Jaipur
This is our last stop before Delhi, and we have 3 days here. It's a bit of a let down, as it's a dirty, smelly city with lots of touts. It has lots of old monuments, but they're not impressing us much. There's a huge variety of shops, but we've seen better during our travels. We're making the most of it, using the hotel pool, and we also ate at a revolving restaurant last night, which had a great view.
I think our tolerance of getting hassled is decreasing rapidly, but we're having fun and there's not long to go. We have a bit more we want to see in Delhi, and who knows, we may find something cool here too.
Udaipur
This was one of our favourite places. It had lots of little streets with arts and craft shops. We stayed in a lovely hotel overlooking the lake. We only had two days here but filled them! First we got dresses tailor made, which after a few hiccups and adjustments turned out to be beautiful. Then we got full body massages which we were very worried about but were wonderful. In the evening we went to a performance of different kinds of dance throughout West India. This was really impressive and took place in a palace courtyard.
On the second day we went to a mock-traditional Indian village. This had a variety of styles of houses; from mud-huts to Portugese influenced royal homes. We had a guide who told us so much about life in India, and loads about his own life. As we went round, families from villages danced for us. They come to the village for a couple of weeks at a time, and perform, then go back to their villages. This makes it very authentic. There was a fair amount of cross dressing involved...and at one point Amy and I got dragged into a gypsy snake charmer dance!
After this we went shopping, ate and got our next train.
Ahmedabad
After a 22 hour train, we arrived in Ahmedabad and were determined to make the best of it. We only had one day there because we were leaving late that evening, but we went to the Ashram founded by Gandhi, which has been turned into a museum to commemorate his work. It was really astounding to see what he'd achieved and what he believed in. It had such an impact on India. We saw his house there and a prayer garden.
Then we went to a mental Indian flea market which had crowds of people who all stared, pointed and touched us as we wandered through! Obviously not used to white people. It sold everything from beds to car parts, clothes to pots and pans. Not really anything we could take with us, but interesting nonetheless.
We walked round a lake in the centre and went on a pedalo which was surprisingly hard work. We had to work really hard to get back to the jetty before our time ran out! Then we ate great tandoori and caught our train.
Goa
We stopped in Mangalore for a day, to make our trip to Goa a bit easier. There wasn't much to do there but we had a nice hotel room with a TV so made the most of that. When we arrived in Goa it was a bit of a shock! We had high hopes of sun and a beautiful beach, but it wasn't quite like that...
The place seemed quite deserted and as we headed along the beach there were loads of run-down beach huts which we were glad we weren't staying in. We couldn't walk around much at night, but again, our hotel had a TV so we ate early and went back for Friends and E.R every night! 'Highlights' were: a morning on the beach when we did have some sun, watching a film in a western restaurant, which also had a pool table (very amusing). We also got completely rained on in crazy monsoon showers as we tried to sunbathe by the pool!
Let's say we were glad when it was time to move on...
The best day yet...
We had a great time in Pondycherry, hiring bikes for a day, staying in this hippy Ashram place (peace and nature, man...), visiting a few sights and also spending some time on a very empty and unspoilt beach. We really felt like we weren't in India while we were there - it felt like France and was very laid back. After this we headed back to Chennai and met up with the girls we'd visited Asha with, which was fun. Then we caught the overnight train to Cochin in Kerala, which is our best destination yet.
On our first day we headed out around lunchtime, and explored the Jewish quarter of the town, with a synagogue and lots of interesting little shops. We also visited a Dutch Palace which has become a museum. Then in the evening we went to a traditional performance of 'Kathakali dance'. This was hilarious - as men in very vibrant costumes and make up pranced around onstage doing a 'story play'. The plot was simple, but the performance lasted an hour and a half, due to the utmost detail in facial expressions and gestures...It was all accompanied by some delightful Indian singing and percussion. We've got some great pics, though by the end we felt that our patience had been sufficiently tested and we were glad to escape!
The next day we did the most AMAZING tour. We got up at 5.45 a.m and checked out of our room, and were picked up by a driver at 6.30. Then we drove an hour and a half to an 'elephant training camp'. We knew we were going to see elephants but were a bit worried about the conditions we'd find them in. As it was, we watched them being led down to the riverbank where several men scrubbed each elephant with a coconut shell. We were told to grab a coconut and join in! So Amy and I scrubbed away on an elephant called Sunita, who was 36 and soooo huge. She seemed to love the attention and kept squirting water at us with her trunk! She was well-trained, and swapped sides when told to etc. At one point she stood up so we could do her underbelly, and then we realised how vast elephants really are. We thought if she overbalanced we'd have had an interesting death!! We watched her have her toenails clipped, and we also played with the little elephants, one of which was a year old and very cute. There must have been about 6 elephants at the water's edge at once. It was the most awesome experience I have ever had. After this, we were offered a ride on Sunita, which of course we accepted. We had to climb steps to get onto her back, and there was no harness; just a rope round her neck which we clung to. Her back was hairy and the hairs were prickly to sit on! But it felt wonderful to be riding, so high up and on such an enormous creature. It might sound cruel but there weren't loads of tourists doing it all day and the elephants seemed so happy.
After this we were taken to see three beautiful waterfalls, and we were able to walk to the top of one of them and look over the top. The spray from the falling water rose into the air and made the mountains behind look misty. Very cool. We then had lunch and headed back to our hotel, then hung around for 8 hours for our train to Mangalore (where we are now). Lots of reading and cards along the way...
Will post again soon, sorry this is long but soooo exciting.
