On leaving India I tried to make a list of likes and dislikes and although I have a few, most of the things in India can be violently hated and loved at the same time but here are a few of the best i could think of.....


LIKES:

The genuine humanity of the Indian people and their genuine friendliness
The haggling everywhere for every price
The fact that you can live like a king for $20 US a day
The amazing food that you can get everywhere
The genuine want to please you - if they cant get it they will find someone who can and they hate to say 'no' to you ever.


DISLIKES:

The red crap that Indian men chew and then spit in a long stream into the road - its a miracle they never hit me. This stuff they chew makes their breath STINK and their teeth rot and its vile
The constant hawking and spitting that is a way of life in India and they do it EVERYWHERE. Men spit all the time and it really started to turn my stomach when i was leaving.
The constant staring. I mean when you are on a train EVERY male on that train will stare at you and some will come into the carriage when the train stops just to stare at you - no matter how you dress or ignore them. You just had to get thick skinned but it really started to get to me after a while.
The fact that you cannot get rid of people. I had one rickshaw driver follow me for 40 mins in his rickshaw when i was on foot trying to pursuade me to get in. I had another one in Agra who followed me on foot and even sat outside the restaurant i went into and then into my hotel so that he could claim commission for taking me there!! That was a total of 4 hours he followed me for.



My return from New Zealand back into Indian culture was a little strange as although I had only 2 weeks left in India and I wanted to do so much I found it pretty hard work as the daily temperatures exceeded 45 degrees C!!I began my whistle stop tour by booking all my train ticket with the usual formalities of going to the front of every queue to get my tickets - I am going to miss the female queue thing when I am back home!!From Delhi I travelled overnight to Ajmer and caught a bus to Pushkar and spent 2 days there buying loads and loads of clothes and sending them home. On the train I met an Austrain guy who had been to India in 1990 and we had an interesting conversation about the changes in India over the last 10 years. The amazing thing he said that the only differences are the fact that there are now petrol stations and internet cafes - everything else was pretty much the same as it was in 1990! Due to the soaring temperatures the place was very quiet and I got some very good bargins as there really was no other tourists there!I took my stuff and went to the post office for the packingwallah to sew it up in cloth and seal it with wax - yes really! and then sent it home. The whole process took around 4 hours for 3 parcels.....Indian post office maths.....


Add the number of parcels to the number of workers in the post office then divide by how many times they go out for chai and then add that to the number of times you have to go to different places in the post office for glue and to find a packingwahlah and you pretty much get the idea!!!

I saw my first camels in Pushkar and you would think that they were slow?? No! Camels move so fast!!!
From Pushkar I went to Jaipur and clever old me I thought that I would be smart and spend the night in the train station in Ajmer as my train was at 5am the next morning. I decided to sleep in the upper class ladies waiting room and as I settled down to sleep thought 'this place actually seems pretty clean' ah foolish me as I woke up with FLEA BITES!!! was absolutly jumping - picture to follow on my web page soon!!!!


I didn't like Jaipur that much - was just another big noisy city and I left after one day. I wanted to go and watch the sunset as Jaipur is billed as 'the pink city' as it was painted pink on order of the king one year to welcome the UK king at the time (1700's) and the tradition was continued. However there was no sunset just the first monsoon rain and the road outside was a river in 2 minutes!
The one good thing I did in Japiur was go to the palace that hosted the worlds biggest sundial and the worlds biggest silver cup.

Seeing those things got me thinking so I have added them to a list....
So far I have been accross New Zealands longest bridge and seen the worlds largest jersey, largest glass of beer, largest silver cup, largest sundial. I will continue this list till i get home and i bet its gonna look a little weird!




From Japiur I continued to Agra, the town that plays host to the Taj Mahal. This town saw the clingiest touts and the most outrageous scams and prices for white people but luckily i avoided most of them! I visted the Taj Mahal and my bad luck with the weather continued. I first saw it from the roof restaurant of my hotel and it was like 'oh it looks like it does in the pictures! It didnt seem real at all!' I then went down and walked round and inside it and all the way round it. Instead of a sunset we got a sand/dust storm so the Taj nearly dissapeared at one point and then it started to rain! I wanted to also view the Taj by moonlight but it was cloudy and when i got up again for the sunrise it was still cloudy!!


It really is an amazing building though and is total testament to the weirness and oddities that is India. It was said to be the greatest monument ever built for love. It was built by a muslim man for an islamic woman and is the greatest tourist attaration in India - a primarily Hindu country!


I also saw my first and only elephant on the streets of Agra. From Agra I headed back to Delhi and spent another night in Delhi airport and then the following morning headed for African shores......!


The following are notes from an Indian newspaper which proves that although many Indian people speak english, it is not Victorian English, or Broken English but very much Indian English where most of what is written makes sense but now and again they choose slightly the wrong word either making the whole thing nonsense or hilarious!


Ie the Indian Express May 5th 2007:
'Man returns from dead, jailed wife,lover freed'
'Tony Blair almost lost control of Scotland'



From shrieking with laughter at that in the paper I turned the page to read a Doctors letter:


'Middle aged woman with pregnant teenage daughter who was also mentally challanged'
In such cases experience points suspicion to a relative as in most cases they are the culprits. Yes confirmed the mother casually it was one of her Uncles.
Doing the only thing I could I asked her mother if I could equip her daughter with some simple birth control. In such cases the law also permits removal of the uterus.
The mother said she was not interested in anything of the sort. Such a reply from someone who understood the full implication of what she said was mind numbing.
Where is that girl now - is she safe, alive, pregnant again, raped again?

Severla points - firstly ok India is not westernised nor has any wish to be so but HOW can the above story be ok, how can this be allowed to continue? However forward thinking and technologically advanced India becomes India will remain the same - fixedly so and blinkered to the best that westernised culture has to offer.

They will take the parts that are permitted to fit along side their culture ie the pornography, the money, the internet and the technological advances but when it comes to culture Indian people will never change - no matter which country they are in. This may seem a little harsh to judge the whole of India this way but after talking to a lot of people both tourists and Indians for the last 3 months the only changes they could tell me about in 20 years was petrol stations, internet, mobile phones, cricket and politics.

As has been said 'a defined culture is strictly for bacteria, let us leave it that way' To me that is the best explanation of India that I can find. I have attempted to explain and show India in several ways and every time I feel I have only scraped the surface of the culture that is India

Next blog will be from Africa!!!

New Zealand is very hard to describe as in a lot of ways it is like my dear home country.
It has to be said that this is also one of the most beautiful countries I have ever been to. To quote Billy Connolly he says that Scotland is a bit like New Zealand in that you are constantly saying 'wow! Look at the amazing scenery and five minutes on and you are saying wow! Look at the amazing scenery'.
In other ways it is very easy to describe, the people are friendly (if a little odd) and the hills and mountains reminded me a lot of home. I may even go so far as to say the landscape and mountains were better than Scotland on some occasions.

I arrived in New Zealand at the end of March after spending 2 days on a plane... (The things I do for some people!) and then our first task was to buy a car.
I was surprised to find that Jon actually knew a lot about cars and after a test drive consulted me on whether to purchase - not a wise move as I didn't have a Scooby, I would have just preferred a red one! So Jon was now the proud owner of a green Subaru Legacy and it has to be said it was a lovely wee car and did well for the month that we were driving in it.
The following morning (after Starbucks and SHOPPING) we left Auckland and arrived in Pahia, Bay of Islands and stayed in the Pickled Parrot. It has to be said that the names of things here were far more imaginative than Nepal’s constant 'Lovely View Hotel' 'Nice View Hotel' 'Green View Hotel' - you get the picture.
Pahia was one of the prettiest places I have ever been to and it was added to by the fact that it was warm and sunny for the 3 days we spent there and the seafood was the best I have ever tasted anywhere.

Of course adjusting to westernised culture was again pretty weird. However I actually enjoyed the luxury of a sit down toilet and a clean (hot) shower and a fast internet connection more than I thought I would. On the flip side however it also made me feel bad as when I left I was not enjoying India much and wanted to leave. This made me feel bad as I have the LUXURY of leaving, before I left I spoke to Minnie (the Indian woman I shopped with in Delhi) and she told me that a lot of people in India don't like it either, the smells and the beggars and the corruptness but they are stuck with it. I on the other hand have the luxury of leaving which they don't. I was also horrified that the price of a packet of batteries in New Zealand would buy me a nice hotel room and 3 meals in India! I soon got used to westernised life again though and enjoyed some real home comforts I haven't had in a long time i.e. since the USA, like Dominoes Pizza, baked beans and a decent pint of beer!

Over the next 2-3 weeks we travelled in the North Island going to Russell which has the oldest Church in New Zealand, also to Raglan which is very pretty. The we headed to Rotorua which has hot water and sulphur bubbling up from below the surface, great fun but the water is very hot and steaming and the sulphur stinks, I was blaming Jon for the smell until we realised it was the sulphur!
There are some great photos from the North Island which I will upload when I can.

People in India must think USB is a shop or a restaurant or something as people come into the internet place and ask 'USB?' and there almost never is!

We decided that we wanted to see some Lord Of The Rings Locations as well and as we got further south we passed through the area where they filmed Hobbiton. It doesn't really look like it though as so much was changed digitally for the films.
On the way to the ferry we decided that wine quaffing was to be the order of the day. We went first to Masterton and then on to Martinborough, wine regions a-plenty-hic!
And for what it’s worth Jon I am sorry about the egg roll.
Let me explain..........Jon and I left early from Masterton, in the village I was hungry (I ate like a horse in New Zealand, and Jon agrees with my family that I need a plastic scoop bib) so I went to buy an egg roll (which we both love). At this point Jon did not want an egg roll. I sat in the car and ate it while he went to buy things for the ice box. On his return he said he had wanted a bite of my egg roll, however it was 'evident from the mess on my face, clothes and general area in the car' that it was finished. Then he said that 'really you should have kept a bite for me' I enquired if he wanted an egg roll? 'No'. Did he want me to go and buy him one? 'No'. Did he want me to go and buy one and let him have a bite? 'No'. It was a bite of THAT SPECIFIC egg roll he had wanted and now it was gone.
And I thought that I was hard work!!!

Anyway enough of that, the wine region was beautiful - well it was ALL beautiful really it was hard to say which bits were nicer than others. Napier was nice and we spent a lovely couple of days there going to see the aquarium, dolphin show and mini golf.
It has to be said at this point that I never realised what a bad loser I am at games (not that I hit him with the golf club, I just threw water over him). I didn't realise that I was a bad loser - but to be honest when he won every game we played from Boggle (yes we found that and had great fun!!) to mini golf to lateral thinking puzzles to a huge maze, then its no wonder I got to be a bad loser!!

After Napier I think we headed to Wellington and actually stopped for 4 days or so. One of the interesting things that happened there was the fire alarm going off at 5am in the morning. We found out later that it had been due to a car crash, followed by a chase followed by a knifing. It’s weird to think that if you asked most people which was safer - New Zealand or India most people would choose New Zealand when in fact I feel totally safe in India, I never once saw anyone hitting anyone else or any aggression or violence.
The museum in Wellington is worth a look as are the shops! I also set up my skype in Wellington so feel free to skype me! The other thing worth a look is all the art painted on the buildings near the zebra painted hostel as there is loads of it and it is all really good.

From Wellington we caught the ferry to the South Island. We headed straight for Abel Tasman National Park and I spent a day walking there while Jon enjoyed the sights of Nelson and had a day’s course in bone carving. The flora and fauna is amazing in Abel Tasman and is worthy of more than a days hike but we were keen to get to Arthur's Pass so we just spent one day here.
As we headed down the coast it became apparent that the south island was far nicer and more beautiful than the north island.
That night we stayed in Kaikoura in 'The Lazy Shag' and the village itself is really pretty and although their fried egg rolls are not up to much their savoury scones are the best on the planet!! They also have a great wee Irish pub. There is a great spot for rock pools as well (if you like that kind of thing!)
We headed across to Arthur's Pass and spent one night in a little place called Sheffield (far nicer than the real one) and stayed in the loveliest hostel I have ever been in. It was so old fashioned and they had a big cooking stove and a log stove and a piano, very nice and home comforting.
Arthur's Pass is stunning. Make sure you go to the pie shop in Springfield before going through though, it’s totally amazing - although fighting with your boyfriend over the last lamb and mint pie is optional....!
We stopped constantly on the drive through as the scenery was so spectacular and Jon was taking loads of photographs which I will pinch as they are much better than mine! In the village of Arthur's Pass itself we climbed up to a waterfall. Not quite as huge as the Mexico ones but was pretty impressive all the same.


From there we stayed at the Franz Joseph glacier and the following day we climbed around on the glacier - pictures of my 'these came out of the ark crampons' to follow! They wouldn't have stuck in butter never mind on ice! The glacier was great fun though as there were pre-cut steps and loads of caves to go exploring in - see pictures!

From Franz Joseph we headed to Queenstown through some of the most stunning scenery I have ever seen. It was a lot like Skye and reminded me a lot of home as it wasn't tree covered like the rest of it. The only disappointment was there were no views to be had of Mount Cook.
Queenstown was a little uninspiring, full of British people and not a lot else. There were a few shops and it is definitely the daredevil capital of New Zealand with bungee jumping and hang gliders aplenty. The climb up to the basket of dreams is worth it though on a fine day as the view is stunning and there were plenty of toadstools to keep Jon amused.... (To photograph them I mean not to eat them!)
After a teapot in Queenstown we headed back to the Puzzle world place we had seen and spent a FANTASTIC day there. I discovered that myself and Jon both love puzzles and we had a great time!! Firstly we went round the maze (separately) and Jon beat me by 7 minutes and then we spent ages doing all the rest of the puzzles. We also went to see the illusions rooms where you appeared very small or big or tilted and it was all great fun. We bought a lateral puzzle book for the car and had great fun with it till the end of the road trip!
After Puzzle world we stayed at the YHA in Mount Cook and the next day I persuaded Jon to come hiking with me!
We had a great day climbing up behind the village and onto the shoulder that looks onto a huge glacier with Mount Cook on the right hand side. We had amazing views for the whole day and even Jon was impressed when we saw an avalanche!
We spent that night in Twizel at another lovely hostel with roaring log fires and stoves and the next morning we headed for Christchurch.
On the way to Christchurch we stopped in a place called Geraldine that claimed to hold the 'Worlds biggest Jersey' which was fun to go and see. Geraldine also has a very good pie shop.
Have started to compile a list - Following a viewing of 'the worlds largest jersey' I am going to make a list of the 'one offs' that I have seen on my travels, only started the list a few days ago.
1. Seen New Zealand’s oldest church
2. Been across New Zealand’s longest bridge.
3. Seen the world’s biggest beer glass in Christchurch
4. Seen the worlds biggest silver cup (Jaipur India)
5. Seen the world’s biggest sundial (Jaipur India).

We didn't do a lot in Christchurch except get a few things that I needed before returning to India and having a last dominoes pizza.

I can honestly say I loved New Zealand and myself and Jon got on so well. I love travelling with him; he is good company, fun, laid back and the most caring and sensitive man that I have ever met. I am glad that we got to see one another again and we had a lovely time for the month that we were together.
I hope that it’s not too long before we see each other again. I will miss him a lot for the next while as he is to stay and work in New Zealand whereas my next blog will be from Africa!!!

New Zealand has taught me a few things
1. Badgers taste like marmite
2. I am incapable of eating anything without it going down my front and in my hair
3. Don't eat the last of an egg roll even when Jon has said that he doesn't want one
4. Don't drive too close to the car in front
5. Don't put your red silk sleep sheet in the wash with your new blue New Zealand t-shirt with sheep on it
6. When you loose Dudley check every pocket you have and he will be in Jon’s fleece pocket! This was a very bad moment for both of us! However we did have a full fry up celebratory breakfast when we found him again. We had been hiking the day before and thought he had fallen out when we reached the track again on the way down and had stopped for a last break before the hours walk back to the hostel. We were all geared up to go back to Mount Cook and search when we heard a giggling coming from Jon’s fleece pocket and there was Dudley!

Return to India

The border town in India was just a horrible little town and I was pleased to find a bus that connected me with Sunali where I caught a jeep to Darjeeling.
I was more culture shocked with my return to India than I was when I first arrived in it but that was perhaps due to where I went. The drive up to Darjeeling was a beautiful 3 hour drive. Arrival in Darjeeling was not nice, the whole place was constantly covered in cloud so that everything you owned became wet through – including your sleeping bag and bed linen. Also it was freezing cold and due to the cloud the views were non-existent. I met a woman on my last day there who told me that when it is nice Darjeeling is beautiful with tea fields as far as the eye can see and the mountains (including Kanchenjunga) in the background. I got up at 4am twice to see the sunrise and after a 2 hour jeep ride further north I saw nothing. I did eventually get to see the tea fields up close and had some tea with the women who sold it. People here are a mixture of Indian, Nepalese and Tibetan which makes for a very varied community and menu !

I spent 4 days in Darjeeling sampling as much tea as I could get my hands on and visiting the Tenzing Norgay Museum as he was from Darjeeling and his ashes are scattered here – worth a look if you are ever in Darjeeling.
After this I got the happy news that I was to spend a month in New Zealand as Jon was unable to get to India. I flew from Sunali to Delhi as soon as I could (for 30 quid) and then spent 2 days in Delhi with Debbie who I had seen in Varanasi and we had a lovely time. She seems to know half the population of people travelling in Delhi and its amazing who you meet who have also met other people you have met. Debbie had met Conrad who I had met in Pokhara, another guy had met Jane, a girl I met in Hampi and so it went on !
On my last day in Delhi something really good happened as I went for a leg wax (well a girl has to look nice for her man !) and it was done by a woman in her house. We started chatting and i was asking about her children etc and she said that she loves to shop and would I like to go shopping with her !! Not only was this fantastic fun but as she was there I got ‘Indian Prices’ for everything (about a 5th of the price I would have paid on my own). We went to a cloth merchants and chose 3 different kids of material and then went to a lady tailors and chose the design, and type of Punjab suits that I wanted and when I returned the following day they were all ready for me. I love them and they are actually pretty cool in hot weather as the trousers are wide fitting and loose.
It was fun to shop with an Indian lady though. When i return to Delhi I am going to pay her a visit to say thank you.
That night I got a taxi with someone I had met through Debbie and we headed to the airport. This guy was pretty interesting as he was 18 and had travelled the world. He was a very savvy traveller and had managed to survive in Europe for 10 euros a day ! that morning at 4am I caught my plane to New Zealand – well actually I caught a plane to Dubai first…yes i know that's the wrong way…and then Singapore and then Brisbane and then finally Auckland where Jon was waiting for me. Separate blog for New Zealand!

Nepal.
Nepal is now my second favourite country after Scotland. It is simply beautiful and most people say that it is 'best part of India' They say this as it is like India in a lot of ways but I much preferred it to India.
After we crossed the border on foot (see photos again) I was now in my 17th country (in total not on this trip and I CAN count the UK as 3 separate countries ok!)
We got on the bus to Pokhara and asked when it would leave - the man said 15 mins. We asked him about 3 times before he said 'ok relax you are not in India now, the bus will leave in 15 minutes' - we laughed and sure enough it did leave in 15 minutes. This incident pretty much set the tone for the rest of Nepal.
The bus ride to Pokhara took around 6 hours and some of the steep sided cliffs we raced around on the wrong side of the road really tested Jeans bladder to the full i think - she looked a little worried anyway!
On the bus ride to Pokhara 3 things became apparent straight away, firstly Nepalese men don't stare at you or ask you the same same same questions you get in India. After being stared at non-stop for a month this was a very welcome relief and warmed me to them immensely. Secondly they are a far more beautiful people than Indians, have a look at the pictures! Nepalese are rounded cheeked and round faced and beautiful skinned and they also smile a lot more than Indians seemed to.
The third thing that became apparent was the Jean is a great person to have around when you need food and she and Ronan had discovered the Indian equivalent of Rich Tea. She also brought banana muffins on the first day of the trek thereby scoring all the brownie points for that day!
Arrived in Pokhara and checked into our hotel. Things that became apparent immediately were the cleanliness of the place, the obviousness of a sewage system and the sweet sweet smell of the air as a result of the sewage system!!
We spent 2 days in Pokhara eating meat for the first time in a month and preparing for the trek! We decided to trek for 23 days approximately and to start with the Annapurna Base Camp Trek and then to cross to the Jomson Trek as I had heard that the high pass Throng-La on the Annapurna Circuit was still closed.
We set off early in the morning and had started to climb from Phedi by the time the sun was rising. Point of note to those thinking of doing the same sort of thing. If you want to do this trek start where we did and DO NOT start at the other end of the Annapurna Circuit Trek (forget the name of the town) as it is not nice and the way we went you start much higher and before long we were walking through rice fields and reaching small villages. After a steep climb aided with a banana muffin we reached the top of the hill and were rewarded with STUNNING views of the fishtail and start of the Annapurna range beside it.
Over the next 18 days we trekked - mainly in good humour and in bright sunshine. We tended to start at 7am and trekked till 9-9.30am where we would stop at a village and have breakfast and gallons of Nepalese tea - similar to chai but didn't seem as sweet. We would then trek till around 12-1 and stop for lunch - then trek again till 3-4pm and stop. Each part of the trek was different and the scenery changed all the time. The trek was good as we didn't often walk up one valley or hill for long, we often crossed more than 2 valleys in one day or circuited round and through high, steep sided valleys made up of terraced fields as far as the eye could see.

The walking was mainly 'Nepalese flat - a little bit up, a little bit down', when in actual fact it was a lot of up and down every day. The Annapurna Base Camp trek we did for the first 5 days. As we trekked early in the morning we were always rewarded with stunning views of the Annapurna's until around 11am when it started to cloud in.
On the 3rd day we discovered that as we were trekking early in the season there was no places open between Doban and the base camp of the fishtail. Also we were told that the Annapurna base camp as closed due to fresh falls of snow in the past week or so. We kept hearing different information, some people said open some said closed. One thing we knew for sure was that it would be a full days march without being able to stop for food to get to the base camp and gaining an altitude of over 1000m. As we were already at a high altitude and as we were not experienced at altitude we decided not to go. On day 4 and day 5 we headed up as far as we could on the trek and spent one easy day getting to Doban from Bamboo. We hit the snowline on these days which was good as well. The only thing of note is that i fell off a bridge....!! Mind you it did get me the last chocolate eclair (again Jeans great food!)
Day 6 was a rest day in Chhomrong and I spent the entire day eating and asleep. The food in the mountains is much better than the book would have you believe and it was the one time that Lonely Planet was absolute rubbish due to it being SO out of date. It mentions that the author for the area 'enjoys eating steaks in Pokhara' - I think that's all he did to be honest! I sent a snotty email to lonely planet on my return…..have still not had a response apart from ‘your email has been forwarded to the appropriate section ie the dustbin’
The food was varied and fine - especially as everything had to be brought up for days on porters or mules - apart from the addition of ginger and cabbage to EVERYTHING!Day 7 we crossed from the Base Camp Trek to the Jomson trek and we had to climb a fairly large hill but were rewarded at the end with a nice place to stay and a fire under our table.

I must mention the fire thing here as its such a great idea. Attached to the top of the tables are blankets that reach the ground. In some places there is then a hole in the floor about ½ metre deep where they put a burning gas fire or there is no hole dug out and they have metal buckets where they put the red coals from the fire in the kitchen. You simply sit at the table and put the blanket up around your knees and hey presto you are as warm as toast ! See the pictures online for a better idea of what I mean.

Day 8, had breakfast in the place where I took a great picture of Annapurna 3 and saw a massive bird fly past, we were to see these more often, mainly at Poon Hill. We think they were eagles.We arrived in Poon Hill that evening. This is the place where a lot of people go to as it is a 2 day trek from the start of the Jomson trek and there is a hill you can go to to watch the sunrise over the entire range – which is exactly what we did. That day was day 8 and turned out to be a really long day as after poon hill we trekked to Tatopani and stayed in a hotel with the best chicken sizzler I have ever eaten ! Or maybe it was just 7 days of potato roasty and veg fried rice that made it taste good !

Day 9-12 we headed up the Jomson trek. At this point the weather turned bad and we had a discussion about what to do as Jean said’ I didn't come all this way to see Jack Shit’ and I completely agreed with her. When you have your eyes down at the path, with the rain beating down you don't see anything and you could be anywhere. We agreed to stop in Ghasa and have another rest day. It turned out to be beautiful weather when we arrived in Ghasa. That day we saw a sheep being slaughtered in preparation for Holi and I was amazed at the cleanliness of the operation and the fact that not one bit of the animal was wasted. I took loads of pictures as I had never seen it before and was fascinated !
There was also a small boy in the place we stayed and he had fun helping me do my washing ! All the places you stay in when you trek are also family homes and it is important to remember this as you cant have a shower if the fire has not been lit etc !
From Ghasa we decided to head back down the Jomson trek all the way. We decided not to go any further up even though the weather had cleared up as firstly we were running out of time and secondly we met a few people who were trekking down from Jomson who told us that it had been snowing a lot and they couldnt see anything as they were walking.

One thing I want to mention is the porters. Most people who trek in Nepal have a guide and a porter - usually more than one porter if it is a big party of people trekking. The porters carried immense loads (see pics) and they would start after us in the morning and pass us during the day. When we arrived at our destination for that day, we would usually sit down exhausted while the porters would play jumping tiger or another board game i forget the name of that was a huge board and was played with round flat counters and chalk to make the counters slide as you flicked them. We decided not to have a guide or porter and we realised that it was not necessary as there was a path the whole way and if we went wrong people would correct us (while laughing!) and then ask 'No guide, no porter?' We also decided that we could do without our sling backs and hair straighteners and just carried what we needed ourselves.
There was also a lot of mules on the Jomson trek carrying supplies to the guest houses and villages and the novelty of stopping to let them past soon wore off!

Days 13-18 were spent trekking back to Pokhara (well to the end of the trek and then a taxi to Pokhara). The scenery was beautiful and the walking was not difficult apart from one days full slog uphill. By day 14 I was actually having dreams about internet cafes and telephones. 18 days without communication was a very weird thing especially as you come to rely on it so much when you travel.
Books I read on the trek included Bill Brysons ‘a walk in the woods’ and ‘7 Years in Tibet’. I have also realised how fit I have become and although I wont be able to maintain this level of fitness when I am travelling it is good to know that I can get that fit and to know that I can walk for 18 days with a rucksack filled with everything I need except food.
On the last night of the trek one of us suddenly spotted a car as we were close to a track that you can get a taxi to. I was immediately reaching for my camera to take a picture !! Having not seen a car for 18 days we actually stared at it for ages and commented on it ! We must have seemed daft to those who had just started trekking !
The last day we got to the road and got a taxi back to Pokhara – of this journey I remember 2 things, firstly my body did not like going at speeds of over 15 miles an hour having not had it for 18 days and myself and Jean began to feel car sick ! The second thing was that the driver was a lunatic and was overtaking when there was no need. Jean said she was itching to slap him around the head and remind him that in Nepal you drive on the left !
On return to Pokhara I went straight to the internet cafe and then spent the rest of the day eating. We also went to the busy bee cafe (best pub in town) and had one too many sherbets !
The next day I could not sit still as I woke up at 6am ready to trek and instead had breakfast and did emails and got my washing back. I sat and smelled the clean washing for ages. After 18 days of hand washing, the smell of those clothes, freshly folded and ironed is something that will stay with me for a long time !
The rest of the time in Pokara was spent doing not a lot, eating and visiting the Mountain Museum – an EXCELLENT museum and well worth visiting.

We then caught the bus to Kathmandu where we did a little sightseeing, got photos developed, caught up on emails and I also took a flight over Everest which was one of the highlights of my whole trip ! See the photos online. I was grinning like an idiot for the rest of the day. It didn't last though as I sauntered up to the travel agents to get a bus ticket to the eastern border of Nepal to head for Darjeeling, the travel agent told me that there were going to be strikes in Kathmandu and the roads were blocked. If I wanted to get out of Nepal the only way was to take a flight from Kathmandu to the border. So more expense ? Not really, ok so the plane was 5X as much as the bus ticket but the plane was only 40 quid ! The border between India and Nepal at the eastern side is not worthy of comment except that if crossing here and you need to spend the night stay on the Nepalese side as it is far nicer and quite ok for a border town. The women in the tourist office are lovely also and I spent an afternoon with them chatting and drinking chai.

The next morning I was thrown back into India with a force that I really didn't like. I walked across the border with everyone staring at me on the bridge across and the rickshaw drivers slowing down so their passengers could stare even more…. !Once across and through the border – where they write your name in a huge ledger that they probably started using when they were told to by the British – the office was STUFFED full of these books. In my details they copied the passport number wrong and stated my country as being the EU and that my name was Josephine Robson……Um. I will continue my return to India in a separate blog

Ok i have not done a blog for a while I know and since my last blog I have been to Nepal, back to India, over to New Zealand and then back to India and finally I am doing this. Actually its 49 degrees C outside so I cant stand it any more!

Hyderabad was a big noisy city with not a lot in it except for the mandatory 'fort' area and a huge Buddha statue in the lake which myself and Greg (an Auzzie guy I met on the bus) went out to with a bunch of male school kids who we met and were on their way to the statue as well. They were obviously of a high caste as their English was exemplary and they were so polite.
They asked a lot of questions (other than the usual questions EVERYONE asks ) and were a lot of fun.
We met them again at the fort the following day and by the end of that day I was exhausted. I actually found myself saying to Greg 'I'm not doing any more photographs today' – and any of you who have been to India will know what I mean!

Just an aside, most people who you stop and talk to i.e when you buy water or ask directions they will say 'which country?' or 'coming from?' and then when you tell them they say 'ah yes Scotland, beautiful country' and then they ask 'First time in India?', 'You like India', 'You are married?' (my response to this was always yes) 'So where he is your husband?' 'You have children?' 'You are getting old madam better to have children soon' and this was the extent of every conversation. Occasionally you would meet someone with excellent english but most of the time it was 'coming from?' and then nothing else.

After Hyderabad I went to the train station and spent some time in the woman's waiting room - good place to go if you need to overnight in an Indian train station minus the hassles.
I then bumped into a mad Spaniard who it happened was getting the same train as me to Varanasi and also was in the bed above me! The train ride was amazing (as I have mentioned train rides before), by the end of it I knew everyone in the carriage – carriages in Indian train could almost be separated into classes – was quite odd. Mind you I think wherever you go in the world there are different classes of people take different forms of transport and this is certainly true in India. We were in second class this time as there was no sleeper class available. In sleeper class there is 6 beds (i.e metal beds wall hung with mattresses in a carriage 3 facing 3). In second class it is the same but there are no beggars allowed and you are given blankets, a sheet, a washcloth and a pillow – all clean (western standard clean) and all presented to you in a brown paper bag. We spent a very comfortable 2 nights and 3 days on the train. The train is pretty slow and the landscape is amazing so it passed very quickly. Walking into third class was a sea of humanity all around, in particular I remember a family (of about 10 people) beckoning me over to eat with them om the floor with newspapers spread out to eat on piled high with rice and dal. The sea of humanity in that train is very hard to describe. I remember in particular a boy of about 4 years old with a drum around his neck and he beat on either end of the drum with sticks and sang while his much younger sister collected money. One huge thing I noticed about people in India is although a lot of people have nothing and are prepared to share their only meal with you on a long journey when there is barely enough for themselves, most of them are far happier, warmer and kinder than people in developed countries in the western world who have everything. All we seem to do is complain about the everything that we have. We see India as "3rd world" or 'developing' when in fact that is putting our western ideas on a society that is not western and has no desire to be so.
Varanasi was a place that although I have been away from it for more than 2 months now I
still don't know how I feel about it. It was the busiest, dirtiest, noisiest city that I have ever been to and there was no escape from it except at the hostel where I met a lot of fantastic people. I will mention a bit about them here.
Firstly there was Debbie and we spent a couple of days together before I left. I met her again in Delhi a month and a half later and it was great to see her again and share our adventures (and a few cocktails!) I also met an Irish couple called Jean and Ronan whom I went to Nepal with.
Varanasi is known as one of the holiest cities in India and it is a great honor to be burnt there. Cremation is common in India but is usually done in private whereas in Varanasi it was public. If you are cremated here it means that you go straight to nirvana and are not re-incarnated at all as they believe that normally in India you are re-incarnated several times, always to a higher caste, becoming lighter skinned and then eventually getting to nirvana.
Although in India death as just another stage of life, when I went to see the burning Ghats at sunrise I felt uncomfortable. Not only because I knew that there was a body burning on the pile of wood (see photos of Varanasi in photos) but because the people standing round were the males of the family (obviously no women allowed) and they were standing there like they were at a bonfire. It was is as if 'burning the relative' was just another thing on the 'to do list' that day. The ashes are then scattered on a huge pile - also in the photos if you look closely, and eventually they fall into the Ganges. Its a weird place and although I have no desire to return I am glad that I went as no-where else in India can you truly understand how very different their worship is compared with ours. They have statues everywhere they worship to, they pilgrimage for many miles just to bathe in the holy waters of the Ganges, it is an amazing place and although i didn't like it very much, it has to be said this was due to the crowds of people there (Holi festival was taking place when we were there). Varanasi is a definite 'must see' of India and most people I spoke to loved it.
One thing that i did like about Varanasi is that the trees grew out of the buildings - i think i have already uploaded pictures of this. Also I loved the hostel I stayed in and the atmosphere and the people gave real sanctity from the madness outside. One night there was awful screams and terrible noises coming from outside - I found out later that sometimes the dogs and the monkeys fight and not surprisingly the monkeys come off best.

After leaving Varanasi I got a 7pm bus that left at 9.30pm Standard India Time and we headed for the Nepal border. Unfortunately the sweets I ate that afternoon did not agree with me and I had my head out the bus window for most of it being sick - meanwhile Jean watched for oncoming traffic to save my head if needed!!
I travelled with Jean and Ronan for a month and with all honesty I can say that they were a great couple to travel with. They were good fun and managed to put up with me for a whole month so that proves how patient and understanding they were!!
I will finish here and do a separate blog for Nepal.