Southbound - Kerela

The train ride from Mumbai to kerela is about 30hrs and we decided that we couldn't handle it so we opted to take a flight. We had to spend one night in Mumbai and from what we saw it seems like the strangest place in the world, and I can't wait to get back up there and explore it properly.

The flight was a revelation, a 1.5hr flight instead of 30hrs on the train and it was all quite orderly and efficient. We arrived in kerela landing in a little airstrip carved from a forest of coconut palms and to another world entirely. India seems to be like that, there are so many countries within this country. Kerela is a Christian state and there are churches, statues of the virgin Mary and Nuns everywhere. It is also green and hot as all get out, but it was a nice change from the cold and hectic cities of the north.

We spent a few nights in Fort Kochin which is a little dutch colony on the coast and it was really nice and mellow, and beer was cheap and everywhere, which was another nice change from up north. There are tourists everywhere and it was the first place we have been where the tourist outnumber the Indians.

After spending a few days shopping and biking around we decided to flee the head and head for the mountains and tea plantations of Munnar which is on the boarder between Kerela and Tamil Nadu. It was gorgeous and so green, unlike anything i have ever seen. It started as a jungle with waterfalls and wild elephants, and the as you got higher it turned into a Swiss mountain town with lakes and fir trees. After eating alot of carrot \cake and tea we decided we needed some action and headed back down to the hustle of Ernakulam and checked out a Pilgramage to Shiva.

Our final day in Kerela we ventured deep into the jungle backwaters and cruised around on a boat all day eating curried mussels and drinking coconut beer, which incidentally, is much more tasty than the banana beer we had in Kilimanjaro.

Kerela has been amazing and now we are heading up to Goa to sit on a beach for a week and try to come to terms with the thought of coming home.

Also check out the pics we put up from Udaipur!

A traditional kerelan dance called Kathakali.

working on the fishing rigs

ian caught a baby hammer head shark

our elephant ride into the forest

a view of the tea and mountains in Munnar

Temple celebration

the huge elephants

a cruise through the back waters

Octopussy

We arrived in Udaipur from Jodhpur on a bus that was clearly not meant for tall people. The Indian coach busses have sleeper compartments above the seats and we were seated right at the back of the bus where each bump is amplified 10 time and we had the pleasure of taking a 400km journey on a torn up road that was being widened. When we arrived our heads were bruised and we were both a bit tired and cranky, and to top it all off someone puked all over the aisle.

We arrived just after sunset and all of the horror of the bus ride was immediately erased when we found our hotel by the lake. Udaipur is beautiful, tall clean white buildings, a great calm lake (don't get too close or it spoils it a bit) and it is surrounded by green foothills.

Despite all of that beauty it is still India and we stepped out from our hotel to find that the swear outside had exploded and there was litere

Being curried out at this point of the trip, the super touristy western restaurants we very appealing to us here and we took the opportunity to mend out stomachs with a fine German bakery, and Italian dinner (fresh made pasta if you can believe it). Despite our yearning for a good western meal, we decided to take cooking lessons which turned out to be at some guys mansion 30 mins outside of the city. Vishal, Jess and I all piled on to his motorcycle and headed off to his house in the hills. We spent the day learning how to make a few different curries, snacks, and Indian breads, and he showed us all of the different masalas and when and how to use them.

James Bond's Octopussy plays here and all of the guest houses have a screening every night at 7pm on the rooftop terrace. We were both excited to just sit and watch a movie for a night and it was cool to look out off the roof and see where each scene was shot. Fun for us but it must be torture for the hotel workers who have seen it every day since 1990.

You can only sit by a lake and drink beer so long before you have to get in it so we hired a boat to take us around the lake at sunset and getting close the the floating palace was pretty spectacular.

We both enjoyed Udaipur is was relaxing and the food was great. Our next step is to move down south to Kerela via a flight from Mumbai so stay tuned.

Finally Pictures

Ian learning to cook delicious Indian food

a sunset cruise of lake pichola

water palace

a view of udaipur from the water

inside the palace

Jodhpur

We headed on a great 3AC overnight train from Jaisalmer to Jodhpur, excited for our planned home stay with the family that hosted Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, and Adrien Brody while they were filming the Darjeeling Limited. We got a great tip from a friend of ours and arrived at Amar Niwas Guesthouse without much trouble. The family - Sunil and Neena - were infinitely helpful (although I shouldn't praise them until our package that they sent arrives home safely) and great friends.

We found after our first day of walking around the narrow Blue Old City of Jodhpur that it was much larger and more hectic than we anticipated, and the fellow travellers that were there were usually only spending the night on their way to somewhere else. There was however a very cool Lord of The Rings-esque fort and some great street food and we managed to bump into some friends from Jaipur to spend a day with.

We planned to send a package home from Jodhpur as our packs were becoming ridiculously heavy and we managed to acquire a few extra pieces of luggage on the way as well. We made up a list of things to buy and send home and Sunil took me all around the city on the back of his Royal Enfield to pick them up which was definitely a highlight for me.

Although not ideal, we had to spend new years in Jodhpur but we definitely made the most of it. Bars are few and far between in Jodhpur but we found a wine shop and loaded up and found on of the few places in town that served cold beer and enjoyed a fantastic dinner (some of the best Indian food in India so far) and several drinks. We headed back up to the rooftop of our guesthouse and put on some tunes and fixed some cocktails and watched an impromptu fireworks show over the Old City with the fort light up in the background. Although the fireworks were beautiful, the setting for the was urban enough to give us a feeling of what it would be like to have your city bombed in the middle of the night. In all i would have to say it was a great new years eve, and despite being in India, McDonalds on New Years Day is still the perfect cure for a hangover.

Next Stop Udaipur...

Clock Tower Market

The Omelette Shop...Amazing

Having Chai while we buy some treasures

The Fort

New Years Eve Beers

A view of the Blue City

Arabian Nights (Jaisalmer)

Our arrival in Jaisalmer was definitely the low point of the trip so far. We had to take an overnight General train from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer, which is basically a stool in the mail car packed full of the poorest Indian men. We had not blankets and it got to freezing in the desert overnight and with no sleep and frostbitten toes, we made our way to the Jaisalmer fort in search of accommodation. It was 5am and everywhere we had planned on staying was full and we had to settle for an overpriced terrible room, with grumpy service and pushy staff, but it was a bed and it had blankets so we were in.

It always seems in India, when you have hit rock bottom the next day always somehow completely redeems any hardship that have come before. Jaisalmer is amazing, it is a desert town all golden sandstone building and centered by an amazing fort which people still live in, and where our hotel is. Compared to anywhere we have been so far it is quiet, the people friendly, and the shopping amazing. We bumped into an Aussie couple we met in Varanasi, and had drinks with them at their hotel which we ended up staying at.

The following day we hired a jeep and some camels for a trek into the desert. We loaded up our camels with water, food, and blankets and wandered off into the desert. Through a few small mud hut villages and some lentil farms we arrived at the dunes where we set up camp and would be spending the night. We had dinner cooked on the campfire and some pretty terrible Indian wine which we shared with a very cool older German couple. The best part was getting to sleep under the stars. Our bed was literally a blanket on the sand, and we awoke to a flock of Peacocks checking us out! On the way back Jess learned how to make her Camel run fast, and we had a pretty sweet desert race home.....Jess won!

Our last night in Jaisalmer we spent with a Welsh author (Lloyd Jones) and his daughter enjoying some beers at our hotel and sharing stories from our journey.

All in all Jaisalmer has been amazing but we both are excited to start heading south and getting out of the cold.

Next up Jodhpur...

A Rajasthani Christmas

We left Agra and the Taj behind for the great food, crafts, and desert of Rajasthan; first stop Jaipur (the Pink City). We arrived in the evening to a very nice suburb and our little swiss cottage on the side of a nice hotel which was a really fun room. We got some sleep as we had both come down with colds and awoke the next day to a very unexpected city. It was very organized, which is something you don't really find here. There were street lights, sidewalks, and the roads were straight and wide. It was also a lot busier and louder and dustier than we expected.

We spent a day seeing the sights which were incredible, and got a nice room for the next 2 nights and spent Christmas eve with a dutch couple, an Aussie lady, and a Kiwi couple having dinner and drinks. Christmas day we both missed home and Turkey dinner so we had to settle for the next best thing...McDonalds of course! The McMaharaja Mac, was delicious and it was surprisingly nice to have a familiar taste of home. Jaipur also has the best shopping in India so far and we (Jess) definitely took advantage

We also had a few tough days in Jaipur, getting ripped off and having our onward train being canceled, there was an afternoon spent at the train stations I don't think either of us wants to remember but I suppose that is part of traveling.

Having figured out our next leg, we packed up and rushed out of Jaipur to one of the places we were both excited for, Jaisalmer.

Christmas feast!

Amber Fort

Ian at the floating Palace

Christmas Dinner with new Friends

Agra - Taj Mahal

Went to Agra to see the Taj Mahal.......

This is the Taj Mahal, you've seen a million pictures before but here are ours, enjoy...

After the 2 hour line up to get in...here it is

Off to Rajasthan, first stop Jaipur!

Delhi - Varanasi

Our first Indian train adventure (a 15hour trip from Delhi to Varanasi) was a great success. We travelled in SL class which is the lowest class available where you are able to sleep but it is not bad if you can get an upper berth. We smuggled a bottle of Vodka, and after a few cocktails and some rounds of cards we both fell asleep with relative ease and awoke at 7am in Varanasi, right on time.

Varanai was divided into 3 parts, the "new" city which was very noisy hectic and dusty; the old city, which had narrow cobbled streets, nice bazaars and lots of cows; and the Ghats, which were along the Ganges river, where hustlers, and pilgrims were plenty and the view's were amazing. Our hotel was in the old town with a nice riverside balcony and was $8 a night. We spent the days wandering the old city and the evenings flying kites on the ghats. Every night there is a big ceremony at the main Ghat where many worshippers came to pray, there was lots of fire and bells and it was pretty intense.

The other main point of interest are the "burning ghats" where bodies are purified in the Ganges and then burned on the river's edge and the ashes are sent into the river. It is a pretty surreal place and understandably there are no pictures allowed, however Jess wanted to sneak a few seeing it was a pretty amazing site. She proceeded to sneak a picture or 2, but wasn't sneaky enough and landed us in quite a predicament. Two men accosted us and threatened calling the police unless we paid $2500, people warned us that this was a type of scam, so when we refused to pay the fine the men and Jess proceeded to have a public, profanity laced, screaming match in the middle of a half dozen burning bodies. The end result is we made a hasty exit into the maze of the old city and returned the following day camera free, lesson learned.

Our last day we took a sunrise boat ride down the Ganges which was amazing because we got to watch the locals come to bathe in the river. We returned to yoga lesson on the rooftop of our hotel which left us feeling limber and mellow for our train to Agra to see the Taj Mahal.



Getting a good rest



Baba

View of the Ganges

Cobra Baba

Sunrise boat cruise

Bathing in the Ganges

Ian's new friend, such sage advice

Burning Ghat