April 23: Day 22

After watching the Puja ceremony last night, which was even more fantastical from the river, I bumped into Dominic, an Aussie-Scots-Brit who I had met in Agra. After two days of being more or less alone in Varanasi, besides the French travellers from my hotel who I kept bumping into (lovely people but minimal English, aww), some ( Read more... )

April 21-23, days 20, 21 & 22

Part I:  WTF??
So, three weeks in and I arrived in Varanasi, one of the places on my itinerary, the crescendo of my entire trip.  Oh dear, my first impressions were awful.  Awful awful.  Not only was the harrassment level at the railway station off the map, but in venturing beyond the station's perimeters I could only ( Read more... )

April 20, day 19

Ha, I'm loving this - stubborness prevails yet again!  To get from, Agra to Varanasi I was booked on an overnight train from Tundla station, which I guessed to be about a half hour away from Agra.  Nu-uh.  It turned out to be an hour and a half away, and I didn't find this out until a little under 3hrs before my train was due to ( Read more... )

April 19 - 20, days 18 & 19:  Agra

Now, I wasn't sure what to expect with Agra, given that I'd heard so much, but I was still pretty excited to arrive.  It wasn't set to be a long stay as the overwhelming consensus was to go, see the Taj Mahal, and then get out as the rest of the city was a dump and full of touts.  The sick part of me that takes ( Read more... )

Saturday 18 April - day 17

A day (or two) in the life of....

22:20 (17/4):
Train from Udaipur to Ajmer has just departed, with me in the top bunk of the overnight AC sleeper car.  The train is due to arrive in Ajmer at 03:45, which means me setting my alarm to wake up at 03:30 to get off in the middle of the night.  I know I should be getting to sleep ( Read more... )

April 15 - day 14

I arrived in Udaipur last night and, after a long day, wanted to get straight to me hotel and was in no mood to explore.  I had booked ahead and was expecting something a little better than what I found, as both my guide book and the fiendly hotelier in Jaisalmer, plus some other people I had met, had recommended it.  It's not bad ( Read more... )

April 14: Day 13 - Jaisalmer to Udaipur

Although Jodhpur (yes, the birthplace of jodhpurs) had been on my original itinerary before arriving in India, after visiting Jaipur I pretty much decided to skip it as the prospect of facing another busy and polluted city hardly excited me.  However, my train ticket had been booked and so I planned to just ( Read more... )

April 11, 12 & 13 - Jaisalmer, days 10, 11 & 12

Something happened to me on my last day in Jaipur, something that has changed my outlook and subsequently my whole experience of India so far.  What was it?  I slowed down.  Without even realising it, I developed a whole new mindset and found myself walking - and thinking! - obnoxiously slowly, my ( Read more... )

April 10: Day 9 ( Read more... )

April 8, 9 & 10:  Jaipur, days 7, 8 & 9

I seriously wish I could put some of these sleazy Indian guys in my shoes, just for a day, and see how they like being a lone white woman in an Indian city.  Anywhere I've gone on Jaipur (and Delhi was the same) I can't go for more than two minutes down any given street without someone or other (always a man ( Read more... )