Ok seen the Taj....let's get the hell out of here !

After yet another eventful train journey (turns out we'd bought the wrong tickets this time !) we arrived in Agra, home of the Taj Mahal and set about trying to find Shabu, Matt's guide from 5 years ago, which miraculously we managed to do and though he was pleased to see us he was confused to note that "Christine" had grown about half a foot and picked up a few pounds (just kidding !!!). We then headed off to find our hostel before going to a rooftop bar to watch sunset over the Taj....in true English style

Then it was back to the guest house to get an early night as we had arranged to be picked up at 5:30 in the flipping morning so that we could go and watch sunrise over the Taj Mahal from the Red Fort as this was supposed to be truly amazing. However it turns out that 5:30 in the morning is a little too early for us, so when we were roused at 6:00 by our guest house manager banging on the door and telling us that "your driver has been waiting outside for 40 minutes !" we decided to sack off the Red Fort and head straight to the main event. This was a stroke of luck on our part as it meant that we got to the Taj Mahal before the tens of thousands of Indians and other tourists who descend upon it daily meaning we had the place practically to ourselves

It also meant that Matt got the chance to take some pictures that might not otherwise have been allowed!

And even got Charlotte in on the act ! 

After a couple of hours of walking around and checking it out the place started to fill up and we became at least as big an attraction to the hordes of Indians as the Taj itself....

...so we decided to leave and see what the city of Agra was all about.

Errm...

Yeah....

And here's one you definitely won't see in the guide books

Basically it's the same as every other Indian city, hot, crowded & smelly ! Not really what you expect from the city surrounding the jewel in India's tourist crown but hey T.I.I !!

Time to get some more culture, so off we went to the Baby Taj, this is another white marble building with similar carving work as the real Taj but on a smaller scale

 

Then it was time to head to the backside of the Taj and watch the sun go down from the opposite bank of the river

It was here that we took a picture which we feel kind of sums up India

This was great but soon enough we were back in the rickshaw riding through the now for some reason even smellier streets of Agra....

 
...it was at this point that we had our first epiphany - We'd had enough of India ! Sod waiting around for the monsoon to finish so we could go to Goa we wanted out of here. With this in mind we dived into the nearest internet shop fending off beggars, street children and carpet salesmen as we did so and changed our flights and our plans so that we would soon be flying to Indonesia.

We now had less than 2 weeks remaining in India ! To celebrate this fact we went and had a few drinks with Matt's friend Shabu.

Our next mission was to use our 2 weeks to get down to Mumbai, where we were flying out from, upon checking the train connections we realised the easiest & cheapest way was to train it to Jaipur and from there on to Mumbai. So Jaipur it was....the town they call the jewel of Rajasthan *cough*BULLSHIT*cough*

There's not really a lot to say about Jaipur so here are a few pictures....which somehow make it look like a lovely city, really worth visiting - trust us it's not !

The Floating (flooded) Palace

One of the gates to the "pink city" - which by the way is dirty not pink (cowshit mixed with pollution does not make pink !)  

The Palace of the Winds

The Raj Mandir - India's largest Bollywood cinema 

 

And a camel that made us laugh because it was holding up traffic

 
Jaipur was also where we had our second epiphany- We (well Matt mainly) had had enough of vegetarian Indian food. So when we saw a K.F.C Charlotte was amazed to find that Matt had developed the ability to move at a speed faster than light and had ordered half the menu before she had even got through the door.

And consumed most of it before she could sit down

Next up was our final train journey in India, the overnight train to Mumbai.....this one was actually fairly uneventful although Charlotte did wake up to find that the nice, well educated, old Indian lady she had been talking too had stolen all our water before quietly slipping out of the carriage. Honestly you can't trust anyone in this country.

After going through the usual tasks of finding a guesthouse and having a shower we spent the day wandering around Mumbai and we were pleasantly surprised, instead of the usual narrow, crowded, filthy streets we found ourselves walking along wide tree lined (relatively) clean streets with buildings that didn't look like they were about to collapse

This was more like it.

That night Charlotte made Matt go and watch the Chelsea vs Man Utd game in a local bar which, much to Matt's consternation, was full of Indian Man Utd fans but it was all good natured fun and Matt took the defeat in his usual non-sulky way. On the way back to the guest house Matt purchased a couple of beers and opened one to drown his sorrows, this proved to be a bad idea as while Charlotte was in a shop a policeman pulled up next to Matt and demanded that he get on the back of his bike (apparently drinking on the street is illegal in Mumbai !). Matt refused to get on the bike and the policeman demanded a 1000 rupee fine, Matt then refused to pay this by which time Charlotte had reappeared, at this point the fine suddenly changed to 500 rupees, again Mat refused to pay, then when a bunch of Indian kids walked by we asked them to help and the fine became 200 rupees....hang on a second, I'm pretty sure you don't barter for fines...the kids explained that the police are all corrupt and upon hearing this the policeman suddenly accelerated away cursing Matt in Hindi. We then legged it back to the guesthouse in case he'd gone to get his gun. 

The next day, with our spirits raised by the cleanliness of the streets we thought we'd go and check out Mumbai's beach because hey who knows maybe it's a pristine stretch of white sand with blue water and some palm trees......

Oh no hold on we're in India.

To get over the disappointment of this we headed to a 5 star hotel for our first proper drink (i.e. not made with Indian booze) in over 3 months and sat and reflected on the amazing adventures we'd had and all the brilliant people we'd met - India we love you !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The next morning we packed our bags and prepared to say goodbye to the craziest country on the planet but before we left Mumbai decided to show us that it too was a real Indian city and give us one last reminder of what we were leaving behind

 

We hope you've enjoyed reading about our Indian exploits as much as we've enjoyed enduring them. Next up South East Asia !!!!

Is that a....Horse ?!

Khajuraho

After saying goodbye to our new friends in Varanasi we boarded another overnight train, however this time it was more sedate affair as Charlotte insisted on traveling in "anything other than Sleeper class" and booked us into the AC3 carriage. This was a totally different experience, mainly because only people with tickets are allowed into the carriage (meaning we weren't likely to see a repeat of the bedlam that preceded our last train trip) but also because along with Flori we appeared to be the only people in the carriage.

The night passed uneventfully enough with the only real excitement being Matt refusing the pay a policeman a 200 rupee "fine" for smoking out the door. Matt provided him with a "frank" response (which we won't repeat here!!) due to the fact that while the policeman was very diligent in his pursuit of foreign law breakers he didn't seem that bothered about all the Indian guys also having a crafty smoke.....funny that. The fine remained unpaid and the next morning we rolled into a place called Khajuraho a town famous for it's temples featuring thousands of erotic carvings depicting scenes from the Kama Sutra (oooh I say !).

The guide book makes some mention of the fact that "some people prefer the nearby laidback town of Orcha to the bustle of Khajuraho", we now realise that this is a euphemism for "everybody in Khajuraho is a money grabbing git who won't give you a minutes peace...". This should have been apparent when we stepped off the train and were mobbed by about 50 shrieking hotel touts desperate to get us to come see their place, but we were tired and we just wanted to get to a hotel so we picked the least mental looking one and went with him.  Then once we settled in with a beer and found ourselves  watching the best sunset we've seen yet things didn't seem so bad

The next morning we got up early to go and check out the temples which allegedly represent the finest examples of Hindu carving anywhere in the world, this is due to the fact that they lay undiscovered (by white people that is) in the jungle for hundreds of years meaning they were safe from the Muslim invaders who defaced and destroyed so many other temples on their rampage

And very impressive they are too ! 

Although when you get up close you start to notice a theme within the carvings

Dirty buggers !

But very skilled nonetheless !

We also learned that Indian women "love" their horses even more than 13 year old middle class English girls - but alas those carvings were too high up the temple to get a decent picture !

After a couple of hours of making sketches and taking notes for future reference we had to curtail our tour as Matt was coming down with a fever...Yes ! that's right, for the first time MATT was properly sick and Charlotte was the one playing nursemaid. So after stumbling back to the hotel, all the way fending off aggressive salesmen, rickshaw touts and precocious money-grabbing children, Matt collapsed for a 24 hour period of vomiting, shivering and sweating....this was a shame because after 6 weeks of traveling together it was time for us to say goodbye to Flori who was heading to Delhi that night. With this in mind and despite the suffering it would cause him Matt managed to muster up the strength to have one last beer with him & Charlotte

As soon as Matt had recovered we decided that we'd had enough of Khajuraho and it's constant plea's for "Money, Money, Moneeeeeeeeeeeeeeyy !!!" so we headed off to the bus station to catch a bus to Orcha....

Orcha


Turns out the bus didn't actually go to Orcha (another example of Indians inability to say "no!!") so instead we had to get it to pull over at the side of the road near the Orcha turn-off where we assured that we could get a rickshaw down to the town. However before doing that we decided that we needed a chai and sat down at the roadside tea stall. As we sat there three things happened 1) a huge bull mounted an unsuspecting cow right in front of us 2) Charlotte completely forget herself and out of nowhere leapt up pointing and shouting "BULL F*CK, BULL F*CK, BULL F*CK !!!" (Charlotte was instantly mortified- the Indians however howled with laughter) and 3) two European looking guys appeared out of nowhere looking lost - and a new euro-love affair was born!!. Our new friends from Bilbao in Spain were called Josu & Roberto and were also going to Orcha so after we finished our chai we all hopped into a rickshaw and headed into town with Matt taking full advantage of the opportunity to talk about football with someone who was actually interested in it as opposed to talking at Charlotte who enjoys it about as much as Matt enjoys chatting about politics / women's rights.

We were immediately a lot happier in Orcha which had a much more "shanti" (Hindi for "chilled out") feel to it.....although this may have been because we weren't constantly surrounded by a baying pack of children & touts...and after some food and some rest we were ready to get down to some serious drinking with our new Spanish friends and also conduct some English / Spanish lessons with the boys (although their English is much better than our Spanish)..

The next day with our hangovers fully intact and Charlotte still murdering the Spanish language at every available opportunity we all rented push bikes and set off to find a nearby river where we had been told you could swim, which in the heat & humidity of the tail end of monsoon sounded like a godsend. The bikes were of questionable quality and Charlotte's weighed about the same as a small hatchback so getting up the hill at the edge of town was our first challenge. Once we had wheezed our way to the top of this obstacle the next task was finding the river which when we eventually did, with the help of some enthusiastic local kids, was worth the effort as the river consisted of numerous large rock-pools all of which we could swim in

 

On our way back into town the monsoon decided to show us that it wasn't quite done yet and the heavens opened meaning that we got wetter than when we'd been swimming and turning Charlotte's top almost see through, giving the already sexually frustrated Indian men that we encountered the thrill of their lives "Oh my god I can see that white woman's BRA !!"

During this time we learned that the boys are amateur film-makers producing short films recording their trip around the world - if you get the chance and you speak a bit of Spanish I strongly recommend you checkout their blog at http://proyectovivi.blogspot.com/ - So we duly offered our services as supporting actors in their next production and lo and behold later that night we were treated to the first screening of Tres Hombres, Una Mujer Y Un Destino (3 men, 1 woman and 1 destiny) which you can see below

That evening we noticed that there were loads of Indians riding around on trucks & rickshaws with HUGE sound systems throwing coloured powder everywhere for Lord Ganesha's birthday (he's the god with an Elephants head) so they were all celebrating....although nobody could tell us how old he was. The celebrations continued well into the next day with the Indians getting more and more crazy until, well take a look.....

The next day we packed our bags again and jumped in a rickshaw to Jhansi with our Spanish friends to catch our train to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, but not before making Charlotte pose for one last photo with the boys (and a random Indian) in front of our respective football team flags 

Then after saying adios amigos we set out for Agra.....

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....