Alex and Rich's Asian Adventure

Pushkar, this was supposed to be our last stop in India, we have heard from all travelers far and wide that Pushkar is wonderful, and we really weren’t disappointed. In stark contrast to Jaisalmer Pushkar is lush and green and surrounded my “mountains” but i am not sure any thing will really look like a mountain to me ever again! We arrived in the dark and drank chai with a Spanish couple on the side of the road. We loitered in the bus stand for a while and then got on a super full bus with all our bags on top of us, great fun. It was getting light when the local bus arrived in Pushkar and I promptly slipped in a huge cow poo and fell on my arse! Not good. We walked straight to the lake to sit by the bathing Ghats and watch the sun come up and the early risers take their morning dip. Big groups of women came down and got changed and washed their clothes, showing more flesh than I have ever seen and Indian woman show, it was a really beautiful thing to watch. (Not in a pervy way… in a liberating way.) We met some fake priests and watched the real ones from a distance humbly saying prayers and releasing pink petals into the water, which by the end of each day is almost covered with pink.

Over 1000 beautiful temples radiate from the central lake which is surrounded by 52 bathing Ghats. Winding shopping streets (tourist tat and Indian tat alike) loop there way around the temples and rooftop restaurants give eye wateringly beautiful views of the madness below. It’s a busy place with bare footed Indian pilgrims, shoppers and sight seers, hawkers and camel drivers filling the streets constantly, all the while westerners on huuuge, noisy Enfield bikes roar up and down the high street dodging the million fat healthy cows. (The cows in Pushkar are all fat and healthy, added to that I have never seen quite so many of them any where else in India.)
The main attraction of Pushkar (especially for the Pilgrims) is the Brahma Temple itself which is one only a few of its kind in the whole of India. Even though Brahma is one of the holy trinity, Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer, the story Of Brahmas exclusion from temples and worship goes like this;
Brahma dropped a lotus flower on the earth to kill an evil demon and Pushkar was born. Where the petals of the Lotus fell water sprung up into 3 huge lakes. Seeing this Brahma decided to perform a yanja. (Some kind of holy thing) But the yajna could not take place without his wife, Savitri, by his side, and she was late. This being the case the priest manifested a daughter called Gayatri. Because she was an untouchable, to purify her, she was put into the mouth of a cow and removed from the other end! This apparently totally purified her and so she was married to Brahma. When Savitri arrived and saw Brahma married without her permission she cursed Brahma. Enraged, Savitri went and established a temple at Rathkagir, on top of the hill a little south of Pushkar. It is said to be due to Savitri's resentment that Brahma is mainly only worshiped at Pushkar.
We spent our first night in Si Baba Haveli; a Haveli is a traditional style Indian building with beautiful decorative arches, open courtyards and painted walls. There are many of them in Pushkar but Si Baba was particularly beautiful. Entirely white except fro the beautiful bright stencils on the walls and around the ceilings, it boasted big rooms and balconies and it was cheap in low season. Despite its beauties, there were a few luxuries that we had intended to give ourselves in our last week in India.

We heard about Narayan palace, TV, balcony, garden and Swimming pool…… yes, that’s right I said swimming pool… with rooms from 200 to 350rs! (That’s about 3-6 pounds!!!!!) We thought it was too good to be true but it wasn’t and so we moved in the next day… perfect.

As Rich must have mentioned our India beaten stomachs have finally given up on us and we have to be close to a toilet for quite a lot of the time, but that was ok because for the first time in months I got my pasty skin out in the sun, (India is not the place for sun tanning unless you love t-shirt tan lines.) We lounged by the pool and had drinks bought to us. We ate in a few good restaurants, did a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of shopping (Pushkar is extremely cheap especially in low season).

We visited the famed Brahma Temple, the floor was very sticky and covered in puffed rice and other strange things the people bring for the gods, we made a donation and a baba gave us a tika and mumbled a blessing for us, then we left. It wasn’t a very beautiful temple.
One day we rented scooters and checked out the surrounding county side which was beautiful, we drove through the villages that gave the impression that the people of Pushkar are quite well off compared to other villages there were schools, roads and proper concrete houses with gardens and fences. The suicidal children however need to be taught that no matter how much you want a school pen or chocolate it is still very dangerous to run at westerners on scooters and try and grab them!

There is a beautiful sunset point by the lake where we sat a few evenings, played poi, listened to locals playing music and chatted with people, that was very nice and we got a few good sunsets.

Our last couple of days we did hardly anything. On the Friday we joined about 15 Israelis for there sabbath meal. It was really great, we toasted 'le khaim' to everything and the boys held napkins on their heads whilst we made thanks for the food. We felt very included and everyone did their best to keep the conversation in English for us, we were very grateful.

Unfortunately the weather turned and it rained a lot on our last day. The streets were flooded half way up our legs, rubbish clung to our ankles as we waded through the murky water… it was sooo gross!!! It made more shopping a little difficult so we just chilled out until our sleeper bus arrived at 9pm. Bed in a bus… luxury!

The sleeper train to Jaisalmer was our first non-general class train. Oh how easy it is! Our very own seats - no luggage racks, no children on my lap, just 20 hours of relaxation, chai drinking and biryani munching. And of course a fair amount of out-the-window beedie smoking (I love this place). Arrival in Jaisalmer all went swimmingly - a friendly man on the train said we could go to his brother's guesthouse for only 100 rupees a night (with TV and our own bathroom!) and we could get a lift there from the train station for free. A welcome chai on arrival and a chat with the guy had us booking up a three day camel trek into the Great Thar Desert for the following day, despite both suffering from an attack of Delhi Belly - 10 months traveling and we get ill in the last two weeks. We will not let the cheeky little parasites stop us enjoying our last days in India, those pesky microscopic bastards! That evening we went for a wee stroll around the town and munched some crap pizza in a beautifully situated restaurant, just inside the entrance to the fort - the famous Jaisalmer fort inside which one third of the city's population still reside (this would be as close to exploring the fort as we would get - as I now know, camel trekking is NOT a cure for intestinal ailments).

The next day we were off into the desert to meet our rides and our guides for the next three days. My camel was called Rocket whilst Alex rode Tiger, the oldest and most experienced of the beasts.

Comfort is not one of the advantages of camel riding. The constant rocking to and fro was bad enough for the back, legs and stomach muscles, but girls have it relatively easy. For us gentlemanly types the forward / backward motion had crushing effects. I'm surprised desert people ever have children - and they certainly do, thousands of them. This we discovered when we stopped off in on of the desert villages on the first day.
There were only a handful of houses in the village but all of them seemed to be inhabited by at least a dozen children. They came from everywhere, like a George A. Romero film. Rather than monosyllabic grunts, however, their war cries were "School pen!" or "Ten rupees!" (it used to be "one rupee!" the greedy little shits). It wasn't just the kids that were after stuff though - all the women in the village (because of course there are no men in the villages) would try and swap their crappy plastic jewellery with our fancy western stuff (all of which we bought in Delhi for very little money of course) or, even better, just ask us to give them our belongings - sunglasses, cameras, shoes, hats - anything we had, they wanted. Not because they needed it (they had pretty good lives in comparison to many poor indians) but because we are fabulously well-to-do westerners who obviously don't need any of the things we own. Yes, we are fabulously well-to-do in comparison (shit, we're in India for a start - they couldn't afford to go travelling), but it doesn't mean that I don't need my shoes. The Inidians spend their money differently to us as they have no welfare system. They save every penny so they can have a half-decent future. This means that they own houses, camels, land etc. but never leave their country. They just don't understand that we have nothing at home. but can come on holiday for a year. We sold the majority of our things, we have no home in England and, being towards the end of our trip, we actually have very little money (less than planned I might add), so at this stage, I actually have less of value than many of the people here. A camel can cost 200 to 300 quid, even for an older, crappier one, and at that point I didn't even have that much money. It is still strange telling a small, shoeless child to bugger off, I haven't got ten rupees to give you. You have to be selective in your charity, otherwise you would have no money left to travel after only one or two days of getting here. Plus you have to be quite cold-hearted sometimes, especially in rural places as they're not asking for your money because they desparately need it (they have lived simple desert lives for centuries, untainted by western individualistic and materialistic ideals) but because they assume it will make their life better. Begging from tourists is not a sustainable way of life, it is a quick fix. It will not buy them a house or land or a camel (from which they can make a proper living) and it will not support their way of life in the way that traditional farming and trade can. Still, if you do come to India, definitley give to disabled beggars and old people (of which there many) - these guys get bugger all support from the government and cannot ever get jobs and thus rely on personal charity.
Anyway, enough ranting.
We stopped off for lunch in a dried up river bed, relaxing under the shade of some hardy desert bushes and feasted on chapattis and watery veg curry. Unfortunately myself and Alex couldn't eat much (it was all going wrong down there) but it was great to get off the camels for a while - we'd had enough arse punishment as it was. We all chatted, us and the two spanish girls we were on the trek with, and generally enjoyed the peace of the desert.

After a couple hours more riding and a stop-off for some water for the camels we got to our billion-star hotel for the night. Dinner consisted of, yes you guessed it, chapattis and watery veg curry. This time we had the added bonus of some rice. Oh, what luxury! It was all good though - Peru our guide was a good cook and it was amazing what he could do a tiny fire and almost no water. I'd never seen anyone wash dishes with sand before. We were treated to a fantastic sunset and a perfectly clear night on the sand dunes (wihich were perfect for rolling down) and despite the hoardes of dung beetles crawling over us (I woke up at one point with one crawling around inside the upper leg of my trousers) had a pretty good night's sleep out on the sand, under the stars.

Day two was much the same as day one - hot as hell but a lot of fun. Trotting around the desert for a couple of hours, finding water for our rides and stopping off for lunch, this time under some bigger trees. Food for lunch was the same (surprise surprise!) but we were in for a treat this time. The spaniards were only in it for one night and a jeep came to pick them up at our lunch spot. Joy of joys the jeep man brought us not one but two entirely frozen litre-bottles of water. Bliss! After drinking water that was hot enough to make tea with it really cheered us up. We also benefited from the spaniards' generosity - toilet paper! We had very nearly run out and although by this stage in our india experience we had gotten used to doing without (a scoop of water is surprisingly efficient if you know the right technique, and is far less chafing) there is no spare water in the desert. Washing hands and plates with sand after eating is fine, but I wasn't about to rub it all over my tender bumhole.

The afternoon's trip wasn't so long - more water stops and some side-saddle riding to reduce testicular damage - and we reached our next sleeping spot. This time we joined a few others - a couple of canadians and a couple of french guys - again on the sand dunes. Dinner was cooked by the other guys' guide, and wasn't nearly as good - same watery curry and thick chapattis, just less flavour this time. Peru definitely won in the desert chef department. We all set up our blankets and maps up on the dunes but unfortunately were forced down to the tiny little hut by some pretty severe sand storms. It even rained for a minute or two. The guys we had met up with slept inside the hut but Alex and I waited out the wind and set up camp outside again. No stars this time but it still beat the hell out of sleeping indoors. We even had a few dogs keep us company (though they occasionally freaked us out in the middle of the night, me waking up with one on top of me at one point, and Alex being woken up and scared shitless by a minor scuffle between two dogs right next to her face).

I was struggling the following day. I was knackered (we didn't sleep to well that previous night) and all my muscles hurt and felt really weak, having not been able to eat properly. Plus it seemed no amount of rehydration sachets would keep me hydrated. I don't think I pissed the whole three days (at least not from where I should have been pissing). Alex was far tougher than I, despite suffering just as much in the trouser department, so I felt like quite the wuss, but I just couldn't carry on for much longer so asked for a shorter day with no riding after lunch. It was still amazing just to be out in the desert, eating under the shade of trees, mingling with sheep and the goats, chilling out with the farty-pants camels and we were lucky enough to have an old local chap come and play his strange instrument for us. He looked thouroughly shrivelled (somewhat like a prune with limbs and a raisin for a head) but he played well and he was as smiley as can be. All in all it was an excellent experience but I was certainly glad to be heading back to our room in Jaisalmer with its en-suite bathroom, fan and TV.

We had hoped to only stay for one or two nights, but ended up staying another four. Damn our bowels!!! Still, one of the selling points of organising the camel trip through our hotel guy was that we could stay for free in Jaisalmer and this was one of the main reasons for us not shopping around. However, when were finally leaving he tried to argue that he never said that, rather he said we could stay for one night for free (during his sales pitch he told us we could stay for free for a month if we wanted to) - but he wasn't getting anything from us the scamming little bugger. You really have to watch out for unkept promises in Jaislamer and be sure to remember exactly what it is they offered. The spaniards we were with on the first day of our camel trek were told that the hotel had free internet - it turned out that they didn't even have a computer. Still, we didn't pay for the room in the end as the hotel guy's brother (the actual owner of the hotel) was much more sensible and fair.
All's well that ends well and after a very uneventful sleeper bus from Jaisalmer we were finally in Pushkar, the place we had heard so much about from other travellers.

The bus from Jammu left instantaneously which is pretty unusual and I had a whole 3 seats to stretch out on and sleep which made the 5am start very bearable. The journey was uneventful but we didn’t get to eat which made us feel pretty weird when we arrived in Amritsar 5 hours later. Before our bus had even pulled to a stop in the station a chubby old man dressed in pale colours and a white turban accosted us and took our luggage, he insisted we follow him and take his mode of transport to the golden temple. As we followed him in the rain ducking and weaving the incoming and out going busses and climbing through a set of railings our happy chappy directed us to his cycle rickshaw! In the rain, with our bags…and he was pretty old! I always feel a bit weird about these things but he was absolutely insistent that it was possible and he could do it. “Sub kuch milega” everything is possible.

We drove through slow moving, heavy, noisy traffic getting very wet and it was lovely. A good way to see the city. We arrived at a side entrance to the golden temple fortress, huge white walls with ornate domed spires on all the corners, it was busy and luckily we bumped into someone we knew who showed us to the foreigners dorms. They were tiny and full and people were even sleeping on the floor, we locked up our bags in the room and decided to think about it later.

The golden temple is a Sikh temple that provides food and board on a donation basis to 6000 people a day. So our first experience was the dinning hall. The noise was immense, most of it coming from the three men with three huge buckets hurling the used plates and bowls with tremendous (and seemingly unnecessary force.) we collected a metal thali plate, a spoon and a bowl and joined the throng of shoving bodies hungry for food. We entered a large hall with maybe 8-10 long rows of people all sitting back to back with another row. We put our plates on the ground and waited as men walked up and down the rows dispensing Dahl, chapatti, rice pudding and water. IT was great to eat with so many people, a weird and wonderful experience (but we didn’t go back for dinner).

We spent time exploring the ridiculously busy city, it was India Independence Day so it was extra busy and we took refuge in an air conditioned dhaba for some coffee. We had a share jeep booked at 3 pm to got to the India Pakistan border ceremony and a 3 45 on the dot we were jammed into a jeep and driven at high speed down the motor way. The car dropped us a 15 minute walk from the ceremony itself and the crowds were swelling and growing every second. Men and women were separated and searched so I had to wait for rich to emerge from the crush of bodies for about 10 minutes before we could carry on.

As we approached we could see huge crowds around the gate preventing any possibilities of us seeing anything we also saw tourists being let through the VIP gate to our left. Flashing our passports we were let through and we then attached ourselves to a group of 6 English who had been separated by a guard saying there was no more space. We bargained and wriggled our way through the last security check until we could take up our posts on the pavement at the front of the processions but quite far from the actual gates.

The whole ceremony was pretty long and parts were very boring because we couldn’t see anything. There were a lot of young children dancing and a terrible…terrible…TERRIBLE sound system that made my ears bleed! But there was also a very good marching band and the colour and extravagance of the costumes was fantastic. The atmosphere was electric, painted faces, flags and chanting and at one point us girls got up and danced in the street with all the people it was great. After the dancing we got to see the proper funny marching and stuff. High leg kicking like the ministry of silly walks type stuff. Look it up if you have never seen it… very funny.

After the ceremony we were drained and sweaty, we crammed back into the car and headed back to the temple. Along the way our driver kindly stopped at the bus station so that we may book tickets to Delhi. The driver told us that no seats or beds were available in the bus but we could travel in the cabin for a fraction of the price and still be comfortable. We took the ticket as hotels in Amritsar are expensive and we didn’t fancy a night on the floor of a communal dorm. We grabbed a bite to eat, picked up our bags, made a donation to the Temple and took a rickshaw to the bus station. The bus slowly filled up and eventually we were told we could get on, I poked my head around the door to see a young Indian couple on a bench and an old man and a young man crouched in the cabin there were no other seats or space. The cabin was full!

We argued a lot with the ticket man and it got quite heated! I even removed our bags from the bus in a stroppy tantrum. All the men wagged their heads and held up their palms to silence us as the passed us and it was infuriating! After about ½ an hour, out of no-where they procured a single bunk that we could share. We took it and with the two of us crammed in head to toe and my guitar also we were in for a cozy nights sleep.

We arrived relatively unharmed in Delhi at around 5am. We sat and listened to a scam artist tout for a while so we could collect our heads and smoke a ciggy. After we had had enough of him we took a cycle rickshaw to old Delhi train station to book tickets to Jaisalmer, Rajasthan our final state in India. No tickets, we would have to spend a night in Delhi. No problem but we wanted a nice room to chill out in so we followed a couple of young boys around the hotels that pay them to bring tourists and eventually found one we thought was good. A beautiful balcony onto a bustling street a big TV and bathroom inside. All we wanted was a shower and to relax. I bought some weed off one of the young boys who showed us around and they left. We smoked one joint and then stood on the balcony. The last time we were in Delhi it was 40deg and unbearable. Now the clouds were thick and the rain fell in persistent patter. We watched a man unload 200kilos of flour from a hand cart into a bakery; we watched countless umbrellas from above and giggled at the amount of men walking around with plastic bags on their heads to protect their hair/turbans. It was a good half hour and we soaked up rainy, grimy Delhi in all its glory.

Then the trouble began. You see the trouble with India is you tend to get very dirty very quickly, we however had been on the move for 3 days and were exceedingly dirty. The walk around Delhi in flip flops had added to our stinking aroma by flip flopping shit, rubbish and all other manner of brown goo up the backs of our legs and clothes. I took my soap and headed for the bathroom, I began to fill the bucket but the water that oozed from the tap was brown…. Like dark poo brown… eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewww!

I took it up with the hotel manager who assured us ½ an hour and clean water. I didn’t believe a word of it so the deal was half an hour, water still dirty we get 100rupees back. Of course the water wasn’t clean after ½ an hour but the man really didn’t want to give us the money back; instead he said that someone would bring us two buckets of clean water to wash with…no problem. Some considerable time later a very dour man entered the room with one suspiciously cloudy bucket of water. Rich followed the man to the bathroom in the room above ours where he was diligently pouring another bucket of dirty brown water. Eventually we ended up buying two 2 liter bottles of water from the shop and rationing them out to clean our bodies. We got our 100 rupees back and all was well.

Other than resting we did a bit of eating and bumped into some lovely Aussies we met in Leh. I made Rich throw out all his clothes (poor Indians were asking him why his clothes were in such a state of disrepair) and buy new ones. The next day at around 6pm we boarded a train to Jaisalmer, in just 20 hours we would be in the desert state of India.
g]

The “super deluxe bus” from Leh was anything but deluxe. Wedged at the back next to the door in non- reclining seats, with no leg room and the company of an extremely annoying and slightly dense American girl whom we had met previously we began the 20hour journey back to more inhabitable lands. The ride despite being bum crushingly painful was pretty uneventful, the scenery melted from huge rocky sand dunes and wild freezing rivers into lush gentle slopes and towering pine tree forests. We soon found ourselves at the bust station in Srinagar. Rich managed to get hassled into pre-booking a houseboat on famous Dahl Lake and we were picked up by the owner of said boat. He drove us in his flashy car and we exchanged pleasantries. His English was good and he had lived and worked in England for a number of years whilst studying and he intended to go back. He parked the car and we took a short walk down the boulevard which is infested with shikaras (long boats with comfy cushions inside… very beautiful and brightly painted ) maybe 3 to every tourist on the lake, so competition is high and the selling is high. But we didn’t have to worry about that. Our house boat, Miss America had its own shikara and we hopped on and set off across the traffic filled lake. (Although I say traffic filled there are no engines so its peaceful, slow moving traffic. Not the kind that makes you want to jump over board.)
The boat which cost us only 800rupees for a night and two meals (about 6pounds each…not bad for one night) was absolutely beautiful. Dark wood panels lined the walls, china in ornate cabinets in the dining room (which had a dining table! A massive rarity in India) delicately carved wood surrounded the shaded balcony and carpet and soft clean linnen in the bedrooms. We couldn’t believe our luck and spent the morning reveling in the first real bit of luxury we had seen in 9 months.

At first glance the lake is very pretty, all the colours and hustle and bustle but after a few minutes in your surroundings you realise just how overcrowded it is. Shops selling everything from toilet paper to silk, hashish to shish-kebabs pollute the lake with their shouts and screams for business. Indian tourists float by in their thousands on chartered shikaras and all of them want to stop and chat with the Gora.

Later we decided to go and check out the town, believing there would be a tourist beat and a place we could get information on cheaper accommodation on Dahl Lake or on the smaller Nagin Lake. We muddled around the hot Indian town for a while and finding nothing of interest we decided to pop to the “house boat owners association”. When we arrived we announced that we were paying 800 for a room on a really fancy boat when really we would rather be staying on a half sunken bout for 400-600. The men in the house boat association went mental, telling us that if it wasn’t Ramadan they would call the police on us and the houseboat owner. The official price of our room should have been 1600 rupees! We were stunned and left quickly followed promptly by a small group of the same men offering rooms for the price we had asked for. This was our first taste of Kashmiri business men.
Safely back on our boat we asked to borrow the small rowing boat that most houseboat owners have to get themselves to and fro from the land. It was lovely we floated about in the evening sun and chatted with passersby. We hung in the boat until we were to hungry and rowed home for dinner. Starved we were really hoping for some good food, Dahl rice potatoes chapatti, we eat that every day out here and we love it, it has the most energy it fills you up and the home cooking is always the best. Well that’s what we thought. We were served potatoes and carrot in yellow water with a thin Dahl and rice and last night achar (pickle). It was foul and for 800 rupees I was not a happy bunny. We resolved to leave the next day and retired to our lovely room for a good night’s sleep. The next morning I couldn’t help but mention the dinner to our friendly English speaking boat owner. He proceeded to tell me that it was because we were vegetarian that we had bad food and had we eaten meat it would be better. I have to say that I had a bit of a rant (justified) and we did not leave on good terms.
We had decided to check out Nagin Lake, smaller and quieter sounded like the thing for us and it really, really was. We were dropped off at Qadira Palace by Habib the singing shikara man; there we met Qadira (son) Abdul (father) Rafika (mother) and two Israeli’s John and Gill. We given hot mugs of Kashmiri tea and told that there was one other occupant of the boat, and American woman and that we would have to sleep on the family boat for the night for 400 rupees (plus 2 meals), they had a spare room and so we dumped our stuff and began getting to know everyone. Later the American woman showed up and who could it be but the idiot off the bus. Great!

Although Nagin Lake is much, much quieter and a thousand times more beautiful you still get the hassle from the floating shops. But hassle can sometimes be fun and we invited silver merchants, silk sellers and papier-mâché hawkers onto the boat to spread out their wares in colorful array on the balcony of our little boat so that we might purchase souvenirs. It was an awesome shopping experience, tea in one hand, joint in the other sitting on my arse whilst muddling through the gems and tat.
Later we took out Qadira’s shikara which was a different experience; the boat had a big hole at either end and constantly let water in from everywhere. The holes in the bottom were plugged up with old rags and the front end had a lot of plant life growing in it! However with the help of a scoop for bailing we were able to keep the boat afloat, and it gave me something to do whilst rich was rowing (I never really got the hang of it.)
Somehow we go talked into going with the American girl to the vegetable market at 4am the next morning, we had stayed up late playing cards and it was a real struggle to get up but totally worth it. We set off across the lake (with Habib the singing shikara man) just as the sun was coming up and it was beautiful. During the month of Ramadan Muslims fast all day they can only eat after sun down and before sun up and they love to sing! No matter what time of day you can hear men celebrating their faith but especially when they get to eat. The voices echoed and wailed around us as we set off silently down the narrow pathways cut through the lotus fields on the lake. Lotus flowers were out in full bloom but the lilies that the English bought when they built the first boats on the lake where still clamped tight shut. Kingfishers hovered overhead and huge eagles snatched fish from their watery beds. All manner of other birds were there but I couldn’t identify them, long legged and hook beaked they looked strange and exotic. As we got closer to the market we saw other boats loaded with veg and saffron, cakes and jewelery but mainly veg. Huge veg and purple veg and weird veg and bad looking veg and the boats were end to end, side to side wriggling their way in and out of the madness until the boats were empty and they could go home. I have never had so much fun buying veg; I got a handful of free chilies and some weird free vegetable that I never got to eat. I also bought the ingredients to cook my own lunch and then we floated home.

We should have slept but we didn’t, instead we had breakfast and lolled about in the house. We jammed on the guitar with the Israelis. A big problem occurred in the afternoon when the baulshy American had some problem with the young owner. I will admit that Qadira wasn’t all there but he was sweet and he just wanted to help. In India as a woman sometimes you have to get used to not being listened to especially if there are a lot of men around but this girl had no idea and just went about being very very inappropriate. Dressed in a backless top with a plunging neckline she paraded around the house demanding and assuming everything. Qadira palace is more of a home stay than a hotel and she should have recognised that being there meant being with them and learning about their lives on this boat. There was some misunderstanding during which she told Qadira that he was weird and that nobody liked him, she told him that she didn’t want him in the boat whilst she was there, which is absurd it’s his hotel and we need serving and enjoy his company. She shouted all this in a long American drawl filled with slang and swear words that even I had to listen hard to understand, Qadira whose English is good sat staring at the floor cross-legged and obviously mortified, when he spoke again his voice cracked and I had to step in. I told the girl that no arrangement would suit her and she should just leave. When she left I didn’t see Qadira for at least a few hours, I explained as much as I could in slow careful English to Abdul and Rafika. Rafika promptly burst into to tears on my shoulder telling me her son was a good boy and this had never happened before. I have never felt so ashamed of the way tourists can behave as just then, I felt responsible for her actions. I was lucky that they were good people and the events of that day cemented our friendship with them, from then on we got our food just how we liked it and as much tea as we could drink (we also got her room which had a stunning view from the window).
I made a delicious lunch of spicy aubergine and pepper salad with lemon and coriander dressing for everyone on the boat and things started to get back to normal. We went for another sunset float about in the sinking shikara and we were in bed by 10pm.
The next day was our last, the Israelis left and so we went off to check out the town. First off we went to the flower gardens (of which there are many) we picked one on recommendation from Abdul and it was very nice. Not the best flowers I have ever seen but very well laid out and big.

Unfortunately there was a strike on in the proper town and everything was closed. On our way to the bus station to book tickets out. We were stopped by a Guy in a flashy car with his 3 sons. He advised us not to walk around that day because of the strike and offered us a lift back to Nagin Lake. He was a very nice man and we made a stop at his house for crisps and lemonade before we picked up his wife from the school where she teaches and then got dropped off home.
That night Rafika cooked a special diner for us and we sat on the floor of their modest home and ate with the family. It was really good and very, very, very, spicy!!!!!!!! We had such a lovely time on the lake but it really is a place to be lazy and with not much time left we elected for an early morning start out the next morning to see the rural side of Kashmir and our last days in the Himalayan range before we head down to the hot wet plains.

Aru was positively British looking in its natural beauty (slightly more dramatic being the edge of the Himalaya – I’m not too sure Ben Nevis or Snowdonia can qualify as foothills seeing as the ‘peaks’ are no higher than a tall Sikh man).
The way there was filled with excitement. Our arrival in Pahalgam (the furthest the bus would take us) was signaled by a ‘thorough’ check of us and our vehicle. Passports out, bags through the x-ray machine, girls one way for searching, blokes another. Full cavity searches ensued to make sure we weren’t militant Kashmiri separatists or Pakistani terrorists. Well, more like a smiley chap telling me where was nice to go in the valley whilst absent-mindedly fingering through my belongings and Alex arousing suspicion by having rolling tobacco rather than cigarettes. Do you really need to stick your fingers and nose in it to make sure it’s not the ingredients of some new kind of bomb?
Despite the hoards of Pahalgam-based Kashmiri horse-men leaping onto the outside of the bus, eager to get our business, we managed to make a swift getaway to Aru in a share jeep with a bunch of locals (some of which were the spawn of a dangerously limited gene pool judging by there appearance and demeanor).
Aru is the last village you can get to by road and it is stunning – lush, grassy rolling hills, pine forests and snow-capped mountains. The weather was like a perfect summer in England – rain one day out of four, glorious sunshine for the other three. Cool evenings had us chilling out in the common room, drawing, playing music, playing carom (a quintessentially Indian board game), cards, and the vegetable game – the cards for which we laboriously designed and produced ourselves, all 104 of them. During the days we would mostly enjoy the local Kashmiri bread, play poi in the garden, or, depending on whether or not we could drag ourselves away from our guesthouse paradise, head out into the hills for a stroll, looking at al the horses, admiring the gypsy houses and the captivating beauty of it all, more poi sessions, and lots of running away from locals – mainly kids – all of whom were screaming ‘baksheesh’ at us (essentially meaning ‘give me money you fabulously wealthy foreign person!’).

On one of the evenings at the guesthouse (named Rohilla – do check it out if you ever happen to be passing through rural Kashmir, possibly on your way to the shops or to drop the kids off at school) we were treated to a night of Kashmiri music performed by Masud and one other member of the family (the 27 member family that ran our guesthouse, and seemingly the whole village). Masud sang and played a strange drum that looked more like a large vase, while his chum twanged away on a ‘banju’, a string / keyboard conglomeration. Needless to stay it was amazing.

Leaving Aru was hard – not only because it was such a beautiful and peaceful place, but because the road had been washed away by a landslide the evening before we were supposed to leave, thus forcing us to wait it out in the village (O woe is us!).
Our next destination was Amritsar, but unfortunately getting there meant spending a night in Jammu. Jammu is a shitty town populated entirely of people trying to rip you off. I did meet a nice guy from Jammu at our guesthouse in Leh, but I’m sure he’s the only one.
We first accepted a room for 500 rupees at one place, but this ended up being a mouldy shithole so we argued our way out of it. On to the next. Here we asked the room rate and the bloke hesitated for a while (trying to decide by how much he could rip us off) and came up with 900 rupees. We laughed in his face and made our exit. The next place was more accommodating, even if by accident. We asked the desk guy the rate and he straight away replied 350. His manager, sat on the sofa watching TV rubbing his fat belly, quickly interjected “No, it’s 500!”. Bollocks was it. We stay for 350 you scamming bastard. Ha! Got one over on him, all due to the honest stupidity of his staff. The room was also a shithole, but then maybe that’s the norm in Jammu. The next day we got up good and early so we could get the hell out of that crappy town.

Leh was a place for waiting, for walking and for socialising. The first couple of days were spent mostly in Little Café, opposite my guesthouse, waiting for Alex to arrive. I had thought she was coming on the Monday evening but she didn’t turn up until 3am Thursday morning – all was well though as good company, good chai and a mountain of Thali kept me happily whiling away the hours. That and a few strokes of 'Miniyak', the Angora bunny rabbit resident at our guesthouse (bought in Manali and transported to Leh by two completely insane Dutch girls).

The days before Alex arrived were spent mostly walking around. Though there aren’t many free activities in Leh, if you don’t mind walking about in the dazzling sun, struggling for breath in the thin air, you can just wander about looking at nice things. Shanti Stupa, the stupa which I could see from my guesthouse window, was a daunting 15 minute climb uphill. Well worth it though – some excellent views across the city, an impressively large seated Buddha, and a few really interesting Thanka paintings. And of course a smattering of prayer flags – a must in Ladakh. Very peaceful indeed.

I did a lot of strolling around the older parts of town, checking out the crumbly old buildings, the falling down stupas (one was 1,000 years old), the busy monasteries full of people chanting and chatting, and the brightly coloured shops full of fake Tibetan and Kashmiri crap. I’ve been told you can get hold of good stuff here, such as antique masks and the like, but I don’t believe it. Don’t shop in Leh – it’s absurdly overpriced, catering to the tourist who has just arrived from home and doesn’t know shit about how much things should cost here. 70 rupees for toilet paper? I’d rather wipe my arse with my own face, thanks.

I have already mentioned (in the previous installment of our adventures) that I acquired for myself a beautiful room opening out onto a stunning roof terrace. For two afternoons I sat there, reading, writing and watching the street below. When someone I knew wandered into little café, I would mosey on down, get a chai, smoke lung destroyingly potent Indian cigarettes for hours, and of course chat bollocks to all those too polite to tell me to bugger off. Oh, and there was a milk counter just down the road.

On the afternoon of Alex’s arrival I headed up to the swimming pool / lake / pond. This turned out to be both mine and Alex’s favourite place in all of Leh. Cold water for swimming, grass to sit on, people to drink and chat with, sunshine, music, poi etc. It was to be the grand setting for my birthday a few days later, but for now it was just a humble chilling out spot. The evening brought more Thali, chai and cigarettes and Little Café and the night had me waiting on the roadside with Tiger the Punjabi for Alex to turn up. Lucky for me Tiger is an insomniac and waited till 3am with me when she arrived. Not so lucky for him of course, but I like to think he enjoyed my company as much as I enjoyed his.
The next few days were all spent at the swimming spot – as a warm up for my birthday, the big event. The day before my turning a quarter of a century was nothing too spectacular, and I expected no more from the evening. Little did I know what Pratik and Dor had planned for me. Up on the roof terrace of our guesthouse we sat, having a few drinks and generally being pretty merry. At some point (though I didn’t know it, it was midnight) Dor and Pratik disappeared. All of a sudden the lights went off and I was being serenaded with the finest version of Happy Birthday you are ever likely to hear (Marilyn Monroe would sound like a dying asthmatic in comparison) and being offered a fine looking chocolate cake. Just as I was blowing out the candles, the cake was pushed (with great gusto, I might add) straight into my unsuspecting face, with the result that I was on the floor, on my back, having cake rubbed into all of my facial orifices. I could smell chocolate cake for the rest of my stay in Ladakh. One of the most memorable birthday-eve experiences I have ever had
We hadn’t really planned anything for the next day either, but a few travelling friends were around and after randomly shouting our plans at anyone walking slowly enough to hear them we gathered a group of maybe 10 people and all headed down, laden with music, snacks, and of course booze, to the swimming spot. Maaza (Indian mango juice drink) and Old Monk (exceptional Indian rum) and gin and lemonade were the poisons of choice, and it all added up to one of my best birthday experiences. A couple of people I had known or a month or two, a couple for a day or two, and a few who I had met that day. And a great selection too – Aussies, Yanks, Brits (English, Irish and Scottish), Frenchies, Canadians, Indian, Israelis…. A multi-cultural mashup Stumbling back to Little café in the dark was followed by mass gorging on Thali (I forgot to mention they did free refills there – of everything, as much as you wanted, after which a few of us were invited back to someone’s hotel room (ours not being an option due to the raucousness the night before) for more booze. We lasted a couple of hours before being kicked out (we were preposterously loud), at which point Pratik got the fire poi out and we strolled just off the road to finish off the evening in a flaming crescendo. A fantastic way to end a fantastic birthday.

The next day was, naturally, hangover day. The following day was rafting day. I had never been white water rafting before and it was great fun. Drake and Liza, our newly made American friends (they had been party to the face cake debacle) had suggested the trip and so the four of us all trotted off together for a bob along the Zanskar River. It were bloody cold, but a hell of a lot of fun. And the scenery was spectacular.
That night we feasted till bursting point on cake and crumble and once again annoyed the Little Cafe owners with our incessant chai drinking.

The following day was taken up with sight seeing, accompanied by Drake. Alex made it to the palace / monastery thing with us and this was pretty cool. All very empty and pretty much tumbling down, but still a cool place to wander around and get some great views of the city. Drake and I went further up to the monastery / castle on the top of the hill but Alex wasn't up for it. This was also pretty cool, with some amazing sculptures and Thanka paintings in one of the rooms (one of the only rooms to be still standing), and the old, ruined castle had its own kind of magic. It's such a shame that the Kashmiri controlled local government doesn't give a shit about Buddhism or the Ladakhis - many of the ancient buildings here have been left to the elements with little support for conservation and development.

On one of our last days i wandered up to the lake on my own in the morning, passing through one of the old gompas. Just for a swim and to do some laundry in the river, but the place was so peaceful. It was completely empty, which i had not seen before, and there was an incredible rainbow completely encircling the sun, something i had never seen before.

It was a serene morning of comfort, relaxation and reflection - a stark contrast to the overall feeling n the 20 hour bus ride on which we were about to embark.