North India completed

I've been so busy I haven't had time to write this blog for ages!! Probably should fill it with what I spent some of the last two weeks doing...
After Pushkar Sara and I set off to Dehli, via a night bus... it was a joy!!...but we got there in one piece. We arrived at 4am and caught an auto to a cafe where we sat playing canasta and drinking cup after cup of chai (indian tea, a dozen cups each!!) until it was late enough to call on a contact we had in Dehli to drop our stuff off. Spent the day sight seeing and went to a mosque in the evening. A friend had told us there was this place where they sang and the atmosphere was buzzing and we just had to visit it, he forgot to mention it was a mosque. The next day we took a local bus to Agra, we are such cheapskates!! The tourist bus would have got there quicker but it would probably have cost 100 extra rupees (1.20 pounds), it's very strange thinking in Indian rupees! I agree over 5 or 10 rupees (6-15p) when I wouldn't even notice if I lost that much in England.
We spent the evening in the poshest hotel I have ever seen, let alone been in. It had gold on the walls and ceilings, smart waiters and doormen who bowed, the cleanest toilets in the whole of India (after 2 months of terrible toilets I was scared to use them!) and a view over the taj mahal which was just unbeatable. We watched the sunset from the balcony drinking expensive cocktails and eating the free nibbles (that they replaced as soon as we finished each bowl, 4 bowls in total!). Then left to find a hotel for one two-hundreth of the price!
Sunrise at the Taj Mahal the next morning (of course!) was amazing. We tagged along with someone else's tour for the tombs and wandered leisurely around the rest. Took far too many photos and were in far too many photos (random Indian and Chinese tourists kept asking to take our photo, as if the taj wasn't enough!). But you know the taj is amazing so I wont try and put it into words.
Back to Dehli and we flew from the airport. Me to Bangalore and Sara eventually got to Vietnam.
I had some time in Bangalore and now I'm in Varkala, Kerela again, and off to have an Ayurvedic massage on a cliff overlooking a stunning beach!

Tourist God

Sat in an internet cafe in Pushkar now, its a really holy city for hindus - they are about 400-1000 temples (depending on who you listen to) in this small city alone. We arrived on the bus from Jaisalmer at about 4am and walked up a mountain (really steep hill is a more accurate description) to watch the sunrise. I have seen more sunrises over the last few weeks than in the rest of my life put together! We were amongst the first up there, we met 3 tourists from Bristol at the top who had been planning to stay in Pushkar for 4 days and now are staying for a month! It really is a gorgeous little town, but so aimed at tourists these days - basically sara and I are going to be shopping all day before we take the bus to Dehli this evening!
Jaisalmer, where we were before, was incredible! We went on a one night, two day camel safari in the desert about 40km froom the town. Rocky, my camel, KNEW it was mating season and when he saw a female camel he would start making this gargaling noise, puff up his cheeks and start walking towards her when I (and often the camel driver) had to steer him back round! We slept on top of a sand dune, singing to the stars, tucked up in our sleeping bags! You have no idea how difficult it was to walk after that!
Gotta go do more shopping and catch a bus! xx

Kerela

I'm sat in Mumbai airport after a crazily busy few days! Sara and I went to Kerela, one of the most gorgeous parts of India for a grand total of one and a half days! We took a 12 hr night train on Monday, a later train than expected because we missed the first by two minutes and had to change our tickets - TWO MINUTES!! I saw it pull away from the station as we were running across the bridge. Various bus journeys later we arrived in Alleppey, and took a 5 hr canoe journey around the Kerelan backwaters. There are miles and miles of natural canals, surrounded by palm trees which make an inchanting rustling sound in the wind that I could (and did) listen to for hours! Birds frequent the backwaters, and we saw heron, eagles and even a kingfisher!!
After we rushed back to the bus station in order to catch bus after bus to the wildlife park. We spent 7 hrs on buses that night and finally reached Kumily, the wildlife sanctuary, at 2.30 am. The bus driver on the last bus was an absolute mentalist!! He must have been driving at over 50mph down country lanes, with millions of tight bends, huge holes in the roads and in the pitch black. Sara and I had to grab hold of the seat in front the whole time in order to not fall off the seat!.
In the morning we went round a spice garden at 8am (never new pepper grew on vines, and the smell of cloves is amazing in the morning!!) and then a boat trip round the sanctury's lake for a couple of hours. For a wildlife sanctury it had surprisingly few animals! We saw one stag, a couple of otters, three wild boar and cows! The promise of elephants was completely unfounded, but the scenery was incredible anyway.
At midday we caught a 6 hr bus back to Kochi, it went on the most gorgeous roundabout route through the Western Ghats. I have never seen such incredible views! My time in the internet cafe has run out! Write again soon xx