TravelStream™ news feed for member hobnob on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/hobnob en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 12 May 2008 18:15:41 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1209521640/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1209521640/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1209521640/tpod.html Mon, 12 May 2008 18:15:41 -0400 In search of the perfect curry... The blog of Ros and Hugh's travels in Asia 2007/2008 (www.asianhobnob.co.uk)

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Nagarkot, Nagarkot, Nepal

Hugh:We nearly didn't make it to Nagarkot. The bus had been going for about 20 seconds when Ros said "is the road tilting or is it the bus?". It was actually the bus that was tilting, and Ros now wanted us to get off and wait for the next one, if it wasn't for the fact that it was the last bus of the day. She then remembered the advert on the London Underground that said a London bus can lean 22 degrees before toppling over, so thought we'd probably be ok.Nagarkot is a well known point to get stunning views of the Himalayas, including Everest, and apart from spending some time in the peace and quiet of the Nagarkot hills, this was the main reason for going. We headed straight for the Hotel At The End Of The Universe, and before you ask, yes it did have a restaurant! It was just as you might imagine a hotel with that name. It was up a winding pathway and there were only two other guests apart from us. With the wind swirling around, the wooden walls creaking, and the rain lashing at the windows, it did exactly what it said on the tin! Nagarkot is about 2000m above sea level, so the air was cool, clear and fresh. We took a cosy little cabin room and settled in for the evening in their floor-cushion restaurant, crossing our fingers for fine views the following morning.The whole finger-crossing thing didn't work. Even though the hotel manager was also crossing his fingers, we woke up to cloud cover, so there were to be no views for us. Nevertheless, we set off on a 4-hour mini-trek down the ridge of a hill towards the town of Nala. It was a pretty boring walk to be honest. We saw the Nepalese army in training, and we saw two wild rabbits and that was about it.Nala is a tiny village, and we only intended to get the bus straight out to the nearby town of Dhulikhel. It turns out however, that Nala has two bus stops, so we were lead through the village to the correct bus stop by a local who was keen to practice what little English he knew. It was nice see a <i>real Nepali village - tourists don't really visit Nala. Although it wasn't as neat and tidy as the tourist villages, the people were friendly and it had a good atmosphere.We arrived in Dhulikhel (via two buses) to find that it wasn't nearly as interesting as Lonely Planet would have us believe, so wandered around a little and were soon on the bus back to Kathmandu.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1209585180/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1209585180/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1209585180/tpod.html Mon, 12 May 2008 17:35:30 -0400 In search of the perfect curry... The blog of Ros and Hugh's travels in Asia 2007/2008 (www.asianhobnob.co.uk)

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Kathmandu, Kathmandu, Nepal

Ros:I can't quite believe that I'm writing our last blog entry! Right, soldiering on before I get upset thinking about it...We arrived back in Kathmandu from a fairly uneventful last Asian bus journey and headed to our new hotel. In our brief sojourn in Kathmandu on the way through from Chitwan we woke up in the middle of the night itching like crazy. Bedbugs were the last straw at Hotel Northfield so after demanding a change of room in the middle of the night and then refusing to pay much for it, we moved all our things to storage at Hotel Nature before setting off to Bhaktapur. The building isn't quite so atmospheric but the people are nice and the rooms are bug-free - two fairly important things we feel. And it's on the much quieter Paknajol side of Thamel.To keep ourselves busy and to stop ourselves thinking about our impeding end of travels we had a list of shopping, photo-backing-up and pub/restaurant/cafe-visiting to get through, which kept us busy for a day and a half. On our last evening we headed out to Swayambunath, a stupa on a hill to the west of the city. We had barely climbed to the top before one of the mighty 'pre-monsoon' storms rolled in and, deciding that on the top of a hill wasn't the best place to be, we ran back down and watched the storm light up Thamel from Tom and Jerry's pub. Once the rain had abated we went for our last proper meal in Nepal - Momos and Thukpa. We thought it might be a while before we'd find those again...A few points about our silly-long journey home* In order to confirm flights with call centres based in India it is best to leave about two hours free. You will need a stiff drink afterwards. * We arrived at Kathmandu airport at midday on Friday 2nd May. We arrived at Heathrow at 3.45pm on Saturday 3rd May. For those of you clued-up on your time differences, that made our journey over 32 and a half hours. What joy.* Kathmandu airport has a resident cat who hangs out by the duty free shops. It finds bored passengers who try to speak to it in hewwo-pusscat-English a bit scary. * We took three flights - Kathmandu to Delhi, Delhi to Amman and Amman to Heathrow. Note to self: In future, three is probably a bit of an overkill. Especially when you don't like flying. * We stopped over for 13 hours in Delhi. We decided not to leave the airport but to stay in transit and then discovered that they were digging up the transit lounge. Faced with the prospect of 13 hours (4pm to 5am!) sitting on a metal chair beside a bloke smashing up concrete, we paid the extortionate $25 each to sit in the business lounge where we got to curl up on a sofa, watch telly and partake of the free food and drink. Thankfully we could pay in a combination of Indian rupees, dollars and pounds as we emptied pockets and wallets and money-belts. Unfortunately the free-of-charge computer wasn't working and the four guys who tried to fix it failed. Hugh was repeatedly called upon to help various businessmen connect their laptops to the internet as the staff couldn't cope - ah how we'd missed India...not.* The airport staff at Delhi couldn't be bothered to check us in to our Royal Jordanian flights until two hours before we left, by which stage it was apparently impossible to seat us together on the Heathrow leg. After waiting in a chaotic transit queue at Amman it proved perfectly possible - the flight was half empty. * In spite of the Royal Jordanian staff telling us differently on the phone, it is easy to check your luggage in at Kathmandu all the way to Heathrow, even if you are changing airline mid-journey. If you bug them enough you'll even get to identify it before it's moved to your next flight at Delhi. We arrived back in Pinner and after briefly touching base with my mum and grandma we headed up to Telford early Sunday morning. You see, the reason that we'd not written this last piece of blog until now (I'm sitting in our flat in Eastcote. And no...I've not had a ruddy avocado yet) and the reason that we'd not told many people we were coming home is that we thought we'd surprise Hugh's mum on her 60th birthday.She saw us coming up the drive with our bags and wearing our packamacs and thought we were selling tea towels. That's what six months in Asia does to you!When can we leave again?
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1209375240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1209375240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1209375240/tpod.html Thu, 01 May 2008 22:43:38 -0400 In search of the perfect curry... The blog of Ros and Hugh's travels in Asia 2007/2008 (www.asianhobnob.co.uk)

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Bhaktapur, Bhaktapur, Nepal

Hugh:Bhaktapur is an old city not far from Kathmandu. Like all Nepalese cities, it has it's very own Durbar Square, along with several other squares. Unlike other Nepalese cities, the rest of the old city is also intact. Bhaktapur is best known for its special curd, called the "king of curds", which we sampled at every available opportunity. Yum yum!We stayed in a really lovely little hotel. It was in an old building right on one of the squares and had the most comfortable bed (complete with duvet and crisp white sheets) that we've had in the whole of our trip!Anyway, we spent quite a while pottering and walking around the city. No stories to tell really, so I'll just upload some photographs!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1209127980/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1209127980/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1209127980/tpod.html Tue, 29 Apr 2008 05:30:11 -0400 In search of the perfect curry... The blog of Ros and Hugh's travels in Asia 2007/2008 (www.asianhobnob.co.uk)

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Royal Chitwan National Park, Royal Chitwan National Park, Nepal

Hugh:We had planned to travel from Pokhara to Chitwan on a raft. Unfortunately we were the only two people in Pokhara who wanted to make this trip, so it was cancelled. Instead, we took a bus to the village of Sauraha, on the banks of the Rapti river, which forms the northern boundary of Royal Chitwan National Park. Sauraha is a sleepy little place, with several guesthouses, mainly down by the river. There are some resorts in the National Park itself, but we opted to stay in Sauraha, mainly because the resorts make you sign up for a whole programme (including an evening of traditional stick dancing i.e. Nepali Morris dancing), whereas staying in Sauraha we were able to pick what we wanted to do.Ros:The canoe trip and jungle walk We weren't originally going to do a jungle walk. We'd read various accounts of people being attacked by tigers and chased by rhinos on such walks in Chitwan and we figured that we'd actually had enough exercise on this holiday already without an enforced sprinting and tree-climbing lesson. However, the guy who ran our guest house (whose name I've totally forgotten and I may come back and change this bit when I remember) really waxed lyrical about nature walks. He promised us two guides - one in front and one at the back - with big sticks and lots of knowledge about how to go about jungles without getting gored. So much to Hugh's dismay (he may be happy throwing himself off cliffs but when it comes to animals he is quite frankly a wimp. You should see how quickly he puts me between him and a barking dog...) we signed up. It turned out that we were the only people going with our guides, which was nice. We picked up a dug-out canoe from the Rapti river beside our guesthouse (essentially a big tree, hollowed out and feels about as stable in the water as you'd imagine...not sure I drew breath for the first five minutes...) and went in search of crocodiles (now you see why stability of said canoe was such a concern...). We saw two within about three minutes. They were literally in the shallows just around the bend from the village. I managed to get a sort-of photo before they glided away into the depths - and crocodiles really do glide in a very scary gonna-sneak-up-and-eat-you type way. Thankfully these particular two were Gharial crocodiles, which were 'vegetarian' (cue heated discussion over whether vegetarians eat fish. My renewed curses again to those dear folks who eat fish and call themselves veggies...and I'm not referring to the crocodiles here, who presumably are blissfully unaware of such definitional problems and their ramifications for hapless real vegetarians). Ahem. Our canoe trip didn't last very long as we pulled over at the side to go and find a rhino in a water hole. To aid your visualisation of the scene at this point, please picture Hugh looking distinctly waxy in complexion with eyes the size of saucers, picking his way a good way behind Ros and the first guide through thick scratchy grasses that were taller than us and very dense. Seriously, we could have trodden on a rhino's tail before we'd seen it. The rhino turned out to be a one-eared male and was bathing over the other side of the water hole with his bum to us. So, along with a few other canoe-fulls of people who'd gradually arrived, we happily snapped away with our camera taking distinctly mediocre pictures of the back end of a rhino mostly submerged a good way away. Then it stood and quickly turned towards us. Cue twenty panicking tourists scrambling through the grass to Get The Hell Out Of There. I paused for just a few seconds to get a photo of it standing - which was a bit rubbish as I was rushing - then joined the dash. I'd nearly got through the grass when I realised that not all the guides had followed at such a pace, and annoyed at not having got a good photo, I turned around to tiptoe back. Sure enough, Mr Rhino had just turned around to get comfy and was now facing us, mostly submerged and a good way away. And I'd missed the good picture. Doh! We continued from there on foot through the grasses and hadn't gone far before our guide stooped to point out some tiger tracks that were fresh from the night before. If Hugh could have got any paler he'd have begun to turn transparent by this point. The guide then told us what we should do if we saw a tiger - not worry, stay still and take a photo. Er, ok... And if we saw a rhino - stay still, don't go close, perfectly ok unless it's a 'baby mother' in which case we might need to run. But not to worry because we should run in a zig-zag and climb up a tree, when we'll be quite safe. (Last time I ran for a train I nearly keeled over and I probably climbed my last tree a good seventeen years ago. Eeek!). If we saw a bear we should stay still and watch it - it might stand up and try to scare us but it was unlikely to attack. After all that I was starting to think that maybe Hugh had been right to think the walk a bad idea. Hugh asked whether our guide had been charged by a rhino before. 'Oh many time' said the guide laughing. Hugh didn't ask any more questions after that... Walking through the jungle really is, as the guy at our guest house said, a really strange experience. You can feel the animals all around you - the occasional rustle, snap of a twig or sudden flurry of alarm calls from birds - but you rarely see any more than prints. We walked up to a little wooden bridge over a stream, paused for a few minutes and then walked back in the direction we'd come. In the few minutes we'd paused a civet cat had crossed the path just behind us and melted away into the bushes again. Chitwan covers several different types of habitat - from the impenetrable spiky tall grasslands to a young forest with limited visibility through bushes and trees, right up to the ancient 'Sal' forest that we wouldn't see until our jeep ride allowed us to get further in. During the day the grasslands - which are quite wet and marshy - get horribly humid, especially as we're now almost into the sub-continent's hottest months, so the animals retreat into the forest. They often prefer to walk along the paths made by humans as they offer the best view of any approaching predators and the best relief from the humidity, so we saw plenty of fresh prints. At one point we were following bear prints, at another time a rhino and her calf (Hugh was none too happy about this one!). But apart from a troop of very loud monkeys (grey monkeys I believe), the back end of a leaping deer and the slashing tail of a large lizard as it leaped into the undergrowth, we didn't see any more animals. Still, it was amazing just to know you were so close to so many wild animals - who were probably watching us silently as we tried to quietly creep along (making, I'm sure, enough noise to warn every wild thing in the vicinity), jumping out of our skin at every weird noise and often freezing to stare into the surrounding trees with trepidation. And I took photos of the prints we saw - just to prove the animals really existed, even if we weren't to see them.Hugh:Elephant Bath Time!Everyday just before lunch, all the elephants come down to the river to have their daily bath. Our guesthouse was well placed right next to where they have their baths, and the best bit is you can get in the river with them and join in ......... so that's what we did!I was quite excited, but also a little worried. The manager of our guesthouse told us it's a fantastic experience but the thought of being so close to an animal weighing over ton makes you a little bit wary.The mahoot gave us a bunk up so that we were sitting on the elephant's back, then he climbed up and the elephant walked right into the water. Then came the commands (as we were expecting!) for the elephant to start squirting us with water from its trunk. The water was actually a nice temperature and it was really refreshing on such a hot day. I had also taken the extra precaution of making sure I was sitting behind Ros, so even if it had been a bit cold it wouldn't have been too bad. After being thoroughly soaked, the elephant walked further into the river, stopped and then started rocking from side to side. Each time it rocked it was getting harder and harder for us to stay on, and you guessed it we ended up in the river!We made our way to the river bank got back on the elephant and did the whole thing over and over again. By the end, once you knew what the elephant was going to do you could actually stay on its back by shifting your weight at the right time. However, it was going to keep rocking until we fell off so after a while I just fell off anyway!!It really was great fun and the elephants were so good - you could definitely tell that they knew they had to be careful with us because we are such small creatures. After that we watched the elephants play and bath in the water and it was clear how much they enjoyed it - it's definitely the highlight of their day!!Jeep SafariAfter our jeep safari in Similipal National Park in India, we weren't convinced it's such a good idea - the jeep just scares the animals away. Speaking to our guesthouse manager though, he said the jeeps go really deep into the park and that the animals aren't too phased by it so it's a good way to see a lot of wildlife.So off we went into the jungle once more. I was quite relieved that this time we weren't on foot! It was a 4 hour safari in total and we saw an awful lot. Rather than try to describe the safari step by step it's probably easier for me to just list what we saw, so here goes:RhinoMongooseMonitor LizardMugger crocodileSpotted deerBisonBarking deerWild BoarMonkeysParadise fly catcher (bird with a really long tail)PeacockCuckooKingfisherLots of other birds we didn't recogniseHalfway through our safari we stopped at the crocodile breeding centre. The crocodile numbers in Chitwan plummeted at some point in the 1950s. Our guide tried to explain: it was something to do with them trying to get rid of malaria and this somehow affected the crocodiles (we can't remember the full explanation!). So a breeding centre was set up to try to re-populate the park. There are two types of crocodiles in Chitwan, the long-snouted Gharial and the Mugger (which looks like a normal crocodile). At the breeding centre there were a number of enclosures with pools, each filled with crocodiles of various ages. Each enclosure had a sign saying "2006 hatchlings", or whatever year they hatched, so you could see them throughout the stages of the development, right from funny tiny little things, to proper crocodile looking creatures. I actually thought it was really nice to see such efforts being made for the conservation of animals that don't seem as cute or as popular as some others.Also at the crocodile breeding centre was a poor tiger being kept in captivity (in a separate enclosure I should add). Her story is quite sad. Her mother had become a man-eating tiger. Apparently the Nepalis will only catch a man-eater after it has attacked humans twice. Unfortunately the mother did attack humans twice and she was hunted because she had the taste for human flesh (why bother catching a deer when you know how easy humans are to catch?). The mother managed to escape (although we're a bit cynical about that part of the story) but her 3 cubs were left to fend for themselves. The other two died but this cub was found chasing a goat in a village, in very bad condition. This is how she ended up in a cage, and although she looked well, she was obviously extremely bored and not very happy. The enclosure was not even very big, but it seems like there is a plan to move her to somewhere larger in the park. As I was looking at her, lying down bored and hot, I noticed a twig being poked through at her, antagonising her. I went round the corner to see an Indian tourist smiling and laughing as he poked her. I was so furious with him, as if the poor tiger has not been through enough already without some idiot doing this. So I told him off, and looking embarrassed (although a bit put out that I had spoilt his fun) he pulled the stick out.Ros:The Elephant Safari We'd been really looking forward to riding elephants into the jungle - not least because we hoped that, just like if you ride a horse into the British forest, the wildlife would probably not be afraid of us so we'd get a better view. We set off at 6.15am - another early morning so we'd take advantage of the cool when more animals are awake - and met our elephant, Maatikily (no, I've no idea if that's how you spell her name!), and her Mahoot in the village. From there we lurched and swayed (elephants have a weird gait!) down to the jungle. We weren't actually going to be inside the park for our safari. Chitwan is surrounded by a 'buffer zone' which contains areas of jungle and populations of wildlife almost identical to the park itself. Elephants employed by the government (yes, they really are on the staff role and get paid in food and shelter...) go into the park to an island area in the river, crossing half of the river on the way. But they cost more for less time on the elephant, so we opted for a private safari. Maatikily was a young elephant at 25 and her Mahoot had been with her for four years. Apparently his previous elephant didn't like people - a drawback for a tourist elephant. Thankfully he assured us that Maatikily liked people very much, which was something of a relief as we'd heard a Mahoot had been killed by his elephant just a few weeks earlier, whilst four tourists on it's back looked on unable to help. Naturally the locals explained the incident to us by describing the Mahoot as an Indian, a Muslim (we'd never have guessed!) and a drunk. The elephant now has a new Mahoot and continues to take tourists on safaris. You now see why we were so relieved Maatikily and her Mahoot had been together four years - she can't have been that elephant! Maatikily liked pulling bits off the trees as she went past them and bashing herself over the head with the branches. She refused to walk in other elephants' business on the path - even forcing us to go on a detour at one point - and she played by making (quite frankly, terrifying) churtles and roars. She was also a very fast elephant, and her Mahoot had great fun trying to make her go as fast as possible when we were on an open path. So, apart from Maatikily, what animals did we get to see on our safari? Well, not a whole load actually, but what we did see, we saw pretty close! You'll remember earlier I said that our guide on the nature walk had said the rhinos most likely to charge were the 'baby mothers'? Well guess who we found bathing in a water hole? Yep, mummy, daddy and baby rhino. And what did the mahoot on the elephant in front of us do? Got his elephant to go INTO THE WATER to about five metres from the rhinos and then stood on his elephant's head and leaped about trying to get them to turn around and look at us! I know we were on an elephant, but rhinos can still charge elephants!! Still, we got some lovely photos :) Otherwise we saw a lot of birds of various types, some nasty small brightly coloured spiders that kept being pinged at us when we brushed through bushes and a leech that it took me a few attempts to GET OFF of my trousers. We hadn't anticipated the bugs-in-bushes situation as Maatikily crashed through the middle of the jungle in search of the yummiest bits of tree.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1208174160/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1208174160/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1208174160/tpod.html Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:42:36 -0400 In search of the perfect curry... The blog of Ros and Hugh's travels in Asia 2007/2008 (www.asianhobnob.co.uk)

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Pokhara, Nepal

Ros:Our little walk in the Himalayas Nepal has quite a few big mountains, and Pokhara is right at the foot of a whole load of the biggest ones - no, not <i>the biggest mountain but the Annapurna range. On a clear day you can see them all overhanging the town and reflected in the lake. Unfortunately we haven't had very many good days this being the 'pre-monsoon' (didn't know such a thing existed) so we get storms in the evening and haze for most of the rest of the day (as I write this we are encased in something resembling pea soup). So, in order to take a better look at these mountains and because apparently Nepal is famous for the quality and accessibility of its trekking, we thought we'd go for a bit of a walk. Nothing too strenuous mind - many people do the 'round Annapurna circuit' which takes three weeks or more. We thought three to four days sounded nicer. So we bought ourselves a map (rather than opt for a large scale map of our route, we got a smaller scale one that also showed the big mountains, even though we weren't going up any. Got to get the feel of the place, no?), hired me a stick (bloke in the shop seemed to think I'd need one and Hugh wouldn't. Wonder what gave him that idea?) and, having read in Lonely Planet that we didn't need any permits, we packed little rucksacks and set off. Doesn't that make us sound organised? Ok, so what actually happened...We got as far as the main road in Pokhara and decided that this was a really rather good excuse to splurge on one of the 'trekkers breakfasts' we'd seen on menus. So we sat by the lake for a bit eating lots of egg and toast and pototoes and the like. We then got a taxi to the bus station and got on a bus. By this stage it was 10am and we'd rather lost the early-start thing. Ah well. An hour and a half on the bumpy bus we got off at a titchy place called Naya Pul. We had to scramble down a bank onto the main path below, and feeling pleased with ourselves we set off walking. 40 minutes later - stupidly hot and tired already we arrived at Birethanti, our first notable village on our trek. Woo hoo. Then we got stopped at a check point and told we couldn't go any further because we didn't have a permit. Less of a woo-hoo. 'Where do we get the permit from?' we asked. 'Pokhara' the horrid little man replied. If we happened to have some passport photos on us we could pay 60 pounds and he'd issue the permits there, but we neither had any photos or a spare 8000 rupees. So we walked 40 minutes back to the road, got back on a bus and bumped our way back to Pokhara. We got in a taxi who took us to the office for permits (4000 rupees for two), via a place to get some passport photos and hot and dispirited we arrived back at our guest house 12 hours after we'd checked out. So, the next day. We wake up early and - a new day a new page - we have a crunchy bar and get straight in a taxi and get to the bus for 7am. This gets us to Birethanti for 9am where we get our permits stamped and stop for breakfast. We then discover that there is a second permit you need to go trekking, which is free but for which we need a passport photo. Apparently we could have got this second permit in Pokhara too, if only we'd known. The new scheme only started in January, so information hasn't made it into guidebooks or friends'advice yet. Nearly crying we are relieved when the guys on the desk say they'll give us the permit (free!) without a photo. We are on our way! Not much further on I feel like I might die soon and wish we'd been sent back to Pokhara. It was a very hot day, a very uphill-downhill-upstairs-downstairs trek and we were pursued most of the way by a whole load of ponies. As there are no roads in the mountains, villages are connected by a convoy of ponies who spend every day traipsing up and down loaded up with supplies. There are also human porters who carry stupidly large amounts of baggage on their backs but they are less likely to knock you off the side of a stone staircase. So with the 'dong-dong-dong-dong' of the following horses setting the pace we finally arrived at Tikhedhungga at about 3pm, having stopped for a really wonderful dal bhaat (Nepali thali) freshly prepared and cooked by a little old lady at a restaurant en route. We had hoped to somehow cut the walk down to three days from the recommended four, but the nearly-collapsing Ros put paid to that idea quite quickly. We had been told that there were plenty of places to stay up in the mountains, but we weren't expecting every little village to be so well kitted out for trekkers. Pretty much every place we went through - even if there were only five houses - would have some sort of cafe/shop where you could get hot food and cold drinks. Coke and Sprite and Mars bars came up and empty bottles went back down by pony. This pushed the price up loads, but when you had just walked an hour or two in the blazing sun you didn't really care. And the restaurants and lodges were really sweet and pretty, often run by a family and quite small and friendly. For 150 rupees (prices for accommodation and food in each little cluster of villages were set by the local committee and menus were printed centrally. Methinks the Maoists may well be strong in the mountains...) you got a clean little cabin-room with shared hot shower and loo. The sink was generally in the courtyard out the front, which was a bit odd when you were brushing your teeth... Day two found us leaving Tikhedhungga at 6.30am to try and get a lot of ground covered before the sun came to find us. We'd only managed about 3 hours walking the day before, which was totally pathetic and was going to make the trip take 6 days if we carried on at the same pace. So off we went. One and a half hours later we got to Hile for breakfast, which is a titchy village not quite at the top of a stone staircase that had just sapped our legs of any energy they'd had. We'd literally been climbing a rough, steep stone staircase up the side of the valley above Tikhedhungga continually. After breakfast we climbed the rest of it, before the walk levelled out a bit (for the Himalayas that is) to go through pretty forest....interspersed with more ruddy stone staircases. This went on for SIX hours. Yup. SIX HOURS of clambering around. We stopped for a drink and lunch of dal bhaat en route (lunch stop restaurant had a very cute cat, who sat on Hugh's lap for quite a while - we haven't seen a nice cat for ages!) before arriving at Deurali where we'd spend the night. Our legs were visibly shaking. At this point we were at 2860 metres (SEE - you thought I'd been exaggerating about the stone steps??) and it was COLD. We found a nice lodge with a lovely view and had a luke warm shower and did some hand washing under their tap in the front courtyard. We were initially annoyed to discover that a Korean tour group were the only other guests in our lodge, but when we found out they'd arranged for the lodge's woodburning stove thingy in the main room to be lit we soon forgave them for their inconsiderate-tourgroup ways. Tour groups are amazing - not only do they have all their bags carried for them by porters but this group even had their own cook to serve up authentic Korean banquets for them, which they ate with chopsticks. Presumably all the ingredients had been carried up too! At dawn we woke to climb up Poon Hill - a viewpoint above Deurali. Well, actually we were woken up at 4am by the Koreans leaving, who clearly wanted to stake out their spot on the top of the hill before sunrise, but we couldn't face getting out of bed that early. We walked up (surprise surprise - a stone staircase!) as it was beginning to get light so got various views of sunrise on the way. The proper day's walking involved more stone staircases - but down this time. You'd think that would be better, but actually the impact on your knees (and mine are a bit rubbish at the best of times) and having to lower yourself down continually wore us out just as much as clambering up. If not more. Arriving at Tikedunga required a feat of willpower that I'm still amazed I had in me. Probably largely stemming from the fact I'd be stuck on the side of a himalayan mountain unless I found some energy from somewhere. <i>Slight hissy fit (ahem) just outside our destination when our map reader sent us up the side of a superfluous hill before we collapsed into the hot springs of Tatopani. Day 3 had involved 7 hours walking, at one point through a thunder storm. That was not what I'd had in mind when we'd planned the walk... Day 4 was mighty boring. Tatopani has just been connected to civilisation by an unsealed road. This meant Sprite was much cheaper, but we spent 6 hours walking down a dirt road being passed by buses and jeeps (which we managed to avoid the temptation to get on just yet) who threw up clouds of dust. We arrived in Beni and collapsed onto a bus...woo hoo...we'd soon be back in Pokhara. Ok, so not exactly soon - our bus journey took four and a half hours, two of which were on unsealed road. The lady behind me threw up out of the window the whole way and beside Hugh in the aisle was a mummy goat with two babies. A large dog rode up front with the driver. Excess humans had to make do with the roof. Arriving in Pokhara we discovered that our legs had completely siezed up and we couldn't really walk, but after a hot shower and change of clothes we hobbled to a good restaurant who, after some feel-better pasta and salad, gave us what was probably the best lemon merangue pie ever. Maybe, as our taxi driver from the bus station had insisted, there is a god. Or perhaps just a good cook in Moonlight restaurant. Ok, so we didn't do the Round Annapurna Circuit. We weren't mad enough to try the Everest Base Camp but I think we did quite well! I didn't dislocate a knee at any point - even though by day three both knees were heavily bandaged as the muscles were so worn out, and we even managed to enjoy some bits (largely the flat bits, with the pretty flower-filled views. Or sitting in the courtyard of a lodge at the end of the day playing chess in front of the most amazing snow-topped mountains. Or whilst eating dal bhaat during our lunch-time breaks - they are really very good at dal bhaat up there! Or maybe we were just so exhausted and starving it tasted so much better...). But four days was completely enough for us..... A note on what you might want to take trekking but might not have thought of... * Comfy tracky-bottoms for wearing in the evening/to bed when it's cold. The softer and more snuggly the better.* Flip flops. Always a must to take anywhere in asia but somehow we forgot them. Needed for communal showers/evening wear (your feet won't want to be in shoes longer than necessary).* Wrap-around skirt (boys optional...) for easily changing when showering and impromptued outdoor loo breaks. * Something to do in the evening! We economised so much on packing we didn't even take a book, but you often give up for the day at 3pm. Most evenings we were able to borrow a chess board or set of cards but scrabble or a book would have been great.* Huge quantities of tiger balm or equivalent for hurty muscles. Moisturiser. A scrubby-cleany thing for the shower. Glucose sweets. Crunchy bars. More money than you'd think (food is expensive up in the mountains - cup of tea could be 40 rupees, water 60, dal bhaat 210 or so). * Warm things. We had thin sleeping bags (dinky when scrunched up so didn't add too much to packing), sleeping bag liners and could borrow big blanketty-duvets from the lodges, but if we'd gone any higher our micro-fleece jumpers would have been totally inadequate. We were cold in Deurali. * Cool things. Walking is hot...especially in April in Nepal...* Waterproof things. Including for your backpack. It can rain blooming heavily in the mountains.* TWO permits! And you don't need a guide for most treks - from other people we'd seen going past they seem more of a nuisance than a help and whenever we were unsure, we just asked local people to point us in the right direction! Oh, and if you pay a porter to carry all your luggage up the mountain, then you have no right to gloat for managing more than our four days. Ok?! Sorry, my bit of the update was nearly as long as the trek wasn't it?! Oops!Hugh:Running off the edge of a mountain .......Before we set off on our trek to Tatopani I had booked myself onto a tandem paragliding flight for the day after we returned to Pokhara. For anyone unfamiliar with paragliding, it's the thing that looks like a big parachute, and you hang from it trying to catch thermals in order to stay in the air for as long as possible.Pokhara is supposedly one of the best places in the world for paragliding, although as we looked out of the window on the morning of the flight only to see mist we weren't so sure! We got in a jeep and were driven to the launch site, up a big hill overlooking the lake. One of the instructors said we would be waiting a while (para-waiting he called it) until the conditions improved a bit.I didn't know a great deal about paragliding beforehand, the extent of my knowledge was that you run down off a hill and the air catches you. On arriving at the launch site I was quite surprised at how short the runway was - enough for maybe a dozen steps?! Anyway, we waited a while and although it was still pretty misty the conditions had improved. I was assigned a French instructor called Christophe. He put a helmet on my head, strapped me into the harness and then I was given the instructions:"I will count 1, 2, 3, and on 3 you run. Don't stop running and don't sit down until we're in ze air."As soon as we got enough breeze to fill the canopy Christophe counted to 3, and before I knew it we were airborn. I didn't scream and wail like the Chinese girls who took off before me, but it was pretty exciting. The conditions weren't the greatest but Christophe did a great job. I generally kept quiet to let him concentrate, which was just as well because every so often as we were heading down into a tree Christophe would mutter "merde!" under his breath, then we'd suddenly spin round and be winched up by a thermal. He informed me that unlike some pilots who use litte electrical devices to tell them altitude and air pressure, he - in typical gallic fashion - liked to use his senses to judge the conditions. He would shout "left!" or "right!" when he wanted me to lean, and when I asked him how we were doing he muttered that he was "concentrating to stay on zis f*&#ing thermal!" - so I kept quiet. It was pretty peacful actually, just hanging there, feeling the wind blow past my ears, although we would often fly rather close to other paragliders it seemed like it was all under control. After about 35 minutes in the air we made our descent for the landing. The descent consisted of several really fast swoops down, each one making my stomach lurch a little, until we were zooming along towards the white landing circle. This was one of the most exciting bits, whizzing along only a couple of feet above the ground, then all of a sudden I was standing on solid ground. I thanked Christophe for such a good flight; some of the others didn't get nearly as long in the air, mainly because they felt sick and their instructor didn't want to get covered in vomit!For anyone wondering what happened to Ros, she kept her feet firmly on the ground and took some pictures. I also took some in-flight pictures with a disposable camera, but you'll have to wait until the film is developed to see those!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1207484280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1207484280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1207484280/tpod.html Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:29:35 -0400 In search of the perfect curry... The blog of Ros and Hugh's travels in Asia 2007/2008 (www.asianhobnob.co.uk)

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Kathmandu, Nepal

OH MY GOD why did I decide to ignore my previous vow never to get on another flight with air India!?? Because it took a half hour flight to get here rather than a 36 hour bus, but good grief, I've never seen anything like Varanasi airport! Sorry, I should say 'airport'. It was more like a half-built toilet block. Good bye India - you certainly showed us out in a stereotypical fashion!UPDATERos:A note on food Kathmandu had been described to us as something akin to a food mecca after the curry-only lands of India. In fact, a certain someone had been going on about the wonders of Kathmandu so much that we were quite worried about getting there and finding it a disappointment. We were praying for nice people, very little hassle, nice places to stay and, more than anything, a wide variety of good food. We had been eating curry pretty much every meal for three months. You can only imagine how wonderful a salad can become in your imagination after only having stodgy, fried food for months. So bearing this in mind, you might be able to understand why, on our first night in Kathmandu, Hugh nearly burst into tears of joy over a plate of pasta and a glass of wine in a pretty convincing Italian restaurant. Seriously - there were tears in his eyes. Especially when the sound of a live band in a nearby bar floated in through the window. They were probably mediocre, but right at that moment, after months of Indian wailing music or the same-old that was on the MP3 player, they sounded just great. We proceded to collapse in a mental heap and didn't manage to get out of Kathmandu for 8 nights. We didn't even do very much. But we did eat very well. (Although, and I hesitate to put a blot on the culinary delights of the place, but we couldn't find a ruddy avocado anywhere...) Bakeries full of cake that actually looked like cake (rather than a pile of multicoloured cream) and herbal teas, restaurants that dished up food that came close to being authentic Italian, Mexican, Israeli (of course), Tibetan and random-others. Nice chips. Bread that had actually seen a toaster, rather than promising to be toast and turning out to be fried. Crisp salad that was washed in mineral water and actually had some lettuce content, rather than being just chopped onion and a slice of tomato. And an English pub. Well. Sort of. It was up a couple of flights of stairs, had table cloths and candles, menus and sporadic waiter-service. But apart from that it really looked like it could have been in England. And good lord it even served alcohol. Albeit expensive. And not available around election day. Note on the election We were aware, before we arrived in Nepal, that on the 10th April the country would go to the polls for the first time in nearly 10 years. And the outcome was likely to be a government that would get rid of the monarchy. However, we were assured that tourism is Nepal's lifeblood and we would be unaffected, even if people started to riot. That wasn't exactly true. Two nights before the election, we noticed a sign had gone up in our hotel shop saying 'We Not Sale Alchol'. Ok we thought, no biggie - Thailand had banned the sale of alcohol for their election too. The night before the election, we were sitting in a lovely restaurant in the garden out the back of a bookshop. The waiters were run off their feet. Apparently there was only one chef. But as the restaurant was hidden from the street by virtue of the large bookshop in between, they did serve us a beer. Then at 10pm we were handed our bill and asked to leave - and we'd not even received the tea we'd ordered - because the restaurant had to close. Now. So we left. And Thamel was very very quiet. We had to hammer on the gate of our hotel to be let in (a bit wierd, as they have a restaurant too and we'd not even noticed the metal shutters before!). We then discovered that we were locked out of our room. The hotel had no spare key - we'd locked ours inside - and there was no-one available to help as anyone not spending the night in Thamel had headed for home to avoid the curfew. So, with the help of the staff who would be spending the night on the sofas in the lobby, we broke in through the window. Thank goodness our room had a balcony, one window with a dodgy bolt and weak fly-mesh. The next day we woke up late. Not because we were particularly tired but because of the absence of the normal cacophany of blaring loudspeakers (Jack Johnson and Om Mani Padme Hum normally played for 12 hours a day. And most of you will know how much I *love* Jack Johnson.). There was no-one outside playing the rubbish stringed 'instrument' they seemed to think all tourists want to buy. No one playing flutes. In fact, there was nothing open at all. So we went out to find breakfast. Our hotel's cafe was closed. As was their restaurant. We wandered around a bit. All our favourite cafes and restaurants were closed. All of the not-favourite cafes and restaurants were closed. The only people on the streets were a few other white tourists looking hungry and a bit confused, wandering around trying to find breakfast. Finally we found one little Tibetan cafe open - hidden down a side passageway and down a few steps where the police were unlikely to notice. Afterwards we found an internet cafe that was open and sat there for a bit. Then we watched TV for a while. Then we realised that a few more places were opening and found a cafe that was more like an Israeli youth club for lunch. We weren't allowed to sit near the windows though because the police might see. More TV watching and book reading followed before - woo hoo - we realised a few more places were opening and we went to an organic cafe with a rooftop area that is quite nice. Although they were operating a vastly limited menu (a print out listing about 6 dishes) and they'd put the prices up. Hmph. And then early to bed. So, as you can see - the election day was really exciting! Some random things * 12th March was the Nepalese New Year's Eve! We headed out for a pizza only to discover that Thamel had suddenly gone mad, with hundreds of Nepalese people flooding the streets. We had to queue to get into the restaurant! We thought that must be what happens on Saturday nights, but the following day realised that the papers were all proclaiming 'HAPPY 2065'. Oh my god we'd turned 84 over night. * Our initial impression had been that Nepal looks after its people a lot better than India seems to - there certainly seemed to be a lot less beggers and the people seemed on the whole much healthier and happier. We could easily have forgotten that Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world. However, on new year's eve we saw what was probably the most shocking thing from our whole trip - a large gang of dirty street children camping out in one of the Thamel streets and getting high on glue. We'd seen a few children begging around the streets, and I'd commented that a couple of them seemed a bit spaced-out, but we hadn't realised that there were so many of them - apparently parentless, homeless and utterly addicted to drugs. Quite small boys - probably as young as 7 or 8 years old - wheeled about on the pavement, eyes bloodshot and trying to grab passers by. Meanwhile others huddled by the walls inhaling from plastic packets. After spending so long in India I thought I was beyond the point of being shocked, but it was really upsetting and showed Kathmandu in a very different light. * Nepal seems to like Britain a lot more than India does. Probably because we never ran the place or let our army shoot or imprison civilians regularly (I'd not really thought about the fact that the we still recruit from Nepal for the British Army - according to our guide book, getting into the Gorkhas is an extremely presigious achievement). So not only do things sometimes seem to be a lot more western-influenced than India, but we get lots of British programmes on TV! Woo hoo - no longer is Animal Planet translated into Hindi. And we get Shaun the Sheep (the cartoon)! And a whole channel of BBC sitcoms! No more back-to-back American rubbish! * Kathmandu has two four-hour power cuts per day, which change time every day just to maximise confusion. We found that quite shocking for a capital city...even more so when we realised our hotel does not have a generator and couldn't provide hot water during the power cuts dispite having told us we'd have 24 hour hot water. Nor was there as much as a night-light or a candle in our room. So for eight hours every day most of Kathmandu was in darkness whilst those shops and business with generators belched black smoke into the street. * Hugh saw the Royal Kumari. The Kumari is a 'living goddess' who, until she gets her period and is unceremoniously chucked out to become a commoner, is worshipped in her house in Kathmandu's Durbar Square. We had just walked into the courtyard and I was looking at the engraved pillars or something stupid when Hugh exclaimed - the Kumari - who people rarely see - had just peeped out of an upstairs window. And I'd missed her. The current Kumari is only 10 years old but is apparently about to step down as her parents want her to take part in a religious pseudo-wedding ceremony. Or, my theory - they want her well out of there before the King is dethroned; I don't think anyone has decided what will happen to the role of Royal Kumari with no Royals. So there we are - I might have a lucky foot from the rats in Deshnok but Hugh probably just pipped me to the lucky-post.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1207311300/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1207311300/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1207311300/tpod.html Mon, 07 Apr 2008 03:25:41 -0400 In search of the perfect curry... The blog of Ros and Hugh's travels in Asia 2007/2008 (www.asianhobnob.co.uk)

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Varanasi, India

Hugh:Varanasi - our last stop in India.We booked a hotel right on Meer Ghat on the edge of the Ganges River (a ghat is a set of steps leading down into the river, and there are many of them all along the banks of the Ganges in Varanasi). The hotel is in the old part of the city, which is made up of very narrow lanes - too narrow for our autorickshaw, so we stopped about a kilometre away and were lead to the hotel by our driver. He said there was no charge for leading us to the hotel, but I gave him a little extra anyway as we never would have found the hotel otherwise. Although we did realise later on that he probably could have stopped a bit closer - oh well, if it was a scam it was a very friendly one!Speaking of scams, Varanasi is well-known amongst travelers as being the scam and theft capital of India. If you are going to be scammed anywhere it's here! And it's not just Varanasi itself, even the trains into Varanasi seem to suffer from a lot of theft while people are sleeping. We hadn't chained our bags on any trains before, but for the journey to Varanasi we bought extra chains especially!The only thing worth reporting from our first afternoon/evening in Varanasi was the vicious monkey attack that I suffered at our hotel during dinner. We had done a bit of washing during the afternoon and left it hanging over the railings outside our room (the hotel had a courtyard, surrounded by all the rooms). As we were eating our dinner, we noticed a couple of monkeys walking aling the railings where our clothes were. The first monkey walked straight over our clothes, but the second one seemed interested in Roz's trousers and started grabbing at them (we had taken the precaution of tying the washing down with string). So in an act of fearless chivalry, I sprinted up the stairs to rescue the clothes. I thought my presence alone would have been enough to scare the monkey away, but as I turned the corner along the walkway the trouser-loving monkey appeared out of the shadows and came at me. I stood my ground, but this was a monkey to be reckoned with! He bared his teeth, he hissed and he continued to come at me. With all my courage I turned my back and made a very pathetic "oh my god I'm really scared now" yelp (which luckily no-one in the courtyard below heard), and that seemed to do the trick, the monkey ran past. Clearly my plan of psychologically tricking the monkey into thinking that he had won the face-off worked down to a tee. <i>(Hugh continued his little trick by returning to the dinner table white faced and shaking a bit - Ros) The next morning we went for a wander in the main part of town in search of a bank to get some currency in preparation for India. Our experience should have told us this was always going to be a losing battle (maps of Indian towns are not much use, and no one knows the road names anway), so after a short while we decided to go to a bakery to get some cake. After the cake, we went for another wander for about 10 minutes, then found a nice restaurant and had some lunch. After lunch we stopped being so lazy and went for a proper walk, 2km along the ghats back to our hotel.There are so many ghats along the river bank in Varanasi, one after the other, that you can't make out where one stops and the next one starts. They were a lot quieter than I was expecting - I was anticipating a real hive of people and activity, bathings and ceremonies, but it was distinctly quiet. As we reached one ghat however, we saw our first funeral pyre right on the edge of the river (not yet burning) surrounded by a group of men. We were invited by another man to join him from a good viewpoint, and after hesitating at first (remembering this is scam-city) we joined him on a bench and settled down for the proceedings. The man told us that he is famous in England because he appeared in a BBC documentary 20 years ago, so I told him that I thought he looked familiar and he seemed pleased. He starts to tell us all about the funeral ceremony, what will happen, who will do what and when. It turns out that 6 types of people don't have to be burned because they are already pure, these are: pregnant women, Sadhus (holy men), lepers, people who die from smallpox, people who die from a cobra bite, and children under 11 years old (although from our experience not all Indian children under 11 are pure and sweet!). He explained that women are not allowed at the funeral (unless dead), for two reasons: 1) there is a chance they may commit <i>sati (the Hindu custom of a widow jumping on her husband's pyre, which is now outlawed. If anyone does commit sati all the people present at the funeral are put in prison).2) women get emotional and cry, which is not good because a funeral shouldn't be a sad event as the person is being relieved of the burden of life (although the son of the man about to be burnt certainly looked quite upset).The man explaing all this assured us that he didn't want any money. Apparently he owned this particular ghat (hmmm), and therefore charged families for using it, and was just talking to us out of the goodness of his heart. We decided to walk along a bit further before the pyre was lit, at which point the man we were talking to tried very hard to take us to a silk shop, from where money goes to charity (his personal charity no doubt). The scams in this place are subtle.We walked along a bit, and found a spot where we could continue to observe the same funeral ceremony. Another man latched onto us and started explaining the ceremony to us and we politely listened. So the eldest son had his head shaved, bathed in the Ganges and went to fetch the eternal flame and receive holy blessings at the nearby temple. Eventually he came back to the pyre, walked around 5 times (looking more and more upset with each circuit), and eventually lit the pyre. The man talking to us did not let up, and although we would have preferred to observe the scene in respectful silence, he kept jabbering on. He also explained that he didn't want money, but at the point we decided to leave he explained to us that he works voluntarily in one of the houses near the ghats where people live awaiting to die (beside the Ganges is the best place to die), and suggested that we might like to make a donation because fire-wood is very expensive and not everyone can afford enough. We politely declined.From the explanations we heard about the funeral ceremonies, it seemed that a lot of it was all about status and money. Caste determines exactly where you can be burned, and of course fire-wood <i>is expensive. We were also told how it's important that the family of the deceased have to provide a big feast (at great expense) to all those who attend, and the most expensive sweets and foods have to be provided. It also seemed a bit impersonal, with the banning of women, and seemed like the people on the ghats just treated it as a spectacle. Even some of the men at the funeral were chatting on mobile phones. Later in the evening we walked along to a different ghat where someone boasted that they apparently burn one or two hundred people a day! <i>(Which we didn't believe - the ghat wasn't that big! - Ros)The next morning we got up early for another walk along the ghats, and this time there were a lot of people there, just the kind of scene we'd been expecting! I don't need to give much explanation here, you can just look at some of the pictures to see what it was like.It was fascinating to see the ghats - it is such a truly Indian spectacle, and even within all the variety of India it is something unique.So that is our experience of India over. Three months never seemed to have gone so quickly and slowly at the same time. Sometimes we loved India, sometimes we would gladly have committed murder and run back home to normality as fast as we could. Other times we just had to sit back and laugh in bemusement. Off to the airport now, I'll let Roz carry on from here .......Ros:How To Leave India from Varanasi Airport Catching a plane from Varanasi airport is not as easy as you might think, so we thought a handy guide might be good for anyone mad enough to consider it.1) Try to find a taxi to take you to airport. This is likely to require a 15 minute walk through the lanes and ghats, picking your way around cows, goats, running sewage and motorbikes and then a few near misses on the town roads before you find where the guy has left his car. Yelling at rickshaw wallahs who block your path in an attempt to make you leap into their rickshaw to avoid the motorbike careering towards you is a definite must. 2) After about an hour of continual horn-blowing on the roads arrive at the airport. Yes, that unfinished small concrete building with no sign posts is really the terminal. Look - there's even a luggage trolley.3) For Indian Airways and Kathmandu you need the gate on the right. You can tell which holes in the wall are gates as they are the ones with slopes for the trolleys to be pushed up. 4) Attempt to check-in at the small desk in front of you with 'Indian Airways' stuck over it. You will probably be sent away to sit in the corner for a while until the man arrives to scan your check-in luggage. Yes, that contraption just behind you beside the door is the luggage scanner. 5) When man arrives, faffs for half an hour, sends a boy to fetch him a chair, faffs a bit longer and finally kicks the scanner to make it work you can get your luggage checked. Congratulations - you can now check in. No questions about whether you have packed your bags yourself, and the man looks confused when you ask if the little bottles and tubes of suncream you've carefully stowed in a clear plastic bag are ok. 6) Now you must go and change your 500 and 1000 rupee notes into 100s. Unless you've been fortunate enough to read this blog and have done it at a bank beforehand. A sign informs you that if you smuggle any large denomination rupee notes into Nepal you may be searched and they will be confiscated. So you get them changed at the counter, who relieve you of 20 rupees for every note. The man speaks good English until you ask whether they will be donating the money they've just extorted from you to charity, when he suddenly speaks no English at all. 7) Try to go through the double doors to get your hand luggage checked. Stern women shout at you to get back outside.8) Sit for a while opposite the money-changing booth. Get slightly concerned at the government declaration that anyone returning to India with items manufactured abroad will have to pay duty. What? My camera? My clothes???9) Notice that everyone else has various forms and a label on their hand luggage. Discover that the check-in counter has now turned into Emigration.10) Collect and fill out a form from Emigration and get your passport stamped. You have now left India. Yes, you are still in the same room you first walked into and could easily return to the car park that is just over there. 11) Sit about for a while longer. Realise that there isn't so much as a vending machine and ask the little guy selling snacks from a tray how much for a kitkat. Laugh at him when he says 80 rupees and say if he changes his mind and will take 30 rupees he should come back to you. He doesn't. 12) Ten minutes before your plane is about to take off (and over two hours after you arrived in the airport) you realise a tour group headed for Kathmandu is being shown through the double doors. In absence of any announcement or staff looking like they have a clue or care, you tag along. 13) Join a queue to declare any currency you are taking out of the country. The guy dressed as a 1950s sailor attempts to declare that you are from Northern Ireland and only writes down your first and middle names. Presumably this exempts you from any blame should they discover that you are smuggling some 500 rupee notes. 14) Attempt to get your hand luggage scanned and get told to go and sit in the corner. Grit teeth and smile as other French passengers discover you are British and say 'well, at least we're not in Heathrow Terminal 5!'.15) At the time your plane is due to take off, you realise that the tour group has got in line to have their luggage scanned. In the absence of any announcement or staff looking like they have a clue or care, you tag along. One queue for women, one queue for men. 16) Hand luggage is scanned. Carrying your litre bottle of water you step through a metal detector that appears to be switched off and have a cursory swoosh-over with a hand held one. 17) Get accosted by little man demanding to see your boarding pass. Wait around in a little seating area. Get re-accosted by the little man approximately every minute. 18) If your boarding pass has a luggage check-in sticker then little man shouts at you to go outside to see your luggage. Mighty confused you go out of the glass door onto the tarmac and have to point out which bags are yours from the heap on the floor. When you complain that your bag has been dumped in a pile of bird poo they pretend not to understand. 19) Pilot and co-pilot, who clearly both idolise James Dean, strut past, followed by glamorous sari-clad hostesses, followed by scampering little men dragging their dinky cases. 20) Notice that the tour group is heading out of the door towards the plane. In the absence of any announcement or staff looking like they have a clue or care, you tag along.21) Repeat step 18. No idea why. 22) Climb up the stairs onto plane. With relief you notice that the plane isn't rusty or held together by the grace of Indian engineering ingenuity and prayer. 23) Remember chaos in airport and remember that you swore never to fly with Air India again after last time. Pray to whatever God might be willing to accept a long-standing agnostic as the plane takes off. Repeat prayers at regular intervals during extremely bumpy flight through storm clouds. 24) You are served a snack-lunch which is actually nice by smiling air hostesses. Wonder what they've done with the real Air India staff and food? 25) Barely up in the air and you begin to descend - you'll land in Kathmandu on time! Suddenly realise why the timetable said the half hour flight would take an hour.26) Oh my goodness, an airport that looks like a airport! Woo hoo - congratulations, you've made it out of India!27) Dig pack-a-macs out of backpack as you step out of the plane into driving rain and a cold wind. Aargh, a drop of 15 degrees in half an hour!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1207159200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1207159200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1207159200/tpod.html Mon, 07 Apr 2008 03:21:54 -0400 In search of the perfect curry... The blog of Ros and Hugh's travels in Asia 2007/2008 (www.asianhobnob.co.uk)

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Agra, India

Ros:Chocolate bars in India are GREAT. They are a bit like you'd imagine a Wonka Bar to be - the real thing, not the disgusting purple merchandise chocolate that followed the film. First you get the outer paper sleeve, just like in England. Slide the bar out of that and you get white waxed paper, which makes you feel like you are opening a Christmas present to reveal the shiny tin foil underneath. Underneath *that* you finally get the chocolate. Which, if it is a hot day and you are stressed and have been lucky enough to find a little shop enlightened enough to keep the bars in the fridge, is great. Why on earth am I starting my Agra entry with a whole paragraph on chocolate bars? Because in order to work out how on earth I'm going to write it I have just consumed half a kitkat and a bottle of sprite to make myself feel a bit more charitable about the place. I have just remembered that I am getting on an overnight train in four hours and may not be able to brush my teeth for a long time. Bother. There goes the feeling better. Agra is not like a typical Indian town. Typical Indian towns do not have millions of white tourists on coaches passing through them every year. The people are usually really pleased to see you. Children wave and shop keepers are as much interested in having a chat as selling you anything. Agra seems to have the dirt and major dog problem and tuk-tuk overload without the nice people and atmosphere. And everyone is out to rip you off. Big time. It is an accepted fact that as a white tourist in India you will pay more than the locals. But in Agra, this gets ridiculous. The taxi from the station to our hotel charged us 50 rupees for 2kms - twice the normal rate, and it took a lot of bargaining. Our hotel tried to charge us 600 rupees for a dark, drain-smelly basic room without hot water, aircon or a TV. We got them down to 500, but beyond that they weren't shifting. Every step you take along the road you are accosted by people trying to drag you into their shop, their tuk-tuk, their cycle-rickshaw or their friend/brother/cousin's shop, tuk-tuk or cycle-rickshaw. And as for the Taj Mahal... 750 rupees per ticket!!!! Are they adding gold plating to the bushes or something?! Ok, that rant over I will try to forget about the hassle, the silly amount of money we've spent in the last 24 hours and remember to say that yes, the Taj Mahal is fairly impressive. It is big, it is in pretty good nick for something 300+ years old and it is being looked after well - a very rare thing in India. Even the grounds are clean and spit/plastic bag/cow poo free. Well, they would be - the rules on what you're allowed to take in are pretty strict. Even books are apparently banned. So, we saw *that* bench, as sat on by Princess Diana (and my mother). We marvelled at the marble inlays (the Taj is covered in intricate patterns and designs, all done by chiselling out bits of the marble and inserting semi-precious stones of various colours.). We took a stupid number of photos from all angles, including the rooftop of a nearby guesthouse and a park across the river (<i>I have uploaded just a selection of the silly number of pictures - Hugh). But we probably spent most of our time laughing at the chipmonks and trying to get a good photo of the odd ferretty creature that kept sneaking out from under the path. Oh, and laughing at the stupid tourists who put funny little hairnet-type things over their shoes so they wouldn't have to dirty their nice white feet on the mausoleum floor. My overall impression of the Taj is that it's a bit sombre really - it is supposed to be an amazing celebration of love (people have been telling us for months that as a couple, we will just love the Taj for it's romance. These are people who had only just met me of course, otherwise they wouldn't have suggested something so stupid). Actually, it is a mausoleum - a monument to a dead lady, and the totally astounding amount of money spent on it and the lengths gone to in order to ensure it was unique (including cutting off the hands of the stonemasons so they couldn't build anything like it again) just add to the wierdness of the place. The central cenotaph area, lit only by one hanging light is beautiful, but ultimately a bit miserable and eery. Most great buildings you visit have a lived-in story of things that have happened there and people who made their lives there. The Taj Mahal never had a life, and although architecturally amazing, I found it a bit sad because of it.Hugh:Roz was a little worried that her description of the Taj Mahal may have sounded a bit negative, so she asked me to add some more to this entry.I have to say, I was quite awestruck by the Taj Mahal. We've had so many people telling us how amazing it is, and rarely does something live up to that kind of expectation, but in this case it really did.The Taj seems to be one of those things that you have always known about, yet you can't quite remember when you first saw a picture of it, or who told you about it - you just know about it. Which makes it seem even stranger to sit at a rooftop restaurant, eating your dinner, with the Taj looming on the horizon. You can't quite believe it's actually there, the real thing.Roz said that she found it quite eery inside the actual tomb (well, not the *actual* tomb, that is in the basement and not open to the public, but the actual *fake* tomb). The atmosphere is quite something inside, especially so early in the morning. It is cool, dark, and the acoustics are strange - when people made a noise there was a deep reverberation all around. Then you glimpse the tomb of Mumtaz Mahal that is sitting raised just off the floor, hiding behind the beautifully carved marble screen. That's when it hits you, looking at the small cenotaph, this is why this whole magnificent monument exists, you are right at the centre of the Taj Mahal, you look up into the huge domed roof and it seems increcible that it's all because of her.This moves me nicely onto the love bit. Yes it was built for love, and grief, but I agree with Roz that it doesn't necessarily make it a romantic place. Like going to visit the grave of a loved one, or even standing at the grave of a stranger, you can feel the love there must have been for that person from their friends and family, but there is no romance. I'm sure other people feel differently when they visit, after all everyone experiences things differently. That's not to take away from the magnificance of the very fact that the Taj Mahal exists, to us it felt sombre, a place to be respectful, and a great monument to the love of one man for his wife (or should that be one of his wives).I should also make a small confession here. I am a bit of a sucker when it comes to impressive feats of engineering, be it a large impressive building, a huge ship, or an incredible aeroplance. These are the kinds of things I could probably just stand all day in front of, quite literall, just staring at them. The Taj Mahal definitely falls into this category. It is huge, each massive piece of marble must have been painstakingly cut by hand, to such precision. Then to get all the pieces in the right place and get them fitting so snuggly, then add the delicate ornamentation. No wonder it took over 25 years to build, you can hardly imagine how it was even possible to build, and 350 years ago! I said to Roz, something like this just couldn't be built today; maybe there are one or two people in the world who have the finances, but would they have the desire? And if they had the desire, would they have the determination? And in this day and age, could anyone even justify such an extravagence?The pictures you see of the Taj Mahal really do not do it justice. It's one of the things in this world that if you want to appreciate you'll have to get on a plane and come and see it. This is why, as we walked away from the Taj we just couldn't stop ourselves from turning round every few metres, appreciation every last glimpse, until it was out of sight.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1206975600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1206975600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1206975600/tpod.html Thu, 03 Apr 2008 02:12:39 -0400 In search of the perfect curry... The blog of Ros and Hugh's travels in Asia 2007/2008 (www.asianhobnob.co.uk)

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Jaipur, India

Hugh:When we decided to come travelling to India, we bought the Dorling Kindersley India guidebook, which has those wonderful 3D cutaway diagrams of the monuments and sights. One that appealed to me in particular was the observatory built by Maharajah Jai Singh of Jaipur. The book shows diagrams of the various instruments at the observatory, all rather massive, set out in what looks a bit like a giant playground ...... I couldn't wait to see it for real!The first afternoon in Jaipur was spent in the hotel reading our books on the roof terrace. We didn't even bother going out for dinner, although that was because there was a quite spectacular thunderstorm taking place outside.We weren't really in the mood for much sight-seeing, we're getting to the stage where we have seen an awful lot of forts, palaces, temples and museums, but this observatory was quite different it couldn't be missed. Some of the places we've visited haven't been as impressive as the DK book makes them look, but the Jantar Mantar observatory wasn't on of them. It was filled with strange-looking structures: giant sloping walls with semi-circular shaped bits of marble either side, large hemi-spherical pits inlaid with marble, plus many many sundials of various types and sizes.We decided to pay a guide to explain how all the instruments worked (we might not have worked it out otherwise!). The first instrument was for telling the time, that is the local Jaipur time. He showed us how the shadow of the sloping wall falls on the gauges of the semi-circular bits of marble, showing the time to a precision of 20 seconds. The Maharajah wasn't happy with this however, so he built another on that looked about 5 times as big, which could tell the time to a precision of 2 seconds. We were told that the Maharajah designed all the instruments himself, and how we was such a genius that learned people from all over Asia came to marvel at his observatory. Apart from telling the time, the main purpose of the instruments seemed to be for determining the birth and ascendant signs of babies (astrology is highly regarded in Hinduism). I felt quite bad when I admitted to the guide that I don't believe in astrology, even though I thought these instruments were fantastic! I think Ros enjoyed it as much for the photo-opportunities as for the observatory!After a quick look at the <i>Hawa Mahal (a building with screens looking out onto the main thoroughfare, used by women to keep an eye on city-life without being seen), we had a Rajasthani thali for lunch. Thankfully it didn't include curried twigs, although we noticed that was available on the menu! In the evening we went for dinner at a very smart restaurant that is on the 14th floor of a hotel with views across the whole city (this is pretty tall by Jaipur standards). And since this was a revolving restaurant we got to see the whole city without even leaving our seats! (In case anyone is wondering, we had another thali for dinner).Oh, I almost forgot to mention ....... Jaipur is known as the pink city (all the Rajasthani cities seem to have a colour). I don't know whether it is just my eyesight, but it seemed more orange than pink to me. The city walls and all the old buildings within have been colour-washed, but I can't help thinking that the city has been sponsored by Orange Mobile! <i>(I would describe the colour as salmon. Maybe apricot in places. Orangy-pink. - Ros)
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1206619200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1206619200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hobnob/asia0708/1206619200/tpod.html Sun, 30 Mar 2008 10:47:17 -0400 In search of the perfect curry... The blog of Ros and Hugh's travels in Asia 2007/2008 (www.asianhobnob.co.uk)

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New Delhi, India

Hugh:The toy train from Shimla was much more luxurious than the toy train that we traveled on to get to Matheran. The train we were on only had first class carriages (<i>'Darn it' we thought...- Ros ), with nice padded seats (they were very clever seats, the back could be moved so that the seat could face either way), and our dinner was also included!After dinner, the man sitting in front of us turned around, looked at me and patted the seat next to him, inviting me to sit and talk to him. Roz was half asleep so I changed seats without her even noticing. He was genuinely interested to talk to me about all sorts of things so we had a nice long chat. He was a very senior person in the Indian Northerm Railway company, and told me all about his visit to Britian 15 years ago to undertake training from British Rail (I'm not sure how much he would have learnt from them!). I told him all about our travels and experiences and also what our home lives are like (including what time I go to work, whether I have my breakfast at the office or before I leave home, and who cooks dinner in the evening). What intrigued him most however was our marital status. On hearing that we aren't married he said "so when you get home you will get married?", "No" I replied. "What do your parents think about this?". "They're quite happy about it". "But before you have children you must get married?". "No. Many people in Britain live together and have children without being married, it's perfectly acceptable". I think he was a bit overwhelmed by this <i>(and when Hugh tried to explain about the pet rats, I think he assumed he hadn't heard correctly - Ros ), but it was nice to speak to someone who was genuinely interested rather than the normal "look how immoral these westerners are" reaction that we get.The best bit about my new friend was that he writes a column in the Indian Express newspaper, and he said he would be writing all about us in his next column! Unfortunately he writes for the Hindi version, and although we've kept an eye out for this newspaper we haven't seen it in any of the shops.So, on to Delhi. To be honest, we were a bit scared about coming to Delhi. Since January, everyone we had met who'd been to Delhi kept telling us real horror stories about touts ripping them off, being groped, and muggers with razor blades who cut your bags open. On arriving in Old Delhi and travelling to our hotel in a taxi, the first impressions weren't good - it looked about 10 times worse than Kolkata! <i>(No, it didn't - Ros) Even the hotel that we'd booked seemed to be down a dodgy little alley complete with public urinals (public urinals in India are <i>very public. Our hotel, "Smyle Inn" seemed very friendly though, and after having our breakfast and finding the nice little tea shop a couple of doors away way were feeling much better.After spending 4 days in New Delhi (Old Delhi and New Delhi are right next to each other and it's very very obvious which is which!) we have a completely different view of the place. I was expecting a monstrosity of traffic, pollution, people and general chaos, but that's not what we found. The roads are wide, there are pavements, and the traffic ...... what traffic? It really wasn't that bad at all. In fact apart from the weather and the auto-rickshaws, some bits reminded me a little of London. <i>(I shall ask the chai man what he has been putting in Hugh's tea... - Ros)Our hotel is just off Main Bazar, in the light of day the alley is not that bad! It seems to be the main area that backpackers stay, but that's not so bad. There are always people in the aforementioned tea shop to chat to (you could say we are regulars at this particular establishment), and it's good for transport - there are always autos hanging about, and it's a 2 minute walk to New Delhi railway station. This was handy the other day when wanted to buy some train tickets to Jaipur...... ......this makes for a little story in it's own right.We tried to walk into an area of the station that had a big sign saying "Enquiry" when a guy came up to us asking if we had tickets.....Hugh: No, we want to buy tickets.Indian guy: You need to go that way [pointing vaguely away from the station]Hugh: That's not the right way, we were told the tourist ticket office is in the main station upstairs.[Indian guy leads us over to a locked gate behind which is a set of steps]Indian guy: The tourist office is up these steps, but it's being refurbished. You have to go round the corner to the temporary office.Hugh: No, I don't think so, we're going into the main station.[as we turn to walk off, Indian guy grabs my arms and spins me round]Indian guy: MAN, ARE YOU CRAZY? IT'S OVER THERE!!Hugh: Please let go of my arm, you are being very rude and I'm not going to talk to you anymore. We're going inside the station to find the tourist ticket office.We found the tourist ticket office, and it was so simple. Most stations have a tourist window, which everyone uses so there is the normal scrum to get to the front, but here it was a big office with desks, behind which were very helpful staff who sold us our tickets. Some touts really think that tourists are completely stupid. The number of times we've been told the ticket office is closed or being refurbished, and that we should go to the ticket agent round the corner really does beggar belief. Although this was the first tout who has got physical and actually shouted at me.Ros:A Note on Shopping and Tea As we've divvied up this blog entry, I get to write about shopping and tea drinking. These are pretty much the main activities we have spent our time doing in Delhi. Sometimes we even combine them. Clever us. On...er....one of the days in Delhi... (ooops, everything has got muddled in my head again and I've forgotten to jot it in my diary!) we decided to have a bit of a shopping spree. This is because: a) shops are nice cool places and it is very hot outside and,b) we've been really rubbish at shopping so far in India and with only a few days left in the country, we need to sort it out!So we took an auto to an area called Sundar Nagar Market. This turned out not to be a market at all but a collection of fairly smart shops selling mainly brass thingummies and glass bits and bobs for tourists. Apparently in India market means a load of shops (often around a square), whilst a bazaar is a market area, which might actually be a load of small shops. We have no idea whether there is a definite word for the normal temporary stalls market. The brass thingummies and glass bits and bobs were pretty exclusively meant for Stupids so we declined the little embroidered elephant Christmas decorations at 80 rupees each (should be about 10 or 20 rupees) and after attempting to bargain down the really rather lovely brass rat (<i>it was actually a mouse, that Ganesh uses as transport - Hugh) (<i> No, it was obviously a rat. There was no sign of a Ganesh. And anyway, I reckon Ganesh really rides a rat but they prefer to call it a mouse so the tourists buy more Ganesh souvenirs. So there. - Ros) we decided that there was no way we were spending 1700 rupees on something that probably cost the shop about 50 and which was also un-postable and heavy. Although he was great. I wanted to call him Sanjay. He would have sat on the fireplace. :( However, Sundar Nagar's saving grace were two little teashops called Regalia Tea House and Mittal Tea House. The latter was teeny tiny and probably hadn't changed in about 50 years. It was packed to the rafters with boxes and boxes and tins and cans of different types of tea. We tried the lychee tea and some normal Indian style chai and, because the people were very sweet and chatted to us for ages, we bought some lychee tea. Our more serious bout of tea testing and shopping took place in Regalia, which was a little more modern than Mittal and whose teas were a lot more easily accessible (not requiring a ladder to get to). We tested...ooh....about five varieties - each time the lady going off to make us little mugs of them and telling us how to get the best out of the different leaves. We ummed and erred about what to get, chatting to the shop staff and getting as many free mugs of tea as we could :) Oh, and we ended up buying several types tea, which they gave us a bit of a discount on. Think they might have wanted to get rid of us... But we couldn't make the brass shop reduce the price of Sanjay... Whilst we're on the subject of tea shops I should write about the most marvellous little cafe that Hugh mentioned earlier and that happens to be just around the corner from our hotel. Avid blog readers may remember that one of our big gripes about Indian cities is that it is very hard to find somewhere quiet to relax with a drink for a bit. Not so our little backstreet of Paharganj where a lovely Nepalese guy runs a teeny little cafe with bamboo chairs and tables (well, about five chairs and two tables). Just off the truly filthy, smelly, pigeon and cow filled alleyway you can get good chai, in....wait for it....a MUG (most Indian cafes give you chai in a glass. What a stupid idea - you can't pick the darn thing up until it has got cold enough for a thick skin to have formed on the top!). Not only this, but you can have jasmine tea or green tea or a load of other types too. And a mug of tea is 10 rupees, not the 60 or 80 you pay in the coffeehouse chains that you can sometimes find in city centres (oh yes, India has its own Starbucks wannabees). There is a very random selection of food on offer - the visitors book (the wall) seems to suggest that they do sandwiches, but there is no menu and everyone seems confused when you ask what is available. Best bet is to see someone else eating something that looks good and ask for the same. We've been enjoying the really good tibetan soup - lovely fresh veggies and noodles in a clear broth for 40 rupees (about 50p). What a nice change from curry! Unfortunately for anyone reading this thinking they'll visit, the cafe closes tomorrow. The guy who runs it hasn't managed to make enough money in the last six months to keep it going so he's hell bent on somehow getting to England to make his fortune. I tried explaining that although salaries are high in England, the cost of everything is too. He seemed to think that when I said a cup of tea can cost the equivalent of 200 rupees this was a great opportunity for a budding tea-shop owner. Oh dear. If only budding tea-shop owner didn't have to eat and pay rent, oh, and get a visa to get to England in the first place, he might have been on to something.
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