I thought you had the map?!

This update comes from the beautiful city of Esfahan, Iran. More photos from our adventures in the Himalayas covered in this blog update can be found here. Enjoy!

 

Kathmandu: 6-7 February 2008

We had come to Kathmandu to, not surprisingly, do a trek in the Himalayas. We spent a couple of days meeting with a guide Simon had been recommended, Nima, and wandering the streets of the tourist district Thamel, sorting out prices for ridiculously cheap imitation North Face gear. Thre stuffI ended up buying, including down jacket, goretex pants, soft shell, polyprop and fleece longjohns, gloves, trekking socks and fleece sleeping bag liner all came to the exorbitant sum of 7500 Nepal rupees, or about AUD$130! Most of the gear wasn’t actually too cheap and nasty, and most of it lasted the two week trek very well. But it’s a good thing we’ve got the Hilux, as we’ve each got 5 kilos of extra stuff now!

The tourist area of Thamel was full of internet cafes, German bakeries, imitation trekking gear shops and touts, so many touts! It was busy enough as it was, but I’m sure it’s terrible in the proper tourist season!

Kathmandu was an interesting city to spend time in. The bandh (strike) we’d encountered on the way north from the India border had cut-off most of the supplies to the capital. As far as I can tell, apart from some fresh produce which is grown in the hills around Kathmandu, everything has to be imported from India. So with the bandh affecting the whole border region, the city had already started running out of the basics. As well as that, scheduled rolling electricity rationing affected the whole city, and we had to organise our days around when the guest house and when the touristy Thamel area would have power. The power supply was so unreliable we carried head-torches with us, even during the day!

Dunche and the Langtang and Gosainkund area: 8-22 February 2008

After a fair amount of pondering we decided to head for the Langtang Valley area rather than do the more popular (and more touristy) Annapurna Circuit. To get to the town of Dunche where the trek starts there is a 104km drive which takes most of a day in the bus. Unfortunately because the diesel supplies had already started to run out in Kathmandu we couldn’t take the Hilux, so the bus was the only option. The roads for the last 48km were poor to atrocious and it took 4 hours to cover that stretch. But to be fair the road wound it’s way over some pretty big ranges and along some hair-raisingly steep slopes. A few hours from the end I had had enough of sitting inside the bus with elbows and arses in my face from the people crowded in the aisle, not to mention the bags of potatoes and fertiliser piled on the floor, and the assorted livestock on board. So I clambered up onto the roof with all the young blokes and squeezed into a comfy spot amongst the bags.

 

 

 

Eventually I sweet-talked my way to a prime spot at the front, and with one hand firmly grasping one of the ropes tying down the bags, I spent the last couple of hours looking out over the massive drops on the left, and praying the brakes would hold out for the whole trip.

 

 

We’d been concerned about our packs being on the roof with loads of people sitting on top of them, but it turns out they were fine -our guide Tseering had made sure they were well covered by a tarpaulin which was tied down tight. Unfortunately for a British couple on the bus with us one of their packs had been stolen out of the locked luggage compartment at the back of the bus. After an agonising wait while the police at Dunche didn’t seem to be doing anything at all, we later saw the guy jump into a ute with about eight heavily armed police. He told us they were going to head back down the valley to ask some people some questions, and try to find the pack. He looked like he was about to shit himself! We never heard how they went, but at least the local police gave it a go. To be honest I think they were just happy to be doing some real policing, as Dunche was a sleepy little village in the middle of nowhere.

I’m not going to give a blow by blow account of the trek, but hopefully I can portray the essence of the next 16 days.

Nima had supplied two guys to come with us. Tseering was our guide. We were lucky to get him, as he’d normally do proper mountaineering expeditions, but as it was the off-season he was happy to come with us to make some money and “have a holiday”. Tseering hasn’t done Everest, but he’s climbed quite a few of the 8000m peaks, and we’d often be hitting him up for stories about his experiences. Rotna was our porter, and entertainment. We’d given him about 25kg to carry, but on the big expeditions he’d be carrying closer to 40kg. Tseering was telling us about self-employed porters who would carry up to 90kg at times! Rotna had broken English, and a wicked sense of humour. His cries of “I am a disco dancer” echoing across the valley would keep our spirits up during the long days.

Tekking in the Himalayas isn’t like doing the backcountry huts in NZ. Villages have been dotted along the valleys from long before tourism hit Nepal, and since trekkers started arriving in the middle of last century many guesthouses have been established, normally clustered in with five or six others at convenient points up the valley.

 

 

 

 

Only a few of them were open at that time of the year, but we never had trouble finding somewhere to sleep. Considering their isolation they were pretty comfortable. Some had solar lights, a few had solar hot water, and they all had exactly the same menu, which invariably focused around carbohydrates, in potato, rice or pasta form. Admittedly the food was exactly what we needed, but it was a bit much by the end -we were all craving veges and meat. All of the food had to be carried in by porters, or grown in the tiny vege patches around the villages, so we can’t really complain -they did well considering what they had to work with. A local speciality we sampled a fair bit of was Yak Cheese, which was produced in a couple of factories we went past.

Most days at the lower altitudes would be 6-7 hours walking, and a couple of them we gained over 1km in altitude in a day. The lower part of the valley was fairly steep, but above Ghoda Tabela we hit the glacier-carved section of the valley which was much flatter, but as we were above 3000m by that point the oxygen levels had dropped significantly, and we did shorter days, with only 300-500m altitude gain to help our bodies acclimatise.

After 5 days trekking up the valley, the highest village we stayed in was Kyanjin Gompa, at about 3900m (150m higher than Mount Cook, the highest mountain in NZ!).

 

 

 

On day six we set out to tackle the peak of Tserko-Ri on the north side of the valley. We left our packs with Rotna on the valley floor and slogged our way up a very steep ridge. At about 4500m we came off the ridge and hit some deep snow and boulders. Unfortunately Lani’s shoes weren’t up to it so she had to turn back there. We spent a few hours clambering over boulders, and trudging through knee-deep snow, steadily working our way up and around to the north-east side. We were really starting to feel the effects of the lack of oxygen by this stage, and progress was slow but steady. As we came up to the last stretch Tseering had to cut steps out of the ice with an ice-axe.

 

 

 

We finally reached the summit mid-afternoon, which according to Tseering’s altimeter was a touch over 5000m. Sure it wasn’t Everest, but we were pretty bloody happy as we soaked in the panoramic view encompassing Langtang-Ri and the Langtang Valley.

 

 

 

 

 

We couldn’t stay long, as the altitude was starting to have a pretty nasty effect on Josh, so we made our way back as fast as we could, with our thighs and knees threatening to give up on us with every step.

 

 

 

Just as the sun was dropping behind the mountains on the other side of the valley, we trudged exhausted and hungry like moths to the flame of the cooking fire Lani and Rotna had set up in an abandoned yak-hut. After a super-sweet Nepalese tea we managed to get the energy to put up our tents and cook some of Simon’s Noodle Surprise, with Buffalo Salami and Yak Cheese.

We camped two nights at that spot, on the slope of an alluvial fan, at an altitude of about 4000m. When you buy a decent sleeping bag they’ll typically quote a minimum temperature that you can sleep at where the bag will keep you warm. I was pretty confident with mine when I bought it, as it’s rated to 8 degrees below zero. Unfortunately that wasn’t warm enough! I slept in full length thermals, with a fleece sleeping bag liner as well. Tseering reckoned it got down to minus 15 degrees both nights. The condensation from our breaths was freezing on the inside of the tents, and whenever we inadvertently knocked the walls of the tent we’d set off a mini ice-fall. We even had to sleep with our water bottles inside our sleeping bags otherwise they would’ve frozen and we wouldn’t have had any water until the river thawed the next morning. At the time it wasn’t much fun, but to be honest it wasn’t so bad as we were well-equipped for the conditions. Funnily enough it was also the first time I’d used my tent -the only other time I’d even put it up was a nice spring afternoon in the back yard in Perth.

We came back down the Langtang valley in less than half the time it took to go up, then we headed up towards a spot called Gosainkund, a set of five lakes which have a lot of religious significance to Hindus.

 

 

 

After a solid slog one morning we stopped for lunch at a spot called Laurabina. As we waited for our fried rice and/or macaroni and thawed ourselves around the fireplace, the clouds which had been milling around the valleys suddenly swept up onto the ridge and we were enveloped in white. Not long after that the snow started, and got heavier, and pretty soon we realised that we weren’t going any further that day. A British couple turned up not long after us, and a young Canadian couple emerged from the snow looking a bit bedraggled. Resigned to a long afternoon stuck in the guesthouse we settled in and wasted the afternoon playing cards and talking crap.

 

 

 

The snow stopped just after dark, and when the clouds cleared a few hours later the bright moon on the fresh snow was pretty magical.

The next morning we trudged up the ridge through the knee-deep powder with a nasty wind whipping past us torturing any exposed skin.

 

 

 

 

 

When we finally reached the lakes at Gosainkund we found they were totally frozen over with three metres of ice, which destroyed any chance of a swim in the holy waters which according to Hindus will totally cleanse the soul. So with our unclean souls still intact (some more unclean than others) we tested the ‘three metres thick’ theory and ventured out onto the lake.

Lani Josh and I headed halfway back down that afternoon, but even though the guesthouse was running out of food Si and Pat stayed up at Gosainkund for the night. The next day they had to descend from 4300m to 1950m in one day -a drop of about 2.3 vertical kilometres! Pat also copped a fairly bad bout of food poisoning that morning, and when they finally got into Dunche he was in pretty bad shape. It was the first time in the whole trek we’d seen Tseering flustered!

The bus trip back to Kathmandu was even worse than on the way up, so before long I was back on the roof and found a good spot near the back sitting next to a Nepali police officer who was based at Dhunche.

 

 

 

We had a good chat about his family life, and his work as a police officer. Perhaps the most interesting stuff was about the government and the Maoists. Now I’m no expert on recent Nepali history, but I found it a fascinating (and sad) situation the country is in, so I’ll attempt to summarise it based largely on that conversation on the roof of a bus, and from bits we gleamed during our stay in Nepal.

 

The ruling monarchy in Nepal holds tight control over the Nepal Army, who’s job includes ‘protection’ of all communication and electricity infrastructure, as well as Kathmandu’s international airport -which gives them (and the king who controls them) a hell of a lot of power within the country, much to the resentment of the people. Until a few years ago there was a lot of violence in Nepal, between the monarchist government and a group of people known as Maoists, with communist ideologies based on the policies of Mao Zedong, who used to be an (in)famous Chinese leader with questionable morals. But the government was reluctant to use the army to fight the increasingly militant Maoist threat, because using your army against your own people (even if they’re violently opposed to your government) is plain old civil war. So they established what’s known as the Armed Police Force, who seem to be trained and equipped as well as the actual army, but who operate as a branch of the police, with their main aim to quash the Maoist uprising. About two years ago the government and the Maoists signed a cease-fire agreement, which has ultimately allowed the cogs of democracy to start turning, with a general election scheduled for mid-April. Now it seems the population looks at the prospect of an election with a mixture of  anticipation and scepticism. The popular support seems to be for a party, or conglomeration of parties who I can’t remember the names of, who are pushing for a proper democracy. But the other major players are the monarchist supporters of the existing government and the Maoists, both of whom have the ability to disrupt the elections if it looks like they’re not going to go their way -it’d be pretty hard to hold an election if the power and communications ‘accidentally’ failed (which happens to be the infrastructure under the control of the army, which is under the control of the king).

 

Maybe that’s being overly cynical, but it’ll be interesting to see how things pan out for Nepal -a beautiful country full of fantastically warm and friendly people. The Nepalese left a distinct impression on all of us, and their resilience in the face of a rugged landscape, harsh climate, and questionable government was an inspiration to us.

So enough of the political analysis for now. In the next update I’ll hopefully cover our escape from a dire fuel crisis in Kathmandu using black-market diesel, and our travels across Northern India to the border of Pakistan. Now get back to work!

Thankfully after a few long days driving I’ve managed to type up the next update. We’re in Bandar Abbas at the moment, on the Persian Gulf coast of Iran. Iran has been surreal and frustrating for the 3 days we’ve been here. Since we crossed the Pakistan/Iran border we’ve been under constant armed police escort, which has normally consisted of a ute full of dudes weilding AK47’s. At night we’d even have a guy in the back seat of the Hilux with us, AK47 between their legs, and a Beretta on their hip. Thankfully we’re out of the ‘dangerous’ area now, and we’re hopefully going to make better progress in the next few weeks. More on that later! Here’s a quick rundown of our drive north from Chennai, where we picked up the Hilux from the port, to Kathmandu. Enjoy!

 

Chennai to Kathmandu: 2 - 5 February 2008

So now we finally had the Hilux we were two weeks behind schedule, and Simon’s mate Pat was flying into Kathmandu on the 5th February to meet us for some trekking in the Himalayas. The prospect of driving from Chennai to Kathmandu in four days would’ve been a dream until very recently, but luckily for us the Indian Government has almost finished building what’s known as The Golden Quadrilateral, a dual-carriageway highway linking the big four cities of Chennai, Kolkotta, New Delhi and Mumbai.

Now I wouldn’t be the first person to describe driving in India as crazy, and it is. But the funny thing is it seems to work because it’s so simple. You just ignore all those troublesome aspects of driving like indicators, lanes, traffic lights, headlights, right-of-way, rearview mirrors, speed limits, etc etc, and replace them with one thing, the horn. You also learn very quickly to assume nothing and expect absolutely anything.

The cities are pretty straight-forward, because the roads are generally so congested that speeds are low, and it’s simply a case of pointing where you want to go and honking almost incessantly until you get there. As I mentioned before, traffic lights and give way rules are non-existent. The concept of ‘might-is-right’ where you give way to everything bigger than you, doesn’t even always apply. But the solid bullbar on the front of the Hilux is a fairly good deterrent to any ambitious rickshaw drivers.

Highway driving was a whole new experience from city driving. The classic example was not far north of Chennai. We were happily cruising along at 70 or 80km/h in the fast-lane of a nice dual-carriageway (two lanes each way, separated by a raised median strip), when suddenly a truck came over a rise directly toward us in our lane. After the split-second of disbelief wore off, Simon managed to swerve to the left and avoid the oncoming truck as well as the endless stream of pedestrians, pushbikes, rickshaws and motorbikes plodding along in the left lane. This was not an uncommon occurrence, and we soon learnt that if an Indian wants to get to somewhere on the other side of the median strip, they won’t think to go past it to the next turning point and come back at it from the correct direction, they’ll simply cut onto the wrong side and run the gauntlet. Everyone from pushbikes to buses was doing it, but once we knew to keep an eye out for them it was fine, but there were a few close calls, especially at night. Sometimes everyone had to do it, as large sections of road weren’t finished, so without warning our side of the road would suddenly finish in a pile of dirt (or often an unfinished bridge) and we’d have to swerve across a rutted and bumpy patch of dirt onto the opposite lanes, and pray. These stretches of unfinished or half-finished highway often lasted kilometres, and in one case in Orissa, a whole state. Dogs, goats and cows wandered the highways as they pleased providing challenging slow-moving obstacles, and at one point we almost ran over an old woman who had blocked off the whole fast-lane with rocks and spread out her rice to dry.

Railway crossings are a good illustration of the mentality of the average Indian driver. When the barriers are down they won’t wait in a queue like you’d expect, they’ll crowd up to the barrier using the whole width of the road, on both sides of the tracks. I’m sure you can imagine the mayhem when the barriers come up. The nett effect of this on everyone’s progress is easily negative, but yet they still do it every time.

 

Other highlghts were the liberal (ie constant) use of highbeam at nights, ridiculously overloaded trucks, dodgy toll-gate officials trying to rip us off, nice toll gate officials seeing we were tourists and letting us through for free, piles of gravel randomly dotted across the road, potholes larger than some of the mines I’ve worked in, wrecked trucks left perched on the shoulder, and the endless entertainment of reading the bizarre phrases Indian truck drivers would adorn their hideously signwritten trucks with.

As night fell the roads cleared up somewhat, and my initial apprehensions were calmed by the fact that driving was almost safer at night because all the local traffic cleared off and we only had to deal with the slow-moving, but very courteous, truck drivers.

We shared the driving between Josh Si and I, and for the first two days we drove until no-one felt awake enough to drive, then picked a spot to camp and sleep for a few hours til daylight. The first night we went a fair way off the highway and found a nice quiet spot. The second night we weren’t so lucky, and every square metre of flat land for kilometres was taken up with rice paddies, so we resorted to sleeping just off the highway. I’m guessing they don’t have much entertainment in the town of Budbud, because we woke to a massive crowd of locals, who obviously found our presence a lot more interesting than their ride to work. So, barely awake, and slightly taken aback, we packed up the tent and fought our way to the back of the ute to pack it away, and wishing the silent but cheerful crowd goodbye we made our way back onto the highway.

We’ve struck crowds like that the whole way, and now that we’re used to it it’s not so bad. To be fair that’s exactly why we chose to drive our own vehicle -to see the areas that are off the normal tourist trail. Whenever we stop for chai or lunch the same thing happens. Whichever stall we choose instantly becomes the most popular spot in the village, and everyone (actually normally only the guys) will happily stand arund and watch us do whatever we’re doing. Normally there’ll be one dude who plucks up the courage to attempt a conversation, and with broken English and a bit of hand waving we manage. I’m not claiming we’re new-age missionaries or anything, but it is nice to be able to provide a friendly face for the western world!

For the last stretch to the Nepal border we had to go off the ‘Golden Quadrilateral’ and negotiate a few hundred kilometres of smaller raods, to the border crossing at Raxaul/Birganj. The bridge over the Ganges River just out of Patna provided some hair-raising entertainment. The concrete bridge is constructed in segments about 50m long on each bridge support, with a steel zig-zag join between each segment, like you see on bridges everywhere. The catch was that every time a vehicle (especially the trucks) passed over these joins, the concrete from the first section would pop back up, and the concrete in the section the truck drove onto would have to take the weight and sink, leaving ’steps’ of up to about 10cm in the joins. We watched in fascinated horror for the whole 7.5km length of the bridge.

After driving through the night, we reached the Nepal border at 0700, and after almost inadvertantly driving straight across (it’s easier than it sounds), we were flagged down and pointed towards immigration, where the immigration dude tried to con us into paying 50 rupees for the departure card. Tired and not in the best of moods, we told him politely where he could stuff his 50 rupee ‘fee’ and eventually walked out with passports stamped. Then the fun began. To get the Hilux into each country without having to pay import duty at every border, we have an internationally recognised document called a Carnet en Passage Douanes, which we have to have stamped and correctly filled out whenever we enter and leave each country. Long story short, if it isn’t filled out properly we could be liable to pay up to AUD$65,000 in import duties/fines. This was the first border we’d crossed in the Hilux, so we were a bit nervous abot the whole thing. So after being offered a chai and a seat outside the customs office to wait and watch the mass of locals crossing the border in the early morning sun, the customs officer eventually emerged, and he took me over to another office to do the paperwork. After we finally found the right ledger to record the details in, it soon became apparent he had no idea what he was doing, as he had to read the entries on the previous pages, then ask me what they meant, and then where each bit of information was on our carnet document before he painstakingly copied it verbatim inot the ledger (even though the people who designed the carnet supplied a perforated rip-off section on each page for exactly that purpose). It wasn’t until the last line that I realsied he was filling in the imports section of his ledger, even though we were leaving India at the time. He took a fair bit of convincing, but I eventually got hold of the ledger, found the exports section and showed him the right place to re-write all of the stuff he’d just written. It was at this point he apologetically explained in broken English that sometimes the job of customs officer at Raxaul is deputised out, obviously to whoever is unlucky enough to be in the office at the time the actual customs officer decides he’s going to have a day off (or maybe even the cleaner, who knows). I did feel sorry for the guy after hearing that. We eventually got everything recorded, and after much discussion between him and a colleague who’d turned up to help, and me virtually ripping the carnet our of his hands before he stamped it in the wrong place, we had all the stamps and signatures in the right place, so I got out of there as fast as I could before they changed their mind! An hour and a half after we pulled up, we were off to Nepal!

After the relaxed nature of the Indian side of the border, the first thing we saw when we crossed the bridge into Nepal was lots of soldiers with guns, unfortunately soldiers with guns turned out to be a common sight throughout the country. They were nice enough to point us in the direction of the immigration office, where a friendly Nepalese immigration official politely tried to tell us there was a 100 rupee fee on top of the USD$30 for the visa. I think the dudes with guns outside soothed our tempers a bit, but when we politely told him where to stick his 100 rupee fee, he merely shrugged and got on with issuing our visas. The guy at the customs building took the carnet off me, and in less than 15 minutes it was ready to go, and he even changed some Indian rupees to Nepalese rupees for us.

He also offered some advice -get out of town. It turns out we’d stumbled into what’s known as a bandh, a bizarre type of regional strike normally called by a minor political party as a protest to the government, which causes massive economic disruption (which ironically hurts the locals most), and is enforced by the calling party with threats of violence if anyone breaks it. Tensions were high, and we took the most direct route out of there. Just on the edge of town we came across one roadblock of burning drums and concrete blocks. I wasn’t keen to stop, and managed to squeeze the Hilux through a gap without anyone getting too agitated.

We decided to take the scenic route to Kathmandu, known as the Tribhuvan Highway, which on paper looks a lot shorter, but instead of skirting around the big hills like the main highway does, it winds it’s way right over them. It was a long drive, but the road was excellent (although narrow), and being amongst the foothills of the Himalayas the panoramic views of the mountains got us excited for what was to come in the next couple of weeks.

 

 

Finally after driving 3000km -the last 36 hours of which we didn’t even stop for sleep to make sure we met Pat on time, we got to the guest house we were supposed to be meeting at and he wasn’t even there to bloody meet us! Ungrateful bugger! So Lani Si and I walked into Thamel for dinner, but both Si and I kept falling asleep at the table. Time to call it a day I think!

Someone smart once said that some things are better late than never, and hopefully the update of this blog is one of those things! 

 

I’m not going to try to cover all of the trip so far in this update, but it’s still gonna be a long one, so if you’ve got some time to kill grab a coffee and read on. There’s more photos on my Facebook profile, which you can see even if you don’t have a Facebook account. The first album is here and the second here.

Singapore: 15-16 January 2008

So it all started in a happy little bar in Singapore. We’d all made it there on our own - Lani from Perth, Simon from Auckland and Me from Nelson. After making our ways into the city (think massive pack, 32 degrees, 95% humidity, and rush-hour on the MRT), we rendezvoused at the Prince of Wales Backpackers where one of my old-mates from high-school, René, kept the beers flowing as he recounted the tales of his 7 years in Singapore. Nicely warmed up on some local Pilseners, we put on the tidiest clothes we had (which isn’t saying much these days) and hit the city to experience some night-life. Being a Tuesday night it wasn’t cranking, but the highlight has to be Orchard Towers (I think that’s what it’s called… René?), where every floor you go up offers a more bizarre experience. Take this bar for example:

 

What you can’t see is that the bar was full of scantily clad Singaporean lovelies, who would swamp any western guy who walked in within seconds. Sounds like every guys dream right? Well that depends on your own point of view. It just so happens that Lani is the only female in this photo. Yeah we didn’t believe it at first either. Poor Simon was devastated when we finally let him in on the joke. Cheers for your tour guiding René!

Next day we picked up a few odds and ends at Sim Lim Square, the massive (6 storey) mall dedicated to cheap-as-chips electronics stuff. Then we checked out the beginnings of René’s hospitality empire near Chinatown -René has just opened his second restaurant Uluru a couple of doors down from his first one. Very classy, but a little bit out of our backpacking price range!

So after another sweaty rush-hour trip on the MRT to the airport, our stopover was over and it was time to start the journey proper. Next stop, Chennai India!

Chennai: 17-18 January 2008

Our first taste of India was a noisy and smelly taxi ride through the noisy and smelly streets of Chennai. Traffic was relatively light, but the pollution and the driving was something I realised I was going to have to come to terms with pretty quickly. We found the accommodation easily enough, got charged an arm and a leg for our room, and as the excitement of finally being there was taken over by exhaustion we crashed into bed.

Went for a walk in the morning, watching the locals going about their lives, keeping an eye on where we were walking (and what we were walking in), and observing the chaotic symphony of Indian traffic with equal measures of trepidation and admiration. We ended up at Marina Beach which was, well, big. I’m struggling for any more positive adjectives. I’m used to the rubbish now, but that morning I was pretty shocked to see the amount of rubbish -it’s a beach, you’d think they’d at least respect that?! The zone between high and low tides was the only clean part. As well as the rubbish, the beach was seemingly covered in rows of semi-permanent market stalls selling a whole range of crap that I thought only westerners would be stupid enough to buy. I think we’d all seen enough, so we bailed back into Triplicane for some food. At 75 rupees (about AUD$2.20) for brunch we got a feel for how cheap this place is going to be -if only all of our meals were that cheap though.

On the way home we took a bit of a detour down a tiny little lane I spotted, and we were swamped by bunches of happy friendly kids, all genuinely pleased to see us, and find out where we were from. Lani as usual was the star of the show, but we always knew blondes have all the fun. Re-energised knowing there are Indians out there who see us as more than just walking wallets, we emerged back into the madness of Triplicane High Road and headed back to the accommodation.

Buying a couple of Indian simcards that afternoon cost the ridiculous sum of 1000 rupees, but we did manage to avoid all of the beauracracy normally associated with the process -I’ve heard of foreigners who had to provide written references and wait up to two weeks. The process did take best part of an hour and a half, but we were all happily sitting in our new friend Ahmed’s tiny little shop, chatting about stuff (mainly cricket) and drinking chai he’d got some kid to fetch for us all.

We grabbed a rickshaw to check out some of the limited sightseeing in Chennai, and quickly got scammed into stopping at some ridiculously over-priced stores. When the driver realised we were in fact tight-ass backpackers (wow I wonder how long that took him) he soon gave up, asked for a 10 rupee retainer to stay while we checked out a temple, and we never saw him again.

The next day we got to the central station at 0500 on the (supposedly slim) chance we might get on the early Shatabdi Express train to Bangalore. When we got there we booked, paid, and found the right platform with no dramas at all. Before we knew it, we were on our way in a clean, comfortable, half-empty carriage on a train that didn’t stop once the whole way to Bangalore -oh how I wish all of our public transport experiences since then could’ve been that easy!

 

 

Bangalore: 18 January 2008

Bangalore was a city we were in mixed minds about spending some time in, and as it turned out we only stayed long enough to get a ride out of there. After three hours of traipsing between the bus and train stations, deciphering timetables, and mastering the art of Indian Queueing (it’s all about the elbows, and massive packs help too sometimes), we had tickets for the overnight bus to Hampi, then an overnight bus 3 days later to Goa. With a few hours to kill we decided to try to find a GPS unit to buy. A dude on the train had recommended a place called The Forum, which an overpriced rickshaw ride later we found to be a massive mall, which even by western standards would be considered pretty darn flash. But alas, no GPS’s. The dude in the Apple store did give me a free universal power adaptor which was nice though. After a bit of wandering around looking at stuff we couldn’t afford to buy (damn backpacking budget!) we explored the streets around the mall looking for a feed. Friendly locals were more than happy to point in any general direction and assure us a restaurant was “2 minutes walk”, and funnily enough we did eventually stumble across one. From across the road it looked clean enough, so we poked our heads in and we were swamped by a whole bunch of highly-excited kids each trying to attract our attention. We soon worked out they worked there (well some of them did, others just kinda hung around, which seems a very Indian thing to do in most retail establishments). After introductions were made, and our countries of origin were determined, the conversation died down a little and we managed to order some food, exactly what at the time we didn’t know, but we trusted their judgement. It turns out it was a masala dosa, which was nice enough. When we asked for some chai, once again a kid was despatched down the road to grab some. All up the meal for three of us (including chai) was 45 rupees, or about AUD$1.20! It was so refreshing to not be paying tourist prices. The kids wouldn’t even accept a 5 rupee tip. So once again bouyed by some genuine Indian hospitality we made our way back to the bus station to catch a bus.

Well here’s where the fun began. Indian bus stations are an experience in themselves. First up we got about three different opinions as to which platform our bus left from. Luckily we narrowed it down to one, then had to resort to asking the driver of every bus that pulled up whether he was going to Hampi, which is a very delicate process as Indians have a charming habit of responding with an enthusiastic “yes yes sir” to any question posed to them. Eventually, almost an hour after we were supposed to leave, we found a bus that was actually heading to Hampi, but not very quickly, and even less comfortably. After showing the ticket to the conductor again and pointing at the class we’d booked, he told us it wasn’t our bus and that ours was 2 buses down. So we jumped onto that bus, and we were told that no, our class of bus to Hampi had been cancelled that night, but we could stay on this bus (which was the same class we’d booked anyway), as it was heading to Hospet which was only 25km from Hampi. Dazed and confused we dumped our stuff in the back, found a seat, and tried to catch some sleep as the driver negotiated the suicidal game that is night-time driving in India.

So we arrive in Hospet about 0600. Once again there was mass confusion as to how to get to the next bus from Hospet to Hampi. The driver is telling us to stay on board cos he’ll drive us, but the conductor is outside telling us to get our bags out of the back and walk to another bus. We didn’t know what the hell was going on, bags are out, then back in. I lose track of where Simon and Lani are. Driver and conductor are both shouting at us to get on and get off respectively. Eventually we reconvene and decide to stick with the bus and driver cos it’s a pretty safe bet. So we get moving, we’re all smug and settling in for the trip to Hampi, and before we even get a chance to sit down properly the bus screeches to a halt on the other side of the bus terminal, and the driver tells us to get out, pointing to the same bus the conductor had been pointing to the whole time! After a solid 5 minutes of pure confusion, all he’d wanted to do was save us the hassle of walking less than 100m to the other bus. Even more dazed and confused this time, we thanked him for the effort and jumped on the Hampi bus a moment before it coughed into life and left the terminal in a cloud of exhaust.

Hampi: 19 - 21 January 2008

After a night of not-quite-sleep on the roller-coaster night bus, we wandered to the far end of Hampi (on the other side of the river) to a hostel called The Goan Corner, which was full of hippies and rock climbers but had a nice relaxed vibe. For a bit of exercise we wandered up the valley and made our way up to the Hanuman Temple (aka the Monkey Temple), where we were rewarded with excellent views of the sun setting through the perpetual haze that blankets even the rural areas of India.

We’d come to Hampi to explore the ancient ruins left from what used to be the political and religious centre of one of the dynasties that ruled the area -I’m sure Simon can fill in the details. So the next morning we hired some bikes and set off into the dust and heat. The first one we got too was Vittala Temple which cost the princely sum of USD$5 to get into. It was quite nice, but didn’t really blow my socks off.

 

 

 

So we wandered back to our bikes via the scenic route and stumbled upon the much less mentioned Achyutaraya Temple and plaza. Now this was impressive. A massive plaza/bazaar stretched hundreds of metres up the valley, topped off with a temple at the end. Spying another temple at the top of a hill over-looking Achyutaraya (there’s lots around) we checked our water supplies (low) and decided to climb up to it. We were thankfully rewarded with 360 degree views of the Hampi area.

Back down by the river we stopped in at a restaurant for an early dinner. When we enquired about a bonfire being set-up on the banks of the river, the waiter told us about his friend who had killed himself the previous night riding home drunk on his motorbike from a festival in the next village. Which is especially surprising because the Hampi area is supposedly alcohol-free due to it’s religious significance. The guy had no family in Hampi, so the town’s residents had all chipped in to build the bonfire (which we now knew was a funeral pyre) so he could be cremated and his ashes spread into the river. Not a particularly cheerful story, but I think it touched all of us.

We didn’t venture as far the next day, but Lani and Simon did get blessed by the resident elephant at the temple in the middle of Hampi (for a one rupee donation of course).

So we got a rickshaw back to Hospet to catch our next bus, and once again had an experience one can only get in an Indian bus terminal. Luckily we had accrued a team of extremely helpful State Transport Corporation employees who did the hard work, and eventually herded us onto the right bus when it turned up over an hour late. We thought we’d been roughing it on the night bus to Hampi, but this bus opened up whole new levels of basic. Simon managed to get our bags on board, taking up a seat on what was at times an extremely crowded bus, which just to make things more fun was constantly stopping to pick up and drop off people, and of course there was the suicidal night-driving which was best to sleep through. Simon woke up at one point to find the girl next to him’s hand prying up his t-shirt, which unfortunately for Si wasn’t an amorous gesture, but instead an attempt at his money-belt. We stumbled off the bus in Panaji at 0700 pretty much at the end of our tether, but thankfully smack bang in the middle of the resort state of Goa…

Arambol: 22 - 25 January 2008

So we found a bus north which got us to a town called Mapusa in about 30 minutes. Once there we thought we’d tracked down a bus to the next step, a town called Mandrem. Not long into the ride I worked out the dawn sun was on the wrong side of the bus, and with a bit of investigation I worked out the bus we’d just jumped on wasn’t heading to Mandrem, it was heading to Panjim, which was another name for Panaji which we’d just left. Too tired to attempt anything tricky, we stuck it out on that bus all the way to Panjim, and then back to Mapusa again where we eventually found the right bus to Mandrem. With a team of locals on the bus ready to tell us where to get off we were eventually deposited in the nice, but dull resort beach of Mandrem. It didn’t take long to determine Mandrem had the atmosphere and ambience of a nursing home, so we grabbed a taxi to nearby Arambol, which had the atmosphere and ambience of, well, I’m stuck for adjectives here. I guess if you’ve just jumped off a plane from rainy Heathrow (which 90% of the people there had), it would be nice, but we weren’t impressed. OK so we’re a tough group to please considering we’d all recently spent time in either Cottesloe, Omaha and/or the Marlborough Sounds. The tourists were predominantly middle-aged hippies of British or European descent, wearing an eclectic assortment of Indian-themed hippy clothes that you never thought people actually wore, and a look that bordered stoned and smugly arrogant.

We headed off to the north end of the beach and found the Om Ganesh Guest House away from the madness around the point.

We’d heard there was a really good market every Wednesday in a little town about 15km south called Anjuna, so the next day Lani and I ventured off to hire a moped (aka scooter) for the day to check them out. After checking a few places which had already hired out all their mopeds, we came across another likely looking shop with a moped out the front. It turns out it belonged to the guy working inside, but he soon saw a few quick rupees o be made and he was happy to hire it to us for the day for a reasonable price. After a quick run-dwon of how it works (it’s been a while since I last rode Hendo’s Nifty 50 at high school) we were on our way, wind in the hair, horn blaring, negotiating Indian traffic with reckless abandon. Once we got there the markets turned out to be a huge turist-trap, with very enthusiastic touts ahrrassing us the whole way. Deal of the day was my 1500 down to 300 rupee effort for a Pashmina shawl for Mummy, which took some hard and creative bargaining, but it was worth it (I promise I’ll send it soon Mum!).

We checked out Anjuna Beach on the way out, and the final consensus is that perhaps the southern beaches are nicer, cos we weren’t impressed with what we saw in the north of Goa!

We were all hanging out for some western food by this stage, and we’d heard a tip about a place called Double Dutch, which turned out to be an idyllic little restaurant with tables tucked into quiet alcoves with overhanging palm tress and lush greenery, and a menu to die for. So Simon and I tucked into a couple of sizeable beef steaks (yes actual beef, which funnily enough is a bit hard to find in a Hindu country). Fully satisfied we strolled back to our guest house, and there Simon and I stayed for the next 24 hours as our bodies purged whatever toxin had piggybacked it’s way into our stomach via the steaks. I won’t go into the details.

So the day after that we left Arambol, and Goa, without too much remorse. I think what dissapointed me the most was the fact that every single local we met (apart from the friendly ones on the bus into Mandrem) had the same agenda -to sell us something. Even the tourists got to us -so many of the hippies were concentrating so hard on being the most hippyish that they totally forgot to relax and have fun. Anyway enough of my hippy-bashing.

We caught a rickshaw to Karmali Railway Station, where a bunch of schoolkids swamped us, while Simon gave an impromptu geography lesson, and Lani wooed the crowd with her photos from home.

 

 

 

It as a fairly uneventful 12 hour train ride from Karmali to Mumbai. The incessant and repetitive monotone cries of “Cheese sandwich, omelette, poori”, “Chicken lollipop”, “Chai, chai chai, chai” would’ve lulled us to sleep if it wasn’t for the air-conditioning, which was on full, even though it was winter. The carriages got so cold that everyone had to wrap themselves in the conveniently supplied rugs, and even the staff were blowing their hands to keep them warm as they walked through our carriage. But I guess, we did pay for Three-tier Air-Conditioning Class, so we can’t complain about not gtting our money’s worth.

Mumbai: 26 - 27 January 2008

The platforms at the main railway station at Mumbai were absolute chaos, as thousands of people fought their way onto the Sleeper Class Carriages of the train opposite. The police were even throwing the odd slap with their hitting-sticks, which fired up the crowd a bit, but did nothing to create any sense of order. We squeezed our way out the masses, and made our way to the only cheap hostel in Mumbai, The Salvation Army Guest House. It was cheap for a reason, but we were knackered.

The next day was Republic Day, which interestingly enough is an alcohol-free day for Indians. Can you imagine the government telling Kiwi’s, and especially Aussies, that they weren’t allowed to drink on their national days?! Anyway after spending the whole day trying to organise transport for the next leg, we finally caught up with Josh, the third of the three owners of the Hilux. After a sunset stroll along the waterfront to Chowpatty Beach, we retired to Leopold’s Cafe (the favourite hang-out of the author of Shantaram) as it was one of the few places foreigners could get a beer, after registering our passports that is!

We managed to find excellent coffee the next morning (our first decent coffee in weeks!) at a place called Barista, which is kind of an Indian version of Starbucks. With caffiene in our veins we jumped on a ferry out into Mumbai Harbour to Elephanta Island, a very highly recommended collection of temples excavated into the bedrock of this small island in the harbour. Don’t bother. I don’t doubt a lot of hard work went into carving them, but balanced with the crowds, the half kilometre climb up the hill through a throng of incessant touts, and the investment of virtually a whole day to see them, it doesn’t really justify it.

So that evening we jumped on a bus out of Mumbai. It’s an interesting city -I think what struck me most was the (relative) wealth around the place. Lots of nice shops, nice cars (who would drive a Maserati in Indian traffic?!), a very relaxed standard of dress for the ladies, and even footpaths -even though they were full of dudes trying to sell us hash.

Aurangabad: 28 - 29 January 2008

The night bus to Aurangabad was luxury compared to the state buses we’d been taking. After a quick snooze we found a local bus to Ellora caves, another set of temples carved into rock, but a hell of a lot more impressive than Elephanta Island.

 

 

 

Then back on bus to Daulatabad Fort, which was set up when one of the old rulers of India decided he wanted to move the capital, so he force marched the population of the existing capital down to Daulatabad. Not surprisingly he didn’t last long, but luckily the fort did because it was pretty impressive. Just as the sun set we got talking to massive group of schoolkids, and Josh wooed them with the guitar, and Lani as usual was a favourite with the girls.

 

 

 

As darkness set in we found ourselves waiting in the dust by the side of the road for a local bus to take us back to Aurangabad. Not many came past, and the ones that did were full, which is a concept we didn’t think the Indians knew until tonight -these buses really were full. Eventually one stopped, so the locals and us all ran to the door, and amidst the shouting and confusion which seems to accompany most dealings with regard to buses, we finally determined it was yet another full bus. Until I noticed the driver waving me over (us bus drivers can spot a fellow driver, it’s an ancient tradition older than the freemasons), so I came round to his side and he waved me up into the cab. Screaming at the others to follow, I clambered up, and we happily drove off into the night perched on whatever we could find, leaving the poor locals we were waiting with in the dust.

The next morning we hired a car and driver to visit Ajanta Caves, yet another set of temples carved into rock, which were even more impressive than Ellora.

 

 

 

That night we took yet another night bus back to Mumbai, then the next morning got a flight back to where it all began, Chennai.

Chennai: 30 January - 1 February 2008

We were back in Chennai to (finally) pick up the Hilux, which was two weeks late because the ship out of Perth was delayed. So first stop was to catch up with our shipping agent Rao, who told us we wouldn’t be able to get a customs inspection for two days. So with time to kill in Chennai we decided to venture beyond Triplicane in search of good coffee. We managed to find a few very funky cafes and restaurants, but as night fell and hankering for a beer took over we were caught out by the fact we were all dressed like backpacker hobos, and the bars wouldn’t relax their dress codes, even for cashed-up foreigners. I wasn’t thirsty anyway.

 

 

 

The next day, in anticipation of finally being reunited with our baby, we did a bit of shopping for camping and vehicle stuff, and I even splashed out and bought some clothes at the very nice Spencers Plaza.

So the big day finally arrived. After catching a rickshaw to the Customs House, we waited almost an hour while our agent Rao and one of his colleagues (I forget his name -we’ll call him White Shirt) were upstairs meeting with the customs officials. Eventually they all came down and we met the Customs Officer lady, who we jumped into a little car with for the drive to the Container Freight Station (CFS). During the trip we got chatting to her, talking about our impressions of India, our lives back home, our families, her work, her family, her kids education. So yeah, it was a very interesting chat. Our shipping agent back in Oz had lost the Carnet, which meant our container had sat at the CFS for quite a few days, and as other containers were shuffled in and out, ours had made it’s way to the bottom of a stack of four, in the middle of a row five deep, blocked at both ends by endless more rows, so there wasn’t a hope in hell of getting the Hilux out without some serious container juggling. Rao was stressing, thinking that the Customs lady was going to kick up a stink that she couldn’t inspect the Hilux properly, but no, once we’d cut off the Australian Customs seal ond opened the container she was happy for me to squeeze down to the front of the container, pop the bonnet, and read off the engine and chassis number so she could check them against the all-important Carnet. After that, a quick look under the tarp lying on top of the stuff in the canopy (more out of curiosity I reckon), and she was done -no more than five or ten minutes tops. Rao and his colleagues couldn’t believe how quick it was -they were expecting an hour or more. He later told us he was chatting to the Customs lady, and she’d mentioned our chat in the car, and he said we’d obviously impressed her. Simon always was a bit of a charmer!

 

So after such a quick Customs inspection, then came the waiting. It turns out that of the three mobile container cranes, two weren’t in action. Another of Rao’s colleagues (Brown shirt) had been at the CFS since 0700 without any progress, so we settled in for a long wait. Some of the truckies had been waiting for three days for their containers to be loaded. I soon got bored, and before long I was chatting to the operator of one of the big 15-metre tall straddle-cranes that handle the longer 40-foot containers. Trying my luck (and playing the harmless foreigner card a bit), I asked if I could have a look at the view from the top. He had to check with his boss, whose primary concern was the fact I’d get my hands dirty, who then handed me a hard-hat and told me to go for it!

 

 

 

Having come from the extremely OH&S conscious mining industry, to a place where random people can walk around a container handling facility, and climb up a crane, is pretty crazy. After a long four hours of waiting, even our agent had had enough, so he grabbed Si and I and we stormed into the directors office and very politely asked if our container cold possibly be moved, if it wasn’t too much trouble. At least that what I think they said, then they started having a heated discussion which I’m sure was about whether Tendulkar or Dravid were the best Indian cricketers of all time. Either way, not long after we left the extremely ugly, but nonetheless extremely welcome, sight of the container crane rolled around the corner, and after Brown Shirt jumped up to the operators cab and slipped him some rupees, it started pulling off the eight containers blocking ours. Finally our container emerged, and with trepidation we watched it hanging from the crane as he trundled down the row and placed it down in a nice empty space (with a few more rupees going to the operator as soon as it was down -gotta love baksheesh!).

 

 

 

Without hesitation we ripped open the door and started work on the straps and blocks holding it in place. The shipping company in Perth had forgotten to disconnect the battery, but thankfully the Hilux started first time, and with a team of a dozen random onlookers directing me, I backed it out of the container into daylight for the first time in over a month. Finally almost two years of planning had paid off!

 

 

 

After another hour waiting for the agent to sort out the container handling fees, we were free to drive it out of the CFS. We’d been psyching ourselves up for Indian driving for a couple of weeks now, so with horn blaring and foot hovering over the brake, I emerged onto the night-time streets of Chennai. Luckily we had Rao with us for navigation, and we made it back to the guest house in Triplicane without breaking too much of a sweat. First drive in India all good!