Rajasthan

Hello all,

Greetings from Jaisalmer, in the west of Rajasthan near the border
with Pakistan. The most immediate observation is that it is HOT. We
had got used to the heat but this is something else and Sarah has been
unable to think about anything other than Magnum ice creams. Which
they don't have. It is torture. We arrived this morning after our
worst train journey yet. There is a very big festival going on in
Rajasthan (over 1 million pilgrims attend!) and there were thousands
of them trying to get on the same train as us from Jodhpur. The train
was over 3 hours late in the end and we had a very long, very hot wait
on a packed platform in the middle of the night.

Anyway, we are here now. There is sadly no sign of any rain. We are
about to go on the camel safari in the Thar desert. This is a very
authentic, traditional tourist activity.

Backtracking a bit, we last blogged in Agra. We went from there to
Jaipur which was a big city with a fort and a palace and so on. This
is fairly standard for Rajasthani cities. It was good but if I am
honest I am now struggling to remember what the fort looked like, we
have now seen a lot of forts!

We then went to Udaipur which was absolutely amazing. The city was
just beautiful but so was the surrounding countryside which was where
our hotel was - the peace and quiet, after weeks of staying in cities,
was just heaven. We could have happily stayed for a week or more. As
it was, we had 3 lovely days, we did another cooking class and went on
a trek (which some enjoyed more than others due to knee injuries and
the blistering heat!) in the mountains. We met some nice people and
had some great food and didn't really want to leave.

We then went to Jodphur via another fort, which was incredible, and
also via a Jainist temple, which was interesting.

Jodphur's fort was actually pretty memorable, as was the city itself
which was your typical crazy busy Indian city which was interesting to
stroll around.

So we left Jodhpur last night as we have already mentioned!

The rain in Jaipur and Jodhpur was vey heavy at times, we had a few
hairy rickshaw rides where we nearly had to get out and swim, but it
was manageable and there was hardly any rain in Udaipur.

We are going back to Delhi tomorrow and then home on Friday!

Love from Sarah and Luke x

Sent from my iPhone

Delhi (part I); Varanasi; Agra

Hello all,

After visiting some incredible temples in Madurai and the surrounding area, we moved on to Delhi. The first stop was Humayun's Tomb, a beautiful building set in some magnificent gardens right in the centre of Delhi. Considering the chaos of the city that surrounds it, it's a surprising peaceful place. After that, and with the help of a friendly policeman who stopped the traffic so that Sarah could cross the road, we visited a nearby mosque and shrine (Hazrat Nizam-Ud-Din Dargah) where we were coaxed into making a very generous 'donation', something that we've found to be a pretty common practice at most of the shrines we've visited since. We probably won't be visiting many more shrines now, although all of our families and friends should expect much luck and divine favour over the coming months... We finished the day at a great restaurant that was featured on Channel 4 by Gordon Ramsey last year (Moti Mahal), famed for its butter chicken and dahl makhani - both of which were delicious.

The following day consisted of a visit to the National Gallery of Modern Art and a very exciting trip to Costa Coffee. We were driven back to the hotel by a very friendly autorickshaw driver who kept playing the theme from Mission Impossible at every opportunity, despite the fact that we spent most of the time either at a standstill, or travelling at about 5 mph.

Next stop: Varanasi, where there were thousands and thousands of pilgrims in town for a very important annual Hindu festival. Varanasi is one of the most holy cities in India, where Hindu pilgrims travel to bathe in the holy water of the Ganges, which is said to wash away all sins. It's a fascinating place, although nothing quite braces you for the sight of open cremations on the ghats that line the river. We were able to take a short boat ride up part of the river, but it was running very fast due to the monsoon, resulting in us abandoning ship at a nearby ghat halfway through the ride in fear. One evening we also had the chance to witness the ceremony of 'Ganga Aarti', which consists of a lot of dancing, singing and fire. We weren't 100% sure what was going on, but it was very impressive all the same.

Our departure from Varanasi was an interesting one. Unfortunately Sarah's stomach took a turn for the worse in the morning, which made the journey to the station a bit of a challenge. The biggest challenge of the day, however, was presented at the train station itself, where a collection of monkeys, cows and rats harassed Sarah for about two hours while our train was delayed. On boarding the train, a man advised Sarah to be brave and to stop crying, something Luke had been too afraid to say all day (although Sarah is keen to point out that she wasn't crying ALL day).

Agra was our next destination, for the obligatory visit to the Taj Mahal. We can safely say that this is not over-rated; the building is absolutely breathtaking. We had our photo taken by groups of Indian tourists many times, who at times seemed more interested in us than the Taj Mahal itself. We also met another friendly, although crazy, rickshaw driver who liked to stop, clap his hands and sing a song at regular intervals.

Finally, we visited Fatehpur Sikri, built by Emperor Akbar in the 16th century as the capital of the Mughal Empire. He had three wives - one Muslim, one Christian and one Hindu, who all had a separate part of the palace to occupy. We visited another shrine, made another generous donation, and then caved in and retreated to Pizza Hut... After three weeks, there's only so much curry we can take. Sarah is still suffering from some stomach issues, so a break from spicy food was very much welcomed.

Heading to Jaipur tonight - hopefully Sarah will fare better on this journey. If not, Luke hopes to enlist the help of another friendly fellow passenger to talk some sense into her.

Bye for now!

xxx

Tamil Nadu - Temples, Tanqueray, Tea and Tennis

Namaste! Or Vanakkam as we say here in Tamil! Our Tamil is a bit rusty
but we're picking it up and it's almost as good as our Turkish and
Swedish now.

We arrived in Madurai on Monday morning after our first train journey
- overnight from Kochi. That was a bit of an experience.....! Finding
the right carriage was the hardest part - the train was about 3 miles
long and we were at the wrong end of the platform. There was quite an
incentive to sprint down the platform, difficult though it was with
our heavy backpacks, as neither of us fancied cramming into the
luggage compartment for a 12 hour ride. Sarah wasn't really feeling
that first class was exactly spacious though but she has readjusted
her expectations in order to avoid further disappointment on the next
journey (18 hours on Saturday night.....can't wait!). Sarah was woken
by someone wafting a tray of curry in her face. Sarah also visited the
toilets and decided she would rather wear a nappy next time. She
didn't like to complain though.

Madurai was bloody mental - it was in the mid 30s when we got off the
train, it was incredibly busy and smelly and the streets are unpaved.
Not quite sure why Lonely Planet describes it as being like
Manchester.....?! Maybe Manchester 100 years ago?! Anyway - we were
craving anything non-curry so we had something that claimed to be a
pizza in Madurai's only fast food joint. We then headed to see a
palace, we didn't really establish what this palace was but it was big
and impressive and had shady areas and hundreds of school children who
all wanted to shake our hands. Luke started to feel that it was time
to visit a bathroom again so we we went back to the hotel.

Now we were starting to think that drastic action needed to be
taken.....we couldn't spend half our time in India in bathrooms and
hotel rooms. Luckily they don't call Sarah a genius for nothing. It's
hadn't been suggested by any of the medical advice which we have
sought but Sarah felt sure it would work......we have booked into the
Gateway Hotel which is part of the Taj group (basically the Indian
version of Holiday Inn, Google it if you don't believe us). And that's
where you find us now - in our white cotton dressing gowns getting
ready for dinner with BBC World News in the background. Luke has been
like Lazarus, he has made a remarkably speedy recovery....... Sarah
has never seen him so happy. It is an old colonial building which the
CEOs of JB Coats Ltd used to live in. We have played tennis and drank
tea and the attentive staff serve Luke gin by the pool and move
Sarah's lounger around as the sun moves......

In all seriousness........! It has been a wise decision! They have a
special Monsoon deal (the hotel is practically empty) and so it hasn't
broken the bank. We also couldn't have really relaxed in Madurai
itself, the noise, heat and smell was just too oppressive. And......we
feel better! Touch wood.

On Thursday we are spending the day visiting temples and on Friday we
are flying to Delhi.

Healthier and happier love,

Sarah and Luke x

P.S. Monsoon news: the monsoon only affects prices in Tamil Nadu -
it's cheap to stay here, but absolutely no rain!

Kerala

Hi all

So we are leaving Kerala today - we have been here for nearly a week now and compared to Mumbai it has been so relaxing and peaceful. Unfortunately we have spent quite a large proportion of our time here in bed/in the bathroom with continuing Bombay Belly problems for both of us. Gross. But we did have an interlude in which we went to Allepey to visit the 'backwaters' which is basically rivers, canals, and rice fields where there are loads of villages all along the banks of the water. It is really really beautiful - they grow all sorts of tropical fruits and flowers like mangoes, coconuts, guava, hibiscus etc. They also fish and do all their washing in the water and get around by canoe or ferry. It's really amazing. We were going to go on a houseboat, which is the standard tourist thing to do, but we're actually really glad we didn't as we stayed instead in one of the villages with a family and so we got to experience the more traditional way of life, and we spent a lot of time just chilling out by the water, on a boat or a canoe. We met lots of the locals who gave us breakfast one morning in one of their houses, we were also sung to, and visited the local bar (where the only alcoholic drink is 'toddy' which is made from coconut). It was all very authentic and the big houseboats kept going past with tourists on them and we were pretty pleased that we had not done that, I think we saw a lot more than we would have done from the deck of the ship.

We then came back to Cochi only to get ill again and spend an exciting 24hours in bed taking it in turns to use the bathroom. We are feeling a lot better today and are excited about where we are heading this evening - Madurai in Tamil Nadu where we hope to see an ancient temple which is apparently the 'Athens' of the East or something like that. It sounds good anyway.

I have just realised that we have not really given much Monsoon weather information, which was the supposed point of this blog. So:

In Mumbai the rain was barely noticeable and did not stop us from doing anything. It was a light drizzle for a few hours which was actually quite refreshing.
However, landslides caused by the monsoon were the reason why we did not visit Goa, so this caused quite a big change to our trip.
In Kerala it rains heavily for a few hours each day/night. This means you can't really do much when it is raining but you can always just dart for cover and wear a waterproof jacket. It's not a big deal and again, it is quite refreshing.


So that's it from us for now, hope all is well with all our fans.

xxx

Cochin

Hi fans,

We've had a wonderful two days in Cochin since the last update, the first of which consisted mainly of a visit to the friendly 'Dr. Roy', who was able to prescribe something (not 100% sure what...) which has resulted in a speedy recovery for us both.

Fort Cochin is an absolutely beautiful place; certainly a refreshing change of pace compared to Mumbai! The streets are a lot calmer and the buildings themselves are very different - there's a strong Portuguese influence here. We started off the day with a nice swim in a local hotel, followed by a cookery class by the lovely Leena. Although, to be honest, we thought we knew everything there was to know about Indian cookery, she certainly had a few tricks that we hadn't seen - the food that she cooked was absolutely delicious. She taught us six new Keralan recipes in all, which we're sure you're looking forward to us sharing with you when we return.

We spent the rest of the afternoon being shown around Fort Cochin by an autorickshaw driver called Shaki who was great and took to all the main sights, and quite a few shops too... Luke spent a great deal of the afternoon attempting to prevent Sarah from buying everything under the sun. If you think her TopShop habit is bad, you should see her in a spice bazaar...

xxx

Bombay Mumbai - stop 1

Hi fans
Sarah is typing this as Mr Macleod lays low in the  hotel room for as long as possible before check out time. He was a bad case of Bombay  Belly. My biggest fans will be shocked - yes Luke is ill and not me!! But maybe I was Indian in a previous life, as I have long suspected.
He is here now so I will have to be serious. 
We are leaving Mumbai today to fly to Cochi in Kerala. We were meant to be getting the train to Goa but there have been landslides so we cancelled plans to go to Goa and booked a flight straight to Kerala. Well, this is what a very persuasive and helpful Indian travel agent Babi told us. We don't really know anything for sure except that he thought Luke and I were a couple (as everyone in India does - Luke is thrilled to have found himself with a girlfriend/wife for 5 weeks) and he repeatedly told us he wanted us to 'See the real India, know the real India, love the real India' but this came at a price and also would have necessitated us spending all day in his taxi so we declined.

Unfortunately we weren't so successful at rejecting the advances of a nice Indian man who insisted that we were not allowed to look at Crawford Market (a market set up by the British) on our own so he kindly came with us and spices we bought at a spice stall were about the same price as Waitrose spices, so in hindsight I think we walked straight into that one. We also rewarded him handsomely for his time and also obligingly spent 2 days budget on silk and pashmina products......so we are certainly supporting the local tourism market. In fairness - they guy was in his 70s and had been in the market for most of his life, so he was quite an interesting fellow. I am also glad he didn't take us into the meat market 'I never take women there' because there was enough dead animals around anyway (just generally - there seems to be a lot of dead dogs and dead rats in Mumbai!) so I think I saw enough!


Yesterday we also went to visit Davari slums which is home to 1 million people, its where Slumdog Millionaire was filmed (by the way - I think slumdog millionaire was for Mumbai people about as popular but also as unrealistic as Harry Potter is for British people) and its Asia's largest slum. We paid what we later learned was 3 days salary for the average slum worker for the tour (each) but the company (reality tours) was an NGO and we could clearly see that they do a lot of good work in the slums so it was definitely money well spent. To describe the slum is difficult - Luke and I were both really overwhelmed. The average wage is 140 rupees a day. Luke and I are about to spent 450 rupees on a taxi ride to the airport. I just bought a bottle of coke and a bottle of water and that was 55 rupees. So you get the idea. Its 4 bottles of coke a day. The conditions they work in were hellish. It is so hot anyway and then the work they do is very tough - a lot of the industry is recycling for the big companies and so they were melting metal and plastic in tiny cramped rooms when it is 30 degrees outside. In the residential area a family of 4 or 5 live in a room the size of perhaps a smallish bathroom in the UK. They cook, clean and sleep there. The toilets are either the public toilets or just wherever they can. To get in between the houses there are alleyways which reminded me of the tunnels from the trenches which I visited at Ypres on a school trip. You had to stoop and you couldn't fit more than one person across. It was upsetting but the silver lining is that our guide (who grew up in a slum) explained that when you have nothing you appreciate what you can get for free and the two values he cited as being strong values in the slums are community and humanity. The people didn't look hungry and the children were lively and clean looking and most go to school. It wasn't like slumdog millionaire.

We did go to the Taj Palace last night for drinks, which we hope you won't judge us for.........! It did very much bring home to us the different worlds that exist side by side in India. We had some cocktails in the Harbour Bar, Mumbai's first licensed bar. It was destroyed in the 2008 attacks but the refurbishment is incredible and our waiter was telling us all about the origins of the drinks they serve and the story of the bar. We could look out to the bay and the Gate of India and I could imagine it in colonial times - it was quite amazing.

We have saved our money by buying cheap food - we can eat lunch and dinner for a few pounds and it is incredible Indian food which is, primarily, why we made this trip. Perhaps we might have to be a bit more discerning after Luke's little episode this morning! hopefully not though as we have eaten pretty much as locals do - for example on Chowpatty beach we ate with Indian families on rugs on the sand being served very attentively by the people working on the stalls - and it has been really atmospheric and exciting.

Final thoughts - Never EVER drive in Mumbai. I genuinely think they make all other bad drivers in the world (Mexico, Italy? Greece) seem like safe conscientious drivers. I have feared for my life most of the time I have been in a taxi and crossing the road is literally a case of making a mad dash for it into the face of oncoming traffic and hoping for the best.

Thats it for now - next stop Kerala!

Please send us emails/messages with your news!

xxx

We're off!! (touch wood)

We are at heathrow terminal 4 waiting to board our air india flight to
Mumbai! We had high drama yesterday when our flight was cancelled at
the last minute but after much excitement, and consultation of the
ever useful college of law GDL contract handbook, we were rebooked and
had a wonderful evening at one of heathrow's finest hotels. We had a
delicious delayed flight buffet dinner with all sarah's new friends
from the BA service desk queue.
Anyway we are now on our way. Luke has his extensive reading material
sorted so he should be able to avoid talking to me until mumbai!
Hope the curry on the plane doesn't make us sick.......!
See you in India!