Singapore and Malaysia

Selamat tengah hari!


In our last week in Mumbai, we found out more than ever, that India is a very manic place, and Mumbai is the most manic place in India! This coupled with trying to sort out all sorts of things that would have been hard for us in our own country, we had a very stressful last week! We were up late the night before we were due to fly to Singapore, going in and out of internet cafe's, our shipping agents' office, and trying to courier documents back home. Basically our bank refused to let us transfer any money unless we actually went into a branch in the UK which was obviously not possible! Thanks to our great parent agents back home, we were able to sort it out though and we managed to fit in a fine curry on our last night.

So we waved goodbye to Indian roads, Indian driving, dirt, taxis (that you can't fit into!), smells and got on our lovely Singapore Air plane. Arriving in Singapore from India must be one of the biggest contrasts ever! We were amazed by what felt like the smoothest roads, most courteous driving, cleanest streets, and fanciest buildings we had ever seen! Our hotel was in the 'red light' district as that is where the cheapest hotels are and many locals seem to think it is a terrible area, but we found it to be quite pleasant with the coolest eating scene in Singapore.
Singapore is all about shopping, and although we tried our best not to we came away with a few bits and bobs and...a video camera, so that's cool! Lovely city to wander round anyway, being so clean and quiet with heaps of classy waterside restaurants and bars lining the river and coast. 

We only spent one day there though before we shot of to our tropical island paradise of Pulau Tioman in Malaysia. Here we stayed for 9 days, and really became complete beach bums! It was very beautiful indeed and a lovely strip of sand with clear bright turquoise water and silky soft sand. Lovely - we felt like we deserved it! With out making you go emerald green with envy, 

Simon went scuba diving down to an old wreck which was particularly exciting as we had bought a big triple set of famous five books, and had just been reading about the five looking for treasure on their wreck! He couldn't wait to get back to tell Rhona who was quite happy sunbathing. We stayed in a wooden chalet (shack) right on the beach, and it was just one step down onto the sand.

Back in Singapore, we are just counting down the hours until our 

flight leaves early in the morning, and that is where we are now, so we see you then!

India - Bombay

We headed off from peaceful Udaipur in the direction of Mumbai - the big city of India, spliting the journey at a city called Baroda. Once again the state of the road was a pleasant surprise. It was a beautiful tarmac motorway most of the way,lined with stone work and marble stalls. We are very tempted to buy a slab of marble while we're here to make a coffee table out of as it's so readily available and probably very cheap. Baroda however was not so pleasant! Described as a cultured, harmonious university town, it is in fact a pretty dirty, smelly and unfriendly place. You don't seem to be able to get away from the beggars and children constantly tugging and pulling at you to get some money. We had a bit of a hunt for a reasonable clean hotel, which was also difficult to come by. We ended up in the aptly named Swastic Hotel with Nazi symbols everywhere! We were greeted by stares, not a smile to be seen which is not our general experience of India so far, and very brash, un-trusting hotel staff. We decided only to stay for one night, but when we discovered wireless internet in our room we were so exited, and stayed two nights spending all day on the web only venturing out to eat!! Brilliant!

Our drive to Mumbai was to be the final long drive in our van until New Zealand, as the plan is to stay in Mumbai and sort out our visas for NZ and arrange the shipping of our van, get our medicals etc. Quite a daunting task. To be honest we were not really looking forward to Mumbai as we were expecting another smelly, dirty, hectic and very expensive city, where we knew we were probably going to have to stay for at least two weeks. On the other hand it was quite exiting because we knew this was one step closer to getting to New Zealand which is getting more exciting by the day.

The road this time, despite suposedly being the best in India and lined with toll booths, let down its reputation! It took us 10 hours to get to Mumbai which we expected to be just a short hop. It was a very pretty drive though, through quite a rural and very green, hilly part of India. We stopped off for lunch in a roadside "Dhaba" which is always quite a fun experience. The menu is quite often in Hindi and we really have no idea what we are ordering - we just pick things at random and see what we get! The great thing is Rhona is feeling much better these days and is managing to eat curries and other spices quite regularly now - phew!

Entering Mumbai felt sort of like entering Glasgow - on a very big scale! We crossed the bridge onto Mumbai island, marking the edge of the urban sprawl, and then passed a sign saying 'Mumbai 53km'! The highways into the city are brilliant and not too crowded which is the most common problem in Indian cities. High rises both fancy and completely decrepid line the sky and we were very exited to see the sea for the first time in ages! Rickshaws are banned in the centre of Mumbai and are replaced by hundreds of black and yellow taxi cabs. Red buses, almost like London buses are also numerous. Its crazy to say, but in one of the biggest and busiest cities in the world there is a real sense of peacfullness. Modern shops and coffee houses can be found everywhere, which can be a refreshing taste of home when needed. We have found the hustlers and sellers a lot less pushy and in fact people generaly leave you alone after you say no once. The people are very friendly, and will make pleasant chit chat whithout ending with "Look at my shop". We have spent our evenings so far miandering along the sea front, enjoying the atmosphere whith hundreds of locals, while horses and carts decorated brightly speed along the sea road.

Our first day here was a Sunday. We got up quite early and made our way to the train station for our first Indian railway experience. Because Sunday's are quiet we decided we'd try traveling second class, (20p return for both of us), which on a week day would normaly be packed tighter than sardines. The trains here are super efficient and leave so regularly you never need to hang around waiting. We jamp aboard the ancient carriage and sat ourselves on the metal bench seats. It was great fun. We love the way everyone just hangs out of the open doors when the train is moving even if there are loads of spare seats! Our stop was about 30 mins away where we had arranged to go to the church that our church in Hastings is closely involved with. We felt so completely at home at once there! We were greeted by so many people as we walked throught the door and the service was so lively and passionate! We spent the afternoon with the pastor Franco and his wife and children which was really special and we would really love to return again.

We spent the next day traveling across town for a meeting with the shipping agents, which was very sucessful. Everything is under control in that department, and shipping our van should now be relatively easy. The day after we had our medicals performed which we need for our visa applications. That was fine and we should be getting our certificates in a few days time. At one point we were approached by a man on the street, and asked to be extras in a Bollywood movie in the making, which we thought would be a fantastic laugh, however it was a full 12 hour day and happened to clash with our medicals! Bummer!

Its also pretty amazing how, though highly illegal, we get offered marijuana and coke, almost as often as taxi's! And that the red light distict is listed as "must-see", "women at work for so many years!", tourist attraction by taxi drivers along with all the other temple's and historic sights.
Our map of Mumbai isn't very good, and we've managed to get lost the couple of times we weren't using a taxi or train. The best was when we ended up in the middle of a large bazaar market! It took us ages to push our way out of it again through throngs of people. It was great to see though, and we didn't have the hassle of trying to walk past all those stalls without buying anything!

Following that, we got a bit of bad news, in that we've found out that once we've submitted our application for visa's they take between three and twelve weeks to be processed! This changes our plan once again, and could possibly make things very tight for Simon getting to NZ in time for his course starting, not to mention being in India without our passports for all that time. So.. we are not completely certain what our next plan is, but we will probably be in India for another four weeks and possibly will visit the south as originally planned, whilst waiting for our visas. Our van can only be shipped once we leave India (something to do with customs), and so we will still have our transport. The shipping agents can make instant arrangement to put the van in its container and seal it for sending as soon as we have our plane tickets to NZ.

We decided to do a bit more sightseeing around Mumbai to take our minds off the complications, and took a small passenger ferry to 'Elephenta Island' about an hours boat ride away. There aren't actually any elephants there but some ancient caves and temples carved into the cliff face. It felt like we were in an Indiana Jones movie, walking into these huge rock-cut pillared caves. They were truly enormous, and had huge carvings of various gods and other creatures all over the inside walls. Quite spectacular. We also walked up to the top of the hill where they had two huge old war-time cannons to protect the harbour. They were joined together by long underground passages and rooms, and if we had thought to bring a torch then we probably could have made it from one to the other (about 200m apart)!

We have now decided that it is not a good idea to submit our visa applications in India, it seems to be possible to do it after we arrive in New Zealand on visitors visas, where we can be a lot more relaxed about it. So with that decided, we are now going ahead and putting the van on the next available ship, and flying the relatively short hop across to Singapore. We have had another meeting with our shipping agents, and have booked our flights for Thursday the 31st July, and the van will be departing on 3rd of August. We'll still spend a couple of weeks relaxing around Singapore, and going to a stunning island off the coast of Malaysia, before catching a plane from Singapore on the long haul down to Auckland. we'll wait until then to update the blog further, so unless we run into some complications, the next time you hear from us we should be in New Zealand and mission accomplished! Here's hoping!

India - Rajasthan

Jaipur was a city of luxury for us, we stayed in an amazing hotel (compared to most of the other hotels we have stayed at), with air conditioning and everything! The city is also quite historic and is surrounded by hills each with ancient forts and temples on them overlooking the city. The old city walls have always traditionally been painted pink, and so has been dubbed 'The Pink City', and glows when the sun goes down. They have been renovating all the pink walls, and old buildings, fixing them and making them more pink, and we thought that it all started to look a bit tacky. We stayed for just three nights before re-thinking our budget and getting bored. We had a day of sightseeing where we went to see the old city palace which was rather dull, another viewing tower for the ladies of the palace which was just completely covered in scaffolding and builders rubbish, but was quite cool none-the-less. It had some tiny passages, staircases and cubbyholes with minute wooden shuttered windows that the ladies could watch the processions below from without drawing attention to themselves.

Lastly we saw an ancient astlology and astronomy site. It was basically full of enourmous sun and moon light measuring equipment, including the largest sundial in the world (27 meters high!), all built out of stone and marble. The instruments were built near the beginning of the 18th century and still work perfectly today. The large sundial measures time accurate to 2 seconds!! Unfortunately the day that we went it was pouring with rain and none of it was working at all! This was very interesting though, and quite a bit different to all the normal palaces, forts and temples that we have become quite accustomed to. A highlight was walking to the top of the big sundial, and getting the view of the old city and looking down on all the different instruments scattered around the area. Walking around town that day was quite interesting as the heavy rains combined with poor drainage caused many of the streets to be flooded. Wading through them is a bit of an unknown quantity - you don't know what you are walking through!

We found ourselves getting quite irritated by all the hecklers around here, you can't walk for 1 minute without about 5 rickshaw drivers telling you where you should be going, and how cheaply they will take you there. You can also almost guarantee that anyone coming up to you to talk, no matter how honest they seem is going to try to extort money out of you. One time a friendly man came up to us and said, "can I just ask you something? Why do western tourists not like to talk to Indians?", "we do" we replied, "it's just a bit irritating when they're just after our money." "No, no, no" he said, "I just like to talk and make friends....anyway would you like to see my shop..."! Another time someone caught us coming out of a restaurant making very friendly conversation and ended up piling 'gifts' of beautiful hand made puppets on us. We said we couldn't give him anything for them but he said "money is not important, I want you to have these things", he wouldn't take them back, but when we said we had to go he said, "so what can you give me?" When he realised we weren't going to give him anything, he took all his things back and cleared off! This has become quite typical of very many of our experiences with Indians.

On our first night in Jaipur, we found a roof top restaurant (most of the restaurants around here seem to be roof top) just around the corner from our hotel that was just fab, we almost just decided to go there every night! All the tables and chairs were individualy wrought iron in a kind of modern art style which was quite cool. We could have just spent all our time between our hotel and this place infact! Sadly, a lot of our time was spent trying to sort out our New Zealand visas and the shipping of the van from Mumbai, now that it is all a bit more difficult than before. It is possible though and it will be done!

We are just realising how excited we are at the thought that we are going to New Zealand and that Simon is doing his flying course. He has had 'I believe I can fly' stuck in his head ever since finding out, and keeps driving down the dotted line in the middle of the road as though it was a runway!

Our Next stop is Udaipur, about 400 kilometers south of Jaipur, but we are in a bit of a dilema. Basically, we are trying to sort out the shipping of the van to New Zealand, but the shipping agent can't do that unless we have our flight tickets to Auckland to prove that we will be there to pick it up; We can't book our flights until we have our NZ visas; we can't get our visas until we have receipt that the flying course fees have been paid; we can't pay the fees until our bank gets its act together, and we are waiting to hear from them. To add to that, we don't know if we will even be able to arrange our visas in Mumbai, or if we have to go all the way back to Delhi to do it. Oh well, we just decided that we have to keep moving in the general direction of Mumbai, and if one or both of us has to go back up to Delhi then so be it.

Udiapur is a very beautiful city - they call it 'the Venice of the east', due to its position on a lake with palaces out in the middle of it. Indians had a great mindset back then, whereas in Europe they would designate a small lake island a protected reserve due to a rare species of plant that might only live on that island, the Indians just build a stonking huge palace on it covering the entire island! It gives a very fastastical and romantic feel though. Unfortunately at this time of year the lake is mostly dried up, and it is not until the end of the monsoon that it starts to get full (before promptly drying up again!), so it is not quite as beautiful as it could be. The locals are very proud that large portions of the James Bond film 'Octopussy' was filmed here, and most of the guesthouses show it in their restaurants every evening, and have done so since nineteen seventy whatever when it came out by the looks of things! We watched it the first evening we arrived on our guesthouse roof top terrace, and we must say it was extremely cool to watch a fairly well known iconic film, during which we would look to the left and say "oo, that's over there", then to the right, "that was down there!"

Our guesthouse is very handy being only about £2.40 a night. Our room kind of reminded us of the servants quarters that people in Kenya had, but that's fine, it's very pleasant, clean, quiet, quite pretty, and does good food. We found out that we can infact submit our visa applications in Mumbai, which is good news, but we may spend as much time as we can here sorting things out rather than in MUmbai which is the most expensive place in India to stay by about double the nearest competitor.

Now that we are eating out every day, we are discovering that almost any restaurant you go to is basically a carbon copy of all the others. They all just do Indian food, and then all kinds of Italian, Chinese, isreali and continental food with a strong Indian twist. We just resigned to the fact that once you have found a decent place, you're just as well going there every night! It is rather tiring though having no variety what-so-ever.

We did the tour of Udaipur with its impressive stone carved temples, and city palace overlooking the lake. All very grand and ornate, infact the whole city is really beautiful and much quieter than any of the other cities in India. We think it is definately the nicest in India so far, and one of the best cities on our trip. We also got an elephant ride here which Rhona has been going on about ever since we arrived in India, so that was good and a lot of fun. When we were lumbering down the street, our elephant would keep getting distracted by things, like fruit stands where it would try and pinch some snacks! The stall keepers didn't seem to mind though, and they would give it mangoes which kept him happy!

We spent four nights in Udaipur overall as it was so relaxing, and have really tried to make the transition from living in the van to living out of a rucksack in preparation for the month of backpacking through South East Asia before going to New Zealand. It felt wierd to be packing the van away so soon, almost like it was signalling the end of an era. Well we have to move on and it's the only way forward, so we'll just look forward to what will happen next!

Total distance travelled: 10,537 miles

Max temp: 35 degrees

Scottish Highlands to the Taj Mahal!

Walking along the high street of Shimla was like walking along the high street of any old town in Britain. It was built by the Brits and became the summer capitol of all of India, when all the Viceregals and officials came up here to escape the oppressive heat of the plains in Delhi. It is litterally perched on the top of a very steep narrow ridge up at 2200 meters in the himalayan foothills. The views either side would have been amazing if not for the fact that it was pretty much foggy the whole time we were there. The buildings were all very typical stone built Victorian architecture with bay windows, slated roofs and all. We could so easily have been in England - the weather, temperature, and there were even lots of Indians walking around! The only difference was that being in India and surrounded by forest, there were heaps of Monkeys everywhere.

The problem we had was that being on such a steep slope, there was nowhere flat to park the van and camp, and the hotels were all comparatively expensive. We found a half decent one and stayed there for three nights before deciding we couldn't afford to stay any longer and moved on. We walked up to the very highest point in Shimla which is through the forest up a very steep hill to a Hindu temple, dedicated to Hanuman, the monkey god. coincidentally there are lots of monkeys all over it, although we think that is possible more down to the habitat. It was very cool to see the monkeys climbing and swinging on everything so close up though, and the babies were so cute! This was far more interesting than the temple itself!

After that Simon went to see the 'Viceregals lodge' which is where the rulers of British India lived at the full extent of their power, and held meetings whilst they were there in the summer. Kind of like the 10 Downing Street equivalent. It just looked like a really grand Scottish castle which was quite amazing. It was completely untouched and unrepaired, with all the origional cast iron outside staircases that looked less than safe, and huge gardens that they couldn't keep up with. overall it was much more origional yet complete than anything you might see in Scotland. It looked ideal to have a posh cup of coffee and a piece of shortbread in. Unfortunately, it is in India and they have converted it into an advanced study college, and actually gives off a bit of a Cambridge University college feel. We were given a tour of the inside where we saw the rooms where famous meetings with Ghandi had taken place, and the table they used to redraw the borders of India at independance. A very big chunk of Indian history really.

That evening we decided to treat ourselves, and went to the poshest hotel in Shimla - the Oberoi Cecil for dinner. It was very posh! It would be the equivalent to one of the fanciest places in London, tailed butlers and all, with rooms costing hundreds of pounds. We weren't quite sure what we were celebrating, but we decided that it was for our new future family member! The next day Simon found out that he got on his pilot course in NZ so it could be for that as well. We just thought that if we can't do this sort of thing in India, then when will we be able to do it? To put it into perspective, with starters, breads, mains, wine and everything it came to around £30 - about the same as a normal meal in UK! not bad! We'll go back to dhal and rice tomorrow!

After Shimla, we waved goodbye to the beautiful cool mountain air that we had enjoyed for the last two weeks, and set off on the huge 12 hour drive down to Agra, one of the hottest parts of India - in the middle of summer! Luckily (or unluckily - we're not sure yet) since the monsoon has come in the temperatures have dropped a little, so instead of 50 degrees, it's only around 35, but the humidity is something else. Even at night time you are just constantly sticky with sweat - it's desgusting!

We arrived in Agra around 8 pm, and found a guide-recommended place that had parking enough for us to camp, but it turned out was a mosquito infested patch of boggy mud for us to park on. We went to the reception and they wanted 600 rupees a night!! (we normally only pay 50-100) They wouldn't budge below 500, and due to the late hour we had no choice but to stay there. Needless to say we got eaten alive that night, and we also discovered that the toilets were gross, the showers were cold, pool was green and the restaurant was rubbish. We kicked up a bit of a fuss and refused to pay, but they didn't seem to see how their top class establishment could be thought of as below standard, and called the police! Eventually we just paid them off and left promising to tarnish their name wherever we went, but they didn't seem to care since they had their money! So, anyone planning on going to Agra - don't go to Mayur Tourist Complex on Fahetabad Road!! We found a hotel around the corner with air cooler for 400 rupees!

Anyway, we headed off for our tour of Agras sights with our cycle-rickshaw man who had attached himself to us. 1st stop - Taj Mahal which was quite spectacular, and so much more impressive in real than in photos. It was worth getting a local guide who showed us how the floral designs that covered the entire building were all intricatly made up of tiny pieces of semi-precious stones all from many different countries. Inside the mausoleum, even though you are not allowed flashes or lights, he took in a torch, and showed us how as you move it over a flower design, each gemstone would light up and glow individually - it was so beautiful. Amazing to think that it was all just for one persons tomb! It was built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, for his wife Mumtaz Mahal who died giving birth to their 14th child in 1631! Supposedly Shah Jahan wanted to build a mirror image Taj on the other side of the river in black marble (way more expensive than white) for himself, but his son Aurangzeb overthrew him and imprisoned him in Agra fort for spending all the kingdoms money!!

We went on to see Agra fort next, 2 km up the river, which has good views of the Taj. The classic thing to do is to get a picture of you on the rampart with the Taj Mahal in the palm of your outheld hand - we did that... It was getting a bit hot at this point, so we turned down our rickshaw drivers offer to take us to all the other sights in Agra and went back to the hotel!

We have been quite surprised by the quality of the roads outside of town, in that they are actually quite good. There has just been an explosion of national highway building in India lately, and if any of them are not dual carriageway, then they are being made so. The problem is that Indians don't seem to inderstand the concept of dual carriageway being that one side is for one direction, and the other side is for the other direction. They (mainly motorbikes and rickshaws, but also cars, buses and lorries) just use each side as a separate road. Normally you can see them coming, but at one point Simon was driving, and we had been trying to get past a lorry for ages, and eventually he pulled over and we began overtaking. At this point Rhona started freaking out, Simon looked at her, then at the lorry, then questioningly back at Rhona who was by this point practically sitting on the headrest covering her face, then looked forward, and there was a rickshaw driving up the wrong side of the road straight for us! We weren't going too fast and he had stopped by this point so we were ok, but it definately keeps you on your toes!

So that was on the way from Agra to Jaipur - our next stop in Rajasthan where we are now. We have passed a major landmark on our trip, and have driven over 10,000 miles since we left Hastings which is pretty cool.

Total distance travelled: 10,005 miles

Max temp: 35 degrees

The Great Escape

When we drove over the mountains the first time, we found that although very beautiful it was quite a tough experience. The roads were bone-shakingly awful, we were stuggling to breath, couldn't sleep, and had constant headaches from the altitude, the dust was so thick in the air that it just infiltrated everything until you could feel it gritting between your teeth, and the isolation of it kept us a bit worried. Long before the end we were quite keen to be getting off the mountain and into the comfort of civilization, but at an average speed of just 10mph (in some sections we were only able to make around 3mph), the end was a long time coming. So understandably we were a little grumpy about having to do it all again - and we'd seen it all already! But we set off, this time planning on doing it in just two 12 hour days. We kind of got it into our heads that we just had to do it, and stangely came around to the idea more then. What we didn't expect was that we would actually find it much more enjoyable the 2nd time, and the 2 days seemed to go by very quickly.

For a start, because we had already done it, and then stayed in Leh for 4 nights at high altitude, we were much better acclimatised than we were first time around, and even at the top of the highest pass we didn't feel the effects of the altitude at all. We managed to get a system going to combat the dust, as whenever a truck went past, or the wind blew kicking up a cloud, we would quickly wind the windows up and close off the air vents, before opening them up again when all was clear. That seemed to work well. Unfortunately though, the roads hadn't got any better, and not too long after we started up the first pass, we heard a crack from the back of the van, followed by a clattering every time we went over another bump. We found out that on one of our rear wheels, 2 of the 3 leaf suspension springs had snapped, leaving it hanging on just one. There was nothing else for it, we just had to nurse it even slower over the remaining distance back to Manali, hoping that they final leaf spring didn't snap as well.

At one point, we came across a couple of motorbikes stopped at the side of the road. We slowed down to make sure they were OK, and it turned out he needed some tools to fix something on his bike. We tried all ours, but they didn't quite fit, so we left them to it. A short while later, having collared someone else to help them, they overtook us, but literally 5 minutes after that they were stopped at the side of the road again, this time with a flat tyre! We once again offered our tools, but in trying to fix it he put one of our screwdrivers through his new inner tube! Once again we had to leave them, this time with an army truck that had stopped, but we never saw them again, so hope they are OK?! Talk about having a bad day!

All the way along the road there were groups of workers employed to just live up there all summer and repair the road. It looked like horrible work using the most basic tools to break up rocks and shovel dirt into holes in the road. Everytime we past a group they would try to stop us and we realised that none of them had any water or food for the work they were doing. This was quite a shock and we wish we had brought more food with us to give out. It seems that they survive on donations from truck drivers and other road users. We had nearly run out of water by the time we reached our mid-way camp! They must work every light hour of the day and probably get paid 50p a day or something.

If anything, the views seemed to be better this time round. Maybe just seeing them from an opposite angle gave a different perspective? The sky was the most amazing deep blue colour we had ever seen, compared to the first time which was rather more overcast. This alone made it quite spectacular. At the high halfway camp at Sarchu, the first time we had felt so rotten and didn't sleep, but this time we felt fine. We almost wanted to stay there for a few days! It was great to feel the cold (down to around 2 degrees), and the stars at night were just stunning.

When we got back to the Rohtang pass, thankfully it was open, and it sort of felt like a gateway back into India! Ever since crossing it a week before, and moving into Ladakh, everything has felt so different, peaceful and disconected from the rest of India. This was like a wake up call, because all of a sudden the crowds were back in full force, and people were trying to sell us everything. When we got back to Manali we were surrounded by all the shoe fixers, masseures and snake charmers (it's ok, Rhona soon got rid of them), and we just said "welcome back to India!"

The next day we spent in a garage trying to get our suspension fixed, and we realised the disadvantage of taking an old van. That is that when it breaks, it is near impossible to take anything apart as it is all rusted and fused together. In the case of our van, 12 years sitting on muddy building sites in GB hasn't done it any favours, and it took between 1 and 5 people 5 hours to get the old suspension off! In the end they had to cut the last bolt with a welding torch! They of course didn't have the right replacements, so we got a bit of a customised mish-mash of different suspension springs that went together to make it about the right strength, but now one side of the van is higher than the other. Nevermind, after waiting 8 hours for this one, we weren't particularly inclined to insist that they take the other side off and do that as well!

The garage was infact just a dusty patch of oil soaked ground, swarming with flies by the road with a tin hut next to it. As we were there all day, we got our usual attention from the many Indian tourists who wanted to see the van and take our pictures. Some of them were very pleasant. One man (a local taxi driver) insisted on buying us tea and crisps for our wait which was very kind. He took us to the cafe down the road, but when Rhona asked where the toilet was, he took her behind his car parked on the main road, and said "there!", "we are very open in India!". Rhona wasn't convinced, and made him take her to a 'proper' toilet which we had to pay 3 rupees for!

So the next morning we planned on leaving Manali to go to Shimla which is another hill station town at around the same altitude on the way back to Delhi. Hopefully we will be able to stay there for a while relaxing and sorting out things for the shipping of the van to New Zealand and hopefully onward Visas etc. Simon has found out this week that he is on the flying course in New Zealand so that is some good news and we are definately going there! Rhonas nursing registration is still not sorted out, and she is still wondering what she will end up doing in NZ now that she is not quite as 'employable' as before!

Total miles driven: about 9200
Max temp: 26 degrees


Min temp 2 degrees

Trapped in Ladakh!

Jule!

Everthing seems to be colliding in Kashmir, worlds, religions, land, and people. Basically we seem to have run into a bit of a trouble spot. Just 2 days after we crossed over the Rohtung pass from Manali towards Leh, it was closed down due to some collapse or something. That was lucky we thought, but really that is more like bridge burnt as we won't be able to go back that way again. Now that we are in Leh in Ladakh (separate to Kashmir), there are only 2 roads out of it. the first is 3 days back over the mountain passes towards Manali which is closed off, the other is 4 days around to the west to Srinagar (capital of Kashmir) and Jammu inside Kashmir, which is what we had planned to do. Kashmir is safer now than it has been for years, and there has been very little disturbances for quite a while, but we just found out that the very day we crossed the Rohtang pass, violent protests involving killings began in Srinagar and are still going on now. Travellers are not going through there, and the advice is that we don't either. So as you can see we are in a bit of a predicament. Either we wait for the Rohtang pass to open again, or we wait for the situation in Srinagar to settle down. There is an airport here, but unfortunately we have the van to think about.

I'll give you a brief history of why there are so many problems in Kashmir. Basically it all goes back to the British - it had to really... Around 1600AD, the Brits arrived in India, and by 1858 they had formal control over an area extending to current day Pakistan and Bangladesh. When Independance from the Brits came in 1947, the Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus all wanted their own separate country state. The problem was that there were no clearly defined Muslim or Hindu areas, and when they drew the line separating Pakistan (Islamic state) from India (Hindu State), millions of people quickly tried to relocate to their 'side' of the line. Kashmir was Muslim dominated, but had a Hindu maharaja, so he under military pressure decided to sign his state on as part of India. Pakistan disputed this immediately and within 2 months of independance, they were at war with each other. Two years later, the UN stepped in and drew a line down the middle of Kashmir dividing it between the two countries as a temporary fix, but it has remained the same ever since. Neither country accept the line, they both want the whole lot, so they keep fighting over it. Muslim extremists have caused havoc in the area, committing repeated attacks on Hindu interests.

The incident this week was because there is a very holy Hindu site within the Muslim Kashmir, which thousands of Hindus make pilgrimage to every year. The Indian government transferred some surrounding land to the Hindu pilgrimage organisers so they could put up some huts and toilets for the pilgrims use. Now the Muslims feel very cheated of land, and it has kicked off major demonstrantions. Basically everyone in Kashmir hates Indians and Hindus, and would rather be part of Pakistan, but it's all just religious. Even though the area has been at peace for a while now, tensions run high and it just takes something pathetic to send it loopy. All the same it is causing us some problems as we have no way out of this valley.

After speaking with various other people, and looking up articles on the web, it seems that even a quick dash through Kashmir to get out of the valley would be out of the question. The police there say that tourists should stay as the violence is not directed at them, and they will be perfectly safe as there are large police forces gaurding the tourist spots and hotels. In contradiction I read one article in a Kashmiri newspaper that said that tourists were leaving in the middle of the night to escape Srinagar, So we thought that it must be pretty bad. Just how bad was realised when someone turned up at our guesthouse in Leh who had just come from Srinagar. He was there when the trouble started and tried to leave, but the so called police protection forced him at gunpoint to stay in a particular hotel and pay loads of money. He managed to sneak away in the middle of the night to get over here, but was quite a nasty experience.

There is one other way out, and that is to drive all the way back to just before the Rohtung pass, then take a left. This takes you down another valley on a very long detour of several days back around towards Delhi, but is apparently the worst road in India! Judging on how we managed on the Manali-Leh road, we think it might be pushing it a little!

That said, we are enjoying staying in Leh very much. It has a very pleasant cool climate (jumpers in the evenings), is sunny every day, has very interesting streets, shops and sights, and beautiful views. It's quite funny when you go to a restaurant here and order a beer though, as most of them don't appear to be licenced to sell alcahol, and they call it 'iced tea' along with a wink as a code word! They even bring it out in a tea pot which is quite amusing! When you've finished one, the waiter would come over and kind of snigger whilst saying "any more 'tea' sir?", as though he was a child with a big secret! Most of the restaurants are vegetarian here as well which is rather disapointing. I think it's because of all the hipppies that seem to be here in abundance smoking the green stuff and singing Bob Marley songs by the fire in ponchos! we feel like we are doing everything wrong ordering beer, and the meatiest dish on the menu!

Some other people have said that they think that the Rohtang pass is open again, but can potentially close at any moment, so I think that our only option is to go all the back the way we came, along the mountain passes back to Manali, and hope that the Rohtang pass is open when we get there. We are not particularly looking forward to it as the high passes are quite strenuous, and the high altitude makes you feel pretty rubbish at the best of times. Still, we will leave tomorrow (Tuesday), and hopefully arrive in Manali late on Thursday. Wish us luck!

We have also been re-thinking our plans to drive all the way down to the southern tip of India then up to Chennai to ship our van to Australia, as the time of year is quite horrible to be going to those parts. Instead we are thinking of just getting down to Mumbai, and shipping the van straight to New Zealand from there thus 'skipping' Australia! We will still fly to South East Asia, and spend some time in Thailand and Malaysia whilst the van is getting to NZ before joining it there.

The internet up here is awful, and we have been banned from uploading photos, so we'll add some lovely pics of Leh, stunning mountain views, ancient palaces etc in the next few days...

Max temp: 28 degrees
Altitude: 3650m/12,000 ft

India - Manali to Leh

Our last of three nights in Manali was lovely, we'd had such a relaxing time there and this really capped it off. As we mentioned earlier, Rhona has gone off all Indian food in her mis-timed 'pregnancy sick', and has been particularly missing a bit of a taste of home. The night before, Sam and Becky had us over for macaroni cheese, yey! But we'd heard about a total British hang-out, and the fanciest restaurant in town, that apparently even had roast lamb with mint sauce on the menu! we decided to treat ourselves; we arrived and it was just spectacular - It looked like the nicest poshest place you could go to in the most beautiful part of Scotland. The specials board was full of classic British pub favorite's like roasts and baked trout. We enjoyed it greatly and it was just what we needed, we went back to the van very satisfied! It struck us that we would never be able to go to somewhere like that in Britain as it would be far too expensive, which made it all the more enjoyable!

Our plan was to head north over four enourmous Himalayan mountain passes to the town of Leh right in the middle of old Tibet, and only accessable during summer when the passes are able to be cleared of snow. After that, if the security situation is all clear, we will continue the loop around to Srinagar and Jammu before returning past Delhi. If not we'll go back the way we came!
The next morning we arose at 4 to tackle the Rohtang pass early before the weather came in, but found to our dismay that half of Manali seemed to have the same idea. The road (bad, narrow, steep, muddy) was completely choka with Indian tourists in guided tour jeeps (big business in Manali) taking day trips up to the pass to see the snow. They all wanted to drive way faster than us and would come up right behind us blaring their horn as if we should just drive off the edge to get out of their way. It was a shame because the scenery was so beautiful. After just 1/2 an hour driving we were in a traffic jam - complete standstill for 1 1/2 hours! The cause seemed to be a patch of slippery steep mud that people kept getting stuck on. Don't know what the problem was though, we just drove up it. The drops would be severe on the one side with no barrier or anything, and on the other side would often be a sheer cliff of rock overhanging over the road. A lot of the way it was just one lane, which made passing a truck coming the other way quite interesting! How close to the edge do you go?! Another 2 hours and we were at the top, which was an absolutly hilarious tourist camp! There was basically a small patch of dirty old snow with about 1000 indians running in it, kissing it, making snowmen in it, and having Yak rides across it? It was quite funny because they were all in massive thermal arctic survival suits which they had been sold on the way up, but it was about 18 degrees! We jumped out in t-shirts and found it quite pleasant!

We quickly moved on down the other side and the change was instantaneous; almost devoid of all vehicles, the clouds, humidity and day trippers vanished, and we were surrounded by big lonely mountains, and blue skies. Averaging 10mph, down an incredibly steep slope with countless switchbacks, we arrived in Keylong, our destination for that day. We filled up at a fuel station that had a sign saying 'next fuel - 365km', and we found that despite being 3300 meters high, it was rediculously hot. It may be raging monsoon on the other side of the pass, but on this side it is as dry as a bone, with a very strong sun. We soon realised how easy it is to get sunburnt at this altitude when we went for a walk the next day, and were slapping on suncream every 1/2 hour.

Rhona has still been struggling with feeling sick every day, and we were beginning to wonder if all this was a good idea, and if we should just pack it in if we're not having a chance to enjoy it properly. The walk we went for was meant to be a short two hour trek up to a Buddist monastry on the hillside, but after 4 hours we had still not made it due to tiredness, so we just went back. Real shame as two things that Rhona loves is Indian food, and walking, and she's unable to do either. Well the altitude seems ok, so we'll continue slowly up the valley and stop another night before going for the big passes which is just going to be so cool!! As long as Rhona can enjoy the views, and Simon can enjoy the driving we're ok!

When we headed off up the valley, the road seemed better than what we had been on so far, and we reached our designated camp spot, the village of Darcha - the last permanent settlement for the next 200 miles by 11am. We (well Simon coz Rhona can't stomache it) got a big slap up Indian lunch from one of the many tent 'dhabas', which cook up cheap nosh for truckers and travellers, then we got a cup of chai...after that we realised that there really was nothing else to do there so we said "sod it, lets just go over the first pass and sleep on the other side!". So we did! This pass takes you up to just under 5000m which is very high, and we were glad of our 5 days acclimatising in Manali and Keylong. At about 4500m there was a tiny remote mountain lake with a man with a single pedal boat thing for hire which we thought was quite hilarious, and were very temped to go on it just because of the bizarreness of it! It was like the one's you get in the boating lake in Alexandra park in Hastings! Continuing onwards the road would be absolutely horrendous one moment allowing us to only crawl along at around 5mph, and then there would be an amazing wide, new tarmac road for a while. There seemed to be teams of men and women all the way along the road just continually fixing it. They would stir their huge pots of tar over great black fires, and chip away at rocks to fill the holes. At one point one of the many rickety river bridges that consist of a couple of steel girders with sheets of steel or wood laid across them had collapsed. They are quite hair-raising at the best of times, and the noise driving across them as the unfixed steel plates clatter and move about is quite undescribable. At some points the sheets would have shifted revealing large gaps that had to be driven over. well with this particular one, the only option was to drive over the deep cascading river at a 'fording point' next to it. We had done this before, but this river looked very deep and very fast compared to any of the other ones. We concluded that other vehicles (albeit mostly 4x4's or trucks) had made it, so we would be able to. I (Simon obviously) knew the engine air intake should be ok as that is halfway up the side of the van by the drivers door, but I was a little concerned about the exhaust going too deep under water and choking the engine. That would be awkward - stuck in the middle of a raging torrent with a flooded engine...hmmm... Well there was nothing for it but to take the plunge, and after a bit of encouraging advice from a motorcyclist (who incedentally, being on a motorbike was able to ride straight over the bridge) we did. I just kept it in first and kept the revs and speed up and hoped for the best. The first section was OK at around 50cm deep, but then we just dropped down a big step and water started pouring over the front of the van up to the windscreen! I knew that the exhaust pipe would be underwater, so I floored it and hoped that the pressure of the gases would overcome the weight of the water. The rear wheels bounced and scrambled over the slippery rocks on the river bed and then all of a sudden we were on the other side! Yey! what fun! I was overwhelmed by an overriding desire to do it again! Luckily Rhona managed to talk some sense into me and we drove on!

Up to the top we were realising just how much the altitude sapped power from the van. It was pathetic, we rarely got out of second even on fairly level ground! Over the top and we were presented with the biggest landscapes we had ever seen, mountains and glaciers close up on both sides, then opening up into a vast wide valley below. The bottom of the valley looked flat and green, but was scarred top to bottom by a spectacular deep canyon. It was quite amazing. We arrived at 'Sarchu' which is a kind of tented sleep over point for truckers, and some travel companys have their own camps there as well. It's at the low point before it begins to climb up to the next big passes (two more to go). That said it was still up at around 4500 meters! We drove off the trail and found a very secluded camping spot by the canyon with beautiful views. Rhona had her afternoon snooze, and then we were moved on by some people who told us that we were destroying the nature by sleeping there. So we drove back up to the dust bowl of Sarchu and parked up with the truckers.

By 10pm the area was completely awash with trucks stopping for the night, so we decided to get up at 4am again to try and beat the rush. we couldn't imagine anything much worse than being stuck behind lines of lorries belching their way up the single lane passes. Our plan worked and we were on the road before 5 just as the sun was rising and the truckers were emerging from their slumber. We had a clear road to ourselves, and didn't see another vehicle for around 2 hours which was lovely. We climbed up to the next pass - 'Lachlung La' which was higher than the last, drove down through more incredible scenery which had become very desert like, and up to the highest pass - the Tanglang La, which at 5328m/17500ft is the 2nd highest motorable road in the world. Incedentally, the highest motorable road in the world at 5601m is the 'Khardung La' just around the corner, and we were quite tempted to drive up it just to say we had done it, but it turns out you need all sorts of 'inner line permits' for going close to the disputed borders with China and Pakistan? So we chose to be satisfied with just the 2nd highest! At one point the road just diverted off into a massive dust flat where you just had to pick your own route across this huge bowl at the bottom of the valley to the other side. The problem was that this dust was like talcum powder up to a few feet deep in places, and it was a little tricky finding our way through the more shallow bits to avoid going under! All said, after 9 bone shaking hours we arrived in Leh with pleanty of time to settle in! The underside of our poor Matatu had received a good battering from rocks, and the engine seems a bit ratty, but all in one piece!

This little excursion has re-written our preconceived ideas on the word 'romote'... We realised that when you drive for three days seeing no permanent civilisation, just occaisional summer-only tents housing people to service the road that are only there for a few months a year, it could be classed as remote?

We have been quite ammused by some of the Random rhyming 'safety awareness' signs that we have seen by the road. Things like: 'safety on the road is 'safe tea' at home', and 'I am very curvaceous, treat me gently'. The best one has to be this pictured to the right...

Leh turned out to be a lovely town. The first thing we noticed was that there was no rubbish anywhere unlike the rest of India which is quite frankly a tip. They have a 'no plastics' policy which is quite impressive. It is also in the rain shadow of the Himalayas, so its annual rainfall is on par with the sahara desert. We found a beautiful guesthouse to stay at though, with stunning views across the valley towards snow capped Himalayan peaks.

Distance travelled so far: 8978 miles

Max temp: 29

Min temp: 3

India - Himachal Pradesh

The road to Manali was one of those ones that gets longer as you drove along it, or maybe we were driving on a conveyor belt going in the opposite direction, because after 9 hours of driving we had only done about 260 miles and we had to make a night stop. We were still at low altitude, so still quite uncomfortably hot, and we decided to sulk off into a cheap hotel for some cooler air. We met a lovely Isreali couple (well they said they were friends that were trying to be a couple?) driving about on bikes, and got a good nights sleep. Even the next day it was another 5 hours until we arrived in Manali. We had hoped to do it in a day - no chance, the roads were too steep, bendy and bumpy, and far too many desgusting trucks in the way to go much more than around 20 or 30mph all the way. We were really really looking forward to the cooler climate that the higher altitude was going to bring us, as we were quite fed up with the oppressive heat around Delhi making sleep almost impossible in the van. And yes, Manali was much nicer - even under 20 degrees - bliss!

Finding a camp spot in Manali was another story - it is ultra tourist location here, and every bit of developable land has been...well...developed! Hotels everywhere. We eventually found a hotel with a slightly secluded carpark, and they confirmed that it was fine for us to park there for the night...until around 7pm, when they told us that we were't allowed to park there? Oh well, there was another 'overland vehicle' just down the road who turned out to be Brits! They seemed not to have any problems where they were so we pulled in next door!

I think that we can already write a whole chapter about Indian driving even though we have only been through a tiny proportion of the country, but it is certainly the most aggressivly selfish driving we have come across. My favorite is the overtaking tecnique of those huge battered old buses, which is to pull alongside you on a blind bend...and then just move over on top of you. A lot of times the only thing to do is to stomp on the anchors, and swerve off the road, as you can tell by the amount of bashes they have that they would't mind too much either way if you moved or not! The other is when someone just flies up behind you horn blaring as if they expect you to just jump in the ditch to let them past! It's amazing how much pleasure it brings just trying to keep one of these cars behind you for as long as possible - comparable to scratching an itch. The main problem is that on a typical 2-lane-each-way highway, you have people walking at 3mph and rikshaws driving at 15mph on the left, all the trucks driving unmovingly at 20-30mph on the right (to avoid bothering to dodge rickshaws, bicycles and people), and everyone else (cars, buses and swarms of motorbikes) just has to flitter in and out between them.

So we met Sam and Becky and 3 year old Isaac, the Brits who are driving a monster 20 ton ex-army 4x4 truck that had been coverted into a serious off-road motorhome. With the amount of ground clearance I almost suggested that we parked underneath them! Amazing truck anyway with everything you need to live inside. We were still smug though as they have had so much attention on their travels, from people trying to break in, climb on top to get their photo taken, and aggressive police hassle. Our van now just looks like a white minibus with some stuff on an aluminium roofrack covered by a blue tarpauline. Would you believe it almost every other car here is a white bus/minibus/jeep (or 'Sumo' as they call them here) with an aluminium roofrack covered with a blue tarpauline!!! No one even looks at us until we stop and camp! We were even tempted to get some Indian transport graphics painted on the side!

We spent some time in Manali just acclimatising, and enjoying the beautifully perfect climate. We were also preparing ourselves mentally for the mammoth route to 'Leh' right in the middle of Kashmir, and the other side of the main Himalayan ridge ahead of us. From Manali the road climbs up and up to the first (of 4) huge mountain passes, the Rhotung pass at just under 4000m. From there the road to Leh goes down and up to 5328 meters above sea level at it's highest - that's only about 500m short of the summit of Kilimanjaro, and is the second highest motorable road in the world. The road is not always passable, infact it is only open for a few months every year in mid summer when the snow is manageable, and has only just opened up this year. Most people that drive it go in 4x4's, there is no fuel for one 250 mile stretch, the temperature drops significantly below freezing, there are precipitous drops right beside the crumbling road, altitude sickness is a potential problem, and there are very limited medical facilities - we must be mad!! Well we already knew that!!

We are pretty sure it will be possible for us though, and other people seem to think so as well. We will give it a shot and not be precious about it if it's too hard and we have to turn back. We will be spending pleanty of time making sure we are well acclimatized, although that should be fine as at no point will we be sleeping above 3600 meters, and just take it easy really so we'll see how it goes.

Tune in next time for more exciting news from the edge!!

Nepal

नमस्ते!

The day we arrived in Kathmandu, 5 taxi drivers were killed, and the strikes and critical fuel shortage were causing the whole country to be at a virtual standstill. The security situation outside of the capitol was also virtually non-existant, and there was a particular danger to tourists driving on the roads outside the city, as they are likely to be held up by armed people who would rob them or kill them! We suddenly felt quite wise having decided to take the plane from Delhi rather than driving here, and also very glad of our local friends who we were staying with. That said, we had a fantastic time in Nepal, we received unrivalled hospitality from David and Deepa Silwals' two sons Karan and Kumar who live in their family home whilst they are away.

We were shown around everything there is to see in the Kathmandu valley, and had beautiful Nepalese food cooked for us continually. Unfortunately Rhona's "pregnancy sick" seems to be heightened at the mere smell (not to mention taste) of spicy food...not too ideal here, oh, and were spending the next month in India!! They would keep cooking up an 'alternative' that Rhona would be able to eat, but 'not-spicy' to us means 'only little bit spicy' to them, which means 'quite spicy' to us! So Rhona has been an embarassing fuss pot lately, but we survived! Culturaly we found it strange that they would spend a long time cooking wonderful food for us, then wouldn't eat with us; they would leave us to it then gobble some up later in their room। I think they wanted it to seem like they were waitering us hand and foot!

Due to the security situation, we were not able to go outside of the Kathmandu valley, and many places were closed due to strikes, so we were restricted to the sights in the city which were actually very interesting. There is a lot of Hindu and Budhist architecture which is very intricate and ornate. Quite stunning carved wooden and stone doorways, pillars, cornices and overhangs adorn the old palaces and temples with monkeys swinging from the banisters. There are so many temples around the city, some as small as a telephone box, and some huge complexes. Invariably they would contain a scary looking carved god that people would go to worship, and the atmosphere was very dark and heavy inside. We also went to a gallery of old Hindu art, all of which were again very intricate, but mostly rather graphic depictions of sex and violence.

On one of our walks around the city, we turned up outside the Kings Palace where there were huge crowds and a very large military presence. It seemed like a bit of a demonstration about something, and we were just starting to think that this was the kind of situation that all the advice tells you to avoid, as it can potentially turn violent. We walked away and headed for home. It turned out that it was the ceremony when the new government was taking the Kings' flag down, and turning his palace into a national museum. Essentially it was the king getting booted out of power, and a symbol of the countries new start as a republic. Quite a momentous time, and it was apparently on the world news?

David and Deepa also run a church in Kathmandu which their son Karan is leading in their absence. It was the part of coming to Nepal that we were most looking forward to, and were very excited to get a chance to go there. It was quite an amazing experience, the church members are from the poorest of the poor in Kathmandu, most of them living in the slum areas, and the rest maybe just surviving in makeshift tents next to the horribly polluted river. The men would often have to work up to 20 hours a day, 7 days a week even just to support this life as the pay is so low. The church building itself was a brick shell with a leaking tarpauline roof accessed by walking down a muddy overgrown path. Despite this, it was filled with people that were incredibly friendly, gracious, and seemed to be smiling all the time. The whole morning was such a joyful time, with much clapping and singing. The whole service was in Nepalese, but occaisionally Karan would translate what was going on for our benefit. At one point he invited us up to share something about us and sing a song, but kept on asking us to sing more songs as soon as we had finished one! After the preach, every week they have a time when they pray for sick people who need healing. Most of the church seemed to come forward, and most of them were healed. There is a 93 year old lady in the church who lives in the slums, who when she first came to the church could not walk. Now she seems very spritely for a 93 year old even by UK standards!

On the Monday, Karan took Simon on the back of his motorbike to visit the slums where some of the members of the church live. He goes at least once a week to chat and pray with them, and he wanted to show me some of the living conditions that people live in. I didn't think it was too bad at first, but I was amazed that every house we went into, the owner would run down to the kiosk and buy us some sodas to welcome us. I thought I would burst if this went on, but luckily it was only the first few houses! The homes varied a lot, but were all only one small room the size of a western standard single, for 5 or 6 people to sleep, cook, eat, wash and in some cases work in. Some were quite clean with stone walls, whilst others were very dark, dirty and smelly, walls made of corrugated iron and cardboard with a mud floor. There is no running water or sanitation so you can imagine the smells. One lady had a skin condition which meant she couldn't go out into the sunlight, and was litterally a prisoner in her room. It was very interesting to see though, and definately puts things in perspective.

So after a long weekend we are sad to be leaving Nepal, half due to the fact that we were in Nepal but didn't get to go to the mountains or go white water rafting or anything! We will have to go back and do it properly next time, although we seem to say that about everywhere we go. We are looking forward to getting back to the comfort of Steve and Lori's in Delhi though, and are keen to get back in the van as it has been nearly 2 weeks since we were last driving it.

Max temp: 30 degrees C - lovely!!