Final Reflections, and a bit of catching up.

4 months ago, almost to the day I sat in my room in Harare, with the generator on in the background powering the internet, wondering how the next four months were going to turn out.

Now I sit here in air-conditioned luxury at Louis and Frederique's house in Delhi wondering how four months goes by so fast. It's been an adventure, sometimes it seemed like the four months was never going to end, sometimes the time just slipped away. But it always kept me on my toes, wondering what was going to happen next, leaving me amazed at a view, or amused at the man belching heartily in front of me, or shocked at the lepers sitting in squalor by the side of a road while suited businessmen stroll past on their way to work. If that sounds slightly cliched, its because its India, it just does that.

I've loved it though, learnt from it, seen places and done things that even my parents (near deities in the traveling world) haven't seen or done. I'm now one of those Indiah explorers who can sit down at a bar and chat to other Indiah explorers about their adventures, (club membership card in the post).

I also apologise for the complete lack of posts in the last few weeks. I had a few lined up but unfortunately my computer has given up just before the end and for the moment I can't get any of the posts off it.

We went from Manali to Macleod Ganj, the home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile. Then on to Amritsar to the Waga border between Pakistan and India where the armed forces parade around zealously each day at 6pm trying to out do their counterparts across the fence. It is fairly comical, especially the soldiers who can fling their legs high enough to kick themselves in the face, but very impressive. Amritsar is also home to the magnificent Golden Temple, a Mecca for Sikhs and a kind of hummingbird feeder for people of all religions from around the world.

We stopped off in Simla to pick up our suitcases, and then, wondering how we'd managed to accumulate so much stuff, lugged them down to Delhi and left them with Louis and Fredie. It was then down to Bombay where I was re-united with Deepak and showed Rory the sights, as well as making a visit to Elephanta Island which I hadn't seen before. Goa was our next stop, five days on the beach to relax after the strenuous year I've had since exams finished. My birthday also happened to coincide with that and a day on the beach, a nice dinner and an evening watching football and sampling Calangute's nightlife amply did it justice.

Rory's sister had joined us in Goa and the three of us left the beach and grabbed the 36 hour Express train up to Agra, arriving at 3 in the morning. Intrepid explorers that we are we ditched our bags, had a shower and caught the Taj Mahal at sunrise. It was worth waiting for, I'll give it that. By far the most beautiful monument we've seen in India, a really incredible sight. The Red Fort must kind of feel like the less talented younger brother (no dig at Xandi) but is still very impressive, built on similar lines to the one in Delhi but better maintained, and without a concrete water tower in the middle.

Efficiency tourism, as we've named our brand of exploration meant us grabbing a bite to eat from a rooftop restaurant with magnificent views of the Taj and then catching the fantastically uncomfortable overnight bus to Udaipur. I ended up sleeping on the floor of the bus as it was comfier than the seats before being told that I hadn't paid for my space on the floor and to get back to my seat.

Udaipur is stunning though, four incredible palaces, two of them on islands in the middle of the lake and a third being the biggest palace in Rajasthan make it a really special place. Our hotel had a rooftop restaurant so omelettes with a view were on the menu each morning. We spent a couple of days seeing the sights before the parting of the fellowship. Rory and I had spent almost every day of the last three months in each other's company but it was now finally time to part ways. He and his sister, Liv were off to Jaipur while I caught my final train back to Delhi.

I've now spent two days here and am off to the airport in a few hours to catch my 4.15 am flight. Fun times!

I apologise for the lack of photos but as soon as my laptop is sorted I'll upload them, there are some absolute crackers.
Cheers
Max

Update

So after 3 months of immersion in Indian boarding school we're out. Into the wide world to do our own thing. It's been cracking fun and a really special experience, something I guess, that not many people have. And hopefully something constructive will come out of it and this new connection between BCS and Marlborough breeds a brand new generation of holistically minded, global students. Bearing in mind Xander is going to Marlborough in September...

Anyway we left the school on Saturday evening, proper backpacker style, rucksacks on back and front and caught the overnight bus to Manali, the so called adventure town of India. Its actually just a massive hippy town, dreadlocks and marijuana the staples. Ill post a picture soon to assure you that I haven't grown dreadlocks.

From here we go to Daramsala and Macleod Ganj, the home of the Dalai Lama and the exiled Tibetan government before completing our northern loop with Amritsar and then going back to Shimla to pick up our suits. From there its south, retracing footsteps to Delhi and then onto Mumbai. Ill keep you all up to date and will catch up on all the extravaganzas from Shimla.
Max

Assam

What is Assam? Who is Assam? Where is Assam? All valid questions. And in response to them: It is one of the so called 'north-east states', which funnily enough are in the north-east of India, in the bit that is only faintly connected to the rest of the country by the narrow strip of land (17km at its narrowest) in between Bangladesh and Bhutan. The whole north-east region doesn't have a great rep, its far too close to Burma for that, its always been known as a bit of a terrorist hideout, big on crime, lacking in development. Imagine, if you will, most of Africa.

These days however, according to Mark Tully and others, it is making some progress. It has decent natural resources, mostly minerals and tea gardens, and importantly they are being utilised, unlike nearby Bihar which has enough of the former but is doing very little of the latter.

However I'm not here to do a study on democracy or development, I'm here because of India's other great passion, (the one they are actually quite good at); cricket. Invitational Cricket Tournaments are a big thing among the top schools here and after performing rather abjectly in their own tournament, Bishop Cotton School accepted the tour to Assam as a shot at redemption.

The boys lining up at BCS to say farewells

 It's a bit of a slog to get to the school from anywhere, for us it was 8 hours on a coach down to Delhi, a two hour flight with cracking views of Mt Everest and then a sweaty, bumpy ride in a cramped bus to Assam Valley School.

 The lads at Delhi airport

The campus is beautiful, privately owned, funded by the surrounding expanse of tea gardens, it is twice as big as Marlborough with sports pitches and courts of all varieties sprawled across the 250 acres. The buildings are modern, with differing levels of aesthetic beauty, from Communist era concrete blocks to fancy, arty designs.

Rory and I were housed in the infirmary with the boys in a boarding house and Mr Roach the cricket coach in the guest house, about 15 minutes walk away. Our role on the tour was unspecified, keeping bus banter levels up initially seemed crucial so we got stuck into that but then found a new, absolutely essential daily task once at the school. Now sense of direction has never been my strong point, it took me three years to work out the 5 minute route from home to school, but I was nothing compared to Mr Roach. He took it to a new level. We were called up five or six times a day with: Hey Max, hey Rory, come pick me up!'. We obliged, not quite sure whether he was winding us up but when he demanded I walk him home in the pouring rain while QPR's relegation from the Premier League was at stake on the tele I dug my heels in. I begged and pleaded and offered a map but in the end he won and I got wet.

So feeling it was time to branch out I made myself fitness coach/physio/medical coach. Stretching bowlers backs, applying arnica to bruised hands and taking warm ups were my thing while Rory took fielding practice, which involved him hitting a small piece of leather very hard at boys who don't really like small hard pieces of leather being hit very hard at them but catch it anyway. Because they don't have much of a choice.

Mr Roach

I also became the statistician, drawing up wagon wheels and bowling stats on my computer. Unfortunately their batting figures were very small and their bowling stats were very high; ie they lost. Badly. So we thought bugger this and got a rugby ball out. This proved far more popular, and we found a good range of players. The Biharis, who live off buffalo milk were big on bosh, hand-eye co-ords, not so much. The Punjabis ditto while the Delhi boys are small and nippy, probably due to ancestors who made a living pinching from sahib's pocket, and would make good wingers. However the cream of the crop was the 14 year old Nepali wicket-keeper who was rapid, could actually catch and despite just tipping 5 foot promptly beat one of the Biharis in a wrestling match to show he wasn't a wimp.

Our last cricket match, which the lads had to dominate to have any chance of qualifying for the semi-finals was dire. Morale was sky high after bowling them out for 67 but despite a rapid 31 from afore-mentioned Nepali they wimpered out on 60, having lost all their matches and finishing rock-bottom in the group.

'An absolute disgrace!' assessed Mr Roach. Whether he was talking about my map or the cricket I'm not sure. It meant that we had two days to brush up their rugby and for the boys to chase after the girls. Unfortunately they were even less successful at that than the cricket.

Rory and I on the other hand joined all the other coaches for a bit of a piss-up in the guesthouse. It was hilarious, normally very stiff, lots of 'yes sirs' to men their own age; the coaches dropped the facade and turned into complete jokers. Mr Roach took a lot of abuse for his team being so bad but gave as good as he got and made sure everyone was well refreshed.

Our bus back to Guwhati airport was shared with the tournament winners and their massive trophy which didn't do much to cheer up the boys. Once in Delhi we loitered until it was time to catch the bus home to Simla. Unfortunately the bus didn't realise that it was time and we waited on a Delhi pavement for 3 and a half hours while Roachy tried to find out where his bus had gone! No biggie for experienced India travellers such as myself of course but I have had comfier three hour waits.

Manners and Mangers in Guwhati

It did finally arrive, to the chagrin of two members of the cricket team who suffer terribly from motion sickness and had to make emergency sick bags to contend with an uprising of Kentucky Fried Chicken on the windy mountain roads of Himachal Pradesh. Our arrival back at school wasn't glorious but it was nice to be back at a school with proper views and where you don't sweat away more weight than you put on while eating.

We've now left BCS, and I will fill all the massive gaps when I can but for now a slightly different blog with fairly dire pictures is all.

Max

Jaipur

Although Jaipur is part of the the Golden Triangle and one of the most visited parts of India we were fairly underwhelmed by it. It doesn't have the big city magic of Varanasi or Mumbai but is not as idyllic as Jodphur or Jaisalmer.

It did have two redeeming features though, the Amber Fort which was spectacular, and a very nice hotel, courtesy of Mr and Mrs Manley. They had meant to come out and meet us but unfortunately a small visa issue prevented that.

After checking in to our Sheraton we took full advantage of the luxury before hitting the town. It was filthy hot, really muggy but a thin cotton shirt and a bottle of water are brilliant in conditions like that so we manned up and went sight-seeing. Palaces and museums, camels and donkeys, it was all fairly fairytalesque but just didn't tickle our fancy for some reason. It was also far more touristy and we had people hassling us everywhere we went. It's all good fun and banter for a while but after 6 hours of 'Hey, were you from?' it loses a bit of its appeal.

The first afternoon was spent by the pool as we took a break from the rigours of a Gap Year, the evening spent at a lovely restaurant that served an excellent, if very spicy tikka masala. The meal had the added advantage of giving me some exercise as I dashed back to the hotel to use the loo.

Amber Fort (silent b) is the highlight of Jaipur and we finally succumbed to an exceptionally persistent tuk-tuk driver who offered to do the whole 3 hour, 40km round trip for 250 rupees (about 3 quid), on the condition that we 'look' at some shops on the back. So we took him up on it. He was a real keen bean who claimed that customer satisfaction was his primary aim. He even pulled out a book of comments from all his previous customers which varied from the Germans: 'he should trim his moustache more' to the Italians: 'very safe but must drive faster'. He showed us a beautiful palace surrounded by a lake before dropping us at the entrance to the Amber Fort. As big and as magnificent as the one at Jodphur, it was perched on a hill, with huge walls surrounding it and gorgeous gardens in the valley below.

The elephants weren't available so we tackled the climb on foot, fighting off murderous hat sellers and chaps who offered to give us a guided tour in Taiwanese. Finally at the summit we disappeared in the throng of tourists, wound up some stairs and emerged on a parapet with fantastic views of the rest of the fort and the surrounding countryside. We wandered amongst the massive stone walls, towers and temples built inside the wall before flagging slightly and stopping at the cafe to have a coke with a view.

We managed to not buy anything in the shops on the way home and unfortunately I think this meant that our tuk-tuk bloke didn't get his commission as he tried to double the price once we got back to the hotel. Cheeky bugger.

We then had another quick swim, grabbed our bags, grabbed some chicken nuggets at Maccy D's and then headed to the bus station where we hopped on our ride home.

Jaisalmer

Sorry for taking so long in all this, I've been fairly useless on the whole writing front but will fill everyone in on the shenanigans of the last few weeks soonish.

When dad went to Jaisalmer 25 years ago it was a two day jeep ride from the nearest town. Luckily Indian infrastructure is 8 times better now so it only takes 6 hours by bus from Jodphur through Rajasthani scrub desert, we were picked up by our camel operator and taken to the hotel that he ran. He then sorted us a bus ticket to Jaipur for the next day, ushered us up to the restaurant and then gave us internet. Bit of a legend.

After munching an epic curry we jumped in a little Mahindra and headed for the desert. Our guy stopped at a little village which was the closest thing to Disneyland I've seen in India. It looked almost exactly as a Rajasthani village would've done 100 years ago, it was just a shame about the busy main road and three telephone masts right next to it. There were the usual spattering of Japanese tourists with camera lenses bigger than their... forearms, and a gaggle of children asking for money for photos.

 The expression of the kid on the left really cracks

me up!

So we laughed at them and gave them 10 rupees before jumping back into the car, acknowledging the cold beers that had been bought for us and going desertwards.

Our next stop was at an actual ancient village that was being excavated. It was apparently inhabited by the Brahmin caste before a dispute involving one of their young ladies and the maharaja ended badly for the village.

 

Then it was taken over by the desert. I persuaded the guy to let me drive the car from there (it was designed for Indians and even if I was 5' 2” I doubt it would have been comfortable to drive). Even so it was good fun and felt proper chiller to cruise through the desert, sporting the Wayfarers and a linen shirt of course.

The excitement didn't stop there, half an hour later we pulled up next to a couple of camels and their blokes, grabbed the beers, mounted our camels and the desert safari began.

 

Camel back riding is really good fun for the first 10 minutes. Then you begin to realise that camels are very bony, have a similar gait to a fourteen year old boy and make the same noises and smells as the average foreigner after an Indian curry. Nevertheless they are quite endearing and the experience after dismounting was magical. We watched the sun go down behind the dunes while our guides cooked us authentic Rajasthani food, then we shared notes with them about life, future plans and opinions on politics and philosophy. About as Gap Yah as it gets! 

 

Then just before we fell asleep under the stars a little desert fox appeared and routed around the camp a bit, picking up the scraps of food we'd left behind, then disappeared into the dunes.

The next morning we rode back, I'd worked out the seating position this time so it was less uncomfortable but we were still glad to see the jeep that took us back to Jaisalmer. There we looked around the fort, amazed by how easily the town had grown up inside the fort and now was living and breathing inside the walls.

Then we had another epic curry and made our way to the bus station. I got chatting to a fruit vendor while we waited for our bus, he was very proud of his little moped and seemed happy to let me have a little potter around town on it, good practice if we end up biking over the Rotang Pass as I'm very keen to do.

The bus arrived soon after that and we hopped on, found some space and bedded down for the night.

Jodphur

One question that we kept asking ourselves was why? Why did they expend so much energy and money building enormous forts in middle of a vast, barren scrub desert. Who else would've wanted it?

Jodhpur was amazing though, our first impression was the crowded railway ticket office but it was all uphill from there. Our accommodation was in a beautiful 500 year old haveli with air-con, excellent food and cracking views of the fort. 

 

We headed out into the old city at about 10 and after a couple of hours of serious heat, sight-seeing and attention deflection we were knackered and found an air-conned shop that had cold Coke. The revival continued with some chocolate eclairs and we felt strong enough to tackle the monstrous fort. After picking out the English audio guide we spent a couple of hours marvelling at the miracle of masonry.

It really was one of those forts that nerdy little kids spent hours ogling at in books, before they move onto FHM. Towering towers, mountainous walls and spikes on the gate to stop elephants bashing them down. It also had delicate aspects, with ornate windows carved into the stone, a marble dais where coronations took place, beautifully decorated living rooms and a museum displaying weapons, embroidery and those box things that maharajas used to travel around in. It felt just like a family outing except without the arguments and with someone who appreciated jokes about Japanese tourists. 

 

The next morning I did have an argument, with a man with a disarming smile who managed to take 100 rupees off me and managed not to give me 100 rupees of credit on my phone. Rory dragged me away from my hopeless efforts and off to Umaid Palace. In the '20s the maharaja decided that a fort just wouldn't look good enough in Tatler India and decided to build a palace a few kilometres down the road.

It is now part museum, part hotel as well as being the official residence of the maharaja's ancestors. The museum was fairly well done but we were amused at how well appreciated the maharaja was, it was almost as though he'd funded the whole thing.

His memorial to his dead wife was very impressive though. Made from marble so fine that you can nearly see through it, it doesn't actually need windows because the walls let so much light through. It had beautiful gardens and great views of the fort, so he clearly loved his wife very much. 

 

Manners and I perfected our haggling routine for the tuk-tuks, caught one into the middle of town and bought some rahlly 'traveller' shirts, the thin cotton ones that look ridiculous but are actually really comfy. Then it was back to the havelli for supper and an early night.

Rajasthan Overview

We left BCS in a slight panic on Monday evening last week and caught the overnight bus to Delhi. Then we spent the day wandering around the city, saw Parliament and the Presidential Palace where the recent BRICS talks were carried out.

Then jumped on the overnight train to Jodphur, caught a tuk-tuk to our havelli and explored the city. Over the two days we checked out the old city, the fort, Umaid palace and a maharaja's memorial to his late wife, a kind of mini Taj Mahal.

Then there was a five hour bus ride to Jaisalmer, a beautiful, remote city built around a fort whose claim to fame these days is running camel safaris. So we sourced a bloke who had some blokes who could pay some blokes who would take us out into the Thar Desert on a couple of camels. It was a brilliant thing to do, it sounds really cliched and touristy but I'd forgotten how amazing it is sleeping out under the stars in the desert. Then we checked out Jaisalmer fort, which is still in full use, with people living, working, eating and doing everything else inside the walls. Not quite as big walls, massive towers, full on cool fort as Jodphur but just as interesting.

After pottering around for a bit longer we jumped on a bus and slept the night away to Jaipur. Despite it being part of the Golden Triangle our first impressions were slightly underwhelming but after a bit of time by a pool and a visit to Amber Fort we left the city with warmer feelings.

A 18 hour bus brought us back up to Shimla, it would have been a fair amount longer but our bus driver got high and then sped up the Himalayas with tyres squealing centimetres from the edge of 100 foot precipices. All good fun and at least we got there quickly.

I'll write up each city properly soon but for those who have proper jobs or loads of kids and then here's the bulletin.

Cheers

Max