Thai massage

OH. MY. GOD. I was really looking foward to the Thai massage that Cliff had gifted me for Christmas, he'd made a little voucher and everything. And we waited until our second stint in Bangkok to book it. Now I have to say that what I am about to write should not detract from the obvious skill and experience of the massage therapists at Imm Fusion but bloody hell it was the most painful experience of my life and I have been through childbirth (2 days worth) and I have two tattoos so I think I know something about experiencing pain. At one point it felt as if she was actually rubbing the skin off my bones. We'd opted for a tandem massage, so we were side by side in the treatment room. And I could hear Cliff laughing through the pain. I have not had another. Although Cliff is thinking about going back for a sports massage at the same place. He's tough.

Back to Bangkok

We headed back to Bangkok for another six nights at our favourite hotel (so far). We had a good, relaxing time here - we went back to the Chatuchak Market area to visit the Children's Museum, unfortunately the travel guide did NOT mention that it's closed for renovation... there was quite a bit a disappointment on Liam's part. We consoled ourselves with some cold drinks and a wander past the tens of shops all selling the same thing - live ornamental fish.

Afterwards we were sitting in the park and were accosted by two schoolgirls who wanted to interview us for their English class. After going though their questionnaires, they then recorded our answers and after some giggling (them, not us) and a couple of photos, off they went.

We visited Lumphini Park and had a go on the pedelos and a close up look at the resident monitor lizards. There are masses of them and some are huge!

We went to the Grand Palace and forgot about the dress code, so whilst I was okay, Cliff and Liam had to borrow some long trousers to maintain their dignity. The same day we visited Kao Sang Road which is meant to be the backpackers haven. Lunch was okay there but I really hope that this isn't the only place travellers in Bangkok get to. On the way 'home' we took the riverboat. I genuinely thought that we would sink. It was so overloaded and the conductor kept insisting that everyone move further inside to allow even more people on. We insisted on staying near the back where we could jump off easily. At one stage a river police boat came alongside to check it out and had a word with the driver, but seemingly satisfied that it was okay to have practically double the amount of passengers, off they went.

On the Wednesday night we went along to MBK and watched a couple of rounds of the Thai boxing - Muay Thai. The first fight was between two 17-year olds and the second fighters were older and were Australian and French. They also have female fights but we didn't hang around for that.

Cliff then came down with a nasty stomach bug (no pictures of this, you'll be glad to hear!), we don't think that it was food poisoning because we'd been having the same thing and had been really careful with drinking water since we've been away. The bug pretty much wiped him out for two days, we were a bit worried about travelling to Koh Samui but he bounced back. Luckily we have a good first aid kit and I found an electrolyte drink in Tescos called One More Free that looked like urine (but fortunately, didn't taste of it) which seemed to help.

Our King

At regular points on any road there will be a portrait of the Thai monarch - King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest-serving monarch. And we're not talking about a small picture, but usually massive with gold adornments and lots of flowers and plants at the base. A lot of the portraits are of him alone, but sometimes it will be of him with the queen and even more rarely with the queen and their (now grown-up) children. When people talk about him they will say 'our king' not 'the king' and you'll regularly see vans or trucks with the words 'Long live the King' on them. King Bhumibol has long been seen as the only unifying figure in a nation that has seen at least 24 prime ministers, 17 constitutions and more than a dozen military coups during his 63-year reign. He is widely respected among the Thai people - and he is sometimes accorded an almost divine reverence. There are also quite serious consequences for not affording the King proper respect. Even the handling of paper money is done in a way not to damage the King's image. When we went to see a film in Bangkok, the whole audience rose to hear/sing the national anthem at the beginning. I have also heard (but not witnessed) that everything stops at 8am, noon and 6pm for the national anthem as well, I have been assured this is the case but I can't believe that we haven't been out in public at these times to see it. Here's an interesting article about the King

Our last day in Kanchanaburi

After breakfast and packing we went out onto the main drag and hired a couple of mopeds; one green one for the boys and a pink one for me, we only had a few hours to spare so they cost us about £3 each. Cliff would like me to point out that in this photo he is wearing a support for his sprained ankle and NOT an Alan Partridge style sock. We made our way to the museum which is
really well laid out and has some interesting personal items donated by former PoWs or their families. I bought a spray of flowers from the museum shop and after a coffee (free with the price of entry) we crossed the road to the cemetary and Liam picked a grave to place the flowers on. We had a bit of a whizz around town and then back to have some lunch (the pad thai is getting better). We'd booked a mini bus back to Bangkok instead of the bus we arrived on, it was a little bit more expensive but meant that we got collected from the place we were staying, it was more direct and also we'd get dropped off by a convenient skytrain stop in the city, so that it was just a short hop with heavy bags back to our hotel.

Last night we passed a memorial to the members of the Allied forces that had died during the construction of the Thailand-Burma railway. Not unusual you might think, but this one had been erected by the then Japanese Army during the conflict, in February 1944. Members of the Japanese community hold a memorial service there every year. During the building of the railway (bearing in mind that between 80,000 - 100,000 died, 16,000 of those Allied prisoners) the Japanese seemed to hold onto their beliefs surrounding death; paying for and allowing for funerals of the PoWs . Quite astonishing.

A big day out

Just time for a superfast breakfast as we were getting picked up at 8am. our trip (expertly organised through Good Times Travel in Kanchanaburi) started with a drive to the Erawan Falls about an hour from town. It's known as the most beautiful falls in the whole of Thailand and I can believe it. There are 7 tiers in all and we spent around two and a half hours trekking to the top and paddling and swimming at a couple of the tiers (5 and 7). I reckon you could spend all day there. Cliff enjoyed getting his feet and most of his legs nibbled by the fish there. Have a look at the video here. Liam wouldn't go near them after his experience at Siam Ocean World, but basically covered about double of the ground we did by running off ahead. After a really good lunch (best pad thai so far) we headed for the elephant camp, where we got to ride one on dry ground and then into the river, a bit bumpy but it does make you feel a bit like a maharaja. When we got off our elephants, our guide Eileen said there was a partial solar eclipse, which we all then viewed through a special lens.

We then took a raft ride down the river, very peaceful and cool and Liam got to pilot one on the way back. We visited the Krasae Cave where the Japanese would leave injured POWs to die rather than have to transport them back to camp. Local stories say that people used to hear the spirits of the dead still working on the railway so a monk erected a Buddha image in the cave to calm the spirits. After leaving some flowers and lighting some joss sticks there we took a bumpy ride (I see a pattern emerging here) on the pleasantly named Death Railway, just four stops along the line back towards Kanchanaburi. I thought that it would be just a tourist train but it's packed with kids on their way home from school. Then there was time for another look at the bridge over the River Kwai, this time in daylight. It would have been cool to ride the train over the bridge but apparently we couldn't because the train from Bangkok was expected and there's only the one line. After dinner we went to the One More bar on the 'strip' as they advertised a Wii console - unfortunately broken though. So Liam played pool and darts and we chatted to a couple of girls called Blair and Vicky from The Wirral and Shropshire respectively. They're in Thailand for a month and were heading down to the islands for the Full Moon Party. Hope you had a good birthday Vicky!

Kanchanaburi

We'd planned an early start as we were only going to stay down in Kanchanaburi for a couple of nights. In the end we didn't leave until almost 11am after a good breakfast and Cliff & Liam had a final swim in the beautiful pool (well, I say final, but we'll be back in a couple of days). Our taxi driver took us first to the Eastern bus terminal, where I suppose you can catch a bus to Cambodia and beyond. After Cliff sorted out our GPS coordinates we were able to direct him properly (in fluent Thai of course!) to the southern bus staton (actually to the east of the city by my reckoning). The trip took about 45 mins and cost B250. The bus tickets were easy to get, B204 for all three of us to Kanachanaburi. The buses are pretty frequent and there was one going in 15 mins; there was a bit of kerfuffle when a helpful driver put our bags on his bus but it happened to be the wrong bus, but we managed to get to the right one just as it was about to leave. A bit bumpy but we sat at the back and there were plenty of seats to spread out and it had AC. We passed lots of temples and outside restaurants, which seem quite popular here and usually have a space for entertainment; there's one next to our Bangkok hotel that has bands doing rock covers every night . Did I mention the bus is really bumpy?

We reached Kanchanaburi in about two hours and took a taxi van to the Ploy guest house, another oasis in a pretty busy road filled with Internet cafes, bars and places to have massage. The shower room looks out through netting (no glass) onto a little tropical garden. I keep meaning to take some pics of the rooms of the places we stay, but then our bags seem to explode all over them and I can't let you see that. The hotel restaurant (which is only open for breakfast) has great views of the river.

Kanchanaburi is predominantly known for the bridge (over the River Kwai) and the Death Railway. During WW2 POWs were forced to build the Thai-Burma railway. We took a walk along to the cemetary at Don Rak., it was a moving experience. There are 6,982 buried there in mostly individual graves, men from Britain, Australia and the Netherlands. The place is immaculately maintained, the land having been given by the people of Thailand to recognise the sacrifce.

We took a walk to the bridge and then over it. It's much smaller than I imagined but not at all disappointing. We had dinner at the Jolly Frog which seems to be a backpacker haunt (there's a sign on the gate forbidding the riding of motorcycles in the restaurant) - we ordered far too much (but cheap) food. Early night as we have really full day planned for tomorrow.

A slow day in Bangkok

Bit of a slow day today, we needed to book the flight to Koh Samui or there's a danger that we'll just stay in Bangkok forever. So we spent the morning booking flights and trying to find a hotel in Kanchanaburi. We had lunch at the Siam Centre and then went to see Avatar in 3d at the Siam Paragon IMAX then onto MBK for Liam to get a voice recorder for his iPod. We had dinner there in kind of upmarket canteen where you spend on food with a plastic card at the different restaurants and then settle up and the end. Our meal was accompanied by a string quartet, although there were only three of them and one played a piano. But you get the idea. Liam and Cliff went for a swim back at the hotel and we watched Star Wars while we packed (yes, it does take that long) and then the film 2012 in bed.

Fish and Green Day

Morning: Siam Ocean World - this is a really well put together aquarium and knocks the stuffing out of the Sea Life Centres. Mind you, it cost something like 30 million US dollars and it's not cheap to visit. A highlight is Happy Fish, Happy Feet where you put your feet (having had them washed by a very nice Thai lady) into a jacuzzi type tub and have tiny fish nibble at your toes. They basically love to remove dry skin and it's certainly an experience. It took Liam a while to be convinced to even try it. My feet felt fab afterwards, trying to work out if we can import some when we get to the UK! Cliff reckons they would need about two weeks of solid nibbling to sort his feet out. But he has beautiful feet ;) The low point was the bizarre 4D IMAX movie at the end, we reasonably assumed it would be marine-themed; perhaps with some scary sharks. But instead it was a story about a snowman trying to steal Christmas from Santa. It seemed a bit weird this far into January. Perhaps they just put the wrong one on.

In the evening we took the skytrain to Mo Chit, which is the other end of the line from where we're staying. There was meant to be a minibus there that takes you to the Impact Arena but it was nowhere to be seen. We spotted a obviously English guy in a Green Day tshirt and we ended up sharing a cab with him and his friend Felice (who teaches here but is from the Wirral) out to the arena. It turned out that the arena is another 23km from where the skytrain ended, so it's a long way away. Felice was saying that they had tickets for Linkin Park here last year and because they didn't sell enough, they moved the gig from the 12,000 seater stadium to the car park! No such changes tonight, it clearly wasn't sold out (the seats anyhow), but there was certainly an atmosphere and the t-shirt stall completely sold out. Green Day haven't played here for 14 years. They were brilliant and Liam got a signed drumstick.

Wat Pho

We took the skytrain and riverboat to Wat Pho in the morning and saw the incredible reclining golden buddha. The building it's housed in is only just slightly bigger than the buddha so it's a little hard to take in (and to photograph) Also I imagined that you'd be able to sit down in there and comtemplate it but it's a strictly walk-through situation.

There are some metal bowls lining the last wall and we paid B20 for a small bowl of tiny coins. The idea is that by putting one coin in each each of the 108 (catch that Lost fans? 108?) so that you will secure a long and happy life. We got a bowl of coins each, just to make sure.

They're re-tiling some of the roof at the Wat and for a small donation we were able to make an inscription on the back of a new tile.










After a late lunch in a cafe just opposite the Wat, we realised we'd missed Grand Palace as the last entry is at 3.30. So that will have to wait for another day. We've decided to stay a bit longer than we planned in Bangkok. Those of you that have been here may not recognise this description, but after Delhi it seems very calm to us! Maybe it has something to do with the oasis of the hotel. Anyway we took the skytrain to Siam, and had a quick look around one of the three malls there - Paragon, it has a good bookshop, but I can't even think about buying a book until some of the ones weighing down our luggage have been read and donated. We bought some tickets to see Avatar at the IMAX on Wednesday afternoon.

Bangkok

We all had a really long lie in, India was exhausting ;) and we didn't get up until 12:40. Managed to get hold of a friend who's in Bangkok until tonight and arranged to meet for drinks later. Took the skytrain to the river and walked along to the very posh Chatrium Suites where Nick, Jane and Mel were enjoying the last few hours of their holiday on the terrace of their hotel, overlooking the river. It was great to see them and as they'd been to Koh Samui to see our friend Sarah, they had lots of tips. It was also good to talk to people in English - other than people in my immediate family ;)

On to Thailand

We got upgraded to business class for our Cathy Pacific flight from Delhi to Bangkok. I like it. My mission is now to score as many upgrades as we can manage, but fear this might be our one and only. They only actually gave us one upgraded seat but Cliff was super cool at the gate and managed to sweet talk the ground crew into dishing out three. A We arrived in Bangkok after a three and a half hour flight to low 30's temperature and sunny skies. The hotel (IMM Fusion) is amazing and certainly a find for the price - about £18 a night. We're right by the On Nut Skytrain station and right next door to a huge Tesco Lotus (actually I'm not listing that as a positive) it's a bit like Tescos at home but I don't think the Shoreham one sells live fish or huge shrimp in a tank, so that you can pick one out for your tea. The skytrain is a bit like the Delhi metro, although all on elevated tracks, so I can see where the comparisons to Bladerunner come from. Again, clean and efficient but no constant staring here. Maybe because there are lot of tourists and westerners here. And lots of them (the men) have Thai brides/girlfriends. we took the skytrain/BTS to MBK a huge 7 floor mall, where Liam got 30 odd games for his DS for £16 and a couple of totally legit films. He's in consumer heaven. We had some food (Pad Thai for me; a bit disappointing) and an early night on a mattress that is actually more than one inch thick (unlike the Indian ones).

India round up part three - Shimla

On 7th January, we left Amritsar very early for Kalka, 5.30am, so that we could catch the toy train up to Shimla, which is the capital of the Himalayas. For all you railway enthusiasts out there, the train runs on a narrow gauge line for 95.5km and was built in 1903. It goes through 102 tunnels, 881 bridges and 919 curves. It only runs at 25kph and should have taken 5 hours to get to Shimla. However, because of leaves on the line, no because of the late arrival of another train that contained passengers who had reservations on our train, we had to wait for them. For 2 hours and 25 minutes. But a man did poke his head through the window and offer to bring us lunch for R30 each and it was delicious. Each carriage held 30 people and we were able to jump off at various stations on the way for tea and snacks.

The views on the way up were beautiful, although it got colder as we ascended. We finally reached Shimla after 8pm. Morari our driver was waiting at the station for us and said that he'd made it up by road in two hours. A likely story. Once again, roadblocks meant he couldn't drive us right up to the hotel so we put on the backpacks and made our way up to the Himani .The road was so steep and carrying the backpack at altitude, I was having trouble breathing. The hotel was pretty much what we'd come to expect in India; labelled duluxe but usually tired but generally clean. It was freezing though. We woke (still cold) to clear blue skies. After breakfast in our room, we checked out and went to meet Morari. Cliff turned his ankle on a broken step as we came down the hill and it was very painful and only now is the sprain healing. Morari drove us up further from Shimla so we could go horseriding and catch a glimpse of some snow on the Himalayas. The poor horses really are worked up there and there are 100's of them. The scenery from the viewpoint is spectacular. And you can have your photo taken with a bison (and a shotgun) or a large snake. Someone offered to buy my camera from me.We declined all offers. We then started to descend the mountains on our long way back to Delhli. Our flight to Bangkok was scheduled for 4am the following morning and Morari got us there right on time, even making sure we ate on the journey at what amounted to a motorway cafe that served really good (Indian) food.

India - final word by Cliff

I really enjoyed my time in India. We were on a tight schedule, so it was quite demanding, covering so many miles in such a short space of time. These are some of things that stood out for me:

Driving
Heavy traffic, made up of scooters, cars, rickshaws, trucks, buses and bikes, horns blaring from all angles; first I thought "Blimey, its road rage central", but after a while you realise that beeping is encouraged, its a way of letting people know you're there and you're coming through. Sometimes your life depends on it, at night there was often heavy fog, and quite a few trucks don't have any rear lights. We saw the aftermath of quite a few accidents.





People
Really friendly people, as you've read many wanted their photo with us. Even more wanted to talk to us, or just smile and wave (quite often we were the only westerners around). Very different from the UK. Plenty of people are trying to sell you things, or get you into their rickshaw/cab, quite often arguing with each other as they try to seal the deal. A few people we met just couldn't cope with the relentless sales pitches directed their way. You see a lot of poor people, and people begging for money. There's also plenty of wealthy people.

Street life
India was so full of life, and energy, it made the UK look dull. Something is happening virtually every moment of the day. Cows are ambling down most streets, they are sacred so I guess they do pretty much what they want. In some towns you'll see monkeys jumping across the rooftops. You see A LOT of men urinating by the side of the road, so it can get smelly!



There's a lot of litter, and there's a lot of people collecting and sorting through it too . Being a westerner, you get stared at a lot too, more so if you are a woman. Lots of good food is being cooked, and its nearly all vegetarian which was great for us.

My thoughts on India by Liam

India is a rather chaotic country. The people always have somewhere to go, not like in England as in England people are more relaxed. In India it is hard to tell whether somebody is trying to be nice, trying to sell you something or (sadly) rob you. Nobody tried to rob me but it does happen sometimes. I know that people in India usually do not mean to, but to me they sometimes sound a bit strict and abrupt. Even if they are sitting in a chair with their friends, they sound like they are barking orders at each other. It was bit scary when I first arrived in India as we had a very small amount of money (rupees) as they don't let you bring any in. We couldn't find the person who was picking us up at first and we could have been stuck at the airport. I was away from England and I did not like this.

I liked the monkey temple as you can come right up to the monkeys and feed them.








Here is a photo I took of the flowers in our driver Morari's car:

India round up part two - Border Madness

On the morning of 6th January we went to take another look at the Golden Temple and then went onto Jallianwalla Bagh. This was the site in 1919 where the British opened fire on a gathering of men, women and children, killing 327 and injuring 1100 - although the figures change depending on whose version of events you read. The massacre came at a time of unrest in India, the country having given much to the British war effort in WW1, including the lives of 43,000 Indian soldiers and wanting independence in return. It's now a peaceful garden with an eternal flame and a hall of martyrs, which contained some moving stories from that night. They have also preserved a wall that shows the bullet holes.


We went on to the Ram Bagh which is a large park, that houses a museum about Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who was the first Maharaja of the Sikh Empire (crowned 1801) and was also known as Sher-e-Punjab (The Lion of the Punjab). He was basically responsible for vast land (re)aquisition for India, he was also responsible for the gilding of the Golden Temple. The museum itself was really good, lots of panoramas and a lifesize display of various military victories. We had to leave before the end of the exhibition though as there was a power cut.

After a good lunch at a dark restaurant (more power cuts) we drove out to the Indian/Pakistan border for the daily closing ceremony. We split into two lines (security checks for the men and women are carried out separately here in India) and when they opened the gate, all hell broke loose, with people hurrying through to the stadium seating (I reckon it seats about 2000 and all seats were filled). As we got nearer, we were pulled out of the line and taken around the back. Uh-oh we thought, what have we done? Turns out we were going through an additional security check (they tried to make Liam go through the female entrance, because of his long hair :) and were led into the VIP stand! Before the ceremony started, lots of women and children jumped onto the road and started dancing to the music playing over the PA. Some men tried to join them but were sent back to their seats. A warm up guy came out to get the crowd ready for some patriotic cheering and shouting at the Pakistani crowd (which consisted of about 50 people as far as we could see; the Indian side definitely outnumbered them). The ceremony itself is bizarre. Lots of crazy marching, shouting, jeering, cheering, heckling and general mayhem. If you'd like to see what happens at the ceremony, watch the Sanjeev Bhaskar BBC clip on YouTube (much better than Michael Palin's)

This was all followed by the now obligatory photoshoots for Cliff and Liam.

India roundup part one - Amritsar

Apologies to all, it's all been a bit hectic and internet access has been a bit hit and miss. Since our last post we flew to Amritsar, airport security is a bit full on at Indian airports. They don't let you into the terminal until your flight is ready to go through security. This was a good thing at Jaipur airport though that we were sitting waiting to get the okay to go through and the security guard came over and said that our driver was here and needed to talk to us (they don't let drivers or anyone else inside the terminal either without a boarding card) I had a look and said, no it's not our driver, the security guard insisted I go outside to talk to the man. It turned out that it was the porter from the hotel we'd checked out of that morning, he had brought my debit card that I'd left when we'd paid the bill. The poor guy had driven 13km out to the airport to reunite me with it. Can you even imagine that happening in the UK? At Amritsar we met our new driver, Morari. It turns out that he is Anish's best friend (Anish was our previous driver who took us up to Jaipur) and he has been told all about us by Anish. Not sure if that was a good thing or not! We went straight to the hotel, the Heritage Inn. We left our things there and headed straight out to see the place that was the main reason for our visit - the Golden Temple.


Our hotel was adjacent to one of the gates so it was a really short walk away. Everyday, anyone can get a free meal at the temple and there was a huge crowd queuing. It transpired that we'd arrived on a special day for Sikhs, the birthday of the Tenth Guru of Sikhism Guru Gobing Singh. A guy came out from behind the food tables and brought us sweet masala tea and some kind cheesy spicy bread. The sad thing about our experiences over the last week is that we have become extremely cynical about people's motives for talking to us, especially Liam, as usually we're being sold something (luckily our time in Thailand has shaken off that feeling). But this really wasn't the case at the Golden Temple. Cliff said that we didn't want to jump the food queue, there were 100's of people there, but this guy was insistant that we didn't queue, he told about what was happening, what to expect inside the temple grounds and even a few words of Punjabi. We left our shoes (for free, unheard of India!) and went inside. The temple itself is truly breathtaking. 400kg of gold covers the top part of the structure and it sits on a base of marble on this beautiful stretch of water, which is holy for Sikhs; we saw men immersing themselves in it during both our visits. The other thing that struck us, apart from the feeling of peace there, was the sheer friendliness of the people there. We lost count of how many people stopped us, shook our hands, told us their names, asked for our names and were generally amazingly welcoming. Again, we were the subject of many family photos.



The low point of the evening was when Cliff had to ask the hotel to change the sheets on the bed as they had blood stains on them. Ugh.

Jaipur

A short drive from the monkey temple to Jaipur and straight to the hotel. We had a full day planned for Monday 4th, so room service and early night for all. The next morning Asnish collected us and we headed straight for Hawa Mahal (The Palace of the Winds). As you can see the fog had gone and it was really warm with blue skies. Then we headed to the Jantar Mantar observatory and then onto the City Palace. We lunched at LMB restaurant on Johori Bazar and spotted Russell Brand coming in as we were leaving. No sign of Katy Perry though. Liam made Elaine go back in to get his photo, but he'd disappeared.


Rather than stalk him around the Pink City for the remainder of the day, we headed up in the hills to the Amber Fort. As Liam noted, they have a lot of forts in India.









There was a huge dead pig in the road. On the way back into town, we passed the Jal Mahal on Man Sagar Lake.

We almost went to see a Bollywood comedy at the big movie theatre in town but didn't. We headed back to the hotel and then out again for some strolling around the Bazar in the old city. Off to Amritsar tomorrow, although we just discovered that there are no direct flights and we have to go via Delhi, adding 3 and 3/4 hours to the journey.

The Monkey Temple

Heading for Jaipur on Sunday 3rd, Anish suggested a visit to the monkey temple. All fears of rabid monkeys aside, up we went, seeing some colourful parrots on the roadside. There are literally hundreds of monkeys there. Anish had warned us about the red-faced monkeys, but loads of them had red faces and no-one got savaged. There were several on a couple of motorbikes, ripping the seats apart and looking at themselves in the wing mirrors. We reckon that if they'd had the keys, they would have ridden off on them. There was also a snake charmer up there with a very docile looking cobra.

Fatepur Sikri - Sunday 3rd January

About 70km out of Agra, on the road to Jaipur lies the hill fort of Fatepur Sikri. We were dropped at the parking lot by Anish and we caught the tourist bus up to the fort (R5 each) after running the gauntlet of stall holders trying to make us promise to see them on the way back. We've learnt very early not to make any promises that we don't intend to keep. Because they really do remember you. It was still pretty foggy even at midday.

Agra

On Saturday 2nd January, our driver, Mr Anish Ji (hark at us) collected us from our homestay just after 9am for the long (5 hour) drive to Agra. It took us over an hour to get out of Delhi and we were pretty much in the south of the city anyway, but that's very typical for the traffic conditions. We stopped just outside Agra to visit Akbar's Tomb. Beautiful place.

Then onto Agra. We managed to fit in a trip to the Red Fort and then to our hotel. Our driver couldn't deposit us all the way there, as lots of the roads near to the Taj Mahal have roadblocks and our place was literally down the road from the monument, so it was back on with the backpacks and trying to fend off helpful auto rickshaw drivers who clearly think we're mad to walk when we could ride. The room reminded Elaine of a Soviet hotel (not that she's ever been in one) - no windows, tiled walls, pretty basic but clean. And all for £11 a night. All pretty tired so had a drink at the restaurant and to bed. Had to be up early the next morning to collect our tickets for the Taj Mahal. It was extremely foggy and quite cold but the Taj is incredible.

Delhi day two

Friday 1st January. Today we got up a bit earlier and had a delicious breakfast cooked by Charu Talwar, Rakesh's wife. We had potato cake/pancakes with onion, served with homemade chutney, a chickory and tamerind sauce and curd. This is a Northern Indian speciality. Lovely. We went along to the Metro station (about a 3 minute walk along the road and bought another day pass (R150 each, about £2 including R50 deposit that you get back when you return the card). The Metro is incredibly clean and efficient, although in the evenings it is absolutely packed. There are seats set aside for (in this order) the physically challenged, senior citizens and ladies. Constant announcements remind passengers that they must give up their seat to these groups and not to sit (or spit) on the floor. They also warn that any briefcase, flask, or other receptacle could be a bomb. We didn't see anyone spitting or sitting on the floor but no evidence of getting offered a seat either. Women are definately outnumbered by men on both the Metro and on the streets in general and that might go someway to explain the constant staring.

After a quick stop in Connaught Square to get our bearings and have a drink. We got back on the Metro and went to the Lal Qil'ah (Red Fort) in Old Delhi, via a ride on a bicycle ricksaw. That was an experience, with Liam clinging to the rear. The Red Fort is amazing and people visit it in huge numbers. As is usual in Delhi, there is one ticket window for Indians and one for Foreigners. the Foreigner's tickets are more expensive. Once inside, Cliff became a bit of a celebrity with lots of Indians asking to have their picture taken with him and their families. He reckons they thought he was David Beckham.

We then made our way to the Jama Masjid mosque, India's largest. After a bit of an argument with the man on the door about wanting to charge us for taking in two cameras, when we only intended to use one, Cliff and Liam went inside for a look around, whilst Elaine sat outside on the steps and watched the kids begging money from the tourists. One little girl, aged about four, was clearly an old hand, if the tourist was looking like they weren't going to play or were taking a bit too long getting their money out and she saw a better option, she just walked away. A bit of excitement happened when she was getting cash from a couple and an older lady and boy turned up to get into the action, the little girl's mother (grandmother?) weighed in and started shouting at the other older lady. It was all a bit reminisent of Jeremy Kyle to be truthful.

By the time the boys came out from the mosque, it had closed for the duration of afternoon prayers and Elaine couldn't go up the minaret anyway because she was 'unaccompanied' (by a man). The moral to this story is that even if there's a principal, it sometimes pays to spend an extra R200 to go in at the same time as your husband and son.

New Year's Eve

Liam spent the evening of NYE playing Xbox with Hari, the 12 year old son of the owners of our homestay. As you can see they didn't bother with a tv, just projected it onto the wall of the living room. Later in the evening, we spent some time talking with Rakesh, who owns the Caravan Homestay, so much so that it wasn't until 12.13am that we realised we'd missed the chiming in of the new year completely.We've not managed that for some years.

We hope you all have a brilliant 2010; hope it brings all you wish for.

Delhi day one

Thursday 31st December - this is Liam as we attempted to cross the road by Humayun's Tomb. There are zebra crossings but no-one actually stops at them to let anyone cross. You basically have to either wait for a few more people so you create enough of a mass to cross together or just take your chance. We saw a young boy knocked off his bike by a car who's driver then proceeded to beep until the boy moved himself and his bike out of way. The boy was okay, just a bit shaken.

We tried to visit Humayun's Tomb but we didn't have enough cash and Cliff's attempts to get them to accept pounds didn't fly, so by the time we'd been to the ATM and back, they'd closed the gates. We'll try again on Friday and it's free then.

We also managed to get to India Gate. It's a magnificent arch commemorating the loss of 90,000 Indian soldiers in World War I. It used to have traffic flowing around it, but it's now blocked off due to terrorism threats. There's parkland all around and lots of families strolling, having picnics and playing cricket.