Goodbye India... :(

I'm currently making use of the free wifi in swish Singapore airport, en route to Sydney. It's been a bit sad to say goodbye to India - it went by so fast - so I'm just taking a moment to reflect on our experiences there.

Things I will miss about India:

• The amazing food!


• Autorickshaw rides


• The stunning Mughal and Rajput architecture everywhere


• Seeing enormous camels just ambling down the street


• The gloriously funny mis-spelled signs and menus

• Living a bit more simply than I do at home in the UK has been refreshing

• The friendliness of the people, especially the kids


• Oddly, I'll also miss the way cows have the right of way in every street!

Things I won't miss:

• Being stared at constantly


• Not being able to be able to relax and trust that the train/bus you are on will make it to the intended place at the intended time


• The life-threatening walks down narrow streets filled with motorbikes/rickshaws

• Haggling, and being suspicious that people are trying to rip me off


• The lack of a queueing system - having to push/be pushed (never thought I'd say something so stereotypically English!)

• For all that I've enjoyed the simpler life, I'm also looking forward to a few more mod cons again in Oz!

Overall, I've gotta say I really enjoyed this trip - now on to the next adventure! x

What Happens If Your Vehicle Breaks Down in Rajasthan? Pushkar! Oh God...

Hello blog fans! We’re in Pushkar now, the last leg of our India tour. We’ve got a few days here, six or seven in total, I think. I’ve lost track and I don’t care! We arrived here at 3:30am, bleary-eyed and slightly confused. It’s never a great idea to arrive somewhere at night, but the night bus was the most attractive of two not very attractive ways of getting here from Bikaner! I’m pleased to tell you that the owner of our hotel came and met us in the middle of the night (maximum points to him) and made sure we got there safely. Needless to say we crashed out on the bed almost instantly! Thanks to the Hotel Everest, which is really good by the way.

Pushkar is a religious pilgrimage town for Hindus and a hippy/backpacker hotspot for Westerners, so it’s quite a mix here. It’s probably the most touristy place we’ve been, but in a good way! The town has quite strict rules including no eggs, no meat and couples are told not to be affectionate in public. This last one is a rule we’ve observed in India generally, along with dressing quite conservatively and covering up. It still amazes me to see some tourists having a serious snogging session in public (saw this in Jaisalmer). Ania and I have just been marveling at a girl wearing leggings and a strappy top in Pushkar. You could see everything! Unbelievable!

I’m pleased to tell you that we haven’t done a great deal here! It’s been nice to relax and we’ve even found a café that has quite a good library of films, all knock-offs of course! We’ve just watched The Men Who Stare At Goats with George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Ewan ‘Have You Seen My Willy?’ McGregor and Kevin Spacey, which I really enjoyed!

Pushkar has also seen us achieve a small ambition for our Indian trip, which we talked about right from the start when we were planning it back home! Back in Udaipur we were constantly offered cooking classes and turned them down, thinking they were very expensive and maybe not exactly what we wanted. A few days ago we were kicking ourselves for missing the chance and wondering if we’d blown a good opportunity. Then in Bikaner (our last stop), we picked a hotel that offered free cooking classes, only to discover that you were simply allowed to observe the non-English speaking chef through a serving hatch. Not what we’d envisaged!

With that in mind I became determined to remedy the situation and after a quick spot of googling we found Fiona, who runs Our Pukka Place. Fi’s an Aussie who’s married to an Indian man, Praveen. They have a couple of hotels and also run various tours. Yesterday Fi came and met us at our hotel and took us shopping in one of the local markets for fruit and vegetables. We then drove back to her home in the countryside and cooked an enormous dinner from scratch! We made dhal (lentils), potatoes in coconut milk, sweet-and-sour aubergine (Indian style sweet-and-sour, not Chinese-takeaway gloop), an okra dish, tandoori cauliflower, a melon-and-mint salad dish, chai (tea) and a bucket load of chapattis! It cost us 500 rupees each, about 7 pounds. That included the cost of all the ingredients, some emailed recipe cards and of course we ate what we cooked (or attempted to, I nearly exploded!)! For any fellow travellers who happen to be reading, I highly recommend contacting Fiona and Praveen for cooking lessons. They were friendly and informative and great hosts! You can find their website here.

Here’s some photos and videos of us having fun cooking with Fiona and Praveen.

Ania chopping some okra:

Stirring up some delicious food (I was actually straining some fresh tamarind into a sweet-and-sour aubergine dish, so there!):

Praveen making chapattis (shhhh! Don't tell anyone from India, this is not men's work, apparently!):

Trying my hand at cooking chapattis. Praveen was kneading the dough and Ania was rolling it. We did several of these where the bread puffed-up beautifully on the naked flame, but didn't get those ones on video! Honest! Still fun though, we made loads:

That’s all for now, folks. We’ve got a train to Delhi booked in a few days’ time, then we’re off to Sydney! We’ll write again soon x

Holy rodents!

Well, I have to say that I really loved Jaisalmer. There was something really magical about the setting, the golden colour of the sandstone and the living fort. Plus we made some really nice friends. So it was with a little sadness that we said goodbye and moved on to Bikaner.

Now, I must admit I kind of forced us to go there because I wanted to see the Karni Mata temple in Deshnok. Stu was not so keen. In short, the Karni Mata temple is full of rats, which are believed to be the reincarnated relatives of the goddess Karni Mata (an incarnation of Durga). So the rats run free around the temple, worshipped by pilgrims, and fed sweets by visitors. The temple has lots of holes in the bottoms of walls to allow the little guys free access to the whole place, and there is netting across the open ceiling to prevent birds of prey from swooping down on the blessed ones.

Here are some of the little fellas, drinking from one of the big bowls of milk left out for them.


We dutifully bought some ladoos to crumble on the floor for the rats, and we spent a while looking out for a white rat (if you spot one it is meant to be very good luck). We didn't see one, unfortunately. Actually, the rats weren't too bad at all, and we coolly maintained our composure; neither of us got an attack of the screaming heebie jeebies, which I'm pretty sure would be frowned upon in a place of worship! I have a video but it won't upload at the moment - I'll try again later.

That afternoon we stopped at a roaside 'daba' for lunch - it looked very low-key, and was one of the best meals we've had! Then we went to check out the Camel Research Centre, which was well worth a visit. There was a good museum with info about the four different kinds of camels, and a pen with young and baby camels (really sweet). Finally, we had a kulfi (ice cream) made with camel milk! It definitely tasted different from ice cream made with cow's milk - creamier, and a slightly odd consistency, but delicious!

Here's Stu enjoying helping the young camels reach some flowers they wanted to munch:

Eating camel kulfi!:
A burst of enthusiasm:



We had a quick look around Bikaner old city too, but didn't bother with the fort and palace museum, etc, as we've seen an awful lot of those already! Unfortunately, the guest house we were staying in had a really weird, unfriendly vibe, so we decided to move on quickly to Pushkar. More on Pushkar later! x

Jaisalmer, Home To Shit Internet

You may have seen the following post without any text, just the photos and videos. While those are nice, it makes a lot more sense with the pretty words in place. Thanks Jaisalmer, for stressing me out with possibly the worst computer I've ever used! It really was a great town though! Enjoy the following! Take 2:


Since Ania wrote to you all in Jodhpur we’ve travelled to another desert town, Jaisalmer. Like lots of the places we’ve visited, Jaisalmer has a fort. But this one is different in that it’s a lived-in fort, and it’s not some fancy politician or Maharaja that calls it home, but the ordinary people of Jaisalmer. Inside the walls there are dozens of cafes, shops and other businesses; and we’ve made the ‘Pink Floyd’ restaurant our second home. It was here that we met Deepak, whose family runs the place. Deepak is my age and has been our unofficial guide to the place. We’ve had dinner with him a couple of times and he also helped us post a package back home. This is not as easy as it sounds! In India your parcel is boxed up in cardboard, then you have to find a shop that will sell you some cloth. Oh – and you’ll need a tailor too. He sews it up and wax is then used to seal it, all to discourage people from opening it as it makes its way to its destination! God knows what happens if customs want to open it and then reseal it! Then there’s the small matter of negotiating the Indian postal system. As you can appreciate, doing all of that without Deepak’s help would have been a massive arse, so we are very grateful to him! It was hilarious watching him go behind the counter in the post office (bringing me with him at one point!) because his friend works there. You could see the people on the other side of the glass thinking ‘Why is that white guy behind the counter?!’. Deepak helped us buy the things we sent home (I’m not telling – there are presents in there for my family, so you guys will have to wait until September 2011!) and got us a good deal too. We did all these errands on his motorbike (no helmets of course!). Here’s a short clip to give you a taste, taken by Ania from the Pink Floyd rooftop:





Jaisalmer is really beautiful. The fort really does look like a giant sandcastle!




Here’s a 3D map of the fort inside the museum. This is what it would look like if Jaisalmer was attacked by Aniazilla!

The fort is in danger of slowly crumbling away because it can’t cope with the amount of water flowing through its network of pipes. Several groups are working to save it and keep asking the question, ‘What happens when you pour water over a sandcastle?’ to raise awareness.

We’ve also spent some time with Deepak’s sister, Bobby here in Jaisalmer. She runs a shop called Belissima, selling textiles made by local women. Profits go towards helping widows and other women in the desert who get a bit of a raw deal, to understate things somewhat. Bobby told us that widowed women are often not allowed to leave their own homes for a year or two after their husbands die. They can only eat simple food like rice and dhal during this time, not to mention that they are then forbidden from wearing nose piercings or happy colours like saffron and red for the rest of their lives! We happily spent some money in her shop, including getting some henna done.

I also feel compelled to mention an excellent meal we had last night in Jaisalmer at a place called Kabab Corner (or something like that). Meat dishes in India are often found under the sub-heading of ‘Non-Veg’, which is completely at odds with how things are at home! It’s because meat is often not on the menu and a huge number of people are vegetarian or vegan. So last night I had the Non-Veg Thali (a selection of dishes served with rice and bread), which included Butter Chicken and Mutton curry. Mutton here is goat, not sheep! It was delicious!

This is also a good time to mention some hilarious Indian signs we’ve seen – no photos, sorry! Last night we saw one inviting us to ‘Rant A Motorbike’, before we found another place that offered a duvet cover: ‘No Viagra Needed: Magic Bedspread!’ and the brilliant ‘Make Your Boyfriend Less Ugly!’. What a lukewarm boast! Several of our favourites have come from food menus, including ‘All Sandwiches Served With Chops’ (man, I wish that were true!) and our personal favourite, ‘Ice Crime’, which I think sounds like a street term for diamond smuggling. We also found a dessert called ‘Hello To The Queen’, although this may actually be a move from the Kama Sutra.

Finally, here’s a picture of me trying on some clothes in Jaisalmer:

I will be appearing as Aladdin at the Royal Pavilion Theatre in Blackpool from 22nd November, right through until 17th May. Performances at 3:45, 7:45 and 9:30 every day. Also starring Joe Pasquale as Joe Pasquale. And on that note, click here for a funny.

Jodhpur and the Thar Desert

Hello friends and families! We are relaxing in our Jodhpur haveli today, taking some time to chill out after a couple of days in the desert. More about that soon.

Jodhpur has loads of character: blue houses everywhere and lots of narrow winding alleys in the old town, enclosed by a fort wall. It has a very medieval feel to it, and in any other country this old part of the city would be pedestrianised. But this is India, so even though the streets are too narrow for cars (and certainly too narrow for two lanes of traffic), nevertheless the alleys are thronged with rickshaws and motorbikes travelling in both directions with no discernable system, competing for space with cows and walkers. We got a rickshaw through town during rush hour the other day, and it was Utterly Mental. On foot (which we attempted the night before) it is even more bonkers.

There's an imposing fort in the centre, on a hill, which we visited the other day. It was really interesting - they have a very good audio guide which is the first of its kind in Rajasthan. The fort has great views, and various ornate rooms and displays of royal pallanquins and weaponry.

Yesterday we went on an overnight trip into the Thar desert about 65 miles outside Jodhpur. A very nice man called Shiva drove us out and we stayed at his family home. First thing we did, of course, was jump on the back of a couple of camels for a safari round the area (mine was called Lucky and Stu rode Happy). It is very rural; wonderfully quiet after the hustle and bustle of Jodhpur's streets. There are great expanses of desert punctuated by small village huts and farmland, and we often saw wild gazelles. There has been a good monsoon this year, and throughout the sand dunes there are a lot of scrubby plants so the landscape was still quite green. Everywhere on the ground were hardy plants sprouting watermelons and a kind of cucumber (we stopped for a break in the shade at one point and cracked open a couple of watermelons). Despite often feeling like we were in the middle of nowhere, children kept running out to wave at us, shouting 'Tata!' (meaning 'bye!') and 'Thank you!' Camels, by the way, are really big - much bigger than I imagined for some reason. And riding a camel for 2.5 hours leaves you with a very sore bum indeed.

Taking a break in the shade (false perspective here makes Lucky look smaller than he actually is). Lucky is also doing a goofy smile for the camera here:

Stu mounting his camel:

Back at Shiva's home, we were immediately surrounded by kids who were really friendly and inquisitive. They were totally astonished by my tongue piercing (which kept them entertained for the next 36 hours), and also by our camera (we kept taking photos and videos for them to see). We started to get a sense of village life over the two days we spent there, although the slower pace of life took some getting used to. There's an awful lot of sitting around, but once we got used to it it was quite relaxing. And some things are the same everywhere: the kids all showed off their best armpit fart noises with enthusiasm!

Next door to Shiva's home there was some building work going on, and he explained that theirs was a co-operative community - he didn't have to pay any of the men working there, he just provided food for them and in turn when one of them needed some help to build something they would know that the other guys from the village would just turn up. If someone was widowed or disabled, they were supported by the co-operative, and there was a communal emergency fund in case anyone needed to go to hospital. Also, the money we paid him for our stay in the desert was shared with the whole community. He said that pretty much everyone in the village was related by blood or marriage, so they are all really close.

Millet chapatis being cooked in one of the thatched huts:

Surrounded by kids:

Stu and Arjun pretending to be camels pulling the cart:

Shiva, his niece Jammu, and his youngest daughter wearing his turban:

After some delicious home-cooked curry, we went out to some sand dunes by jeep to watch the sunset. It was really beautiful, and of course we once again attracted a group of kids. We stayed up chatting with Shiva for a while that evening, while his niece Jammu drew henna designs on my hand. We slept out under the stars on the roof of his house, which was amazing, although we needed earplugs because there was festival music being played loudly somewhere, even out in the desert (sound really carries out there)! It also got surprisingly cold at night, so we needed warm blankets.

The next day we hung out at the house some more, snacking with the kids on cucumbers picked from the surrounding fields and crunchy lentils that had been dried in the sun. We did a final camel trip to a different bit of the desert, this time by camel cart (to save our poor sore bums), before heading back for a meal and then returning to Jodhpur. The sun really wiped us out and we fell asleep almost immediately after getting back to our haveli - we both felt like we were radiating desert heat for ages afterwards!

Sunset out on the dunes:

Adventures in Jodhpur!

Hello everyone! We’re in Jodhpur now, having had yet another interesting bus journey from Mount Abu. When you’re doing a trip like this, it’s really hard to know what to make of a city, town or village before you arrive. If you haven’t been somewhere, the two ways you have of judging a place – pre-judging a place (!) - are guidebooks and the advice and experience of other travellers. The advice from other travellers on Jodhpur was pretty much 50/50 that it was either boring and scuzzy; or beautiful and brilliant! Well I’m happy to report that we think it’s the latter and we’re having a great time!

We arrived yesterday at our hotel, set in a beautiful haveli in a quiet part of the city near the fort (there’s always a frakking fort!), at about 3:30pm and stayed there for the rest of the day. The building is incredible. There are murals and paintings everywhere, on the actual walls rather than just hung up. They show local scenes, traditions and history. Like the haveli we stayed at in Bundi, there are nooks and crannies everywhere. Jodhpur is known for being blue, a colour chosen to reflect the caste (kind of like our class system, but much stricter and still very relevant and often, unfair) of the people that lived here; but it’s also believed to keep bugs at bay! There were fewer bugs last night, so maybe it works! We have several rooftops at different levels where you can enjoy a beer and watch the sun set over the blue houses and you can see the fort. There are lots of other tourists staying in the hotel too (surprise, surprise), mainly German and Swiss, including our friends Cat and Marius who we met in Mount Abu.

Today we went on a tour organised by our hotel to go and see some traditional Bishnoi villages in the countryside surrounding Jodhpur. We watched a man make pots out of clay and even had a go ourselves!

Me having a go at making a plate or bowl of some kind:

Ania with her finished pot:

Our finished (but unbaked) efforts! Mine is the shallow bowl or plate in the foreground, while Ania's pot or vase is behind it!

Then we visited a man’s home just to see village life. He had a spectacular turban, a great tash and he offered us delicious chai tea too. Ania tried on some traditional clothes and took a puff of the tobacco chillum (clay pipe) which the man lit for us (I didn’t have any – it smelt like ten cigars at once!). We were also shown the length of his turban (oo-er), which he then tied back around his head with incredible speed.

In traditional clothes. That's me on the left.

Badass in a turban. Need I say more?!

Our native man lights up his chillum:

And here he is tying up his turban:

Next stop was to see a man who makes his living weaving rugs and carpets on a hand loom. He was very well read and spoke many languages. He’s also into green power and has installed solar panels at his village home!

We also saw a textile factory where they made patchwork quilts and blankets out of old clothing; and stopped at the tour guide’s home for a light lunch. We also met the man’s family, here’s his wife and son:

Sweets!

This is a picture of some barfi we bought in Mount Abu. I really love this photo with the Hindi newspaper-wrapping and Ania's tattooed foot in the background! If you're interested, click here to find out what barfi is! These ones were delicious!