Delhi

(Apologies for the delay - the frustrating breaking of my blog app has made it hard to get on here)

En route to the airport our parents' car broke down, and we stood in an irrigation ditch beside the motorway for 40 minutes, certain of a nasty death. Quite possibly the closest any of us had come to Indian living. Fortunately we made it to the airport, where emoshunal goodbyes abounded.

New Delhi is an odd city of countless roundabouts and wide streets - a stark contrast to the chaos of old Delhi, where the sky is barely visible for the wires dangling overhead. On our first morning we visited the Red Fort, whose name leaves few surprises - it really is (disappointingly) just a red group of buildings, housing sketchy museums. It's a sad shadow of what I'm sure was a fantastic former self - part of the entrance has been transformed into a Westfield-esque bazaar. Lissy's likening it to clapham common summed it up nicely.

Perhaps the saving grace was found outside the fort's walls - a man selling fake beards that were certainly not "100% nylon", and more likely made from the back hair of sweatshop workers. Pitying my lack of facial fauna, lissy bought me one, and as I put it I underwent a Jim-Carey-in-The-Mask-like transformation.

Convinced that bearded me was Lissy's grandpa, a cycle-rickshawer agreed to give us a tour of old Delhi: we choked on the chilli fumes of the spice market, entering a old haveli from whose roof we had great views of the chaos below and a papadam factory. The beard got a mixed reception - I would've been lynched if I hadn't removed it when our cyclist man got into a proper fist fight with a stranger. My dreams of being a united bearded brotherhood were swiftly shattered. We continued on through old Delhi, snaking through alleyways that were truly unique in character - character here meaning an indescribable smell and a constant throng of people and other animals. Dinner was at the amazing Spice Route, a restaurant that took 7 years to build.

We visited Gandhi's memorial museum at Birla house, tracing his footsteps to the spot where he died. Seeing his possessions was quite moving, and the place's peacefulness was pretty fitting. However, the "interactive museum" upstairs was genuinely, totally bonkers, designed only possibly for toddlers on crack.
We chilled out at Lodi Gardens (a haven for blokes holding hands 💘) before eating at the fantastic Grey Garden within the curious Hauz Khas village - a hub of bars/restaus reminiscent of a Mediterranean "strip".

The qutab minar looked decidedly like the tower of Sauron, towering 70m above its surrounding ruins and the goblin-like swarms of schoolchildren. City slickers, we cruised on the fantastic Delhi metro: it's probably nicer than the London version, except during rush hour, when it becomes a hub for bromancing - they just have to hug real close... We relaxed at Humayun's tomb - a squat, red taj - before rickshawing to the Lotus temple. Bizarre. A huge queue snaked into the extraordinary building, which is home to the kooky Baha'ii religion. Fearing brainwashing we rushed off for the last dinner of India.

And then it was the next morning and we were at the airport and India lay behind us - a most incredible country that we'd barely scratched the surface of, as "nothing in India is identifiable, the mere asking of a question causes it to disappear or to merge in something else". Until next time.

With love

Agra

En route to Agra we stopped at a roadside tourist trap complex: nothing of import to note, except that I managed to achieve my greatest haggling feat - reducing an elephant statue from 110,000rp to 55,000rp without saying a word. I think lissy and I, in our boredom, had driven the salesman to insanity by asking him endless "would you rather..." questions and challenging him to a duel with the weapons on sale.

And then we were in Agra, known best for its hotel manager massage service. Of course there is the Taj Mahal, but I can hardly begin to describe it, let alone make any witty comments. I think setting out intentions to avoid using cliches to describe the Taj is, in itself, now a cliche.

We visited it early in the morning to avoid the major crowds - despite feeling rotten my cool new hat enthused me. (see below). Just go and see it - despite the countless times I've seen it in photos etc it really can't disappoint. Unless you're lissy, who observed "it's smaller than I thought". It's hugely, painstakingly constructed, and all the more awesome looking from our hotel balcony in the evening #slummingit. As karma for our embarrassing lifestyle, we all fell fairly ill - my own illness perhaps due to my reunion with steak.

Shout out to the "mini taj" which preceded the big daddy by 15 years and which had been built for the queen's favourite hairdresser - don't get your hopes up Clive...

With love

Jaipur

In Jaipur we were joined by our parents, who'd coincidentally decided to be in India at the same time as us... we didn't really mind, especially as it gave us the excuse to wear ridiculous jewellery (see below) and to stay in a hotel where a beer cost the same as our Pushkar hotel room.

Jaipur was a city with an odd feel, perhaps due in part to the grid-shape of wide streets selling identikit tourist trash. The city palace was fairly decadent - despite the hordes of Korean tourists - and home to two 10,000L silver pots that the maharaja used to transport Ganges water for his use on a trip to England... #gapstyle. Unfortunately the palace is also home to countless snake charmers, and one taking my dad's liking resulted in one of the most uncomfortable photos ever (below).

We visited the Jantar Mantar, the royal observatory, which was a collection of bizarre structures which looked more like odd modern art. Or a skatepark. It was pretty cool to discover that all the instruments were still in working condition and practical, as proved by the clock on my phone... Whilst browsing the 'bazaars' (shocked to see my parents buying more gap trash than me) a rowdy pre-Holi procession passed: opiumed men twirled huge flags and danced wildly behind a van decked in huge speakers, as life continued as normal beside them.

The following day we visited the Amber fort - perhaps the most touristy destination we visited in India, no doubt due to jaipur's being on the "golden triangle". The marble jacuzzis and secret passageways between various wives' bedrooms provided insight into the sweet/scandalous lives of the maharajas: hard to imagine prince Philip acting like that...

With love

Pushkar

Arrival at 2.30am was unanticipated to say the least. We stumbled off the sleeper bus wondering where on earth to go and what to do in the eery silence of the deserted streets. (Un)fortunately we were soon mobbed by a group of hotel managers begging to take us to their concrete-cell hotels. We uncomfortably napped in Alcatraz for several hours, before relocating to the cheerful Milkman hotel (named so due to the vast amounts of cows clogging the surrounding narrow passageways), run by Anil. Cue laughter.

At the centre of Pushkar -surrounded by hills beyond which stretches the desert - lies one of the holiest lakes in India, which is fringed by numerous ghats for offering prayers to the gods. It is an astonishingly laid-back place, and most of one's time is spent wandering the bazaars and, much to our disgust, eating tofu - there is no alcohol, meat, or even eggs because of the holiness. Sound pretty horrendous? I developed a worrying taste for steamed vegetables.

On the morning of our second day we visited the Brahma (the creation god of Hinduism) temple - falsely advertised as the only one of its kind in India. Sadly, "advertised" is a pretty fitting word, as the whole affair became centred on the "priests" taking our money. Having been led around the temple by a "training priest" (questionably dressed in designer jeans), we were led to one of the ghats for a 'puja', blessing.

It was clear from the moment that we were separated - Lissy sat on one side of the steps and I on another - that something was afoot. My priest then started pasting my face with various foods, and making me repeat his blessings, paying little attention to the fact that I couldn't understand him:

Priest: "swagahayumba"
Me: "shmeeehhgyabuma
Priest: "Hannavayapuja"
Me: "hanavajajayapu"
Priest: "shreethattapeeyuna"
Me: "shreeeehhhh..." Etc etc

As to whether it was a blessing or a coercion to give loads of money became suspect:

Priest: "orphans very hungry
Me: "orphans very hungry"
Priest: "give them lots of money"
Me: "give them lots...?!"
Priest: "chappatti rice vegetables"
Me: "....."

He then proceeded to try and extort a bomb of money from me (he partially succeeded), as I became increasingly angry at his shamelessness. Although Lissy's priest was apparently nicer, this only allowed him to get more "donations" out of her.

On the brink of a religious crisis, I turned to gap trash for stability, almost buying some heinous clothing. Fortunately I was calmed by a haircut/head massage from a man with triple-jointed fingers - I didn't appreciate just how freakish this was, though we were both a little unsettled by the customer comments book which described how "this mutha knows how to nibble an earlobe!"...

That evening we ate at the garden hote; on sitting down at the rooftop table I saw opposite me a boy from my year at school - Charlie Bodenham - who had been travelling around India and Burma, and was too headed for Nepal! An incredible coincidence, and slightly reassuring that the world seems still small in this humungous country.

With love

Jaisalmer - camel trek

We were collected early in the morning and ferried into the desert, 12 people packed into a rusting jeep.

The process with which we were assigned our camels was a little like the "sorting hat" of Harry potter, but more of a turban. I was matched with Julian, a good-looking and sturdy camel.

The children of a local village were as welcoming as a kick in the balls, demanding pens, rupees and adoption. One relatively cute child had an injured foot, and so we gave him a bandage - one of the more cunning kids then asked for a plaster and proceeded to pretend to have a similar foot injury, hobbling around asking for money.

We continued across the desert. Scrubby plants and cactii scraped against our legs as our camels brushed pass. People say riding camels is fantastically painful, because it is so - it's like some form of ancient torture weapon, leading to "scrambled eggs" as named by my camel driver.

At lunch we ate by an oasis (no water) under a large tree, as the camel drivers cooked. An ancient local farmer turned up with his female camel, hoping for it to be mated by one of the rare dark brown camels - we watched with horror as "Victoria" proved he should in fact be named "Victor", engaging in lunch time camel sutra. The old man ate some of our lunch, smoked some weed, and left, thoroughly contented.

After a siesta we tramped onwards, straight into the sinking sun. The sand dunes lurked far over by the horizon, somewhat spoilt by the looming wind turbines - the desert is host to countless turbines, which power the Indian army presence. Eventually we arrived at our resting place - settled on top of a bank of sand dunes with only dung beetles to keep us company.

And the beer boy: mid-evening on the isolated dune a lone local boy appeared from nowhere with a bag of cold beers for sale. He'd walked several miles from his village - fantastic form.

"I'm a camel man, in a desert land, it's so sandy, it bloody crazy" sang the camel drivers in a twisted rendition of barbie girl, using an empty water canister as percussion. We ate under the vast spread of desert stars as they sang their versions of western classics - "no woman no cry, no chappatti no chai" was a favourite.

We then headed to bed, "bed" consisting of a blanket lain upon the sand, and the sky above. An occasional camel grunt would interrupt the otherwise silent night. We awoke at sunrise, remounting our camels and feeding them - Julian kindly decided to share some of his grain with me, spitting it all over my head.

Riding for several hours at pace was fairly brutal, but I maintained a collected, Lawrence-of-Arabia image - fortunately I opted against the turban, I may have looked like a bandaged sore thumb.

The jeep stole us away from our humped friends, returning us to jaisalmer. There we spent the remainder of the day (before catching a 5pm sleeper bus to pushkar) with astrid and Josephine, our new Danish friends.

With love

Jaisalmer

A late morning bus took us westwards to Jaisalmer, 90km from the Pakistan border, passing into increasingly camel-congested territory.

The fort sticks out of the desert like a childhood sandcastle, and the twisting alleys within it are home to 4000 locals and countless sketchy hotels - as a result the fort is at risk of crumbling back into the desert.

On arriving in the late afternoon, we headed for a Fairly Disagreeable Lassi before venturing into the fort for dinner - unfortunately, we both felt fairly rough and retreated to our hotel.

The following day we explored the fort - enjoying unparalleled views from the roof of the palace down over the slowly crumbling ramparts. Small boulders lining their edge (to be rolled onto attackers as a form of defence) looked a disaster waiting to happen. Again, I felt bizarre in the evening, forgoing the fantastic Italian food found in the desert.

With love

Ps. This post has been unusually rather short/unhilarious as I've decided to do a separate one for the camel safari we embarked upon.

Jodphur

We arose and climbed the winding road that leads up into the battlements of Mehrangargh, the fort towering over, and dominating, the city. Orange handprints on the final gateway memorialised the sati - when women throw themselves on their maharaja's funeral pyres - of the citadel's women.

The palace was pretty fantastic, packed with the wealth of a maharaja, and a collection of opium-smoking guardsmen. The blue city sprawls beneath the fort hill, and it is outstandingly blue - not due to blue being the colour of the Brahmin caste, but because it deters Mosquitos/termites.

Concluding our tour, we found our hands (and more perhaps - see photo with lissy) being groped by a fairly creepy man. Normal day at the office? Nope, we paid for this. Following the hype of friends, we decided to give "palm-reader" Mr Sharma a run for his money. Or our money, at least.

In short, we was crap, calling Lissy "very prudent with money" which was proved untrue by our paying him...

Sharma: "you often suffer from bad headaches...?"
Jack: "no, I really don't"
Sharma: "but you do get them sometimes...?"
Jack: "I don't think I've ever had a migraine."
Sharma: "ok... That is a relief".
Etc

The accordion music drifting over the Jaswant Thada - a marbled royal cenotaph outside the fort - lent it a creepy air, made all the worse as a group of French started clapping along and whooping. Goose pimpingly cringe. We swiftly left, mouthing our apologies to the accordion-player.

Walking down to the bazaar, we were jumped upon by a man asking for photos. Not just any man, a man with an open-topped jeep. Hitch-hiking isn't particularly legit, not least in India, but it was an opportunity. We bargained a ride into town for a short photoshoot - in hindsight a bad move as the guy was pretty creepy, two-armed hugging Lissy which, although hilarious, was a bit sketchy.

When we arrived at the clock tower - beside which lie streets of chaotic bazaar - he started articulating (I think I could speak more Hindi than he English) that he wanted a lassi (a yoghurty drink) as repayment. Having given him a years' worth of creepy photos (...) we said hell no, and disappeared amongst the stalls - he was a greedy mother, and pursued us for a while yelling "Lassi! Lassi! LAAASSSSI!" It was pretty comical.

We soon lost him, and eventually opted for a lassi of our own - as we emerged from the shop, he drove past and excitedly shouted "lassi!?!" from his blue jeep. Having tasted them, I can partially understand why he was so set on their yoghurty fantasticness, but they're not worth sacrificing one's public rep for.

We spent most of the afternoon wandering the bazaars, harangued by endless shopowners whose fabrics were supposedly sold in Liberty. Richard Gere and Sting also seem to have shopped in every tailor's between jodphur and jaipur, which is quite a feat.

In the evening we ate next to some nondescript footballer at the Pal Haveli, enjoying cracking views despite the drone of footballer's voice over my shoulder. The city noticeably changes at night, and we rickshawed back to the hotel, half-expecting a madman crying for Lassis to jump at us from the shadows.

With love