Pushkar – Day 9
The quickest and cheapest way to get from Jaipur to Pushkar is by public bus. It takes about 2hrs30-3hrs to Ajmer and then you swap for Pushkar. This was my family’s first bus trip in India and the bus was old, full, and there was limited, if any, suspension. It was so crowded that James and Sam had to stand as thousands of others invaded their personal space and gave them warm grins. Then James pulled the bag rack off the wall and had to endure the stares of the intrigued Indians. I just sat giggling whilst Narcolepsy Dave was snoozing away on the back row.

Pushkar is a holy town bordering the desert and it has many temples, ghats and cows. Lyvette and I liked Pushkar when we first came because it was much more laid back than other places in India and it’s relatively small with lots of markets and trinkets. The same is still true – it has rooftop cafes and some parts are quite pretty, however there are lots of pretend ‘holy men’ that may try and scam you. Pushkar is a dry town, meaning they don’t sell beer. However, they actually do sell beer discreetly (usually in a very large horoscope mug) and by lunch time of Day 9 it was time for a mooch around the town and to find a discreet beer selling location before our camel safari later that afternoon.

So we sat munching aloo gobhi and consuming large horoscope mugs full of Kingfisher Strong, which is 8% and will blow your socks off. Just as a reminder Kingfisher Strong is the reason Lyvette fell down an Indian toilet and severed her achilles tendon…
We looked at Flexible Dave and James. Something didn’t seem quite right.
Natay: “Big D…you know your ears are inside out, right?” His ears have a habbit of doing this…
Me: “James…you know your sunglasses are on upside down, right?” One Kingfisher in and it was all going wrong.
And with that my tetanus toe started frothing. I was about to venture on a camel safari so decided to plaster it up. That would definitely prevent sand and infection. Defo.

With a belly full of beer we set off to locate our camels where the camel men kindly offered to bring more beer to our camping spot. Who can refuse Kingfisher Strong in the desert? We were on a one night camel safari and were very excited about this. We all clambered onto our camels. For some unknown reason Big Dave ended up on the smallest camel in Pushkar. Off we all went with Tiny Camel Dave leading the way, riding Bilbo, followed by James riding Romeo, Becky B on Raj, Sam on Roger and Natay on Ganesh. Myself and Joe couldn’t pronounce the names of our camels. Anyway, off we went. Or should I say off ‘they’ went.
Because my camel wasn’t moving.
“Guys….guys?!!!” I yelled. No-one cared. “GUYYYYSSSSS….I’m still here….” I called off to the six specks in the horizon. Damn Romeo for pushing the pace. Even Bilbo and his tiny legs was keeping up…just me then, still sat at the start.

Eventually one of the safari guys came back to collect me, which was a relief, because I didn’t fancy sitting on a stationary camel all night with a tetanus toe. We managed to catch up with the others as they were having a jolly old time riding around seeing the sights. Joe had even put down his hand sanitizer and was grinning from ear to ear as he enjoyed his journey. A couple of hours later we passed a metal enclosure with some dirty mattresses in it.
“Is there where we’re staying?” everyone held their breath and wondered what hell hole I had booked them onto. In my defence I had no idea what I’d booked and in India you’ve just got to roll with it. Luckily, we continued past the enclosure and the family breathed a sigh of relief. Then we got to our place of abode. It was bloody lovely! We were basically glamping. Tiny Camel Dave stepped of Bilbo, his tiny camel (to be fair he didn’t have far to step) and smiled in delight at his room for the night. Joe was even happier. We were all pleasantly surprised and sat down outside to enjoy the stars, some homemade food and a few Kingfishers Strong’s. Then we finished our beers and Joe paid one of the safari guys to get on his scooter and find us some more. It’s safe to say we were off our chops. My tetanus toe was covered in sand but the Kingfisher worked as anaesthetic and I definitely didn’t feel any pain.

I also learnt how to open a beer with a water bottle. Previously, In India, I’d learnt how to open a beer bottle with a lighter, so now I was proper progressing these skills. Just as a side note – I don’t even drink beer – only Kingfisher Strong (genuinely the only beer I like). It turns out I’m pretty good at opening beer bottles with a water bottle. What I’m not very good at is getting my face out of the way of flying bottle tops, so I finished the night lying under the stars with a red gash across my face from Kingfisher bottles. You can’t win ‘em all…

The following morning was not good. Natay had a mammoth hangover that restricted her movements for a good forty five minutes and we all sat and watched as she writhed around the floor looking particularly unattractive in some strange hat she’d whipped out of her bag and cursing us all and the invention of Kingfisher Strong.
“I AM NOT OK GUYS! I AM NOT OK!” At least she hadn’t fallen down a toilet and severed her achilles tendon….

I was too busy trying to attend to my sandy tetanus toe and now pussing face, meanwhile everyone else was boarding their camels and Becky B had been accosted by Raj and from the speck in the distance appeared to be in a different state.
“Err…guys…do we think Becky B is ok? She’s quite far away.”
General consensus concluded that Becky B was fine – Raj had her now and we continued to coax Natay onto Ganesh and get underway. It was ok Romeo was on route to save Becky B.
All in all the camel safari was a hit. And Becky B eventually came back (in case you’re wondering).

Post camel safari we were showered and ready to go for a chilled evening in Pushkar with absolutely no horoscope mugs in sight. Joe decided to catch us up and James wanted a massage so the rest of us went to find a café. On route we were stopped by the fake holy men trying to drag us to the lake and asking for donations. They were quite forceful and Pushkar is renowned for scams – mainly petal scams and ‘holy men’ tying blessing bands around your wrist and involving the police (also scammers) if tourists don’t pay up. We told them where to go and found a rooftop café for a lassi.
Next up to the rooftop was James.
“How was your massage?” we asked.
“Honestly. I feel like I’ve just been twatted for half an hour!” he gasped as we fell about watching James arrange his battered body into the chair.
Then up came Joe with a blood stained face, wearing a mask of rage.
“What the hell has happened?! Is that blood on your face!!!” asked Lassi Dave.
It transpired that Joe had been abducted by the ‘holy men’ and taken to the ghat. The blood was actually face paint and he’d been given a piece of string around his wrist and then told to pay 1000 rupees. He was furious. Once we realised Joe hadn’t been beaten to within an inch of his life (unlike James, apparently) we collapsed in fits of laughter. In Delhi he’d been scammed into having his ears cleaned and now he’d arrived with a red face and a bracelet and £10 worse off. Needless to say, he was not happy.

But, as always, Big Dave was available with some helpful advice: “Joe. If you can get through today, you can get through anything.”

If the team thought Pushkar was eventful with camel safari’s, abductions and getting ‘twatted’ I couldn’t wait for the them to experience the delights of Varanasi…

Varanasi – Day 10
Ten days in India can be a long time, especially if you visit the places we did, so it’s safe to say the Jackson’s were getting a bit tired. They had by no means embarked on a relaxing holiday and Varanasi is arguably one of the most mind blowing, busiest and chaotic places of them all. It was also our final stop as a full group…best make the most of it then.

We were in a room so small it just was not possible for us all to be in there at one time, unless we were in bed, so we had to rotate. Then the end of Sam’s bed fell off. We decided to go for a walk to the ghats (the focal point in Varanasi) and the first thing that happened was the electrical box on the street exploded above our heads. As did all the wires (and there were lots of them). The whole thing just went up in flames and we had to run so as not to set on fire. Welcome to Varanasi! It was crazy, noisy and an assault to the senses. Then we witnessed the bodies being burned at the ghats. I observed the others faces as they watched the burning ceremonies.
“I can’t take my eyes off it” whispered Becky B.
“I feel like I shouldn’t be watching. But I am” agreed Sam.
“I’ve just stood in cow poo” sighed Joe as he yanked the others out of their trance trying to find something to get the cow poo off his shoe. That night a lot of hand sanitizer was used.

Varanasi – Day 11
We woke up a bit fresher and more in the know about what to expect from Varanasi. After a bit of breakfast on the ghat we roamed around the galis (very narrow streets) to find a famous lassi shop. At that moment we heard the banging of drums and a family came past carrying the dead body of a loved one. All the Indians carried on as normal as the body lay across it’s carriers, whereas we tried to decide where to divert our eyes to.
Sam and Joe had a Bhang Lassi to calm their nerves, which was fun to watch as Sam proceeded to ricochet of every tuk tuk and cow in sight. He even threw in a few ninja rolls off car bonnets and had finally found his happy place in the chaos of Varanasi. James was still suffering from being ‘twatted’ and was wishing he had some of Sam’s new found agility in his aching muscles and Joe was trying to avoid cow poo at all costs. Meanwhile Big D, Natay and Becky B were busy acknowledging that they were now in need of a beer…preferably not Kingfisher Strong (Natay gagged at the thought).

Once Sam had regained the use of his legs we headed back to the main ghat for the nightly ceremony. Getting there was an achievement in itself as we hurdled market stalls and goats, avoided tuk tuks, got followed by touts and nearly got hit by children on scooters. On arrival we once again embraced the crazy that was seeing the flesh burn from a dead man’s corpse. And Big Dave voiced what all sane men would think in that situation;
“I’m hungry…shall we go and get some food team?”
“And a beer!” butted in James. “I need one.”
We found a roof top and had a very nice authentic Indian meal. At the end of meal James returned from the loo:
“Right” he started matter of factly. We all waited eagerly for what was to be my favourite line of the entire holiday…
“Someone’s been sick on the stairs. I don’t know who it was, all I’m saying is – we need to pay up and leave quick.”
We paid up and left quick, James tipping the cleaners a weeks wage for cleaning up his projectile vomit as it dripped down the stairs.

That night James managed to suppress anymore vomit, however Joe then took over. You just never know how you’re going to feel in India!
“If you can get through this, you can get through anything!”

Delhi – Day 11

After Natay getting whacked in the shins by airport security and me being hit in the vagina with the woman and her metal detector thingy we flew back to Delhi. This was where the team split up. The boys all flew home and the girls stayed in Delhi for two night as Natay and Becky B hadn’t spent any time here yet.
The first night back in Delhi ended with Becky B being sick a record number of twelve times and myself and Natay wondering how she possibly had anything else to come up. It appeared that our bodies were finally giving up…India was taking its toll!

Delhi – Day 12
With the lads gone and the team down to three, one of them who couldn’t be more than five metres from the bathroom, we felt a bit ‘meh’. But the show must go on and I decided to take Natay on a tour of Old Delhi market. It was chaos. The first things she saw was an old man ambling past singing;
“I’ve got a new haircut” and holding a courgette on his head. As you do.
Then outside the mosque Natay and her leprosy riddled skin became the star of the show and we had to pose for ages whilst the people of Delhi got their ginger fix. Eventually, after avoiding poo, chickens being decapitated and smiling at locals we decided it was time to head back to New Delhi where we happened to fall into a Beer Bar (there seems to be a theme here?!) and were ushered into an empty room, given a Kingfisher Strong and then sat and watched a live performance of a couple singing. We were the only ones in the bar and the lady on stage insisted on maintaining very intense eye contact with us. All we could do was smile back. She kept asking us, in broken English, if we liked her songs so we nodded eagerly. The problem came next – when she asked what song we wanted her to sing. Ermm…..our knowledge of Hindi music was non existent so we didn’t, no matter how hard she pushed, have an answer to this. So we sat awkwardly sipping our Kingfishers and trying, but failing, to avoid her furious stare whilst frantically searching for an appropriate answer to her question.
“YOUR FAVOURITE! PLAY US YOUR FAVOURTIE SONG. WE’D LOOOOOVE TO HEAR IT! PLEASE!” Natay suddenly yelled desperately in a bid to get the woman happily singing once again. The lady smiled and began another song. That, Natay, was the correct answer – one point to you.
We sighed in relief, finished our drinks and left the Beer Bar. Only to be attacked by a cow and then a cart of bananas.

Eventually we went for food and Becky B joined us. Natay experienced the worse pizza ever. I’m not sure what it was made of but it wasn’t edible that’s for sure. Then we went to another bar which had music so loud I swear my ear drums exploded. I don’t know how Becky B coped with it whilst feeling ropey. It was so loud that eventually we could stand it no more. We walked to the door and demanded to go somewhere a quieter.

That’s how we ended up in the cleaning cupboard.

The three of us sat there looking at each other and trying not to laugh.
“At least it’s quieter in here…..”

That night ended with me being sick twice.

Delhi/Agra – Day 13

This was the final goodbye as Natay and Becky B went to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal whilst I spent the day trying to not to let Delhi get the better of me and preparing for my flight back to the UK the following day. We were informed the boys were home safely and that Big Dave had finally (on arrival home) succumbed to Delhi belly. James was delighted to see a Greggs and Joe had laid his hand sanitiser to rest.

Helsinki – Day 14/15

I flew from Delhi to Helsinki to Manchester. Helsinki airport was clean, crisp and efficient. I flew through the bag drop and security in minutes. Noone pushed, shoved or touched me and the limited lines were orderly and swift. There were no horns blaring in the background and the lack of noise made my ears feel empty. It was almost a relaxing experience. The equivalent to a day at the spa.

It should have been a relief, a welcome break, a step into Europe back towards the comfort of the norm. It should have made me realise how I had missed the western ways of my home, breathing in clean air and able to walk without actively avoiding the horns of a bull or being taking out by a cart of bananas or pooed on by a monkey. Instead it just made me feel lost. It made me miss India. And rather than making me look forward to where I was going to, it made me miss the chaos of where I had just come from.

The more times I go to India the more it steals a little piece of my heart. I enjoyed showing my family round and overall, though there were good times and bad, they enjoyed the experience. We laughed a lot. They may not love it like me (yet) but they were all glad they came and I think once the fatigue and belly disruptions have worn off that maybe, just maybe, they would be interested in heading back and seeing some more of that country that has etched itself into their memories forever.

And like my dad said when we got home; “Hevs, I think the only thing missing from that trip was Lyvette.”