one week in

Yes, so we meet up with the group last Saturday and the group is brilliant. We are ten plus our tour guide who is Indian.

We have spent about one week in India and now we are in Nepal.

We started doing the golden triangular, which are Delhi, Jaipur and Agra. We saw all the major mosques, forts, markets. We have also visited the Palace of the wind, Amber fort Palace but I think the biggest for everyone was the Taj Mahal, which is the ultimate romance story. The king had a favorite wife; she gave him 14 children and died when she was 34. Before she died he promises to build her the most beautiful building to celebrate her.

After he did that, he wanted to build another one in black marble but his son but him in prison.   

After Agra we went to Orchha. It is a small village only 6000 people lives there. It is fames for hunting lions. Well not anymore, but they used to.

After that we took the night train to Varanasi. This is a very special place. It is a holy city for the Hindus to pilgrimage, worship to mourn or to die. There is a river going through it, ghats. And people bring their loved ones there to burn (after they died). They believe ghats are the closes to heaven. So we saw 6 people burn at the same time. In one day they will burn from 100 to 500 people.

People have warned us to travel to India, and we can both admit that we both wanted to go home when we first came here. The people, the smell, the noise, but now we have come to see all the lovely things her. The people have so much respect for us, they would never steel from us, because it means “lost of face”. Everyone knows that we are waking around the money, passports in our pocket but not ones have I felt that I needed to double check if it’s there or not.

People do try to “con” you though. Like yesterday I negotiated a price for a rickshaw, we agreed on 20 rupees, when he dropped me off at the hotel he wanted 100 rupees. I told him off and gave him the 20. It’s hard to do, but its part of their wais. We also have to tip on everything. The doorman, the room man, the train guy, and then you have to give extra tip if you are satisfied.

Transport: Oh yes the transport, where shall I begin. The sounds!!! The totos!! It could drive a man mad! But then you learn that it is a blessing! It really is! They have their own toto language. Depending on size. So it starts with a bike, then a rickshaw, a tootoo, a motorbike, cars, busses and lorries. They all have different sounds, and this is where the genies thing comes, they don’t need to look behind them to see if they need to move, it all depends on the sound. The bigger transport, the louder noise. And this is something that everyone knows, and everyone respects. I haven’t seen one person that got pist off at another one because he cut him off.  The children seem to understand this, so, very little accidence. When a car sees a child, he “totos” and the child don’t even look, he will just move a steep. It’s very easy and seems to be efficient.

Being ill: Well I guess we been lucker then a lot offs other people on this trip, but we have had some tuff days the last couple of days. Stewart have gotten it worst then I did, and it’s not very nice when you are on a train for 13 hours and the pee and poo comes running across the floor while your one it. Or on a 12 hour bus that don’t have a flush. But we all seem to manage it in the end.

Hopefully the worst is over and we can go back to eating solid food again.

But yesterday Stewart had an accident. We were going to take some photos for the visa in to Nepal. Stewart was pail, and wasn’t feeling too good. He bought some water and I when to take some pitchers off the streets. At this point Stewart was thinking he should let someone know that he wasn’t feeling good, but before he got a chance he was on the ground. Because we were just stopping for a short time the rickshaw drivers where all there and they really help him. He fell in to a brick wall and then on the ground so he got a “major” cut to this head. Luckily everything went fine. In Norway he would have needed stitches but not in India. J He got a major crowed around him though (he didn’t like that).

Impression: Okay so there are quite a few things that are going on here that is not expectable at home. End I can say this easily, ness, you wouldn’t be able to coup. Chickens are sold under very bad circumstances on the streets, cows and every other animal that will be used for hard work are not always treated like my dad would at home, but after awhile you relic that we have our way and they have theirs, and I can tell you that even though I don’t agree with everything, I come to relays that our life isn’t that much better.  People here seem very happy, and satisfied.

It is hard writing in English, so please excuse my bad sentences.

From when we meet up with our group it’s been nonstop, the only reason that I’m writing now is because I have very bad stomach and had to leave the restaurant, but I will try and write more.