welcome to Nepal

After an overnight (very delayed) train journey to Gorakphur, a jeep to the Nepal border and a nine hour bus ride to Kathmandu, we finally arrived in Thamel in the middle of a power cut. Full of westerners and Irish pubs, the area is a cross between Soho and an alpine resort, replete with wifi enabled (generator-assisted) cafes, outward bound stores heavy with  'North-Fake' gear and a generous smattering of knock-off DVD shops. It was not exactly what we'd been expecting...

before we leave India, a quick round up of some quality signage.

couldn't agree more

so what, who the hell is John?

must make an appointment for that bleach facial....

we think the translations is, no urination on wheelchair users unless you are prepared to clean it up.



you are being watched from apon high



around Varanasi

crazy paving.





Dawn over the Ganges.

selling lotus candles for the nightly puja.

someone's fat head got in the way of the sunrise.

47 days in

I'll take one of everything

and Bella finally finds a cafe that serves Earl Grey tea! The Open Hand in Varanasi is a lovely little spot to while away the hours (on the free wifi) and indulge in some non chai-based beverages and a (huge) slice of carrot cake. It's become a running joke between us that every new place we go to Bella skips straight past the 'Sights' and 'Important information' sections of the Lonely Planet and heads straight for 'Eating & Drinking.'

making friends in high places

Andy on the right

Is that Sir Ben Kingsley following me?

mystic river

Our final port of call in India was the town of Varanasi. It's one of the holiest places in the sub-continent because the sacred Ganges river flows through it. It's also one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world. Hindu pilgrims come here from all over India and beyond to bathe, drink and die in her holy waters. In places the water is so polluted it contains 0% oxygen, but funnily enough it didn't seem to deter these guys.

Just wash and ghat!

Buffalo stance



we interrupt this blog for an important announcement...

Congratulations to Neil and Clem who after many years, two flats, two cats and two kids, have finally decided to tie the knot. We are so excited for you both. What's more we can finally get to wear those bloody suits we bought in Udaipur. Hurrah!

Agra's answer to The Little Chef (but with much better food)

In Agra we upgraded to the 'mid-range' section of the 'eating' chapter of The Lonely Planet as a treat and found ourselves in this swanky joint! We thought it was the kind of place you might get taken for your 12th birthday and if you were lucky you'd get one of their special sundaes for dessert. Andy was in heaven...

Not sure where the napkin ends and the shirt begins.

medical macgyver

After Andy sustained a very painful big toe injury on the way to Agra fort, and with our fully-stocked first aid kit safely under lock and key in our hotel room 2 miles away, we were stuck. Far  from any medical facility and with not enough credit on the phone to ring either Andy's dad or NHS direct, we were forced to improvise….

we present to you the 'toe turban'

where the wild things are

After the hustle and bustle of Agra it was nice to escape the city and visit the Wildlife SOS team at the Agra Bear Rescue Facility in the nearby Sur Sarovar Bird Sancturay. Just 8 or 9 years ago on the same road on which we travelled we probably would've seen some dancing bears . Thanks to Katrick and the team the practise has been all but stamped out now, but the sloth bears remain at risk from poachers who sell bear body parts across the border for Chinese medicine

Dancing bears are taken from their mothers at just a few weeks old and in most cases the mother is killed. The baby bear then begins their new life as a performer. Their sensitive muzzles are pierced with a red hot poker and their canine teeth are smashed out without anaesthetic. Kept on a 4 metre chain, they are then forced to dance for tourists or locals who pay for the privilege, probably not really realising that they are keeping this tragic practise alive by funding the poor tribespeople who steal and trade the baby bears. Separated from their mothers so early, their  immune systems never really develop and so their health is compromised. All in all the bears have a pretty terrible existence and even now photography is banned at the sanctuary as it can be traumatic for the animal’s who’ve spent their lives forced to perform in front of the camera.

But it’s not all bad news. The bears now have a lovely big sanctuary to roam around in. Captured bears are always castrated, so breeding is not an option, but at least they have somewhere safe and peaceful to live out their days. The organisation also works to educate and empower the tribespeople who up until now, have used the bears as their main source of income.

We were the only visitors, the sanctuary is not open to the public, and Kartick and his team made us very welcome, taking us on a guided tour and answering every question we asked. Not to mention the fantastic lunch they laid on for us! You can find out more about their work or donate online here.

kodak moment

What to do when you’re visiting one of the seven wonders of the world and find yourself overloaded with digital photographic equipment?

Look no further, this guy had the ultimate ‘rig’. We left immediately to get Andy measured up.

The 'Tackleberry' of the photographic world

Angelina's got nothing on me



just need to add some ridiculous sunglasses and the clone will be ready



Do you have this one in mocha?

when in Rome…

The best way to ensure you’ll want to jump out of bed at 5.30am to get to the Taj for sunrise is to book a room at the Sai Palace, Agra. Our damp and disintegrating room wasn’t exactly the Ritz, in fact the sink had a waste pipe that emptied directly onto the bathroom  floor so spending minimum time there really wasn’t a problem. We tiptoed past the sleeping staff to let ourselves out of the gate and walked the 10 minutes to join the already sizeable queue for tickets. And here’s what we saw inside.

Something funny we’ve encountered in a few tourist attractions now is the use of a whistle, lifeguard style, to reprimand over-excitable (usually Indian) tourists. The short, sharp toots give the feeling of being back in the swimming baths aged 11 and 'told off' for running, dive bombing or not wearing your verruca sock.

mad cow

‘Can you hurry up please, I’m parked on a double yellow’

around Bundi

Keep off the grass





Bella auditions for 'Most Haunted'

They taught Banksy everything he knows

bollywood in Bundi

Well…not quite. We decided to visit the local cinema, Ranjit Talkies, with our new friend Sandra (from Calgary, Canada whom we’d previously befriended over chai at Krishna’s tea stall). Unfortunately for Sandra there was a choice of just one movie, the Amir Khan production Dhobi Ghat which is more of an international film with a distinct absence of the show stopping tunes, head wobbling or  fight scenes that she’d been expecting. Despite this we bought our tickets and headed to the screen with just three other punters.  The film trailers started promptly enough, but a group of workmen had decided that this was an appropriate time to remove the staging just in front of the screen.  Fortunately through the shadowy figures and shouting we were able to catch a glimpse of this year’s Indian summer blockbuster, Delhi Belly. Obviously, when three westeners are watching a film in Hindi, we are pretty much playing catch up from the opening credits, but maybe if the usher hadn’t waited until a crucial plot moment 2o minutes into the film to shine a torch into our faces and check our tickets, we would maybe have been in with a chance of following the story. But by the time the power cut happened half way through and with a jittery projector swallowing up whole scenes at random,  it become more like a game of Give us a Clue.

An action sequence from the powercut section

things you never thought you’d hear uttered from an Indian person’s mouth #346

Erm...

Bella:  ‘so if you could visit any country in the world, where would you go?

Man outside temple:  ‘I’d go to Germany, I want to visit the death camps’

Bella & Andy: stunned silence.

Footnote: we also spotted Mien Kampf for sale at Varanasi train station.

on the buses….

Another bus journey, another 999 reconstruction. Arriving at Ajmer bus station to purchase tickets for the bus to Bundi we encountered one of the more militant style of bus conductor who proceeded to rush, rush, rush us to buy tickets and then insisted we CLIMB on top of the bus to stowe our rucksacks on the roof (without tethers or bungy cables!). Andy drew the short straw and somehow managed to lug the corpse like bundles up the ladder. For the next bumpy 5 hours or so we imagined the bags tumbling from the roof into a rocky ravine below, but a midway refreshment break gave us an opportunity to check, and lo and behold, the bags remained on the roof. However, when we reached Bundi bus station the usual bun fight ensued of every man and his rabid dog trying to board the bus before the departing passengers had had a chance to exit. All to the usual cacophony of shouting, honking and barking. We were pinned in by a, how can we put this kindly, toad like indian granny which meant we were almost the last to exit, but of course we had to retrieve our bags. By the time Andy was half way up the ladder the bus was already moving. Bella in fits of hysteria began running alongside, hammering on the side of the bus and shouting ‘He’s on the roof !, He’s on the roof!’ much to the amusement of the local crowd who always seem to amass at moments of impending tragedy… Luckily the bus only travelled about 4 metres before stopping to let more people on but for a split second we  thought Andy was on his way to rucksack heaven. Thanks go out to another mysterious guardian angel rickshaw driver with more than a whiff of Billy Conelley about him who then rescued the neurotic English folk and delivered us to our hotel unscathed.

photographs Andy wishes he had taken……

On another alton towers style bus ride, somewhere between Pushkar and Bundi , we rattled past an army base.  They had a krypton factor style assault course and painted on a small wall midway along the course were the words….. ‘When the going gets tough, the tough gets going’. Obviously the Indian army have the copyright clearance from Mr Billy Ocean.

around Pushkar



For all the new mums, the latest in Indian children's fashion







No flies on him, the latest in dromedary fashion

bromance

Exhibit A. The Bristol address isn't fooling anyone.

Neish (Tom), Ramadan (Dee), we're so on to you. Marghe and Emma must be the beards which can only make little Elliot a small moustache...

cashmere culprit

After lovingly hand-laundering my finest Boden cashmere and laying it flat on the balcony to dry as per washing instructions, somebody or something decided to leave their dusty footprints on it.

It’s not going to take Poirot to work this one out, even with the assailant lying low. We’re on to you Bubbles.

dreadlock holiday makers

Pushkar, for those who haven’t visited, is a place of great spiritual importance for Hindus and the lake, surrounded by 52 ghats (steps), is holy as they come. And with all this great spiritual importance comes many, many westerners decked out in the latest  new age garb and competitively dreadlocked hairstyles. Mainly circulating in packs or hanging out en masse at one particular chai stall, from a distance they resembled extras from an episode of the, much-missed, Tony Robinson BCC kids series, Maid Marion and her Merry Men. There are even a few white sadhus who we imagined may have quit their jobs in IT or the civil service to pursue a more enlightened path and a life in orange robes. Call us cynics, but the words cliché and charlatan spring to mind. Spirituality is not for sale!

did somebody say party?

On 2^nd March there was a big festival to celebrate Shiva's birthday and everyone was invited…

all the single ladies...

pimp my camel!

the famous Mewari steeds

the big clean up

watch out boy from The Temple of Doom, Wagner is behind you!