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Travel 2020 - TBCTravel 2020 - TBC
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Travel 2020 - TBC

January 2020 - June 2024
An open-ended adventure by George Read more
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  • TravelerTravel 2020 - TBC
    Day 41

    Exploring South Goa by bike

    February 15, 2020 in India ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    We woke up after having an amazing sleep in these beds, got ready and asked the owner of the hostel to arrange our mopeds for the day. He led us to a restaurant not far from the hostel where a man was waiting outside stood next to an old moped that looked like it was falling apart....I’m guessing that’s why we got it for 300 instead of 400 as the guy next door was trying to charge us. I put the helmet on (that had a hole in it and half a visor) and Tom got on the back and we drove off...where we soon realised that the speedometer or fuel gauge did not work either! It took me a little while to get used to driving the moped after driving a Tuktuk for a month but I got used to it pretty quickly.

    We drove to Cabo de Rama, an old Portuguese fort 24km from our hostel. We arrived and there was a wedding or funeral taking place so we didn’t see the church but we climbed the old walls of the fort which weren’t very well maintained but pretty cool. We sat on the walls enjoying the coastal view and we saw a beach in the distance that looked really nice, so decided to check that out next. So we found the beach on the map, jumped back on our moped and made our way in that direction. We had to drive across really rough terrain to get to the “parking area” where we dumped our bike to walk to the short trail down to the beach. At the top of the trail you could see down onto the beach and it was glorious! Possibly one of the nicest beaches I had ever seen. Gorgeous white sand, clear blue water, surrounded by palm trees and best thing being there were no people there! We walked down and enjoyed this little bit of paradise for a while, and I mean it was paradise.

    1 o’clock came around very quickly. We had enjoyed this beach for a few hours now and as much as we didn’t want to leave we also wanted to check out some other places. So we got back on our moped and drove to Agonda beach where we ate lunch at a cute little restaurant, Tom had the veg noodles and I had the veg rice. We then went for a stroll along Agonda beach, a nice beach but pretty busy comped to the beach this morning. We dumped our stuff on the beach and enjoyed the beautiful water for a while, we even tested each other to see how long we could hold our breath underwater... the answer is roughly over a minute! Then we decided to check out another beach called Butterfly beach, however the roads we awful and we were running out of time before sunset so we decided to skip Butterfly beach and head to Talpona beach, about a 16km drive... we got there and again played some stupid games in the sea, we even had a running race on the beach, with an audience of course (as you couldn’t do anything in India without an audience). We played around in the water whilst the sun was setting and I tried to get a silly picture of Tom jumping out the water with the sunset in the background....he jumped up and as he was midair the wave beneath him disappeared meaning the drop was actually much further down, *SPLAT*. Tom had completely backslapped the water! Ouch! It was however a gorgeous sunset and a good Instagram picture.

    What we didn’t consider however, was that once the sun had set we wouldn’t be able to dry off and we would have to drive back to the hostel in the dark and both freezing cold...DUH! We eventually got back and thought we would have a nice shower to warm ourselves up...but the water at the hostel wasn’t working so we had to have a bucket shower, which was far from pleasant! For dinner tonight we decided to just go to the Nepalese place again (our logic was when you find somewhere good in India that didn’t make you sick just keep going there, as reducing the number of places you eat at reduced your chances of getting food poisoning). The food was just as good as the previous night, and after dinner tonight we both got a ginger, lemon and honey tea to wash it down with. However, as the guy was preparing it a weird guy came off the street chatting to him...the guy making our tea was obviously used to this guy, presumably the local psycho, so didn’t take much notice of him at all. However, Tom and I certainly noticed him, especially when he picked up one of our teas and gave it a huge sniff! We were joking about who would get that tea, both of us keeping our eyes on which one he had touched but the waiter took them both back to the kitchen to add something else...so we will never know who drank the one that the man sniffed. Oh well, it was delicious! We made our way back to the hostel where we wanted to get some good rest in these amazing beds!    Read more

  • TravelerTravel 2020 - TBC
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    Day 42

    South Goa to Mumbai

    February 16, 2020 in India ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    We both enjoyed a lie in this morning, enjoying these really comfortable beds as we knew the following night we would spend on a night train. We were out of bed at 9am, the latest wake up time on our trip so far and made our way over to Palolem beach, a 10 minute walk from our hostel. The beach was huge, but quite crowded so we were both pretty happy that we decided to base ourselves in Patnem instead. We walked half-way along the beach and grabbed some veg noodles at a food vendor in a car park just off the beach for 80 rupees and then grabbed a 5L bottle of water to fuel us for the morning. We continued along Palolem beach reaching the island at the end that you could read at low tide, however the tide had already started to come in when we got there so we gave it a miss and decided to actually just head back to Patnem and enjoy our last beach day for a while there.

    Back at Patnem we enjoyed the water, the sunshine and the peace for a little while (even though it was scorching hot) before I looked at our tickets for the upcoming train. I woke Tom from his doze to tell him the tickets for our trains tonight were actually waiting list tickets not actual tickets for the train. We’d not been told about any of this as we’d paid for the tickets a couple of days earlier. We were in a Pool Quota waiting list, and bottom of the pile for that. We did some googling and discovered we wouldn’t have beds on this 11 hour overnight train to Mumbai. This made us both so frustrated at how the Indian rail system works and how anybody actually gets anywhere! We decided that we’d go to the train station in Cancona early to see what we could do. Of course we still had time to have our favourite Thali from the Nepalese restaurant, so we devoured it for the last time and went to get ready at the hostel. We’d asked the guy earlier in the day if we could grab a quick shower before the train, but it was a different person manning the hostel this afternoon and he didn’t like the idea of it! This day was going from bad to worse! We eventually just decided to get a shower as the hostel was empty, and then set off on the walk to the train station via the ATM for some much needed cash. I only had 30 pence on me and Tom only had about £2...not quite enough to get us to Mumbai.

    When we got to the station, there was a crazy guy there, either drunk or drugged up, causing trouble for everyone. The station master was armed with a big wooden bat if he started to kick off more...luckily the police were called and he was taken away. This left the station master to be barraged with questions by me about what all the different codes on tickets meant. Eventually it made sense (Indian sense) and we’d be refunded for the waiting list ticket but we’d have to buy a general class ticket if we still wanted to get to Mumbai tonight. We took a brave pill and got them , only £2.50 each, and awaited the arrival of the train, getting some snacks in the meantime. It hit 20:30 and we went up the platform where we’d been told the general carriages were and we both jumped on before the train had stopped to try and beat some of the locals on so we’d get a seat. It was immediately uncomfortable. Hard benches with a tiny amount of padding, racks above to store luggage where people were sat and very little air. We went for about an hour or so and stopped at some random station where they were selling chapattis and curry through the window of the train, so we grabbed one to share and it was actually pretty good. Once finished we noticed that other who had the same as us didn’t have the little bag or plate they were given. I went on the hunt for a bin but found none - a fellow passenger then motioned for us to just throw it out the window - something that I couldn’t imagine doing, but obviously normal for these guys...we just held onto it for a bin later.

    About another hour later and we’d both tried to get some sleep with no luck, but at least we had some of our own space to move about and get comfy. This is when the whole night took a turn...we got to a station just before midnight and what felt like half the Indian population got into our carriage....we were in for a long night.    Read more

  • TravelerTravel 2020 - TBC
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    Day 43

    Night Train and Mumbai City

    February 17, 2020 in India ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    We went from a very uncomfortable 4 people on our bench to an unbearable 5...by 1am we had said goodbye to any possibility that we would get any sleep tonight. The guys who got on at the station had taken it upon themselves to start moving everyone’s luggage around from the racks to make space for people up there...however they hadn’t clocked where the luggage would go instead. They tried to move mine and Toms’ bags but I told them absolutely not and that I wanted eyes on them all night. They tried a couple more times before giving up as they realised that we were serious about them not touching our stuff. To our amazement, they all got out bits of cardboard and plastic sheeting and laid it out on the floor...these were their beds!! One of the group asked me to move my feet, bearing in mind they were in the aisle as there were 10 other pairs of legs and feet where mine could have been I asked him ‘where would you like me to put them?’ Confused, he tapped my legs and feet for me to move them. Again I asked the same question and his mate translated...I’d had enough with them completely. He eventually gave up probably realising that even white peoples’ legs weren’t detachable.

    We got absolutely no sleep and he prospect of the next 7 hours on this train in this position was haunting. However, the time did tick by and we just battled on, already saying that we’d never do this again or make the same mistakes with the tickets. We were about an hour from Mumbai when a lot of the passengers got off, it was at this point we saw their suitcases...they were big 10 litre paint tubs filled with clothes and all sorts of things. At the stop before we got off, some cross dressing men got on and started clapping and hassling people for money...it was really weird. It was almost as if they were blessing people and getting money for it, but it was just a money making thing. We eventually got off the train at Mumbai LTT station and were being hounded by the various taxi or tuktuk drivers, all of whom were trying to guess where we were going...a pointless exercise. I went over to the prepaid Tuktuk counter and said where we wanted to go, it was done via google maps so I went round and put it in the computer. The guy then clicked on the longest route possible - I told him to choose the short one as it was way cheaper (6km rather that 10km)! He reluctantly did so and we got to our hostel in the Bandra part of Mumbai for 122 rupees. We were zonked and felt jet-lagged and just passed out on the sofa at the hostel as we couldn’t check in just yet. When we got ourselves sorted and check in we had a little nap before we got into seeing Mumbai.

    We walked to Bandra station, stopping off to get noodles for 30 rupees at a very local, busy store. Shocked by litter on the journey. Didn’t want to buy ticket due to the queue, so we just hopped on a train heading south and hoped it went to Churchgate Junction. The train was boiling hot and at each stop it was a massive rush to get either on or off by the locals. Eventually we got to downtown Mumbai and began walking, first the post office, then the main train terminal and then the India Gate and Taj Palace Hotel, all of which had been built whilst India was under British rule and they were all the nicest buildings we’d seen so far in India. After the bad night we’d had and the hot weather in Mumbai, we both mutually decided to dive into a McDonald’s and get an ice cream for just 20rupees each. It felt like being back at home somewhere, being able to be sat down without vendors hassling you whilst you ate and enjoyed some food in air-con!

    Soon enough though, we were back on the streets and walking back towards the station to get back to Bandra. After a hectic walk back through the markets, we made it back to the hostel and had a hot shower - our first hot shower since Hatton in Sri Lanka! We cleaned up and went back to the lunch place and grabbed some more street food and just chilled out for the rest of the evening coming up with the plan for tomorrow. We’d been recommended to do the Dharavi Slum tour, so Tom organised this and we got an early night.    Read more

  • TravelerTravel 2020 - TBC
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    Day 44

    Mumbai Dharavi Slum

    February 18, 2020 in India ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    We woke up nice and early and set off to get to Bandra junction train station to catch a train to Mahim junction where we would meet our tour guide for todays tour of Dharavi Slum, one of the largest slums in the world. We got to Bandra and got on any train heading in the direction of Mahim, which we found out as wrong as we sped past Mahim junction without stopping...we got out at a random train station and an Indian commuter decided to take us under his wing and ensure we got on the correct train to Mahim, what a nice guy! He even advised us to wear our backpack on our front to avoid the notorious pickpockets on the Mumbai inner city trains. We eventually got to Mahim and took a seat in Cafe Coffee Day, the exact meeting point for our tour.

    At around 9:45, Yahya arrived outside with three Irish girls, we went out to meet them to start our tour. Yahya worked for a company called ‘The Local Tours’, a company that we had been recommended by Jen, who Tom used to work with. It is a very socially aware company and they recruit university students that live in Dharavi to run the tours as a means of earning money to pay for their tuition fees, so it was a nice company to do it with. Yahya explained to us all that Dharavi was not a sad place to live, in fact a very desirable place to live for people in India. Over 1 million people called Dhiravi home and it has a booming economy, with a GDP of over $1 billion per annum with textiles, leather and recycling industries being its biggest income. Yahya explained how when Dharavi was founded, from dried up marsh land, people from all over India rushed to buy the land due to its central location in Mumbai, and now the land is very expensive at over a quarter of a million rupees per square meter. We walked round the streets and many alleyways of Dharavi and saw first hand each of the major industries at work and also where people were living and it was right what Yahya was saying, people were more than happy living here, in fact they loved living here. We got an awesome lunch in Yahya’s favourite place and then finished the tour near to a barber shop, so ever the opportune, Tom and I decided to get our hair cut, 80 rupees for a haircut!

    The man who would be doing the haircut had bright orange hair with matching beard, so hopefully he was better than whoever does his hair! We played rock, paper, scissors to determine who would go first....for the first time in ages, Tom won, so I was up! I’m not going to lie about 2 minutes in it looked like he had absolutely butchered my hair, but he turned it around eventually and he actually gave me a good cut! After my haircut was finished the man decided to give me a very thorough/violent face wash, involving a pink machine that resembles a polishing machine....it was not pleasant and he was pummelling my cheekbones and nose with this vibrating device. It was then Tom’s turn and that is when we found out he could only really do one style, as we both got practically identical haircuts. Tom then endured the same torturous face wash machine, and tried to pay up....however he was trying to double the cost saying that the face wash (that we didn’t ask for) was additional. Paying no more than the agreed price, we left Dharavi after having a great morning.

    We made our way back to Mahim junction and got a train to Charni road where we walked to Chowpatty beach. A little bit of a disappointment if I’m honest...it wasn’t exactly the nicest beach but I wasn’t really expecting much in the centre of Mumbai. We continued walking along the beach to find the hanging gardens that Tom had read about...again a little bit of a disappointment too. However, it was the highest point in Mumbai, hence the name “hanging gardens”, due to its location there was a observation deck nearby that we went up to get a view over crazy Mumbai - this was pretty nice, and free too! We then walked back through Mumbai traffic to a nearby train station, stopping off for a bit of air con in H&M and got a train back to Bandra where we got our now standard order of Chinese Bhel, this time with noodles on top for not additional charge...we were becoming locals here.

    After this long hot day, we went back to the hostel for some chill and then back to the same place for more Chinese Bhel, and then we went over the road for an Orea Shake, which was unreal! With the taste of chocolate in our mouths, we then made a desperate trip to the shop for biscuits then back to the hostel for the night.    Read more

  • TravelerTravel 2020 - TBC
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    Day 45

    Mumbai plan day and night bus to Udaipur

    February 19, 2020 in India ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C

    Today we were in no rush at all. We’d seen what we wanted to see in Mumbai, so we had a big fat lie in and a leisurely get up and warm shower. Today was our last day in Mumbai so we needed to check out by 10:30, so we packed up our stuff and chilled in the common area for a little while. We dedicated some time this morning/afternoon to planning what we would do for the next few weeks as well as book flights into Nepal. We spent a few hours researching and adding things to the plan before we both got hungry and went back to our trusty street food man for Chinese Bhel for the last time.

    Tonight we were getting the bus to Udaipur, as our waiting list tickets for the train hadn’t come through. Rather than suffer a 17 hour journey on a train in general class again, we’d booked a luxury bus with our own TVs, films and all the trimmings. It would take just as long as the train, but hopefully we’d get some decent sleep. We went out to get snacks for the bus, the standard crisps, biscuits and bananas before going back to the hostel to chill out before it was time to grab an Ola (Indian Uber) to the pickup spot. The pickup location on the RedBus app was just at the side of the motorway, so we waited for a little while keeping track of the buses location...it was on its way to us, just very slowly. Eventually the bus pulled up, it was a different model bus to what it said online so we wanted to check that it was going to Udaipur, the man grunted at us and ushered us on. We found our beds and set up camp for the night. I must admit, it was certainly worth spending a little bit more money for a bit of comfort on these long journeys.

    After watching Mission Impossible Fallout (great film!) the bus stopped in a random location to refuel and where we could try and get some proper food as we were only had snack...we had tried to get something a few times before but there was just crisps and junk! This time was equally unsuccessful, however even more so as the bus loudly sounded its horn and began to drive off...without us! Tom was faster than me to react and sprinted to the bus and started banging the door until he stopped to let us on. We were not happy at the driver at all and I had a go at him saying that they need to communicate better with their passengers, in response he just grunted at me... back to bed then.

    A little while later we stopped at a slightly more official looking place that were actually selling proper food. We both got 2 samosas, devoured them and then a friendly Indian guy asked us if we wanted to try his crisps...we both tried a few and they were nice, and then the guy decided that he was going to give the entire packet to us, what a gent! We got back on the bus and I passed out for the night in the extremely comfy beds.    Read more

  • TravelerTravel 2020 - TBC
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    Day 46

    Exploring Udaipur City

    February 20, 2020 in India ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    I woke up at around 8am with 40km still to go until Udaipur. I had a really good nights sleep! I opened the curtain watching the world go by and then put a film on until the bus conductor loudly started screaming “Udaipur, Udaipur” with a lot of other incomprehensible words. We got off the bus where we got an Ola to take us to our hostel for only 27 rupees thanks to my online discount. The hostel was right in the middle of Udaipur, on the island connected by bridges on Pichola lake.

    We found our hostel, Whereabout Hostel, checked in and then chilled out on their roof terrace which had an awesome view of Pichola lake. We read through some of the Lonely Planet books which were there to get a better sense of what what here in Udaipur as we hadn’t done much research about here. After a little while our room was ready for us to check in, so we dumped our bags and then went to grab some lunch at a place called “Queen Cafe” that we had read about in Lonely Planet book. This place was tiny, and run by these two old people and their daughter Meera who also did a cooking school. As it turned out, Meera also did the cooking for the cafe and soon after ordering she brought us two biriyani. It was a bit odd as she just sat there and watched us eat the food, clearly doing the hard sell on her cooking school. After the food, she even insisted on taking us to her kitchen to show us where we’d cook. We were up for the idea, but it was so expensive so we would consider it long and hard.

    We walked around the old part of the town over the little bridges which connected little islands and lakes and we were quite surprised at how pretty it was here after coming from Mumbai. Even though we’d had some good sleep on the bus, we were still quite tired, so we went to the hostel rooftop and had a little planning session for Udaipur and the next few places we were going. We knew of this view point which overlooked the Palace Island Hotel to watch the sun go down. This was a place which had been a main filming point in James Bond Octopussy and it was really nice and quite grand.

    By this point we were quite hungry, and looked around a few different parts of town but they were all quite expensive. So we went back to near our hostel and got a Thali for 120 rupees. We were sold, and it was all fresh too, so we sat down and almost immediately there was a power-cut. Luckily the guy doing our cooking was creating enough light with the occasion flame up of his pan, so it didn’t delay our food. The power came back on and we were served an enormous thali which was delicious. We went back to the rooftop and tried to watch Slumdog Millionaire on the iPad, but there was no subtitles and half of it was in Hindi...oh well, so we just headed to bed for a good sleep.    Read more

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    Day 47

    Udaipur Shiva Festival

    February 21, 2020 in India ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C

    We were both awake by 8am and made our way up to the roof terrace to wait for our free breakfast. We were a little early but didn’t mind as we both really liked the view from the terrace. When breakfast came we kept eating more and more, the poor guy who worked at the hostel had to keep bringing more...we had 2 boiled eggs, 4 curry toasties and about half a loaf of bread worth of jam on toast (Jammie dodger jam). Very satisfied and now fuelled for the day we left our hostel and made our way across the bridge, it was a gorgeous day, clear blue skies and a nice warm temperature.

    Today was the Hindu festival of Shivaratri, a festival dedicated to the worship of Lord Shiva. We walked through the colourful streets and our first stop of the day was Jagdish temple, a large Hindu temple raised on a tall terrace that you had to climb up to via very steep stairs, plastered with beggars and people trying to sell us tat. Upon entering the temple there was a nice atmosphere, obviously fuelled by today’s festivities. There were people sat around a shrine in the centre of the temple singing and playing instruments, which we watched for a little while before walking round the rest of the old temple. Back onto the streets we then made our way over to the City Palace, however before we got there we were blocked by a large group of Hindu people dancing and singing in the street to incredibly loud music. We watched as they had their party and then went to look at getting tickets for the city palace. It was 300 rupees which we thought was quite a lot, but it was one of the main things to do here so we went for it. Inside the palace was quite busy, with it being the festival today. There were loads of Indians, so we sat and let the majority of them feed through before we started our walk round. The palace was really well kept, and pretty interesting as each reigning Maharaja had added bits onto it over a period of 400 years so each bit was different. We were enjoying it as the palace was nice and cool with amazing views out over Pichola Lake and the rest of Udaipur. However, we quickly became annoyed at pretty much everyone else in the palace as all they seemed to want was a picture of themselves in front of some artefact, without even looking at it or taking it in. We were ushered out the way numerous times for one of these photo shoots which we felt was a bit silly...but Indians love a picture of themselves.

    We spend a good three or four hours at the palace before we left to check out a viewpoint we’d seen on maps.me. It was a pretty easy walk to the bottom of it and not too hot, so we started to climb. There was a cable car you could take up, but you couldn’t get to this viewpoint. On the way up we saw a. Abandoned pink tower which had a little rooftop, so we went off the path and clambered up the hillside to get to it. Up three flights of stairs and to the roof and we were treated to an amazing view of the lakes, palace, and temples of Udaipur. After a bit, we climbed even higher up try hill to get the sunset view.m and found these two pagoda things which seemed to have the best view of the city. We were up here quite early for the sunset, but we got some really nice pictures and just watched the scenery change as the sun went down. It was absolutely gorgeous, and as it got darker the city palace and other buildings started to get lit up.

    After soaking it all up, we made our way down (via the top of the pink tower again) and then began the walk back to the hostel. On the way back, this man on a bike pulled up and showed us a WhatsApp text, it had words like ‘bull’ and ‘guys’ and ‘massage’ in it at a quick glance. We walked on, but I turned to Tom and insisted that was some sort of sexual offering. He wasn’t so sure, but I was certain. Out of curiosity, we slowed down a bit and sure enough the man stopped next to us again. We asked him what he wanted and he plainly responded saying “I want sex, you have sex with my wife”. We were speechless and couldn’t actually believe what he said. He then clarified and said that he and his wife were swingers...we had to politely decline his offer but wished him luck. After this, we were really keen for food, so stopped at a place which looked busy, always a good sign, and we decided we’d get a mixture of dishes after we’d had thali for what felt like weeks. We got vegetable pakora, this guys own veg biriyani and a peanut masala, the latter of which arrived with a flame coming out of it! All the food was amazing and safe to say we gobbled it all up.

    As it was the Shiva Festival today in Udaipur there was a load of people now out on the streets and we got offered this creamy/green drink. This western guy said to me that it wasn’t strong, so we both took a cup. When we drank it we couldn’t even taste any alcohol, so it must have been really weak. It wasn’t the nicest of drinks, so Tom only had a little bit, whilst I had the whole thing as we were in front of the guys who gave it to us and I didn’t want to seem rude. We walked up the street so Tom could dump his in the bin, as two kids followed us desperate for the drink but Tom refused to give it to them. We made it back to the hostel finally and went to the rooftop to chill out for a bit. Up there we met an English girl and a Finnish guy and we were all just chatting about generic travel stuff. It was at this point I started to feel a bit weird in my stomach and I immediately thought the drink had poisoned me. However, I then overheard the Finnish guy say that the drink the locals give out on the street is a ‘special lassi’. In other words it’s a drink laced with marijuana. I hadn’t been poisoned, I’d got accidentally high. Tom has looked over to me and I was in fits of giggles at absolutely nothing at all...at least I was happy high and not depressed. Everything made me laugh, even the name of the state we were in ‘Rajasthan’ and even more so the people called ‘Rajasthani’s’ nearly had me on the floor. This went on for a while, and even Tom started to just laugh, more so at the state I was in. We went downstairs as I had some chocolate biscuits, so we demolished them and then decided we’d go on a midnight hunt for Oreos. We went down to the main door, and it was shut, but couldn’t be locked as you can’t lock people in or out of a hostel. We spent about 5 minutes pushing and pulling, looking for a lever, trying to twist bolts and pulling chains that were on this door but for the life of us we couldn’t figure it out! We had to find and ask the hostel manager how you open the door and he just said ‘slide them’...actually so simple. We got our Oreos smashed them and then duly went to bed. It had been a long and eventful day, but a fun evening.    Read more

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    Day 48

    Exlploring Udaipur on foot

    February 22, 2020 in India ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    We woke up at 8am, with the Indians in our room having a conversation at volume 100%, because they can’t do anything quietly. Up on the rooftop for 8:15 to wait for our free hostel breakfast. However, unlike yesterday we were not the only ones on the rooftop today so had to eat a normal amount today. We went for a walk to find some mopeds to rent today, however, we were unsuccessful and apparently all the mopeds were rented today...we tried our hostel and they said the same thing. We quickly moved around our plans for today, booked a moped for tomorrow through the hostel and then set off for Lake Sagar, about 2km away. After walking for about 2 minutes, Tom had placed his foot foot into the largest and wettest cow poo ever... today wasn’t going our way. After a little while we got to the lake, it was nice and much more local than Lake Pichola. We chilled out at a park near the water for a little while and then decided to walk a bit further to a nicer park. On the way we saw a Kayak competition taking place so we sat and cheered for a random team and then continued.

    We arrived at Saheliyon-Ki-Bari and when we realised you had to pay in we walked to a nearby park built onto a roundabout. There was a nice pond in the middle where you could rent out pedalos. We chilled here for a little while looking into Nepal, and whether we would need to get additional insurance or not...it was looking like it could cost us up to £600 each to get insured!! After an hour or two chilling on the grass we made our way back to Udaipur City Palace to check out the outside areas surrounding the place that you had to buy a separate ticket for. We chilled out here on the grass where we eventually got an answer about our travel insurance after talking directly with our insurance company, we didn’t need additional insurance to trek around Nepal!! This actually made us very happy and made me feel like we’d saved so much money! With a spring in our step we made our way back to the hostel rooftop where we watched sunset and then went for a dinner Thali with the Germans that we had met. The food was great again! Back to hostel, chilled out some more and then went to bed.    Read more

  • TravelerTravel 2020 - TBC
    Day 49

    Scooter day from Udaipur

    February 23, 2020 in India ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    I woke up just after 8 and made our way up to the roof terrace for our breakfast. We were the only ones there again, just like our first morning, so naturally we were complete pigs and ate most of the food. Oops! (I was going to miss that jam). After brekkie we got all our stuff together, dumped our bags in the common area and checked out as we were leaving for Pushkar on a night train tonight. We then waited in the reception area for our scooter that we had arranged yesterday, of course it was still late despite the 16 hour notice...

    Eventually, the scooter turned up. It was an awful, grey bike that looked like it was falling apart and had been spray painted really badly to make it look newer than it was. When we started droving it actually felt worse than it looked...the bracket that was screwed onto the front of the bike made it sound like a clattery old van each time we went over a speed bump or hole in the road. The lights didn’t work, which was eventful through a dark tunnel on a motorway and the indicators made the loudest beep ever. The driving experience here was much more chaotic than it was in Goa, firstly two guys wanted to race us numerous times, then bikes would drive beside us wanting conversations with us....eventually we made it to Eklingji temple, a 24km drive from our hostel. It was hidden away in a busy town, which was weird considering we had hardly passed anybody on our way here. We queued up outside for quite some time, with no shoes or socks but eventually we got inside, following the queue all the way round, we were quite confused exactly to what the people were actually praying to. It was a really nice temple and was very detailed, but no pictures were allowed here. We made our way back to our bike, after being rushed to put our shoes back on by two girls...and then made our way to Sahastra Bahu temples, which was an awesome temple, incredibly intricate and well preserved. There were a group of local people chilling outside the temple playing western music, but in true Indian fashion would skip each song after about 20 seconds... we actually enjoyed the Western music for a little while whilst exploring the temple. Whilst in the temple we met a group of Aussies who were in India for their sons wedding in a dry state of India and were telling us of the festivities that followed their wedding.

    Back on our moped we made our way to a pin Tom had found on maps.me for a “mountain viewpoint”, having no clue what it actually looked like we thought we’d check it out anyway. On the journey we drove through the middle of nowhere, passing by really rural villages. It felt very Middle Eastern, with dry landscape and very square buildings, almost what I imagined Afghanistan to look like. When we got to the viewpoint we enjoyed the hazy view of the mountainous landscape and watched an older guy herding his goats and generally enjoyed the peace and quiet - as you don’t come across that in India too often. After enjoying the view we drove to Lake Badi, after a bumpy journey we got to a parking area where we left our bike for 20 rupee to go and check out a nice viewpoint overlooking the reservoir. On the walk back to our bike we of course had to have our picture taken with a few Indian guys and then we were going to make our way to The Monsoon palace which could be seen from our hostels roof terrace.

    However, on the drive the sound of the engine changed and increased in volume by about 100%, we stopped to check out what had happened...the exhaust had fallen off. We attempted to carry on but it was scraping on the floor, so instead of causing further damage to an already broken bike we thought we’d better come up with a solution. We ripped the string out from the seat cover and used this to hold up the exhaust so it wouldn’t scrape along the ground as we drove. It was however, still the loudest bike the whole of India but at least we could move however with not much power anymore. We thought we’d go straight back to the hostel and talk to the hostel to sort out getting some money back for this bike, as it really was rubbish. On the way back to Udaipur we couldn’t pick up much speed and the moped was absolutely screeching...to make things even worse there were lots of diversions around Udaipur meaning we had to meander through the backstreets, through the chaotic traffic to get back to our hostel. We got back to the hostel and we were both a little pissed off. We spoke firstly with the front of house at the hostel who called the man who’s bike it was... after about half hour he turned up. He was an absolute crook this guy, accusing us of breaking his bike... after a little while we managed to get the message across to both him and the guys at the hostel that it was nothing to do with us but instead how this guy had looked after his bike over the years and how it was unacceptable and to our surprise we managed to get a full refund...result! It did help that I had the key to the bike held ransom.

    After that drama we went to get Thali from “the food corner” our favourite local place in Udaipur. As we were sat down I suddenly announced that I needed an emergency toilet trip...up I got and ran out of the restaurant leaving Tom to order our Thali’s and an extra curry and rice to share. I had to go all the way to the rooftop of the hostel as we’d checked out already and returned after perhaps 5 minutes, with some shitty (literally) news, I had the shits. Finally, it had got to one of us. Thankfully, it didn’t affect my appetite though and the mountain of food arrived and we both devoured it, and it was delicious, we were going to miss this place! We said our goodbyes to the owner of the restaurant and went back to the hostel to chill out until in the common room, where Tom FaceTimed home and I just began to feel awful getting closer and closer to a foetal position on the floor. At about 9:45pm we left the hostel and got a TukTuk to the train station. We had been fighting to get it for 80 rupees but finally settled on 100...the journey was awful, he actually crashed into a moped (and sped off) and then almost skidded into a car so when we arrived at the train station and he expected 100 rupees. Is I felt like shit I explained pretty brutally that this was the worst tutkuk journey of my life and I only have him 80 rupees as he didn’t deserve the full fare...safe to say he was fuming!

    We found our platform and there was a train waiting there, we asked an official if this was our train to Ajmer, she said yes, good job we checked with two guys on the train as it was actually going to Jaipur... ours was the next train coming through. We waited on the platform and once again I got the sudden need to go to the toilet...oh no, in the train station!! But surprisingly the toilet was relatively clean and western I informed Tom upon my return, demanding the hand sanitiser still.

    At around 11pm the train pulled into the station, we got on our carriage in complete darkness and found our beds. Tom was 35, bottom and I was 36 top. We got straight into our bunks, tried to get comfy and get some sleep before arriving in Ajmer.    Read more

  • TravelerTravel 2020 - TBC
    1
    11111111
    Day 50

    Pushkar and the infamous Delhi Belly

    February 24, 2020 in India ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    I didn’t get much sleep last night, it was very cold and I was unprepared for that and the India guys who had the beds around us were (of course) loud and obnoxious throughout the night. However, the train got to Ajmer 35 minutes early (without any notification). It was the classic case of get off then figure it out. We’d heard about a bus to Pushkar but had no idea where it went from. With various Tuktuk drivers offering us lifts costing the equivalent of two nights’ accommodation, we decided to walk the 2km to the bus station - quite nice after being cooped up on the train for 6 hours. We got to the bus station and asked where the bus to Pushkar was, one person told us it was the one leaving right now but we didn’t trust it so I went to the station master and asked...bus 22 it was then. We got on and waited for a driver to turn up. Meanwhile we tried to listen in on conversations to confirm of this was to Pushkar. After I demolished half my Oreos which I hadn’t eaten as I felt awful the previous night, we were on our way.

    The bus journey was only 14km and only cost us the equivalent of 16pence each and it seemed to stop for people wherever they wanted which was perfect as our hostel was a little walk from the Pushkar bus station. I got up and motioned to the conductor that we wanted to get off, after a while she blew her whistle and we were dropped just 500m from the hostel...result! We got there, groggy and in desperate need of sleep and as it was only 07:30 and check in was at 13:00 we headed to the rooftop in search of a makeshift bed for a few hours. In truth, we both slept until midday and we only woke because the sun started to bear down on us! We got up, checked in and then set out to have a look at Pushkar. I was still feeling pretty terrible with very frequent trips to the toilet, so we packed the loo roll just in case - the joys of India. On the way to town was a thali place we’d been recommended, only 50 rupees. Tom grabbed one and I just had our bottle of water. It was a massive thali, and obviously amazing value. I grabbed some bananas for the walk round town and we made our way to Pushkar Lake, or the holy lake.

    Pushkar is a prominent pilgrimage town where devout Hindus should visit at least once in their lifetime. We were both pleasantly surprised by this place, with a population of only 21,000 it was by far the smallest place we’d been in India, and it was refreshingly quiet and lacked the constant hassling we got in Mumbai and Udaipur. We chilled round the lake, which is a strict no shoes or socks zone - although cows can walk around all day and shit where they like. The town of Pushkar curls around the holy lake, which was said to have appeared when Brahma dropped a lotus flower...not sure if we believed that but it was pretty nonetheless. We found a shaded spot where there were a few pool with kids playing and the locals having their daily rituals. We had a few people come up to us and try some sort of scam where they give you a petal and then ask for money, and we also had a guy who started saying over and over “I am Indian” and then he stood right in front of me and blocked my view. Even though the town was clean for India, we still watched in awe as people came down to the lake, had a bath and then filled up their water bottles for later. From where we were sat we could see that the water wasn’t clear...these guys must have stomachs of steel!! After a while we went for a little walk and checked out some of the market street and a few other places we’d been recommended including a pizzeria and a falafel place. After seeing the pizza place, we’d decided there and then that we’d treat ourselves tonight and go for it! As we were both up for taking it easy, we headed back to the hostel as we knew they had hot water showers - a rarity in all of India it seems.

    On the way back the sudden urge to go to the toilet hit me in the worst way...I took a gamble on a fart and realised I needed to get to a western toilet in the next two minutes or I’d have to resort to the street! I grabbed the bag off Tom, which had to loo roll in, and ran back to the hostel and made it just in time. We showered and watched the sunset from our roof terrace and then headed back into town for our first western meal since leaving home. The pizza place was a little haven from the craziness of India...no roadside eating tonight, it was a beautiful courtyard with mellow music and a cool buzz about it. We ordered a good old margarita and a pepper onion pizza. We were even more excited when the table next to us had a pizza arrive...it looked bloody good. Ours arrived and we halved both to make two 50:50 pizzas and we savoured every mouthful...not much more can be said about this except that we splashed out and it only cost £3 each! Being very satisfied, we ambled back to the hostel, me stepping in a huge cow poo on the way back, chilled on the rooftop listening to music and writing the blog before hitting the extremely comfy beds for a well deserved rest, provided the Indian wedding happening nearby didn’t keep us up.    Read more

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