Den's been getting a lot of attention from the gentlemen here in India. I think it's likely to be the height and the blonde hair, though she's assured me she finds it less than enamouring. I've found one plus side though When negotiating prices for tuktuks and such like, she seems to immediately get offered prices that would take me an age to haggle down to. From now on I'm letting her do all of the negotiating.
We spent a few days in Jaipur. It's known as the pink city, as the whole of the old town was painted pink to celebrate a royal visit in the 19th century and has remained like that since. 1st day there was one of doing nothing, and then we had a day shopping. Our most important purchase was a new umbrella (sunshade) for Den as the last one was misplaced a couple of days ago in a rickshaw. When we eventually got round to sightseeing, there were some lovely forts and historic buildings to see in the local area.
Our favourites were.... first off, Amber Fort. Set in hills 11km north of the city. The fort's battlements follow the jagged hills for miles beyond the citadel. There was a festival on at the time we visited so the crowds were large and the hawkers on the march up to the gatehouse were unrelenting. But once inside, the crowds dispersed in the narrow maze of corridors around the main palace.
From there we moved on to the Jantar Mantar Observatory, which I remembered from a BBC documentary as containing some wonderfully designed scientific instruments. Mostly still in full working order, I found it very exciting to be able to wander around them and read the time off a 300 year old, 30m high sundial and to find my watch to be a minute slow.
Had a look around the ostentatious City Palace, which still today houses the Maharajahs, their current seven story abode was a little more bling than the average home in India it is fair to say.
From Jaipur we caught the sleeper train to Jaisalmer. More visiting forts ensued. This one built of sandstone and very imposing with views for miles across the desert scrub.
Went shopping, and ended up being given an impromptu tour of an old town house that belonged to one of the merchants, whose great, great, great, great etc grandfather had served in the court of the Maharajah. He was hoping to use the proceeds from his shop to turn the house into a museum. I hope he does. I think it's the not so stately homes that give the most interesting insights into the past.
In the evening we took a Camel ride in the desert to watch the sun go down over the sand dunes. A bit of a cliché, but what a lovely way to end the day, especially as we were met on arrival by a man who sold me a cold(ish) beer. For a price.
We tried to get a train back to Delhi for the following day so that we could make for Amritsar, but it was fully booked, so we've had an extra day of reading and pottering around the shops while waiting for tomorrow. Will have to remember to make sure we book our tickets well in advance next time.
We stopped long enough in Delhi to witness the “improvements” that they have made to the backpacker's ghetto in preparation for the Commonwealth games. Interestingly they decided that the crowded Main Bazar street would look a little more elegant if it was a little wider. To achieve this they removed the front rooms from all the buildings for maybe half a kilometre along the road. While a bit drastic, it does make the street look a lot more spacious. Unfortunately they failed to attach new fronts to the buildings in time for the start of the games. In fact, they didn't even get close to finishing the job. For the time being therefore, if you look up, away from the gathering swarm of hawkers at street level, you can peer into the shopkeepers homes above. Must be most disconcerting.
Stayed more than long enough to decide that our hotel wasn't the best, then headed north to Amritsar. It was a comparatively painless 8 hours on the train, and our hotel was immediately opposite the train station. Spent a few days there, taking in the sights, foremost among which was the golden temple, also doing a bit of shopping and seemingly rather a lot of time looking for book stores that have recently closed down. Very frustrating. And as a result of which, I ended up having to read one of Den's trashy girly novels.
Monday, 25 October 2010
Tuesday, 12 October 2010
India & the Commonwealth Games
Just when we thought we were comfortable with riding our tandem around in Asia and being used the generally poor driving, we hit India. Fine on the rural roads. Suicidal once you hit a town on a loaded tandem with a trailer. No one expects a push bike to be so long, and they don't drive with a margin for error. Scary!!
More importantly (for me - Rich) my ribs are still causing me discomfort from where I bashed them a month ago. We now have 3 weeks before we head off to South America, via home, and I wanted to make sure that I am 100% fit for that. So after we got close enough to Delhi to be able to load up a taxi, we decided to give my bruised ribs a rest and to finish up the Asia leg of our trip a few miles early... .is that wrong??
For our holiday from cycling, we're going to be relaxing in Delhi, going to the track cycling at the games and having a train based tour of northern India. We are currently in the medieval fortress city of Gwalior, 100km south of Agra. We saw the Taj Mahal a few days ago, and for once I came away without feeling that the reality doesn't live up to the hype. It's amazing!! It's even worth running the gauntlet of hard sell touts and hawkers for.
The trains have been a pleasant surprise too. Normally I'm an avid exponent of the view that the best way to see a country is by bicycle. But with the driving in India, for the moment, taking the train seems the ideal way for us to get around.
More importantly (for me - Rich) my ribs are still causing me discomfort from where I bashed them a month ago. We now have 3 weeks before we head off to South America, via home, and I wanted to make sure that I am 100% fit for that. So after we got close enough to Delhi to be able to load up a taxi, we decided to give my bruised ribs a rest and to finish up the Asia leg of our trip a few miles early... .is that wrong??
For our holiday from cycling, we're going to be relaxing in Delhi, going to the track cycling at the games and having a train based tour of northern India. We are currently in the medieval fortress city of Gwalior, 100km south of Agra. We saw the Taj Mahal a few days ago, and for once I came away without feeling that the reality doesn't live up to the hype. It's amazing!! It's even worth running the gauntlet of hard sell touts and hawkers for.
The trains have been a pleasant surprise too. Normally I'm an avid exponent of the view that the best way to see a country is by bicycle. But with the driving in India, for the moment, taking the train seems the ideal way for us to get around.
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
Lumbini to the Indian Border
Lumbini is the birthplace of the founder of one of the world's major religions and has been designated a world heritage site. Surprisingly, there were comparatively few tourists milling around, just a handful of western backpackers and some Buddhist pilgrims. The various Buddhist nations have each built a pagoda around a specially designated park, but the ancient remains themselves are low key, and perhaps the tranquil setting is the site's greatest draw. It's biggest downfall is the location in a mosquito infested marsh land. Mosquito's are EVERYWHERE!! Even though we employed enough DEET related mozzie replant products to take out half of the home counties I was bitten remorselessly.
From Lumbini we made our way west along a minor road, that turned into a track, that turned into a river. We crossed by leaking ferry. The routine appeared to be: dock, bail out, load, cross river, dock, bail out... etc.
Once back on the highway we had a 3 day ride to our next destination of Bardia national park. The roads proved to be amazingly quiet as we sailed along the flat stretches from village to village. We later found the reason for the quiet roads was heartbreaking. The roads were quiet because no buses were running, due to a dispute over an incident that had occurred the previous week. A little girl had crept under a bus while it was at a rest stop to play, the passengers had bordered the bus and the driver had driven off, in doing so he ran over the poor little girl, crushing her to death. A lynch mob formed and dragged the man from the driver's cab, tied him in a sack and threw him into the river. A few days later, his wife, overwhelmed with grief and having no way to support herself or family, committed suicide. The driver's dispute arose from the fact that although the bus company insurance company paid out 5000 pounds to the dead child's family, no compensation was payable to the widow of the bus driver. Terrible, terrible tragedy.
Accommodation was basic on the first night of the ride in the town of Lamahi, 70 miles out of Lumbini. Annoyingly, the teenage son of the owners had a copy of a Justin Beber (that how you spell it??) song, which he insisted on playing over and over while we had dinner. Not that worthy of note, you might say. Anyhow, later, in our 1st floor room, we were lying in bed, scantily clad owing to the heat, when from just outside the window emanated said same JB song. Dirty little peeping tom had climbed onto the a joining roof and was looking in from outside. To make it worse he came back in the middle of the night with a torch.
Faired better the following night, where we found Hotel Plaza in a town called Kohalpur. Which aside from being in the middle of a project to extend upwards by two storeys, was a very pleasant place to spend the night at just under 8 quid.
We turned off the main road for the last 12km to the lodge in Bardia National Park, forded a quite broad river and then bumped down a rutted track to the park HQ. We stayed at the Forest Hideaway lodge, in a mud hut with thatched rood. The lodge was arranged around a highly manacured central courtyard which contained a lovely english country garden. Very tranquil. On our day off we went for a elephant safari. Unfortunately, the grasses were very long at the end of the monsoon, so we didn't see any of the big game that we'd hoped (although not expected) to catch.
Moving on from Bardia to the border we had another 70 mile-ish ride to the crossroads of Atariya. Guest-house was dirty, but looked the best of an unappealing lot. The staff made up for it with their enthusiasm. As did the ever present mosquitos.
Final day to the border was a short 25 mile hop to the border town, Mahendranagar. We plucked the name of the best hotel in town from the Duff Guide and went to check in. Unfortunately, there seems to be a policy at Hotel Opera of telling westerners that they only have the rooms with air conditioning available, (some people at Bardia said this line had been trotted out to them). They are all but twice the price of the standard rooms. So, I went and waited outside and took a look at the book. 2 minutes later, they'd found actually, they did have a non AC room available. Amazing!! Anyhow, aside from that poor introduction, everything is clean, tidy, the restaurant tasty and very modestly priced. Ok, Den has found that custom made clothes can be made up quickly and cheaply so we're off dress shopping. Oh, happy days!!
From Lumbini we made our way west along a minor road, that turned into a track, that turned into a river. We crossed by leaking ferry. The routine appeared to be: dock, bail out, load, cross river, dock, bail out... etc.
Once back on the highway we had a 3 day ride to our next destination of Bardia national park. The roads proved to be amazingly quiet as we sailed along the flat stretches from village to village. We later found the reason for the quiet roads was heartbreaking. The roads were quiet because no buses were running, due to a dispute over an incident that had occurred the previous week. A little girl had crept under a bus while it was at a rest stop to play, the passengers had bordered the bus and the driver had driven off, in doing so he ran over the poor little girl, crushing her to death. A lynch mob formed and dragged the man from the driver's cab, tied him in a sack and threw him into the river. A few days later, his wife, overwhelmed with grief and having no way to support herself or family, committed suicide. The driver's dispute arose from the fact that although the bus company insurance company paid out 5000 pounds to the dead child's family, no compensation was payable to the widow of the bus driver. Terrible, terrible tragedy.
Accommodation was basic on the first night of the ride in the town of Lamahi, 70 miles out of Lumbini. Annoyingly, the teenage son of the owners had a copy of a Justin Beber (that how you spell it??) song, which he insisted on playing over and over while we had dinner. Not that worthy of note, you might say. Anyhow, later, in our 1st floor room, we were lying in bed, scantily clad owing to the heat, when from just outside the window emanated said same JB song. Dirty little peeping tom had climbed onto the a joining roof and was looking in from outside. To make it worse he came back in the middle of the night with a torch.
Faired better the following night, where we found Hotel Plaza in a town called Kohalpur. Which aside from being in the middle of a project to extend upwards by two storeys, was a very pleasant place to spend the night at just under 8 quid.
We turned off the main road for the last 12km to the lodge in Bardia National Park, forded a quite broad river and then bumped down a rutted track to the park HQ. We stayed at the Forest Hideaway lodge, in a mud hut with thatched rood. The lodge was arranged around a highly manacured central courtyard which contained a lovely english country garden. Very tranquil. On our day off we went for a elephant safari. Unfortunately, the grasses were very long at the end of the monsoon, so we didn't see any of the big game that we'd hoped (although not expected) to catch.
Moving on from Bardia to the border we had another 70 mile-ish ride to the crossroads of Atariya. Guest-house was dirty, but looked the best of an unappealing lot. The staff made up for it with their enthusiasm. As did the ever present mosquitos.
Final day to the border was a short 25 mile hop to the border town, Mahendranagar. We plucked the name of the best hotel in town from the Duff Guide and went to check in. Unfortunately, there seems to be a policy at Hotel Opera of telling westerners that they only have the rooms with air conditioning available, (some people at Bardia said this line had been trotted out to them). They are all but twice the price of the standard rooms. So, I went and waited outside and took a look at the book. 2 minutes later, they'd found actually, they did have a non AC room available. Amazing!! Anyhow, aside from that poor introduction, everything is clean, tidy, the restaurant tasty and very modestly priced. Ok, Den has found that custom made clothes can be made up quickly and cheaply so we're off dress shopping. Oh, happy days!!
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