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India
  • Ruby Featherstone
  • Kaya Rijkeboer

India

Kaya and Ruby on our first adventure through India. Follow our adventures here! Read more
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  • Trip start
    November 13, 2019
    India
    Sammy isn't too happy

    Getting ready

    November 13, 2019 in the Netherlands ⋅ ⛅ 6 °C

    Getting packed and ready. Last bits and bobs to be collected. Whoop!

  • India
    2Mum took this lovely picture of us looking like crack heads

    Waiting for the first flight

    November 14, 2019 in the Netherlands ⋅ ⛅ 6 °C

    Woooho we are so excited to start our trip ❤️

  • India
    Echt Kenmerkend

    First stop

    November 14, 2019 in Switzerland ⋅ ⛅ 2 °C

    We survived the first flight! 1 hour 20 minutes. Only 22 hours more to go. Gross sandwich check, free beer check.
    Kaya has left me to have a cigarette in the camel lounge already. He quite smoking 3 hours ago. Going well.

    Zurich is very fancy, the airport had a metro to bring us to the gate and didn't have a driver. Futuristic but expensive.    Read more

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    Oman

    November 15, 2019 in Oman ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    Flying to Oman was nice. We are pretty tired though. Would recommend Oman air as a airline. Can't believe this was only six hours though and we still have five hours to go. Half sleeping and then experiencing the sun coming up was OK.

    Had a good giggle about the names of places we passed though.    Read more

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    Bara Imambara

    November 18, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    By far the highlight of Lucknow (also the only touristy thing we did) was the beautiful mosque by the name of Bara Imambara. Just wauw.

    Not much to say about it just that it was so beautiful and breathtaking. The architure inside as well as outside was stunning (I am a real lover of detail) but the garden around it just finished it off. I'm not sure about the exact history but we did have a short tour through the adjoining labrynth. This had the first cc TV ever made probably- without any technology! The way the towering maze was put together included a pool of reflective water placed so smartly you could be standing somewhere completely away in the dark tunnel and keep an eye on the entry port. So if intruders came you could shoot them before they ever knew what was coming. Absolutely genius architecture and engeniering, I was so impressed.

    Amusing to us was also being part of the attraction as we got stopped countless times (literally I can't recount) to have our picture taken with people. Up until this point we haven't seen ANY other white people, not one, so we think that's why. Still strange to have everyone treating you like a celebrity just because of your skin colour. Not complaining though, we smiled happily for all the pictures and chatted with them here and there. Though the language barrier has been a bit of a struggle. Lucknow is a less popular tourist destination so we've found most people don't speak English.    Read more

  • India
    Street we stayed in
    Curry for breakfastAnother 3€ meal for 22

    Lucknow

    November 19, 2019 in India ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    Our first part of the trip has now come to an end as we head on our way to Varanasi. It took us a while to recover from the initial journey which took about 25 hours. So the first day or two we were sleeping a lot, unable to force ourselves just then to adjust from jetlag. Trying to get a simcard here was harder than expected so our first adventure failed but we did have a cool walk through town.

    It's strange having to be on guard for scammers all the time but we do find that generally people are nice. Lucknow has interesting variations of architure with recently built slum-like housing mixed with post colonial British architecture. Its all quite dirty from the smog and I don't even want to know what my lungs have been through.

    Fun seeing monkeys on top of buildings everywhere even in the busy highstreet.

    Food highlight was definitely the "melt-in-your-mouth" kebabs at Tunday Kebabi. Lucknow is famous for these kebabs and we found the best of the best. The place was super crowded and busy and we got stared at a lot (we get that everywhere though) but it was totally worth it. The kebabs are slowly marinated with papaya seeds or something so they do literally melt in your mouth 10/10. Left very happy and full for only 5€.

    Which brings me to the next part which is how cheap everything is! Happy days.    Read more

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    A better place

    November 20, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    We've been in varanasi for a day now and we like it so much more here! Our first hotel was a bit nerve inducing with no English being spoken and half getting scammed. Also the bathroom there ventilated into ours and the people next door smoked and so our room was filled with smoke.

    None the less after an eight hour car ride we made it to Varanasi! Instantly the hostel staff were so so so so much more friendly and welcoming. Felt right at home.

    In the shared room we met a lovely Irish couple (praise ❤️) who had been traveling the world for 11 months already. They had so many good tips and made us feel so much better about everything, we could ask them for good tips too.

    Then we went to look at the river Ganges (our hostel is right next to it) and saw what we think was a floating dead body. Yum!

    Now we're in a private room because we figured we'd have some luxury. The place has a roof terrace with a lovely view but we now also have a little balcony. Win-win-win.

    Finally got sim cards today so we're more mobile. We really like varanasi because everyone is nice to us here and greets us instead of just staring. Also it's such a spiritual place where they are so respectful of the animals as well as people. Happy!    Read more

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    Spiritual day of learning

    November 21, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    Today was an emotional rollercoaster.
    After breakfast and planning our next stop we decided to go and visit a temple.

    On our way we got blessed by a holy man (hence the red on our forehead). Let's hope it comes true. Then as we were nearly at the temple we were warned again by a local to not take pictures of the body burning ceremony we were seemingly also nearing.

    Here in varanasi they believe that they will go to heaven if they are burnt by the river after cleansing it first in the ganges and have their ashes strewn in the river. The bodies burn for 24 hours a day, so they basically have bodies burning here all the time. Only if a someone is bit by a snake or if they die of a fever they don't get burnt, instead they have a rock tied to their legs and are dropped into the river. Only the rope comes untied and so the bodies come back up (hence the body we saw on the first night)

    We got shown around the burning site and told how that morning there had been a fight between locals and Americans because the Americans were filming the ritual. Unlike what it may sound like, these burnings are real ceremonies and the families are in sever pain so obviously they don't want people to be taking pictures. We don't understand why you would want a picture anyway. It was quite intense getting so close to the burning bodies and being close to death but now that it's settled I am happy that we saw it. The most interesting is that next to the burning site there is a large house where people are just waiting to die. For the different castes they have different story's and also different heights of burning the bodies.

    So that was that- I did feel a bit weird after but both of us were "happy" that we did it.

    In the evening we saw a more joyful ceremony which also happens everyday which was the praising and thanking of the river. We took a boat out and had a lovely trip down the river till we got to see the ceremony from the water. It was astounding how many people showed up and that's what you see in the videos too. Super cool, both of us got to do a wish while lighting a candle and think we're both feeling more spiritual now. I thanked the river for giving all this hope and joy to the people here, it is quite astounding.

    To top it off we had a nice meal of noodles and Indian fried rice with a side order of French fries. Interesting choices hahaha.    Read more

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    Nicer than Lucknow and parks!

    November 30, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    We are currently waiting for our next bus journey of a mere 8 hours (sigh) to get to Agra. Allahabad aka Prayagraj was a decent stop in our journey. We came here originally just as an overstop but it has been nice. Of course not as nice as Varanasi but that is going to be hard to beat.

    One really nice thing are the parks here, on our first day we were going to go to a museum but wandered into the adjoining Park for 5 rupees (0,0625 €). It was huge and was filled with students studying in the grass. Really cool and nice to finally get some fresh and clean air again after all this pollution.

    Second day we went to the second most popular attraction which were these 4 tombs in another huge park. This was really nice although we have gotten a bit sick of contant selfie requests. Especially here it was really bad. We don't even know how many times we were asked but it has tired quickly and we had to say "no" a few times just to be begged for one anyway. So a bit annoying when you are just trying to walk around and wonder at the attraction too. Made us realise we're not cut out for fame lol. Didn't ruin the day though by any means. Was really nice and some guy did take a lovely picture of us which I have attached.

    There's also a Christian church here as well as loads of temples as well as it being a muslim town. Pretty cool.    Read more

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    Taj Mahal!

    December 2, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C

    First of all, thanks for all the lovely comments. Makes it feel special to share these memories with you. ❤️

    Today we got up at 5:30 and saw the Taj Mahal! Best time to go because it was still very quite. What an experience. Not much to say apart from just wow. It's so huge! And again, the detail was just fantastic. Really cool building. Felt like I checked something of my bucket list today, once in a lifetime. Very happy.Read more

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    Agra

    December 4, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    So the highlight of today is that instead of receiving three rupies in change we received three candies worth one rupee each. This was in an official retail store (usually everything is rounded to whole numbers and you don't work with single rupees) we thought this was very funny.

    Agra fort and Agra have been nice. The hostel we are staying in has a view of the Taj Mahal which is cool so we had some beers while looking at the master piece. Met Arjit from Mumbai here too, super cool guy. He showed us some good places to eat and made us eat some super good dishes! Getting more adventurous with the foods and l o v i n g it.

    Tomorrow we head to Jaipur which is exciting cause I'll be spending my birthday there in the pink city! Hopefully also a warm shower because we have only had cold showers for over a week now 🚿❄️😅    Read more

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    Monkey temple!

    December 6, 2019 in India ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    Fallen in love with Jaipur.

    Went to the monkey temple yesterday and just oh my god. So so so sad we don't have those darn rabies shots so we couldn't feed them or get too close. But still what a cool experience! Monkeys everywhere and more blessings for us (though I did get food poisoning for the second time already so not sure how blessed I was)

    There's also a huge hike included and right at the top we found what seemed to be a dead monkey. Luckily he wasn't, but he was blind. Poor thing. Kaya and I gave him some water and food and he slowly regained more strength. Though we're not sure we did the right thing prolonging his suffering as I can't imagine he does very well. Very interesting experience though. He was very hazy with heavily dilated pupils and wouldn't respond to any movements we made only sound.

    Monkeys are so similar to us it's crazy! The baby monkeys are just too cute for words. Being sick in a hostel was not a great experience but survived. In a super duper nice hotel now for my upcoming birthday. Its really beautiful but only an added bonus to our enthusiasm for Jaipur.    Read more

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    Jaipur family

    December 9, 2019 in India ⋅ 🌙 15 °C

    <3

    Some pictures here of our lovely adoptive Jaipur family and also our hotel. The hotel was really really nice and fancy, happy birthday to me! 😀
    Had a very special birthday too because of the hospitality of this lovely family.

    Kaya met Mukesh when he was going out and I was sick in bed, he advised us to get some medicine and also explained he made many foreign friends. He seemed super and we saw him the next day on our way to the museum as he greeted us with a huge smile. We were walking but told him we'd tell him if we needed anything. On my birthday he took us into town as was very chatty. After picking us up he invited us over for chai, which was SO GOOD! We met his lovely wife and his adoring children in their home. Savi asked us over for dinner seeing as I was away from my mum and I should still have a nice meal made by a mother. So sweet, we obviously came back that night for some food.

    If you talk to anyone from India about 98% will tell you that no food beats their mothers cooking. It makes a lot of sense now. Savi's special Thali was and is unmatched. Absolutely amazing. And all prepared super sterile and with filtered water especially for us. They made us feel like royalty and shared many stories with us. I also got some henna as a special birthday treat, so beautiful.

    It was truly an honour to spend time with this friendly and giving people. We feel so lucky and will spend time with them again on our way back up to Delhi, just before we fly back home.    Read more

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    Elephants

    December 10, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    This was really special - Jaipur in general has been special, just very expensive lol.

    We got to spend time with this beautiful creature called Gori. She was a rescue elephant like all the elephants there in this enclosure. So it was good to support the place, they had around 30 elephants so none of them were overworked and they were treated well.

    You could choose your activity depending on your budget, we really wanted to paint the elephant. Never will we have a canvas as cool as this ever again. Really amazing to spend time with the elephant and be super close to her for a few hours. AMAZING EXPERIENCE    Read more

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    More beautiful architecture

    December 11, 2019 in India ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C

    Amber Fort was another example for some "who has time for that?!" architecture. The amazing thought and detail that goes into the buildings is amazing. We had a blast.

    Its totally different being in tourist places now though. White people everywhere and much less people asking for pictures. Ofcourse we had that in Agra too but still. Its funny how different Lucknow is to all the other cities we have visited. Still no regrets about going there, was pretty cool too

    Was a bit chilly today but we had a good time!    Read more

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    It's so cold here!

    December 14, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 14 °C

    Our first hostel was super beautiful and deserved its own little post. One thing though, its so cold here! Our first day was freezing with no sun or anything (haha while writing this I'm realising I'm complaining about 10 degrees when it's literally freezing in Holland but Still) our plans have changed and we're going more south instead of going north. So our route isn't going to make much sense anymore but oh well its worth it.

    We were only going to stay in Pushkar for two night but stayed longer to do some charity work. We did move hostel though because this hostel wasn't that great with the cold and all.

    Our first impressions here weren't that good BTW. Which weren't helped by the cold. Anyway it's very very touristy and didn't feel very authentic at all. There is not much to do either apart from a seemingly famous scam we weren't aware of until we became victims of it! They hand you a flour at the start of the market and tell you to bring it to the river so you think a nice ok we'll stroll to the river. There we got targeted by some old man who seperated us and performed some bullshit ritual and wouldn't let me see Kaya again until I promises him money so I was just agreeing to whatever cause there were two men towering over me and applying pressure. Oh well, many have been a victim to this scam but I was still a bit pissed off that they got me. So Pushkar wasn't very high on our favoured list.    Read more

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    A little good karma

    December 15, 2019 in India ⋅ 🌙 15 °C

    So we stayed in Pushkar to do charity work as I said. This was really nice though we didn't do very much but it has inspired us to do more next time. Though if you want to do actual good charity work here (that will actually make a difference/ isn't a scam) you need to subscribe to some apps and stuff. We didn't think that far ahead and also its like 300€ a year so....

    Anyway that's why this was perfect. We ate at this cafe that supports a local school. They had a poster up that said you could help out anyway you wanted. So we volunteered for a day of service in the cafe, indirectly helping the kids cause we were helping the man that owns it. We also bought a bunch of school supplies and dropped them off at the school the next day with some fruit. Then we spent some time with the kids just playing which actually felt a bit weird because we were taking away their learning time but maybe that's me overthinking.

    The school was just one room with about 25 students and some older boys from another highschool that come to help out. The kids were lovely but ofcourse it was eye opening to see their school and realise how lucky we are. You know these things but it's different when you're actually there.    Read more

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    Pushkar not so bad

    December 16, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    So as I said in the previous post we decided to stay a bit longer. Pushkar is actually quite beautiful when it cleared up and we got some sun. We met a lot of travelers here too which was cool. Still we wouldn't go back here unless we wanted to buy hippie clothes for really cheap. It was too western orientated like all the shops were selling these hippie clothes which you never see any Indian person in. And the streets are subsequently filled with white people hahaha. So it felts more like being at a psy trance festival (as psy trance was also playing in many shops and restaurants) not a bad thing, just not what we were looking for in India lol.Read more

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    Blue city

    December 18, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    While Jaipur wasn't actually pink, Jodhpur didn't dissapoint.

    We made a little group of friends in the hostel which was nice, hung out around the fire in the evening and playing games and doing the waking tour together. Having some jokes and then moving on again. Nice stuff.

    Seeing yet another Fort was cool but we have kind of seen them now hahah. The highlight was probably our afternoon hiking through the "rock garden" which was actually a huge national park with beautiful features. For one it was calm (first quite we've had in a month) and the craziest part :no trash. Now that was refreshing. Had a lovely walk around for a few hours.

    Next to that the walking tour we did was really nice learning about the history of Jodhpur as well as some Indian history. Also the views of the blue city were pretty darn spectacular. We liked Jodhpur quite a lot. Good food, nice vibes. When we walked through the city the first day everyone was waving, smiling and greeting us. Very wholesome.    Read more

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    Another Fort

    December 19, 2019 in India ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

    Sooo despite it being "yet another Fort" it was still very nice. Highlights were the views and the fact that every window was an uniquely carved out sandstone piece. Not one window was the same.

    Oh yea and there were birds nests everywhere, the Fort was also named the bird Fort. Also it was inhabited to 1940 which was weird to think about.Read more

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    The final palace

    December 21, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    OK so now we are actually done with the forts and palaces hahaha. We by chance strolled into this one and thought why not. But we are not as excited any more about these buildings. They are magnificent but we have become desensitised to the true beauty! So we will choose more nature orientated trips and hang outs from now.

    We have made friends with a local cafe owner who made us extremely spicy, but according to him not at all spicy chow mein noodles. Had a good laugh with him. The guest house we are at is very nice, we are exhausted from traveling so taking it easy and decided to spend Christmas here and stay longer until getting a super long train journey back.    Read more

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    Helping at an animal shelter

    December 25, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    Christmas and boxing day could not have been better spent than this.
    While there was no real sign of the Christmas spirit Kaya and I spent a day here at the animal shelter in Udaipur. Much more rewarding than the forts..

    So there are many many street animals in India but not many shelters. While Kaya and I both believe the human needs crisis needs to be solved more urgently it doesn't take away from the great initiative. They take wounded street animals in and cure them, then they release them back into the wild. In some cases (blindness or loss of backlegs) they do adopt them and keep them there as they wouldn't survive back in the wild.

    They also adopt donkeys that have been used cruelly for labour, so we saw many ghastly sights of twisted legs and horrible wounds which is really sad. Donkeys are used here to carry big bags of rocks, way heavier than they are able of coping with and they will tie their front leg to their back leg to decrease speed, with grim results. Luckily they got to stay in this nice enclosure with the cows.

    The cows usually come from the milk industry as when they no longer can produce milk the industry tosses them onto the street, the cows are often too weak to survive on their own after this. The shelter also has many male baby cows that either get killed or tossed for the reason that they can't produce milk. Again, quite sad and this is one we can't even deny happens in the west! Also their are a lot of "wild" cows in India that live on the street. With all the pollution and littering here the poor things end up consuming so much plastic and as a result of this their stomach fills with it, creating a barrier that won't let any actual food and nutrients pass through. They got weirdly bloated and will die soon if nothing is done, again the shelter will try to perform a surgery but to be fair they will just go back on the street again and the same will happen.

    All in all another eye opening experience that was very rewarding. We spent two days there helping out and gave some donations.    Read more

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    Udaipur tour

    December 27, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C

    So we really like Udaipur and wanted to do a tour. We walked all around the old part of town and learnt all about the different neighbourhoods. So "back in the day" but also to this day you used to have all the different proffesions in one neighbourhood. So proffesions were passed on through the generations and you would have all the basket weavers in one area, the potters in another, shoe makers, fruit retailers, they all had their own part. Now it's not super strict but you will still predominantly find the same shops in the same areas of the old town.

    We also learnt about local temples and got some more information about Hindu temples. The best part was trying all the local sweet delicacies, jallebis, yum!    Read more

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    Lake city

    December 28, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

    Definitely our favourite place!

    We had such a good time here, its such a beautiful place with really nice people. We made friends with the local cafe owner, Viki and went there at least once a day for some amazing chai or pineaple coffee (this last concept is hard to believe but it is literally the best thing ever). There were some British people that came there everyday too, Micheal and Lucy, we got super friendly with them too. They were in Udaipur for 3 months and a good laugh. Going there really felt like a club house or something familiar. There was also a huge art scene (not to be compared with any art scene at home) in Udaipur so we were constantly wandering into art shops and galleries. By the end of our trip when we'd be walking down the main street we were waving left and right because we actually started to get to know the people. Such nice vibes.

    We also followed an art class which was super good and Udaipur has amazing food too! Really cool to see a traditional Rajasthan dance performance too with beautiful ladies and one who balanced like 20 pots on her head. Such a cool place!!    Read more

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