Tuesday 28 December 2010

Christmas in Goa

We hope everyone had a great time over Christmas despite the snow. Dave and I just chilled on the beach and had some Goa fish for our Christmas meal in the evening which was great!!! Colva is a great place to wonder around and eat different food due to the amount of restaurants and so just like you guys we have eaten a lot over the Christmas season. Tomorrow we are hoping to go to Ajunda flea market, which is meant to be a Goan experience. So in the morning we will catch a bus to the market and spend the day there wondering through the stalls, very exciting.
We are leaving Colva in Goa on the 1st Jan to Hampi, we have booked a bus to Hospet where we can get another bus to Hampi itself. Hampi has a lot to have a look at including elephant stables. So we could be there for a week and then move onto Chennai to then move down the east coast.

We hope that everyone has had a great Christmas, we were thinking of you all and missed everyone on Christmas day! Everyone have a great New year!!!!! Bring on 2011!

Tuesday 21 December 2010

Sunday 19 December 2010

Mumbai, Bollywood and the beach

We ended up in Mumbai instead of Ajanta due to the high season on the trains but it was good that we went! Oh and we are alive!!!! Mumbai was so busy but a great city! When we first got to Mumbai we were tired- as we just got off a 29hr train journey. We then got a taxi which over charged us, which was so annoying but it did take us to the right place which was Colaba, which is the main tourist part of Mumbai.We eventually found a hotel to stay in after trudging around Colaba in the midday heat.

Mumbai is a really expensive place to stay but we got one of the cheapest room with a sharing bathroom- which was clean but I'm sure I was the only Women in this place haha. In the evening we met some travellera and had dinner and swapped stories with them but we were so tired that we just went to bed. In the morning we went to Elephanta Island to have a look round, we had to get a boat ride, which was so cool and a great way to cool down. The Island was good, we walked to the top of canon hill and had a look at the view and the tunnels-very interesting. There were loads of other tourists there and so we all got chatting and when we went back to Mumbai we all went to eat in a traditional Indian restaurant! The food was sooooooo hot!!! But it was great fun to meet new people.

Our new friends gave us a number of a casting agency, who hire foreigners for Bollywood movies and so we called and the very next day we were picked up at 8am and were then taken to the Bollywood set! So exciting!!! We were split up into boys and girls, they boys went and had breakfast and the girls went to have their hair and makeup done- I was hoping for a sari and traditional accessories but unfortunately the set was based in a London nihghtclub! So western clothes for me! Haha, but it was fun getting all dressed up and it was pretty cool to be in a Bollywood movie,it was a long day of fake dancing but we met some great people!

The next day we had to get up early to take a train to Margaon - which is the gateway to India, we were looking for a place to stay when a really nice young Indian women said we could stay at her guesthouse in Colva for the night and so we took a taxi and we stayed with her family. It was so nice to be in a family home surrounded by pictures and Christmas decorations including a tree!!! This morning we took a walk to the beach and found a great place to stay right on the beach and so we will be here through Christmas and New year!! Oh and there are cows on the beach- epic! xxxxxx

Sunday 12 December 2010

Taj Mahal and Varanasi

Our train journey from Delhi to Agra was delayed and so we turned up a tiny bit late, but it wasn't so bad. As soon as we stepped of the train we became the autodrivers' bate, but we insisted of getting a government auto, which was fine, the guy we got was really helpful and friendly and even let Dave drive the auto which was crazy. We got the driver to take us to the Taj Ghat area, which was really nice. Our hotel was called the Shanti guest house and it had a rooftop restaurant with a view of the Taj Mahal. The room was ok, very gloomy with the paper falling of the ceiling and walls but its what you get when you pay for a budget room. So we got some dinner at the restaurant and went to bed because we got up at 5.30 am the the next morning to go and see the Taj Mahal at sunrise- it was incredible. The whole thing feels like a dream. The best time to go is early in the morning as there is hardly anyone there, it gets so busy, by 10 am we had to leave as it got all to busy and we were getting more and more attention.

We walked back to our hotel and then had breakfast on the roof while gazing at the Taj and Dave was playing his ukeule it was perfect! In the afternoon we had a walk through the back streets found lots of pigs, cows and dogs being chased by children, great fun. The next day we went to Agra fort station to catch our train to Varansi, we got into a auto which is the norm apart that this one stopped at a roadside mechanic in a busy street, where he started to weld a hole, which is quite normal, but this hole was right next tot he gas tank, the terror on mine and Dave's face was a picture, but we are alive so its all good.

The train ride was good we sat with a nice family and they asked us about England. The train, like the rest of India, is not a quite place and the whole time there are people walking up and down the train trying to sell you toys, food, chai (tea). We also had a transexual and a girl playing the drum trying to get money. Eventually about 8pm people started to go to sleep and so Dave and I climbed onto the top bunk! (So much fun!) It is actually quite easy to sleep on a train when it quietens down Due to the train rocking you to sleep. At 5.13 am we arrived in Varanasi and waited for our driver to pick us up, when we were waiting we became very unnerved as there were some bags left of ages on their own and so we thought...... bomb, this was more worrying as only a few days before a bomb went of at one of Varanasi's Ghats, but nothing to worry about. Anyway these bags got picked up but seriously the security in India is not very good. We got some sleep at our hotel and then had breakfast, the hotel was very nice but too expensive, it was a family run hotel where you felt like one of the family. Dave and I then walked along the Ghats, they were so chilled out and relaxed, there were people in the water washing themselves, their clothes and their cows!!! We also walked passed the burning Ghat which has had a continual fire burning for at least 500 years. We also walked in the back streets and had a look at all the clothes and jewelery that was for sale. Even though Varanasi seemed very chilled out, we were bothered the whole time, by boatmen and little girls selling postcards, it is ok to be asked, it is when you are followed that you get fed up, but I guess they are only trying to make a living. In the evening we went to the Assi ghat ceremony where we watched people swinging a gold bucket alight with fire while placing flowers down and blasting out this great Indian music out of these massive speakers.

In the evening we booked a river trip for sunrise so again we woke up at 5.30 am to watch the sunrise over the river, it was beautiful a real treat. The rest of the day we moved to our new hotel (Cheaper) and also has a rooftop restaurant over the ganges, we are loving the rooftop restaurants. We are only going to stay one or two days more depending on the trains as we are not really enjoying Varanasi, the people here try and get so much money out of you and also try to sell you drugs, which we are not interested in. So we are hoping to go to the Ajanta caves next so that will be exciting!

Sunday 5 December 2010

Auto's and a German Christmas market

Our first few days have been amazing in Delhi, on our first day we walked to the lotus temple which is about half a hour away from where Gila lives. Our walk was very interesting we noticed how everyone seemed to walk on the road and not on the pavements we soon learnt that this was because you have a maze of obstacles to avoid whilst walking on a pavement such as street food stalls, people fixing autorickshaws, random abandon cars, occasionally some sewage but very rarely. But the biggest thing to watch out for is the massive holes on the pavements which seemed crazy to us. The lotus temple was great and free to go and have a look around. We had to hand our shoes in for a token before entering the temple, we were only allowed inside for a little bit because this place was so busy. It was very tranquil inside and cool. that evening Gila took us to a small mosque where there was going to be some singing. To get there went on a autorickshaw, which I have mentioned before, they are a 3 wheeled large moped with a cab on the back for passengers to sit on, they are brilliant and a great way to get around Delhi. The music was taking place in another suburb of Delhi called Nizmuddin. As we were walking to the mosque which was in a little square and was small in itself, we went through lots of small streets crammed with stall of clothing and roses to take into the mosque the smell was amazing, so intense. We got to this stall that took our shoes and gave Dave a hat to wear on his hat, I wore I scarf to cover my head. We didn;t have a token or a piece of paper to say whose shoes were who, so anyone could have taken them, Dave found this very unnerving. When we eventually got to the mosque after walking through the lit up streets we found out that women could not enter the mosque and so we had to sit outside and Dave went inside, but the music was being played outside, which was magical and as we sat on rugs enjoying the music people came round and gave us free food to enjoy. After we took the autorickshaw (YAY) to a south indian restaurant called Navydams which was great, south Indian food is fab.

The next Day Dave and I took the plunge to travel into a really touristy area of Delhi, Connaught place. We took the Metro which was so cool and just the underground, but different from London. We are used to queing and letting people go in front, in India if you dont push you don't get served or don't get onto the metro. When we got to connaught place we were met by lots of helpful and friendly Indian men telling they were studying english but they were really touks, touks are people who are on commision , they lead you to a toursit booker, to book tours, and they get commision, luckily we escape them and have a look around a park right in the centre.

In the evening Gila took us to a leaving party for her friend and it was on a rooftop, how cool!!! |It was great to meet some new people and find out more about India, the best thing was meeting people from all over the world who have been all around the world. We met Germans, French, American and Australians. So amazing, it was so good we were up until 4 am! On the way home we heard all this banging, like gunshot and I think that Dave and I were hoping it was only fireworks, it was in fact fire crackers, apparently people from India are fasinated by them.

In the morning we went to a massive market in Saronjini, which was brilliant, there was stalls and stalls of everything you can think of! Lots of people trying to sell us sunglasses and belts in the streets. We also had some more street food which was a cooke sweet potatoe coved in some spice and squeezed lime, tasted great! Throughout the market there were so many people just moving as one great mass. I managed to buy myself a new bag and some shoes for Rs350 thats only £3.95.

Today we went to a German market near the german embassy. Very very strange to be eating sausages, drinking mulled wine and hearing christmas songs in the middle of Delhi! It was great though to have a look round all the stalls and not being pushed so much!

So far our time in Delhi has been fantastic, we are leaving Delhi on Wednesday for Agra then to Varinassi on Friday!

Dave and Emma

Thursday 2 December 2010

Delhi

So WOW eventually we reached Delhi! Our first flight was cancelled due to a fuel problem and so we had to sleep on the plane as there was no hotels for us what a incredably noisy and uncomfortable night but hey its over now, in the morning we got of the plane went through arrivals and then had to go to departures and check in all over again and catch the 13.30 flight to Delhi but we did get a free breakfast so not all that bad. We were so tired but eventually at 4.20am we landed in Delhi got our currency and booked a taxi to Gila's. This taxi ride was immense, the driver weaving in and out of cars, running through red lights and beeping at other drivers. When we got to the area where Gila lived the taxi driver didn't quite know where her block of buildings were so he spent about 30 mins asking random people on the street where her house is, but everyone was helpful. We stopped to ask one guy and there was some cows just chilling out on the side of the road. Brilliant. Eventually we got to Gila's at 6 am and have had a few hours sleep and will probs have a little look around this area and then tonight we are going to hear some music with Gila.

Thank god for Gila otherwise Delhi would be more crazy than it already is. This place is amazing, Gila's house is in a area of Delhi called Kalhaji and is quite near the lotus temple, so may have a looksee today!