Delhi and the End of our Travels

We were up at 4am on Tuesday morning and our prearranged tuk-tuk took us to Jaipur station (but not before his brother, who had arranged the pickup, had demanded a 50 rupee commission!). Our train was on time and we managed to get a few hours sleep in our favourite upper berth 3AC beds, arriving into Old Delhi station just after midday. The final 20 minutes of our journey, as we crawled through the outer city slums into Delhi station, were fascinating. The slums were unbelievable; rickety wooden and corrugated iron huts were perched almost on top of the railway lines; barefooted street children played between the tracks and women carried out their washing whilst the men sat talking and looked on. This was our last Indian train journey and we will miss the ease and simplicity of travelling by train (it's a real joy!) and the amazing outlook it gives you on the Indian scenery, culture and life in general.

We disembarked and after queuing with the masses we bought a pre-paid taxi ticket. A tuk tuk 'taxi' took us across Delhi towards our hotel, situated in the Paharganj area on the border between Old and New Delhi. Our first impressions of Old Delhi was something akin to 'oh God, what a dump!' and as we neared our hotel (our driver also having no idea where he was going) we got increasingly worried by how run-down the area was and how little tourists were around... never a good sign! Fortunately we turned a corner and entered a narow street amass with tourists and with shops spilling out onto it. The area reminded us a lot of the Thamel area of Kathmandu so we were on familiar ground and relaxed instantly. Our driver finally found our hotel after consulting with Ash and our trusty guidebook along with the help of several eager locals and we checked into a rather pleasant hotel tucked away down a quieter alley.

We arrived starving so found a recommended restaurant that served up an awesome Paneer Punjabi, great tandoori roti and a big bowl of curd and so we tucked in! We then grabbed a tuk tuk ride, passing the parliament buildings in comparatively spacious and quiet New Delhi before arriving at Gandhi Smitri which is Gandhi's final home as well as the site of Gandhi's assassination. His house has been converted into an interesting museum which we took time wandering around before visiting the site where he was shot by a Hindu zealot.

We grabbed another tuk tuk ride and headed east across New Delhi to see Humayun's Tomb, built as a mausoleum to the Mughal Emperor Humayun in 1562 and quoted as a 'must see' in our guidebook. It did not disappoint and closely resembles the magnificent Taj Mahal, only constructed in red sandstone and missing the surrounding minarets. Very much like the Taj itself, it was much more impressive to look at rather than walk inside. We returned back to our hotel by tuk tuk, passing India Gate along the way which resembles the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and was built by the British as a WWI War Memorial in 1972. That evening we returned to the same restaurant as lunchtime as we wanted more of the delicious Punjabi Paneer! After dinner we wandered the backstreets of Paharganj and found some fantastic small markets; there were fruit and vegetable stalls selling really fresh, tempting fruit and veg (which we daren't touch!) and spice sellers who had lain all their wares out on the stone streets.

Wednesday was the very last day in India and also the very last day of our 13 month career break. We were very much of mixed emotions. We have had the most amazing time away and are feeling excited, apprehensive, sad and happy all at once. It will be lovely to see our families but we will miss the independence and freedom offered by travelling.

We visited the sights of frenetic, mad, dusty, dirty Old Delhi. We had to laugh at the first few tuk tuk drivers we tried to hire. The first one agreed to our price and then wouldn't budge until we visited his shop (we got out and walked off) and the second one quoted a ridiculously high price and when we said 'No way!' he turned on his engine and drove off furious! Fortunately we found a better driver on our third attempt and so we made our way to the Jama Masjid. It is a huge, red mosque which we poked our head into but we did not hang around long as there have been recent tensions between the Hindus and the Muslims here.

We took a quick ride in a rickshaw around to the Red Fort of Old Delhi, paid the expensive Rs250 entry fee and spent the next hour wandering the grounds and looking at the monuments, which were interesting but not particulary amazing (although we have been rather spoilt recently!). We then walked along Chandni Chowk, the main bazaar in Old Delhi. On sale was all the same old stuff and it was very chaotic so after a half hour we dived into a tuk tuk and headed to Connaught Place, a more developed area of New Delhi and tucked into a cappuccino, where we mused over our amazing 13 month trip and what it would be like when we headed back to England!

Hungry, we headed to a recommended restaurant called Saravana Bhavan, and we had to queue outside with the locals for a table... it was a very popular place and deservedly so as they dished up a fantastic Paneer Dosai when we finally got to our table. We walked around Connaught Place a little more before heading back to our hotel where we relaxed for the rest of the day.

Ash's best friend Jez had suggested we go to the Metropolis Restaurant to celebrate our last night in India and so we decided to follow his advice, getting a nice table for two on the rooftop restaurant. We had a really nice meal and splashed out our few remaining rupees on several different delicious dishes, including our favourite Malai Kofta, chapattis and curd. Ash had his first beer in months and savoured every drop! It was a lovely fitting finish to our 13 months.

Having had just a few hours sleep we got up at 2am to go to the airport for our early morning flight back to London. In India everything takes much longer here so we were advised to arrive for check in at the airport 3 hours before our 6.50am flight. Stepping over the hotel staff who were sleeping on a mat on the floor at the entrance to the hotel, we were met by our driver who took us to his taxi. When we say 'taxi', what we really mean is 'rusting old hulk'! We were driven through the eerily quiet streets; the cows were sat in the middle of them chewing the cud.

We love India... you cannot do anything without something untowards happening. It sounds a bizarre thing to say but it does make for exciting stories and excellent memories. True to form, just 5km from the airport our driver pulled over and told us the car had broken down. Great!! He said it was no problem, that the engine had overheated and cut out. He grabbed two empty plastic bottles from the seat pocket and ran off in search of water to cool down the engine. We sat there in the pitch dark and waited patiently, thinking we would be walking the remaining 5kms to the airport on our own. He returned about 10 minutes later, bottles full of murky water, which he poured into and all over the engine. Smoke and steam erupted everywhere and we watched the water boiling in the engine from where we sat! Well, whatever he did it worked and after a few minutes he started the engine and crawled the remaining 5km so as not to overheat the engine again.

So we arrived safely at the airport, but oh no, the fun didn't stop here. At check in, Ash handed over all the usual paperwork: passports, booking receipt, online check-in papers and then was asked to produce the credit card with which we booked the tickets (apparently this is a new anti-fraud measure for BA). Unfortunately we had booked our tickets using our Australian credit card over 6 months ago and completely forgot this fact when, on leaving the country 3 months later, we sensibly closed our Australian accounts as you have to pay to keep them open. Having explained all this, of course the check-in staff still refused to accept us on the flight despite us having everything to prove who we were! With no choice, we were forced to buy a further 2 tickets costing us double what we had originally paid for them! We weren't happy, but were eased a little by being upgraded to Premier Economy and getting free use of the VIP lounge in the airport. The rest of the flight was pretty normal, except the absolute chaos getting everyone seated before take off... many people had sat in the wrong seats and it was madness (and a hell of a job for the stewardesses) getting them moved!

We landed in London safely and on time at 11.15am and after collecting our bags went out into the new and slightly overwhelming Terminal 5 where we were met by our families. Ash's parents thought we looked like a couple of hippies, emerging at Arrivals in our handmade Indian clothes and also couldn't believe how much weight we had lost - we were on the go so much we hadn't noticed! We had a very bizarre trip back to Ash's parents. Everything looked so clean and pristine and it was a little tricky to adapt.

We have really had the trip of a lifetime - it has been such a privilege to see and experience so much of the world and it's been worth every second. It's a period in our lives we will always look back at with such fondness... we have stories to tell our grandchildren. And for now, it's a return to the Western World for us, the adjustment back into developed society and jobs, homes and putting down roots. We're sure we will adapt with time, but we will always carry the memories and experiences that will make us appreciate what we so often have taken for granted.

Ashley & Bianca Workman

March 2008

Jaipur and the Amber Fort

After a short 45 minute flight we arrived into Jaipur early on Sunday morning and took a pre-paid taxi to our hostel called Devi Niwas, just outside the city centre. We struck lucky as it is a lovely family-run guesthouse which is tucked away in a wealthy and quieter part of Jaipur about 1.5 miles outside the chaotic city centre. Our room is bright and airy and great value for 5 pounds a night. After a chapati breakfast we walked to the main road and negotiated a tuk-tuk to take us 11km north of the city to the Amber Fort, a UNESCO world heritage site. The red sandstone fort is out in the desert and situated about 300m up on the top of a hill and from a distance the fort looked extremely impressive. As we neared the fort we saw painted elephants pounding along the streets and ferrying tourists up the hill to the fort. We declined the experience as the animals are not always treated well and made our own way up by foot.

The inside of the fort was less impressive than it's striking exterior and is a labyrinth of fairly bland stone passages and empty rooms. We wandered for a while, enjoying the views from the top and after encountering a few strange individuals along the way in some of the quieter areas of the fort we decided it was enough. Bi is finding the constant and exceptionally blatent staring from men (and sometimes women) a bit daunting and tiring. We stumbled upon a coffee shop where we savoured a rare cappuccino before deciding to get out of the searing heat and head back to Jaipur centre for a Thali and some Dosai for our lunch. At the end of our meal the waiter stood over us and demanded we leave a tip which we did not like so we walked out not leaving a penny on principle which left him rather annoyed. After lunch we queued outside the Raj Mandir Cinema (the biggest Hindi cinema in India) and bought 2 tickets for the evening to a major 'Bollywood' movie on current release called 'Delhi 6'. We could not help but peer into the McDonalds next door to check out the menu....and found the chicken tikka chapati meal deal quite amusing!

We chilled out at our hotel for a couple of hours during the heat of the day and returned by rickshaw to the cinema (which is set up inside like a theatre with box seats and stalls) in the evening for our film. We had 'emerald' class seats (middle class seats in the stalls) and joined all the locals to watch the movie. It was great to see the local culture like this and it was a big affair for people. The cinema had a distinctly tacky 70's look and at the entrance they were selling samosas, cheese filled chapatis, ice-creams and popcorn which we sadly had to avoid due to our weak stomachs! Although we could not understand the Hindu language we were able to get the gist of the film (they also intermittently burst into an English sentence which is quite strange) and it was actually quite good. Even more fascinating was the way everybody would whoop, cheer and clap at certain points and happily make mobile phone calls throughout the movie and speak as loudly as they felt like! Anything goes here and nobody really complains. It was a great evening and we returned to the guesthouse by tuk-tuk rather than rickshaw since it felt a little safer in the dark.

The following day, Monday, we took a rickshaw to the main old city gate and wandered through Jaipur towards the City Palace. Jaipur is aptly called the 'Pink City' as the whole of the old town is constructed of reddish-pink sandstone. The city streets are quite wide and uniform but of course have that distinct Indian feel to them with grubby little shops spilling out onto the streets, cows wandering around, telephone and power lines dangling untidily and a mass of street children and beggars. It was fascinating stuff and very noisy and chaotic with parades and dances going on in the streets and the endless, and we mean endless, tooting of horns from all the traffic.

We made our way to the city palace and wandered the vast complex of courtyards, gardens and buildings. Our entrance fee came with a free audio guide which was helpful in explaining the history and meaning of the sights. We visited the Welcome Palace, Armoury, Hall of Public Audiences and the Pitam Niwas Chowk courtyard which was beautifully decorated with peacock bas reliefs.

In the afternoon we visited Hawa Mahal, a remarkable, honeycombed, pink sandstone building built for the gentry women of Jaipur. From here we decided to do a spot of shopping. You have to be so careful which shops you enter because it is so difficult to get back out again. Ash bought himself some Indian serving dishes to add to his collection while Bi purchases a tablecloth. Bartering for the tablecloth was hilarious. We entered the shop and were seated like a king and queen and the owner then proceeded to grab out every type and colour of cloth he had whether we liked it or not. We selected the one we wanted and the price started at 2000 rupees. When we burst out laughing the price dropped to 1600.. ok ok..you take for 1600 and the assistant put the tablecloth in a bag as if we were total mugs and would take it at that price. We knew it was worth about 300 rupees so we named our price and less than 1000 rupees was refused we got up and walked out of the shop. The owner continued to count down and yelled out after us on the street eventually giving it to us for 300 rupees. We walked away happy with our purchase and thankful that our extended travels have made us a touch more savvy then the usual tourist. You can't blame them for having a go though. Jaipur is known for its high prices in expectation that you will barter hard.

As we walked back to the hotel we saw several holy processions making their way down the streets, singing, dancing and generally causing all kind of chaos! The traffic was backed up miles and it was fascinating to watch. We wandered back along the city streets past food vendors and spice sellers (with fantastically colourful tikka powder on offer) and found a quieter street and took a rickshaw back to our hotel.

We relaxed at the hotel again in the afternoon having become hot, grubby and tired in the heat and dirt and fumes of the city. For dinner we headed to well recommended vegetarian restaurant where we received exceptionally snotty waiter service. Bi was ready to throw her bowl of channa dahl over the waiter! It was early to bed as we take a 5am train to Dehli tommorrow morning. The guesthouse owner tried to arrange a taxi to take us the 1.5 mile journey to the train station and when they quoted 300 rupees she slammed down the phone and then proceeded to take all their business cards, rip them up and throw them out.... good for her! It should cost 50 rupees but they operate on the basis that you are 'stuck' and can get away with ripping you off. We had to walk outside and arrange a tuk tuk to collect us and one of the men who had taken us by rickshaw a couple of times had a 'brother' (as they always do) that had a rickshaw so we arranged a 4.30am pick up.