Tuesday 30 August 2011

"Does anyone know how to build an Ark ?"

What seems like months ago now we said goodbye to our new friend Ayub and boarded the bus going from Srinigar to Jammu. This was by far the nicest bus journey yet but as we arrived in Jammu we realised that whereas Srinigar was all old world charm and relaxation Jammu was all traffic jams and cowshit. We made a split second decision (with grace and poise!!) that even though we'd already been on the road for 10 hours we'd jump on the local bus directly behind us which was leaving towards our next stop.

So, by the time we got off the bus in a dark deserted Dharamsala we'd been travelling for 17 hours, it was 01:30 in the morning and we had nowhere to stay.....Shit. This was a problem because a) we were both shattered b) it was cold c) we had no reservation d) all the guest houses were full.  We spotted some people sleeping in an ATM and with no idea of what else to do Matt suggested we do the same. Charlotte calmly disagreed and like mature and reasonable adults we proceeded to discuss our predicament without raising our voices, pointing our fingers or swearing!!! So with divorce and tears on the horizon it felt like divine intervention when the driver of a parked car started flashing the headlights and offered to take us to the next town to find a guest house (god knows what woke him up!!).

This meant that the next morning we awoke to find ourselves in Mcleod Ganj, which is most famous for being the permanent residence of the Dalai Lama - but for us will always be remembered for the evening we hung out with a group of crazy Punjabi guys who insisted on buying us loads of booze and plying us with shishas in the loudest Indian disco in creation.

The next few days were spent wandering around and checking out the town, we tried to visit the Dalai Lama but he wasn't in so I'm afraid we don't have the answer to the meaning of life yet ! Other than that we generally passed our time watching England wallop India in the cricket (much to the consternation of some of the Indians we watched it with).

A couple of days later two of our friends from Leh got in touch to say that they would soon be arriving in a place not far from Mcleod called Bhagsu and that over the following days more and more people from Leh would be showing up. It was going to be a full on reunion with Sean, Johnathan, Flori, Petar & Jimmy. So we headed off to meet them and a short time later we took up residence on the balcony at Bholla guest house that was to be our home for the next 2 weeks.....


...What we didn't realise was that we would literally be on the balcony for 2 weeks as we had caught the tail end of the monsoon season in the "2nd wettest place in India" (we think first place must be the ocean!) which meant that it was liable to be p*ssing down with rain for at least 20 hours each day. Therefore we spent a lot of our time hanging out with our fellow "inmates" playing cards & chess and smoking and drinking on the balcony. Fortunately they were a great group so despite being trapped we still managed to enjoy ourselves.


On the occasions when the sea wasn't trying to reclaim the land by some form of airborne assault we went for walks to the surrounding villages & waterfalls where we noted that when the clouds cleared


It was actually a pretty beautiful place


Then once you got bored of the scenery you could always watch the dogs fight the monkeys and the cows for the best pickings out of the bin. Brilliant !


And of course when the sun was out it meant we could go to the open air pool....


..yes that's right they have an open air pool, God knows why ? but it was the setting for some of the funniest scenes we have witnessed so far because INDIANS CAN'T SWIM! Full grown men in turbans were screaming like girls as they dipped their toes in, fat men in rubber rings far too small for them jumping in the deep end and all of them displaying some of the finest "panicky-doggy-paddle-ohshitohshitI'mdrowning" swimming stroke you will ever see....and  for some reason they all do it in knackered brown Y-fronts with saggy elastic !?


Our other main occupation was being asked to be in photo's by the aforementioned crazy Punjabis who were there en masse as part of an annual pilgrimage, honestly we couldn't walk 5 mins down the road without a baby being thrust into Charlottes arms or a random man putting his arms round both of us and smiling as a flash went off in our faces. This got to be so much of a problem for Charlotte that in the end she got our guest house owner to teach her how to say "I'm sorry but I have no time !" in Hindi......however most of the Punjabi papparazzi simply ignored this statement and railroaded us into pictures anyway.


Finally after 2 weeks of constant rain and despite Seans' assurances that "...good weather was coming.." (we know you just wanted us to stay and help you clean mountains you cheeky bugger !) we decided that enough was enough and we were going to get the hell out of there. So we started a mutiny, recruited Petar & Flori to our cause and booked ourselves a bus ticket out of rainsville heading for the (we hoped) sunnier climate of Rishikesh on the banks of the River Ganges......

Tuesday 2 August 2011

A houseboat in paradise...well Kashmir

As we walked through the wild marijuana fields that surrounded the pathway leading to our new houseboat home we suspected that it was probably going to be a fairly relaxed environment....but we're getting ahead of ourselves here so let's go back a few days.

We finally left the Goba guesthouse behind to catch the overnight "Super Deluxe" bus to Srinigar in Kashmir - meaning of course that we should be travelling in style and comfort all the way.


 Or maybe not....


Once we had attached our own bags to the roof with shoe laces and scarves and found our seats we were pleased to note that they reclined fully and were quite comfy (hence the SUPER deluxe) and when compared to the lot of 20+ Indian men who were going to be sitting on the floor for the next 19 or so hours things didn't seem so bad.

The journey itself passed without incident (other than one of the little Indian fellas groping Matt's ankle at about 2:00 am) and after the trauma of our first "mountain road" experience from Manali to Leh the mere 500ft drops at the edge of the road seemed like nothing, so once the sun came up we sat back and enjoyed the spectacular views of the Kashmiri countryside...





Soon enough we were approaching our destination and after a mere 21 hours on the bus we stepped off in the Kashmiri town of Srinigar where we were unsure what to expect - what with Kashmir having a reputation for being a bit of a terrorist hotspot and all.. But we were here now so we had to get on with it and after retrieving our bags from the roof and making sure Charlotte had zero flesh on display we jumped in a rickshaw and headed off to our hotel.  

The following day we went off to explore the town and after spending some time watching a cricket match between two local rival teams and being asked to be in about a million photos by various Indian men (well they mainly asked Charlotte) we realised that Kashmir is not threatening at all, it's just busy, REALLY busy so we decided we needed some time to ourselves and we hired a Shikara - like an Indian gondola without the singing - for a sunset cruise around Dal Lake. 



After a romantic sunset ride the evening was complete when Matt finally heard the words he's been waiting to hear since the day we arrived in India "Babe.....I've just sh*t myself". What happened next will forever remain between the two of us!

Once we'd got over this incident (i.e. the following day !) we set about the task of finding a houseboat to stay on for the next few days....which is what led to us wandering through the wild marijuana fields on our way to the "Mount View" houseboat on Nigin Lake with our new friend Ayub. One look around the boat, which was basically like a floating Orient Express, was enough to convince us that we were in the right place and we agreed to move in straight away


We spent the next few days hanging out with Ayub and his chef Rambo (his real name) on the boat mainly drinking kashmiri tea, smoking, drinking and eating great food. 


We also managed to squeeze in a visit to Jesus's grave in the Old Town of Srinigar (apparently the bible has it all wrong) where the locals politely told us to "p*ss off", went round to Ayub's house to meet his family and drink more Kashmiri tea and even got up at 4:15 one morning to visit the floating vegetable market


However for the most part we kicked back and relaxed, floating around on our own little row boat in the lagoon at the back of the house boat


That's it for our Kashmiri adventures, next up Dharamasala home of the Dalai Lama....