Due North

Namaste!

Here's what we did for the last 12 days or so....

Saturday we spent the day in Delhi exploring the city centre and trying to avoid shoe shiners and ear cleaning street merchants, needless to say we both have very polished flipflops now. We started to get to know our tight little gang of fellow travellers, they are a great bunch hailing from all over the world and we could not have dreamnt of a more fun bunch to travel with.

At 10pm we hopped on an overnight train to Kathosomethingsomething. Overnight trains are fun if not a little hard to sleep in, 6 single beds are crammed into little seperate compartments 3 beds high. As a group we spent the hours really getting to know one another, Roy, if you ever read this, it was a pleasure to learn of your interest in stockings.... Our guide at this point took it upon himself to reveal that on his previous tour train trip the carriage he was in derailed and many of the occupants were rushed to hospital.... fun fun fun. Anyways we made it and spent Sunday driving through the hills towards Almora. The roads were like something out of a Bond film with sheer drops and blind corners taken at pace by our jeep. When we reached Almora we spent the day in this tiny town being stared at and taking in the stunning views of the Himalayas. We were only the second bunch of westerners to stumble into this town so it was interesting as we were photographed, followed and also invited to a wedding. This was an invite we could not refuse (free food innit) and our part in the wedding was commenced when the girls from our little gang were asked to dance before dinner, Kay rocked the place up with some reserved English dancing... we blended in. During our stay we visited a bunch more temples, markets and a weaving house. It is important to point out that at this point it had gotten very cold, and we had further north to travel.
From Almora we visited Jageswar, this place is home to an 8th century complex of temples which were quite stunning to visit, certianly one of the highlights so far. From here we travelled to Ranikhet, now this really may be one of the most stunning places you could stay. We had our own little wooden hut with views of the mountain ranges, this hidden little gem is miles away from any major cities and we were treated to our first clear night of stars out of the city smog (along with bonfire and beer). It is also important to add that although it was very darn chilly up in the hills we could warm ourselves up with a serious table tennis tournament, of course.

Wednesday - Corbett National Park safari.... bit lame, didn't see any tigers, did see other animals, elephants and deer mostly.

Thursday - We headed to the Ganges and got dropped off on a little secluded beach for a night of camping, beach football and more bonfires. This was the calm before the storm with an early start on Friday seeing us clamber into a raft and hit some amazingly fun class 3 rapids. White water rafting is now one of my favourite things, although I wasn't sure that Ash should have been placed at the front. Kay bravely took her camera (in it's waterproof case) for some photographs and handed the camera to Ash so she could have a little dip in the river, photos on route to you!

Great fun!

We arrived downriver into Rishikesh, hippy capital of the world. The place the Beatles stayed during there India days. We loved it. Drinking chai, sitting on cushions, Kay did some intense yoga, Ash stared at sitars. Fun fun fun.

On the saturday we visited Haridwar, a very holy city. It was busy, smelly and seemed to be aimed at making people feel uncomfortable. But still the images of shiva and vishnu were stunning and the fast flowing ganges run straight through the centre of the town where people descend steps to wash away there sins... luckily we are sin free as the river looks cold.

Finally we zoomed back to Delhi on a day train which was again more comfortable than I imagined, certainly more comfrotable that a long plane journey...

Anyways we are still trying to sort out our flights to Thailand, no one wants to give us any updates on the situation so we will, no doubt, report back when we know what's gwarning.

Big love
x x x x