Monkeygeddon

Hello reader(s)!
We've now spent 3 weeks in Mcleod ganj/Dharamsala, and are quite acclimatised to the tea drinking, cake eating, cafe lurking, reading, early bed times and altitude- its been a rough ride.  There are 15 pieces of cake / 3 dogs / 0.2 cows, 1 Buddhist monk,  0.4 monkeys, and 10kg of sugar for every traveller/citizen here.

Our english classes have been a lot of fun, and has given us a nice routine to each day (see above activities).  Its great to get to know the students better now, and the lessons seem productive enough for 2 unqualified teachers (whats a gerund??).  Many have their stories of fleeing Chinese occupied Tibet by walking accross the himalayas and Nepal and into India, and are just incredible survival stories and very humbling.  

  

There are plenty of courses to get involved in, from various types of yoga to cookery and wood work.  I took myself on a cookery 'Momo' class (a tibetan steamed dumpling) in 'Mamas Kitchen', which have quickly become my favourite street food/snack/main meal/supper :) 

I was sat at our desk in our hotel room last week when quite a large monkey come in through the window.  It is so very true how human their faces are (though with bigger teeth). I have watched a lot of nature programmes in my time (its impossible not to isn't it) and so knew what to do.  I stood up slowly and put my arms in the air like a pantomime monster, which sent him quite casually back out of the window. He didnt wink or anything, but he would have done if it were in a film.  

Diwali came and went with quite a bang.  The picture at the top of this post shows our route home across the 'main square' blocked by a spontaneous unregulated and totally frightening fireworks 'session' with drums and dancing.  I watched a man on a motorbike ride through the launching area at one point (the roads through it were not even closed and i guess he needed to get somewhere) as rockets and bangers were blasting up from coke bottles and bean tins and excited childrens hands.  It was insane, and forged a new dimensions to the 'get on with it' / 'itll be fine' mentality here. Heres some photos, but they dont convey anywhere near the full picture or atmosphere.  It was amazing - in the 'oh jesus' sense of the word.

Here comes a cop car to turn a blind eye...

Every so often, the Dalai Lama is requested to do some teachings here, this time by a Korean group, and  so we had the opportunity to go and listen to him read some Buddhist teachings and explanations.  It was in Tibetan, but all foreigners (in 6 languages maybe) had a live radio translation from an unseen man, struggling to keep up.  Together with the celebrations at the Sikh Golden Temple, it was another huge privilege to be a part of. We were sat cross legged in amongst a huge number of smiling and friendly monks and nuns, listening and tucking into Butter Tea (it has salt, butter and milk in it, and laura got saddled with a huge bowl full, "this is disgusting"- my fault, sorry laura) and bread and dahl and rice (much nicer), brought out to the people by a troop of monks with the biggest pots and kettles i have ever seen. There were 3 days of teachings, a lot of it hard to understand, but being here we've learned a lot about Buddhism.  Dont worry mum, it is NOt a cult or anything like, and we are still same old us :) Richard Gere even showed up on the last day.. they are good pals apparently, Who knew.  Security was ever so tight - pity they got everyone's names wrong...

The food continues to be a big part of our time here, and eating out 2 or 3 times a day is a new experience for us and is very lovely.  Its the first time in a long time that every meal we eat is made by someone else, which is quite a thing. This has meant i inadvertently end up eating ghee/milk/egg sometimes, which does no good for my eczema, but i think ive got the clamps on it now.  Although english is widely spoken in india, the concept of no eggs or dairy is not always understood. We've moved guest houses to a very nice place, at the bottom of a big set of stairs, below the town.  Its the same price (£3 ish), but has a huge balcony, nice bathroom and what looks like an alsation crossed with a dalmation - it looks very sci-fi.

We've found the best internet connection in town, which is a lot more reliable i think.  They also advertise 'Paragliding & Lamination' - wouldnt want to get those two mixed up.  

Once again we've added some photos to flickr which you can check out here!

That's all for now!

John

Life in McLeod Ganj...

So here we are in McLeod Ganj – having escaped the hectic cities for a while we've found a place that seems to have the perfect combination of lots going on yet plenty of time for rest and relaxation. We're staying at the Kunga Guest House – seemingly a firm favourite for backpackers – in a £3 a night room with the most amazing view that will be our home until the end of October.

Unfortunately when agreeing to a shared bathroom we hadn't realised it was also shared with the restaurant upstairs – a little weird and awkward when you go for a shower and there's a queue of customers waiting outside to use the loo! Even so it's worth it for the room and is in a good part of town. We've been warned not to leave our windows open when we're out as chances are we could return to a monkey in our room...

McLeod has a 3 way mix of Indian people, backpackers and Tibetans who have come here to flee the Chinese occupation and follow in the footsteps of the Dalai Lama, who lives just down the hill. The Tibetan community are well established now and there seems to be a never ending choice of cafés and places to eat. Some fully fledged restaurants, others little tea huts on the side of the road.

Of course wanting to support the local people we're fulfilling our duties and are fully embracing both, spending many an hour sipping Chai and working our way through the large number of restaurants available. It would be rude not to when an evening meal for the both of us costs about £2.

As well as an overwhelming amount of food choices, there are also daily talks, film showings and classes to get involved with. We feel really settled into life here and have made some new friends who are around for a while so have decided to stay for at least the next 2 weeks. John's signed up to a cookery course tomorrow where he'll learn to make Momo's – a type of Tibetan dumpling filled with yummy goodness. I'm hoping he'll bring one back for me to try.

Next week we'll be joining thousands of monks, nuns, Tibetans and tourists to attend a series of lectures given by the Dalai Lama in the main temple. I can't quite believe our luck that it has fallen on the time we are here...what a spiritual time we are having! We're going to try and swat up before hand so we can hopefully at least understand a bit of what's going on, otherwise we'll just take cues from others and smile and nod at the right times.

We're also now teaching 'intermediate' English every day, mainly to Tibetan monks. I'm not really sure how it happened – we popped into a voluntary organisation on our first exploration around town and the next thing we know, we were down to start teaching the next day. We've done two lessons so far – both of which seem to have gone well (from our point of view – fingers crossed the students agree). Unfortunately only 5 turned up for today's class – we found out afterwards it was a special Tibetan spring clean day so most of our students were at home or around town in their marigolds.  We're learning that things chop and change quite quickly around here.

From tomorrow I'll also be doing daily individual conversation classes with a monk named Tsering – I'm guessing just drinking more tea and correcting his pronunciation, which I'm sure my dad will find amusing. Apparently he's pretty high up on the monk ladder so here's hoping for some good karma coming my way!

Finally a couple of things on John's behalf...firstly this incredible camper we saw yesterday - surely someone has to be living in it, it's big enough for a family of 10...

And secondly, he's been completely amazed by the plumbing that goes on around here, and it's not hard to see why.....

The Golden Temple

No trains running to our next destination on a Sunday meant taking our first Indian bus journey, which having spent enough bemused time in auto-rickshaws, we'd tried to put off as long as possible. But onward we were heading and so off we set to the Punjab city of Amritsar. The journey which according to our guide book should have taken 7 hours, took only 5 and we soon figured out why - I think the driver must have been late for his tea. Despite the bumps and somewhat tense moments when overtaking into oncoming traffic, it was a great experience and a wonderful way to get a glimpse of rural Indian life. Unfortunately for the guy next to us on the bus who kindly offered us a room in his house, we'd already booked a hotel within stones throw of the Sikh Golden Temple, and so were soon on a cycle rickshaw to our digs for the night.

We knew the Golden Temple was a special place for Sikhs, but hadn't quite realised just how special until we arrived. Turns out we'd rocked into town on the birthday of the 4^th Guru Ram Das Ji - the dude who'd built the temple more than 400 years ago. It wasn't just us who'd rocked up either – more than 100,000 Sikhs from all over India were also in Amritsar for the celebrations. And what an incredible celebration it was!!! 

 The Temple in itself is absolutely incredible, but we were blown away by our experience there. As day turned into night, thousands of lights illuminated the buildings and that combined with the amazing colours of Indian dress and the hundreds of candles that had been lit created a mesmerising sight.

We felt a bit awkward at first, gate-crashing such an important occasion, but there was no need to worry – we were literally welcomed with open arms and genuinely felt like people were happy for us to share the experience with them. So many people came over to chat or say hello, ask where we were from and tell us about the temple and their religion. We'd decided it was a safe bet to play the 'we're married' card, and found it worked well until chatting to a 12 year old girl who was ever so concerned that we didn't have a child – her reasoning that although the population of India was going up, the rest of the world was in decline.  Thank goodness my dad wasn't around to get involved in that conversation!

Once again the cameras were out and people wanted their photo taken with us - one guy enthusiastically thrust his baby girl into my arms so she could have her picture taken – unfortunately she didn't seem so keen.

John with his new best friends.

On arrival at the temple we were required to cover our heads (hence John looking like a pirate) and take off our shoes, reluctantly leaving them in surely the world's biggest cloak room holding hundreds of thousands of shoes. We then joined the masses in walking around the temple grounds before picking our spot to watch the incredible firework display. The noise was deafening and fireworks seemed to go on forever – it was a wonderful ending to what had been an amazing occasion.

The next day we returned to the temple to see it in a different light.  Almost immediately after arriving we were swept to one side by a group of wise Sikh men sat crossed-legged and pondering life.  They invited us to join them and enthusiastically recalled tales from the temple.  We learnt so much just from the 20 minutes we spent sat with them and came away feeling enriched, although  John had a small case of beard envy which was felt all the more when he asked one of the men why they grew their beards so long.  "You are a sheep, I am a lion" was the man's sobering reply.

Another astonishing event from our time in the Punjab was our visit to the Pakistan border, to witness the 'closing of the border' ceremony that apparently takes place every single day.  Locals and tourists had arrived by the coach-load to see the spectacle before them, where crowds and officials on both the Indian and Pakistani sides competed with great gusto to be the loudest and proudest.  We sat back in amazement watching things unfold before us, as guards from each side marched to the central gates like something straight out of the Ministry of Silly Walks.  

After about an hour of performance, the flags were finally lowered and the gates closed for the evening.

After an 8 hour journey by train and bus, we have finally arrived at our next destination - Mcleod Ganj.  A renowned traveller hangout in the Himalayan foot hills and home of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan government in exile, this peaceful hillside town is going to be our home for at least the next few days.   

    

Happy Daze......

Hello from as far east as i have ever been (John)!  I write this from Chandagarh, 4:30hrs (by train) north of Delhi, and 5 days after our arrival there.  As the Lonely Planet puts it, "with its tenacious touts and crush of mechanical and human traffic, Delhi can be downright confronting and confounding for the first time visitor".  This i think we can agree on.

We were staying in the Paharganj area of Delhi (in the very regal Hotel Namaskar), which I'm led to believe is the most bonkers and intense area for a visitor to be in, but a good start for backpackers to congregate.  That said, with our Tangier bootcamp training back in June, we now walk tall (well, as tall as we can being 5 ft somethings...) and avoid eye contact and thereby pretty much avoid all hassles.  It doesnt stop you being approached, but it avoids most shennanigans.

We were picked up from the airport by a Mr Sanjay, a fine fellow who drove as if we were banger racing and going for gold.  We even hit a motorbike on our left side (Woa! wa was that? he said with a head turn).  He should get some bloody wing mirrors then we thought. All together, It was a fun, bracing, and enjoyable introduction to  semi structured chaos. (Laura disagrees and was totally terrified by the whole experience).  The traffic is absolutely fascinating to just watch.  A roundabout seems to have very different rules. I havnt seen any accidents though so something must be working, and i sort of admire the carefree spirit on show, where a honking horn is rarely in anger, its just an announcement that theyre coming up fast from behind so you better brace yourself.

The smells, the noise, the heat, and all of the other environmental senses and feelings were quite overpowering.  So what with jetlag and all that, we slept quite a bit. "Delhi is a good place for that", a nice American lady from Maine we shared a lunch with said.  Two nights there and some not so intrepid exploring later, we took a train northwards, to Chandigarh, a logical stop on our route north.

I've only been on one so far, but the train was excellent.  There's a man to sell you samosas, another to
sell you veg byryani, one more to sell you a sandwich, one with crisps, another to offer tea and coffee around, another to mop the ailse floor, and another to check your ticket. Jobs for everyone! I saw a long freight train pass by with open sided trailer carriages, hauling what must have been about 500 tractors, all neatly facing sideways with their head lamps for eyes.  I've just seen on telly 5 minutes ago (from our poshy hotel with AC) an advert for a tractor! Their campaign must be working!

We also rode past a lot of slums coming out of Delhi, huge areas of coloured tarpaulin tented housing, makeshift shelter and head high rubbish piles with children playing ontop, which was a more sobering sight.

We're getting more and more used to things now, as would happen, and feel on the whole more comfortable   Chandagarh seems a fascinating place, being designed bottom up in the 50's / 60's by French architect Le Corbusier and is "an expression of the nations faith in the future".  Its laid out, ominously, into Sectors (we are staying in Sector 22, Sector 17 is shopping etc), grid like, with a lot of concrete but also a huge ammount of park land and leisure areas.  A 40 acre rose garden for example.  It is apparently Indias cleanest and greenest city.  We've found some fantastic food, and covered some ground in the autorickshaws.

It has a very famous rock garden, made entirely of waste product and recycled bits of anything you can name, looking absolutely incredible and is truly inspiring.  Started by a Nepalese man in 1958, his single handed vision and creation now attracts 5000 people a DAY.  So many, that the government thought, 'hey, what he's doing is on stolen land, but its bloody amazing.  instead of tearing it down, lets give him 50 guys to help him finish it off'. He is 80 something now, and still designing.  Laura says its the best attraction she has ever visited, and also the best 20p entree fee!!  I agreed.

The most bizarre and funny thing was that we were like minor celebrities for the day - at least 10 different groups of people wanted their photos taken with us!  All felt very strange but we were happy to oblige where we could. 

Where's Wally?!

So...next stop Amritsar and the Golden Temple - a very holy place in the Punjab for Sikhs with apparently over 750kg of gold in it! (I'm a sucker for facts)  As usual, more photos available here on flickr:  PHOTOS!   Catch you then!!!!  

India here we come!

Helloooooooo!  It has been a long time since we last post (and since we were in the lovely Spain in our lovely Roo) so we thought it was about time we let everyone know what we're up to & how our future travel plans are going.  Well they are going splendidly thank you for asking!  We've confused most people by completely changing our plans over the past couple of months, but we've finally decided on our first destination and will be heading to India in 2 weeks time.

We are super excited, although have spent very little time thinking about where we might go or what we might do, so any suggestions would be most welcome.  First stop Delhi on the 4th October and then Asia is our oyster...

Coming back to England was a bit of a shock to the system but we've had a great time catching up with friends and family across the country.  We've not been too snap happy but have uploaded the best of our pics here!

Roo has been put to bed for the winter in a barn in Silverdale and it was a sad day for all saying our farewells.  We've pretty much lived in her since the end of March and definitely consider her our home.  We know she's in safe hands though & it will be a great treat again when we get back next year.

So next update from India I guess!  Exciting times ahead :-)

Wild Camping & a Pintxos Tour

Our last week has been a complete contrast and needed break from the hectic city-going of Barcelona. We spent 5 days travelling across the Spanish Pyrenees, on various windy roads (some rather high up) to a couple of national parks and past many a lake, river and waterfall. It's been bliss and made all the better by the opportunity to park up and 'wild camp' – much needed after the 30 euro a night car park in Barcelona. At the start of our trip I was a bit wary of camping free (we're not exactly a discreet van) but I've soon realised that with the right spot, a couple of other campers near by and a bit of careful parking behind the right tree or bush you can get away with sleeping almost anywhere.

Our first spot was on the way up to the mountains at a beautiful look out point not far from the small town of Sort. Initially we just stopped for a brew but it soon became clear that it was the perfect place to rest our weary heads, & with a couple of other campers near by that is what we did. It was such a peaceful spot in the middle of nowhere with so many stars overhead – we slept the best we'd done in weeks & felt all the better for it the next day.

We then headed up to the mountains for our first of not 1 but 2 (yes that's right 2!) hikes. We don't like to be smug but we don't normally walk anywhere that doesn't have a pub at the end so we felt pretty pleased with ourselves after the first 7 hour trek. Our dads would have been proud! It was absolutely idyllic with the most amazing views the whole way along, and our half way stop was rewarded with a very expensive mars bar at the mountain refuge.

Since then we've done a somewhat smaller hike (2 hours – more of a stroll) & slept in a picnic area next to some playing fields as well as next to a lake with 2 other VW's, 3 motorhomes and a lorry. Our best camping spots so far and all free! On Saturday we left the hills and headed west to the coast and beautiful small city of San Sebastian. Having been there for 3 days it became clear that the city revolves around beach-going, eating & drinking so obviously wanting to fit in we made the best of all three.

We'd been very kindly treated to a meal out by our friends Claire & Steve, which we've had earmarked for San Sebastian (argued the food capital of the world!) the whole way along & we weren't dissapointed. Unfortunately the 200 euro a head 3 Michelin starred restaurant was fully booked that evening so we opted for a Pintxos tour instead – the Basque version of tapas & the local speciality. According to our guide book the old town of San Sebastian has more watering holes per square metre than anywhere in the world, the bars of which were all covered in huge varieties of tasty treats.

On Saturday night we made 5 stops in total, and would have happily carried on had we not been drinking a beer with every pintxos. Everything we tried was delicious and really creative, & as a vegetarian it's definitely been the best food I've eaten in Spain.

 We've loved San Sebastian & it's been the perfect end to an amazing trip. Our ferry home has finally come around - we leave Santander tomorrow!  We can't believe it and are sad this part of our journey is coming to an end, but are really looking forward to seeing friends & family again, as well as our upcoming adventures in Asia!

East Side Yo

hello! So, its been a lot of Kilometres, a lot of petrol (and more oil than id have liked) and we've seen some wonderful things- I'm writing this from our first day in the Pyrenees, at an incredible wild camp spot high up, but more of that in the next blog when it comes. I pull you in don't I.

We headed out for a long drive from Cabo de Gata, the south east tip of spain, up to Valencia, which took the best part of the day. Our friend Mario lives there, so it was great to have a local to show us around. 

Our camp site there was bang next to a nuddy beach. Anyway, we needed to recharge a bit, and so of course booked in for a few days. There was a pool n a shop selling cheap booze and very nice bread, so was perfect really. We hired bikes, which we should have known earlier would be a great idea, cause as we all know there's no better way to travel than on 2 wheels. Although our 2 wheels were heavy, uncomfortable and slow, and had me dreaming of my beautiful fixed wheel back home in storage waiting for me. Not to worry! 

It was great fun and a bike friendly place. We rode around the new science park, full of space age buck rodgers buildings and watery pools (and curiously, completely and absolutely deserted at 4am on our ill advised but enjoyable and successful ride home later that night). 

Mario took us to a lovely nature park south of town (no nuddies there though) and we had a great picnic under some cool shady trees. I saw one of the coolest men I've ever seen, who was about 60 with a cowboy hat and grizzly chin, smoking a cigar and riding the dodgem cars at the fun fair. Awesome.

I really enjoyed Valencia- a great size, pretty old town, excellent food markets and lots of young folk and goings on. We made friends with our neighbours, which made the camping evenings fun. So we ended up staying 4 nights in all, feeding and watering well.  

Also we gave Laura a new haircut - I did some complex layering at the back.

Onwards! Barcelona was next on the map, and as we headed north the temperatures cooled off a bit, and suddenly 26 degrees was a chilly day and something to savour! Our first bit of rain in 6 or 7 weeks was a lovely sight, and living in Manchester as we did, we should not speak in these tones! We had a bit of trouble finding our camp spot in the city, but when we got a tip off it was just round the corner actually, I think our spirits lifted and we rolled into probably the crappiest Aire (organised campervan sleeping spots) yet. which was a shame as its your first impression of the place - guess they don't have to try though, with Barcelona being such a draw by itself (It was a truck stop with flooded porta-cabin toilets). 

Anyway anyway- we walked miles and miles pottering through the streets making the best of the 3 maps we got hold of, and took a lot of pit stops for rests, drinks and snacks. Think we got a bit carried away, since we burned through our wallets fast (its a purse as it happens, and shared. Laura is luckily the banker, and a good one!) Shops, parks, cathedrals, even a bar called Manchester, which we made good use of and ate a lot of their peanuts. 

We stumbled into a secret band playing opposite from a 2^nd floor apartment balcony, and from that into a pied piper lead walk to another outside venue to watch a full band play, very fun and spontaneous.

 Basically all the fun of the city, and I fully enjoy being in cities for these kinds of things. Our final day was spent trying to slow things down a bit, and we had a nice lunch at a vegan place and then went to the Picasso museum which was free on Sundays.

Obviously as happens with such big places, they kick your arse and leave you feeling broken and broke- and this did happen, but of course we enjoyed ourselves tonnes, and it will still be there to explore further when we next visit some day.

So right now as I mentioned firstly, we are inside the van and it is dark now high up in the Aaragonese pyranees. Laura cooked a tasty meal and is now crotcheting something that looks complicated and it is about bed time. Good night!