A cow in the city

The direct train from Agra to Gorakhpur is only once a week, so we had to get to Delhi first and catch the sleeper from there. We remembered from the guide book that trains from Agra to Delhi were frequent, which I took to mean several times an hour, which would give us plenty of time. After sitting at Agra station for more than an hour with no sign of a Delhi train, we found a kiosk selling the Trains at a Glance guide and started looking through it. Dismay set in as I looked through the many possible trains from Agra to Delhi and started to realise that they all seemed to leave in the morning or the evening, but none in the afternoon. There was one option which meant that we would maybe just make it, but it didn't seem sensible to leave such a small margin. We thought we were going to have to quickly change plans and take the bus, which was slower, meaning that we would have to leave for the bus station immediately. Before we left, we thought to ask at information, just to make sure. It turned out there was an express train arriving quite soon, and the reason we had missed it was the station it terminated at, Nizamuddin, did not say “Delhi” in the name. We would still have to change to New Delhi Station, but it would be no problem to get a local train. Apparently.

The train to Nizamuddin was nice and fast and it the nerve-wracking seemed to be behind us. The station was impossible though. After waiting for twenty minutes or so in a “queue” with Indians pushing in from all sides and Joanne getting increasingly annoyed, we made it to the front, where we were told we were in the wrong place; it was general class, downstairs. In the queue-cum-scrum we had got chatting to an Indian who was back on holiday after living in New Zealand for five years, and we saw him again in the downstairs queue. When we got to the front of that, we were told again that we were in the wrong queue and we had to go upstairs. At this point the NZ-Indian saw our frustration and stepped in to help. After a few minutes of heated Hindi he turned around, exasperated, and admitted that he had not been able to make any sense of the situation either. He had obviously forgotten what India is like, did not seem to be able to believe how impossible everything is. He suggested we should just get a taxi, but I was not ready to give up and you always have to look after the pennies on a trip this long. I had a flash of inspiration: every Indian railway station has an office with a sign above it saying “Station Superintendent's Office” and I thought it had to be worth a try, so we went in and I explained that we were trying to get to New Delhi Station, but neither ticket desk was able to help me. He stood up and looked past us and told us there is a train on platform three now and it leaves in two minutes. “But where do we get a ticket? Can we get one on board?” I asked, to which he replied “Don't worry about that – nobody will check”. So there it was from the superintendent's own mouth. The train was very crowded as it was now rush hour, but nobody asked for a ticket and we made it to New Delhi in plenty of time

The train to Gorakhpur was already very very busy. We had booked the top bunks for this trip, so after the two journeys we would know which option was better. After our first journey we were fairly convinced that the top bunk was going to be better: peple had been able to go to sleep when they wanted because you don't have to wait for the seats to be converted into beds if you are on the top. However this train was so busy that the top bunks were already full of other peoples luggage when we got on. There were far too many people in our carriage and where there were eight berths there were about fifteen people. There was some grumbling but a man assured everyone that the three girls with lots of luggage were getting off in just an hour, which would have been 9 O'Clock, the time that seats are supposed to be converted to beds. At 11 O'Clock they were still on the train and we were exhausted, having got up so early to see the Taj Mahal. Every day I become more certain that Indians hold no moral value in the truth. However they did get off shortly ater that and we went straight up to bed, allowing the other people in the carriage to put their beds down too. Now that we were there, the top bunks were definitely better, as you are less aware of the constant movement below, although this means your belongings are more in danger of course. Also it is only occasionally when someone goes past carrying something on their shoulder or head, that my feet were bashed instead of the constant pummeling they got below.

The next morning at Gorakhpur we faced the next part of our journey: we still had to get a bus to the border then, over the border, get a different bus to Kathmandu.Gorakhpur looked like a horrible place so we were happy when we found a local bus leaving just after we arrived. It was very cheap and not too uncomfortable and deposited us about 200 metres from the actual border post, although all of the auto-rickshaw drivers who met us off the bus seemed inexplicably convinced that the distance was two kilometres. We were wise to them though, and the small collection of foreigners who had gathered on the bus made our way on foot. The border was a fairly casual affair which you could easily have walked through without dealing with any officials or paying for a visa, but the risk of being caught inside the country without one and the fact that hotels like to see it means that most people would be happy to walk in and pay the fee. In the Indian immigration office they told us that Rs1000 and Rs500 Indian notes were illegal in Nepal and they could be confiscated on the other side, so I had to change quite a lot of money across the road. Nepali currency is soft and is pegged to the Indian Rupee at a rate of 1.6 Nepali Rupees. However the money changer explained that, although 1.6 is the official rate, Rs500 and Rs1000 notes only attract a rate of 1.5; this is also official he said. I suspect this was just another con, but I didn't want to risk all my money being confiscated, so I handed it over.

The other side of the border was even more relaxed and the idea of someone from customs going through my stuff to confiscate high-value Indian notes seemed farcical. The guys at Nepalese immigration seemed unusually nice and friendly, smiling and chatting with us as we organised our visas. We were planning to stay about ten days, but when it came to filling in how long we planned to stay on the form, I asked how much the various visas cost. There was a 15 day visa for $30, a 30 days visa for $45, and another, maybe 90 day visa, which was far longer than we would be staying. So, I filled in 15 days, since it would cost the same as ten, deciding that this would give us a reasonable margin if our trek ran a bit late. Joanne saw what I had written and did not seem happy: how can we stay 15 days when we don't even have seven weeks for India and Nepal together? I explained that it cost the same, and it was just a safety margin, so she went along with it.

The border town is called Belahiya on the Nepal side but, confusingly, most people seem to call it Sunauli, which is the town on the Indian side. There isn't any gap between the two, so I suppose it would all be one town were the border removed. We discovered the next bus was leaving soon, but would get into Kathmandu about 2am, asssuming it ran on time. We decided it would be better to wait for a later bus, and arrive about 6am, saving us one night's money for a room, as well as being more convenient. After a bit of haggling we were able to get the fare down to Rs400 Nepali. They even took us to the bus to show us that it was worth the fare. It looked OK. Most insistent haggler was a guy called Al I first took to be a Scotsman, although an Australian girl was talking about him as “the Irish guy”. We made use of our time waiting for the bus to have something to eat. Disappointingly it just seemed to be Indian food. At dinner we discovered that everyone was planning trekking, but everyone else was planning on trekking in the Anapurna region, which we had ruled out because the treks there were all too long for our schedule. Al only had a vague plan. Apparently the reason his accent was so hard to pin down was that he had lived lots of places, including, most prominently, Derby followed by Edinburgh, but occasionally Cornwall would come through on a long “a” like “paaassport”.

When it came to bus leaving time, it soon became obvious that the bus was not OK. It was sufficiently plush for them to call it a deluxe bus, but there was less legroom than I've ever encountered before on transport. Even Joanne was having trouble. Evidently Nepalis are very short, or else they have armour-plated knees. Not long after we were wedged into our seats, some locals came on, apparently with the same seat numbers, and we were dismissed to the back of the bus. The road was not very good and the suspension on the bus was not very good, and at the back of the bus you could feel every stone. Going over big holes we were bounced off our seats so that our heads hit off the roof. Needless to say we did not get much sleep on that night bus. In fact we got none at all. Joanne cursed herself for moving and said that next time she would stay where she was and the local could go to the back, after all it was our seats.

We arrived in Kathmandu exhausted.

written by  The Happy Couple on May 27, 2009 from Sunauli, Nepal
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Us and Taj

After the second night's rooftop dinner we went looking for an off-licence again, because the restaurant beer prices were really high and, although it's a novelty drinking beer out of a tea-pot, it's not all that nice as it all foams up. After an extensive search we finally found a place selling beer and I asked for a couple. In India, most retail products, in particular all alcohol, it marked with an MRP: Maximum Retail Price; occasionally, especially in supermarkets, things sell for less. The MRP for alcohol varies from state to state, and I knew from the label on the beer the young guys had bought for me the previous evening that I should be paying Rs60 for a “mild beer”. At the off-licence I saw it coming: he took the two bottles out of the fridge and quickly wrapped them in newspaper before I had a chance to look at them. Then he asked me for Rs180. I was becoming impatient with constantly being ripped-off, so I said “I don't think so”, unwrapped one of the bottles and pointed to where it said “MRP 60/-”. “Sixty rupees”, I said. I was sure, having been caught out, he would back down, but Indians do not seem to feel embarrassment or shame and he persisted: “Yes, that is the old price. The new price is 90”. Unbelievable! Here I think is where SE Asian and Indian culture differ substantially; in SE Asia they will happily over-charge in a bartering situation, where it is up to you to fight for a better price but I think a Thai, for example, would die of shame to be caught out in a bare-faced lie like that, whereas Indians lie constantly; they have no shame. I said “You are kidding! Forget it.” and to his surprise we walked off, followed by his voice saying “OK – 80 rupees”.

Taj reflection

It really is very frustrating and wearing, and you constantly have to be on your guard. Every time you have any kind of financial interaction with an Indian, it's an opportunity to rip you off. Matthew had been absolutely right that first day in the Red Shield Guesthouse. The previous day, during our auto-rickshaw tour of Agra, I had run into another problem relating to the MRP. We stopped off at a kiosk to buy some water as it was very hot. I decided to buy a couple of soft drinks as well. With each item I asked the vendor how much it was; each time he told me a price higher than the MRP; each time I said no and, pointing to the MRP, said the correct price; each time he said OK and repeated the correct price. Then I stated the total, to which he said OK, so I handed over a Rs100 note. At this point a child came over to me and started harrassing me to buy some postcards, so I hurried back to the rickshaw. Only as we pulled off did I realise that the bugger at the kiosk had given me the change according to the prices he had originally said, rather than all the prices he had agreed to afterwards. Indians!

Jo, Taj, and crow

Fort from Taj

Full wide-angle view of Sunrise on Taj

Beautiful marble work on side of Taj

Aeroplane flies past the Taj

Monkey watches aeropplane

Inside it was already starting to fill up and we tried to take our opportunity to snatch a couple of clear photos of the Taj Mahal and us in front of it. But pushy Indian photographers were getting in the way of almost every attempt and even had the gall to demand that we move out of their shot when we had been there first. Of course there is no such concept as “there first” in Indian culture; it is dog eat dog and fight your way to the front. Joanne had had enough and started refusing to get out of the way, or asking Indians to get out of her shot. This is, I believe, the correct way to react, except that she was also getting upset and annoyed by how rude it all seemed. To them, though, I don't think any of this is seen as rude, it's just what you have to do in a country where there are far too many people. Of course the Taj Mahal is lovely and Joanne was really enjoying seeing it, but her patience with Indians, which had been even shorter than mine all along, had run out. Lucky we were heading to Nepal! Only afterwards did I admit to Joanne that I had been a little bit disappointed when I first saw the it; it's a lot smaller than I had expected and there isn't much at all to the inside, but we were here for Joanne and she thought it was amazing.

View back to the entrance from the Taj

After the Taj we had lunch in a little place nearby, where the owner told us we could have beer for Rs70 if we came back for dinner. And the off licence had tried to sell me it for Rs90! Unfortunately we had a train to catch and hurried away to catch it.

My parents used to play this (allegedly)

There is of course a huge danger of taking too many photos of the Taj Mahal, after all what else are you going to do once you are in there? I did, but I've spared the blog from most of them. If you want to see more you can click on an image then go through the photos.

Our Hotel - Shanti Lodge

Nice oily man

We found a book shop and, after convincing the proprietor that we were only interested in his Nepal Lonely Planet and not his hashish, we managed to bargain him down to Rs500 from what he originally said was a fixed price, set by the Indian government of Rs800; Indians don't seem to value the concept of truth in the least. I had a little chuckle for the American girl who thinks she's going to be able to sell her book for Rs600. If they are willing to sell at Rs500 there is no way they are buying for more than Rs150.

Marble work inside the Fort

You can see the Taj from the Fort

The Fort is huge

Inside the Fort

The Taj through Fort archways

On the rickshaw the driver suggested we go to a different market. We had agreed Rs20 which seemed reasonable as it was practically across the road form where we got in, but this other place was further away. First of all he told us the market we wanted was just old second hand army clothes, the he told us we could go to both markets and then back to our hotel for Rs20, but when he mentioned shops we said no, we'd seen enough shops yesterday. Shortly after he set off he said he wanted to give us a rickshaw each “because Agra is very hilly – same price: ten and ten”. I thought he was maybe just giving a young guy, his son (or grand son) maybe, a chance. But as we cycled past the market we'd asked to go to, I could see the old guy saying something to Joanne, in front, and Io realised we'd been split up to prevent conference. I tried shouting to Joanne, but it was too noisy and she was too far ahead. He just kept going and going, and when we were far past where we wanted to go he stopped and my young guy caught up. OK, we can go to such-and-such shop, he said. “We agreed no shops”, we responded. Apparently he'd told Joanne that our market was “closed on a Monday” but it was nonsense; I'd seen the market up side streets we passed. Again and again he said just this – or just that – only looking and so on, but we told him we'd had enough of looking and we knew that it isn't really “only” looking; it's sit down for enough time to justify his commission and then endure hard sell for even longer. Eventually I offered him Rs10 extra to replace his commission, just to take us where we wanted to go, but he said that it wouldn't even cover his costs. We had had enough, so we looked at each other an got out and started walking. We were ages away from where we wanted to be, but we were in a corner with yet another Indian cheat. He came running down the street after us shouting “give me my money! Give me my money!”. I didn't want to be arrested or lynched, so I prepared Rs10 to give him, which seemed about right for the distance given that it was the wrong place. In the end I felt a flush of anger and swapped it for a Rs5 note, which I turned around and gave him, It was enough, and the disappeared. Really he should have given us money, since we were now further from our destination than we had started! We actually had a very interesting walk through a part of Agra with no tourists, which is quite unusual there. We had people staring at us the whole way back, but Joanne didn't find what she was looking for at the market anyway, so the walk back was really worthwhile, and all down to a cheat. Back at the fort we got an auto-rickshaw, “Direct” I said after saying where we wanted to go. That's the keyword. That night we had dinner on a neighbouring rooftop restaurant, where the view of the Taj is not so good, but the food was very nice, and bountiful.

Playing with long exposure on my camera...

Joanne and Taj from our guesthouse

We had been wondering what the temperature was since we arrived in India, but had not remembered to find out in Mumbai. Joanne looked it up online in Agra and found out it was 39C. It felt about the same as Mumbai, where we were standing around in the sun all day in silly costumes. For me India has actually been more comfortable than Bangkok because, although the temperature is much higher here, the humidity is only about the 45% mark. I think what happens is in dry heat I sweat a lot and it keeps me cool as it evaporates, but in humid heat I just get really sweaty and greasy and hot. Joanne, however, not being much of a sweater, finds India much more uncomfortable. Our auto-rickshaw driver had sold us a tour of the things apart from the Taj for Rs350 down from Rs450. We told him that we needed to get some sleep first, but he could pick us up later. I thought a wee drink before bed would be nice but we couldn't find alcohol anywhere and the hotel told us that they didn't serve alcohol until evening time. In the end we tucked into a bit more of the Glen Livet and dozed for a wee while.

We came down to meet our driver, but it turned out he'd sent his “brother” instead. After some hesitation we decided to go anyway. First he took us to see “Baby Taj”, really called Itimad-ud-Daulah, which in fact predates the Taj Mahal, and much of the Taj's design was based on it. Next he took us to Agra Fort, which he persuaded us wasn't worth going inside, so we just took a couple of photos from outside. Later we read in the LP that it is one of the finest forts in India, so he was just trying to save himself time. Then he took us across the river for a view of the Taj, then to several other places where the point always seemed to be the view of the Taj, rather than where we were. At one temple a man dressed in saffron cloths came towards us saying “I am holy man. Give me money!”. He was a Sadhu and apparently this is what they do. We didn't give him any.

Another view fo the Taj

Yet another view of the Taj

Oh no! Not another view of the Taj

View of Taj from our guesthouse

We were deposited at home and finally got a beer on the rooftop restaurant. The view of the Taj Mahal from Shanti Lodge really is superb. There is obviously something a bit funny going on with the licensing laws, though, because my beer arrived in a teapot: “Special Tea, sir”. We got chatting to an American girl who was also on a protracted trip and had just come from Nepal. She told us we were too late already, and the last Everest attempt had already been, and that there were already leeches everywhere. She was wanting to get rid of a Nepal LP guide and had some fantasy of exchanging it for an Eastern European guide, where she was going next. She said we could buy it from her and went to fetch it. She wouldn't sell it for anything less than Rs600 which I thought was a very unfriendly price, considering how little we'd been able to sell our guides for in Thailand. I had thought we'd be able to reach a mutually beneficial arrangement, say about two or three hundred rupees maximum, but she obviously had no idea at all. In the end we wished her good luck and said good night. Joanne decided she wanted more beer and, since it had been rather expensive at the hotel we went out looking for the off-licence the hotel were bringing it from (you had to tell them in advance how many beers you were going to want). We failed to find it, but some helpful youths working in a shop offered to sell me some hashish then, when I said I wasn't interested were happy to go and buy me beer for Rs80 instead. A small profit, I thought, but much cheaper than the hotel. Meanwhile an old woman got talking to Joanne and persuaded her to pay to have her arms covered in henna patterns. I drank most of the beer waiting for Joanne, constantly getting pestered by people selling hash, and when she reappeared the henna work was awful.

Us and Taj from Guesthouse

Breakfast at the Sally Army

Cricket on the way to the station

So that decided it: get a train to Gorakhpur for Nepal, according to the Trains at a Glance book belonging to the Red Shield, and get out of Mumbai as soon as possible. The booking office wasn't too far away, so we walked, getting constantly harassed to take rickshaws, buy hashish, buy milk for baby brother, as we breathed in the air thick with pollution. We eventually found the booking office, where the queues were a bit difficult to understand. At one end we noticed a counter for foreigners to buy an Indrail Pass, which we didn't want to do, so Joanne stood in that queue while I stood in the information queue. There was quite a bit of jostling but I got to the front, where I was told that the train we wanted for Gorakhpur via Lucknow was full “because of the holiday”.

Indian bureaucracy at the ticket office

Indian traffic genius on way back from ticket office

When we got back Joanne had to lie down with a sore back, probably from standing so long in the queue at the booking office, but maybe from all the standing around doing our “passing” work the day before. I headed out to take the photo, passport copies, visa copies, and hotel receipt to the SIM card kiosk who had phoned to nag again. I decided to check out another of the drinking places nearby as I was curious; Mumbai seems to have more places to drink than I remembered Delhi having from my last visit, or maybe Indian culture was changing. It was ostensibly a food place, but it was the usual drab Indian place, set up like a cafe, with no atmosphere. Men (only) were sitting around, not speaking to their companions and drinking sullenly. Again I was the only white there. At the table next to me I watched an incredible display of what in Britain we would these days call binge drinking. Two mean sat opposite each other and they literally did not say a single word the whole time. They each had an empty and a half-full “peg” of whisky, which is about a quarter bottle, which they seemed to be drinking with coke. They also had a whole bottle of vodka which was about two-thirds full when I sat down. In the space of no more than twenty minutes the whole lot was gone. The vodka was the most incredible; Indians sharing water do not put their mouths to the bottle or jugs: instead they just pour it in from above their mouths. One of the two guys was doing this with the vodka: pouring a large mouthful in then putting it back on the table then, as he was swilling it around his mouth and swallowing it, his friend was pouring a large amount into an empty glass and downing it. Then the first one would take another large mouthful. They repeated this until the vodka was gone, at which point they got to their feet and left, in a bit of a hurry I thought, perhaps hoping to get home before they blacked out, or just outside before they puked! While all that was going on, the atmosphere in the place had actually lifted because the first election results had started coming in and there was a bit of a buzz; and I had ordered a very nice masala papad to go with several Indian whiskies, working my way down the list in the hope of finding a palatable one. I tried four and they were all terrible. I decided to keep a note, giving them a mark out of ten, in case I ordered one of them again in the future. Haywards Fine got 0, Officer's Choice got 1 as did Bagpiper, then the champion, Green Label got a fabulous 2 out of 10. I suspected there might be a bias as the score seemed to be increasing with alcohol consumed, but I did start with the cheapest as well, and surely four units wouldn't cloud my judgement too much!

Cheery Indian drinking den

After unsuccessfully trying to change to a cleaner room, get the hostel to pay for our laundry or show any kind of contrition for the terrible state of Joanne's skin, we gave up and sprayed more chemicals around our room, deciding instead to write a comment on the “India Mike” website, from where the glowing recommendations for this hovel had come. When we checked out and paid the next morning, the horrible concierge just said “show downstairs” when he handed us the receipt; no smile, no thank you, no sorry about the disgusting state of the place. The guy downstairs on the door was actually quite friendly and managed a smile. Outside we were crowded by taxi drivers, but they were all really greedy. We were now certain the fare could be no more than Rs20 as the station we were going to was much closer than the one we knew the fare to be Rs20 to; maybe Rs25 including a charge for the luggage. Nobody would go lower that Rs80, and most realising that we were getting a local train, wanted to take us all the way to the main train station instead for Rs250. In the end we just said “you're all greedy!” and walked. The train was only Rs12, meaning that we'd already saved over Rs300 by the time we got to the main train station, with an hour still to spare before our train for Agra departed.

It turned out that the woman at the ticket office had been talking nonsense: the compartment was not lockable and there seemed to be half again as many people on our carriage than there were seats for. So much for reserved seating! On the train we phoned ahead to book Shanti Lodge, which is place I thought might be one I remembered from my last day visit to Agra, which had an incredible view of the Taj Mahal from its rooftop restaurant. I remembered it looked like it might be an OK place to stay too and the food wasn't too dear. On that journey we learned quite a bit about Indian culture: people sneaking onto the section they're not allowed, one friend buying a more expensive seat so the rest can share with him, and the litter. Most of them sat the whole time eating snacks then, as soon as they are finished, the wrapper goes straight out the train window. It doesn't matter if you're in a station on in the countryside; it doesn't matter if it's paper or plastic; it doesn't matter if it's just a little sweet wrapper or a whole plastic bag full of rubbish: just chuck it out. When one guy noticed that Joanne and I were keeping our empty plastic water bottles, he indicated the open window with a confused look on his face. “Just throw it” someone else said, then another “why are you keeping that?”. They actually laughed at us for not littering. We didn't reply, but really I should have said “because we don't want to contribute to this country being any more disgusting than it already is; don't you mind that your country looks horrible and filthy, and smells disgusting?”. These were not children; these were not rebellious teenagers; these were normal, apparently moderately wealthy families and businessmen, I'd guess. The more I get to know India, though, the more it occurs to me that they do behave like children; Matthew had offered the explanation for the “Eve teasing” as sexual immaturity in Indian men caused by keeping the sexes so separate as they grow up, so that even grown men have the sexual maturity of teenagers; now it seems like they act as if some parent will pick up their rubbish after them too. At least we learned why the country is so filthy. Some people did get off before it came to sleeping time, but when the seats converted into beds, there were still some people sharing and a person sleeping in aisle between the bottom berths. This made me a bit nervous about our belongings, but I reckoned since I was on the bottom berth I'd be able to keep half an eye on the bags below my bed / seat. All night people swapped seats for floor and vice-versa, presumably some sharing pact, but it didn't do much for our relaxation or quality of sleep.

written by  The Happy Couple on May 23, 2009 from Mumbai, India
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Dead bat in our room

We were picked up on time by a minder in a taxi, arriving outside our guesthouse with the scout who spotted us the day before. Joanne asked him if she was still OK to work, as she had several bites on her face, and two below her left eye were starting to make her look like she had a black eye. He said it was no problem and they dropped us at the Central Train Station, where we met the three other Westerners working as extras with us: three Dutch school-leavers, one boy and two girls. Our minder got us tickets for “general class” and we got on the train. The train was busy. I gather Indian train are almost always busy, after all there are an awful lot of people in India, so we squashed into the carriage, and by a small miracle we managed to get seats. Rather than squashing the rest of us up more, one of the Dutch girls, Milou, sat diagonally opposite us all, clinging onto some European idea of personal space. Of course at the next station more people poured on the train, some squashing in next to us, some squashing in next to Milou. The Dutch girls had obviously not done any research into acceptable dress in India, or even read the “Women Travellers” or “Culture” section in their guidebook. If they had they would have known that, for example, you are likely to attract a lot of attention if you expose your shoulders. In Milou's case she was wearing a spaghetti strap top, which was also very low cut. So shoulders and and tits exposed, here she was sitting on her own in general class on a rush hour Mumbai train. As the men filed on and sat around her they took turns staring right at her cleavage. In the West, the top would have had the same effect on men, of course, except that we would have taken quick furtive glances, but that isn't the way it works in India: the men just sit there a gawp. As the train got busier, the men next to her really started staring right down her top, then the men on each side appeared to be afflicted with arm problems that needed rubbing. Mere circumstance, of course, would have it that the problematic part of their arms was located right next to her breast on the men's respective sides. Just as she swatted one set of probing fingers away and shifted to prevent another attack, the one on the other side would grasp his chance. I felt very sorry for her but I couldn't help also thinking “what a silly girl”. In India this behaviour is known as “Eve Teasing”, and this kind of sexual harassment is quite common in crowded places, particularly trains. While not really considered a serious sexual assault in Western culture, Indian men seem to see this as quite innocent. Of course any guide book about India warns about this, and explains that you can reduce the risks by dressing conservatively. Being white probably makes you more of a target, but Indian women are also victim to such behaviour. When we stopped at a station and our minder indicated it was our stop, Milou made an understandable bolt for the door, and as we got on to the platform and I was thinking “poor silly girl” again, Joanne said “Oh!” and looked back scowling. Apparently someone had just groped her bottom, despite her conservative dress. Less than 24 hours there and I was already brewing a strong dislike for India and Indians.

Behind the scenes

Our fabulous changing room

The Dutch enjoying their breakfast

Hare Krishnas

Joanne with near black eye from bedbugs

Lights

Milou and Jessie with Indian extras

Nice Indian lady extra

The main actor from this episode

We finally got a lunch break about half past two after a particularly harrowing scene involving the actor appearing most that day, lifting a young boy on his shoulders to retrieve something from the shop roof. I'm sure all actors can allow themselves to indulge in prima donna behaviour from time to time, but this scene brought it all out. First of all, the young boy seems to be something of a star and was pampered terribly from the moment he appeared on location: he was constantly offered sweets and drinks, was having his costume and makeup re-arranged for him, and he was followed everywhere by flunkies carrying a parasol over him. I gathered the man who seemed to be playing his father is a big star, as he arrived just before his scene, was also followed everywhere with a parasol, and left immediately after. The boy was very badly behaved and we watched him have several tantrums, start crying, demand things be brought to him, and caused each of his scenes to be reshot several times. When it came to lifting the boy on his shoulders the “main” actor who seemed to be in every scene that day had clearly had enough. He didn't seem to be a big enough star to get the parasol treatment most of the time, although he was during this long stretch of shooting in the middle of the day. After several attempts at the scene being messed up by the, frankly overweight, spoiled little brat, the actor with the boy on his shoulders took a very dramatic swoon, causing everyone to run after him with water, a fan, and chairs for him to rest on. I think he was just upset because the boy had knocked his wig off, although he had clearly had enough of the boy. After a substantial break, shooting resumed using clever camera angles to enable to useless little boy to stand on a ladder instead of sitting on the beleaguered actor.

"Passing" rickshaw extra

Hare Krishna Michael

The shop in the set

Hare Krishnas

When it all finished we changed and were paid and taken back to the train by our minder. This time he said to the girls, “you get on here”, pointing to the “Women Only” carriage. What an indictment of Indian society that women are so abused on the trains they need their own carriages! Afterwards Joanne told me that even on the women's carriage Milou was getting plenty of stares, this time highly disapproving rather than ogling. After the train our minder flagged down taxis and said goodbye. He handed me a twenty rupee note and said something like “the fare should be 18 rupees but just give him 20”. I didn't completely catch what he said, but I was a bit worried that 20 was too little. When we arrived the driver asked for Rs80. I had been expecting it, so I told him that we had no money and our Indian friend (who had already discussed the fare with the driver) had given us only 20. OK, sixty, he said, then soon after, OK, fifty. I was trying to explain that I was serious, and that I wasn't bargaining, when I remembered I had the number of the scout from the day before, so I called him. “No way!”, he said, “Do not give him any more than twenty”. I told the driver this, but he wouldn't go lower than fifty. Just then two obviously drunken Indian guys came up to the taxi and joined in the argument. They said they were taxi drivers they told me that 80 was a fair price and since I didn't want to pay it they reached in and locked down the door and said “right – drive to police station”. I wasn't certain whether the Bollystars guys or the taxi driver(s) were lying to me, but someone was, and given taxi drivers' record I was inclined to believe the twenty fare, but it was all getting a bit intimidating, so I told him I'd have to go upstairs for the money. When I came down, the other two were gone, so I said “there's the 50 you agreed” and handed it to him. He grumbled but drove off. Later we met up with the Dutch people and discovered that they had been charged 25 for going slightly further than us so it, in fact, the greedy taxi driver, going back on the fare our minder agreed and trying to rip off the foreigners. The Dutch were also told the fare was twenty, but a small tourist rip-off like 25% extra is something most people can live with; our 300% however is a bit cheeky!

While we were on set, the kiosk our SIM cards came from called sounding concerned that we hadn't yet produced the mountain of documentation required, but they seemed reasonably happy when I explained we were working and would bring it the next day, but it was already closed when we passed it anyway. We bought some insecticide before returning to our room to try and get rid of the bedbugs. The bat was still there. It seemed to have changed position, so I didn't think it was dead, although I couldn't explain why it was still there as it was well after dark. We called the grumpy concierge, who swept the dead bat up with a brush. There was a blob of blood under where the bat had been, so I think it must have been mauled by a cat or something, then just managed to make it through our bedroom window where it had its final writhing moments of agony. In the dorm it sounded like there was a bit of a party, so we wandered through to find lots of people drinking or smoking dope, with absolutely no regard for the rules, apparently. Every single person we spoke to in the whole place had bedbugs, we discovered, so stuff their rules! Joanne sprayed the room and our mattresses thoroughly with the insecticide then we brought our Glen Livet through to the party and had a few drinks.

written by  The Happy Couple on May 21, 2009 from Mumbai, India
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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While we were waiting, another waiting couple came into the dining room, but we were determined not to let them jump the queue. Then when people started to check out, we watched for any couples leaving, who might have had a double room rather than the dorm. It wasn't looking good until the two English boys who had been two shacks up from us in Don Det, having motorbiked through half of Laos, walked into the dining room. When we had said goodbye to them in Don Det, they had said “maybe bump into you in India”; I had thought “don't be daft, India is a huge country, it's not like Laos or Vietnam”, but here they were in the first place we turned up in India. It was their last day in India and as luck would have it, they were vacating a double room. “You might want to get them to clean it before you move in”, one of them said. After they left, Joanne said “Johnny's skin is looking bad isn't it?”, and so it was, but we put it down to them living a rather unhealthy lifestyle. We went back up to the desk and the grumpy concierge said I could look at the room to decide if we wanted it. The boys were not kidding: what a mess! There were socks all over the room (the room was honking), paper and plastic rubbish everywhere, a wet towel on one bed, and even though drinking (and drugs, etc.) are against Sally Army rules, there was an empty litre bottle of whisky. Back at the desk, I said we'd take it, but that it needed cleaned. “Don't worry, the boy will clean it now”, he said, as a man of at least fifty, with a mop, collected the keys. “Boy” is presumably used by Hindu chauvinists to refer to lower caste employees in exactly the same way as it was used in Apartheid South Africa (and still is to some extent, by racist whites there). He did an impressively quick job cleaning up the room, but it still smelled of socks a bit when we moved in. Exhausted, we decided we deserved a Glen Livet, and we too broke the rules by having a wee whisky to help us catch up on lost sleep. But this is Asia, so of course there was a building site nearby, in this case people were banging the floor above with mallets (it sounded like) all morning, so we had to abandon the idea of sleep and settled for a shower instead. The shower room / toilet opposite our bedroom was awful: it was very dirty by the (SE Asian) standards we were used to, and not all that clean by Indian standards, as I remembered them; neither the sink nor the shower could be coaxed into producing any water; and even the toilet did not flush. I believe this was our “private” bathroom. The one next door did have a flushing toilet, but no bin for the paper, which blocks toilets all over Asia, and the shower produced only a trickle. A bit further around the floor we found one with a functioning toilet and shower, so we were at least able to get clean.

At lunch time we returned to the dining room where, having seen breakfast, I was not expecting much for lunch, but it was included with our very pricey Rs600 room, so we were going to eat it. It turned out to be very nice actually. The other couple who had been waiting for a room had also checked in, but had only been able to get dorm space. Matthew and Jessica had travelled quite extensively in India already and reassured us that Mumbai did seem to be much more expensive than anywhere else they had been. I hadn't remembered people being as unpleasant as every Indian we had so far dealt with, so I said “Indians aren't typically like that concierge are they?”, to which Matthew replied “Well I don't want to put you off, but lots are; not all, but they ALL try to rip you off, which makes it quite difficult to trust people or befriend them”. After lunch I decided to make use of the internet facilities in the guesthouse, where I was amazed to discover that you are required to produce your passport before and after using the internet. Indian bureaucracy. I headed out to check out the neighbourhood and look for somewhere to get SIM cards, leaving Joanne behind to get some sleep. Immediately children start hassling me for money. I decided to see if I could find somewhere to drink because, apart from anything else, my friend, John, who I last went to India with was sending me texts asking if I'd yet had a strong beer, so I felt duty-bound. I found a rather nice looking cafe, called Leopolds, of the sort I did not know existed in India after the last trip, and went in to order a beer. There were more whites in one place than I saw the whole time I was in Delhi before. Unfortunately they did not have any strong beers on the menu. Indian licensing laws divide beer into “mild”, which has “no more than 4.5% alcohol”, and strong, which has “between 4.5% and 8% alcohol”, yet they cost almost the same. I had not checked the cost, so perusing the menu as I drank my beer, I got quite a shock when I saw that it cost £2.80 and decided to find somewhere less pretentious. Only when the bill arrived did I find out that the cost on the menu excluded tax and service, which hiked the price up to trendy Glasgow bar levels. Later I discovered that Leopolds had been one of the targets in November's Mumbai attacks, from which there are still bullet holes in the walls, although I didn't notice them. I left and discovered just two doors up and place much more like the Indian drinking dens I remembered: no whites, no women, no attractive décor, no atmosphere, and the general appearance of a dirty cafe, rather than a pub, oozing depression from every dingy corner. This was more like it! They did have strong beer, which cost less than half what Leopolds charged for the weak beer before tax and service, so I had two of them in John's name, and a delicious and cheap stuffed nan bread. On the way back to the hotel I spotted a stall advertising SIM cards, so I went over to purchase a couple of Indian SIMs to save on texts and calls. Amazingly they required for each of us, a photo, copies of our passports and Indian visas, and a hotel bill. Just for a SIM card! Helpfully, the guy at the kiosk told me I could “bring them later in the day, or the next day, but definitely no more than five days”, so I got the SIM cards and went back to the hotel where we phoned Bollystars to confirm we'd be taking part the next day, then I slept for fifteen hours, yet still had a hangover when I woke. Indian strong beer.

Strong beer

Having spent a bit more time in India since that first day, I can add a bit more. India was a big change after Thailand, where people are very friendly and warm, in fact the same is true of most of SE Asia. Our experience of India so far is that people are very cold and unfriendly and Matthew is right about them always trying to rip you off. In SE Asia I was cheated maybe twice in nearly four months; in India I have been cheated several times every day, and each day you could lose count of the number of times people try to cheat you, and they don't even bother to smile while they're doing it. Yet this was not my experience last time, however from this short visit they seem to be a nation of cheats, queue jumpers, and litter bugs. The place is filthy: rubbish is everywhere, and nothing ever seems to be clean; toilets are filthy, and it's often hard to find running water to wash your hands, but you can forget about soap unless you have your own; and of course depressing poverty is everywhere. Yet there is still something compelling about the country, although I've not really pinned it down yet; the madness, the busyness, the challenges are all part of it, but I'm sure there's something else apart (obviously) from all the beautiful architecture. We'll be returning to India soon, so hopefully I'll be able to put my finger on it then; of course I'll then have to disinfect my finger with alcohol gel!

More strong beer!

written by  The Happy Couple on May 20, 2009 from Mumbai, India
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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We wanted to get the important stuff out of the way so we would have time to go somewhere else, or relax properly in Bangkok, so right after we checked in we headed off to the Indian Embassy to hand in our passports to get our newly approved visas stuck in place. The traffic was so bad getting there that we nearly missed the passport hand-in time and since we were so late we just decided to hang around that part of town until we could pick them up again, rather than sit in traffic all the way to Khaosan and back. Unfortunately there wasn't much to do in that part of town. The embassy is just round from Soi Cowboy, so we took a walk down there: closed “girly bars”, not very exciting. In fact all round that area was the same. After a few boring hours we collected our passports with Indian visas and returned to the Khaosan Road area. It was nice to be back in Bangkok with Bangkok prices: 10 Baht for a chicken kebab instead of 20 or 30; 20 for a coffee instead of 50; 20 Baht per hour internet; the Thai people seem much friendlier in Bangkok than the islands as well. I was happy to be back there.

Thai Telly Tubbies (Telly Skinnies?) near Indian Embassy

We had intended taking a boat trip up the river, or a canal trip; we had thought about going to Patpong to see one of the infamous ping pong shows; we had thought about going on a couple of day trips, or going to another island like big Ko Chang, but my feet weren't really ready for beaches, so the island was out, and we just didn't get around to the rest. We shouldn't have been in Bangkok for so long at the end of our trip, but the Thai islands had been a big disappointment and we wanted to leave Thailand early, however BA told us we could not reschedule our flight as the earlier ones were full. I quite like just hanging around Bangkok though, and I had a lot of blogging to catch up on, so that's what I did. And a bit too much drinking, One night when Joanne was in bed with stomach problems again, I got chatting to a Swedish guy and two Swiss girls, which turned into another night of flavoured tobacco in a shisha. The next night Joanne and I had a few drinks with a Japanese guy, an English guy, a Lithuanian, and a Polish guy, The first three faded in that order, but we ended up staying up most of the night with the Pole. The following night we were just coming right when we were passing the same bar, and there was Bart the Pole. So we very stupidly stayed up even later drinking with him again. If he is a typical example then Polish people can certainly drink!

A Swede and two Swiss girls

The next day we tried to make ourselves feel better by going for a Mexican meal which wasn't too bad, but all the things I consider central to Mexican food like salsa and guacamole were listed as “extras” you had to pay more for. So it turned out very dear. Just as we were leaving the restaurant we bumped into Ben, the French guy who'd been staying in our guesthouse on Ko Chang. It never ceases to amaze me how many people we see again and again. That day we also got an email from the Dutch girls, Sia and Willemijn, saying that they had been to Ko Tao and Phuket, and that they had found Ko Tao very expensive and Phuket cheap, which was a relief because Ko Tao was one of out first choices for moving on from Ko Phangan, but someone had warned us that it was dear too. We took a few days with no alcohol and I caught up with lots of blogging, but we didn't do anything properly touristy like we'd planned. It rained heavily every single day we were back there.

Frozen margarita with our mexican meal

Finally the day of our flight to India arrived. We went round the book vendors trying to off-load our travel guides. We got a (quite stingy) discount on a Hindi, Urdu, and Bengali phrase book in exchange for our Thailand Lonely Planet, but nobody would offer us anything at all for our Rough Guide to South East Asia. I just can't understand it at all. Nobody would offer us a Baht. Some people laughed and said “Only want Lonely Planet”. This is all the more infuriating when these are the same vendors we had searched carefully for a Rough Guide to India, but had to make do with the Lonely Planet, which I really did not want to do. In the end we had to donate it to our hotel library. One of our last tasks in Thailand was to post home some more stuff. This time it went much more smoothly than in Laos. Unfortunately I had been blogging so much that I hadn't had time to buy many people presents, but there are plenty more countries for that!

Quail eggs

Joanne had booked the shuttle bus to the airport “to make things easier”. It was absolutely crammed full. More proof, I thought, that the more you pay, the worse things usually are. This was 150 Baht, but the nice local bus would only have cost 20 Baht, and we would have been travelling with Thais and it wouldn't have left 20 minutes late because of picking up all of the other tourists after us. They played Dire Straits the whole way to the airport to remind us that we were all white.

At the airport I was ready with my VAT refund form from the purchase of the mini-laptop. I had the “Credit card Refund” box ticked, as well as all my credit card details filled it, the stamp from the shop, and the stamp from the office before you go trough customs. When we finally made it to the VAT refund desk on the other side, the woman just handed me over the cash, completely ignoring all I had done to avoid this. Thai Baht, just as we are about to leave Thailand. What was I supposed to do with it? So I was forced to spend all my VAT refund and the rest of our remaining money on a litre of Glen Livet from the duty free. I had been missing real whisky so this was the perfect excuse!

On the plane, the guy next to me was sniffing constantly throughout the flight. He looked really unwell. Then they handed out swine flu declarations for us to sign, stating that we had not been in Mexico, USA, UK, or Spain in the last seven days, and that you are not feeling unwell; otherwise you would be required to submit to a full medical examination on arrival in India. I wonder if the guy next to me admitted to feeling a bit under the weather. When we did land in India, we still needed to queue to have our declarations stamped by medical staff, who were checking what we'd written and presumably dragging people off for full check-ups where required.

written by  The Happy Couple on May 19, 2009 from Bangkok, Thailand
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Fire

Fishy coconut

By the time we arrived in Ko Phagnan it was already quite late. The Full Moon Party is on Haad Rin (the beach), and our friend Freya had recommended a smaller less noisy beach, two bays up, called Haad Thien, which she said cost 50 Baht by boat from Haad Rin a couple of years ago. We found the boat taxis and asked how much it would be: 150 Baht if we waited until the boat was full, or 250 Baht per person if we wanted to go straight away. One of the reasons we had wanted to avoid staying away from Haad Rin was to save a bit of money because we expected the accommodation there to be very expensive round about the full moon, however paying 600 Baht return for the two of us was easily going to wipe out any gain in accommodation cost. We left our bags with a friendly Scottish guy working behind one of the bars on Haad Rin and went in search of a room locally.

Walking around Haad Rin town I recognised nothing from my last visit six years previously. I didn't remember there being all that much of a town, just a few restaurants and lots of beach huts, but the place seems to have undergone a period of massive development. And horror of horrors, there are lots of restaurants selling pizza and showing Friends or Family Guy. Just like Vang Vieng. Not a sign that things have developed in the right direction, I thought. We followed a road that should have taken us past some mangroves to the beach hut I stayed in before, but there were no mangroves, only large concrete buildings. The beach huts too, I suspect, have long been bulldozed. Nonetheless we found a reasonably cheap room at 350 Baht and headed back to the beach to get our bags and see what was going on there. I was reassured that there was still plenty of fluorescent art and people playing with fire on the beach, but I was not at all sure that the incredibly ubiquity of the buckets was a good thing.

Ko Phangan "culture"

Ko Phangan "culture"

We spent most of the next day being shocked how expensive everything is on Ko Phangan. When I was there last it was, and as far as I had known it still was, a backpacker-hippie kind of island. Now the prices are generally far above what a backpacker can afford. Transport around the island is ridiculously expensive and, unlike most of Thailand, there is no bartering: prices everywhere are fixed; as in price-fixing and cartels. The internet costs 180 Baht per hour, which is astonishing considering the very expensive Phuket only charges 60 Baht per hour, and the Rough Guide, which was only printed in November last year, said it would be 60 Baht on Ko Phangan too. It's 20 Baht per hour in Bangkok. All the souvenirs were also pricey, as were the food and the beer. Only buckets seemed a sensible purchase. I had read that Phuket was the most expensive place in Thailand but it seems that Ko Phangan has leaped-frogged by some margin in just the last year.

Miles of buckets

Fluoro!

Lights

View of Haad Rin from "Mushie Mountain"

The next day I gave in and went into one of the internet places to upload some blog. I typed it in advance on the laptop to save some money. The place was almost empty, but the few people that came and left were all on Skype, and literally all of them were apologising for talking such a short time, complaining about the cost of the internet and Ko Phangan in general, and saying that they were leaving the island as soon as possible. I overheard one girl saying “It was fun, but there are just thousands of white people here, so I'm going to leave as soon as I can”.

We thought we'd try an discover the “real” Ko Phangan, starting off with the place Freya had recommended, before making our way north to the non-touristy part of the island, so the next day we gritted our teeth and took the expensive boat to Haad Thien. What a mistake! The beach there was awful: lots of little pebbles rather than sand, which wasn't very nice for Joanne, but my feet were preventing me from going in the water anyway. Everyone on the beach was complaining how expensive the island is, and saying that they would definitely never return to the island, and maybe not again to Thailand. I started to wonder if the drop in tourism the Thais are complaining about isn't actually to do with any political problems or the airport blockade, but in fact down to them having become very greedy and overcharging. To be fair Thailand's islands are still slightly slightly cheaper than Europe and it probably doesn't seem expensive if you are on a short holiday, but one of the great things about Thailand used to be what good value it was; in the Islands it is no longer at all the case.

Commercial Hippie nonsense

Our humble abode in Haad Thien

Scorpion in the toilet

Big spider

Dengue mosquito (note stripes)

Lovely breakfast in Haad Thien

written by  The Happy Couple on May 12, 2009 from Ko Phangan, Thailand
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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