Thursday 29 November 2007

Rajastan to the Punjab

Jaisalmer Fort

Hello everyone. Left Jaisalmer 5 days ago, heading north up to the Punjab. It took 3 days riding to get to Amritsar, centre of Sikhism, and the old capital of the Punjab. Riding in India takes time. National Highway 15, the road out of rajastan is more like a British B road, but at least it was straight and tarmaced.


On The Road, Rajastan


Amritsar is a fantastic city, its a typical Indian city, noisy, dirty and hectic, but right in the middle of the chaos is the Golden Temple, the holiest site of the Sikh religion. Its an incredible beautiful Temple in the middle of a man made lake. Very peaceful and relaxing place. Everyone was very friendly, practicing there English on me. I seemed to be the only honky in the entire complex!



Me, headscarf and The Golden Temple, should really have grown a beard.


No such thing as a free meal? There is at The Golden Temple:)


Took this at a mad Hindu Temple. It was more like a ride at Disneyland. You had to follow a one way path around the complex, crawling through man made tunnels, streams etc.. The whole place was done out in a 70's disco theme.

Sticking around Amritsar for a couple more days, get bike serviced, visit Pakistan border etc Then headin up to the Himalaya!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday 25 November 2007

Police,Drugs & Camels

Whats happenned since the last post! Well, last week was spent in a really nice hotel in Jodhpur, chilling out. After spending a couple of weeks in mad,busy Indian cities, it was nice just to read and chill by a pool. I also benifitted from meeting an old French hippy at the hotel ( who did the whole hippy trail thing in the 70's ) He'd had been givin a load of nepali grass off an icelandic gentleman. Suffice to say some of its now on its third owner. The last weeks been very relaxing:)

Last few days have been spent in Jaisemier, a small fort town about 100km from the Pakistan border. Its right in the middle of the Thar Desert, so yesterday went on a camel safari. My camel was called Raja, he seemed to be the best behaved of the bunch, going vaugely in the direction I wanted him to go. Luckly there is not much to bump into in the desert. Spent the night sleeping under the stars, then came back to town this morning. Turns out the guildes didn't pay the tourist tax and didn't feel like bribeing the cops. We had to take a detour of the main road and through a load of gypsy villages, with a cop car following us. We had 4WD, the fuzz had 2WD. We won.

I would post pictures, but 1) I accidently deleted them all off my camera. 2) Slow computer, the connection for this post is through a mobile phone:(

Anyway, I'll post the safari pictures when my fellow desert buddies email me some copies.

Thursday 22 November 2007

Curry of the Week- Veg Jal Frazi. mmmmmmmmmm



My bike- a 350cc Royal Enfield



Hazards of the road. Not sure how you flip the photo, sorry.



Amber Fort, just outside Jaipor



Jodhpur, for some reason its called The Blue City



Delhi Market, breath in that fresh smog



Holy Cow



Main Mosque, Delhi



Would you buy anything from these guys?



Me in front of a big white building, Agra


Well as promised, heres a best of selection of photos. Finally found a computer that runs XP. till crashes when I try to charge my ipod, but beggers can'nt be choosers.

Monday 19 November 2007

Motorbikes,Cricket and The Taj

Well, first of all, apologies again, ive failed to find a internet cafe running anything later than windows 95, so yet again i carn't download any pictures. The letters have worn of the keyboard, and an Indian gentleman sitting next to me is browsing porn sites, so again apologies for even more spelling mistakes than usual. Lonely Planet guide tells me theres a good cafe in next town i visit, so i promise photos in next day or so.

News so far is- I bought a 2004 350cc Royal Enfield in Delhi last week for 39000rupees (about 500 quid) Its black and silver, and sounds awsome when its running (it deveoped an electrical/ignition problem just outside Agra, but a trip to the mechanics, a new coil and 15 quid later its was back on the road:) The designs 50 years old, so i'm guessing it wont be the last time i visit the bike wallah.

After getting bike fixed, spent a few days in Agra, visiting Taj Mahal, which off course was very beautiful, and very busy. Day after I went to the Red Fort ( yes there seems to be a red fort in every town round here, but this one was much nicer than the one in Delhi. Mainly because the British didn't flatten the compound to create a barracks and arsenal in this one)

The last 5 days ive been in Rajastan, in a medium sized market town called Jaipor. The main reason for visiting this place is because it hosted the final one day international cricket match between India vrs Pakistan. A real local derby. Unfortunately you were not allowed to take cameras, bags or weapons into the ground, so i'm just going to have to try and describe it. Its not like Lords. Ive never seen so many riot police, mounted police, riot vans, watercannons at a cricket ground in my life. It,s also the first one with 80's style football fenceing and barb wire around the boundry as well. Anyway, India got hammered, but fortunately they had already won the series 3-2. So the army wasn't required in the end:)

Saturday 10 November 2007

Arrived in Delhi

Hello everyone:) Finally arrived in India. First impressions are- it hot (even though its winter), dusty, dirty, smelly and noisey, basically everything i'd hoped for. I feel right at home. Oh yeah, the currys not bad either- best one so far was a butter paneer masala, hhhhhmmmmmmmmmm....... and its all coming out the other end in a controled manner so far.
Well been here 4 days now. First day was spent finding hotel, getting over jet lag, and tentivly exploring the the local market- it was definatley a case of spot the jet lagged white guy just of a plane, but managed to get out alive without buying anything.
Second day was spent looking at bikes in the bike market about a mile from hotel. Had a test ride on a 350cc Royal Enfield, which was interesting. You have to believe in caos theory to ride in delhi. As long as you go with the flow it all seems to work out fine. Gonna shop around a bit more and buy one tomorrow.
The last couple of days i've been doing the whole tourist thing- Red Fort, which was big, red and fort like. Jama Masjid- the biggest mosque in India and the National Museum- which had stuff from 4000bc up to the Mughals (19thC)
I would post some pictures, but this computer doesn't have a USB port, so it will have to wait.

Stuart