Goa to Trivandrum, India

BEING SET ON FIRE
I left Georg and Jo in Goa on a sad note. The hotel owner and I got in a rather heated argument about how much money I owed for four nights accommodation. Actually the disagreement was over the fact that I left my stuff in the room with Georg without legally checking out. Initially I refused to pay for an extra night but the owner threatened to set me on fire, using my own gasoline that I purchased the day before for the motorbike, and later promised me a bamboo massage. Neither of these options sounded appealing so after exchanging some colourful language (read as we swore back and forth using words that my Mum would be ashamed of) I relented and paid the extra 100 rupees for a night I never used. I never used it because I left for Trivandrum that evening. I should have caught the bus to Mangalore but I came up with another plan that would give me a better chance of making Trivandrum in time to catch my flight to Sri Lanka. I passed on the bus and headed straight for the train station and bought a seat on the Mangala Express to Ernakulam a town about 5 hours north of Trivandrum. This was risky because it still didn't guarantee me passage all the way to Trivandrum and I could well of been kicked off the train because I had no intention of sitting on a hard seat for 16 hours. We ran into a snag as we left Thivim station where I boarded. A woman got caught in the door of the carriage I was in and was dragged along the platform and then a few hundred meters down the way before the train stopped. There was the usual farce of two million people crowded around to see what happened and basically I got pinned inside on one of the seats with my bag still on, unable to move for the next half an hour. The woman was okay, but it could have been so bad. After the path cleared I made straight for the sleeper carriages and walked up and down the isles until I got a lucky break. A woman told me that she was getting off in a few hours and I was welcome to have her bed once she left. I had a few hours to kill so I stood at the end of the carriage next to the toilet and read the paper twice. I fell asleep while doing the crossword and for the SECOND time in six months a mouse woke me up. The Nicaraguan mouse climbed into bed with me but the Indian one just scampered across my foot on route to the toilet. By this stage though the bed became available so I propped by bag up as a pillow and fell quickly to sleep along with the rest of India. When I woke up the train was virtually empty; I had a whole eight-berth section to myself as I studied the Keralan landscape out of the window.

Beach in Goa

After the Goan argument I had to compose myself again because I knew the trip to Trivandrum would be taxing. Thankfully I had one of those days when all the connections line up and things flow smoothly. Off the train in Ernakulam I walked to the bus station had jumped straight on a southern bus to Trivandrum. In the Keralan capital I walked off the bus into a cheap guesthouse with an even cheaper shower - known in the western world as a sink. Dinner was good, I called home, but the day ended with an Internet café whose server crashed not long after I arrived. Rather than push my luck I decided it was time for bed. After three weeks with Georg and Jo it was another contemplative evening on my own but I knew it wouldn't last long. My old pal Phil Harrison was waiting for me in Sri Lanka.

Goa, India

FOR SURE WE ARE GOING TO GOA
At 10.50pm on the evening of ANZAC Day (April 25th), our train bound for Goa was scheduled to depart. At Victoria Terminus though we found out that the train had been delayed by over eight hours and wouldn't be leaving until 7.05am the following day. Rather than stay in the retiring room at the station, the three of us joined up with a Dutch girl and an Iranian guy and stayed at a cheap hotel few kilometres away. It wasn't the best finish to the day and it meant that instead of sleeping on the train and waking up near the beach, we would have to spend eleven hours of the next day on the train. The hotel was nothing special and the Iranian guy confused us with his family history that somehow includes Canadian, Australian, French, British, Turkish, Russian and Azerbaijani heritage. Along with this he lived in India for 6 years, speaks Hindi, Farsi, two types of Turkish and English and has two birth dates. After the two birthday story we all got bored and fell asleep while he lay in bed smoking cigarettes until he drifted off to sleep.

We had fun on the train playing cards and joking with the chai sellers but arriving in the darkness it was difficult to find the best place to stay near the beach. Before too long we settled on a place called Sonic, perched beside the shore overlooking some threatening rocks and the Arabian Sea. The beach proper starts 100m further to the south but the location of Sonic is hard to beat. It has a perfect view of the sunset, a large sitting area for relaxing and a massive set of speakers through which we played our own music. Perhaps one of the most relaxing features was sleeping so close to the sea, waking to the sound of crashing waves. We were the only ones staying there so we took over for a few days and made ourselves comfortable.

Sonic Guesthouse beside the ocean

One day we hired scooters and rode further south along the coastline. The scooter took a bit of getting used to but I was already familiar with the rules of the road, which can be summed up as 'anything bigger than you has right of way'. On a scooter you come pretty low down in the pecking order so it's best to stay as close to the side of the road as possible and keep watching everything. We didn't have many issues with the traffic; in fact the roads were pretty empty, but we did have a few problems with the bikes. The first required Georg to commission the use of a qualified mechanic to change spark plug but the other ones were mainly due to faulty gas tank needles and not much fuel. We ran out of gas on three separate occasions.

WHILE INDIA SLEEPS
I'm sure that the rest of the world gets a lot done while India sleeps. I get very little done. Sunset is the time of day around which all activities are organised. The most important plans revolve around where to watch the sun sink into the Arabian and listen to the waves crash upon the shore. After that the only thing to do is to watch the stars emerge and then trace them across the sky for the next few hours. While India sleeps I just watch. Tonight I'll be watching from the inside of a sleeper bus bound for Mangalore. The train all the way to Trivandrum was fully booked so I've had to book a bus ticket for part of the journey and hope that I can get the rest of the way either by bus or a different train.

Sunset over the Arabian Sea

Mumbai, India

GONE BOLLYWOOD
It was one of those nights that last all morning. The signs were poor from the moment we boarded our 'luxury' overnight bus to Mumbai. The stench of warm, sweaty feet and fetid armpits lurked in the air. It oozed from the seats and slowly worked its way into our clothes as the night dragged on. It was a terrible lingering kind of smell that not even the open windows could disguise. After three hours we had already made two dinner stops and when we set out again at 7pm the driver said that it would be after 1am before we stopped again so best get some sleep. I would have liked to but the music kept me, and most of the others, up. During the night we stopped for the compulsory flat tire change but most people stayed on the bus and opted for sleep. Georg, fed up with the smell, left the bus and stood outside for some fresh air but the smell was so intense that it leaked out of the windows and ambushed him while he stood there.

Only two things need to function on an Indian bus - the horn is the most important and the stereo is a close second. Peripheral stuff like headlights and brakes are seldom required to be in any kind of working order and few buses can boast both in good condition. The horn must be ear shattering, particularly in the passenger cabin where it can do the most damage. It should only be used when overtaking, braking, accelerating, pulling out, pulling over or any random moment as deemed necessary by the driver. The stereo should be functioning but the speakers should be in the worst possible state to ensure perfect distortion at any volume, particularly the highest one, which is where the knob finds its way eventually. All foreign tourists should be placed in the seats closest the speakers. At rest stops the front windows should be thoroughly cleaned by the cabin assistant with screwed up pages of dry newspaper.

At 11am, four hours behind schedule, I peeled myself off the seat and onto the streets of Mumbai's northern suburbs. My oldest brother Jeff and Dad came to the city formally known as Bombay in 1984 and returned with horror stories of filth and poverty so I didn't have high expectations about my time here. For the past hour we had driven past slums next to expensive high rises, and watched as people lived the intimate moments of their lives in public view. Bathing, cooking, weaning the young, playing, arguing, smoking but most of the time doing nothing but abstract busy-ness. These are reported to be Asia's largest slums.
Indians have a great knack for doing very little but creating the illusion that they are actually working very hard. I'm not sure if they are trying hard to look busy or if just comes naturally to them. No one however, is ever too busy to take the time to stare at a foreigner. I can get used to cows walking in the streets, and tourist prices at all the attractions, and extra charges for cameras, and maybe the heat but I don't think I'll ever be comfortable with the staring. In Russia I responded to people staring by picking my nose and usually they stopped, but here that just whips the crowd into a frenzy. "Look Ajit, he's picking his nose. I wonder what he'll do next. He's reading... look everyone! He's reading the newspaper. I wonder what he's reading." Sometimes I'll pick up a Hindi newspaper and pretend to read it, even though I just look at the pictures, to try and create the illusion that I know what they're talking about. It never works.

I'm uncertain exactly where we were let off the bus but after a short taxi ride to the southern peninsular, past Chowpatty Beach and Wankhede Stadium, a different Mumbai appeared. This was the heart of the old colonial settlement, where the dismantled city Fort once stood, home to many fine colonial buildings and the Gateway of India. The Gateway is a massive basalt arch of triumph facing out into Mumbai Harbour and the ceremonial departure point of the last British regiment in 1948. We chose a cheap hotel very close to the Gateway in Colaba right next door to the massive Taj Mahal hotel - we didn't plan staying in town long so we needed to be in a good location. I found the Fort area very refreshing; no cows on the streets, the cars seemed to be obeying a few traffic laws and the streets were nice and wide. In the middle of it all was the Oval Maidan - a massive grassy park flanked by the High Court building and the beautiful University of Mumbai. At one end was a serious game of cricket with umpires and sight screens and all around the perimeter kids were playing their own games with tennis balls and typical enthusiasm. It was a wonderful sight so I lay in the park for a while wishing that I had either Sara or my Discman with me. I looked in my bag and found neither. I wandered up to Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai's international cricket ground, to see if I could get inside and take some photographs. Like Eden Gardens in Calcutta I wasn't allowed into the ground so I had to satisfy myself by taking a photo of the outside of the stadium, with the security guard standing in front of me.

Myself and Georg at the Gateway of India

For the next couple of days we slowly made our way to a few tourist spots - the busy Chowpatty beach at sunset, the Dhobi ghats where hundreds of men wash laundry from all over the city and of course a Bollywood film. We chose a new release called 'The Hero - Love Story of a Spy'. I was expecting a dreadful production but it turned out to be quite good. It was in Hindi for the most part but the plot of any Bollywood film is usually so simple that it doesn't take much to figure out what is going on. The singing and dancing was typically farcical as were the absurdly superhuman stunts but the audience loved every minute of it. The Hero was helping to defend Kashmir from the evil Pakistani invaders and with every Pakistani shot dead (of which there were close to 1,00) the crowd cheered wildly. Often before an important kill the Indian Hero would say something profound about Hindustan or the glory of Kashmir and the crowd would erupt with massive applause and cheering. I had felt much anti-Pakistani sentiment over the last few weeks, beginning the day that India defeated Pakistan in the cricket world cup, but that evening I realised that there is a deep sense of hatred for Pakistan that runs much deeper than cricket. In India they are truly despised. The dancing and singing brought some light hearted and sentimental moments to the film but its prime message was to underline the menacing nature of Pakistan and its leaders; and everyone loved it.

Dhobi ghat

Udaipur, India

OCTOPUSSY
I'm glad I saved Udaipur for the last stop in Rajasthan because it is by far my favourite city in India. It's a shame that Sara isn't here to enjoy it with me because it's a very romantic place with a beautiful lake surrounding the Lake Palace. All of the guesthouses along the lakefront boast superb views of the Palace and each night, you can find Octopussy playing just about anywhere. There are plenty of other palaces, temples and ornate residences around but none of them capture the imagination of the Lake Palace - the ultimate in luxury hotels covering the entire 1.5-hectare island at the northern end of the lake.

We've seen a few of the sights - the City Palace, the Jagdish Temple etc - but the best way to enjoy this city is just to sit at one of the many open air rooftop restaurants and enjoy the beautiful view. It's difficult to imagine a day starting of better than slowing lowering a couple of banana pancakes into your stomach, washing it down with a sweet lassi then putting your feet up to read with one of the finest views in the land right in front of you.

Rooftop terrace overlooking the Palace at Udaipur

Tomorrow George, Jo and I catch an overnight bus to the home of India's Bollywood movie industry - Mumbai (Bombay). The bus leaves at 3.30pm and is scheduled to arrive in Mumbai at 7am the following morning. Another overnight bus - add it to the list.

Mt Abu, India

ESCAPING THE HEAT
At 11.15pm we caught the overnight train back to Jodhpur, retracting our steps of the night before. In Jodhpur by 5am, Etienne headed for Pushkar while George, Jo and I caught another train to Abu Road then a rickety old local bus up the hill to Mt Abu (1,200m) - a shady little hill station perched beside the sadly under-filled Nakki Lake. It was a pleasant little town though and a nice change from the intense heat of the desert. I took the chance try some Thali's; traditional Southern Indian and Gujarati all you can eat meal, similar to Dhal Bhat in Nepal. I tried a few regional variations including a nice Punjabi one with curd but I stayed away from the goats brain curry.

The main attractions in town are the group of exquisite Jain temples- possibly the finest examples of Jain architecture in India where the art of carving marble reached unsurpassed heights. These important and very old temples date from the 11th and 13th centuries, which is difficult to believe after seeing the minute detail paid to the interior of each temple.

Mt Abu - Superstar

After Mt Abu there is only one other place I wanted to visit in Rajasthan - Udaipur, the setting for James Bonds Octopussy.

Jaisalmer, India

OVERNIGHT TO JAISALMER
It was nice to be catching a train with some western reinforcements for once. Every other train I had been on I seemed to be the lone foreigner. I was certainly the only foreigner in the carriage I was on so I was fair game for people to stare at, point at and start random conversations about Indian film stars with. I'll give it to the Indians though; they can get really excited about some truly crap movies.

The train trip was pretty short, departing Jodhpur at 11.15pm and arriving in Jaisalmer just before 5am - a little ahead of schedule. On the train, even before it left the station in Jodhpur, a hotel owner pounced upon us and made an impassioned plea for us to stay at his guesthouse. Knowing that tourist numbers are down all over Rajasthan we managed to beat him down in price to a mere Rs20 each for the night. At other guesthouses I had been paying in the region of Rs100-200 so this was an exceptional deal. We weren't even sure if we wanted to stay the night in Jaisalmer as we had talked about catching another overnight train further south but at that price we decided to pay for one night anyway and quickly fell asleep until a more reasonable hour.

Rajasthan elephant

Before it got too hot Etienne woke everyone up and together we walked the short distance to the Fort. Jaisalmer, the golden city, is special in that the ancient fort is home to several thousand people, a number of guesthouses and restaurants with rooftop views and a stunning set of Jain Temples. We had breakfast at an Indian/Australian restaurant but the Indian owner made a meal of his Australian accent; everything was bloody hot or bloody good and after a while it became bloody irritating. The Jain temples were the highlight though. Usually modest looking from the outside, the inside is always a riot of sculptural ornamentation with elaborate carvings of symmetrical patterns, animals and people dancing. This is partly explained by the Jain notion that beauty is found within. They believe that only by attaining complete purity of the soul can one attain liberation, hence they fast, meditate, retreat to lonely places etc, to purify themselves. They usually maintain a bare minimum of possessions, including a broom with which they sweep the path in front of them to avoid stepping on any living thing and a piece of cloth tied over their mouth to avoid the accidental inhalation of insects. I have killed so many mosquito's on this trip that I am forever barred from becoming a Jain.
 

The Jain temples of Jaisalmer - Me, Georg, Jo and Etienne

Jaisalmer is a desert town that hasn't seen rain in over two years. It's hot and dry and most people come here to do a camel trek into the desert. I have been on a camel trek before in Egypt so I had no intention of doing another one. Maybe if Sara was with me she could of convinced me to go into the plains for a few days but on my own I couldn't be bothered. Besides, the others decided to head to Mt Abu on the overnight train and I wanted to join them.

Rajasthan moustaches

Jodhpur, India

COLOURS
Rajasthan is a colourful place. The people dress colourfully; the women in their saris and the men orange and red turbans. A number of towns have adopted colourful identities; Jaipur is the pink city, Jaisalmer the golden city and Jodhpur blue. It was for Jodhpur I headed after Pushkar taking an early morning public bus.
Jodhpur is dominated by a massive fort, called Meherangarh, on top of a rocky ridge in the centre of town. The old city is surrounded by a 10km long wall with many of the buildings painted blue - a colour said to deter mosquito's. From the narrow streets you don't really get a good idea of the colour but from Meherangarh the city comes alive with different shades of indigo. The fort was superb with a quality self-paced audio tour, excellent views and a reasonable entrance fee for fake International Student Identity Card holders. The streets were narrow and typically filled with all sorts of action. Riding a bicycle through the old city was a challenge firstly to avoid being hit by the auto rickshaw drivers and other cyclists but also to avoid the cows, children, rubbish, potholes, open sewers etc.

Jodhpur from Meherangarh

When I first arrived in Jodhpur I knew that there were a few guesthouse options close to the bottom of the road leading up to the fort so I just wandered around aimlessly for a while, slowly heading towards the fort in the hope that I would stumble upon one. Before I did though I met a couple of fellow travelers; George, an Arnie look-a-like from Austria, and Jo from Australia, both were staying at the Shivam Guesthouse just around the corner so on their recommendation I checked in there. It turned out to be a good choice. The rooftop restaurant commanded fabulous views of the fort, the rooms were really comfortable (mine even had a television) and the family running the guesthouse were wonderful. George, Jo and a French chap called Etienne were all leaving town the next night so I decided to join them on the overnight train to the desert town of Jaisalmer. I only had one night in Jodhpur but I saw what I wanted within the day and a half I was there but I left thinking that this would be a nice place to return to someday. It was the first time I had thought that about an Indian town.

The beautiful blue city

Pushkar, India

JAIPUR TO PUSHKAR
Pushkar is only about 120km further east from Jaipur but to get there you have to catch a bus to Ajmer, which I did, then find the bus stand for the local bus between there and Pushkar. Pushkar is only 11km from Ajmer but separated from it by Snake Mountain. It's an enchanting little town clinging to the side of Pushkar Lake with its many bathing ghats and temples. On the bus I met a young chap whose friend ran a guesthouse in Pushkar. Now it wasn't the first time I had heard this story before but the way he delivered it was very reserved. He didn't even tell me the name of the guesthouse until I asked. I found it in the Lonely Planet and it looked like a good location so I told him I would check it out. He walked with me around the lake offering some good advice along the way like 'Don't take flowers when so called 'priests' offer them'. After they give you a flower they tell you to throw it into the lake for good luck and then hit you up for cash for the privilege. Not 10 seconds after he told me then two of these 'priests' emerged with their small baskets of flowers. It warned about them in the Lonely Planet as well but it was nice to hear it from a local as well.

I ended up staying at his friends' guesthouse, Hotel Kandhaia, because the owner was really friendly when I turned up. The rooms were okay and it was set back from the lake a little bit so hopefully there wouldn't be too many mosquito's. I put up my mosquito net over the bed just in case.

THE TRANQUILITY OF SOLITUDE
Surrounded by one billion Indians there are not many moments when I can enjoy the tranquility of solitude. I like talking with local people about the state of the country or about cricket as long as they aren't trying to sell me something but it's the moments I have to myself that I really value. The few hours I had at the Taj Mahal were magical and again today I escaped the town and walked up to the Savitri Temple on the hilltop overlooking Pushkar. I really should have gone early in the morning instead of during the heat of the noonday sun but the walk was interesting and the views of the town were perfect. I sat in a secluded shady spot for a few hours and just gazed out over the town and the desert trailing off into the distance. The birds and an occasional monkey kept me company but apart from that I was completely alone for the rest of the afternoon.

I had another day in Pushkar because I found a hotel with a swimming pool that the general public could use for Rs50 a day. The pool was welcome relief from the heat and the quiet garden was welcome relief from the busy street so I spent the day acting as a translator between the Irish and Israeli contingent - neither of which could understand the others accents. There were a lot of Israeli's in town and many of them were organising celebrations for Passover, which was two days away.

Jaipur, India

THE PINK CITY
I plan to move pretty quickly through Rajasthan so that I can reach Sri Lanka in time for the cricket tour but also because it's very hot here and the tourists are pretty easy targets for the local merchants. I have heard that people are less persistent in the South so that ideal is driving me to see what I want in Rajasthan quickly and escape towards Tamil Nadu. After only one night in Agra I caught a bus further East to the capital of Rajasthan, Jaipur - the Pink City. In 1876 Maharaja Ram Singh had the entire old city painted pink, traditionally a colour associated with hospitality, to welcome the then Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII). I haven't seen it yet as I rushed straight to the guesthouse when I got off the bus. I decided to stay at the Diggi Palace about 1km south of the old city in the former residence of the Thakur (Nobleman) of Diggi with a lovely quiet lawn area and rambling palace-like courtyards. It's very refreshing to be able to sit on a beautiful lawn surrounded by trees and read the paper without any distractions.

WAR IN INDIA
While war was ripping through the heart of Baghdad, I fought my own private war on the streets of Jaipur. Beginning with an aerial assault courtesy of an extra spicy Chicken Biryani last night, using tactics my Father-in-Law would describe as 'walking the horses', I approached the old city from the west and quickly took the Chandpol gate before encountering any real resistance.

Bravely fending off the advances of the merchants and rickshaw wallahs I began late in the morning to make small advances into the heart of the old city before retreating to safety. Jostling for position with cows, pigs, camel drawn carts, games of street cricket, men on motorcycles and small boys on big bicycles, I fought my way around the narrow streets until I was able to move around the old city at will with only occasional bursts of hostile fire from the rickshaw wallahs. Much of the time I was able to fend them off using the classic line 'You think I'm a tourist? My Mother is from Calcutta.'

I saw a man on the back of a cycle rickshaw dressed in white sitting like a king on his throne while the rider struggled to pedal up a small incline. I saw small boys with stick legs and potbellies, fat women in brightly coloured saris, turbaned Sikhs with perfectly groomed beards and waxed moustaches all trying to live the Indian dream. Had I liberated them? I didn't know, but I believed I had control of their city. All day I saw no other tourists.

Everywhere I turned people were peeing on the side of the street - small girls, teenage boys and grown men. Especially grown men. One even squatted across the street and looked me in the eye as he deposited a large turd in the open sewer canal. I was powerless to stop them and I certainly didn't want to join them so I carefully retreated back to the safety of my guesthouse.

As in any war you learn some important lessons. By far the most valuable one learned today was that the most dangerous end of a cow is the back end. Not only did I almost get pooped on in a narrow alleyway but I saw with my own eyes a cow drop a watery pie on a vacant bicycle saddle seconds before the owner sat in it. It's tactics like that that confirmed my belief that today was no ordinary battle.

Agra, India

INSANITY
One of my many definitions of insanity is 'repeating the same process in the hope of a different result'. I would like to be able to write that I took a nice afternoon stroll around Agra but in reality I was haunted every step of the way by rickshaw and tri-shaw drivers. I had nowhere especially to go - I just wanted to see what the city was like on foot rather than from the back of a ride. Just saying "No" doesn't work very well as demonstrated by one eager fellow who followed me for about 10 minutes. Sensing that he was more persistent than most I decided to count the number of times I said No to him. During the course of our conversation, which ranged from where I was going to where I was coming from, he asked me no fewer than 37 times if I would like a ride on his rickshaw. It was quite comical in the end but I finally managed to convince him that I wasn't really going anywhere but he was welcome to ride beside me in order to keep all the others away.
I ended up going to the Agra Fort in the late afternoon because I had walked right up to the entrance gate by about 4pm. I decided to visit the Taj the following morning for sunrise rather than trying to do it today but the views from the Fort were superb. Entrance to the Fort cost Rs300 ($6.25) for tourists but only Rs20 (0.42c) for Indians. The Taj Mahal is even worse with a hefty Rs750 ($15.60) entrance charge but again only Rs20 for locals. The prices used to be even higher for foreigners (at one stage over $20 to visit the Taj) but thankfully a successful petition to the Supreme Court a year or two back reduced the prices somewhat. I wonder what my Father paid when he visited in 1961.

Agra Fort

The entrance to Agra Fort

TAJ MAHAL
This morning I got up early and walked down to the Taj Mahal a few kilometers from the guesthouse. It was one of those exciting times when you know you're about to see something spectacular. At the entrance I had to leave behind my morning newspaper and Discman before being permitted to enter which ruined my plan to listen to Matchbox 20 while reading about the War under the shadow of the Taj. Entering the main complex and seeing the Taj Mahal for the first time sent shivers down my spine - a feeling comparable to seeing the Pyramids of Giza, Angkor Wat or the Great Wall for the first time. I've seen pictures but nothing compares to standing in front of it with a perfect reflection in the watercourses in the stillness of the early morning. Better still I had made it well before 7am and the place was virtually empty. Indians are charged Rs110 before 7am but only Rs20 after, so of course there are NO LOCALS at the Taj between 6am and 7am.

Me at the Taj Mahal - couldn't get that guy to my right to move

Unlike elsewhere in Agra (and possibly anywhere else in India) the grounds of the Taj were peaceful and quiet. It was wonderfully relaxing with very few people around and the mausoleum looking superb in the bright morning sunshine. I stayed for a few hours, sitting in various shady areas and admiring the views before walking around the raised marble platform and into the central chamber with the false tombs of Mumtaz Mahal (for whom the Taj is built) and Shah Jehan who ordered the construction of the mausoleum after his wife died during childbirth in 1631. The real tombs are locked in a basement room below the main chamber away from the prying eyes of the tourists.

Taj Mahal and reflecting pool

Gorakpur to Agra, India

ALONE AGAIN, NATURALLY
In Gorakpur I bought a ticket on a train for Lucknow, and another ticket for a sleeper from Lucknow through to Agra. That was the plan, but it didn't quite happen exactly like that. I had no seat number for the Lucknow bound train so I stumbled around a few carriages before finding some space to put my bags and myself and settled in with my newspaper. The man next to me was extremely friendly, asking a few questions and telling me a little of himself. Today was his four-year wedding anniversary so he was heading home to see his wife after working out of town for a few weeks. As we talked he bought me chai and masala flavoured potato chips and I noticed that many other people were listening to our conversations and smiling a lot when I looked over at them. Although I really wanted to either read the newspaper or lie down and take a rest the hospitality shown to me was heard to refuse so I sat and passed the time before the man got off about 3 hours outside of Gorakpur. No sooner had he vacated the seat next to me than it was filled again with one of the smiling faces from the carriage. Ravi was some kind of government worker with a slew of friends in tow, each crowding around to hear what I had to say. Ravi was very curious fellow but his questions didn't follow much of a pattern. "What is your country? Who is your favourite Indian actor? Should Ganguly be dropped from the Indian cricket team? What is your e-mail address? What was your mothers name before she married your father?"

For the next three hours Ravi bombarded me with question after question. I had no peace with him around except for the brief periods when he would go to the bathroom or do something elsewhere in the carriage. He got off a little before Lucknow but again was quickly replaced with one of his friends.
"You are very handsome and very strong. Where will you take dinner tonight?" the new man said sliding his hand on to my leg and inching closer.
"I don't know where I will take dinner tonight." I said nervously.
"You will take dinner with me. Take your bags, we will get off at the next station."
"Oh, I'm not very hungry, thanks though."
I had a tough time getting rid of this one. I didn't catch his name and didn't really care too much. By this time I had been travelling for 24 hours with no sleep and I didn't feel like chatting about nothing again. All I really wanted to do was sit on my own and relax in peace. Finally I got off at Lucknow and fumbled around the station looking for my next train. Of all people to ask I approached the chai seller from the train and asked him where to catch the train to Agra. He said that the train I was already on goes through Agra so just stay put and he will bring me more tea. So I did. I stayed on the train knowing full well that the ticket in my hand was for the Marudhar Express leaving at 11.55pm - it was only 9pm now. Luckily the train had emptied so I found a free upper berth sleeper and chained by bags to the railing and drifted off to sleep. At about 3am the ticket officer came through to check the tickets and he didn't seem to care that I was on the wrong train. I must of looked pretty pathetic sleeping on my bag with my alarm clock set to wake me at 5am in time for the arrival into Agra Fort station. I was prepared to bribe him should he make a fuss but it never came to that. I was confused as to why the ticket attendant in Gorakpur didn't sell me a ticket on the direct train - there was plenty of room, by Indian standards. But then again, this is India and often things are not meant to make sense.

At Agra Fort Station I bought a newspaper that I pretended to read in order to distract the attention of the relentless wave of rickshaw wallahs before finally catching a ride to one of the recommended guesthouses between the Taj Mahal and the Fort. I planned to walk but I relented because I was so tired. The first thing I did when I got inside my room was close the door, lean on the back of it and look around wide-eyed. Alone again. It was 6.20am. It took me 36 hours to get here from Kathmandu and I needed to sleep.

Kathmandu, Nepal to Gorakpur, India

LEAVING THE ROCK BEHIND
For the past month or more I've been travelling with Ross Sendall from Australia. Nicknamed 'Rock' for his reliability, he has been a joy to travel with. Since January I've been lucky to have spent some quality time with D'Arcy in Burma, Beppe briefly in India and now Rock. It's great to be able to travel around this planet and see what it has to offer but it's hard when you build such good friendships and leave prematurely. Hopefully one day I will see each of them again but whatever happens they are a part of this trip and part of the memories I will take with me forever.

VOLLEYBALL AND BUS SEATS
My seat on the overnight bus from Kathmandu to the Indian border wasn't connected to the floor properly so every time the driver braked or changed gears I was thrown into the back of the seat in front of me. During the course of the night this happened about six and a half thousand times so I arrived in Sanauli at 6am feeling like I'd just done a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson. I got used to the seat thing after a while but I never got used to the guy next to me with the rubberneck who tried to use my shoulder a pillow all night. We didn't get along very well because every time he snuggled in for the night I used his head like a volleyball and sent it back over the imaginary net running between our seats with the pointy part of my shoulder. I'm not sure which of us looked worse when we stepped off the bus but I won the volleyball match. As bad as I felt though I knew that this was only the start of a very long journey back into the heart of India. I was determined to make Agra by tomorrow morning, no matter what it took. During the journey my thoughts often drifted to my brother and sister-in-law, Jeff and Julie, travelling in Japan. While I was enduring the seat that wouldn't keep still they were probably hurtling across the countryside in the bullet train, fully reclined sipping tea and eating sushi. I wasn't bitter at all.

I threw down some breakfast and retraced my steps of a month earlier back past the Nepal exit/entry booth, over the imaginary line into India and up to the immigration desk. "New Zealand. We beat you in the Cricket World Cup." The officer said thumbing through my passport, stopping when he found the Indian visa. "Yes I know. How did you go against Australia in the final?" I asked, knowing that India had been well beaten by a better team. I shouldn't of asked because we spent the next 20 minutes talking about the Indian team, who I liked and didn't like, the coach, the captain - it went on and on. I was too tired for this but eventually I got my passport back and stumbled onto a bus headed for Gorakpur, about 100km south of the border, and argued briefly with the luggage man about an imaginary charge for my backpack.

Kathmandu, Nepal

KATHMANDU
After the relative serenity of Pokhara I found Kathmandu a little overwhelming at first. The main tourist area of Thamel is teeming with tourists, cars, cycle rickshaws, tourist shops and locals all jostling for position on the narrow streets. Hawkers try to palm off pots of Tiger Balm, hashish, bracelets and all manner of things while artfully dodging the traffic and the potholes. Many people had said that Kathmandu was a welcome relief after a few months in India but my first impressions were that it was just as manic. A few days later though I changed my mind as I became comfortable with the streets and began to find good places to eat, shop and waste the hours away. Our digs was a place called Elite for Rs100 a night.

For a few days Ross and I walked around some of the tourist attractions in the city - Durbar Square just south of Thamel, Patan the so called 'City of Beauty' just south of the filthy Bagmati river, the Buddhist temple on top of the hill at Swayambhunath known as the 'monkey temple', the sacred Hindu area of Pashupatinath where bodies are publicly cremated in the same way as Varanasi, and the huge peaceful stupa at Boudha.

Four days was not nearly long enough in Kathmandu but it was time I got back into India and continued my way south towards Sri Lanka. Tonight I'm catching the overnight bus back to the India/Nepali border at Sanauli and then continuing to Gorakhpur where I should be able to catch a train further west towards Agra and the Taj Mahal.