Delhi and Bangkok: A Bollywood Ending.

The Indian Odyssey ended, of course, in Delhi. It’s big, it’s smelly, it’s dirty, and it’s big. There’s nothing super special about Delhi, but that doesn’t mean it’s boring (boring cities in India don’t seem to exist). There’s a heck of a lot happening – particularly in Old Delhi, which is absolute chaos in the most Indian way possible. And there are a couple of fairly impressive monuments hanging around the place.

 Can’t believe we almost blogged our way through India without mentioning the amazing street food. It might look unappetising with the flies and crowds of sweaty Indians hanging around the stalls, but by the lord Shiva is it cheap and delicious. Chapati, samosa, papri chat, lassis, aloo dum, paratha and every

 other fried little treat you could imagine.

Sweet, sweet chaos.

 Even among the chaos, Delhi still has an amazingly colourful and addictive vibrancy. Felix had to hold Phoebe back from purchasing Saris for everyone we know.

 We went out for dinner with a couple of Phoebe’s sister’s friends in Connaught Place. Complete contrast to Old Delhi: Big fancy malls, air-conditioned restaurants, fast food outlets… Our meal was def one of the best veg thalis we’ve ever had.

Alright this was pretty impressive – India’s largest mosque, Jama Masjid. As you can see, Phoebe is delighted that as a white woman she had to pay extra to borrow one of the gorgeous dressing-gown robes, even though she was covered from hair to ankle anyway.

On our last day in India, we had planned to visit New Delhi, but something a bit out of the ordinary happened. We were on our way to breakfast when someone asked us if we wanted to be extras in a Bollywood movie for the day. No Indian experience is complete without having acted in a Bollywood, and 5 minutes later we were swept off in a big van to a fancy hotel where they fed us, made us wait around for hours, filmed us, then paid us. Keep an eye out for us in Youngistan, hitting cinemas all over India in March 2014. We’ll be the ones in the background with the brightly coloured pants.

A young, appropriately dressed camera-woman preparing for her very important role of press conference filming.

Sharma. Vishu Sharma. Full-time professional photographer, born and educated in Mumbai.
(You really gotta know your character well if you want to be a convincing extra.)

ACTION!

Even Bollywood stars need rest. In Delhi airport.. Because even with our recent pay packets we are still too poor to pay for accommodation.

From Delhi we flew to Bangkok, for one final weekend in the Thai capital. After India, Bangkok seemed like a far more relaxed, clean and nice place to be, with a noticeable lack of animals roaming the streets. We love India, but man it was nice to not have to avoid human faeces when walking down the street. We managed to catch up with Tom and his travel companions for some temple-visiting and a night filled with Chang beer, reggae music and scorpion-eating - components that all good nights should have.

The backpacker pit which is Khao San Road. A super fun place to hang out; it's basically just one big market selling just about anything, most importantly pad thai and coconut ice-cream.

Street food that isn't fried?? Get those delicious pork noodles into me, stat!

The Grand Palace. What a stunnaaaah! Phoebe's shoulder-covering shirt that is, but the temples are alright too.

Background defocus: the only setting Phoebe ever uses on the camera (mostly cos it makes food look amazing).

The murals all around the temple walls in the Grand Palace complex are amazingly detailed. Sometimes they were so detailed that Felix got a bit scared and had to take a bit of time out.

There was no explanation as to why this giant Buddha had been beheaded but we were most concerned and appalled by this.

Grabbing a bevvy in Chinatown with the lads...

...And then, after a Thai massage to help with the hangover and to get our thoughts in order for the return home, we headed to the airport for our flight...... home.

It's been a better year than we ever could have imagined, thanks to every person who we have met, stayed with, been employed by, hung out with, shared a beverage or even just a laugh with during the year. We will never ever ever forget it!

And of course thanks to anyone who read this blog along the way, as you may have guessed we've grown quite fond of it, so we hope you enjoyed it! Kisses and hugs to all xoxo

Next time....?

Rajasthan: In Which We Become Part-time Desert People.

In this blog, you will read about our journey into Rajasthan, the state in India that has some of the most deeply entrenched traditions and longstanding history, the most beautiful palaces and forts, and is dominated by the Great Thar Desert. The journey actually began in the last blog, in Pushkar (wasn’t it a cracker?), and continues here in Udaipur, the “most romantic city in India” according to Lonely Planet. We spent a relaxing couple of days here with our third and fourth wheels, Alex and Ben (just kidding guys, we miss ya!).

The City Palace, built over hundreds of years by several different Maharajas – all of whom clearly had very luxurious taste in living space.

If you've got the money and slave-power to build floating palaces, then, why not?

The inside of the City Palace is ridiculously nice. Mosaics and carvings cover almost every aspect of the walls and ceilings. And, in case the Maharajas ran out of nice things to look at, it has some exquisite views over Lake Pichola.

Next we headed to Jaisalmer, a pretty unique place even by Indian standards. Entirely surrounded by desert, Jaisalmer is essentially just a big sandstone fort rising out of the sand, with sandstone houses scattered around the base of the fort. With every building here being the colour of golden sand, it blends perfectly into the desert. It seemed a shame to come as far as Jaisalmer and not go on a camel-trek into the Thar, so that is exactly what we did. Led by our camel-driver Abeh, a self-proclaimed desert man and camel college graduate, we headed deep into the Great Thar Desert to spend a night under the stars.

The World's biggest sandcastle? Wandering through the narrow streets is a bit of a maze, the majority of the fort is filled with hotels, street sellers and cows (always cows)...

Most street vendors take an enthusiastic approach and accost every single tourist who passes by, laboriously  listing all the items which they sell in their "verrry cheap, verrry best shop". This guy's just like "yo."

The not so nice side of  India, sadly, is everywhere...

After purchasing mandatory camel-patterned sunhats, the ones with the neck flaps, we loaded up our camels and headed into the Thar. Just us, 5 camels and Abeh. 

Abeh the Desert Man. This guy was born and raised in the sands of the Thar, and has never left them. He commands a herd of camels, cooks a mean curry, and is an all-round pleasant fellow.

 "No worry no hurry, no chicken no curry!"

Surprisingly this was one of the most comfortable places we slept in, in India. We were lucky that the jackals spared us.

One of Abeh's spontaneous wake-up shots (little bit creepy?). Felix nails the I-just-woke-up-in-the-desert look.

After a tearful farewell to our two travel companions, we continued on to Jodhpur, the ‘Blue City’ of Rajasthan. Dominated by the outrageously enormous Mehrangarh Fort on a hill in the centre of the city, the city extends around it in a giant mess of blue and white lego. Hidden away in the jumble of houses are countless bazaars, packed with the usual food stalls, fabric shops, jewelers, temples, auto-rickshaws, dogs, cows and people.

The colossal Mehrangarh Fort, surely the most impressive fort we've seen in India. Never once breached by any enemy, we'll have you know. We learnt that from the free-audio guide, go us. 

Phoebe trying to relive the glory days, before she was escorted out of the fort.

What's that, we hear you say? That, friends, is what makes Jodhpur famous - the messy jumble of blue cubic houses. Fun fact: Traditionally the Brahmin caste (the highest class in the Hindu belief system) added indigo to their house paint, to keep the houses cooler in the desert sun and to keep the insects away. Ta-da!

People have started taking the tourist-snapping trend to new levels. Forcing tourists to hold your baby while you take a photo is a bit weird. Almost as weird as when they try to hold your hand and take photos.. 

Next time: Delhi, Bangkok......... Home :) :(

Agra & Pushkar: The Taj Mahal, Also Camels.

She’s been described as the most beautiful building on the planet, and as a “teardrop on the face of eternity” by some top-gun poets, so we were expecting pretty big things from the Taj Mahal when we arrived in Agra. The Taj is undoubtedly the most popular tourist destination in India, which unfortunately doesn’t make Agra the most enjoyable city to be in due to the amount of touts crawling round the place (tout: any person who solicits business in a persistent and annoying manner). Despite all the hype and all the touts and all the tourists, the Taj absolutely lives up to all expectations. This probably won’t be remembered as a famous quote, but we’d say it is “a really choice piece of architecture”. Other impressive sights around Agra were the Agra Fort and the ghost town of Fatehpur Sikri, both remnants from the mighty Mughal Empire.

We unashamedly battled the other tourists to get our own, 'unique' snaps in front of the mighty TM.

A touching tribute to Shah Jahan and his 3rd wife Mumtaz Mahal. She died giving birth to his 14th child, leaving him devastated yet inspired to build her the world's most beautiful mausoleum. 

 Oh hai there! Is that the Taj we can spy from our hotel rooftop? Yes, it is. 

(sorry)

 A monkey doing the daily 5pm patrol along the ramparts of Agra Fort.

With an extra day in Agra, we took a road trip to have a gander at Fatehpur Sikri, a pretty impressive abandoned city. Our taxi driver was a man of few words although he sure knew how to blast those Hindi beats.

From Agra we headed to the much more laid back town of Pushkar, to get amongst the Pushkar Camel Fair – an occasion where thousands of camel-herders get together from around India to trade their camels. Everyone gets really into it; there are camels dressed in flamboyant outfits, hundreds of street-food stalls, ferris wheels, dancing camels, and lots of other festive things. Despite all the hustle and bustle of the fair (which is mostly held on the outskirts), the town of Pushkar somehow manages to maintain a really chilled out vibe. It seems to attract a lot of hipsters, which is not surprising at all – this is a town in which meat and eggs are forbidden, but bhang (cannabis flavoured) lassis are all the rage.

Money-saving intiative #57: India is cheap, very, very cheap, but there are ways to make it cheaper. We decided to ask the hotel if four of us could squeeze into a double room. We didn't realise they would simply remove the bed and chuck 3 mattresses on the floor for us...

 As well as being the site of the Camel Fair and a generally really chilled out town, Pushkar is also a very sacred Hindu site. It's packed with temples and many pilgrims worship and bathe on the ghats.

The main street is basically just one big colourful bazaar. Although it's only about 300m long, it takes at least an hour to cross it due to all the distractions.

 There were thousands of camels and camel-herders in the surrounding hills, training their camels, trading, bantering and drinking chai.

"Hello I am a camel and I like to dance but I'm not very good and my dancing is about as ridiculous as you can imagine a camel trying to dance would be lol give me money" 

All good fairs need good food.... Chapati deep-fried in oil and soaked in syrup - a speciality of Pushkar. We ate a disgusting amount of them.

We spent lots of time watching the monkeys plan and execute fruit-stall, sweet shop and samosa raids. 

Little scallywags.

Next time: Heading deeper into the desert state of Rajasthan.