Holy Cow...
I think I have a love-hate relationship with India and now we are happy and well in lovely, friendly, cosy Nepal I can reflect on our month in India with some fond memories. India is a crazy place. We arrived in Delhi on the 22nd April it almost felt like being born again into a strange new world where simple things such as crossing the road, booking train tickets, asking for directions become major adventures in themselves. I was in India 8 years ago and Nick has been to some pretty odd places on his over-land journey to Ghana, but arriving in Delhi was a major shock to the system.
Cows really do have right of way in India and wander aimlessly through the streets everywhere - even on the beaches in Goa (see above). One of the Hindu Gods (I forget the name) is believed to use the cow as a vehicle to be present on earth and for this reason eating beef is strictly forbidden, and people smear cow dung in the walls of their homes for purification!?!
At the Taj Mahal with our newly acquired friends!..
Posing Bollywood style!
Taj Mahal...
The Taj Mahal was as amazing as it looks in the pictures. However, what was more amazing was the amount of Indians who wanted our photograph. It felt like we were famous, some people even took our photo without asking first - paparazzi style it was hilarious and one guy even paid the 'professional' photographer for a photo taken of him with us - how weird!!???!
After spending a couple of hours at the Taj Mahal in the 42 degree heat I suddenly felt like my head was in a vice and then realised that I hadn't had a wee since Delhi - I was seriously dehydrated...
Ill again
This was the start of our collective illnesses - and we spend the rest of the next week holed up in a air-conditioned hotel in Jaipur, Rajhastan where we both had food poisoning and strangely enough, the flu (malaria-alarm bells were ringing but we are now fine touch wood).
We did at least manage one afternoon out of our sick bed and visited the City Palace in Jaipur (the pink city)....see below
with a Sadhu...
Paradise in Goa
So, after deciding that we couldn't hack the desert-like temperatures of Rajhastan, we headed straight to Goa via Mumbai. Here we spent an amazing 10 days relaxing by the really warm Arabian sea, eating gorgeous seafood and drinking beer - most of the rest of India is t-total and vegetarian so it was like heaven arriving in Goa!
Drinking beer from a teapot with our new friend Neal - a hilarious guy from Yorkshire who kept us entertained for 2 days in Benoulem. I have never met anyone more enthusiastic about food than me until I met him!!
Sad!
The beach at Palolem
The long road to Nepal...
From Goa, we started the long journey to Nepal via Varanasi. (Varanasi was an adventure in itself but I'll have to save that one until I get home). The journey was long (4 days), hot, tiring and made interesting by the strange people we met along the way including a young German boy who'd come to India on a short trip and become 'enlightened' and turned into a holy man - complete with Sadhu gear and stick! Strange what India does to some people....
