The next day I spent languishing in bed, under attack from a misdirected case of Delhi Belly. It somehow lost it’s way and found me in Rishikesh. And this, combined with a day hotter than mid-summer in hell, resulted in a day of great discomfort for me. At least the monkeys had buggered off so I could scuttle back and forward between room and toilet without having to arm myself with anything long and whackworthy. Who’d read about it though – me in an absolutely beautiful and terribly auspicious place and all I can do is look at the ceiling wall fan and the barely-hanging-together toilet door from the inside – not exactly the view I had in mind when I came here. What’s more, to really make it sickening, it was full moon. And not just any full moon – a Blue Moon. Sigh. Oh well, at least we enjoyed the moon last night, rising over the Himalayas, whilst listening to Pink Floyd. Of course, there was the obligatory indian dog barking it’s head off just outside our gateway for ages on end, to add a grounding touch to the scene. It was funny though, ‘cos about every 10 minutes when we’d all lost our auspicious patience with the mangy cur’s chorus, I’d mutter under my breath that someone should throw a rock at that dog. And sure enough, about 3 seconds after I said this each time, a rock would land on a piece of corrugated iron beside it and it would shut up for a short while. Me and somebody out there were obviously in sync.

NOTE: Even in the Western world Rishikesh is auspicious, as the Beatles wrote about 38 of their songs there, including “Obladi, Oblada” (what on earth were they thinking with THAT one??!!).

Needless to say, the day of the toilet was very uneventful, and the things that did eventuate I doubt you want to hear about.

Moving right along. Yesterday morning, we awoke to the blessed sound of thunder and rain. This lowered the temperature so much that I actually left our room and skipped a little rain dance, so happy was I not to be broiling alive any more. The green was greener than ever, the air was fresh and as yet untainted by the landrovers revving their engines by the gate below, the dog had lost it’s voice and I could actually move more than 3 feet without heading for the great white telephone. Ahh, the little joys in life.

We had a nice morning yakking and “taking chai” (in other words, lingering as long as decently possible over tea in a cafe while forking out as little money as possible) with a German couple also staying at our gueshouse. Our train wasn’t leaving until 11pm last night, so we had plenty of time on our hands. We also had a dip in the Ganga (Ganges River). You just can’t come all the way up here and not pay homage to the river – Ganga Ji. Surprisingly cold actually. Well, maybe not so surprisingly, considering it comes straight out of a glacier or something in the highest mountain range in the world. Funny how I should be so surprised. (Rolls eyes at self.)

Finally, we prepared for takeoff, having procrastinated at top speed, reluctance enhanced by the fact we now had to walk up very steep steps in the sun wearing backpacks. Remember those steps we meandered down when arriving here? Yes, there they squatted, patiently waiting, knowing full well that we would have to return and do the ‘up’ thing. And it hurt about as much as I expected.

We comforted ourselves, once recovery of breathe was retained, with a ride in a rickshaw all the way back to Haridwar, where the railway station is. The sort of rickshaw that one would normally think six people would squeeze into comfortably, and Indians can get at least 16 people into. We forked out enough rupees to have the darned thing to ourselves. Such opulence! Such indulgence! It felt great. Several people tried to flag the driver down along the way, but we had paid full fare ourselves and they looked on with disbelief as the driver went on by with only TWO PEOPLE IN IT!! It wasn’t nice of us to be smug about this, but we were anyway. The sides are open in these rickshaws, so you get a nice breeze. And also, if you can time them between the judder bars and potholes, you can take some good photos from out the sides. And to top off this fabulous experience, you have an almost front row seat of the driver playing chicken with buses, trucks, cars, other rickshaw drivers. etcetera. Quite exhilerating really – makes you feel alive. And lucky to be so from one second to the next.

So we obviously made it in one piece, and found ourselves with several hours to kill in Haridwar. Turns out it was an auspicious day of some sort (there are many of these throughout the year – if you miss one, another one will happen along shortly) and there were crowds of people thronging the banks of the Ganga. We wandered through the bazaar, which really looks like it’s name – full of shiny pretty things, stall after stall, lane after lane. We ate, we watched, we took photos, we ate some more, we took chai, we resisted touts and we saw only 3 other white faces that we could count. At dusk, the crowds gathered at the ghats (steps down to the river) and various and sundry things were going on – don’t ask me what because I really don’t get Hindi over a fuzzy microphone at the best of times – but it all looked like fun.

We did manage, however, to stay on the edge of the crowd and get a seat in a dhaba for dinner before the madding crowd turned up there. So we sat at a table (open air) and watched people, and they watched us. We figured some of them probably thought we were djins (ghosts) with such pale skin. Paul reckons most Westerners pass by this town and go straight on to Rishikesh, which is the Yoga capital of the world. We certainly were the object of the curiosity of many. After a while you learn to stare somewhere over their shoulders and look slightly bored, then once they’ve had their visual fill, they move on.

We only bought one thing each at the bazaar – I bought a shawl (rather proud of my powers of resistance to shopping here) and Paul bought a DVD which is really, really corny Indian music but features much of the local landscape. While he was buying it the powerpole a few feet away blew up with a spectacular shower of sparks. India is never a boring place.

Finally, back to the dreaded railway station, where of course the train you are assured many times over will leave at 10.55pm isn’t even at the station yet at 11.15pm. At one stage we wandered outside to sit on the steps and were suddenly surrounded by a reasonably-sized crowd of Indians who wanted to take a photo of us. We sort of shrugged and said O.K. (fair’s fair, we take photos of them) and before we knew it, a gorgeous woman was snuggled up next to Paul and posing, then a man tried to snuggle up with me for the same thing. I stopped in in his tracks with a stare and a “Noooo” that could have frozen lead, and hauled out the old “Tum bahut sherati ho!” (You are VERY naughty) routine. Well, that did it. Now they were even more fascinated. So that was another quarter hour of entertainment – more wonderful for them than it was for us. How do you explain to a babbling crowd that you speak no Hindi, even though you just spoke some to them? And one woman wanted my $2 shop japanese fan, although she couldn’t have bought it off me for $50 at that moment, in that heat. Various expletives did come to mind near the end of all this, but we managed to stay polite until they drifted away, then we ducked back inside the station to the comparative privacy of just being stared at by the hoards, as opposed to being babbled at also.

The train finally turned up and we climbed into the blessed relief of Air Conditioned cells. This was more upper class than we’re used to, and made even more attractive by the fact that noone was interested in us. The Railways actually provides sheets, blankets AND pillows in this section, so we were almost beside ourselves with ecstacy at this unaccustomed luxury. I told Paul my cunning plan of letting him do the worrying about what station to wake up for and promptly fell asleep. Aahhhhhhh. If only we could afford to travel like this more often. Still, you don’t know what luxury is if you have it all the time, huh? There’s nothing like roughing it to hone your sense of the fine things in life.

Speaking of which, I might go and wallow under the fan again and save up some energy for the next foray into the depths of Paharganj, Delhi.

After doing a stint in Janpath, to go to the Tibetan Row (shops), we organised storing our luggage in the luggage room down the road, had dinner on the roof and made our way to the Metro. This time the guards were even more interested in us as we had backpacks on. The “women’s things” trick didn’t work this time, so we had a bit of a performance unlocking padlocks so they could play spot the bomb. Naturally they didn’t find one, so on we went. We had to leave from Old Delhi Railway Station – a charmless place with rats as long as your forearms that will walk right up to you. I amused myself stomping at them while Paul went to buy water and check the platform-leaving situation. We were lucky enough to be near a pile of goodness-knows-what thingys done up in sacking bales, so I crouched down on one of them, feeling pretty pleased with myself for finding a seat. I decided to stand up again though once Paul told me that a rat had just run under my knees. I’m all for being sociable, but that’s just a little bit much for me. After all, we hadn’t even been introduced!

We actually found that we were in a cubicle on the train with foreigners. This was a first for me. Usually it’s with Indian families, etc. It felt almost strange. I actually slept unusually well on my slab, and things had been going along swimmingly, until I woke up to my alarm going off at 4.45am. Theoretically, we were supposed to get to Haridwar at about 5.15am. Well, 5.15 came and went and nobody seemed interested in waking up. We stopped at a station for ages and I had no idea where it was, as I couldn’t find any locals that spoke english. Paul just downright wouldn’t wake up, and sometime during the night a woman, a man and a baby had sprawled on the floor between the bunks, so I couldn’t even sit up and take photos of the scenery out the window, for fear of standing on the baby. So, here I was, cramped in my little lower bunk, not able to even sit up, not knowing where on earth we were, wondering if we should be leaping off about now, and I seemed to be the only one that gave a damn!

Around 6.15, we pull up at another station and everybody magically awakens and starts getting ready to get off. Paul was particularly chirpy, the rotten so-and-so, and was obviously puzzled about why I was so grumpy. That’s it – from now on, I’m going to just sleep and let him worry about what station.

So we got off and walked along the station, with me willing to bite the head off anyone that approached me. I had my sunglasses on so my glare wouldn’t scare anyone innocent. Then we walked past a guy who was sprawled on the footpath with insects swarming all over him and a puddle of urine nearby. We were pretty sure he was dead. That was a bit of a shock to the system. As Paul puts it, this is my first visit to an Indian holy place and the first thing I see is a dead man. However, apparently by Indian standards, this (Haridwar) is a good place to die. Bless the guy, at least his suffering is over.

Once out of the station, we made our way to a cafe, through honking buses and idiot touts who couldn’t take no for an answer. Once I’d had a bit to eat and a couple of chai’s, I started to come right a little. We jumped on a bus to Rishikesh and I quite enjoyed the ride up, as we had a good seat in the front and the scenery was quite interesting. This is where I got my first view of the Ganges River. They have a Shiva statue here that’s absolutely enormous! Boy, these guys are good at statues.

The signs here are great – “This is a highway, not a runway” (on the side of the road), the ‘Fair Look’ beauty clinic, the ‘Jolly Clinic’, the “Happy Faces’ school, etc.

From Rishikesh, we took a rickshaw to Luxman Jula and then walked down winding, narrow steps for ages until we came to the huge swing bridge across the Ganges that Luxman Jula is named for. We booked into a nice old building that runs a guesthouse and they gave us a room 3 times the size of the cell they give us in Delhi. The only drawback was the fan was too far away from the beds, so didn’t really have any effect. A rearrangement of furniture soon sorted that out though.

We had lunch overlooking the Ganga. We could see the bridge from there and the monkeys hassling the people from the cables above. Laxman Jula is quite a beautiful place with huge, impressive temples in nicely painted colours. Our guesthouse is next to one, which is several stories high. People walk up each story and ring the big bells there as they get to each level. So we have bells ringing all day. It’s a darn sight nicer than the honking, etc in Delhi though, so we not complain.

In the evening, we had dinner at another cafe overlooking the river from the other side, and this place had monkeys doing their get-silly-at-dusk thing and jumping on the roof then off the side of the buildings into the trees below. Cheap food and entertainment with it – wonderful!

After dinner we wandered up the hill to town and Paul decided to get a shave and trim in a little shack on the side of the road. They gave him a trim and just as they were about to shave him, the power went off. So they lit candles and carried on. Paul is a very brave man. Like heck would I let someone at my throat with a cutthroat razor in the candlelight! Ten points for intestinal fortitude, I say.

Meanwhile, I sat outside watching several little frogs hopping here and there. They are just so cute. It’s not often you get to see frogs these days and it seemed like I had happened across a frog highway. Even a little firefly got stuck in my hair. What a magic place.

I got up this morning and went to the toilet on the corner of the building. When I came back out, opening the flimsy wooden door that only just locks, there was a monkey on the roof about three feet away from me. That woke me up! Turned out, the place was surrounded by monkeys – Rhesus vs Langhurs, fighting over the mango tree out the front. What a racket! The rhesus ones are happy to land as heavily as possible on the roofs and threaten and scream and carry on. Again, I watched with camera, although I kept under the roofs and had my umbrella with me as an anti-monkey device.

Tuesday evening we went to Sadar Bazaar on a cycle rickshaw. An excellent way to travel as you can see everything around you well and watch this curious place as you go by. Sadar Bazaar has even smaller alleyways than Paharganj, which stretches the mind somewhat. It’s a lot trickier trying to follow Paul in the crowd there, as it’s even more intense, also. I dunno how he finds his way to these places – I just watch where my feet are going, watch out for rickshaws coming up behind and watch him racing along in front of me until we finally get there. It’s not exactly a leisurely pace for looking around the place, but the last thing I want is to be lost in that crowd! You just don’t see white faces around there, and asking for directions can be a very hit and miss affair.

We must have spent about three hours in this shop. We sat on bar stools at the counter and Paul ordered what he needed while I looked around, up, down, through glass counters, and then some. There is stuff everywhere, like Aladdin’s cave and it’s hard to look at everything because your eyes don’t know where to land first! By 9pm, after the power had gone out a couple of times and the alleyways were clearing and dark corners were everywhere with who-knows-what lurking in them, I was starting to feel a little anxious about walking back through this place. Paul just shrugged his shoulders and strolled back down the lanes again. It turned out fine, as we actually only had to go straight ahead for a few metres and we were back out on the street. Thing is, he takes the route down the lanes, left, right, left, right, etc, because that’s the route he was on when he first found the shop. Completely logical to him, but all too confusing for a blonde with no sense of North.

On the ride back out (rickshaw again) I was able to take a better squizz at our surroundings. It’s a fantastically atmospheric place with rubbish up to ankle height and multi-level squalor – many-layered brick or concrete boxes on top of each other that serve as dwellings, with sacking for doorways and women in sarees peeping out from them, silhouetted against light from bare lightbulbs. New Zealand seems so incredibly sane and tidy in comparison to this.

We also drove past families living on the sides of the roads. I saw one mother sitting on the footpath with three progressively small children lying on a piece of plastic. This was their home. It’s so hard to get your head around somebody living like this, when you know that in your home country no one has ever starved to death and we all at least have a roof over our heads.

Back to the rooftop where we lounged about in what now seems like incredible luxury, despite the fact the roof of the building next door has been crumbling away for years now and you often see bodies sleeping on the roof. I think that’s more to catch a breeze than a case of homelessness. After seeing places like Sadar Bazaar, our rooftop perch is a high-quality oasis.

We also went to the train station yesterday to get tickets for our first journey out of Delhi. I had to laugh at a sign saying “May I help you?” with an arrow pointing to the door. Polite way of saying ‘go away’? Turns out we couldn’t get our usual second-class non-aircon places on the train for the return trip, so we will be returning with an aircon bed each. Well, bed being a slight exaggeration. More like a slightly padded slab, six to a cubicle, reminiscent of sardines in a tin. Anyway, aircon should be interesting to see. Apparently it actually gets very cold sometimes, so I’ll be taking a shawl for this.

Last night, we had dinner at a dabha (cafe) on the side of the street. Well, raised off the street by a concrete slab, but not enough to take away the exotic experience of swallowing dust from the traffic along with your dinner. I also get a giggle out of how anyone can just come along and slump down at your table, or help themselves to your water jug or pinch your sugar. Talk about class.

While sitting there, a wedding procession went past. First came the musicians, with drumming and trumpeting – not necessarily playing the same tune. Which some one pointed out isn’t actually that easy to do. Then the living candelabra – men with many-layered lights on their heads. Then the horse carrying the groom and a little boy, dressed up in royal colours and dripping with gold. A few more lights and then the generator that actually runs the lights. Not to mention the traffic trying to fit all around them at the same time. Very entertaining, and we felt fortunate to see such a spectacle whilst dining on our thali. Later on, back on the rooftop (I think we may be starting to resemble bats with all the time we spend up there), they treated us to some lovely fireworks in the distance. Nice ending.

Okay, I’d better go. We’re off to dinner then into the madding crowd at the trains stations. Oh boy, my favourite thing (eyes rolling). We’re off to Rishikesh tonight. We’ll arrive at 5am tomorrow (another favourite thing of mine……same look).

Monday night was awesome. Finally we had some rain, and along with that, a spectacular electrical storm. So we went up to the rooftop, which is a great place to be a spectator at such a time. Walking on the roof to the sheltered bit was a little freaky, as we were ankle-deep in water on slippery marble and lightening was all around. You can’t really rush when walking on wet marble, as it’s bound to lead to a trip to the hospital and an intimate relationship with a plaster cast or two. However, once seated and with a gin each and Pink Floyd playing on my little iPod stereo, it was a fantastic show. We watched airplanes in the distance landing and taking off and wondered how that felt for the passengers in them. I hope I don’t get to experience it!

The whole scene was just brilliant and if it wasn’t for the waiters passionately yelling at each other , TV blaring at top volume on the next level down, dogs fighting on the street below and the honkings of millions of horns, it probably would have been quite romantic.

At least it cooled the air off for a while. Once it stops raining though, you quickly feel the temperature rising again within moments you’re living in a sauna. Paul calls this ‘raining up’.

India is a place of noise. Even back in your own room you still have to listen to the fan spinning around and the next door room’s air conditioning going. There is no such thing as quiet here. It’s funny how you get used to it though and filter most of it out. And it really is an odd thing to put a staunch padlock on your door every time you leave your bedroom, and to watch out for little lizards running between your toes. I’d hate to stand on one of them – a little squishy for me, and without a doubt a real discomfort for the lizard.

The guesthouses have a lot of character in this neighbourhood and ours is no exception. On the rooftop, at the ‘restaurant’, they have made an attempt to get it looking nice. They have cane chairs, a woven bamboo roof, pot plants, etc. This is then offset by black plastic water tanks, lime green tarpaulins around the edges, air coolers that have to be one of the ugliest things ever invented and cats that squat inches away from you watching your dinner with mercenary eyes. An eclectic mix.

And the waiters are characters also. Yesterday we used the room service for lunch. When I asked the waiter, Akash, how much we owed him he said “Too much.” “Oh dear”, said Paul, “we only have one much.” Akash cracked up and laughed all the way back upstairs.

Our new tailor is a wonderful Muslim guy of great style and an excellent sense of fashion. His name is Saleem. He took us to his thinking room’, which has about as much room as the average kiwi toilet. It’s loaded up to the gunnels with samples of clothing he has either made or collected, which appear to have been thrown against the walls until they have piled up near to the ceiling. There’s about 3 square feet of floorspace and once all three of us are in there there’s not enough room to swing a teabag, leave alone a cat. But he really knows what he’s doing, charges very reasonably and has a hilarious giggle. I reckon he’d fit right into the Hollywood scene, no problem. Always he wears his own designs and has far too much panache to sweat. How he manages that I don’t know – once I’ve been wearing clothing for about one minute I’m dripping already. This is not an exaggeration!

Sunday night we dined on the rooftop of our guesthouse again and we actually counted at least six stars. We were amazed – the last two times here we would say ‘all the stars are out tonight’ if there were three! On Monday I had a horrible head cold. A really bizarre thing to have in the middle of summer in Delhi. I sort of flopped around feeling sorry for myself in the morning and alternated between having cold showers and lying under the fan while still wet, blowing my nose and coughing. I blame the air conditioning on the airplanes. This always gets to my sinuses! Last year I brought sinus spray with me and it worked a treat, but this year because of the security measures with liquids and whatnot, I had to toss it away at the airport. So really, it’s the terrorists’ faults, darn them.

In the afternoon, we went to the R-Expo shop, where the esteemed Mr Om holds court. His name is apparently Mr Sharma, but he calls himself Mr Om to make it easier for the tourists. What’s hard about the word ‘Sharma’ to pronounce I don’t know, but there we have it. As usual, he was incredibly charming whilst charging me like a wounded bull for the things he kept (most unchivalrously) showing me that he knew I couldn’t resist, and as usual I found myself buying two of some things that I didn’t really even need one of. A man of great talent.

On the way back to the room an older man on the street said to me “You are a teacher”. “How did you know this?” I enquired. “You have the face of a teacher” said he, with a look that bespoke both humbleness and wisdom. I didn’t have the heart to say to him that I had already told a few people here what I do and it’s not that big a neighbourhood. (Gossip is a national pastime here and moves faster than water downhill.) It was much more fun to listen to him try to have me on with his apparent insight and they do spin a good tale around here.

(Teacher is easier to say to these guys than trying to explain you are a literacy tutor and listen to them trying to get their tongue around it. I tried that once and it made me wince a lot.)

Anyway, this man, who hails from Bhutan, failed in his attempt to get me sitting down for a chai. I used my old backup emergency exit plan of “My husband is waiting for me and tapping his foot” and disappeared. When I got back to the room, Paul said “Ah, yes, the man from Bhutan.” Turns out Bhutan man has a few things to sell and strolls about the bazaar looking for fresh, untried tourists whose grip on their rupees is not quite as strong as it should be, or will become after a few days of dwelling in this circus. It’s nice to know that my wits are getting sharpened in this area of things.

Speaking of our room, I had a bit of a giggle when I realised that the curtains were both floral and completely mismatched. The ones on the other window are completely different again. There should be a sign on the wall – “This room and probably all others in this establishment were proudly decorated by Rough as Guts Interior Designing Co.”.

We went for a ride on the Metro to Connaught Place. The metro is a lot busier this year – you actually have to queue for a token. Although the queues are still fairly civilised there – unlike a lot of other ones in Indian situations, where it’s every man for himself and the more elbows you have the better. Again, we went through an electronic gateway and were scrutinised by security guys. Mind you, the first guy looked at Paul’s bag and then I lifted mine towards him and said “woman’s things” and he waved me away. This mortal fear of women’s’ handbags appears to be a worldwide phenomenon.

Connaught Place is a large (really) circular area with a round garden in the middle and shops around the outside of that. Of course we got out of the metro through the gate on the opposite side of where we needed to go so we had to walk through the center garden in the roasting hot sun. A truly horrible feeling. (At 40-odd degrees, this is not such a good joke.) By the time we got to our destiny I was almost reeling from being broiled alive. Only mad dogs and Kiwi twits will put themselves through this. To add insult to injury, we went to a restaurant to cool off and have lunch and I ordered vegetable pakora. I was so busy reeling that I hadn’t realised that the restaurant was a southern Indian style one. They really like their spices down there. And I do believe that half of Southern India’s spices were loaded into my pakoras. This is just what I needed – broiling on the outside and blistered on the inside. Spice is all very wonderful, but I don’t understand this concept of cauterizing your taste buds so you can’t even taste the food anyway and even drinking water now hurts. I was really kicking myself by now because I was really hungry. Oh well, lesson learnt and in the future I shall make careful enquiries as to the origins of the restaurant chefs.

Finally we got back to lovely, smelly, noisy, crazy Paharganj. Now this place I feel at home with. Across the road from our guesthouse I amused myself haggling for a second-hand book – a great pastime, this haggling with the locals – went up to our rooftop for a plate of nice, mild chinese chow mein and commenced to get over my jet lag, hunger and internal blisters in the laziest manner possible. In fact, I went to sleep at approximately 4.30pm and found myself wide awake at 4.30am. At this time of day, only prowling cats and lizards are awake. However, they all kept me company out in the hallway while I continued reading my book and waited for the rest of the world to catch up with my totally sane sleeping and waking habits.

Sunday found me back out on the street trying to find my tailor from last year. I led Paul down the alleyway he was in – creeping past Paul’s previous tailor’s doorway, a man we love to hate – but couldn’t find my tailor anywhere. So, back out onto the street to find the Ravindra Bros. material shop. Couldn’t find that either. So, down another alleyway to Sunny’s place. Sunny, as it turned out, was the guy that recommended the Ravindra Bros to me in the first place, so he gave us directions. When we got to the shop (essentially a large hole in the wall at the side of an alleyway, or ‘lane’ and Paul so nicely puts it), I gave the main brother (a smiley man in a fabulous turban) a photo I had taken of them last year. He was grinning from ear to ear about this. It was well worth the trouble it took to see that look on his face.

Once again I helped pay off the Ravindra Bros mortgage by buying far too much material. They’re just so pleasant and the material is just so gorgeous – rotten tactics, I say. We than went around the corner into another ‘lane’ and sat down for a chai. We’d just decided we might as well eat there when a little mouse ran across the courtyard and into the kitchen. Mulling it over, we decided that we would risk eating there, as the mouse was actually very skinny, which we took for a good sign. If the mouse had been fat, we would have presumed it ate there regularly and removed ourselves to another establishment. Also the fact I’d seen a weasel in plain sight an alleyway or two over told me that the pest control services were alive and well and chances were it was a fairly good risk.

Turns out the food was fine. I had Aloo Bhiaj Paneer (a very exotic name for mashed potatoes with onion and cheese) which I didn’t think had a lot of risk attached to it and it was rather nice. There were various westerners sitting around and wandering through. The types that look like they got left behind in the 70’s and 80’s and have quite forgotten how to get home and don’t care anyway.They’ve probably been lurking in these alleyways and sleeping in cheap rooms for years – their familiarity with the area and the locals gives credence to this concept. All in all, very entertaining. And a touch you will never see on a New Zealand cafe wall – a sign saying “I Love U – F #@* Off”. You have to wonder at such times if the owners actually know what the sign says. Or did they put it there because it was shiny and the words show up in the light nicely?

Well, we made it. I’m now sitting in an internet cafe in Paharganj, Delhi.

The beginning of the trip was kicked off by a severe tasting session at the Duty Free shop in Auckland Airport. As far as drinks go, I can recommend the following:
Nah, never mind. The list is too long. However, may I say it was condusive to looking at a 12 hour plane trip with a slightly enhanced enthusiasm and by no means a dry whistle.

I had forgotten to take the scissors out of my spongebag, so I got had up by a customs guy. They didn’t open as wide as 6cm though, so he let me through. Neither he nor I could figure out how that lessened the killability of said possible weapon, but hey – who’s complaining? And combined with my lack of mean, killer look…

The new Bangkok airport is pretty Jetsons style. You stand on moving footpaths to get throught the miles-long corridors. We had a bit of fun with that. After checking into the hotel, we wandered across the road – nay, veritably risked our lives in a suicidal dash, to be nearer the truth – to have a taste of wonderful, genuine Thai cuisine. YUM!!! As fantastic as ever.

Yesterday we went shopping in Bangkok. (As is a girl’s wont.) Most fortuitously, the market is right outside our hotel room door. A few new clothes later, we find ourselves restudying the age old travellers art of stuffing more into your backpack than it can actually hold. This includes one bottle of alchohol each, because apparently going from Bangkok thru to Delhi, you aren’t allowed to carry the usual 2 bottles through. Go figure. Crossing fingers that they didn’t break and we didn’t land in Delhi to pick up alchohol-sodden backpacks. When we got to the BK airport, we were told we also couldn’t carry the one bottle each we had left in our duty-free bags! So we had to go find the Post Office (which of course, bowing to Murphy’s law, was at the other end of the monstrous terminal) and repack them into a box with mega bubblewrap, etc. Then they had to be checked in. What a performance, just to have a drink at the other end! It will be enjoyed with relish, of course.

Just before we went through Customs, Paul realised he’d forgotten about the free hipflask he’d gotten with his duty-free purchase in Auckland. Customs said he couldn’t take it through because it added up to more than 100ml. So they gave him a choice of throwing it away or going to some seats at the side and drinking it. What do you think he did? (With a little tiny bit of help from me. I’m his friend – what to do?)

So again, we had lots of fun with the Jetsons moving footpaths and hopped onto the plane to Delhi. After landing, we – now experts at the art of being amongst the first off the plane and cueing at India customs lines – raced through and were amongst the first to be at the baggage claim. Well, serves us right for being so smart. Two bits of our luggage turned up fairly quickly, but the third was one of the last bits to come out. So that set us back about three quarters of an hour. How on earth does that work when you checked your luggage in together in the first place?! That was when we knew we were in India. The law of Randomness and the Bizarre is still alive and well here.

Taxi and richshaw later (and wonderful, noisy, honking traffic that makes Bangkok look totally sane), we’re finally at the Guesthouse. We would have celebrated if we hadn’t been so exhausted. All we could do was dump our luggage, crawl up to the rooftop restaurant and flop about in cane chairs drinking Limca, saying ‘Yay’ in pathetic weak voices.

I’m glad to report that the bottles we packed into our backpacks arrived intact. We would have celebrated that too, if we hadn’t been to weak to take the lids off.

This morning, after a hot sticky sleep on concrete-hard beds, we were back on the rooftop eating ‘butter toast’ with VEGEMITE and NZ Coffee, which I brought with me in tubes. Yum. We were very glad to see the usual waiters here. They’re lovely guys and were very welcoming. It was so nice to see them again.

I watched some cows being milked over the side of our building. Hard case sight in the middle of the city – crows and eagles flying overhead. Where else do you get such a mixture of city and nature so close together? No sign of monkeys raiding the water tanks yet though.

Well, it’s hot and sticky, and we’ve managed to accomplish 2 chores and now we’re exhausted again. Takes a bit of acclimatising, this. I’m about to dive back out on the street and take my chances with the traffic, cows, potholes and heat again. It’s gone fairly smoothly though – I’ve only turned down 15 offers of rickhsaw rides and 22 touts asking if I want everything under the sun at ‘special price madam’. I’m now off to find a chai wallah for a cup of Indian tea.

We woke up to a day tinged with sadness, as this was our last day in Orchha. I went out to the balcony to do a nostalgic nosy-parker act over the edge and watched a boy going round the sweet-sellers selling recycled packaging. These are packets made out of newspaper, etc, and rather professionally put together if you ask me. I don’t know if people have machines somewhere or do this by hand, but I reckon it’s a great idea. I’ve collected a few of them now, at drapery shops, hardware stores, etc – I decided to abandon the ones served with oily food, for obvious reasons. Some of them are rather interesting to read. In one case I received a schedule for a tour of Egypt. Three nights in Cairo and a tour of Luxor anyone?

Another thing I love to see is the plates made out of leaves. These get pressed into a bowl shape and are held together at the bottom with a toothpick. When you’ve finished your food, you toss your plate on the street and the cows come along and do your dishes for you. Wonderful system. The Western world should be taking example from this. Photo of one here

After a little while of indulging in the art of couch potato, along came Paul’s friend Indu. He’s a tour guide in Orchha and nearby areas. He’d heard Paul was back in town and had got up at 4.30am to drive to Orchha from Kajuraho (about 150km) and get together with us. It was wonderful to see him as all sorts of people had been trying to get hold of him to let him know we were around, but he’d changed his phone number. We thought we were going to miss him – bummer! Eventually, by some miracle, he found out about out arrival and hot-footed into town just in time.

He put himself in charge of our morning and took us to a friend’s place for breakfast. A lady from Finland who has been around for a while and has established a school of yoga, reflexology, etc in Orchha. They call each other brother and sister and she growls at him and kisses him on the cheek at the same time. He takes it all with a pleased grin.

We all ended up in Maya’s kitchen putting together a breakfast fit for a king, with the help of a lovely young boy from somewhere nearby, and sat down on the floor to indulge. Quite an extensive menu for such short notice – spicy omelette, toast, an Indian sunday noodle dish, curd, a Finnish sweet dish which nobody could identify in English, etc. Shortly, along came two more guests – a couple of delightful young women from Holland, both teachers. A little while later, an Indian woman, also from nearby, joined us also. She does some sort of massage and has a shop nearby as well. Then another Indian guy popped in and threw himself into the fray. It turned into a lovely, spontaneous gathering and every person there was interesting and added greatly to the conversation. What rotten luck that we only discovered this fascinating lot on our last day in town. It was one of those times that could have easily gone all day long and into the night. Which I gathered from the conversation just before we left was precisely what was going to happen.

Of particular interest was the Indian guy’s life story. He was raised in a small jungle village and lived in a home that was less than pleasant, largely due to his father by the sound of things. Trains often stopped at his village and he’d watch them come and go and vow to himself that one day he would get on one of those trains and travel to somewhere else.

When he turned eleven, that’s exactly what he did. He jumped on a train and left town. He didn’t know where he was going because he’d never been out of his village before, but he didn’t let that get in the way. He ended up falling asleep on the train and at the last stop the train conductor woke him up to kick him off. He told the conductor his story and the conductor took pity on him and sent him off to his brother’s chai shop to work until he got on his feet.

After working there for a while, he met up with a doctor who came regularly for chai and they would often chat and practice English together. Months went by, then the doctor offered him a job as assistant in his general practice. He spent about seven years working for the doctor and putting himself through college. Then, with a pocket full of rupees, he went back to his village. He sat in a chai shop across the road from his house for a while, watching his family come and go. Then he went and approached his mother. She didn’t know who he was until he spoke, then she knew this was her son and promptly fainted. As it turned out, his father had died and his mother and sisters were probably struggling a fair bit. He built them a house to live in, then carried on with his travels. He’s since been all over the world, including New Zealand (he knew enough to call us ‘bluddy kiwis”) and worked in all sorts of situations and is now a yoga teacher. He’s a very cruisy type of guy who speaks beautiful English and has a marvellous sense of humour. And an amazing life story!

After reluctantly pulling ourselves away from Maya’s magic hospitality, we wandered back to check out of our guesthouse (well after checkout time, which cost us another day’s rent, but it was worth it). On the way we saw a dead snake on the road outside the tailor’s shop. I was rather fascinated – it was the first time I’d ever seen a real snake close up. It looked a bit like a kid’s rubber snake toy, except it’s head had been crushed by something or someone less than sympathetic to its kind. Later on I walked past it again and had another look at it, and an old guy across the road went “burrggghh” at me to make me jump. We both cracked up laughing – old he might be, but he still had plenty of kid left in him yet.

We spent most the afternoon and early evening packing and saying goodbyes to everyone. I made a little movie with the kids saying “Namaste” to my daughter Ayla, as Ayla and I had made one to say “Namaste” to Nilu from New Zealand. I watched the next-door neighbour chasing his calf around with assorted children, as the calf was not only a Houdini but also a very fast runner, and then I had to take assorted photos of him, calf, kids, kids and calf, kids, calf and him, etc. Rani gave me a beautiful necklace, Mokesh gave Paul some “Rattlesnake” magnets (the latest in groovy toys) to play with, Nilu cried, people gathered round the front of the restaurant and a flutist played beautiful music while cows meandered by peacefully, and the whole time was lovely while tinged with the sadness of knowing we wouldn’t see each other for at least another year.

Finally we pulled ourselves away and boarded Niru’s rickshaw, then set off down the road to Jhansi. We stopped along the way to have chai at Niru’s house and meet his beautiful new wife, then carried on to play out the usual masochistic performance at the railway station (sigh).

Once again, we had the correct platform sorted out, even to the extent our names were on the lists pinned on the board, then of course the “hang on a minute, you’re looking too comfortable” goblin turned up and the intercom started in on us. “Tadaaaaa!! Your attention please! Important announcement. Werhslhgdsla soigr hudfoim;g lkkjgosdsufewoinbh. Would all passengers on this train please board immediately on platform ioesghjroi ;jg, as your train is about to leave”. Naturally, the number they are quoting sounds exactly like your train number and you don’t know whether to run up and down stairs and platforms and check it out, risking missing the train if you are in the right place, or stay put and hope you’re just hearing it wrong. Of course, added to all this, is the train coming from the other direction containing a driver who really likes to sound his horn profusely during the most crucial wording of this really important announcement and you feel your teeth starting to clench and your hands curling into talons and you try to resist thoughts of throttling said driver. You then embark upon the generally unhelpful practice of asking twelve to twenty people around you which city they’re headed for, taking from this a mathematical average of how many indicate the same destination versus those who say otherwise and really look like they know what they’re talking about, and try not to let your brain turn into knotty soup. There should be a homeopathic remedy for this whole thing, perhaps named “Platform De-Stress” or “Train Be Calm”.

I don’t know why I haven’t learnt yet to just lapse into “it’ll turn out fine, it always does” mode, because we were on the right platform and our train was only twenty minutes late and before we knew it we were rolling our way back to Delhi.

I was regularly watching a woman who sells vegetables over the balcony of our guesthouse, and came to admire the way she could wield her long stick at the cows who came to check out her wares. I thought they were rather polite actually, sniffing each pile with great delicacy first, before attempting to help themselves. But they didn’t reckon on her clubbing abilities. She’d let out a great yell then baton them on the rump with a wonderful flourish and off they’d run, looking as surprised and embarrassed as a cow possibly can.

A day or two later, a young girl was sitting nearby with some flowers to sell to the temple-goers. She also had a bovine audience, but she just couldn’t deal to them in the same direct and effective way that the vegetable woman could and some of the flowers did indeed end up in some of the cow stomachs. Never mind, in a few years I expect she’ll have developed more talent in this direction.

There was also a young man of about seventeen who sold flowers and I watched his display skills with great admiration. He did a wonderful job of it and I’m sure in a different situation he would make an excellent interior decorator. Perhaps I should have suggested it to him – I’m sure he could really make it in New York.

Here’s a photo of some women on a pilgrimage to the Temple. They stared up at me with great curiosity. According to one of the guys at the guesthouse, these women would never have seen a foreigner before.

While Paul was still abed, I went for breakfast at the Ram Raja. Little Laxman (spelling?) who is about two or three years old, was crying about something or other, and he had men around him blowing up balloons, talking to him, trying to distract him in various ways and even one guy playing beautiful flute music to try and cheer him up. It was rather a lovely scene. Meanwhile his mother, who he was leaning all over trying to tell his very sad story to, was being terribly pragmatic and unsympathetic and I guess he just didn’t have enough blood or broken limbs on him to get through to her soft mother-heart. I had to chuckle to myself, as I myself have been the same way with my kids when I was busy and they were telling dramatic stories about how someone had just stepped on their pet flea or whatever.

A man came along with a women in tow, veil over her head and a rag tied around her finger. I’m not sure what the story was, but before long a crowd had gathered around and one of the old characters always hanging around the restaurant took the rag off and gave her some instructions. It was one of those times I wished I knew Hindi, because whatever he was saying was apparently quite humorous.

Another humorous part was the children trying to teach me how to count to ten in Hindi. I got as far as five and was quite proud of myself. Admittedly I could already count to three. Give me a break here – I’m getting old.

We walked up to the Chauta Bhuj (must get the spelling for all these words) and watched the langurs for a while, taking a few photos along the way. There were a lot of centipedes and they all looked very busy going round and round in circles. I don’t know where they thought they were going or what they were doing but they all seemed to think it was very important to get there. We had to be careful where we sat and one or two even walked over my hand when I was trying to take photos over the side of the stairway. It seemed we had bumped into rush hour on Centipede highway.

Later on we thought we’d take a stroll through some of the streets I’d never seen before. Paul reckoned some of them here and there looked a lot like Spanish streets. We got “hello hello hello” from kids, so many we actually started looking for an exit, when we got invited into the home of a man he vaguely knew to take chai. In the one room we entered I counted six kids and lost count of the adults milling and sitting about. I ended up in the courtyard out the other door with some women and was requested to meet and take photos of the mother, sister, sister-in-law, niece, nephew, etc and one rather spoiled puppy. My duty done as journalist/personal photographer, I stepped back inside to the mens world and had my chai. Yummy as usual. I must learn how to make that stuff as well as so many of the men here do. There were pictures plastered all over the walls – magazine pictures of gorgeous women mostly – and they didn’t have sarees on either! Men!

Again, slim Hindi versus slim English. Everyone runs out of conversation fairly quickly in this situation and you sit there smiling at the kids and the dog and drink your chai until you’ve finished. It is pretty cool though that you get to see their world and they get to see and stare at you for a while (generally fairly politely) and one way or another, I think we all give some form of inspiration to each other.

Evening time came and we went to the Ram Raja and popped out the other side to their back yard. Never before have I seen a back yard with a river and a palace in it. Rather a nice way to see the sun set, I must say. Paul’s friend Biru had a small bottle of 8PM whiskey, about the size of a hip flask or so, which he kindly shared with us and we whiled away a pleasant hour or two sipping on that and eating pakora.

Biru slipped off after a while, leaving us with the rest of the whiskey. It wasn’t that bottle that did the damage. It was the second bottle we managed to conjure up that did it. I’ll always have fond memories of that night – meandering our way home, saying goodnight to all our favourite cows and street dogs, all of whom did a fabulous job of hiding their snickers at these two foolish people walking slightly sideways under the streetlights, stepping with great and unneeded exaggeration over the cow pats.

Have you ever had a cow wander up to you at a restaurant? This is only one of the delightful features of dining in Orchha, aside from the wonderful food. Another one is being guarded by street dogs, as you share their territory and dine whilst watching the traffic veer around you, nobody blinking an eye at the fact this might be a little unusual.

We arrived in Orchha at the reasonably civilised hour of 6.45am. As opposed to about 3am last time. Paul thought I should have a tempo experience from the train station, so we got into a tempo (sort of like a large auto rickshaw) and apparently we were lucky that there were only thirteen people in it rather than twenty or more. This is in a space about the size of your average hatchback car. Luckily we were in the front (three of us and driver) and I had the window seat – in other words, squashed into the outer seat with bits of me spilling over the edge – so I was able to see the drive into Orchha and take a bit of movie footage as well.

The first thing we did when we got there was walk up to Ram Raja restaurant, where our friends are, and there were the kids setting up for the day. When Mokesh, the eldest at 13, saw Paul, his eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Paul” he screamed, then more or less jumped into Paul’s arms. It was really sweet.

We appeared to have bought the monsoon to Orchha with us, so after we booked into our guesthouse, I went and stood on the balcony, smugly using my new umbrella as shelter, and watched the langur monkeys for a while. Three of them were perched on the rooftop and archway just across from us, spying on the people below and sheltering from the rain. There were also a bunch hanging out on the Chautabhuj, one of the big temples here which is a mixture of Moghul and Hindi architecture. Lizards abounded on the walls of our guesthouse also, which was nice. I didn’t see any monkeys or lizards up at Bharmour and I was starting to miss them.

We went for a bit of a wander across the river and took a few photos from an angle I’d not seen before, then had a late lunch at the corner restaurant, trying to spread our money around a bit amongst the business. While we were waiting for food, a little street puppy trotted happily past us with a mouse in its mouth. He had his lunch sorted!

Back to the Ram Raja for dinner. Yummy. Then we went through to the back to give the kids the presents we had brought with us. At first they were all asleep in a bundle on a woven cot in the corner, but within seconds one of them woke up and saw us, then next thing they all sprung out of bed in one lump and were all over us and wide awake. Mayhem proceeded to erupt. The knucklebones were cool, so were the diary, coloured pencils and train whistle, they had no idea what a yoyo was, so that took a bit of explaining, and they all knew how to use the bubble blowers. But the best present of all was a simple rubber toy, like half of a tennis ball. You turn it inside out, put it on the ground, then when the tension has loosened enough it goes “POP” and jumps way up in the air. They thought this was a great joke.So did the adults. And as it turned out, so did half the village. Might take two back next time. I can see this one’s going to get worn out in a hurry.

Next day we went up to the Laxmi Temple. Parbat borrowed a mate’s rickshaw to drive us up there, which was a bit of a giggle. Brand new rickshaw too – it felt very posh. The Laxmi Temple was built around about the 15th century or so (see the sign here) and has murals painted on the walls inside, really ancient wooden doors held together by some impressive-looking staples, and a 5 story high temple part in the center which has some really nice Ganesh carvings, etc on the outer surface. And a really nice view of the village too, as it’s set up on a hill. We perched up on the 3rd and 4th floors for a while enjoying the breeze and taking a few photos.

On the way back we saw a mama pig with her kids and a dog resting (rather wisely, we thought) in a puddle. We took a few random shots of this and that also, such as some men doing some building with bricks.

Back at the restaurant later, Mokesh was still trying to figure the yoyo out and Nilu (10) wrote her name and all the kids names in my notebook in Hindi, with her new green and gold pens. Ram (5) was blowing some great bubbles, and of course the rubber toy without a name was going off marvellously. It had now graduated to being set off on people’s heads.

Later on, we went out the back and were ambushed into a birthday party. A young man, now 17, ordered us to come and have some of his birthday cake, then stuffed it down our throats while the photographer took our photos. I felt like a baby pelican being fed by its mother at a zoo. We exited out of their as fast as was politely possible. I reckon the photos will be funny though, because Paul had been in on this particular custom before and so was prepared for it. He pretended to swallow the guy’s hand, so it was the birthday boy who had a shocked look on his face for that photo!