soon be heading it will be very, very cold.

The bonus thing about this crazy tourist area is that it has amazing food. Not just lame imitations of pasta like India but amazing bakeries and nice restaurants that all serve wine (OK so its more than the cost of your meal), its great! So I spend a lot of time eating cinnamon rolls and drinking chai latte’s. Nepal does seem a lot different from India, hard to describe but just a bit more…cooler and relaxed. Like although I get harassed by shop owners I don’t get stared at constantly, there’s funky bands playing, more women around, women shop keepers and taxi drivers, there’s even alcohol and condom advertisements which you would never see in India and I saw an ad for ‘The Vagina Monologues’.

So Nepal is quickly becoming one of my favourite destinations. My 3 days in Kathmandu I saw a lot of temples, there’s a pretty amazing square full of all these old temples and holy men wandering around trying to get money by posing for photos. I also walked up this hill to a Buddhist temple, which was over run with angry monkeys fighting. Despite getting freaked out by the monkeys it was really beautiful, all these prayer flags were hanging everywhere and it had a great view of the valley. There’s definitely a Tibetan feel to lots of places, lots of Tibetan restaurants, and shops. And I guess because lots of the city is Buddhist it makes me think of Tibet. There are these huge 10 day tours you can go on and drive over to Tibet and back, it sounded amazing so was the first thing I looked into doing when I arrived. However after a lot of though I realized I would end up rushing everything else and its also very expensive, so unfortunately not this time but definitely am keen to head there on another trip. Had dinner on my last night with some nice kiwi guys one while watching a band which played a lot of Bob Marley, Ben Harper and Pink Floyd which was a bit of fun and filled my bag again with tea, fabric and photocopied lonely planets. Then it was time to move on to Pokhara where I was going to be staying with a friend of Duane’s from church who he had meet in the Philippines at a youth workers conference. So I splashed out on a tourist bus for the 7 hour windy road journey westwards, the base for the most popular trekking routes and where I would chill out before going to do some of Nepal’s famous trekking…which I’m looking forward to but also a bit worried about!

Posted in Nepal, Travel | No Comments »

Tags: ,

Finally up-to-date

November 26th, 2006

Ok so I’m finally up to date with my blogs….in Kathmandu now and its great!…happy reading for those who can be bothered!

Posted in Nepal, Travel | 1 Comment »

Tags: ,

The loooong way round

November 26th, 2006

Started my trip with a 17 hour train ride, no fun travelers to hang with this time, just me, and the only female in the entire carrige! There is far too many men in India! So the usual being stared at the entire time, but uneventful other than that. Arrived at the border town midmorning and headed off in search of immiagration. I found a german guy on the way so we rickshawed over to the border together. I ended up having to get passport photos because I thought I had lost my spares, turns out of course I found them later that night.
The whole border/immigration thing was as expected hilariously official and compleately useless with 1 guy with too much power. Indian side was this one guy behind a big desk just laughing to himself the whole time and gave the impression that if you pissed him off he just wouldn’t give you an exit stamp and would probably talk off for a luch break at any second. After 45mins we both finally had our stamps (after it broke in his hand) I managed to avoid the 100 rp ‘fee’ for a form I had to fill in. Fighting off rickshaw drivers we walked out of India and into Nepal. Another interesting immigration and another 100 rp fee which I ended up paying but the German guy just flat out refused and they let him go! Always interesting. Then started the long task of finding a bus, according to both of our guide books there were buses going every hour. After finally getting to the bus stop as rickshaws keep dropping us off at tourist offices, we find out there are no more buses. There was no way I was going to stay in the dodgy, dirty, hassle central border town and sure there must be some way I ended up jumping on an overcrowded bus to a town where I thought I could change. The german guy was off in a different direction so we both got on our dody looking buses and headed off. Typically the bus stalled everytime we stopped (which was ofter to let more people on) and we dodged potholes the whole 5 hours. We rolled into this random town about 6pm and it was already dark and after the first bus experience I wasn’t to keen on getting on another 5 hour journey in the dark so I found a nice hotel and stayed there for the night. The next morning I found out there were no buses till the afternoon only mini vans to Kathmandu. So I squished myself in another overcrowded vehicle with my bag on the roof, all I could think about was my guidebooks warning to NEVER take minivans as the frequently crash and to quote “No-one survives mini van crashes.” Apart from being uncomfortable, far too overcrowded and my stomach regretting the big glass of milk for breakfast, I arrived in tact.
Now the other problem was that I still had no Nepalese money, only Indian rupees which were OK for the hotel and the buses but now to try and get somewhere from the outskirts of Kathmandu to my hotel was a nightmare as noone would accept them or would charge a ridiculous amount if I tried to pay with them. Managed to get in a little van that’s like a bus, just smaller, and got dropped off somewhere central so I could walk to my hotel. First too places I looked at were either full or getting renovated finally found somewhere and collapsed into bed, almost 48 hours since I left Kolkata to get to my destination!

Posted in Nepal, Travel | No Comments »

Tags: ,

Kiwi community in the heart of Kolkata

November 26th, 2006

Getting to Kolkata turned out to be not so bad, meet a cool Canadian guy who was in the bunk above me so we had a good night chatting away to all the other passengers and sharing food. Ended up arriving 3 hours late around 10am then it was off to find the Spreydon team. There’s a couple from my church in NZ who moved to India and have started this business called Freeset where they get women who are working on the streets as prostitutes and give them a job in their place where they make bags. Sounds a bit strange but they make these cool bags that lots of businesses at home get made for different things and you can also order online. They’ve got about 80 women who all have pretty crazy stories and it’s a great place, everyone is so friendly and you can sense there’s a lot of hope there. Its pretty much right in the middle of the biggest sex areas in India, something like 6000 girls line the streets shoulder to shoulder every night. So that’s my plug for freeset go check them out www.freeset.com .

So anyway there were all these people from home visiting and helping out at freeset so I spent 3 days just hanging out and eating a lot. The team from home had spent the last 2 weeks making an outdoor area and was finishing up when I arrived so I didn’t actually do anything really other than sit in the finishing room and snip threads for a couple of hours. But did have an awesome time it was great to be around so many people from home, there must have been about 30 NZders there which is more than I’ve been around for a long time!

Was great as well being in an area where people weren’t trying to sell me stuff constantly, Varanasi stressed me out a few times and definitely have the usual love-hate relationship with this country! And also was actually nice to talk to females as everywhere you go you just get constantly talked to by guys everywhere, so it was a nice change. Stayed for free in a nice hotel with some of the Spreydon team, we went out for lots of meals together. Saw the new James Bond movie in this awesome cinema where everyone clapped and cheered (in true Spreydon style no-one clapped more loudly than us) and there was even as intermission and then it broke down half way through for a few minutes! Great times!

Spent a really nice day at this flash country club lying by the pool and eating lots, very different from the last couple of weeks! So it was great to see everyone, lots of fun and nice to hang out with some kiwis! Great to see what the group had done, they were doing a lot of hot, dirty work outside but now they’re going to build a playground for the kids which will be great. Said goodbyes as they all headed off to Delhi for some sightseeing before they went home and I started the looooong journey to Nepal.

Posted in India, Travel | No Comments »

Tags: , , ,

Muscle beach and celebrity spotting on the Ganga

November 26th, 2006

I was off to Varanasi that night but couldn’t get a direct train so first had to get about 3/4 of the way to Allahbad. A long night despite having a sleeper as most people around me weren’t too interesting in sleeping much. Arrived around 6am and begun a long search trying to get a train to Varanasi. Brought a ticket, leaving in 5 minutes platform 9. Took about 20mintues to find the platform of lugging my bag up and down stairs and of course no train, no signs and no one giving me a straight answer. I’d try ask one person and I’d get a crowd of about 50 people around me and none of them having a clue what I even wanted. So after an hour of walking back and forth around the station I finally ended up waiting with a French guy for the train which was apparently coming, and finally it did! Turned out to be a longer than expected trip, we started off on the a/c compartment with our general tickets and got kicked out after a couple of hours, pleading ignorance we ended up in the non a/c compartment and had a nice trip drinking chai and watching the interesting world of rural India out the window.

Arriving after lunch we split to go to our different hotels, as on different budgets. I somehow got scammed again and ended up at a hotel with a very similar name but definitely not the place I wanted. Not a bad place though just not on the river, but too tired to care by that stage.

Varanasi is one of the holiest cites in India along the banks of the holy river Ganga. Lining the the river are ghats, pretty much a big promenade with hundreds of steps where people wash clothes, bath, play crickets, hang out, sell tourists postcards and boat rides and burn bodies. My first walk along the river I quickly stumble upon a burning ghat and get the full explanation of the process. There’s 2 burning ghats that run 24/7, there’s bodies everywhere getting burnt and their ashes put in the river. Pregnant women, children, and holy men get chucked in without being burnt which makes for interesting surprises when taking a boat. It’s a bit surreal watching these cremations on big bonfires, around 10 at the same time at the big ghat. There’s all sorts of rituals associated with it and rules according to caste, there’s no tears or seemingly much sadness at all, an accepted part of life and having your ashes thrown in the Ganges is good because it ends your reincarnation cycle and you go straight to heaven, or wherever good Hindus go.

There are people bathing along in the river constantly and it is a bit like muscle beach with endless stretches of men (very few women and those there are washing in full saris) in underwear, very small underwear. A bit disturbing and needed to avert my eyes more than once! Ran into Khaled from the train and an American chick he’d met so we spent the evening watching a ceremony at the man ghat and dinner with some interesting live music

Spent a bit of time over the next 2 days getting lost in very small streets that led everywhere and nowhere, lots of walks up and down the river and somehow managed to miss Brad Pitt who spent the day cruising around! Talked to some Spanish guys who went and chatted to him, said he was just wandering around with 2 bodyguards compared to the over 100 person entourage for a Bollywood film star that was there last week! Had a typically Indian experience trying to send an email from a little internet cafe. All the power went off but computers were still running so kept typing away my long email, after 5 mins I asked if the lights were going to come back on soon.

“No ma’am, power cut, computers go for another…1minute maybe then turn off”

What!!! So just went to click send when they all shut down! Of course…..thanks for the warning…

My last morning I went on a early morning boat ride with a guy who organized things from the hotel, he took me to a few temples and then to a silk shop where I spent far too much money on silk scarves.I like going to visit all the temples in India because unlike the cathedrals in Europe there is actually people in them and stuff going on, Europe’s cathedrals all seem kind of dead where these places are full of people worshipping, playing music, eating, and hanging out, it’s a cool atmosphere. So after 2 nights I was off again another overnight train to Kolkata to meet up with a whole lot of people from home.

Posted in India, Travel | 1 Comment »

Tags: , , , ,

Who’s heard of Agra?

November 26th, 2006

No-one really but everyone knows whats there, the sole reason tourists visit the city and probably part of the reason most of us visit India; The Taj Mahal.

Again one of those things your not so sure why its famous and more well known than other equally as interesting things, but it just is. So my day started early at a bus stop deciding what to do. A guy from the bus stop is standing about half a meter away from me, staring. ‘Can I help you?’ I said to him,
“No, you are a guest in our country’
“riiiiight…thanks…”
“Where are you going”
“look I don’t know I just want to figure it out, I don’t need your help”
“You are a guest, we respect our visitors”
“Yes thank you but I don’t need anything”
and so on and so on. I even just sat down and starting eating and he still waited trying to…well I’m not so sure what he wanted. Eventually I escaped as at 5.30am after that bus ride I was in no mode to be nice to annoying randoms. So I headed off towards the Taj Mahal to get a hotel room for the day. According to everything and everyone Agra is a bit of a dump and not much to do there so I overnighted out as well. After a quick shower and breakfast I headed off to see the worlds most famous tomb. Built by a king for his dead wife, he was eventually imprisoned by his son who overthrew him and put in a fort that over looked the Taj. And I think they cut off the hands of all the workers so they couldn’t build anything like it again, much like the clock in Prague…very pleasant.

So the Taj Mahal is the image of India and it is pretty nice. I wouldn’t say the greatest thing about India as I think the country is better experienced through people and general crazy-ness not monuments, but as far as monuments go I was impressed. Not impressed by the entrance fee which was more than I’d spend in 2 days on food and accommodation but that’s how it is when people are willing to pay anything. Arriving at 6am like my guidebook said was the best time as “you’ll have the whole place to yourself other than a few likeminded backpackers” it seems everyone else has the same idea, so I shared dawn with bus loads of camera toting tourists (myself included). After the necessary pictures and a walk around I sat and people watched for awhile as its one of my favorite things to do at famous monuments. It is a nice place with all the gardens surrounding it and you can get nice pictures with the reflection. It was smaller than I thought, and nothing much inside (other than the bodies) but I guess it is a tomb and that’s its purpose, I think I always thought it was a palace or something.

So Taj Mahal, been there done that. The rest of the day I spent hiding from rickshaw drivers and people trying to sell me miniature T.M’s and slept and read in my hotel room. Couldn’t really be bothered seeing the few other sights in Agra, as I’d seen enough forts the moment. But all in all a good day and good to catch up on sleep.

Posted in India, Travel | 1 Comment »

Tags: ,

Spiritual tourism

November 22nd, 2006

Finally arriving in Pushkar after a long day of multiple buses which all seemed very complicated and confusing. Somehow made it to the small city of Pushkar after teaming up with some Dutch ladies. A guy on the last bus was so instant about his hotel it was just funny “I know you are just joking about me madam but really my hotel is very nice!” I know you only need to tell me once though…ended up staying there, which was nice. Pushkar is a very small town set around a holy lake. Being a holy city, there is no meat, eggs or alcohol in the town. There’s lots of Sadhus, temples, ghats (bathing areas) around the water and lots and lots of tourists. It’s sort of a tourist hangout, which seems a wee bit odd and doesn’t quite fit the spiritual nature of town but does make for a very interesting place to spend a bit of time. When you head down to the ghats for the first time you are approached by a priest who does some flower/prayer/blessing thing with you which involves repeating strange phrases and blessing every family member I can name and throwing a flower into the lake. Now we all have good karma forever mum and dad….or something like that. Then you get a bit of red string ties around your wrists to stop being harassed by every other priest. All for a donation of course. Had dinner at this nice rooftop restaurant and watched some random fireworks before an early night. Only ended being able to spend one day there as had to get moving but had a nice last day walking around the ghats, more shopping, watching lots of very religious people do religious things and tourists following close behind with cameras. I think I could get the most amazing photos in India if I was invisible, I just feel too bad taking photos of most of the cool stuff I see. I went down to the main ghat to watch the sunset and just hangout as the whole place become filled with drummers, tourists, musicians and people trying to sell you stuff. It’s a great place just to chill out, and watch everything going on. True to India, I wasn’t alone for more than 5 minutes at a time as was constantly being talked to by everyone who had something to sell. As the sun went down the fire poi were all lit and I left the tourists smoking hash and playing with fire to catch my 10 hour bus to Agra…home of India’s famous monument. All the buses I’d been in so far had really nice sleepers, actual beds above the seats with door on then, but of course my sleeper bus had seen better days. I had to share my bed with my luggage and there was no door blocking me off from the bus just 1/3 of a curtain so everyone could happily stare at me all night. But anyway before I got on that bus I had to get another bus to a bigger town. This first bus pulled up in a dark seemingly deserted bus park….they dropped me off and told me my other bus would be here in 2 hours…great…..of course though I am never alone and was taken to the chai stand to wait. Every single one of the 30 or so people there turned to watch me for about 15 mins before their bus came and they took off. I was soon joined by 15 year old boys competing who could give me the most free chai and some other younger kids, it was great, they sung and danced Bollywood songs out for me and took lots of photos with my camera. Some Spanish guys turned up going the same way was me for the next few days, so it was looking hopeful for a few travel partners but they ended up being in a different bus than me so didn’t end up finding them again which was a shame. But anyway got on my crappy bus that arrived in Agra at the respectable time of 5.30am

Posted in India, Travel | 1 Comment »

Tags: ,

Camel safari

November 22nd, 2006

After my first camel riding experience in Morocco, I wasn’t keen to get back on one in hurray. However guide books tales of desert safaris, endless sand dunes under star filled skies somehow convinced me to not only get back on a camel but to go on a 2 day safari. Jaisalmer was the base for these trips, a city within a fort that rises up out of the Tharr desert; it’s more of a tourist village now but none less impressive. Massive sand coloured walls and big gates lead the way for winding narrow streets, temples around different corners and of course more things to buy. Found myself a $2 room in a hotel with a beautiful rooftop restaurant that was built into the fortress wall, after checking out a few camel operators I found one that sounded reasonable. Drunk chai with operators to seal the deal and agreed to be there the next morning at 6am for a trip through ‘the amazing dessert and inforgettable dunes” according to their sign outside. Managed to spend too much money buying too many things again but did find a few very well stocked bookshops so stocked up on a bit of reading material.

Early next morning I meet up with the other 3 chicks on the safari. 2 English girls traveling together and an Australian who manages one of the biggest hostels in Sydney (scored cheap accommodation there when I need it!) Between us we must have traveled just about everywhere so spent a lot of time telling crazy travel stories and swapping ideas and plans. Our 2 day journey started with a drive out to meet the guide and the camels. Had breakfast while our camels were loaded up then it was time to get on. The worst part of riding a camel is the getting on and off part as they lurch forward and back when sitting, standing, and you’ve got to hold on tight and hopefully stay on. It turned out to be not quite as bad, the camels were very obedient and knew exactly where they were going most of the time. We were even given charge of the reins and could make them go faster if wanted (not wanted as the faster they go, the bouncier it is…and more painful).
camelshadow.jpgcamels.jpg
Camels really are hilarious, they all their own personalities, like mine couldn’t handle the flies and spent the whole time rubbing its head on the bums of other camels trying to get them off. And then there was the aptly named Buddha, who just walked calmly and didn’t really care about much. They smell and fart and poo everywhere, they’re awkward and kind of like real life cartoon animals. It’s very entertaining.
So we made our way across the desert, not really endless sand dunes, more like patchy bush and farmland. Stopping for a few awkward-I feel-like-a-useless-stupid-tourist villages visits, where chai was plentiful even though unwanted in the heat. So stomachs churning with too many glasses of chai we bounced along further. Stopping for a very long relaxing lunch break in the shade while our fantastic guide Ali-Baba and a few others cooked us amazing food and ensured we didn’t move off our cushioned lunch area.

We reached the dunes in the late afternoon, really more of a small patch of sand rather then endless but still pretty cool and looked impressive in photos!
We watched the sunset, entertained children, which always appeared out of nowhere whenever we stopped, and then sat down for more amazing food and tea. We spent a lot of the time watching the shooting stars before setting up for sleep right in the dunes under the stars, it was incredible! Despite the dogs running circles around us about 3am slept well and woke just in time to see the sun come up over the hill.
Much of the same desert scene and village thing the next day, and by lunch we were ready to go home and ended up going back earlier with the English girls who had a train. 2 days definitely enough, don’t know how people could do the weeklong or even 30 day safaris they offer.

So back to Jaisalmer, for the night. Had dinner with Helen the Australian and an early night to get up and catch my 6am bus to Pushkar.

Posted in India, Photos, Travel, Videos | No Comments »

Tags: , , ,

angry monkeys and long train rides

November 13th, 2006

Surely thats not my train…..there were more people packed inside the 15 or so carriges that are in my entire country. Literally people hangin out the windows, sitting on luggae racks and over flowing out of the bathrooms. I’m sure I booked a sleeper….but here it is pulling up at my platform already an hour late, its 1am and Im about to get on for a 13 hour ride. As I’m standing there looking horrified at the thought of squezing onto this train another tourist comes past and tells me no our train is coming now on the other side. Thank-you , Thank-you, Thank-you…..So I get a nice sleeper in a nice carrigae with only people in their beds.
The train station at Jaipur (and probably all of India)is pretty nuts any way, hardley any floor space due to what seems like half the city sleeping on the floor. Its all pretty shocking steping over 10 year old kids to get to your train.

But anyway back to my last day in Jaipur. Headed over to the monkey temple which my guidebook recommends as a cool sounding place full of monkeys. So my rickshaw driver drops me off, buy some peanuts for the monkeys and set off walking over this big hill into the middle of nowhere…getting a wee bit concerned walking past all these monkeys that are eyeing me up so I walk close behing some Indian guys who laugh at me for being scared. I keep walking up over the hill, not seeing hardly anyone else and definitley no other tourists when suddenly I see the opening to theis amazing Hindu temple set in the mountains like some sort of lost city. Its really incredible. On the way down I work out that theres another entrance with no hill climb where the other couple of tourists there got through. So I get shown around by this 15 year old kid that possibly is some sort of Monk and tells me lots of things that I don’t really understand. But no matter as its beautiful, a strange man reading a important looking book gives me a bindi (a red dot on my forehead) and I get a necklace of flowers from another holy looking man. Theres also the pools for bathing in, not that you would want to though with the crazy things including snakes that are floating around, but still theres a whole lot of kids playing in the water. Then while Im trying to feed the monkeys my peanuts without them swarming me this big angry one comes up and jumps on me stealing my flower neacklace to eat it! damn monkeys. I totally freaked out making more Indians laugh at me, and ended up leaving the rest of the peanuts on the ground. So after the climb back out of this very quiet and peaceful place, it was straight back into the noise of the city and a trip up to the Amber fort

The fort is one of many but I only saw the one which was enough. Up on a big hill, very fortress like, very impressive but old and run down. Nice views and watched an elephant bath in the big lake there which was nice. After arguing for about an hour and refusing to get in most rickshaws as they were ripping me off I got a ride back to the guest house to wait for my stupidly late train at midnight. Hung out and read my book on the grass, had some dinner. Talked to a nice man from the jewellery shop who was going to NZ to teach meditation (he aslo thinks I have a good aura). After dinner I suddenly realised that by being clever and hinding an important folder under my mattress in my room I had left it there. Now checked out and the room was occupied with the people nowhere around I ended up waiting and waiting until the last minute before I had to catch my train they turned up and I could get into the room (because theres only one set of keys…) so luckily it was there with my money, travellers cheques and flight info. Not sure what I wouldve done if I coudln’t have got it! Train ended up being late like I said earlier but was an OK journey, slept lots and some nice girls from Holland and Italy below me who shared their food with me and we drunk chai and waited out the long long stops at every station. So arrived in Jaisalmer ready to find a camel safari for a couple of days

Posted in India, Travel | 1 Comment »

Tags: ,

Whats more dangerous than a rickshaw ride?

November 9th, 2006

When your rickshaw driver is talking on a cellphone and not even looking at the road! and I’m not talking about cycle rickshaws Im talking about very fast autorickshaws on very busy Delhi roads. Basically you take your life into your hands on any roads. On the 5 hour bus ride yesterday luckily it was dark and I couldn’t see the cars and trucks we were slamming our brakes on for and skidding across the road. My favourite road fun is seeing all the sigs that are so blatently ignored. Like ‘please give way to your right” and people are just driving all over the place, and my personal favourite “this is a quiet zone, please don’t use your horn”….yeah whatever…

Well I made it alive to Jaipur, not on the free ride after waiting for hours in the tourist office…yes yes its just on its way…I gave up and caught the bus. The tourisim guys are adamint that I can’t go anywhere by myself as everyone (apart from them) are trying to rip me off, well its not that bad but going to and back form the bus station to get a ticket and then back again to get the bus the price incresed everytime and once I ended up at a clothing market rather than the bus stop…but well you get there eventually. So after an interesting bus ride I arrived late in Jaipur, the pink city. Actually the bus ride want so bad, I really thought India would be so hard to travel in but the bus was nice, A.C, got free water, had a seat and no one standing and we even stopped for a decent amount of time at a nice place with toilets and food. Amazing….better than any bus in Africa or South America. So the Pink city, painted itself pink to celebrate a visit from Prince Albert…a bit odd I thought…and while its lost much of the pink hue it still is a nice place. Busy, dirty, Indian but lots to see. Its the home of the Maharajha…yeah just like Moulin Rouge and you can even make appoinments to go visit him. You can also go check out a lot of the palace where he lives. I headed there today and had a look around. The most interesting being the amoury where “welcome”signs are spelled out in death instruments, like gums, swords and other nasty looking things. Theres also a “Goodbye” sing as you leave..all very pleasent…

Amazing amount of stuff to buy and did buy a bit today, Did manage to get a cool scarf down fomr 800 rp to 200 (about 4 euros) and got my photo taken on a 200 year old camera, the picture is really cool, in black and white. Also climbed up a big tower where the Maharajha used to throw criminals off, and saw some other amazing looking temple/thing. Had a big converation to a guy on the road about Indians and westerners and how whenever he tries to talk to them they pretty much just tell him to go away, he was really cool though and told me I have a good aura..or something like that….He passed on the name of his guru so I can go have my aura read…hmmmm…maybe it does sound interesting and is a big part of India so I shall see.

The other great part about India is the hilarious tourists getting all spiritual. Im staying at a great guest house with lots of trees and a big coutyard. Its full of hippys getting stoned and listening to crazy music while one guy shakes this shaker thing constantly and another does some weird dance thing on the lawn. Dreads, stripy pants and headscarves are important and you must do yoga and visit temples for spiritual enlightenment, not for photos…in fact throw your camera and all your belongings away because India is just so spiritual man…it is but some of these tourists take it a bit far I think!
Tomorrow its more sightseeing…more temples and forts…more food, more shopping!

Posted in India, Travel | No Comments »

Tags: ,
« Previous Page — « Previous Entries
Next Entries » — Next Page »