Up the Ganges without a paddle !

Rishikesh...

After another over night bus journey we stepped off the bus in Rishikesh and for the first time in over 2 weeks we found ourselves both blinking and sweating because THE SUN WAS OUT !!!! cause for celebration indeed !

Set on the banks of the River Ganges Rishikesh is one of Inida's holiest cities. Pilgrims come to bathe in the river to wash away a life time of sins, sadu's (holy men) line the roads and tourists from all over the world come to meditate in the ashrams.

As soon as we arrived Charlotte set about looking for a peaceful ashram whilst Matt and our German friend Flo hired mopeds to hoon around the town and recreate Matt's Mexican biker gang - "the Wolverines"!!! So with Flori - "Flo-rida", " Peter - the "Serbian Beast" and Charlotte - "Miss Daisy" in tow as new recruits Matt (aka "Stretch") was thrilled to be back on two wheels at the head of his reformed gang - all be it on 50cc hair dryer powered scooters.

We spent the following days exploring the area and learning the rules of the road - of which there is only one -  if you're bigger, you go first!! Matt took to Indian roads like a duck to (septic) water. Charlotte was forbidden from driving after her and Matt were overtaken by a man pushing a banana cart.

On our travels we discovered a stunning waterfall...

A beautiful deserted beach where we went everyday to swim in the river...

...and an Ashram. Set amongst shady mango trees on the banks of the Ganges Osho's Ashram looked like just what Charlotte was after so she checked in for a 7 night stay anticipating a relaxing week of meditation by the river. Matt on the other hand looked forward to a week off the leash!!

Charlotte would like to offer some advice to anyone considering staying in an "ashram" - CHECK THE PLACE OUT FIRST!! As after 2 1/2 days of wearing a full length maroon robe and giving the dynamic and kundalini meditation her all i.e. shaking, dancing, waling, crying, sitting, lying and all the while chanting "Osho" "Osho" Osho" Charlotte made the mature decision to run away (the final straw was when they started talking about finding her "sex centre"). After hitching a lift until there was a landslide, clambering over the mud and walking the last 3 km's back to town in the baking sun you will not find it surprising that Charlotte was happier to see Matt than Matt was to see Charlotte!!

This was even truer the next morning when we woke up to discover two had become three - no, not a baby Higgs - but an amoeba, yes that's right, Charlotte had amoebic dysentery! Nice. Two hospital trips and one misdiagnoses later (when did "piles" ever cause anyone to pass out and vomit for 2 days??) and Charlotte was on the road to recovery and as it was our last night this meant only one thing......BEACH PARTY !

The next day we said our goodbyes to Rishikesh and prepared to undertake our first train journey in India during which we would be traveling 12 hours overnight in "sleeper class" to.....


...Varanasi 


The first thing we noticed stepping out of the taxi at the station we were due to catch our sleeper train from was the seething mass of humanity either sleeping, eating or just sitting around, there were literally thousands of people just milling around waiting for trains. The second thing we noticed was that every single one of them must have taken a piss right next to where they were sitting, honestly it was enough to make your eyes water ! Still as we keep reminding ourselves T.I.I - This Is India - and you have to expect these things. So after picking our way through the crowd, locating our train carriage, fighting our way on to it and throwing out the entire Indian family that was sitting on Matts seat we settled in with Flori for the long haul.

The train journey started auspiciously when about 2 mins before departure a wave of people carrying boxes, bags & children surged onto the already crowded train only to find themselves instantly repelled by those already on the train sparking a mini riot which we could thankfully watch from the relative safety of our bunks. However once the train got rolling things calmed down and we were able to grab a few hours sleep....that is until Flo woke Matt up at 07:00 and passed him a glass of "indian wine" (errr...I think you'll find that's whisky & tap water) that some of the locals were passing round and insisting we share. From then on things got distinctly messy with Matt & Flo introducing the Indians to "english wine" (ok it was rum & coke) and then insisting on playing them really loud English music instead of "..that Indian shit you all listen too...". Which meant that by the time we arrived in Varanasi every single Indian had passed out and Matt & Flo were totally hammered, just what Charlotte needed when turning up in one of the craziest cities on the planet !

Somehow we made it to the guest house and after checking in we decided to check out the town. For those who don't know Varanasi is allegedly the oldest continually inhabited city in the world and it is also the place where Hindi's come to die and then have their body burnt and the remains thrown (unceremoniously) into the Ganges. This means that it is a fairly common sight to see stretchers being carried through the narrow alleyways bearing blanket covered bodies on their way to be burnt.  It's hard to describe just how a crazy a place Varanasi is and they say "a picture paints a thousand words" so here are 3000 words....

Varanasi is also famous for scams which we found out the hard way when we were "mugged" for a 300 rupees "charity donation" by a cunning little git, an aghori (these are dark sadu's who cover themselves in ash from the funeral pyres and drink out of human skulls) and a...er...90 year old lady. Still you live and learn.

The next day we met a guy called Sunil who's main occupation seemed to be hanging around outside our guesthouse hustling tourists......however after speaking with him for a while and sharing some chai we realised that we'd been lucky enough to meet one of the only "street hustlers" in Varanasi who was actually just a really nice guy who wanted to show us round his city and didn't want a single thing in return (except for us to buy some weed....so Matt & Flo gallantly took one for the team! ). The first thing he offered to do was to take us to the "Ghats" where the bodies are burned, which sounded interesting, what we didn't know was that he has going to take us to stand 3 feet  from the edge of one of the funeral pyres where we could actually see a human skull & a spine blackening in the flames, however this was nowhere near as disturbing as seeing a dog dragging a smoldering hip bone out of one of the piles of ash....just what you want to see before breakfast. (Fortunately for you we weren't allowed to take pictures up close so you'll have to settle for this one which we took from a boat - you can see a funeral pyre on the right !)

Over the coming days we got to know Sunil and his friends (or the Varanasi Junior Mafia as we called them) and spent a lot of time hanging out with them on various rooftops, riverside Ghats and at numerous local restaurants where Sunil always insisted on paying ! We also met a nice Austrian girl called Fabianna.

We even got taken to see a Bollywood blockbuster called BODYGUARD (click to see the trailer) which was brilliant and made even more enjoyable by the reactions of the audience who were whooping and catcalling all the way through.....this was a bit odd as the loudest shouts came from the men in the audience when the lead male character lost his shirt in a fight ???

On our last night we were taken to an abandoned boat moored off of one of the Ghats where we sat with Flori, Sunil and the rest of the Junior Mafia sharing way too many beers and enjoying some of Sunil's sisters home cooked chicken curry that he had brought along for us

The next day we said our goodbyes to Sunil and the rest of the boys and set out to catch our next train to Khajuraho...home of the erotic temples !

"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......

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....

Life in the Himalayas

So... turns out the 36 hour minibus ride was worth it! After taking a few days to acclimatize to living at 18,000 ft we were settling in pretty well in Leh, the town is only accessible by road for 3 months of the year - it's a really old Buddhist city on the border with Tibet and is surrounded by some stunning mountains and valleys...

(if not in need of some professional builders!)....

The downside to these stunning views is that the air is quite thin so we've spent the last few weeks getting totally knackered just doing simple things like climbing the stairs !

During in our time in Leh we've been lucky enough to be staying in the best hostel in town - "Goba" - It's right on the edge of town and run by a lovely local Ladaki family. Matt was slightly put off by the hippie drumming circle in the front garden as we arrived but after checking out the view from our bed was persuaded to stay...

And once we realised that our co-habitants were actually normal people and not total hippies (well maybe Sean & Annabel are) we were very happy that we'd chosen GOBA.

Since then three weeks in Leh have flown by and although we've done our fair share of sitting around chatting & drinking we've also managed to squeeze in some adventurous stuff as well -

We've mountain biked down the worlds highest motorable road (albeit very slowly in Charlotte's case) which starts at a very chilly 18,567ft and is more than a bit hairy in places !

We've also had 4 chicken's killed in honor of our new friend Annabel's birthday BBQ, Charlotte didn't realise when she walked into the shop and asked for them that they would kill them in front of her so ran off up the street - Matt on the other hand was only too happy to pick them out and even named a couple of them

We've visited Pang-Gong Lake (which is bloody huge by the way !) with some of our new friends, the lake was stunning but the trip was made even more enjoyable thanks to our group, particularly our American friend Scott's front seat commentary and constant haranguing of our driver Jimmy as he negotiated the slightly suspect mountain passes that we had to cross to get there "Precious cargo here Jimmy, slow down man !".

Whilst there we stayed with a local family which was a communal experience to say the least with all of us sharing one big room where the bedding consisted of the worlds dustiest mattresses and a concrete floor and the food was...errrm...well let's just call it "basic" (no more home-stays!);

One other thing worth mentioning is that at Pang-Gong Lake there is nothing other than the lake....really, nothing (except a couple of goats and a donkey and they get boring pretty quickly). Oh and Matt says it's bloody freezing to swim in !

We've also visited (many) local monasteries...

And ridden a Yak...

We leave today (wednesday) on a local bus for a 20 hour journey to a place called Srinigar, so provided we survive the trip we'll have more updates for you soon !

Across the Himalayas with One Direction

So after 5 days of chilling and researching in Vashist we had a plan. That plan was to head 450 miles north to a place called Leh which is described as an idylic Tibetan village deep in the Himalayas. What we didn't realise when we bought our tickets was that A.) we would be going on a privately run mini bus and B.) It is not advisable to attempt to drive across the Himalayas before the official government bus service thinks it's safe to do so!  So armed with our ignorance of this fact we rocked up at 2am for the start of our supposed pleasure cruise to Leh.

We should have realised something was up when it turned out that the semi comatose lunatic who was in the seat behind Charlotte (who 20 mins into the trip had stood up, dropped his pants and attacked one of the english boys on the back of the bus with a plastic bottle for no reason whatsoever) turned out to be the driver for the 2nd leg of the trip.......still this is India and you have to expect these things....right ??

The next indicator that things were not as they should be came when 45 mins into the trip the driver pulled over at the bottom of the first mountain pass and anounced "road closed, we sleep !". After a couple of hours we were on our way again driving up a steep mountain pass with great views of the valley below until suddenly the rain started pouring down and we were stuck again 

The driver informed us that there had been a landslide ahead and that it was time to sleep again, Matt slept, Charlotte cried and then slept. A few hours later Matt awoke to find that he was in the front seat of a mini bus that was sliding backwards down a steep, muddy, mountain path with a lunatic Indian driver steering towards the cliff edge in some maniacal attempt to get some grip and make it up the mountain. This time Matt cried, Charlotte slept. Once Matt had recovered from the pant-crapping terror of this incident he decided to wake Charlotte and share his experience, at this point Charlotte "calmly" questioned the wisdom of their current journey... but what could we do ? we had to press on ! 

Eventually it stopped raining, we think this was mainly because we were too bloody high for rain as we were now at about 16,000 ft ! This also meant that as we crossed some of the highest motorable roads in the world we got some fantastic views of the Himalayas in all their glory....

...which were only slightly ruined by the sight of the occaisonal burnt out mini bus at the bottom of some of the  ravines.

During the trip we got chatting to the 3 young English lads who had been attacked by the crazed driver - Cyrus, Joe & Harry......or as Charlotte named them 'One Direction'. They had been travelling round India together for a little while and were doing the same as us in heading North to avoid the monsoon. Matt rediscovered his inner child. Charlotte cried. She then pointed out that Jenner (aka cradle snatcher) would be crying too.

The journey carried on in much the same fashion with further landslides and our drivers stopping for a break every time one of them fancied a whisky so it soon became apparent that our 'guaranteed one day trip to Leh' wasn't going to happen and eventually we pulled into a hill station called Pang where we camped up for the night sharing a Yurt (big tent) with the boys who informed us over dinner that we were currently traveling on the 2nd most dangerous road in the world (we hit the most dangerous one when we get to Bolivia!) which was a cheery thought for us to sleep on.

The next day started badly with Charlotte shaking Matt awake at 5:00 to report a problem, it was not the Yak in the tent scenario that Matt had envisaged but rather the fact that Charlotte had altitude sickness and couldn't stop throwing up....just what you need when you've got a 6hour drive ahead of you ! After a morning of puking and major headaches we piled ourselves back into the van and headed for the worlds largest plateau, the whole time Charlotte focusing on not being sick and Matt focusing on who's responsibility it would be to clean out the mini bus if she was. 

Finally after 36 hours of travel (20 hours my bum !) we arrived in peaceful Leh which we will tell you all about in the next installment......   

What is that SMELL ??

Ok we admit this is a bit early but so much has happened already we thought sod it...


Well so far so good. That is apart from turning up and realising that of the 1,000's of places available Charlotte had booked us into a slum that even Michael Palin would be afraid of. It being about million degrees in Delhi. Being lied too constantly about the availability of buses and every Tom, Dick and Harry (or Gurjit, Rupal and Omar) trying to get us to go to bloody Kashmir (err no it's a warzone !). 


Here is the guest house...

...this is not a joke. 

However once we got over the culture shock of stepping on raw sewage instead of a welcome mat we were made to feel very welcome by the owners Lucky & Sunny, who were top guys, and soon found ourselves enjoying the madness of Phar Ganj. Not quite the crossroads in Cheam Village 

Despite finding our feet it was still unbelievably hot in Delhi and crazy busy so we formulated a plan to get the hell out of there. Unfortunately this plan involved a 14 hour overnight bus ride into the Himalayas where the only entertainment was a bizzare bollywood film and watching a teenage indian girl repeatedly puke into a plastic bag. Any complaints we had about the journey were blown out of the water the moment we arrived as firstly it was COOL ! and secondly the place overlooks a flipping mountain with a glacier on it, yet we can still sunbathe! 

Ok that's it for now, we're off to have a beer and then Matt is going to try and get Charlotte out of his hammock.

Bye for now!!

3....2.....1......GOOOOOOOOOO !!!!!

So here we are then the big day has finally arrived, as of 17:30 this evening (round about when most of you are finishing work) we will no longer be residents of the UK.....and quite frankly we are bricking it

To those of you who attended our leaving do we just want to say a massive thank you for giving us the most fantastic send off and also for all the cards, presents and money that we received, we'd like to say we're going to do something nice and cultural with the cash but we'll probably just end up spending it on a night of beer & curry and gettting an elephant home at 4:00 in the morning.

For anyone who missed the party and is wondering what it was like....well naturally it was a restrained affair without too much drinking and of course Matt & his friends spent the evening chatting and generally impressing everyone with their social skills

Errrrr sorry about that......

Ok that's it for now, our next post will be from deepest darkest India and will probably be written by some little Indian kid that we pay 10p for his time