ScrewYouGuys!

Hi guys and girls

Just a quick update  before the electricity goes in this town. Just to let you know we’re safe and well and currently in Kathmandu, Nepal. we’ve been to Pokhara briefly and just arrived back from trekking around langtang. Waiting for friends from England to arrive tomorrow but we’ll update soon with some fantastic pics and tales of robberies (yes plural), and mountain chases, so stay tuned and we’ll be back soon.

Lots of Love to Everyone, and just so you know there’s no snow here in fact I’ve got quite a sunburnt face and yes they have steaks and lots of them happy happy days xxx

The boarder crossing from India was a painless experience and we obtained our Nepal visa without any hassle, then we when to find a bus to take us to Pokhara. Everyone kept telling us it was ok to leave our bags and how nice the buses were, “You’re not in India now” they kept saying.

We bought a bus ticket which would be overnight so with a few hours to kill we went and sampled our first Nepalese beer called Everest and it was lush.

A few Everests later and unlike the Indian beer we really felt the affects so with a bottle of whisky in our pockets we boarded the bus. The journey was long but quite comfortable and at least 2 seats actually meant only for 2 people. The bus arrived at about 5am in a car park in Pokhara and there was one taxi waiting to take all the passengers to their hotels so we had to wait a while!

The taxi driver helped us to find and wake up the owner of a hotel called Silver Oaks, rooms were 5 pounds a night and it was the first time that we had stayed in what looked like a proper hotel complete with spiral marble staircase, very nice.

The next day we checked out all the hotels lakeside and the cheapest one we found was hotel Jellyfish where rooms where 2 pounds a night, no private bathroom and the showers were cold but it was clean.

We spent the next few days looking around and planning a trek around the Annapurna circuit until we had a lovely surprise and found out that friends were planning on joining us in just under 2 weeks time.

With that in mind and without doing any thourough research we had though we could fit the Everest base camp trek in before their arrival so took a 5hr bus ride the following day to Kathmandu.

It would appear that the commenting feature hasn’t been working for ages (which would explain why no one has been commenting on all the new content!) Please accept my apologies it should be working ok again now.

If any users have trouble with any aspect of this site just drop me an email and I’ll investigate for you.

tim@web-science.co.uk

When we arrived in Kathmandu it was night and the bus dropped us off in a rough looking area where we had been advised by a local to get a taxi and go towards Thamel to look for a guest house.

As we were unloading the bags from the top of the bus a quick hand and even quicker legs ran off with Sam’s small bag (the one with all the valuables in) normally kept on him at all times but was put down for a second to reach up for another bag. Camera, wallet you name it we lost it. Lots of people were around but no one claimed to have seen anything or anyone. Fruitlessly we looked around trying to find the thief but with no joy and eventually had to reside ourselves to the fact it had all gone.

We got a taxi to Thamel and found a place called Mount View Hotel with rooms at 3.50 pnt. Not bad but when the generator kicks in its very noisy!

The next few days were spent taking care of a few things we had to do back home and sorting out the insurance claim. We then needed a pick up so we planned our trek and found the flights to Lukla to expensive and so opted to do a different trek around the Langtang region.

After a hellish 13hr train journey we finally arrived at Varanasi station at 01:30am, it was cold and dark and we were fully preparing ourselves for a night on the streets burning street trash to keep us warm, seriously! As luck would have it though we met an off duty Rickshaw driver who could not resist the extra business, he was dropping a friend off at the station but took time out to assist us in finding a room for the night. The friendly chap phoned a guesthouse and organised a room for us, we really didn’t care what it looked like by this point, as long as we weren’t sleeping rough and having to hug cows for warmth we were happy. Actually we would have quite liked the cow hugging bit as they are gorgeous, especially the brown woolly ones they rock! We arrived at Hotel Sunrise which is where we’re staying at the moment and it’s only a 5 minute walk to the “River Ganges”.

The only down side was arriving at the hotel and having to sit through a sales pitch for package tours to Nepal and the owner explaining about the local temples. We thought that this could have waited until the morning, but resisting the urge to be rude and offending the man we sat it out and finally got to bed about 3am, cream crackered! The room’s lovely and clean and better still it’s got hot water which meant we could get some washing done! The owner’s a gentleman, really knows his city and can answer any question you may have.

After a few hours kip we set out exploring, we walked down by the side of the Ganges which was more commercial than we’d expected, if you come here and meet the local touts don’t shake their hand when they offer it to you because they don’t let go, then they try charging you 10Rs for a hand massage, cheeky is not the word! Everyone wants to take you on a boat trip and you can go and watch the cremations taking place at the Burning Ghats which I wasn’t into, why would you want to see that, not for me anyway, Sam wasn’t as squeamish as me. Aside from that it’s quite a nice place to just sit and watch the world go by and it’s great for buying gifts.

Second day we spent writing postcards and trying to get a few more prezzies which ended up with us being taken on a free mini tour we didn’t want to go on and subsequently wasting most of the day.

We spent most of yesterday updating the website and today we woke early and had a boat trip down the Ganges to watch everyone bathing and doing their washing, also drinking the water now that cannot be a good idea! We’ve been updating the website today whilst sat in a nice German bakery with tea and cake which has been a real treat.

We’ve just decided on how we are going to get to Nepal too, we are going to catch a sleeper train tonight from Varanasi at 00:30 to Gorakhpur arriving at 06:55 at a cost of 184Rs for both of us. We then plan to hire a jeep to the border which we have been told costs 100Rs each and takes 2.5-3hrs, the bus is slightly cheaper but takes about 5-6hrs. We then plan on getting another jeep to Pokhara which should take a further 8-9hrs, so that’s what we’ll be doing tomorrow! The scenery should be amazing though so we’re both really excited and we have our warm clothes at the ready. Himalayas here we come!!!

The Himalayas will have one more yeti…Sam’s beard is coming on a treat

Next day we went to the station to find out what the deal was with getting to Varanasi, we were told it was a 6hr journey on a local train and the choices were 12:30 or 18:30 departure times, again trying to avoid arriving early in the morning and having a night on a local train we bit the bullet and forfeited seeing Lucknow to get the earlier train.

Well what a lying bastard is all I can say! We boarded the train rather chuffed with ourselves that we were on our way to the Ganges and quite happily made ourselves as comfortable as we could on the floor of the train, when you pay just over a pound for a ticket each you think you really can’t complain but trust me you can. It was the most god awful experience, my worst one so far, about 2 hours into the journey the train filled up, they put over 200 people in a carriage meant for 80 so you can imagine how packed it was, there is no personal space and that’s when the staring started. The train stopped at Faizabad Station and we didn’t know why or for how long we’d be there but that’s when the staring got really bad. At first we happily sat back and passed the time watching the monkeys on the platform but then it seemed we were the monkeys and everyone on the train and the platform only wanted to watch us. It’s not a friendly stare just a blank, cold, hostile stare. When you look back at them you would think it polite to turn away but no, they just laughed and jeered at us, we stayed on the train in an attempt to keep our distance from scary stary people but a group had soon formed on the other platform. We’d both had enough and we closed the train doors, the scary stary people walked across onto our platfrom so that they could stare at us from the new vantage point. We moved inside the carriage to the seats but we couldn’t stay there either as everyone in the carriage was then doing the same. By now we had also gathered a crowd that had pressed their faces against the bars of the windows looking in on us,  it was like a scene from a zombie movie, faces and hands pressed against the bars peering in. There was no escape, stare back doesn’t work, talking to them doesn’t work, shouting at them still gets no response so we got off the train and thought we could maybe get some breathing space on the platform and by now we both needed a cig. My heart was racing and I was shaking, Sam was furious and the worst thing was we had no idea how long we would have to endure it for.

On the platform again a crowd formed so Sam threw a coke bottle into them which I don’t think they even noticed. Eventually the train set off and we left all the scary stary zombies behind. A few starers got on the train but we could avoid them, our spirits were raised again as we thought we were close to getting off the train at 7pm, by 9pm we were still on it and had spent more time stationary than moving. 13hrs later and we had done what we had tried so hard to avoid and spent the night on a local train. We arrived at about 01:30am……do not under any circumstances get on this train! There is a faster train that gets you there in half the time and you don’t have to stop at every station.

We had a bit of a lay-in and then we headed for the train station. The train from Delhi to Varanasi was 12hrs and they said they only had local trains which would be a nightmare, it would also land us there at about 1-2am so that was a no go. We decided to travel over halfway and break the journey up by stopping at Lucknow, I’d just been reading about Lucknow during the time of British rule and it promised some history with buildings we could visit.

The train was an hour late so the journey took about 9hrs, we took a local train but the journey this time wasn’t too bad. We arrived when it was dark but we were still quite impressed with the British built train station there. After much hassle on the streets we found a room at the Trivident Hotel for 320Rs which was nice and clean and had a tv, it was late and everywhere was closed so after travelling all day we just stayed in and watched a film again.

Now then, last night whilst enjoying a few beers we agreed to a tour of the city from the chap that was plying us with drinks. It turns out it wasn’t the best decision we’ve ever made but he promised to come with us and show us a few places around the city, his English was good and we thought we’d at least get a good day out of it.

Arriving a little later for the tour than planned, we had breakfast and were ready to go about 11:00 . The car was a little TATA and it was driven by a guy who’s English was nil! First stop was “Red Fort”, he dropped us a couple of blocks away and he hired a cycle rickshaw to take us to it, this was free and in with the cost of the tour. The Red Fort was a massive place and impressive from the outside but one which we couldn’t justify spending another 500Rs on, especially after we’d spent 600Rs on the tour already and having spent 1500Rs the day before looking round the Taj Mahal it was all too expensive for us budget traveling types. We had a look at it from the outside and then got the cycle rickshaw back to the car where he dropped us at a shop to have a nosey around. Not what we wanted to do but after this we said no more shops and he was ok with this.

The next place we were taken to was the cemetery where Gandhi was laid to rest. This is set in a lovely park with plenty of wildlife and above all it was fairly clean, really it was! We were both expecting to see more information on the great man in and around the area but we found nothing except a few stone tablets with a few of his famous quotes, all the same it was a cool place and we headed back to the car, stopping at a book shop and picking up Gandhi’s autobiography for 30Rs.

When we got back to the car our friend from he previous night and our guide for the day, said that he had to go and see his mum!!! He was soon dropped off somewhere near the train station and that left us with numbnuts who couldn’t speak English, no guide! We were driven around for ages seeing only briefly the “India Gate” and some parliamentary buildings which he couldn’t explain to us. After this we spent ages going out of our way only to find that he was trying to take us to another shop so that he could get more petrol money, bearing in mind we’ve paid enough for the tour to fill his car three times over! “NO MORE SHOPS take us to somewhere of interest that’s free to get in!” We eventually arrive at a temple but he tries to get money off us to pay for par carking, also supposed to be included in the price along with petrol, he can whistle at this point we’ve been in the car for three hours since seeing Gandhi’s resting place and seen nothing more! Both Kelly and I have had enough, we’ve been in the car for 5hrs altogether and we’ve seen very little and had nothing explained to us about anywhere, what a waste of time!

We ask the chap to take us to where we started so I can speak with the boss and hopefully get some money refunded. Eventually we get back but not before a few heated conversations on the drivers phone between me and his boss and him and his boss, he also at first ignored our request to be taken back and started to drive across the other side of the city towards another temple which we had already told him we didn’t want to see. Bad Times.

Back in the bosses office, we tell him that the driver took us miles out the way to take us to a shop and blah blah blah the driver denies it. The boss can see that we were not lying and that the driver had some explaining to do, he told us we could go to the roof terrace for a free beer and with that we leave them to argue it out between themselves. What a day, we’ve seen very little of Delhi and it’s cost us 600Rs for the pleasure! We took the decision to spend the evening chilling out so we got takeaway pizza and went back to the room to watch a film. Good Times.

We spent our last day in Hampi not really doing much as I still wasn’t feeling particularly well and had to stay quite close to a loo! We got the bus to Hospet at 4pm which took 30mins, we then had a small wait before getting a train to Guntakal. This was a pleasant journey and we arrived at about 22:30 then had to wait until 00:55 for our train, not ideal, we were tired from a full day traveling but at least we knew we had a bed to crawl into.

Our train arrived and we found our beds occupied, after a disagreement the ticket conductor arrived and told us that we had been upgraded and could we move to the end of the train. After fighting our way through 9 carriages full of bags and sleeping people we arrived at the end carriage only to find that it was full of people, we could not get into the next carriage and the conductor who followed us then told us to wait for 40mins until the next station stop! We were knackered and not happy that we’d paid for a bed only to find someone else sleeping in it, we didn’t think much of the upgrade and the conductor couldn’t understand why we weren’t happy. He kept saying we didn’t get it but we did loud and clear, I had to close my eyes to stop myself crying, not being well I’d not really slept the night before, not eaten that day and I just wanted to go to bed, now here was a man telling me that I should be happy that I had to wait a further hour in a cramped carriage full of people before getting a bed, I’m grumpy when I’m tired at the best of times so Sam also had to put up with me as well as shouting at the conductor.

Finally we got to bed about 3am, the upgrade was no different except it was air conditioned instead of a fan…whoopie-do! This actually wasn’t a great thing as the weather is now colder in the North so we were freezing.

We spent all the next day and night on the train, after veggie Hampi we were looking forward to a change of diet, we’re not used to living off vegetables alone! Breakfast came round on the train and the only choice was an omelet butty which wasn’t too bad, lunch time it was egg curry, tea-time it was also egg curry! I’m sure no one is supposed to have that many eggs, the curse of Hampi continues, believe us there is no “Ham” in Hampi.

We arrived in Agra at 06:30am and headed straight for the Taj Mahal, it was quite cold and people were sat along the roadside huddled next to little fires burning plastic and old tires!

When our rickshaw dropped us off near to the Taj Mahal we had to  walk through quite a dirty park to get to the entrance but luckily at that time there were no queues. Unluckily we’re not local because they pay 10Rs to get in and we had to pay 750Rs…each! Who thought up that mark-up!! Still you can’t go to India and not see it so we paid up which was more than our days allowance and got our monies worth in pictures, as you can see. Well we tried anyway but it was pretty foggy. I was expecting it to be bigger than it was but all the same it is impressive, the marble work is beautiful but shame about the graffitti.

We found a nice little rooftop cafe afterwards with a great view overlooking the Taj Mahal, we had a leisurely breakfast and took it all in then decided we didn’t really want to stay and thought we’d push on towards Delhi for tea.

By the time we had finished breakfast the queues had started to grow and people were having camel rides to take them through the park which was quite cool. We got a train in the afternoon and arrived about 4pm in Delhi, we jumped in a rickshaw and gave the driver instructions to take us to a bar, a beer was very much needed after all the none stop traveling, more so after the rickshaw ride. We stopped in traffic and from the busy streets a hand came in and grabbed me on the boob, I’m really starting to go off India I must say, especially the men here, we wouldn’t dream of doing that to an Indian lady in England now would we!

Two beers later and we decided to spend the night in Delhi and see what better things the city had to offer.

The journey to Hampi started with us both being a bit disgruntled in Goa, then similarly in Arambol (hippy central). Until we got to Goa we’d gotten use to local Indian food and staying in dumps and it was great. Goa gave us clean but expensive rooms and English breakfasts, we even found Marmite (but we paid a fiver for it, worth every penny).

Arambol was more like the rest of India but with very little to do other than eat and drink. Goa had everything that we’d been craving in the last two months including pate, smelly cheese and crusty bread but once we had those things we realised we wanted some of the challenges and hard times again. We weren’t here to be on holiday lounging around getting drunk in the sun, Goa is not India to us, we wanted to go back to the real deal. Cold showers and struggling to find rooms, bad curry and walking around smelly places watching the crazy locals instead of getting smashed up in English bars. We decided on Hampi and the best way of getting there was by public transport.

We jumped on the bus from Arambol and arrived in Old Goa around mid-day, we didn’t plan on spending long here it was a flying visit on the way to our destination of Hampi. Old Goa is a tiny place and seems to have more churches than people, the Portuguese influence can be seen in the buildings and it almost looks European in places. Neither myself or Kelly were hungry so with nothing else to do we went to the train station but were soon told that the only train to Hampi was in 3 days. Neither of us wanted to wait around for that so we took the advice offered and headed off to get a bus to Panjim. It would have been a long walk to the bus stop if we hadn’t been approached by a car offering us a lift, the two fellas were friendly and even flagged down the right bus for us, we jumped on and after a bumpy ride we arrived an hour later in Panjim.

Turns out Hampi isn’t an easy place to get to! If your timings are right it would be best all round to get the train. We had to get a coach, it sounded like a good choice as it was air conditioned and a relatively new Volvo, the other option was a local bus that cost 250Rs each but your not guaranteed a seat and it’s a twelve hour journey with everyone staring and falling asleep on your shoulder. We were warned against the local bus by a man that looked as though he was re-living the harrowing experience as he was telling us, he was a troubled man with deep routed issues so we heeded his advice and opted for the coach. The coach was about 800Rs each, more expensive but we thought probably worth it. We had a few hours to wait before the coach was turning up supposedly at 8pm so luckily I’d spotted an ice-cream parlour where we spent a while. Afterwards we played frisbee in the park until it went too dark to catch it, at this point it was nearly 8pm so we headed for the coach park round the corner.

The coach was 2hrs late arriving at the coach park, we got fleeced a further 20Rs each from a guy that wanted to charge us for stowing the bags. With hind sight I shouldn’t have paid him It was probably a scam he had going with the driver that the coach company didn’t know about. Once on the coach the driver and his mate the bag man started to pick up random people, obviously another little scam. Now this might sound like I’m whinging but the seats were really uncomfortable and impossible to sleep on, neither Kelly or myself got much sleep throughout the night and because it was air-conditioned it was freezing and all our warm stuff was in the big bags in the hold.

The coach dropped us off in the wrong place leaving us at the mercy of a hundred con men trying to sell us maps, trinkets, carvings, postcards, rooms, rickshaws, dope and opium. Yet another little scam they had going with the rickshaw drivers so we had to pay extra to get dropped off at Hampi down the road. Eventually we made it to Hampi and got a room for 400Rs, a bit pricey we thought but it gave us time to find somewhere cheaper. The place was operated out of a restaurant called Moonshine, nice guy but never satisfied with the amount of money he’d taken off us, always wanted more, sod!

The first morning was ace in Hampi, whilst enjoying a cup of Chai the local Sadu’s had spotted us. Turns out they’re nothing of the sort really but they look the part in their orange robes, dreadlocks and staffs. They are businessmen! They pretend to be holy men and want you to pay them so you can have your picture taken with them, at the time we were willing as the pictures were going to look ace. After we’d taken some pictures we were introduced to a “magic babba”, he swallowed big pebbles then regurgitated them which was nothing more than sick to watch, we gave him a small amount of money for risking his life then they all left.

(Apparently a true “Sadu” lives in the wilderness completely naked, doesn’t talk and has no need for possessions) There are also holy men that travel around India collecting money for Temples and religious purposes but the men we have just had our pictures taken with use the money for booze, drugs and food. They look the part though!

We stayed in Hampi until the 12th of January and enjoyed every day. The scenery wasn’t like anything we’d seen before, huge boulders balanced at precarious angles on the hill sides above the town bazaar, quite unnerving when we thought about it. There were literally thousands of temples dotted around the area and everyone was slightly different. We took a Rickshaw for the day which cost 500Rs and we saw most of the significant temples and statues, see the pics! Apparently everyone spends slightly longer in Hampi than they plan to and we were no exception, there’s always something else to see or do.

Hampi is however a very religious place as you may imagine and so no meat, fish or alcohol is available. Your only choices seem to be eggs and veg, as there are only so many eggs you can eat we went for the veggie option, I ordered a veg burger and received an omelet sandwich, we ordered a veg pizza and that too had egg on it, each day we would wake and say today we will not eat any eggs, each day we failed.

After a few days of being in Hampi we found out there was a small “lotus flower boat” that we could catch and it would take us to the other side of the river, from here it’s a good long walk to Monkey Temple (Hannaman is the monkey god of power and good fortune) where the climb is over 500 steps to the top. The lower part of the hill is populated by monkeys that seem well fed and you have to hold on to your bags as you go past them. At the top there’s a fantastic view but I’m afraid to say that the temple led a lot to be desired and after the long walk we were rather disappointed, it was a bungalow! Athough the temple itself was a let-down the walk was really scenic, it took most of the day and it was good seeing more of the area around Hampi. The pictures tell the story and it’s a beautiful place.