Last night was pretty interesting and sociable in a variety of ways. We were wandering around poking our noses into various shops of interest, then we went down an alleyway to the local chai wallah for a cup of his wonderful chai. Pretty interesting to check out the alleyway life. There were people sitting around passing time – as there seems to be everywhere in Delhi – national pastime? While waiting for our chai we took a photo or two of our surroundings, including the amazing tumbledown second story just above the chai wallah. Incredible that the place actually stays up there! It appeared to be made of bits of spare wood and tarpaulin held together by spit. Some kid was wandering up and down a ladder from there, trying his best to kick a calf that came wandering up the alley. The things you do when you don’t have a t.v.

We sat on a bench amongst some of the locals and one very uptight dog, and eventually one of the woman asked if I would take their photo. This I was most happy to do, because due to the wonders of digital technology, I can show them the photo straight away. I love to see the looks on their faces when they see themselves on the screen. There was a little boy of about three years, whose mother was a bit rough on him – it was pretty tempting to pick him up and give him a cuddle – and you could see he had no concept at all of what he looked like. He was also pretty bewildered by this woman with a white face making flashing lights at him. His older brother was very chatty though. Very smiley guy who practiced his english on us and I practiced my very small Hindi with him. That only took a second or two.
After a cup of most wonderful chai, we were invited in to see a tabla maker. He was making the most wonderful noises on his tabla, so we took a bit of movie footage of him playing and casually chatting at the same time. It was a neat experience – the tabla is a most beautiful sound when played so well. And the chai wallah would not take any money for our chai. He is a lovely man and I highly recommend his chai to anyone. Just take the first alleyway on the left after the internet cafe with the pothole outside it up Main Bazaar, Pahar Ganj.

Later – back on the Hare Krishna guesthouse rooftop complete with nightly rations of gin – we had a chat with a guy from Nagar, called Pappu. He is involved with an eco-friendly type institution somewhere up there and obviously gets around a bit doing business. He reckons he doesn’t have to travel to see the world, and much of it comes to his place. Fair enough.

Over yonder were a few young guys – from Israel maybe – with some instruments. I wandered over and wangled my way into having a play on one of the guitars. That felt great – it was something I missed a lot last year. Sitting round under the night sky, relaxing and socialising – a guitar was one seriously missing necessary item. I realised that I actually had withdrawal symptoms from this. One of these guys was actually hauling two guitars and a violin around with him. You gotta take your hat off to that. I thought a backpack and a bag was a pain!

There is a large group here made up of French people – adults and young kids of varying ages. When I asked them this morning, they said they were four families who had all come over to do a trek in the mountains. Many of the kids with them had actually been born in India. No wonder they look so at home. What a wonderful thing, travelling to such interesting places as a kid.

It’s another scorcher today. After breakfast, our feet nearly got scorched just walking across the roof and down the stairs. And this is on marble!

We’re going down to check out the train station situation. We might take a couple of days in Rishikesh. We are of course waiting for business to be completed here – the ability to wait being a prerequisite in India. Tomorrow can actually contain many tomorrows. A whole different slant on time from the Western world.

Once we arrived at our Guesthouse, we went up onto the roof for a relaxing gin or two. The same cats as last year are here, plus a grown up kitten or two. They’re funny looking things – thin with short tails and short rough coats. It’s nice to have them here though, they kind of make it homely.

Yesterday we did the street wander and said hello to several street wallahs that we know. They are very hospitable. After Namaste’s, asking after ourselves, our children, the weather in our country, etc, they ordered chai, turned on fans and got chairs for us to sit in while we chatted. Even they are saying it is hot. The monsoon is late again.

I popped in and said hello to Mr Om at R-Expo. He is saying that he cannot believe I am a mother of five children. It’s easier to tell him this than try and sort through the reality of my family situation with him……my family members will particularly understand this, as there are many of us and it all gets a little complex. Bless him. I made a beeline for my favourite brand of vanilla bean soap – which this time I will not dispose of down the squat toilet. That happened last time I was here. The shower just drains into the toilet, which of course is a tiled hole in the floor, my soap became slippery and dived into said hole. Like heck was I going to dive in there and rescue it! I imagined there would have been vanilla-smelling bubbles in the sewerage system for several days after that.

So much for buying one item from him though. I came out with sandalwood face pack stuff, vanilla bean moisturizer and a few new clothes. Again, the never ending and unsuccessful search for something cooler to wear. Nigh on impossible. I guess I’ll just have to resign myself to cooking in my own wardrobe.

I went to bed pretty early last night, as my body was screaming ‘It’s 4am in New Zealand you fool!!! And of course, the curse of waking every two hours was still firmly in place. This morning (and those who know me will gasp at this), I was up on the roof for breakfast at 7am. Disgusting I know. I’m going to have to get therapy for this. But I got to see the monkeys of the city raiding the water tanks on the rooftops. Actually, when you sit still for long enough, you realise that Delhi is teeming with animal life. Squirrels, monkeys, lizards, a little mouse I nearly stepped on, crows, pigeons, cows, dogs, etc. Who would’ve thought you could come right into the city and do a wildlife program? I should send a note to David Attenborough.

We were sitting at a street cafe yesterday, and I was getting a few local shots with my camera. Then I thought I’d use the movie mode that it has. So I was panning around recording a bit of the human life when a guy wearing khaki clothing and carrying a big stick started laying into one of the cycle rickshaw wallahs. It sounded really painful. I got the whole lot on the movie. I was a little worried he’d notice me and come over to discuss this, complete with big stick, but he was too busy being important with the other guy. It all only lasted less than a minute, but wow. Funny such a thing should happen right in front of my camera!

It sounds like the monsoon has started in the lower states of India, so there’s a large possibility that we might be heading for the Himalayas (lower) instead of down Madya Pradesh, as was the original plan. I told Paul that if he finds me some Valium to enable me to cope with the mountain bus rides, he’s on. He showed me some photos of where he has been up there and it looks absolutely gorgeous. And then he used a really rotten technique and mentioned the word ‘cooler’. Unfair!!! she cried. So there we go – plans changed. We will still go down to Orchha first, which is in Madya, but not too badly affected by monsoon. (This is where we slept in the Palace last year.) I’m looking forward to blowing bubbles at the monkeys and seeing what they make of that! Should make for some good photos. And I have knuckle bones, yo yo, coloured pencils, etc for the kids there.

After almost missing my plane at Auckland (the guy in Duty Free was a terribly chatty sort who just didn’t stop!), I’ve made it as far as Kuala Lumpur. By joves it’s warm here. And I’ve realised that it smells like Bangkok. I was trying to define the smell last night – a mixture of steam, incense and something else….? Can’t quite put my finger on it. But it’s nice to smell it again.

The plane ride was loooong. And squishy. Has anyone else noticed a jet of something sprays back over the wing, from the direction of the engine, on take-off? It’s a little bit alarming to watch. I have to presume it’s all part of a cunning plan so I don’t panic about it – nobody else seems to.

I sat next to a nice Swiss woman. Fortunately we’re both small. Unlike the (presumably Dutch guy) across the aisle from us. Great big long legs with REAL yellow clogs on the end of them. I was quite fascinated. I’ve never seen anyone where clogs before. They’ve always been sitting on a shelf or hanging on a wall. I wonder how comfortable they are. Anyway, he had to sort of wrap his knees around the sides of the seat in front of him. There are virtues to being one of the little people sometimes.

Got to KL Airport, and it was deathly silent. There were no people around. It was like the scene of a creepy movie………..

By now it was about 1am New Zealand time and the old brain was at half mast. I finally got on the right train thing that takes you to a different part of the airport, found my luggage and then followed Paul’s instructions to the desk where I came unstuck when I got into the elevator. Which is made of glass, and has doors opening on BOTH sides. Naturally I got out on the wrong side, which made all of Paul’s directions make no sense whatsoever. Finally I got to the right place and then had to wait an hour for the ride into KL. Another hour goes by to actually get into town, got to my room and found I couldn’t sleep. By this time it is 2am NZ time. I naturally fell back onto backup emergency reserve plan B and opened the bottle of Southern Comfort I had bought – that did the trick. However, I was cursed with the sudden ability to wake up every 2 hours on the dot. And being in a hotel placed between 2 highways didn’t help. It wasn’t the traffic noise that bothered me, it was the lack of beeping and honking. It just seems so unnatural somehow in an asian country. This place is just too sane!

I finally abandoned my bed at 8am and went down for breakfast. Curses – I forgot my Vegemite! Never mind, the fresh croissants with apricot jam got me through. I ended up sitting with a very nice Australian woman who is an ESOL teacher and was returning to Oz from Latvia. We went shopping – as is a pair of women’s wont. There are many muslim women here, and they seem to be quite solemn. We both realised that we hate shopping in the heat, so we got it over with as quickly as it is possible to be quick in sickening steamy heat and then headed for a food shop. There I was accosted by my first beggar of the trip. But since he already had a fist full of money I didn’t overwhelm him with my concern and humanity and he dipped out.

Back to the hotel, running round like an idiot repacking, downstairs to catch my lift to the airport – which naturally was running late – and back onto the plane. The flight was full of Indians, complete with large amounts of children – screaming, cheeky children – but while sitting in the waiting lounge, I got to know a few of them, and naturally swapped photos of children, got heaps of heavily accented advice of where to go and how to get there, so it was all okay. There were times, mind you, when I was tempted to suggest to the hostesses that the two children sitting across from me who were taking turns to ensure the air was full of screams at all times, that they might like a brandy or two. However, I held back and drank them myself. I’m generous like that. Also, a bit of a shock when a guy walked up to me on the plane and handed my ticket back, which I had dropped in the airport somewhere. Someone was looking after me there…… Prayers of thanks.

Well, the flight was long, and then when we got there we circled the air a lot because the airport was full and we were number 12 in line, but finally we landed. I was ready to make the dash – made it to customs just before an enormous team of American schoolkids. Heh heh – no flies on this cookie. However, the universe paid me back for being a smartypants by delaying my luggage by quite a lot. Finally through the official bits and out into the crowd and saw Paul. Oh yay – he made it through the landslides in the mountains after all. Apparently only just getting back to Delhi in time, mind you.

Crazy, crazy traffic to Pahar Ganj and then finally at our guesthouse.

We spent a relatively pleasant night in our room – particularly pleasant for me because I had a full-on, raging bout of Delhi Belly by now and having our own bathroom was vastly preferable alternative to the public toilets I have seen in India so far! Well, when I say pleasant, it’s all a matter of perspective really, isn’t it.

We had breakfast (plain rice for me) in the lovely little garden outside our room and chatted with Ragoun and met his gorgeous little nephew, Kush. Kush is about 18 months old or so, with big brown eyes, curly hair and a lovely toothy grin. I never laid eyes on his mother all the time we were there, but we did see a lot of Kush with his uncles. They obviously adored him and carried him around so much his feet hardly ever touched the ground.

We then went for a wander out into the streets and alleyways of Bundi, which is a very old town, part of which is surrounded by an enormous ‘city wall’. Right up behind our guesthouse is a fort (Taragarh) and Bundi palace, perched on the side of the hill – a past Maharaja of this reputedly having been friends with Rudyard Kipling.

Of course there are cows all over the place here, but we also noticed that there is no shortage of street pigs either. We even saw a doorway in the side of a house, and upon perusal discovered that the pigs had a room of their own! They looked pretty happy about it too. There was initially cause for alarm when we had to squeeze past some of these creatures in very narrow alleyways, but they took no notice of us, so in the end we all got on just fine together. Paul even took a photo of me chatting to some kids while a pig walked between me and an awning post, an inch or so from my legs. I’m quite glad I didn’t know about it at the time. Who knows what sort of effect jumping out of my skin might have had on my Delhi Belly situation….I’ll leave it to you to fill in that particular picture.

Some of the kids – generally the ones in school uniforms – were very nice and we had great chats with them. Then there were the other ones. ‘One photo, one photo!!’ ‘One pen, one pen!!’ Paul soon had that sorted though. When they did their ‘one pen’ bit, he’d put his hand out and say ‘Yes please’. Or if they asked ‘What is your name?’ he’d answer ‘One Pen’. They’d look at him for a moment then crack up laughing. And after tiring of their smartarse antics (which didn’t take long) I said to a bunch of them ‘Tum bahut sherati ho!’ (spelling?). This means ‘you are very naughty’ in Hindi. Their eyes nearly popped out of their heads – they didn’t expect to hear that from a white woman! It was well worth the days it took me to learn that sentence to see the looks on their faces. Funny the little things that amuse us, isn’t it?

We wandered down the road and through the town and watched a man making the lovely round metal pots they carry milk and stuff in. How amazing – they use only the most basic of equipment and tools and do an absolutely lovely job of these round, shiny pots. I could have watched this artistry for hours! We stopped and visited with a jeweller in his ‘shop’ – again more of a hole in the wall than the kind of shop we know. And amazingly, we saw some guys sitting across the road listening to New Zealand play Pakistan on a radio! How about that – we never watch the cricket (or any other game) in New Zealand, and then we go to the other side of the world, travel to a little town out in the wop-wops of Rajasthan and hear our own country playing on a radio a few feet away! We yelled out to them that NZ was where we are from and I stood up and did a bit of a victory dance, because our country was winning. All of us were grinning our heads off with delight. One of those fun moments that life gifts you with every now and again.

Now apparently in Bundi, if you keep still for 5 minutes or so, somebody will paint you. There are paintings everywhere around here – around the doors, up the alleyways, on the sides or houses, etc. We stopped to take (yet another) photo of a painting on the side of a house when a young woman leaned over the balcony above and yelled out to us to come up and see her house. At first we were a little hesitant at invading her privacy, so she came downstairs and almost pulled us in physically. Up some narrow steep steps (naturally!) we went and were introduced to her sister, her sister’s baby, her brother, her other brother and his friend, her mother and her grandmother. We were then treated to a look at her wedding album – a very colourful affair indeed. She was a very proud young bride and was particularly chuffed with herself because downstairs she even had a laundry room! She decided that she was going to gift me with some of her art, and proceeded to colour in the embroidery on my shirt with gold paint. I thought that was rather sweet and giving of her, then she held her hand out and said ‘Now you give me gift”. They’re not backward in coming forward, these people, as I was rapidly gathering. All I had to give her was a postcard of our ‘village’ Waihi, back in New Zealand. I’m not sure if she was very impressed with that – perhaps she expected a gold-plated pen and a few hundred rupees, but she was just plain out of luck. Nevertheless, she still seemed to enjoy our company and wanted us to stay for chai. But we wanted to go, as we didn’t have a lot of time on our hands and this was all getting a little overwhelming, so we took photos of them, them with us, etc, showed them the photos and made our way back outside. Having first been given a grand tour of the laundry room.

We wandered through the sabzi bazaar – the vegetable market – and then over to a local ‘baori’ which is a step-well, about 46 metres deep. Apparently built in 1699, it has beautifully ornate columns, carvings on the walls of god scenes and many many steps down to where the water is. Well, more like green slime actually with objects of dubious origin floating in it, but I don’t think they really use it any more.

Wandering back through the bazaar, a woman came up to me and pointed at my anklet with great concern. She didn’t speak english and I didn’t speak her language, but it was obvious she was greatly concerned that I only had one anklet. I had actually tried to find another to wear, but there were none that appealed to me at any of the shops, so I just had the one. I think she was convinced that I had lost the other one. We gesticulated at each other for a while about this and then she wandered off with a frown on her face. I was quite touched though at her concern and her efforts to let me know.

We wandered back to our Haveli, hot, tired and dusty, and on my part a little concerned at the increasingly urgent need to visit a clean toilet. A nice luke warm shower and a bit of a rest later, and I wandered up to the rooftop to take photos of the sunset and the Palace. I was cruising along quite nicely, getting some good shots and leisurely watching the monkeys on the roof next door, when I heard a shout. “Get down, get down!! Monkeys!!!” It was Ragoun’s father-in-law, and he looked so upset that I looked back at the monkeys to see what he was on about. There were a couple of big males that had been bossing the females around rather nastily, and in the few seconds I had been looking away had started to edge towards me with their mouths open and their fangs showing. Well, I think I broke a world record for climbing down that ladder. I did 2 stories in about 4 seconds flat! Ragoun then came up to me and explained that the monkeys around here had no problem with mugging human beings and I was wise to use more caution than I had been. No need to tell me twice!

After my heart rate recovered we sat down in the courtyard and had dinner. We chatted with Ragoun again and the subject got onto snakes. He said how he and many Indians were very scared of them and was telling me a story of how there was one in his room one time, when I saw a movement on the ground by my feet. Once I was safely standing on my chair (again, another speed record), I looked down and saw that was just a toad hopping by. It did, however, spur me on to go and get my jandals (flip flops). As though that was going to be protection from snakes! But it gave me the illusion of being safer and I guess that was the main thing.

Something I dislike about train journeys in India is that Paul is able to sleep like a baby while I get on with the panicking about which is the right stop to get out on. When you’re jammed up against the ceiling looking directly at a set of 3 dubiously hung – and at best, dangerous looking – fans, and the train keeps stopping and letting people on and off at seemingly random intervals, you give rather a lot of thought to getting off at the right place yourself. Over and over your mind plays recordings of horror stories that others have told of missing their stop and ending up in goodness-knows-what sorts of situations. So each time the train stops, you crane your neck trying to look down through the window and up again at the (hopefully) signs at the stations, and goodness knows why because many of them are written in Hindi and it’s dark anyway.

It’s downright disgusting how relaxed that man looks when my nerves are in tatters and I’m freaking out about where we’re supposed to get off on this enormous sub-continent.

Well, this time I’m taking my cellphone so I can use it as an alarm clock. I too will sleep like a baby and he can do the panicking, if necessary.

So off we trundled on our adventure to Bundi, Rajasthan after a few days back in Delhi.

We got to Kota (not the most attractive looking city in the world – apologies to the locals, but really it isn’t, is it?!) and took a tempo to the bus station to get to Bundi. A tempo is kind of a large auto rickshaw. There’s a sort of box thingy on the back that fits about six to eight people. Or in India, as many as you can get in there and still breathe. The driver insisted on putting us in the front with him, which felt a little elitist at first, but then it might have been uncomfortable for the locals to be jammed in with us in the back. I dunno. I just went where I was told. Which turned out to be squished in between the driver and Paul. Now, I don’t know if it was just my imagination, but it seemed to me that the driver really used his elbow a lot when changing gear. And guess who wore it in one of the softer and more feminine parts of her body every minute or so. However, I decided that just in case it wasn’t my imagination, that I would make myself a little bit wider to combat this. Gradually and subtly I edged my elbow and upper arm towards him until that was what his elbow pushed against instead. Funny thing, it stopped happening after a while.

The bus ride to Bundi was interesting – stimulating even. It takes about an hour and there seem to be a lot of trucks coming the other way. And the loads on them are about half as wide as the truck again hanging over each side. Essentially the road rules are this: If he’s bigger than you are, it’s probably best to give way and let him have the road. However, do not embark upon your pulling over procedure until a maximum of 3 seconds before you collide. This way he will know that you are a man and not the whelp of an insignificant street-dog nephew.

We got there alive – and on my part significantly surprised about it – and took chai in a roadside cafe. That is to say, a roof with a gas cooker under it, a bit of a kitchen, a few tables and three or four Indian men sitting round looking at you.

We took chai, perused our copy of Lonely Planet – India, and decided that the Haveli Katkoun sounded like an alright place to stay. As it turned out, it was a good decision. It’s run by a pleasant young man called Ragoun (light skin and green eyes – quite a cutey actually) and it’s tidy, pleasant and has a little courtyard with a palm tree and a bit of garden and quite nice food. Our room was lovely. A big beautiful bed with lots of wood inlay, a lounge bit with coloured glass windows everywhere and a generous-sized bathroom. Between us all we deduced that 300 IR (about $11.00NZ) per night was acceptable. Bearing in mind that this was off-season.

Before I get onto Rajasthan, I’d like to extrapolate on our experience while trying to return to Delhi from Orchha. At the Jhansi Railway Station Paul had a bit of a struggle finding someone who spoke English. In fact he downright couldn’t. So he took his best shot at reading the info board, which was written in Hindi, and decided that our train was probably leaving from Platform 1. So we hauled our now very heavy luggage down to where we figured our carriage would probably line up (and these trains can be VERY long!), and sat down to wait. We had a little bit of time to spare, so he decided to go and check around with a few people and see if we were on the right platform. So I was sitting there with my scarf pulled up over my glaringly obvious blonde hair, feeling pretty pleased with myself for wearing pants that weren’t laughing at the crotch this time, when I saw Paul racing towards me with an urgent look on his face. “Get your stuff” he cried. “We have to go to Platform 3!” We hauled anchor and lugged our bags back along the platform, up the stairs, along the walkway, down the stairs and along Platform 3. Whew! Thank goodness we got that sorted.

Not so. During a genial conversation with a chap sitting near us, we discovered that we should’ve actually been on Platform 5. Pulling our anchor in again, we raced back along the platform, up the stairs, along the walkway, down the stairs and along Platform 5. Paul, wanting to make sure we had it right this time, decided to consult with some likely looking men a few feet away from us. And they all decided that we should indeed be on Platform 3. They were dead certain about this. So, well, you know the routine. Upstairs, downstairs, onto Platform 3. Okay, by this time our luggage had done it’s usual trick and gained another 80 pounds. We’re hot, sweating, exhausted and getting pretty stressed.

We sat on our luggage trying to pull ourselves back from the very edge of panic and then a trumpet blast came over the intercom. “Tadaaaaaahhhhhhh!!! Your attention please. Blip blop bluuuur, blop blip blop bluuur bluuuur blop. Thank you. Have a nice day.” That’s EXACTLY what it sounded like – I kid you not! Paul and I looked at each other with horror – that could have been a really important message. And I think that’s what pushed us over the edge. I am now intimately able to understand the term “hysterical laughter”. I started off, Paul saw it, he got started and before we knew it we were rolling around laughing our silly heads off with tears rolling down our faces. The announcement came on a couple more times with no improvement to the quality whatsoever, and rather than having split pants I nearly had wet ones. I was actually in pain from laughing.

However, this did not sort out the situation we were in, so Paul got up and went to the office window again, while I tried to pull myself together. And when he came back, guess what? Our bluddy train was actually leaving from Platform 1. And it was due in about 2 minutes! How I managed to haul that luggage onto my back one more time and get up those stairs I’ll never know. But I tell you what, I couldn’t have cared less if the train we got on was going to Timbuctoo – I was just gonna be on one. As it turned it, the darned thing was about twenty five minutes late and hoved into view just as we began thinking there was no such train at all. I can’t say I’ve ever wanted to hug a train before, but as it pulled in I looked at it with such love in my eyes………….

I have since learned that Indian people have this thing about not wanting to disappoint you. They don’t like saying no and they don’t like not being able to help you. So if they don’t know the answer to your question, they’ll say whatever they think you want to hear, even if it’s completely untrue. Bless them.

Now I do have to wonder to myself how many people have actually killed someone in this sort of situation.

We finally reached the top of the steps to the palace and most gratefully sank into the seats in Reception. We were now surrounded by archways and columns, rich furnishings and other such trappings. This was now about 7am. We managed to scrounge a wash in a bathroom which had the most incredible view I’ve ever seen. Jungle and ancient monuments for miles – as far as the eye could see.

Paul did a little bit of name dropping (a good friend of his brought many tours here over the years) and we were given the best room in the palace, apart from the Maharaja and Maharani suites. This was on the top floor, with a courtyard the size of a tennis court shared with the Maharaja suite. Our lodgings had an entranceway with bed and pillows, another anti-room, then you walk through another archway to this enormous room with a curved sofa and table, then further along a bay window with cushions and futon, a large bed that is NOT two beds stuck together as per usual, a window you can sort of sit inside and watch the world from, and a large marble bathroom with a shower and a western toilet. It even had toilet paper. Although if you ever stay at this palace, may I recommend you bring your own no.5 grade sandpaper for extra softness.

What a scream We went from fighting off pack dogs and sleeping on a wooden bench on the street to the third best room in a palace in a matter of hours. Nice juxtaposition, what?

From the roof of our palace we looked up at another palace, which was apparently made for the Moghul of the time by the Maharaja. He only visited the place once, the ungrateful sod. Below us was another palace, built as a bachelor pad for the Maharaja after the Maharana went a bit funny and kicked him out. It can’t have been easy or cheap to keep one’s dignity in those days.

I spent a fair bit of time amusing myself taking photos of the vultures on the palace roof next door. Wonderful creepy-looking birds – so photogenic. I was in heaven.

We wallowed in luxury for a bit then went for a wander around the town. This took time, as every second person on the main street (it seemed) came up to Paul and greeted him delightedly. And of course, one must take chai in these situations, or have a “Limca” – local soft drink. This was Paul’s fourth visit to this village and he has made many friends here. But we gradually got around the place and my camera was running hot from use. We sat up in the chattri‘s (several story high memorial monuments) by the river and watched some kind of monkeys groom each other, parrots flying around, vultures skulking the sky of course and the locals down below going about their day. I now have dozens of photos of monuments and ruins to bore people with when I get home. And the people are so friendly and laid back in this place. Even the cows are more laid-back than the Delhi ones, if indeed this is possible.

In the evening we dined in our “suite” and quaffed a gin or two. We were invited to try a bit of “mutton” (which is Indian for goat) in the courtyard by a local businessman. He was a very important man it seemed, because he had his own personal soldiers and 2 men fanning him at all times.

The next day we booked into a guesthouse in town and then went on a tour of the museum monuments. You buy a ticket to visit these ones – there are 6 on a ticket I think – and your ticket is only valid for that day. But you get to see inside the other 2 palaces and view the paintings on the ceilings, walk around the crumbling rooftops, peek through the jali work (sort of fancy stone latticework that the women peek through to see without being seen – all hand carved!) – and totally wear your legs out climbing up and down steps. In India, everything seems to be up steep steps! How on earth they got flash furniture into the rooms on the upper floors I’ll never know. You have to look for the steps before having the pleasure of climbing them because they hid them in little niches. Very narrow, very uneven and sometimes very dark. Sometimes you have to put your hands against the wall to balance, all the time hoping you don’t touch a lizard or a spider or anything else squishable.

On the second morning, in our guesthouse room, I heard a loud chirruping noise just outside. I opened the door onto the balcony, stepped out and came face to face with a monkey. I’m not sure who got more of a surprise, him or me. Turned out there were several of them, and one had stolen some chapati from somewhere. I had a brilliant time sitting on the balcony with my camera and got some very nice shots of them eating chapati on rooftops and stealing them from each other. And a wonderful close-up of the one outside our room who was using the tv aerial cord as his ladder. These were langur monkeys – white-faced ones of a reasonable size with amazingly long tails. They don’t hassle humans like the big brown ones do, so I felt pretty safe. What a wonderful way to start the day. Our room looked over the main street and was right next to the gateway to the market square, so I sat out there for quite a while and happily watched the town wake up and thaw out ready for the day.

We ate at Paul’s friend’s restaurant most of the time. This is a humble little place where you are served on the footpath outside a building with a roller door. Many of India’s flies live here. Can’t say I blame them, as the food is great and the view of the village goings-on fantastic.

Will have to continue this another day, as I’ve run out of time and we have to get ready to get on the train (cringe) to Rajasthan tonight.

We just got back this morning from Orchha, which is in Madya Pradesh, about 20 K’s from Jhansi. (This is south of Delhi.)

To start off, we missed the train by minutes. These things happen. So we had to quickly get a refund (partial one) and buy another ticket for another train. Of course there is a system for this. Paul had to leave me in one of the offices for this with the luggage while he went and filled in forms to give to men to fill in forms to give to men…….

Meantime, one of the Indian men helping us comes up to me and says “Give me 5 rupees”. So I gave him 5 rupees. Then he comes back and says “Give me 20 rupees”, and I’m thinking “what is this, a shake down on this white woman with no Hindi while her husband is out of sight?” So we had a bit of a chat about this, neither of us understanding what the other was saying, and I finally gave him 20 rupees because the ball was in his court. Then Paul came back with yet another piece of paper, and the man came back and gave me a handful of money, and now I’m really confused! Turns out he was giving us a partial refund and needed 25 rupees for the right change,etc, etc. So, we now have another train ticket, but this time it is not for a reserved sleeper seat, it is for the “find a seat if you can and be grateful for it”section.

Now at this stage, I am becoming horribly aware that my brand new trousers I bought today were not sewn as well as they should have been and are starting to come apart in the crutch. We have to sit amongst a bunch of staring Indian men and I cannot do anything other than sit up straight and keep my legs very closed. Now this is okay for a little while, but we still have another 5 hours or so on the train Then the TC (Ticket Collector – they abbreviate everything possible here) comes along and says we can sit in the seats down the way a bit until the next stop, when it will be claimed. This was right beside a window. Yay! I was able to see out the window a little bit because it is full moon and there was a lot of lightning. So it worked out fabulously – dramatic lightning striking the countryside, frogs croaking by the thousands – until it started raining and we had to shut the window and could no longer see past the reflection. So now I am left sitting up straight, looking at the less-than-glamorous inside of the train and avoiding staring eyes, aware that I cannot relax any more than this as my trousers are splitting more every minute. Paul is faring better than me because at least he can cross his legs and change position.

So I think to myself, it’s okay, I can do this. I will try and sleep sitting up.” But of course, at the next stop, along comes the man who has booked this seat, and naturally he wants it. So we go and sit in the bit at the end of the train by the door, on the floor, (all the time keeping legs straight out in front) until someone takes pity on us and suggests we use the TC’s seat because he hardly sits in it, as he is very busy being important up and down the train.

This works well, until the TC comes back sporadically and wants to sit down. That is fine, he is willing to share his bench. It’s the security men with guns slung over their shoulders that want to surround him and chat that bothered me more. Not so much the guns, I doubt they were more than decoration and I didn’t see any bullets, but more that they were men and with every time I changed my position slowly to try to keep some semblance of feeling in my backside, my pants would respond with another dreaded ripping sensation. Please, if you wish to have a better idea of how I am feeling by now, find a very bone-rattling type of transport, ensuring you do not have a seat with any more than 1 inch of softness to it, sit there for 5 hours with your legs straight out in front of you and try to sleep. Thus you will gain insight into my predicament. Oh, and don’t forget to add staring eyes all around you, just for that added extra Je ne sais quois.

Anyway, somehow I managed to sleep for an hour, and we finally pulled into the Jhansi station. Now I have to step gracefully from the train whilst holding a medium-sized heavy bag and a large heavy bag and walk through crowds of people and bodies hoping the situation around my crotch area held together for a little longer and find a bathroom that wasn’t too disgusting so I could change my pants. Again I say to you, please try this at home. It really is challenging to one’s modesty factor. Especially when you’re the only white people around for miles and most the crowd is lying on the floor and looking up at the strange-looking white woman walking funny. It would have been funny if it wasn’t happening to me at 3am after one hour’s sleep.

After changing my attire, I strode out of the bathroom feeling almost like a glamour queen in my cotton tie-dyeds and we went outside the station to do the usual refusal routine with the taxi wallahs. We had a choice between sitting outside the station until 7am providing entertainment for the locals or getting an auto rickshaw to the village of Orchha and hanging around there in the dark fending off the dogpacks. Gosh, the romance of it all. We chose the latter.

The road to Orchha is about 18kms long and is a Osteopathic wallah’s paradise. Paul kindly filled me in on Madya Pradesh’s infamy for bad roading, and the potholes, spine-jarring rattles and juddar bars placed literally any old where along the way, gave truth to his words. Now, the fact that you are experiencing this punishment on your body is a good sign because it means you are successfully negotiating around the cows. They apparently own the road and lie there with an air of supreme confidence in the fact that you will go around them.

We finally got to Orchha, through some ancient gateways, past some slums and yes – more cows – and got dropped off in the village square. We then went through the usual routine of refusal with the rickshaw wallah, who wanted to give us a lift to a “good hotel” – probably owned by his brother’s brother’s wife’s uncle-in-law. We couldn’t shake him off – 10 points for tenacity on his part – so we just walked the few steps to where we were going and let him follow. I think he found us to be ever so disappointing foreign tourists, but generously hung around all night and part of the next morning, repeating his offer in case we hadn’t heard him the first 400 times.

The dog packs weren’t too bad really – mostly show, which is the case with most dogs. We told them we were very impressed at their ferocity and they apparently found that satisfying and moved over to let us in. We lay down on one of the wooden benches outside Paul’s friend’s restaurant and had a crack at sleeping. I tell you what, after the performance of getting there, the wooden bench felt like a feather and down mattress. I remember glancing over to a couple of other benches near us and thinking this must indeed be an honest and trusting place, as the stallkeepers had left their stock out and just covered it with sarongs. Then the stock moved a bit and a foot poked out and I had to do a little cerebral readjustment. Maybe we were lucky there was an unoccupied bench available without a having made a reservation.

Morning time came and we woke up to – gasp – a quiet scene. I think that was what woke us up – the lack of horns blasting. Cows were happily ambling by, the dog packs had just gone off duty and our dear friend the rickshaw wallah was asleep in his rickshaw a few feet away. He soon awoke also and reminded us he was there in case we had forgotten. Whilst he carried on his one-way conversation, we slung our bags over shoulders and made our way over the nearby bridge to the palace on the island. Wow! Not just one palace but three of them! Pretty impressive sight. We walked through anti-elephant devices (enormous gates set around a corner and studded with very long and unfriendly looking spikes) and stumbled wearily up what seemed like five thousand steps to the palace doors. Here was our home for the next 24 hours.

Train stations in Delhi are an interesting thing. People milling around, sitting around in piles, lying around sleeping and some people even actually doing some work. We had to walk up some stairs (dark, hot and very nefarious looking) to the “Foreign Ticket Office” to buy tickets for the trains. First you fill out a form (of course – always a form), then go the wall and find the numbers of the trains that are going your way. You then go to a man who writes numbers on your form, and then you go and sit under a sign that says “Q here” and you wait to be served. Of course. But the service was fine, and it was nice to see that the men serving had bracelets on their wrists given to them by their sisters for brother/sister day. Some of the trains we wanted were cancelled due to the floods in Mumbai. We finally got it sorted and are now in possession of tickets to Madya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

I have to laugh at the service here sometimes.The other night I asked for a freshly squeezed juice and the waiter said “I’m sorry, you cannot have that. Do you want some now?” Umm, yes, I think I still do. It’s only been 10 seconds since I asked and yes, I definitely feel I would still like some. Hard case.

We visited a belly dancing clothing shop – wow! And next door a shoe shop that actually has aladdin-type shoes with the toes curled up. I really want to grab some before I leave. I don’t know about wearing them, but they’d look great hanging on the wall.

I dropped into a shop that had some stuff I wanted to look at. This was down and dark and dingy alleyway. Nothing special about that. All the alleyways are dark and dingy. The guy took me downstairs to look at different versions of a handbag I wanted. These stairs were worse than the last lot. Even steeper and narrower with dangerous marble overheads. He then took me across the alleyway (where I was treated to a walk through a cloud of flies) to look at some motorbikes brilliantly constructed out of coloured wire. We had a good chat and I showed him photos of my kids and he said he couldn’t believe I was old enough to have such big children. Now I was really starting to warm to this guy. He thought my Hindi accent was beautiful and because I spoke a few words of it, he felt that we were almost family. Of course – we have now known each other for at least 15 minutes.

Next, into the tailor’s shop. Or perhaps “square hole in the wall” would be a more apt description. In here we were crowded in with the man and his “boy”, 2 other customers, and assorted hangers-on. One guy to fetch chai, another to fetch catalogues, another to fetch material samples and a few others that were just decorating the front of the shop I think. Talk about squish. And the men here often hold hands with each other. It doesn’t mean anything more than that they are friends. But it must be a little alarming to fresh-to-India heterosexual western males.

By the way – apologies to anyone I have sent repeat emails to. Today the power went off 4 times – apparently quite normal for Delhi. So of course I had to*be on the internet during one of these times, having just written yet another long epistle and every second computer went off. Just my luck! So I don’t know what happened. This is India email. Just shake your head and roll your eyes.

We are getting on the train tonight to go to Jhansi, where we will arrive at 3 o’clock in the morning and wait for a few hours for a bus to take us to Orchha. I have just stocked up on Pringles and water. Paul says take bananas but I can’t stand the thought of an ugly squashed banana in this heat. And ugly and squashed I am quite sure it will become.

Nighttime now and we’re back in our own neighborhood after another afternoon of cruising around. This time we traveled by motor rickshaw, which give the illusion of being safer than cycle rickshaw, but apparently are not. I did not bother to ask why, I preferred to stick with my illusions.

We went through Connaught Place to the bank, which was an interesting experience. You go through a metal detector and then you get scanned by a guy with a hand scanner. Paul had to hand over his pocket knife to be held until we left again. Upstairs we sat in a room, sat down at the counter and were ignored for 5 or 10 minutes – apparently very normal – waiting patiently to be served. The gentleman that finally noticed us (even though we had been sitting all of 3 feet in front of him for a while) served us, filled out some paperwork, gave us a brass token to hang on to and we were then escorted to another room to some people in cells behind bars. They handed over the money. This is how you get your own money out of the bank here if you are a foreigner. It’s a little bit reminiscent of the scene in Harry Potter when he goes to the Goblin bank, only the security guys in the bank are a fair bit nicer looking than goblins.

Over to Janpath, where we looked through a row of Tibetan shops. Very interesting and colorful. I spent money. On jewelery. What to do – I’m a woman. I then had to carry the stuff all over the place and it gained weight as I went along. The Tibetan people are very nice – not as pushy as the Indians. We saw fascinating padlocks and conch shells with silver-work all over them and gems and miniature sewing machines, etc, etc. We then went briefly through the Rajasthan row, but were getting pretty hot and tired by then and we’re going to Rajasthan anyway, so we opted for (cringe) MacDonald’s instead. Well, they have clean toilets (ish). The door was opened for us by a very sharply dressed “Security” man who even wore spats over his boots. Everything is chicken or vegetarian. I had a Maharaja burger, which had mildly spiced chicken patties and an extra bun in between. The buns don’t quite hold together like our ones and it was nigh on impossible to eat it in a ladylike manner, but fortunately a TV was on showing a cricket game so not too many people were watching me.

We wandered on to Palika Bazaar which is an underground market. Totally crazy and full of western stuff. And sort of like a concrete bunker or a large bomb shelter with a dome on top. We didn’t stay there long, it just wasn’t so nice to be in.

Back to our neighborhood (Pahar Ganj – Main Bazaar) where a policeman had decided to take up residence at the entrance and wouldn’t let our rickshaw through. I guess he was having a slow day. So we had to get out and walk. Talk about take your life into your hands. By this time the jewelery had gained an extra 400 pounds and the traffic was pretty insane. There are no real lanes here – just a free for all. So people are always beeping at you from behind and you have a choice between avoiding dogs, cows, people spitting, touts, beggars, puddles and piles of rubbish of dubious origins. Also auto rickshaws, cycle rickshaws and taxis. This is all crowded into a street about the width of one lane of our streets. One taxi driver decided to stop and have a chat with his mate across the street and caused a massive blockage. Not that it bothered him at all. It actually would have been quicker to get up on his car and walk over it, and I doubt he would have noticed or minded. Tempting.

I am constantly amazed at the spatial abilities of the rickshaw drives. For the mayhem that goes on, there seems to be a remarkable lack of actual accidents. I think Auckland drivers could take lessons from these guys. It’s a total mess, but somehow the traffic almost flows. Well, in a terrifying and raucous sort of a way. Another entrepreneurial opportunity here would be to sell Rescue Remedy to newly arrived westerners on the street corners. You can’t do such a thing on the footpaths because they just don’t have such things (footpaths), except for in the very modern areas.

I stopped at a clothing shop on our street and found some nice things to wear. But no matter how thin, the clothes just are not cool enough! If somebody came up with a way of making refrigerated clothing, they’d make a fortune.

We dropped in at one of Paul’s contacts’ shop and, joy of joys, they gave us a cold coke and a seat. Then finally back home and yet another cold shower and some Indian TV with the ceiling fan on high. Highly entertaining, especially the ads.

And now we are back at the air-conditioned cyber cafe. They are doing quite nicely out of us. It’s always a bit of a shock to walk back outside into the heat and past a reasonably open public toilet, which is a little on the fragrant side.