Wifi free - so that's what it means.

A sign of the times is when the tour group all piles in to the hotel and scans the wall for a wifi code. The tour guide is trying to talk to you, rooms are trying to get sorted but no one is really paying attention, eyes dart all over and as soon as one person gets the code, it is like Chinese whispers as it gets passed along. This doesn't only happen with the young uns but also the oldies like me and David. I want to message home David wants to play Castle Age. Honestly he is an old un, he just doesn't realise it. Anyway as a tour group we have come to realise that in India if it says wifi free, that's what it means it is a wifi free zone, as very rarely do we get wifi, even if we have full signal nothing happens. Sadly we all look at each other and ask if anybody is making a connection, but usually no joy. At the moment I am in a hotel where we have had to pay for wifi. It was funny because we all initially said we would not pay, that in this day and age it was ridiculous, but we have all buckled and not only do we get wifi , we get it in our rooms. Oh joy, our life's are complete.

Sadly though we are getting regular power cuts! Yup you know what that means no electricity, no wifi.

Red fort and the day train.

The Red Fort is also in Agra just like the Taj Mahal. It is made entirely of red sandstone just like the cliffs at Arbroath and also the Arbroath Abbey. However unlike the abbey, the fort is basically still standing and shows a lot of  detailed stonework. 

These are the moats, one of them had water in it with crocodiles while the other was dry but had tigers in it.

This room was originally inlaid with gold and jewels but when it was invaded,(so the crocodiles and tigers didn't work then) the raiders set the room alight so all the gold and jewels fell to the floor and they scooped it up. Easy. Peasy. 

The owner of the Taj Mahal was held prisoner here for 9 years by his son , who was upset that his older brother was chosen to be the ruler after his dad. So he killed his brothers and imprisoned his dad. Kids! 

After our visit to the fort we caught a train to Orcha. The train stations here are chaotic, people lying sleeping, cows wandering around, rubbish , beggars,  are getting the picture by now, I am sure. The trains are very long and very busy. We got on and the carriages are very run down with many of the seats 

being held together with wire . 

Hootsmin and bagpuss discussing the state of the railway

David trying to fix his seat with a bit of wire that was holding something else together. 

As you sit on the train , sellers come down selling their wares, like tea which is ready made in a big urn, tomato soup, samosas, crisps etc. the crisp sales boy though gave up put his wares on the baggage shelf and went to sleep on the seat behind us. 

While I was sat there I suddenly felt a squirt of liquid on my leg, it was a man going down disinfecting the aisle way, another man was following him with a mop. I didn't mind , it has been one of the nicest smells I have encountered recently! Actually a short while after  another man came down with  air freshener squirting away. 

It was a four hour journey, thankfully I slept through some of it. 

Taj Mahal

Taj Mahal is beautiful, surprisingly it was not too busy so it was relatively calm, although we are still being asked to pose for photos with people, or people want to know your name and where you are from. What is funny is that locals keep joining our tour group when we are being given talks on the building or area, at times we are quite a large crowd! The tour guides just keep going so must be used to it, to be truthful we are getting used to it too!

The entrance arch to the Taj Mahal, there are three side gates too. 

The new group

Sunset at the Taj Mahal

Spot the monkey! 

It is so hot over here, people and animals try and shelter where they can. I have even seen lorry drivers sitting beneath their lorries. 

They have the cutest little squirrels over here, the three striped squirrel, look like chipmunks with long tails. There were loads at the Taj Mahal, I found it hard to concentrate on the guide as they were running around. Took a video but it won't download onto blog. 

Jaipur

The first full day we headed off to Jaipur this involved a long bus journey, with again many interesting sights on the road, what people will carry on motorbikes is amazing and they also seem to have a competition here where they see how many people they can fit on one vehicle.

As I have mentioned before there are cows everywhere, roadsides, at banks, in the railway station, in front of market stalls, on bridges , they sleep, wander, graze, and just stand. This has started many conversations about them and I have been told a couple of stories, the nice version and the real version. 

I was concerned about the cows just wandering especially on busy roads and asked our Rishikesh driver what the story was about them. He said that the cows belonged to people  and that they wandered freely during the day and would return to their homes in the morning and in the evening to be milked, as they were honouring their home but would then wander again. 

I have now asked our tour guide about them . He has a different version, that is that the  cows did belong to people but when they stop producing milk they are just abandoned on the street as they are too expensive to keep if they are not giving milk. Cows are sacred to Hindus as they are seen as a mother figure and should not be hurt so the families do not know what to do with them. He went onto say that  Hindus are mainly vegetarian but that also people would not eat the cows because of the garbage that they eat and that is basically what they do eat  rubbish, you often see then rooting around in the rubbish that is piled everywhere. You also see monkeys, dogs and goats scavenging around in the rubbish too. 

He went on to say that the cows are very clever and that they sleep in the road as they have learnt that the flies will not bother them there as they do not like the passing traffic but also that the cows get high on the fumes from the cars so are quite happy! That is why he says you see them slowly plodding along. Whatever he says it is not a happy life for them although they do seem to enjoy standing sideways on in the middle of the road, as if to say, "Bring it on."

When they die they are taking to the edge of the town where their skin is removed and they are left to be eaten by scavengers. We have seen black kites and vultures here circling around. 

In Jaipur we were in a hotel that used to be the house of a noble it was very grand, and old fashioned with lots of ornate paintwork. 

Our bedroom

David chilling at the hotel.

Our hotel door which we locked with a padlock. 

Jaipur is known as the pink city, it was painted pink to welcome the Prince of Wales, way back in the day, we were told the date but it has all blurred together

Inside the Amber Fort.

One of the gardens at Amber fort

The first evening we were in  Jaipur we went to the cinema to see a Bollywood film. Walking to the cinema was an eye opener, an assault on all the senses and has made me a vegetarian at least while I 

am in India. We had to walk through the local market place, which was incredible , in fact I am surprised I am even eating vegetables, there were flies everywhere, rubbish lying around, goats standing on a vegetable stall eating produce and at one point a rat ran out from a pasta/rice stall right past my feet. It actually went on two people's feet in our group. What upset me the most though was the chickens being kept in high rise cages, layers and layers of them. I didn't take any photos here as I was not pausing to take my camera out of my bag, I just wanted to get through it. 

What was nice was the amount of children running around playing with kites, that was nice to see, although some were running around roof tops! 

The actual cinema was lovely and it was fun to see the film. We didn't have a clue as to what was going on, but the place was packed and there was a lot of audience interaction with the film, cheering and booing etc. 

The second evening we went to the monkey temple, this is a place where there are lots of temples and also a lot of monkeys. On entering the place we were accosted by a very scary man who wanted money of people who had cameras on them as there is a charge to take photos. He was very aggressive so I pretended I didn't have a camera, it was hidden in my bag, and I thought I am not giving you money, so I decided I just wouldn't take photos. 

What surprises me the most is that the majority of temples are so run  down and dirty. Any way we headed up the hill past loads of temples and the further up we went we came across more and more monkeys, we had been warned that they might grab things from us but they did not bother us at all. In this area there are also two bathing areas, one for ladies and one for men, so there were a lot of people in washing, we walked past them and came to a pool of  stagnant water at which the monkeys were 

congregating, some were even diving in from the roof of a nearby building, which was fun to see.  Although again once more the rubbish lying around was horrible. I have asked about the amount of rubbish lying around but have been told there is no organised rubbish collection. We carried on even further up the hill, in the stifling heat and I thought I had left climbing behind me at Macchu Picchu, but what a view from the top, it was lovely. 

I did take this photo, this is David getting his first geocache in India at the Monkey Temple. 

Sunset on the ganges

The last night we spent in Tapovan, in Rishikesh our driver took us to a ceremony which takes place everyday as the sun sets. At this time Hindus, led by religious leaders go to the Ganga River which is its real name rather than Ganges as we know it, apparently the British changed its name at the time of the British empire because they couldn't pronounce it.

Hindus believe that the  Ganges has special healing powers and basically was a gift from the gods, the god Shiva is linked to the river, so you see many statues of him along the bank. The ceremony starts with the blowing of a conch shell, then the religious men, use fire and move it in a circular motion around icons or statues of a god as songs and prayers are sang. At the end an offering is given to the river, usually flower petals and maybe sweets and at this time, people watching can also give an offering, often flowers in a holder with a candle while making a blessing or wish.

This happens at certain points all along the river every day.

In the afternoon we spent time chilling in the hotel pool as it is so hot, David had a staring competition with a dragon fly. There are some beautiful dragonflies here, while I was in the pool though, a dragonfly the size of a remote controlled plane decided to dive bomb me. I squealed David jumped up, not to help but to get a camera, my hero! 

 Our driver walked us to the point where the ceremony takes place and we joined other tourists and Hindus to wait for the sun to set. It was lovely seeing the sun go down over the river Ganges. Once the ceremony is done, the crowd put in their offering and then they scoop some of the water up from
the river three times. They then go to a flame which has been used in the ceremony and put their hands in the smoke and then put this to their eyes and forehead .  There were lots of people and it was a lovely atmosphere.

Some  of the offerings being added to the river. 

We then had to walk back to the hotel this is a good half hour walk, through market places and over rough tracks which we managed to cover easily in the daylight. On the way back though there was a power cut, there are many of these in India, which people just seem to accept as normal. This though plunged the place into total darkness, thankfully we were with our driver and he had his phone on him which he used as a torch. All we could see were random dark shapes on the path, it was dodge the sleeping cow, wandering goat and random holy man time. More to the point it was try to avoid the cow pats. It then became quite magical as many of the trees and bushes around started to glow, they 

were full of fireflies and it was lovely with everything twinkling away. 

The next day we headed back to Delhi to join up with our new tour group. We started early as we knew it was a long and busy road. It was mayhem, so much traffic, badly maintained roads and crumbling bridges. On the way we passed a man who had been knocked down crossing the road, he was still lying there, there were people around him trying to help and shield him as traffic was still flowing around him. We also passed two lorries that had crashed into each other and at one point there was a traffic jam because there was a buffalo sale going on at the roadside, there were buffaloes everywhere. 

We arrived late for our meeting, but did get there, David was getting more and more twitchy as time ticked on, he hates being late. There are ten in the group including us, 2 Welsh , 2 Germans , 2 Australians, an American and a New Zealander.  After our initial meeting we headed out to see India gate and the parliamentary buildings. 

                                                

India Gate

On the road, this bus has two layers , the top row of windows is an area where people lie down, so there are people sitting underneath them. They did not look comfy at all.

Typical scenes we drive past, houses and shops. There is rubbish everywhere. 

The end of Peru the start of India.

The poor Amazon I didn't seem to write much about, it was really good and we had a great time there but I wrote the blog one of the times I was travelling. I have been in so many airports lately flashing my passport photo to all and sundry.

We left Peru at 2 in the morning night flight to Canada, which saw us jump back in time, we sat in Canada airport for 8 hours and then got another night flight to London. We spent overnight in  London and then got a night flight to Sri Lanka, which saw us jump ahead in time, had an hour there and flew onto Delhi. So we are officially time travellers., all we need are sonic screwdrivers and we can fight aliens and save the universe. Mmmm could be a job opportunity!

The flight to Delhi saw an interesting group of people being brought together in some sort of religious fest. The Indians aboard were probably Hindu, there were a bunch of Muslim men, a Christian convention of about 30 people all with matching baseball caps and bags, some Sikhs,  one Buddhist monk and then there were a few tourists. I feel I should write a song about it to the tune of  On the Twelfth day of Christmas, titled On the Flight to Delhi there was a Motley Bunch.

Anyway, enough of that arrived in Delhi, we had a hotel booked through Booking.com which was going to send a car to pick us up. We worked our way through customs got outside the airport, no car, we strolled about hoping one would turn up but no joy. So we tried to call the hotel on our mobile phone, no joy, so we decided to go back into the airport to use phone, well what a kerfuffle, soldiers barred our way they were not happy at all. Eventually David negotiated with them, after much passport showing and gesturing that he would go in alone and make call, while I remained outside.

The hotel were not interested and told us just to catch a taxi, so we went to a prepaid taxi place outside the airport as advised by a person waiting at the airport. At this office a very excited man appeared who we took to be the taxi driver who grabbed our luggage trolley and headed off, all of ten steps to the taxi, then wanted money for dong it. We then got into our taxi, well a motorised metal box on wheels and headed to the hotel. At the hotel there was no apology about lack of car.and we were shown to our room. It was like an episode of An Idiot Abroad where Karl gets the worst room. There were clean sheets, but walls dirty, electric lamp fixed with tape and headboard nailed to wall squint. So David went and asked for another room which we got, the bedroom bit was a lot nicer so we agreed to it and I went for a shower. Remember, we have had lots of disturbed nights up to this and David not feeling well. Well shower head and hose not connected, so we decided to try and reattach, wasn't happening, so David went back to reception came back with a boy who only spoke Hindi who tried to fix the shower, he then left came back with tape and taped bits together! By this point I was beyond it and nodded alright and the boy left, so I went to have shower, to realise there was no shower door! Had shower anyway.

We stayed awake most of the night , as horrendous noise and decided we didn't want to stay.
The next day we nipped out across the road to a McDonalds just so we could get a drink for David to take medication when another Indian sidled up to me and said " I like your hair." What! I muttered thanks and moved away but he came and sat beside us and thankfully he turned out alright. He thought we looked sad and wanted to help. He asked why we were in the area and said to leave if possible as very dodgy, he actually said we should leave Delhi and go to the countryside. He advised us to go to the official tourist board place and actually got a tuk tuk to take us there. At this place they also advised us to leave Delhi, they got us a car and driver and booked us a hotel in Rishikesh so that is where we are now.

On the way to Rishikesh the driver stopped at dodgy hotel where we were told to grab bags, tell them we were checking out but not to say anything more.

Anyway Rishikesh is lovely but very hot, David taking really bad, so we have been in hotel pool most days just to cool off. It is at the foothills of the Himalayas so has a lot of wildlife around, we have seen plenty of monkeys and cows! Cows galore , all shapes and sizes and you know what that
 means, lots of cow pats! There is supposed to be panthers, elephants and snakes around too.

Our driver who is staying with us until we go back to Delhi, has been taking us for walks in The area and to local temples.   Tonight he is taking us to a ceremony in a temple which happens at sunset. So from a horrendous start we have landed lucky, and that is what makes adventures.

We liked this sign. 

Our driver Mr Dhobi with a cow that wouldn't leave me alone he is trying to get it away from me.

                                                    

One of the Hindu gods.

 

   Sat by the river Ganges, we are laughing because our driver didn't know how to take photo, ended up with about ten copies , a nearby policeman came to help.

 

A cow coming up from the river.

Our driver shared his knowledge of the local species when I asked what type of monkeys they were he said the one above is crazy monkey, the one below sensible monkey. So there you have it! 

Talk about crazy, the locals here seem to be obsessed with us! They keep taking our photo, this ranges from subtle like from a distance, shoving a phone camera in your face or taking selfies beside us! A lot of tourists come here so seems strange. At times when we sit down they sit beside you and just smile or shake your hand. A bit off putting to start with and there must be many photos out there of me either scowling, looking surprised or terrified. 

Leave here tomorrow for Delhi to join next tour group. 

Amazon Rainforest

A short flight, a minibus ride and a 2 hour boat ride up the  river saw us at Tambopata Lodge where we would stay for two nights in the jungle. As you can see the water is very brown due to the sediments in the river. The weather was lovely, sunny and hot, hooray. 

The view up the river.

Inside and outside our bungalow. There was no electricity in the bungalows so we had to use candles, it was really nice. 

This tree was right outside our bungalow, the blobby bits sticking down are bird nests. We could see black birds with yellow tail feathers going in and out of the nests.

This parrot is tame, and liked to get involved in football games between the locals and the tourists.

Some of the lovely plants outside our bungalows.

On the first night we went armed with torches for a night trek. Sadly the battery died in our good camera so I had to resort to using the iPad from then on, so many photo opportunities were missed. This apparently is a toucanette which we woke up, it was not amused, gave us the evil eye but didn't fly off.

This is a tree boa, but as a group we were not sure if it was real, a path led straight to it conveniently! It was high up in a tree so quite difficult to see clearly. 

In the morning we went back on the boat and headed up the river for our daytime trek. 

There were a few trees in the jungle which vines had grown down and killed, leaving the outer framework of vines as the trees became hollow. Here we are beside one of these. 

David being Tarzan! George George George of the jungle watch out for that tree!

We all went inside one and got our photo taken.

Posing beside one of the big trees.

David was chilling on the hammock when he was joined by this little grasshopper type thing

The guides cracked open these coconut type shells and there were lots of Brazil nuts inside. I did not know they grew like this. The tame parrot decided he would like to nibble on some.

A red squirrel in the rainforest! 

In the evening we were back on the river to look for cayman , which we found a lot of but the iPad is not good for taking photos at night. We saw lots of interesting animals in the jungle, saddle backed tamarin monkeys, howler monkeys, black cayman, white Cayman, turtles, a variety of birds, a tarantula, an electric eel, piranhas, sardines , butterflies galore etc. 

Oops moment. The jungle guide was pointing out a baby tarantula to us when Yuri our leader stepped on it by accident and killed it! 

We had a really good time in the jungle, it was very interesting and lovely and warm.