India

We landed in Delhi at 4:30am where two very groggy/cranky India's greeted us. We had to wait till 8am for our room or pay extra so we sprawled ourselves across a table in the lounge area and actually managed to sleep (the two previous nights of no sleep may have been a contributing factor as to why we were so comfortable sleeping on a table) finally a bed,slept till 12. Site seeing time :) Our hostel was located right in the middle of the main Bazaar in New Delhi,crazy does not even describe this place. Never seen so many people and vehicles in one place. Streets where lined with stalls and the smells and aromas of all the street food and spices was delicious. The random cows walking around the place just added to the madness. The hustle and bustle of this city was electrifying. From that moment on we knew we were going to love this city/country. People where so nice and helpful. Crossing the main roads made us feel like OAPs, we had to get locals to help us, they drive like crazy there. You really do take your life into your own hands between cars,rickshaws,bikes,tuk tuks,cows and even the random elephant. We did a city tour via taxi. Seen most the main sites-lotus temple, Indian wall, red temple and a few more temples thrown in. 

People liked to stare at us and take pictures. We'd like to think its because we're so beautiful but think it had more to do with our white skin and legs on show.

After that flying visit of Delhi we hit the road to Jaipur known as the pink city. Things didn't get off to a great start when our car broke down on the side of the highway.. While our driver Sonny went to garage we decided we would sit on side of road to catch some rays,not a good idea a crowd of men gathered round us to have a look apparently not so many tourist visit this area. When sonny returned he told us "Its better you wait in the car"! Little did we know this was only the start of sonnys attempts to keep us hidden from the general public of India..two young woman whities walking around India was causing quite the stir!   Eventually reached Jaipur another crazy city with crazy traffic. Sonny and hotel men used scare tactics and tried to make us stay In hotel for the night,saying how dangerous it was. (i feel like a princess trapped-Annie). We think it was just a ploy to get us to eat our dinner in the hotel as they rang our room every half hour to see if we had seen the menu and wanted dinner. But we rebelled and went and got food and caught a movie. "Student of the year" a classic love triangle with Bollywood dance throw in.   Gotta love it,inspired us to learn some new dance moves :) the flute....

Our second day in Jaipur was probably our best in India, really got a true sense of Indian culture and the kindness off the people. Started the day with sight seeing. Visited the Amber Temple, Water palace, Palace of the Winds, Observatory park, City Palace, Textile factory and some more palaces- India has a lot of palaces.  V our tour guide reckoned we were "the highlight of the palace". Then we explored the old city ourselves,yeah free from sonny. Getting used to the staring at this stage,think we'd kinda miss it if they stopped. Drank chai tea in a temple, we later saw where it was made, best not to think too much about that one! We ate dinner in a shack(seriously wouldn't have your dog eat there but it ended up been the nicest food ever) , met a lovely girl who was a college student in Jaipur,chatted with her for ages. She drew henna on our hands and dressed us up in sari's.  We went looking for wifi that night and ended up stumbling upon what we thought was an indian nightclub but alas it was a rocking Hindu temple where they were celerbrating a 9day festival to their gods, we were made dance (kinda felt like a performing monkey) in front of everyone, two lovely local girls saved us from the embarrassment by teaching us how to do the dance. We must have found our groove because men started frantically waving money around our heads before donating it the temple, apparently a custom that means they got pleasure from it. Get your minds out of the gutter, our clothes remained firmly on, was purely innocent! We tried to leave the temple a few times but were convinced to stay for the next song which they kept claiming was the last song,each song was 15 mins long, brutal but we didn't wanna offend anyone. One of the girls was getting married in feb but still didn't know who her husband was gonna be. She was suprisingly delighted with this situation.

We then made another horrific car journey to ranthambore national park. The main reason for our trip here was the Tiger safari which ended up been a waist of time. Seen no tigers,no wildlife but we did see a peacock and also learned that tigers like sandwiches :) the highlight of the trip was the photo-shoot, an Indian woman getting her photo taken everywhere in the garden, Annie learned some new poses. Met a really nice guy called Mark from Wicklow and his friend Kara. Went for dinner the second night with them which was lovely,ate in a treehouse, think sherry actually got a half a chicken in her masala. We now officially hate Sonny ...

Another brutal car journey to Agra. Went to see the red fort after arriving. We had the most boring useless  guide ever,he asked us why we looked so serious- are you having a laugh you should have seen the serious head on him, we hated him! We found a costa coffee much to our delight-  hallelujah -a regular sized coffee, sherry was the happiest woman ever! Next morning before sunrise we hit for the Taj. No words can describe how beautiful it is. Absolutely breathtaking, even more amazing than we ever thought it could be. Got 50 million pics of the place and of course a James bond style photo aswell with Annie crawling under a bench to get the frame..we got caught up in the Hindi festival on the way back to hotel. Everyone was gone wild that day was kinda scary. Annie K had to sneakily kick a guy who kept grabbing her legs..we were in fear for her life :)  Overnight train to Varanasi was surprisingly comfortable,slept the whole journey. 

Quick stop in the holy city of Varanasi just to see the ghats on the river Ganges. Its where india Hindus gather to cremate their dead. we left our luggage in the train station, they were very concerned we had no locks and the sign stated to be aware of rats eating your bag so needless to say we weren't worried about them at all. Varanasi wasn't the nicest of cities and people were unfriendly. Got a boat trip down the Ganges to a burning house. A man got on our boat and gave us a comprehensive rundown of their religious and burial ceremony. It was weird and surreal to watch as families dip their loved ones in the holy Ganges river and cremate them on fires for all to see. No one was allowed to cry at this stage of the ceremony as the this would mean the soul would stay attached to the family. Their ashes would be later spread on the Ganges and the soul and body are now detached. On route back in the boat we seen a floater, a dead body floating right by our boat apparently there are loads of them,eeeeeek we were surprisingly unfazed by it.


Our brief experience of India has been amazing . Its hard to explain how the pace of life is so slow in once sense but so hectic in another due to sheer volume of people crammed into such a small place. Delhi alone,  a city the size of dublin has 17 million people. Our time here was like being in a parallel universe, the only way to truly understand the craziness is to experience it first hand.. in two weeks we only got a snippet of the country, we will definately be returning. We somehow avoided getting delhi belly, darn it..looks like we'll have to shift the pounds the old fashioned way! Were now ready to move on from the pooing kids, the constant spitting and mounds of rubbish. Nepal get ready, here we come!