May. Summer holidays

May: Summer holidays

Emily, Jo and I left for our summer tour at 5AM on the 26th of April, just two days after annual day. We set off to Ongole train station to catch our train to Chennai. Unfortunately for us the train was delayed and we had a flight to catch in Chennai. Our solution was to get a taxi all the way to the airport. It was a bit more expensive but we reached the airport in time. We were flying to India's daunting capital New Delhi. 

None of us wanted to stay in Delhi long as it has reportedly got a lot of scary men there, and we weren't wrong. We arrived at night, our driver kept driving us down scary alleys in an attept to find our hotel. He was constantly getting out and asking directions, leaving us alone in the rickety mini-van. He was a lisenced taxi man and he wasn't scary. It was the men outside he was talking to that had my blood pumping with fear. In the end he found our hotel which was run by two, very friendly and not scary Sikh man. They made us feel a bit safer after our horror ride to the hotel. The next day we spent the morning at the splendid Red Fort. There was tourists about, along with playful chipmunks that skipped through the grass. The palaces inside were nice and not unlike the Taj Mahal. For lunch we found a McDonalds. My first in a very long time I'm proud to say. No cow meat though obviously, but I still enjoyed my chicken Maharaja Mac. :) We had a train to get to Jaisalmer (Rajasthan) that afternoon, so we headed off after lunch. The train to Jaisalmer was eventful. While we were still in Delhi station, apparently I tried to climb to the top bed of the train and fell off backwards, hit my head and blacked out. I don't remember this but I can still feel the lump on my head! It was a bit embarassing and I woke up with an Indian man flicking water on me. It was a new experience that I'm not in a hurry to try again. The train was long, but I slept well. Eventhough Jo kept waking me up to check I was alright. She was worried that I was going to die in my sleep. I'm grateful for her concern now, however at the time a more slumbersome Holly did not appreciate it. You got to love Jo though. :)

Jaisalmer is in west Rajasthan, sitting in the Thar Desert. It was stunning there, but painfully hot. 45 degrees celsius on our first day. We could see the amazing fort from the rooftop of our quaint little hotel. Our hotel was lovely. The father and son who run the place stated outright upon arrival that we should consider them like a second family and Jaisalmer our home away from home. Everyone was so sweet, it felt like we were trully being cared for. The following day we visited the famous fort. While there we did a little shopping and visited the Jaisalmer Fort palace museum. The girls and I love museums and history so we were on a winner there then. After we found a 'haveli' turned restaurant outside the fort. The food was divine and we had a lovely view of the fort. Jaisalmer is in the heart of the desert so it meant we could go on a camel trek. We only went for about 2 hours, but we had a jeep ride earlier which showed us loads of cool, old monuments, cenotaphs and an abandoned village. The camels were awesome. A lot taller than I anticipated. Jo got a camel to herself, while Emily and I had to share with the two camel drivers. It was to Jo's advantage really, as Emily's man kept groping her leg and my guy kept singing really loudly, out of tune, really close to my ears. When we finally got to the 'desert' bit, as we had been walking through shrubbery and villages all the hour and a half we'd been riding, we became a tad disappointed. The 'desert' was just a big sand dune, littered with empty bottles or alcohol and other rubbish, and then a sort of savannah which had civilisation and cars etc roaming through it. It wasn't the mystical desert I was expecting, but to be fair we did only trek for about an hour and half. The whole thing was an overall good experience though. We all enjoyed it. Groping and bad singing aside. :)

Our next stop on our Indian adventure was Rajasthan's capital Jaipur. We got hounded as soon as we got off the train. It wasn't fun. We got a tuk-tuk to our hotel as fast as we could to escape the chaos. Our hotel just wasn't up to scratch. The people were very rude and they had a well praised restaurant that had no food other than toast! We survived though. In Jaipur we visited the Hawa Mahal, the city palace, Nahargarh Fort, Jantar Mantar, Amber Fort and the monkey temple. My favourite site was the Hawa Mahal. I could feel the history of the place around me and I felt like a Rajput princess walking through the palace. The forts on the other hand, were a pain. Walking up a mountain (to the fort) in midday Indian summer heat is never a good idea. The monkey temple was fun, but since I've lived in India I've grown bitter towards monkeys. At home in Tangutur they're vicious creatures, and everyone including me is a bit scared of them. This meant I was always on edge and fidgiting with fear as we ent into the temple that is world reknowned for its swarms of pesky primates. There was indeed lots of monkeys and some were quite bad tempered, but the baby ones were cute. I enjoyed my time there, but I'm not going to plan another visit. I'm just not a monkey person and I accept that. So all in all Jaipur was OK.

The next place on our tour was Amritsar in Punjab. While we were there we visited the beautiful Golden Temple and we went to the Pakistan border. The temple was breathtaking and there were big Koi fish swimming in the holy water. The whole place was packed with Sikhs and everyone was very welcoming and friendly towards tourists and non-Sikhs alike. There was a very graphic Sikh art museum within the temple grounds. It contained vivid art work of people being skinned, boiled alive, cut in half from head to toe, peoples babies and children being stabbed, bricked alive, dismembered... It wasn't a very Holly friendly place. after that horrific ordeal of the 'museum' we left for the Pakistan border. There were lots of Indians and some foreigners. We all gathered at the border gates. We could clearly see Pakistan and their people filling the stands around the border, just as we were. I was getting very excited and patriotic. What happens is the border soldiers on each side, all adorned in their fancy uniforms with big fan turbans, march up towards eachother, doing big kicks on their way. Then they open the gates, beat their chests at eachother and then finally shake hands before they stride away galliantly back into their rightful countries. While this was taking place the audiences on each side were roaring, chanting and screaming with national pride. I think it's safe to say I got really into it. I was waving my Indian flag and chanting 'Hindustan!' at the top of my lungs. After the show was over we all got to go right up to the border and look at Pakistan. The people of each respected country were smiling and waving at eachother. We got so close to Pakistan that we were literally about 3 metres away. I count that as going to Pakistan, so I've been to Pakistan. I thoroughly enjoyed it. :)

Next stop was Agra in Uttar Pradesh, home to many famous sites and monuments, one of which is the Taj Mahal. We got up very early the morning of the Taj to avoid crowds and put on our sarees. The entry fee for Indian nationals is 20 rupees (20p). The price for foreigners is 750 rupees (£7.50)! All Indian tourist places have seperate fees with foreigner prices always being at least ten times more costly. I think it's a bit racist if you ask me, but none of us wanted to argue with the concession man at 6 in the morning. The Taj Mahal wa beautiful, but a bit of an anticlimax. It still hasn't hit me that I've been there yet. Nethertheless I'm very grateful that I got to see this wonder of the world. We did visit other famous sites in and around Agra during our stay there. We did go to see the Agra Fort, luckily for me this time I didn't have to scale a mountain to get there. The girls and I were being pestered by this man who wanted us to hire him as our English tour guide. He did work for the Fort, but we wanted an audio guide not a tour guide. We tried to tell him this but again he insisted that he was better. He wasn't taking no as an answer and we didn't want to seem rude. Our solution to this problem was to pretend I didn't speak English. I pulled my best dumbfounded face and tried to ask him in my broken English if he spoke Spanish. He said no, but tried to explain to me that he would speak slowly so I'd understand. I looked to Emily and she asked me "comprende?", I declared "no". The man looked a bit disappointed, but went off to bother someone else. Quick thinking on the girls behalf saved us some money there. I was lucky to have them around. :)

Our final destination of our holiday was Varanasi. The purpose of this visit was to see the holy Ganges. We got up very early one morning so we could get a boat ride and watch the sunrise on the river. It was very serene and peaceful. The only downside is how polluted the water is. Sewage systems run into the river, along with people who bathe daily in it, wash their clothes and dishes straight into the water. There's also the burning ghats which allow peoples cremated bodies pour into the river. There's cows, stray cats and dogs, rats, poultry and other animals all using the Ganges as a toilet. Even with all this pollution people still trust the river enough to take a hand full of water and drink it. I for one value my life too much to drink that bacterial mess. It makes me sad how dirty the river is and I wish people would see how deprimental it is. The trouble is most Indians have such doubles standards. For example, I watched our boat man, while the sun was rising, grasp a  hand full of the Ganges, whisper to it in prayer, hold it to his heart and then he drank it. Later I watched the same man disguard his rubbish over the side of the boat straight into the holy water, without a care in the world. Disgraceful. In the evening we returned and went for another boat ride, but this time to watch the sunset and to see the Hindu priests perform puja (worship) on the riverside. It was beautiful and there was fireworks. The Ganges is such a sacred and holy place that you do feel its power just dipping your feet in it. I was privilaged enough to do so, but I don't plan on drinking the water until people clear up their act, and maybe  stop defaecating straight into Lord Shiva's scared river. More respect is needed. To conclude, Varanasi was nice but a bit shocking to someone who was expecting a divine river, but was shown an open sewer.

All in all, it was a wonderful 3 weeks, full of laughs. I was lucky enough to be travelling with the best partners I could of asked for. They organised everything and planned all our trips. Thanks girls :) I also want to thank my mum and my aunt for 

sending money so I could go on this incredible 3 week adventure. :D

Photo added by Hollys Mum- these were the postcards Holly sent to me in May :)

April Blog. Annual Day

April: Annual day

April was a good month. We had annual day, Emily's birthday and the start of our summer holidays. The first part of the month was filled with dance practice for annual day and boring exam invigilation. I had one dance I did with 5 other girls which was classical Indian dance. I played the heroine in the dance which was nerve-racking, but cool. I did have to dance in a saree, which was a bit restricting, during the final performance. However in the other two dances I did, this time with Emily, Jo and a lot of 9th class girls, we wore different outfits. In the prayer dance we did, we were given these weird green, half salwar kameez-half wrap around sarong outfits. It would have been better for us if they had done them to our size or at least put the clasps on the blouses, but they didn't so we were constantly adjusting and readjusting our clothes; pinning the whole dress together with safety pins. For this dance we also had to hold two lit clay pits as we paraded around the small stage. We had to balance on one foot a lot, but it was very difficult as; our outfits were falling out of place constantly, the stage was made up on that day, unevenly, with ​splintery wood & hastily covered with a sac-like material carpet, there was sharp nails jutting out of the floor AND we were holding flaming pots which were getting hotter and hotter the longer we held them. That dance could have gone better lets say. 

Our 'make-up' for the night was done precariously by some old, sweaty, hairy guys. The backstage area was so boiling that the thick, ugly eyeliner, the painted on black eyebrows and the crimson smudge that was the 'lipstick', were running down our cheeks like our own bodies wanted rid of the offence caused to our faces. Then they caked us in pinky-white paint. They colour was so unnatural that we all looked like ghosts that had done some heavy exercise. I hated it. It made me itchy so I removed it after the first dance (the clay pot one). Then it came to our hair. I already have long, black hair so they just added a bit of an extension to mine and plaited it, so I had hair that flowed past my bum. Jo and Emily on the other hand do not have black or long hair, so they had to wear wigs. Apparently they were very heavy and they didn't look fun at all. This prayer dance we did however doesn't match the disaster of our final Bhangra dance...

The Punjabi Bhangra dance we did, Jo, Emily and I played boys. That meant we had to wear a turban, a painted-on moustache, weird wrap around trousers that you had to tie together, a bright orange shirt and a glittery green waist coat. We looked dashingly handsome if I do say so myself. I only wish our performance matches our good looks. During the fast-paced dance Jo managed to loose her turban and Emily not only dropped a girl during a lift/spin, but her trousers unravelled a bit to reveal her legs to the audience. The dance master was quick to adjust them though. These 'trousers' were really restricting and frequently unfolded/unravelled to reveal some calf or shin. I was repeatedly catching the bottoms of mine while I was dancing. It was preventing me getting into the groove so to speak. I don't blame the boogie, I blame the trousers. Damn trousers caused nothing but trouble! Even with all our mistakes and malfunctions we finished on time and recieved a good reception, even if it was just pity claps.

All in all though it was an enjoyable evening. It stressed me out until I had an emotional breakdown, but my make up was smeared down my face anyway, so no problems there. You couldn't even tell the difference. The night was so hectic I managed to lose my shoe. Just one of my shoes. I looked for it everywhere. I even searched for it in a cow shed, but no luck. My only explanation for its' disappearance is that it must of seen our Bhangra dance and left. In the end though I just bought a new pair of shoes and moved on with my life. So all is good. :)