It’s 9pm and we are currently sat in a dodgy hotel room eating gone off Oreo’s and drinking dusty tonic water. It’s ok though because we’ve sanitised our hands (apparently that’s important in India). We’re in Ranthambhore because tomorrow we’re going on a tiger safari, and that’s good because there’s literally nothing to do here. Except for admire the skinny cows, hunt down the nonexistent wifi or hit the ‘Beer Bar’. We did hit the Beer Bar, but we were the only women and then we got chased out by the owner because we’d forgotten to pay the bill. It didn’t help that Lyvette kept shouting ‘NO!’ at him because she thought he was chasing her to ask if he could buy her a drink. If the men weren’t already staring at the two white girls in the Beer Bar, they definitely were when we left. We then toured the one street in Ranthambhore for some sort of bar/alcohol serving restaurant, of which there were non and have now retired to our room for the night. Lyvette has just locked the ants in the bathroom. Perfect time to write a blog…

Delhi
This was our first stop and it taught us a lot (apart from the importance of hand sanitation):

1. Lyvette’s phobia of flying things is worse than we thought. On seeing a fly she resembles someone having an epileptic fit at the same time as being electrocuted and creates noises to match. In a place where white women get stared at constantly her fly-fitting definitely enhances our performance and encourages people to view us all the more.

2. There are no rules, especially on the road. Lanes – what are they? Let’s have 12 in this lane. If you want to go the opposite way to everyone else down a main road then feel free. Or, if you prefer you may perform a U turn at your will, it’s all good and perfectly acceptable. Want to cross the road? You’ve just got to step out, dice with death and dodge all cars, bikes, camels, cows and Tuk Tuks that are hurtling towards you from every direction possible whilst shaking off the woman clinging to your leg trying to sell you a banana, holding the baby that has been thrust into your arms by the Indian woman who deems it good luck for a white girl to hold her child and at the same time concentrate on not losing Lyvette in the mayhem whilst she is fly-fitting her way across the road. You can also walk on the motorway if you like, no one cares.

3. It taught us to love Tuk Tuks. They’re amazing. So amazing in fact that we’re thinking of investing in one and going on a worldwide Tuk Tuk tour. They can fit through anything, any space or gap in the traffic (even if it doesn’t exist, which it probably doesn’t) a Tuk Tuk can pass through. They are like the Harry Potter night bus. They can dodge the oncoming traffic like highly trained ninja warriors, mount curbs like they don’t exist and take out people like they are dominoes. Tuk Tuks are like tardis’s they may look small but did you know you can actually fit the entire population of India into one Tuk Tuk? Sometimes we get lucky and find a posh Tuk Tuk that has a painted ceiling and dangly fancy things round the edges. Or curtains, curtains are posh. Or music, the musical Tuk Tuk was our fave. Life in India is like an episode of Pimp my Tuk Tuk. Sometimes you can even sing French songs in a Tuk Tuk, if you have the right companions.

4. It made us realise that we know nothing. As in we had to Google every sight, tomb and palace that we went to visit. As it turns out I don’t even know how to say my own name and it took an Israeli guy to inform me my name was actually pronounced ‘Heather’ not ‘Hevver’. This is never an ideal situation.

5. Delhi also helped us adapt to our entourage (made up mainly of children) that would follow us on our travels, especially through markets. So ready, in fact that I actually changed my name to ‘the Pied Piper’.

6. Finally we learnt that purchasing £1.50 pants at the Indian Bazaar isn’t always a great idea, especially when they split right down the crotch on day 1 whilst you’re in the middle of scaling Humayun’s Tomb (beautiful tomb btw – we’d definitely recommend it).

7. If you’re not careful when learning how to speak Hindi you could end up calling someone a ‘pimp’ rather than saying ‘thank you’. Similarly confusing ‘it is very good’ with ‘I like your wife’ is another easy mistake to make. Apparently.

Places visited:

Raj Ghat (marks the spot of Gandhi’s cremation)
Jama Masjid (India’s largest mosque)
Red Fort
Connaught Place & Indian bizarre
Humayun’s Tomb
Lotus Temple
Lodi garden
Hauz Kas (ladies night so we got free drinks)

Agra
After acclimatising to the wonderful ways of India (and more importantly Delhi) we decided to embark upon our first train journey to Agra, spend the night and visit a little thing called the Taj Mahal at sunrise (yes it was as impressive as it is made out to be). We met a lovely Indian family on the train who fed and watered us the whole way. I’m not sure what it was but it tasted good (don’t worry we sanitised our hands).And chai, they gave us lots of chai.

I was welcomed to Agra by a monkey throwing banana skins at me. This wasn’t ideal as I had nowhere to run and said monkey had a pretty good aim. It was also quite embarrassing as it didn’t target anyone else. Just me. In front of a crowded platform. Obviously.

Within 20 minutes of the banana skin episode we were crammed in the back of a taxi perspiring on our fellow travellers and new found friends in a space so small not even a Tuk Tuk could have fit through. As it turns out sitting on someone’s lap for 45km on the way to Fort Fatephur Sikri with your face pushed against theirs (I’m sure they could taste we’d had curry for breakfast) is a pretty good way to get to know them (sorry Josh and Caroline). 24hours later, having visited Fatephur Sikri, Taj Mahal and Agra Fort and we were off to Jaipur. This train journey is where we met a friendly Aussie chap who told us about the time he dived off the train whilst it was still moving (this is quite common in India). Obviously I found this highly intriguing and now need to try it, remembering to add in the ninja roll on landing.

Jaipur
Our favourite location yet. We hired a Tuk Tuk for the day and visited Pink City, City Palace, and Amber Fort before having a spot of lunch at a restaurant where Lyvette decided she hadn’t had enough attention, began to feel nauseous and had to have a DELD (dramatic emergency lie down) under the table whilst one of the guys poured cold water down her neck, the waiter brought her a sick bucket and Sam the Tuk Tuk driver came in to watch the action with some bombay mix. After a solid block of good old drama and some electrolytes she began to feel better and was promised the comfort of air conditioning at the Elephant Sanctuary by Sam. How on earth a bench in the middle of a desert area that’s as dry as Gandhi’s flip flop, next to two elephants can ever be classed as air conditioned we’ll never know. She was fine though btw. And the elephants were pretty cool too (but not because of the air conditioning).

The elephants were followed by the Monkey Temple, which is a temple surrounded by monkeys. Clever hey. Now, when they ask you to buy a bag a monkey nuts you do not expect the swarm of screeching, teeth baring monkeys that come charging towards you (some were quite small but others were definitely the size of cows). In a moment of blind panic I launched the nuts I had in my hand away and they ricocheted off a passer-by-on-a-moped’s head, creating a whole new drama as everybody gasped, the monkeys continued their attack, I shoved the remaining nuts into the Tuk Tuk driver’s hand and ran for shelter and moped man recovered from the sudden shower of monkey nuts that had just pelted his face. Through all of this commotion Lyvette was so busy screaming during a dramatic fly- fit that she hadn’t even noticed the monkeys closing in until one of the boys let rip a high pitched scream and shouted “TAKE MY NUTS, SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE MY NUTS!!”. After much palaver and juggling bags of monkey nuts we all finally regained our composure, decided we weren’t going to get rabies (or stung by flies), fed some monkeys and continued up to the temple. It was a good day.

So Jaipur was going well. Until we got THE HAIRCUTS. We came out of the salon looking like we’d just stepped out of Wayne’s World. Seriously. I’m not actually sure what happened. I went first and one minute everything was fine and the next minute I had acquired some sort of thick bush of a fringe. At no point did I request this fringe. Ever. Lyvette found this so funny she nearly fell off her chair. When it was her turn she specifically stated she wanted no such fringe, but she got one all the same. I don’t know what we expected for £1.50 but to become Wayne’s World replicas was not it.

So, armed with our new dodgy haircuts we went for a drink with our Jaipur posse which is where we met Nitin. Nitin has set up an amazing NGO called Saksham where he educates children and women that live in the slums. He goes round to houses and asks parents to let their children come to his classes. Before these some of the children were locked up in rooms all day whilst their parents went to work. He doesn’t charge them. Instead he uses his savings to run the centre every day and has set up his own travel company to fund Saksham.

We were lucky enough to go to a class with him and see what he does with the women and children. It was amazing but also slightly upsetting that all the women had better haircuts than us.

To view the Saksham Facebook page click here.

So that’s basically where we’re up to as we sit in our little cell waiting to see the tigers and willing our fringes to grow. Next time we write hopefully we won’t look like Wayne and Garth!

Bye for now!