On the way home

We have had our final massage and our final lazy breakfast at a cafe along the Varkala cliff. This afternoon we start our long journey home. We take an overnight train to Chennai and spend tomorrow in Chennai before flying to Singapore and home.

I feel like my Indian journey is now complete, as yesterday on my trip into town I saw an elephant. Major excitement and a flurry of photographic activity ensued. Nelly was doing a spot of heavy lifting for her owner.

Tom also feels ready to leave India, as he has finally reached enlightenment, bursting out the yogic moves wherever he can.

It is very sad to be finishing our grand tour, especially when the last couple of weeks have been so enjoyably relaxing. But at the same time, over the last six months I have slept in 63 different beds, we have spent 16 nights on trains, and we haven't cooked our own food since 1 June. Man, I am going to enjoy that steak when I get home!

Relaxing in Kerala

The south of India is turning out to be exactly what we hoped - relaxing and restful, before we depart for home in a few days. The most exhertion I have had in the last week is reaching for a cool drink.

Our trip along the backwaters of Kerala was spectacular - a standout Indian experience. We were able to get a taste of village life (from the luxury of our boat) and a taste for the delicious Kerelan food, prepared by our onboard cook (below with the captain). It was the most delicious food we have had throughout India!

From the boat we spotted a couple of turtles, some Kingfishers (also drank a few), a snake slithering through the water, and some snake boat racing.

All along the banks, the women were out slapping their washing onto big stones to get it clean.

And how's this for a cheesy sunset!:

Now we are in Varkala, a beachside town. I had my first massage yesterday, and apparently I need to come every day while we are here. I have a feeling my masseuse might say that to everyone, however, I'm not one to disobey! There's not a lot of beach, and strong currents in the sea, but it is nice not doing much. This morning we watched the fisherman bring in their catch. Now I might go and read my book on the beach. We're certainly doing it tough.

Monsoonal Mumbai

We arrived in Mumbai in a furious mood - we had somehow agreed to pay our taxi driver from the station to our hotel five times what the trip should really have cost, plus he didn't even drop us at our hotel, plus at the start of the trip he had put his hand on my knee when Tom wasn't looking. Disgusting. But after looking around Mumbai our mood turned for the better. Beautiful old buildings and tree lined streets, and we have probably been hassled less here than anywhere else.

Alas I haven't seen any Bollywood stars, despite best efforts yesterday - I took a cab out to the suburbs which the cool kids are meant to frequent. I managed to spot a nice dress, but no Aishwarya or SRK. This photo is on the way, taken out my taxi window:

In the evening we went to a flash restaurant, which I think cost about twice our next most expensive meal from the last few weeks, (but was still only what one person might pay in Oz). There were lots of nice looking people there that may have been stars, but we weren't to know.

Doesn't matter, because today we are heading south to Kerala. On the train for 24 hours, and then we are hoping to hire a houseboat on the Kerala backwaters.

On the set of Octopussy in Udaipur

We spent our final day in Delhi traipsing about the Red Fort and massive mosque (below). It was a bit of a mistake really; we were out in the middle of the day, and found that we had to sit down for a rest every ten minutes or so because of the heat. I think Tom came off particularly the worse for wear - lets jut say he didn't have a terribly pleasant train ride to Udaipur.

Udaipur, our next stop, has a reputation as the most romantic city in India, mainly because of the number of palaces it contains. It certainly was romantic, but I was more excited by the fact that they filmed much of Octopussy in Udaipur. Fortunately our hotel, along with every other hotel in town, offered moonlight showings of the film, so we saw the palaces by day, and on-screen by night.

On our last day we chanced across a festival for something or other which brought the people out onto the streets in their brightly coloured turbans and saris.

Music was supplied by massive speakers on the back of a truck connected up to a generator which had to be pushed around in front of the truck!

An overnight train ride later, and we are in Mumbai! I'm off to find some Bollywood stars!

Nothing Delhicate about this town

The heat has not abated, but I am feeling much better about India now. I've had a few days to get used to the weather, I've perfected my stern 'no thank you', aimed at touts and those asking for money (though I'm a sucker for a woman with a baby), and I am no longer so paranoid about getting sick.

We made it to Agra after a difficult moment at the Varanasi train station in which I apparently made a baby poo its pants by smiling at it. The mother then started having a go at me, with everyone else watching on, and I seriously thought she was going to put the soiled pants on me or my backpack as she walked away. Anyway, of course we saw the famed Taj Mahal and it was a beauty! Just as spectacular as I had hoped. We had a guide who knew '89 special areas to take photos from'. So we posed our way around the Taj. The 'family' photo is my favourite - our guide put this pose together himself:

Apparently Bill Clinton has also sat on this seat. I have many, many other (better) Taj images, if anyone is interested, but lets face it, we've all seen the photos. In real life though, it was really something else.

We had a good tour around Agra, visiting the Red Fort and Baby Taj, and our touk-touk driver managing to take us to only three shops to try and sell us local handicrafts. Not too bad I thought, but Tom was starting to lose it. Fortunately, it was time to hop on the train for Delhi.

We rode a sweaty three hours packed into a local train, and arrived in New Delhi at midnight. Our hotel is near the train station, and, as we walked down the dark, muddy road, we thought we had entered a war zone. Fortunately we found our hotel, and the next day we realised that there is major construction going on in Delhi for the Commonwealth Games. There is a lot of work still to be done if its going to be finished in time, that's for sure.

We've been having a nice time kicking around Delhi, enjoying the delhicious food, and visiting places out of the heat. Tomorrow we head to Udaipur for a couple of days.

The road to Kathmandu... and beyond

We are currently in Varanasi, India, but soon heading to Agra for a glimpse of the Taj Mahal. Lets face it, I'm struggling against my arch nemesis. I'd say currently, its India 1; Catie 0. The reason for this is that it has been 40 degrees during the day, and only down to 30 during the night, which does not make for easy sleeping. Still there have been nice things so far - we have done a couple of yoga classes, yesterday I saw a 1 day-old baby goat, and there are lots of buffalo about that swim in the Ganges, and then just sit in the street. It's been nice walking next to the Ganges, though only at times, as mainly we are just pestered by touts. Nothing would induce me to actually swim in it though. Gross!

Anyway, I never told the China - Nepal border crossing story. So after our guide dropped us off on the China side, we walked across the Friendship Bridge into Nepal. The plan was that we would pay to hire a car and driver to take us to Kathmandu. But after going through immigration, we were approached by a man who told us that there was a landslide down the road, preventing cars getting through to Kathmandu. He could take us to the landslide for an exorbitant amount, where we would then be able to get a car to K'du.

Well of course, being the seasoned and sceptical travellers that we are, we didn't believe him. So we started asking around, and it did indeed seem true that there was a landslide 25 kms down the road, blocking all traffic. We tried to make friends with a French tour group, given we didn't really know what to do. After a while we thought we would find out what was happening with the local buses, so we started walking down the hill to the bus station. When we arrived there, it turned out that the tour guide of the French group had hired a bus to the landslide - so he invited us onboard! Woohoo!

Many a time over those 25 kms did I expect the bus to go over the side of the cliff. But somehow it made it in one piece to the landslide, which was just being cleared as we arrived. We walked through the mud to the other side. Our French friends hopped on their private bus which was waiting for them, and headed off to K'du. We were alone.

But some local kids asked us where we wanted to go, and started stopping traffic to try and get us a lift. A man in a van stopped for us, so we threw (well heaved) our bags onto the top of his van and squeezed into the front seat with him. I was quite happy with this arrangement though, because he seemed to be the first safe driver that I had encountered in a couple of months, actually braking around corners.

However, our driver was slightly suspicious - he was stopped at every police checkpoint (and there were many) - and on several occasions, he slipped the policeman that stopped us some money. He also had to meet people a couple of times so that he could do something with his licence. This all meant that we were very slow in getting to Kathmandu. But in the end we did get there. Our driver made us get a taxi the final 1km to our hotel (why, we do not know), but we were there! Phew! We had quite a nice time in Kathmandu, seeing a few key attractions - I loved the monkey temple - and sorting out our India leg. We also had some really delicious Italian food! From Kathmandu we flew to Varanasi, where I now sit.

Well, better see about this train to Agra!

Tibet Part 2 - Stupefied in Tibet

Our first day on the road really packed a tough Tibetan punch. We stopped by the picturesque Yamdrok-tso lake, which provided a perfect Yak photo opportunity.

We then visited the Gyantse monastery, which contains the largest stupa in the world.

Finally, we made our way to Shigatse, the second biggest town in Tibet, where a festival was taking place, drawing the entire population onto the streets.

The following day we looked around the massive monastery in Shigatse, my favourite of the monasteries we visited, mainly because it contains the largest Buddha in the world.

Tibet could certainly rival Australia in the 'big attractions' tour stakes (big pineapple vs big stupa; big banana vs big Buddha). It seemed appropriate, then, that we would head towards, yes, the highest mountain in the world!

And what a site to be seen! We arrived at our tent camp (altitude 5200m) to rain and cloud. When it stopped raining, we walked the 4 kms feeling drunk and short of breath to the Everest Base Camp and look out point (altitude 5230m). Here we are at the top, with Everest behind the clouds in the background.

I started to worry that the clouds wouldn't clear, because I had trampled on some prayer flags when we first arrived at the lookout. But fortunately Bhutie sang a nice Tibetan song, and the two American girls we were travelling with sang some Shania Twain, and the clouds started to part. By the time we got back to our camp we had a clear view of the mountain. The following morning, the view was even better.

We left Everest on a high, and took an 'interesting' unsurfaced road towards our final Tibetan stopover, a town near the Nepal border. At one point the car stuck on rocks next to a river, and we had to push it to get it back to the path. At other points, we didn't want to look out the window because of the sheer drop down. It was a relief when we arrived at our lunch spot that day, though it is possible that there were more wild dogs in the town than humans. In the afternoon, as we descended to around 2000m, the landscape changed to one of trees, waterfalls and clouds. The border town was spectacularly perched on the side of a lush mountain. I expect I will remember it most, however, for the time we spent in the town's bar, drinking with Chinese communist officials who were there from Lhasa.

The next morning we were taken by Bhutie to the border and said a fond farewell to Tibet and China.