So I have now ben to the Taj Mahal. It is amazingly beautiful and I believe, compulsory if you are traveling in India. It took another insane cross country bus trip to get there (no I obviously do not learn very quickly). This time it really was cross country, we spent virtually the entire time on dirt roads, not a sealed surface in sight. This time we had learnt not to go to go sleeper, and our pain level was suitably reduced.

The Taj Mahal is astonishing, the inlays are heart wrenchingly stunning and the acousitcs in the main building (the big white one you always see) are awesome, I would love to hear singing there it would be so cool. There is a whole cluster of buildings aside from the big white one, there are red mosques and gardens. It is beautiful, jury is still out on whether it is worth another ride in and Indian bus....

This was followed by a 13 hour train trip to get 460 kilometes, which is absolutely absurd, we could have gotten to Rishikesh faster on virtually any other form of transport, including Butch the Angry Camel. But we are here in RIshikesh in the foothills of the Himalayas and it is stunning, one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

From here we are going to trek to the glacier that feeds the Ganges and 2 other sacred rivers in India. We leave from a town that is at 2000 metres elevation, I cannot wait. It is one of the things I wanted to do in India, make it to the start of the Ganges. It does mean that once again I need to travel across half of India, to get my flight to Thailand. If anyone wants to check out just how mad this trip has been, have a look at  map of India, then check out how far it is from the southern most tip (varkala) to Pushkar (I did it one go on a train) then to Rishikesh which is right up in the north. In 12 days I have been from Varkala to Rishikesh, some 3000 kilometres of travel, on buses and trains, no wonder I have slept 9 hour a night for the last week...

Here in Rishikesh the Ganges is breathtaking, it is clean and blue and stunning, quite a contrast to the pollution further south. In fact the Ganges is so filthy that for this years Kubla Mela (massive religious ceremony involving 7 million people taking a sin cleansing dip in the sacred Ganges) they have had to add fresh water to dilute the pollution which is so horrendous it will even kill Indians, and trust me they can survive phenomenonal levels of filth. 1 in 10 people in the world rely on the Ganges for survival, scary stuff.

I am so pleased I am seeing fresh pristine India, with such a heart breakingly beautiful river, and gorgeous hills I understand why it is a sacred town. We are here in the complete off season, so we have or hotel to ourselves and the restaurants offer things like cheese sandwhiches becasue no one else is crazy enought to come here at this time of the year, so everyone is comeletely unprepared for us. It is nice to escape the hordes and hang out here, and I am inlove with my sleeping bag. I am finally pleased I lugged the stupid thing all the way around the world, it has saved me from freezing my balls off for the last 2 weeks, and I love it so very much.

Bliss and I went on an overnight camel safari into the Rajastani desert, well it was supposed to be into the desert, but really we just went out of the town to the desert and then back towards town again. It was, however most definitely overnight and most definitely on a camel. It was also terrifying and amazing.

My camel (real name Gopal, I re-named him Butch the angry camel) did not like other camels, or people, or doing what it was told, or keeping up with the other camels. I did not mind the slow pace as I was scared witless and quite happy to move at snails pace. I did mind when the camel tried to bite other camels and when going down hills (an exercise that means you need to pretty much lie down in order to avoid sliding off the camel) Butch would attempt to run, causing me to gasp in fear, which in turn caused our guides to nearly wet themselves laughing at me. Bliss's camel was a racing camel, thank god I did not get the racing camel, those things can really move.

I don't kow how many of you have gotten up close and personal with a camel, but they are weird looking things and they are tall.... While sitting on one, going past traffic, I could not help but notice that I was the same height as the passing buses, I could have climbed on the roof of the coach from my camel. They are also smarter then I gave them credit for. When we stopped for the evening the guides secured the camels by tying a rock to their reins and burying the rock. Bliss's camel Gloria, promptly pulled the rock out by pulling on her reins with her teeth and dropping the rock with a thud. Thankfully Butch did not quite have Gloria's brains, or speed and he had a much bigger rock.

The guides spent a lot of time very amused by us crazy white girls, then spent the night entertaining each other... But not before making us some amazing food and putting us to bed, at 7:00pm. We are assuming it was so they could get some alone time, in their beds half a metre away from us. The two miniature men rode the camels with us, which caused more merriment for the onlookers (everything you do in India attracts a crowd, when you are tall, blonde and white, and usually they laugh at you) I can only imagine how we must of looked, tiny Indian man behind enormous white girl on tall, long-lashed, bad tempered, farting camel.

The desert was freezing by night and the sounds of dog fights were a little scary, and the fact that our angry camels were metres away from where we slept was also not so comfortable, but we had our sleeping bags and the big heavy blankets supplied by the tiny little, laughing, loving Indian men and the stars, which were mind blowing. Sleeping under the stars in the desert was spectacular, so weird not having the stars in the right place, but absolutely beautiful skies. We saw a shooting star ( after waiting expectantly for some time) and spent a lot of time gazing up at the constellations.

The next day we returned to town, moving slowly through the town centre, I was less terrified by this time, but still dreading the prospect of getting back off the camel. Mount and dismount from a camel is complicated and for me, terrifying. the way a camel stands is to first raise it rear legs, leaving you pretty much standing up in the reins, with nothing to hold onto and panic surging through your veins, followed by another heart stopping lurch into a full stand. I was left dry mouthed and shaking after the first time. It did get easier, but not that much.

Camels aside Pushkar is amazing, the Bangh lassi flows freely, instead of booze (illegal here, but still we are offered it at twice it's normal price by our hotel proprietor who shall remain anonymous) and it is cheap, crazy and most definitely India.

There was a kite festival yesterday which was magical. We returned from our camel safari early in the morning and spent pretty much the rest of the day on our hotel rooftop, looking across the whole of Pushkar and it's sacred lake watching kites soar. We flew many kites poorly, and had kite fights with our neighbours, I believe we lost all bar one. Kites would plummet out of the sky and replace our losses regularly, making the collection of nationalities inability to fly kites no barrier. All of this in a valley in a desert surrounded by hills and temples with a sacred lake at its heart, amazing.

I spent 3 days and 2 nights of my life on 2 Indian trains... I am suprised how well I feel all things considered. I am suprised I did not kill anyone, I am suprised I can walk still and that food seems like a good idea (3 days sitting on the train made me never want to eat again). I am also suprised that I am going to do it again, I must be mad. I am not suprised to learn I am mad.

Time behaves differently on trains, it becomes a slippery changeable thing, it drags on so and then suprises you by racing away. You stop thinking in terms of ridiculous Western ideas like timetables, schedules and deadlines and instead time is broken up and measured by pages in books, toilet trips, number of food vendors in the carriage and the likliehood of screaming babies.

Pushkar is my favourite place in India so far, it not so much like a resort as the Southern coast was, it is peaceful and has a good vibe. It is set around a sacred lake so I suppose it should have good vibes really. It is chilled out and full of temples and ghats.

I discovered on my trip from Varkala to Pushkar that Jaipur and Marrakech are actually the same city but there is some strange behaviour on behalf of physics that allows it to exist in 2 different places and 2 different times simultaneously. The ancient pink city the traffic, the stalls, it is all the same they are the same place. Jaipur is more modern (less donkeys more cows) but really trying to break down the differences between them is pointless as they are the same city.

This is also why the traffic is so bad in this city, if you slow down you may get sucked from one into the other, thus you must never slow down whilst on a vehicle, anything from bike to rickshaw. An abatement of speed runs the risk of travelling through the warp in the space time continuum and ending up in the past in Africa or in the future in India. This transfer would be very disconcerting and undoubtedly distressing which also accounts for the high number of crazy people you see wandering the city.

Having cleared that up I am off to yoga.

Travelling in India is like being perpetually trapped in an episode of Fawlty Towers.

I had a great New Years eve dancing to bad pop music on the cliff above the Arabian sea in Varkala. There was amazing food, lots of vodka, doobies, midnight swimming and some serious fun.

The only thing that marred my evening was discovering at 5am that someone had taken my camera and some other stuff from my bag (none of it as sad as my camera, they are welcome to my lip gloss). I was dancing away and one of the straps on my bag was loose from my shoulder and some fuckhead stole shit... Bastards.

The good thing was I had spent 5 hours on the afternoon of the 31st downloading my pictures onto cds. Thank god I did that... Losing my camera sucks balls, but losing all my pictures as well, well that would just be the worst thing ever, especially since it would have had all my photos from Portugal, England and Goa... Ouch.

The worst part was trying to obtain a police report, not only did I have to buy my own paper on which to write my complaint, it took 3 visits and 4 hours of my life, and Indian police are horrible human beings. I hate to make sweeping generalisations but every single one of them was a power hungry, arrogant, mean, revolting human being.

So I hope everyone else out there had an amazing New Years and nothing went walkabout whilst you were enjoying the revelling... And I am sure you are all enjoying regular power and functioning telephones unlike myself. Do not take them for granted, losing power 34 times a day sucks when you need internet and fax access...

Off to spend 2 days on a train on Sunday to get to Pushkar, so some serious lying on the beach needs to be done before then. Cheers everyone, thinking of friends and family lots, and enjoying many a vodka on your behalf (s).

Back on the beach. Staying on the top a cliff below which is a beautiful sandy beach, with waves ! I have not seen those since I left Australia, they are very sad waves but they exist nonetheless. And after a week of seeing no travellers and then some, but none under 45, we are once again on the backpacker trail and there are people to talk to, drink with and exchange information.

I thought you would all be very amused to know that I have ended up in a "dry" state for New Years, that is right, booze is illegal here... All this means is booze is more expensive and we are back to the good old Aussie tradition of brown paper bags! Love it. But still after 7 days, 9 hours in a taxi, 29 hours on buses and 16 hours on trains, to end up somewhere with a "law" against booze is pretty funny...

So, to all heading up to Peats Ridge; I am very jealous, have an amazing time and think of me! Everyone have a mind blowingly good New Years and do not do anything I would not do... Which does not really rule much out!

The overnight train from Chennai to Kerala was delightful, it ran on time, there was tasty breakfast for SFA and I slept pretty much the whole way. It has reconfirmed my vow to never get on a bus for more then 4 hours in India again, ever, no exceptions. I will eat my still beating heart before I take that risk again.

Kerala is very beautiful, it has 900kms of backwaters full of palms, birds, the compulsory cows, cashews, bananas and coconuts aplenty. We did a backwater cruise today which was lovely, it was peaceful, green, lots of jumping fish and very calming. The pollution breaks my heart, like all of India there is trash everywhere. Garbage disposal seems to come in 2 forms; throw it in the sea or burn it, awful.

I have decided I love India geographically and culinarily, but I hate everything else. Thousands of years of treating people like dirt, their attitude to women and the appalling way they treat the poor is unacceptable. I am not sure how the home of yoga, meditiation and buddhism can be so awful to their fellow human beings. Not to mention the fact that nothing works or runs on time, everything takes 3000 times longer then is neccessary, every single thing from ordering food to toilets is a hassle and they do not seem to be able to do anything without filling in 4 forms. I really wish I was a more patient person, maybe I will learn to be.

I am a little bit worried I am going to stop liking people before I get out of here..... All I seem to say these days is "No thank you, I am not interested, please leave me alone." Ah well my next stops are beaches with noone around, pilgrim/hippy towns, so it should be a lot mre pleasant. No more cities though, they just suck balls.

Two days on the road

For a festive season

Of tempered pain

So I made it out of Goa, after 46 hours of hell. It took 3 buses, an 8 hour taxi journey and a rickshaw but we ended up in Chennai for Christmas. I have never been more uncomfortable, sleep deprived or afraid in my life. I will never get on another bus in India again. I am not actually sure what is more dangerous; the threat of terrorism or being on an overnight bus from Goa to Bangalore, I am covered in bruises and my head hurts still.

Chennai is awful, it is filthy, disgusting and smells, and as per usual every single person tries to rip you off at every available oppurtunity. I hate it. Christmas was miserable but we made the most of it, getting as wasted as possible in our hotel room. After the nightmare of 2 days traveling and no sleep we splashed out and are staying at a mid-range hotel, with room service and an ensuite, had to be done.

So tonight we catch the train to Kerala, I can't wait. From Kerala I have other places I want to get to, but there is not much more staring, getting ripped off, harassment and disrespect I can take, so unless these new places are better, I am leaving. Goa was amazing and if my plans take me to equally cool places I will have a great time in India, if not; I am outta here. I think so long as I do not go to any cities, get any buses or listen to anyone who tries to speak to me, I should have a wonderful time.

Hope everyone is having a great festive season. Enjoy you New Years and have many drinks for me.

The fact that  Goa Airport will be closed from the 24th of December until the 2nd of January was the thing that finally really scared me. That news made the situation seem a whole lot more frightenig and threatening. I now understand why Goa is so dead, as news of the bomb threats spreads via word of mouth (apparently the only source of news here asides internet) people are leaving in en masse. I had a plan to go to Kerala instead, so did everyone else. So now with all available exits slowly being shut off, I am off to Bangalore (17 hours on a bus) to get a bus to Pondicherry (8 hours).

The beaches are so quiet, there are more touts then people, it is really sad, people are desperate, losing all the tourists for one season means no money for a year. It is really tragic that so many people's livliehoods have been ruined by the these threats. It would seem that enough damage has been done, there is no need to add th loss of life to the disaster, Goa has been ruined for this year.

So for me, Kerala will have to wait until the New Year and Pondicherry gets moved up my itinerary. I am really sorry to be leaving and heartbroken for the ruined businesses that have nowhere else to go.