Kama Sutra, etc

Hey guys,
Kanpur has been better than we could ever have imagined. Colin's friend, Shashi, and her family are the nicest people on the face of this earth. They were just what the doctor ordered. Its so relaxed here. We thought that we would be staying a couple of days and then head on but that not how it has turned out. We have been invited to stay with them for a week or so and use their house as a base and travel around to a few towns and sights in the vicinity. By vicinity I mean roughly 5 to 7 hours away. We went to Khajurao, reputedly home of the Kama Sutra and went to visit all the temples. They were interesting, to say the least. Plenty of carvings of scantily clad women and, ahem, a little bit more. It was really incredible though. There must have been about 10 temples or more around the whole town which was no bigger than a small town. Of course, by Indian standards it was only a tiny village. The road to Khajurao was the worst I've ever driven. For about 70 to 100 km there was essentially no road. It was worse than anything you have ever seen in Ireland. Just imagine the worst road in Ireland and multiply it by 100. Just a quick insight into how poor some of the people of this country are: while we were driving through a small village on our way back from tantric temple village we spotted a little girl walking behind a cow with a tin pan in her hand. She was collecting the cow dung from the cow so that they could make it into pats that could then be dried and used to fue the fires. All along the roads you can see these big mounds of drying cow pats. We laugh because it seems absurd to us but I guess its the only way that these people are going to have fuel for fires to keep them warm at night. On a lighter note we were acosted by this guy called Kumar while looking at a Muslim festival and he invited us back to his shop to drink chai (tea). of course he was trying to seel us stuff but apart from that he was a really nice guy. oh ya, there was a German bakery in the middle of the town. We thought it was really funny the all the way over here in India there would be a German bakery. So random. You gotta love this country. See ya.

the Taj

hi people, well since I was last talking to you we have done somethiong amazing. its called the Taj Mahal at sunrise. And let me tell you it is some sight. We got up really early (about half 5) and our driver drove us to the front gates. You are not allowed any cars in the immediate vacinity of the Taj because of the pollution they cause, which is a pure joke as the pollution that is around the whole city is so bad that if you are more than 500 metres for it you can hardly see it. The smog there is so thick. Anyway, we watched the taj as the sun was rising and it really is an awe inspiring experience. its absolutely beautiful.. This is going to sound really naff but its more beautiful than I could ever have imagined. We have some great photos that will be going onto the blog as soon as I figure out how to upload them. We came back to Delhi and said goodbye to our driver, Dhansingh Negi. It was emotional. I cried. Well not really but hey .... We met a few English girls and went for dinner with them. It was really funny, We were waiting for a table at this restaurant and all of a sudden about 40 or 50 Asians started piling out onto the street. I swear it looked like we had been transported to China town. The girls were good craic. It was nice to talk to fellow travellers. They were all studying law. We didn't spend the evening talking nerdy law talk. tHey are heading down to Goa in the south too. We might meet up. Don't know yet. As I write this blog we're on our way to Kanpur to Colin's friend. hopefully we will be taking it easy. Both of us are wrecked after a hectic 8 days driving. It was great but we need to take it easy for a bit. Thats all for now. Later people.

Highs and lows

Forrest Gump said that life is like a box of chocolates, well India is like a chinese dinner, its either sweet or sour. Over the past couple of days we have had some highs and lows. We were nearly scammed in Pushkar. We tried a camel ride which turned into a scam. We were brought down to a holy lake and some religious ritual was performed. We were asked for a donation but they wanted more than we were offering. THey got really aggressive and said we can go back to our hotel to get more money. We legged it but one of them actually followed us back to the hotel where we had a big fight. The next day we just walked around and met a few other travellers and hung out for the day. Today we drove to Baratpur. I saw my first ever road traffic accident. THere was this guy dead on the road that we drove past. About an hour later we saw this guy lying at a crossroads. We reckon he was dead cause we couldn't see him breathing. It was weird, nobody took any notice of the guy at all. Weel that'll do for now. Later people.

first day in India

ok people, so this is my first real blog from India. What a day it has been. it started off kinda ok. the flight was grand. Was delayed an hour and so missed our orgsnised taxi to the hostel. Instead we got these two guys who brought us off on a wild goose chase around Delhi. We had no idea where they were taking us and they kept saying we couldn't get to our Hostel and that they knew of somewhere better that the knew. the fact that the were able to navigate direcctly to specific tourist info sites but not our hostel was a bit worrying.. After about 2 hours of stalling we eventually ditched them and got a tuc tuc (motorbike rickshaw) to yet another tourist info site. These people were really nice so we were really on our guard. Somehow made it to our hostel. its no Clarion but it'll do. THe shower head is about a foot from a light bulb and to flush the toilet you have to turn a knob as though you were turning on a tap. Its grand really. It seems as though everyone is out to scam you. The only reason anyone talks to you is in order to sell you something. We stick out like sore thumbs so we bought some trad Indian garb with the help of our newest best friend Ricky. he just started talking to us on the street and even invited himself to dinner with us even though he didn't order anything. he was really friendly so immediately we were wary of him but he turned out to be all right. Did i tell you about how absolutely ridiculuously crazy the traffic in Delhi is? The cars (or at least our taxi into town) don't have any indicating functions at all. Our taxi driver spent much f the time turned around facing us while chatting and driving at the same time, multitasking taken to the next level. Whatever rules of the road there may have been seem to have been thrown out the window long ago. There are cows wandering the streets everywhere. Absolute madness. Well that'll do for now I think. II'll keep you informed of more as it happens. Later.

The time has come for the greatest experience of my very existance. I'm not going to blab on about who I am and what i'm all about. This blog is all about the next 15 months or so. i'm going to let you all know how things are getting on and you'll hopefully see as many photos as i can possible post. Let the adventure begin