At the beginning of the month we arrived in Delhi, it was just as mad as we expected. Rickshaw drivers assumed that every tourist in the Paraganj area (where we stayed) was fresh off the plane and so thought they could charge us ridiculous prices! But we explained to most that we had been in India a while and so mostly got decent prices. The road where we stayed was the 'main bazaar', it was quite dingy and stinky but was filled with shops and stalls selling stuff from all over India, of course me and Kate treated ourselves to a few things! We bargained well! We ended up staying in Delhi a week, which gave us enough time to see a few sights and hang out in the (very modern) posh areas with some ice coffees. We also got time to ride the new subway, which was soooooo cool! Apparently it's a Japanese design, it was really spacious and air-conditioned with high security too (you get frisked and scanned), but it really helped us save money on transport. The main things we liked there were the national gallery, we also went into a restaurant (which we had to leave because of the costs) that was called Piccadelhi and was built like a London underground station!

About the most exciting thing that happened in Delhi though was when our rickshaw crashed into the (expensive) car of a rich Indian man. The bump only jolted us forward but the inattentive rickshaw driver had managed to break the brake- light. This caused the two men to start arguing in the middle of the speeding traffic for about half an hour, while me and kate just laughed in the back and couldn't help thinking of it as karma because the rickshaw driver had overcharged us a lot for our ride to the cinema. So 3 hours later we left the cinema (after being frisked by security again!) to find the driver of the car waiting for us. He wanted to ask us which stand we had picked up the rickshaw from, because after all that time arguing with the man, he didn't even get the mans number plate (wtf!?). He couldn't speak much English but he did manage to tell Kate that she looked like a bollywood movie star…

It was when we were in Delhi that we spoke to a lot of people about Kashmir and the situation up there and we found out that it's quite safe at the moment for tourists and there hasn't been much trouble in a while. We were quite excited by this news because we always thought it would be too dangerous to visit, but it's meant to be one of the most beautiful and scenic places in India… so we went! Instead of going with a tout from Delhi though we took the 2 day journey by train and jeep to the capital of Srinigar. It took us 2 days because before we left we went to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, which was ok I guess… A very nice Muslim family let us share the jeep to the capital with them, this is where they lived. They were very kind to us and bought us some chai and chapatti on the way. We got into a little argument with the son towards the end because he was trying to say that the British culture of leaving home so early was BAD compared to the Indian culture of looking after your family. We tried to explain that it's not as simple as that and that there are pro's and cons of both cultures but he wasn't having it! He also thought it was strange that our parents hadn't given us any money for our traveling and that we got a job ourselves to save up for it, but yeah, we got there safely and were very grateful to the rest of the family.

In Srinigar we stayed on a houseboat with a Kashmiri family which consisted of Pablo, the 20 year old who speaks very good English and dresses like a European in very trendy clothes, he also deals with all the tourists and usually brings them up from Delhi, his dad Ali who usually stays in the mountain for the tourists who go trekking (when we arrived he was up there with Pablo's Irish girlfriend Maggie), Pablo's sister Farrida and their mum. Then next door on both sides was the extended family of the aunts and uncles and cousins, who also owned houseboats (we even had to help them decorate one of the deluxe houseboats, stopping every 10 minutes for chai). A lovely French guy called Tristan was staying with one of the cousins Raja. The first day we arrived there was my birthday funnily enough, it was a really nice day. From our houseboat we had a view of Dal lake (where our houseboat was) and the surrounding snow topped mountains which was quite unreal. So we were starting to see what all the fuss of Kashmir was about. So on that day the shikara man (a small boat) took us around the lake to see more of the mountains but we also saw small children taking their boats home from school and vegetables being sold from shikaras and even souvenirs, it was really interesting seeing how people actually lived on the lake.

We had home cooking every day which usually consisted of rice and roti and good old roast potatoes and cabbage! For two days and one night we went up to the mountains to see Pablo's dad Ali and Maggie his girlfriend, who was really funny! They had met in Delhi and Pablo had been traveling with her for a while and brought her to Kashmir so she could spend lots of money in his family business. We had only gone trekking because he had lowered the price for us so much that we could barely afford it but he told us that if Maggie asked that we should tell her a different price, we thought this was strange considering they were dating. He also told us this about the price of our room. So immediately we didn't really trust him and could tell they were out for our money. But that's their business and we are the tourists so what else could we expect. We ended up having a good time in the mountains and a really fun night with Maggie and Pablo. Because the weather was too cold we couldn't camp in the mountains so we stayed in a gypsy village in a room with a stove that kept us warm. The Kashmiri people call them gypsies but really they are just people who live in the mountains and live off the land. Also the gypsy's are respected people and not thought of negatively like back home. On the second day Kate had to stay in bed because she was ill but I still went with the two of them on a gentle walk where we just ended up playing in the snow. We spent the rest of the week on the houseboat with Maggie, Pablo, Tristan, Raja, Parawais (a cousin) and Lala.

Lala I forgot to say was one of the most entertaining people we have met in India so far. He is Pablo's uncle but he has dementia or something like that. Pablo tried to explain to us that when lala got married his wife put black magic on him which made him 'crazy' like this, because before that he was totally normal. He was very kind hearted and very comical. He often just sat with us with his firepot and would just talk to himself, sometimes randomly asking for '100 dollars madam please' or 'one joint madam' (he smoked all day, some people in the town considered him a holy man). But he was always making sure that we were warm enough with blankets and firepots and one night he went off for a while and then came in and threw an ear-plug on the floor, which Kate had actually genuinely needed! One of the funniest things he said to us was when he told us, 'yes it is necessary' for white and black people to be called 'gorree's' by Kashmiri people. We learnt other phrases from the family about India such as the three c's, 'Chillum Chai, Chapatti' and 'India is Population, Pollution, and Corruption', unfortunately quite negative ones!

Kashmiri people in general can look very European with green and hazel eyes and lighter skin. They also like to consider themselves different from Indian people and most people we spoke to said they didn't want Kashmir to be Indian or Pakistani but it's own country. We also found that Kashmir was the place where there was a lot more corruption, in terms of everyone trying to rip us off a lot more. We are pretty sure that Pablo got commission from most things we bought. As well as Raja, Pablo's cousin completely ripping off Tristan the French guy, who was spending three months with him. But we were told we weren't allowed to tell him that everything he was paying should be ten times cheaper because it would cause a 'family feud' or whatever. One day we were all supposed to take a day trip to go sledging but in the morning we were told that Tristan had decided he didn't want to go. But what actually happened is that Raja took him to a different mountain so that he wouldn't know how much we were all paying. It was very unfair because it looked like we had just gone without him, but we explained as much as possible and he realized it was a 'mis-understanding'.

So generally Kashmir was very beautiful and we ended up having a lot of fun (even if it did cost us way too much) but we were really insulted when we bought the family flowers to say thank you and they just laughed in our face because they thought they were s***! Then they kept asking us for tips so we didn't leave on a very good note. The most annoying thing is that because we are foreign people they seem to think we have an endless amount of money to spend and that we are 'rich'. Of course compared to a lot of Indian people we are 'rich' and we are so so lucky to be able to save money in the first place to go traveling with. But what they don't understand is that we have actually worked for our money and we are entitled to make it last as long as possible so that we can see as much of India as we can with it and it is not expandable. We thought Pablo sort of got it when we asked him how he would feel if he had worked and saved for 2 years and then gone on holiday and someone told him the wrong prices for things and he had to leave his holiday early. We were trying to show him how it wasn't fair to the French guy and hopefully he started to get it. But apart from the matter of money Kashmir was a lovely place, there is still a big army presence but they are very lenient with tourists and the views were amazing.

For the past few days we have been in Dharamsala. This is the official home of the Dalai Lama and where the Tibetan people in exile live. There are many monks walking around all day and we are still in the mountains with great views of valleys and mountains, and Ruben our Belgian friend has joined us here. At the moment there have been marches every day here by the Tibetan people, who are very peaceful, against China who still have rule over the Tibetan land. It has kicked off recently because of the upcoming Beijing Olympics, so a lot of attention will be on China and the Tibetan people want to be heard. It has been very moving being here and watching the Tibetans chant and march together. Especially knowing that at the moment Tibetan protestors are being killed by the Chinese army and many people here have family and friends there. There are a lot of posters up of people who have been beaten and shot to show people what is going on and to shock people. There is one area of hunger strikers by the Dalai Lama's house also. Me, Kate and Ruben were lucky enough to go to the public speech of an American congresswoman who spoke about how the US has sympathy and support for the Dalai Lama, who wants autonomy (she didn't actually say what they were doing about it though) and here we saw the Dalai Lama himself!

On the way back we were given a Tibetan flag and joined the marchers, just to show that we were supporting their cause, and although not many foreigners were joining in, one Tibetan man told us that the whole point they are doing it is to get international attention and so he was very pleased that we were walking with him, and we can tell people back home about the situation.

Yesterday we went to get a blessing in one of the monasteries where the Karmapa Lama lives (he is the second to the Dalai Lama) and this was very nice. But in general a lot of the Tibetan shops and restaurants are closed for respect to the people marching and in Tibet. The Dalai Lama is doing a good job of keeping everyone peaceful though, as a lot of people, especially young Tibetans, are getting very frustrated with the situation and that their peaceful protests aren't working. But we feel quite lucky to be here now while its happening and to get a different perspective rather that just watching the headline on the news.

Next we are going back into the middle of India, to the state of Madhya Pradesh, to spend two weeks doing the state properly before we go to the Andaman's. We've seen Kashmir and the Dalai Lama now all we need to see is a tiger to make our trip complete, JOKE! But we obviously would love to see a tiger!

Lots of love to everyone. Hope its not too snowy back home ;) and remember to keep up to date with the situation in Tibet!

Katie xxxxx

p.s. thanks for my birthday emails (and video message!!) they really made my day :D