Those of you who love the graphic details of my misery will be pleased to know I spent the majority of that week on the toilet, with brief breaks back to bed only to realise that I needed to be back on the toilet. I think I went two and a half days without eating anything at all, just drinking litres and litres of water. Finally I managed to start eating some food, only to vomit it back up, essentially just wasting the money I spent buying it.

But I got better and managed to see a good chunk of Delhi.

New Delhi Railway Station

The metro system here is fantastic, absolutely the easiest and cheapest way to get around if you don’t mind the huge crowd of people pushing and shoving and biting trying to get in.

Just a quick summary because I’m off to the airport, but some of the highlights of Delhi…

Getting my hair cut on the side of the road:

The temples and tombs at Lodi Gardens:

Running the gauntlet of not-spicy/insanely-spicy every time you order food at a restaurant:

And Jantar Mantar, the amazing observatory built in the 1700s:

Now I’ve run into a bit of a problem.

I applied for my Iranian visa on the 22nd of November. I went to the Iranian Embassy in Delhi on the 21st and they told me to go to iranianvisa.com and apply for the authorisation code which would be sent to the embassy, and then they would issue the visa for me. I paid for the express rush service, a princely sum of $150, and sat back and waited. Well, when I say “sat back”, I really mean parked myself firmly on the toilet with a bucket in my hands. It was not a good week…..

So now it’s the 10th of December, and still no visa. I’ve been emailing them every day and there have apparently been a bunch of delays in Iran that have slowed the process down. For instance, the pollution in Tehran is so severe that the government declared half of one week to be a forced holiday to minimise the amount of traffic on the roads. Things like that. So it’s now the last day I can get my visa and it’s not looking hopeful.

However, there’s a bright spot in all of this. New Zealand citizens are granted Visa-On-Arrival privileges in Iran. If it works, all I have to do is turn up at the airport and they’ll give me a two week visa for 50 euros. The only thing they require is a confirmed return ticket. Which I don’t have. I want to catch the train from Iran to Turkey. I have all the details for that so hopefully I can just talk my way out of it.

If not, I’m getting deported.

According to Wikitravel there were a few cases of tourists applying for VOA and being deported in 2010. I’m sure they weren’t from lovely New Zealand and probably didn’t have a good reason for being there, so I’m hoping that I end up fine. I have no idea what the process is if I don’t get a visa – do I buy another plane ticket? Can I buy another ticket? Do I live in the airport like Tom Hanks? Guess I’ll find out!

Who could refuse a visa to this guy?

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Where are you from?
How long in India?
First time or second time?
What do you think of India?
Where are you going?
What is your job?
What is your father’s job?
How much do you make?

And so on. I feel like making up a little business card with all the answers on so I can hand it out to everyone who starts talking to me. Of course, as soon as you start a conversation with anyone, every other person within earshot will come over and listen too.

I was waiting at the train station and a dozen kids came over and crowded around me. The questions start…. Turns out they were a chess team heading towards Delhi to compete in the National Chess Tournament, with the winning team representing India in the International Youth Chess Tournament. They tried to trick me into playing a game with them, but I saw through their sneaky plan to utterly humiliate me, and declined. The last game of chess I played was with another backpacker in Guilin, and he checkmated me in about 5 moves. I am literally that bad.

They were all really interested in me and what I was doing, and I ended up posing for photos with them all and signing their schoolbooks and 10 rupee notes.

Totally famous – check out the signature

My destination was Omkareshwar, described in my handy Rough Guide as “a favourite with hard-core Western and Israeli dope-heads.” It’s one of central India’s most sacred Hindu sites, and the island is cut by several deep ravines and bears an uncanny resemblance to the “Om” symbol. Additionally the place was full of monkeys so it sounded ideal.

The bus ride there was perhaps one of the worst I’ve taken in my life. Impressively bad, even by Indian standards. I was sitting over the rear axle so every bump launched me off my seat into the air. Luckily there was no time to be bored, as everyone in the surrounding seats were really interested to know where I was coming from, how long I was in India, and what my father did for a living.

The island was beautiful. This is the view from the mainland, looking across at the island on the right.

See the boats down the bottom? My favourite people in all of India. I met them once before in Varanasi. They only know three words in the English language – “You want boat?” Just that, over and over and over. “You want boat? You want boat? You want boat?” I tried to get one of them to sell me his boat but I think I just confused him.

To get across to the island are these two huge bridges, which provide a really handy place for every beggar in the town to hang out while giving them easy access to tourists. Smart design really.

I took a tour of the temples on the island but somehow managed to do it without taking any photos, go me! Maybe next city…. I did however meet the fabled monkeys

Adorable.

My next destination was Mumbai, described by famous blogging personality Alan Grainger as, “Possibly the most boring city in all of India.”

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Don’t worry, I didn’t die, there’s just no wifi in India!

I’ve finally figured out how to get my phone and my laptop working together at mighty 2G mobile speeds to write this post. Even uploading that one picture took a couple of minutes……

A ton of stuff has happened since my last entry, and I’ll try and get that up over the next couple of days. Right now I’m sitting in an apartment on the beach in Goa. I can hear the waves crashing and watch the sun setting from out my window. I’ll be here for the next month at least, probably a month and a half.

It was only US$80 to rent the this house and a motorbike for the whole month which is ridiculously cheap. It’s a big place, beautiful tiled floors, nice kitchen so I can do my own cooking… life couldn’t get any better.

Bigger post coming in the next couple of days, as soon as I figure out how to upload all these photos.

Not dead, feeling very much alive

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I got in at 8pm, and had one of the best sleeps I’ve had so far in India. My room was amazing and the town is so quiet!! Definitely a change from the huge music pumping at Orchha! After my 68kg scare in Nepal, I’ve started eating a lot better. Every morning is 3 omelettes for breakfast. Gets a great reaction at every place I order. Six eggs and a lassi – perfect start to the day.

In the afternoon I wander down to the temples. Not much to say really. It would have been pretty amazing to see them when they were first discovered, completely swallowed up by the jungle. But now it’s a finely manicured lawn with seven temples dotted around its perimeter. The workmanship on the temples was amazing, but didn’t grab me like the Royal Palace in Orchha.

It did however have a lot of nudity:

Kinky!

Apart from the temples there’s really not that much to do in Khajuraho, so I mainly spent my time relaxing and getting to know the locals. My favourite guy was Indian Dave. It wasn’t spelt “Dave”, but it was pronounced exactly the same. I met him lounging around outside my hotel and he invited me out for a drink that night. Since there’s nothing to do, everyone just sits on the side of the street and watches the world go by. We went to the village to buy some proper locally brewed whiskey, and wandered down to the lakeside to drink. We sat there with the moon high on the water, and he told me all about his life in Khajuraho and India.

That I think is the coolest thing about India so far. No matter where I go, there’s always someone who just wants to sit down and have a chat. When I get on the trains, I see a whole bunch of locals who don’t know each other just sit down and start chatting. It’s the same when you jump in a shared taxi or tempo – everyone just immediately starts up as if they’d know each other all their life. I can’t imagine that happening back home.

So Indian Dave and I are just chilling beside this lake when we hear a commotion behind us. These two middle-aged locals were yelling at each other, and then it escalated into a good old-fashioned street brawl. They’re throwing punches and kicking wildly in every direction, and the other bystanders are trying to drag them apart. Khajuraho is freaking awesome!

I spent the next day and a half doing absolutely nothing at all, and it was great. The accommodation was spotless and crazy-cheap, the restaurants were amazing, and the people fantastic. Finally I decided that three days was long enough and got up at 6:30 to catch the morning bus to Satna. I finally managed to figure out the online train booking system so bought myself a bunch of tickets all the way to Indore over the next few days.

The ride to Satna was great. I met a 20 year-old guy who was off to Panna to sit his police exam. He knew an astounding amount of the local history so he gave me a personalised stream-of-consciousness tour all the way to his stop. Satna bus station turned into train station, turned into Jabalpur train station. And this is where the beautiful experiences in India over the last few days get a bit tainted.

First off I thought I would just find a hotel near the station so I wouldn’t have to lug my bag back a long way the next day. There were none. Then a guy offered to give me a ride to a hotel for only 5 rupees. We went to first one hotel – no vacancy, then a second – no vacancy, then a third, and a fourth …. Finally we get to a budget 150 rupee option, absolutely nothing like the 150 rupee accommodation in Khajuraho. The room was passable, but I would have taken anything at this point. We arrange the price, and as he’s taking my details down he keeps adding extra upon extra onto the price. I decided I did not like this place so moved on.

After striking out at three more places, I finally found something for 200. It was reasonable until I realised after I’d already paid that there was no shower and no sink in the bathroom. No good, swapped it for another room. There’s always a trade-off though, so I didn’t realise that I’d just swapped my nice bed for essentially a plank of wood with a stone for a pillow. With dirty sheets. And the bed had bed bugs. My worst hotel room negotiation so far.

The last time I ate was dinner last night, so I went looking for some food, but there were no restaurants or other eateries in the vicinity. Finally I bought dinner from two street vendors. A bunch of bananas from the first and an omelette from the second, served on a banana leaf. I squatted like a gargoyle on the concrete railing of the bridge, and watched the oily pools of garbage wash under me.

Eventually I wandered back and lay awake listening to the mosquitos.

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From Jhansi I jumped onto one of the shared tempos headed for Orchha, at the princely sum of 20 rupees for the 45 minute journey. When I arrived it wasn’t what I expected. It was a stunningly beautiful little India town, but there was rubble everywhere on the main street as if a bunch of tanks had rumbled through.

Turns out people had been building their houses closer and closer to the middle of the road, and the government eventually came through and literally knocked them all back to where they were supposed to be built. So there are all these half-houses with exposed rooms and staircases, and you can see directly into peoples’ kitchens and lounges, it’s crazy.

I got myself a room for 200 rupees in a nice little place off the main strip. The other people in the check-in book had all paid 500 so I felt pretty good about that.

From the middle of town you can see all the sights, it’s a very small place. I wandered across the little bridge that leads to the Raj Mahal – the royal palace of the local raja. It looks like something out of legend when you approach it. Of all the temples and buildings I’ve seen so far, this is the one that most made me feel like I’d been transported back to an ancient time. I actually felt like some early explorer coming across this huge palace rising out of the forests surrounding it.

There was a 250 rupee entrance fee to look inside. I (wrongly) thought it wouldn’t be that interesting, so I opted to just wander down the road that led off to the right. Pro-tip: If you don’t want to pay the 250 rupee entrance fee, just wander down the road off to the right, and there’s a second entrance to the palace which is open and has no ticket office!

So I get into this palace for free, and it is AMAZING inside! The whole place is completely open and you can walk anywhere inside. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have lived there in its heyday but even now I couldn’t help but be awed by its grandeur. I don’t have a good picture of it, but the landscape surrounding the palace was incredible – an enormous flat land with ruins poking out of the jungle in any direction you look, and mountains on the distant horizon. Off to the south I could see an amazing looking river with a big stone bridge across it and decided to go get some photos.

Just chilling in my palace

The rest of the buildings in Orchha were much of the same and I got distracted by a lot of people and loud music heading for the river I was planning to check out. I got down there and there was a huge celebration going on. It was the final day of the ten day festival of Ganesh Chaturthi. People were taking these huge statues of Ganesh down to the river, having a huge party, and blowing things up.

AWESOME.

Everywhere I go, as soon as people find out I’m from New Zealand, I get involved in a huge discussion of cricket. This would be a lot easier if I had even an layman’s knowledge of cricket. Unfortunately I am essentially clueless, but I’m getting really good at bluffing my way now. So this guy Sanjay starts talking to me and it’s in that fantastic old-fashioned style of Indian English that I thought only existed in movies. A small sample, spoken extremely loudly as if addressing a crowd of hundreds:

But sir, you are from New Zealand, and New Zealand are most honourable people!! You must know Ross Taylor, for he is most honorable in all of cricket. It is my great and most lasting pleasure to meet such a fine and upstanding gentleman as your good self!!
 Eventually a crowd of around 30 people gather to witness our discussion of the most honorable merits of New Zealand and her people. And that’s the other fantastic thing about India – whatever happens a huge crowd of people will gather to watch. I put my backpack down on the side of the road at some point on the way to Khajuraho and got out my phone to look up bus times, and by the time I finished I counted 17 people all crowding round trying to look at what I was doing on the tiny screen. Love this place.

Sanjay and a bunch of my spectators

All this time tempos were arriving in full force packed to the brim with revelers. There were these trucks filled with speakers all blasting out Indian music and followed by a huge crowd of dancing people. They dragged me in there, and never one to turn down a good dance I joined in. This is met with huge cheers and everyone comes to dance as close as possible to my general vicinity. India really knows how to make you feel like a celebrity. People passing by in the tempos were throwing pink or yellow dyes at everyone which was all well and good until I remembered I was carrying my camera. Crap! I got out of there fast and had a look. The case was almost completely blue but had taken the worst of the damage, and my camera was fine.

That night I met a couple from NZ who had been travelling for 4 months, and they gave me a bunch of tips for places to visit going further south. In turn they were heading east through Asia so I gave them a bunch of advice in return. The backpacker system at work! A truck arrived with a bunch of partiers and they came to drag us in. Even the armed police there were urging us on. I got up and had a great time but my recalcitrant countrymen gave it a miss.

Night-time dancing on the streets!

In the morning I decided to head to Khajuraho. I was going to follow my Rough Guide’s advice and head east then south down through the national parks. The east part worked out fine, but I just found out that the national parks are closed until November! Never mind, might be able to hit them again on the way back up. I wander down to the local bus stop and grab a shared tempo heading back to Jhansi. I tell the guy 10 rupees and he says 20. That’s fine with me so off we go. When we get to the Jhansi bus station, he tries to charge me 200. No way brother! He wouldn’t accept the 20 either, just kept demanding 200. So I just walk off. Yeaaahhh…. didn’t really think that one through did you guy?

1 x free palace and 1 x free ride to Jhansi, not doing too bad!!

From Jhansi it was a simple matter of catching a local bus to Chhatarpur, then  transfer to another bus going to Ghura, then jump off that bus at a random crossroads and take a tempo up to Khajuraho. Ok not so simple, but one of the coolest things about India is how helpful everybody is. It’s amazing!! At every step of that journey someone walked me to exactly where I needed to be, pointed me to the right bus, or got someone else to do the same thing for me. Just super friendly and super helpful!

I roll into Khajuraho at around 8pm. Another thing I’ve already noticed about India is that accommodation recommendations are completely pointless. There are a ridiculous number of options for any price range. I went into about four of them before finally settling on this room right in the centre of town for $3. Oh yeah, those are marble floors….

Don’t be jealous now

Tune in next time for the most public nudity I have ever seen in my life. But for now, here’s a picture taken from out the window of the bus as we drove to Chhatarpur:

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Dusk on the Ganges

That was the easiest border crossing ever. And I have been having the worst luck so far, so it was nice for everything to go right for a change! Nepal was incredibly easy going but things still went wrong, I think this is the first time that I’ve actually got through without a single hitch.

I love driving my rickshaw!

I left early in the morning with a soft fog covering the countryside. There were a bunch of rickshaws right outside my hotel so I jumped on the first one and off we went. I was thinking of walking but I’m glad I didn’t – it turned out to be a lot further than I thought. When I got to the border, there was a nicely labeled Nepal Immigration Office. Unlike Cambodia, this was actually the official office, so I got my exit stamp and headed for India. I have to say, the border town was pretty similar to everything I’d seen in Nepal, but I was already liking it better. When I got close to the Customs Office, a bunch of friendly locals all pointed me in that direction. Again, no scam. Just a completely legitimate visa office.

The government bus

The guy took a look, signed all the documents, and I was away. He even pointed me in the right direction for the government bus to Gorakhpur. I was looking for a white bus with blue stripe, and just as all the shared-taxi touts descended, I saw the bus up ahead, just about to start pulling away from the curb. Again, a huge crowd of locals waved me towards it with big smiles, and the driver even leaned out the window to wave me onwards. The timing couldn’t have been better, I just walked up the steps and we took off.

At Gorakhpur was my first hassle. My bus arrived next to the train station so I went in to buy a ticket. I would have bought one online, but you have to have an Indian phone number to do it, and you can’t buy an Indian sim unless you’re in India. (Ok, I didn’t actually check to see if you can’t buy one in Nepal.) At the station I went up to the only ticket window I could see, which turned out to be the one that only sells the “Unreserved” types of ticket. This is the cheapest possible way to travel in India, but means you don’t have an actual seat so you have to fight the crowds for your right to one. I didn’t know this at the time, but the 61 rupee fee for a 6 hour journey was a bit of a giveaway. The other annoying thing is that the tickets don’t have the departure time or platform number or anything useful like that. And as it turned out no one even checked I had a ticket, so I needn’t have bought one.

After my purchase I remembered reading horror stories of the painful wooden seats and cramped conditions in the Unreserved Seating carriages, so I decided to try and buy a sleeper ticket instead (only 125 rupees, so not a huge extra fee). This is what I tried to accomplish this:

Bought 30 minutes at an internet cafe to buy a ticket online. Realised as I was trying to sign up that I needed an Indian sim card, and that’s why I hadn’t booked a ticket in Nepal.
Bought Indian sim card.
Bought another 30 minutes and tried for 30 unsuccessful minutes to purchase a ticket using the India Rail booking system. By this time, the 125 rupee sleeper class was sold out, and my only option were the 14 remaining tickets in A/C third class, at 340 rupees.
Went to the station to try booking the ticket there. Was told that they were all sold out, even though minutes ago there were 14 left.
Went back to the internet cafe to prove them wrong. Still can’t book and find out that it’s because I have an overseas credit card. There are however agents that will do it for you, notably Cleartrip.
Just as I’m signing up with them, the ADSL goes out at the internet cafe and they tell me that it will be out for the next few hours.
I accept that it’s not going to happen and go to wait at the station, fully dreading the awful.
At the station I realise that I could get onto the internet using my phone!! I log onto Cleartrip and my phone stops working.

But only in a real emergency…

In short, it was a hell of a lot of fun and I fully recommend it.

On the train to Varanasi

I think she saw me!

I love this guy!

The lights of the city from the roof of my hotel

Easy to get lost in these alleyways…

The next morning I got up really early and headed for the ghats to catch the sunrise. I got up at 5am and when I walked outside the sky was already light. CRAP. I hustled and got to the super busy tourist ghat. Not the most ideal of photograph locations. There’s no easy way to get from one ghat to the next if you don’t know the alleyways, so I just decided to inch around the brick wall bordering the river. Prooooobably not a smart idea, especially as I was carrying my camera. Oh, and the fact that the Ganges is some of the uncleanest water in the world…. All the boat guys were yelling at me that I was going to fall in, but no problems, I made it around another two ghats, and found a place where the locals were doing their morning rituals, far from the tourist eye. Well, except all the boats filled with tourists I guess. And also me, yet another tourist….

But still, the sun was huge over the river, and it was amazing to see what is a daily ritual for millions of Indians.

This city has been incredible and a amazing start to this country. Now I’ve got a train ticket booked for Jhansi and no destination in mind – just to get lost in the middle of India.

Early morning on the Ganges

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On the way back from the Indian Embassy, I rounded a corner and ran into a protest. The Nepalese Police was out in full riot gear all looking quite serious. I asked around and it was all the local teachers protesting their lack of pay. They get paid 2500 rupees a month, which is about what I’m spending every 3 days. 500 for a room, another 500ish for food. That is insanely low. I don’t know how much it costs to live as a local, but the cheapest food I’ve found is about 60 rupees for a meal, so I can’t imagine living on 2500 a month and supporting a family too.

Aside from the odd street protest and the dozens of touts everywhere trying to sell you treks, hash, or LSD, this place is fantastic. The people are so friendly and positive. Everyone is keen for a chat with you and happy to walk you halfway around the block just to help you find the post office. The only possible downside to this place is that the internet connections run at a maximum of 50KB/s. That makes it quite hard to upload photos….

And I went out this afternoon and ran into all the kids going home from school. I got an amazing series of shots of kids running in and out of the traffic with huge smiles on their faces, jumping on and off the rickshaws and dodging motorbikes. Probably the best candid street shots I’ve ever taken. And then I found out I’d left my memory card back in my room.

Damn it!!

Ah well, can’t win ’em all.

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