Hellooo, it's been a while since we wrote to ya!We got to Delhi around the 2nd March to a mad city with over 12million people. Feels like there's that many, if not more, when you're there too. We spent our days in Delhi wandering down the main Bazaar markets, seeing some sights and trying to avoid the crazzzzzzzy streets. We got to have an iced coffee in some kindof starbucks place where we saw the modern side to India and all the young people. Felt really like home just chillin out in a coffee bar. We went on the Japanese designed subway which was the cleanest thing we've ever seen in India…..it was so airy, so spacious and so fun. You get frisked when you go in though eek. Our most eventful thing was when we took a trip to the cinema where our rickshaw crashed into the back of an expensive car. The rich Indian and our driver, who wasn't looking atttt all, stopped plain in the middle of a highway and started shouting in Hindi. We tried to sneak away but still had to pay, we said it as karma he crashed cause he tried to rip us off as it was already. So clearly there's no rule about who's fault it is if you hit them from behind in India, and, this being the country it is, the driver didn't get our rickshaw drivers number plate despite arguing for half an hour. So, after our film, the expensive car owner was waiting for us to tell him what happened. Even though he couldn't speak any English he managed to slip in 'you look like Hollywood movie star'…yawn, typical Indian men. We asked some English speaking students (you can ALWAYS tell the kind of Indian person who speak English…young, light skinned, jeans) and they said 'do one thing, leave and say no'. So we did, we did not like the idea of an Indian court case lol. We'd be here 10 years later.

We finally left Delhi after buying way too much stuff and realising it's safe to go to Kashmir! I got a tummy bug from eating a subway sandwich, not even Indian food again, so we were delayed abit. We went to Agra to see the Taj mahal on a train that took 4 hours there and 6 hours back. It was meant to take 2! But we ended up meeting some of our favourite people on our trip who represented everything we love about traveling. Martin, from Germany, and marissa, from Peru had met for one day, written to each other for 2 years by letter and 11 years later were happily married in Germany. It was the perfect romance.They spoke with a mix of german, Spanish and English and we were just talking about all the differences between the coutries and how they compare to each other. We had the best jokes about the Indian cultures that everyone who's been here a while picks up on….namely the smells and how much toilet habbits are thrust in your face. We were saying, if you only come to Jaipur Delhi and Agra you don't see the best of India. Instead you just see the Indians s***ting in the morning all along the train tracks when you're on the train to the Taj mahal!!

The Taj Mahal was fun…it looked like a piece of paper against the sky. Like it wasn't real or something. We bumped into a lady who'd started her journey on a package tour in goa (where we saw her before) and had since then gotten all her teeth replaced and was heading to Nepal. Random but kewl. The way back was longggg, but we went for the 1st time in the airconditioned class. We were surrounded by rich Indians and a respected conductor. The army got on with their ipods, laptops and cipher machines lol. You have to pay loads of backsheesh to get into the army here so I'm not surprised. We picked up another train to Jammu (the road to Kashmir) that was another 2 hours late, agaiiiiiin, and after being spoken to by a female professor of commerce and business at Delhis most prestigious uni we got on the 12 hour train to Jammu. (every teacher we've met is for business of management….which shows the direction of India every1 keeps talking about!)….. Jammu has been the hasrdest place to leave from….everyone wants you to pay more so noone tells you where to go. From the buses are on strike, to there's no shared jeeps left we finally found a muslim family who said we could hop in their jeep (splitting tha price of course. From 2pm to 11pm we sat in the scary, bumpy jeep and talked with this family in sort've English. The son was abit've an idiot cause he said he could easily get into oxford (ummmm, except he didn't have a visa) and that English people have no family values and are too independent. The thing is the men in India live at home until they're married, and then, their wife takes care of them while they smoke a cigarette and drink chai all day! So we wonder if they're ever independent….obviously they work, but even work starts at 11 and closes at 3….. They get to enjoy half their day though! Lucky sods.

After seeing a car spin 360 degrees and nearly fall off the edge of a Himalayan cliff into a valley we arrived at a hotel with a man who kept trying to hug us and lift us in the air calling us 'sister'! We thought he was hilarious until the next day he asked for a tip. Then it was Katies Biiirtthdayyy…..we got to Kashmir for her 19th, which is pretty exciting. It was so sweet when she busrt into tears in the internet café after seeing everones video messages :) Then We got taken by an annoying tout who wears sunglasses indoors on a little boat called a shikara to a house boat…floating boats on Dal lake where everyone stays. We had an amazing view of the mountains until we realized our houseboat was a lot crappier quality than all the other ones in the centre of the lake.So we were taken in by this massive Kashmiri family but had a really weird experience. Kashmir is so beautiful, not at all similar to the rest of India, but don't the people know it. The Kashmiris say India is 'population, pollution, corruption' and class themselves as a different nationality. Many of them have light skin and blue eyes and speak Kashmiri or Persian. We loved the new type of tea, almost like Chinese tea, but still piled with sugar, and the best bread that was like from home. There isn't much presence on the war with Pakistan now apart from the army being around a fair bit. The culture is amazing….they have long coats for the winter that make them look really important, and use the best invention called 'winter wives'…..a little pot of embers to warm their feet and hands all day long. It's cold in Kashmir….snow everywhere just outside of where we were. We went up to the foothills of the Himalayas to trek (which was really hard but we were in the himalayas which is just so so so so lucky) and stayed with a gypsy family…..the main guy who was the money handler for the family was 20, young, modern and living in Delhi to bring people to Kashmir. He was going out with an Irish girl of 30 who was so nice and we spent our evenings with the couple, all of the cousins and a lone French guy who'd been in Kashmir for a month already.It was all hilarious, until weird money issues kept cropping up. Pablo (main guy) told us not to tell his girlfriend how much we were paying for our room for the trek…..which was a rip off already….but then we thought the girlfriend Maggie was in on it too because she would say something and Pablo would go shhhh. Well that was once, but we were sure we heard it. Then we all arranged to go on a day trip to a mountain Gulmurg with the French guy and share a jeep. Mysteriously the next day he didn't come and Pablo said he didn't want to go anymore. We got in the jeep which we shared with an overweight Indian lady from delhi who was having an affair with the Indian guy who always wore sunglasses eek. This is seriously unheard of in India. Turns out we went to a different mountain, where we still did sledging and had the best time with everyone, but found out later the French guy must have paid for a whole jeep himself. We had a massive convo with Pablo about it and he said it was his business, his cousin can do what he likes with his tourists or there would be a big family feud. We tried to explain to Tristan the French guy but he spoke absolutely no English. He managed to get that we didn't go without him and we were sorry about all tha mix up…..but we felt really bad for him. He was naïve cause he came straight from Delhi so didn't know any typical prices. The cousin followed him everywhere like a hostage, so we didn't see him and told Maggie to tell him about the prices. By the end she was realizing the problems with money and got suspicious, but maybe she was just havin her fun!We decorated an entire deluxe houseboat with the whole family! They shout at you what to do but that's just their bluntness so we didn't take offence as we hung the curtains and laid the carpets. It was nice to eat with the fam everyday and we took evening boat rides out into the lake to stop off at the bar (me and Katie haven't drank for going on 2 months though) and watch the sunset. We were good friends with the people but it's a shame about the prices and the constant want of a tip, especially when we were leaving! Kashmir definitely is paradise on earth, and the views were undeniable….but the people there know they need tourism after the war and you're certainnnnnly gunna pay or it.

The way down took 11 odd hours to jammu where even the government bus worker wouldn't tell us bus times so we'd pay more. Finally a friendly policeman helped us by choice, until he came into our hotel behind us and tried to get a bloody commission. That would be the corruption part lol. So we had an expensive hotel, the nicest shower and only just heard about china going into Tibet on the news. We saw 'live from dharamasala' about the Tibetan protesters which was exactly, by chance, the place we were heading to the next day.

We got to Dharamasala and the streets are filled with monks peacefully chanting 'is anybody listening.' The streets are lined with pictures of the Tibetans killed by the Chinese and there were 2 enclosures of people who had been on a 6 day hunger strike. Dharamasala is home to the exiled government of Tibetans so there's outrage here and many of the shops that are closed. There's still loads of tourists here, and there isn't a single feel of violence because the Buddhist monks just don't have it in them. We were kindof moved when a school of Tibetan children walked passed chanting for freedom….we got a tibetan flag and joined in abit, but we didn't know enough to just jump on tha band wagon! On our 3rd day we met up with Ruben who we were with before in the south. He's spent time in hindu temples with holy men in the centre of India and he's been teaching us about the Ramayana book, a really important hindu book, and the stories of all the gods. We've really been seeing the religious side of things!….we visited the karmappa Lama (the Dali Lama's second in spiritual importance) and got blessed and saw a stunning temple in a monastry. But our favourite thing has been the political buzz here…..on our 3rd day we saw the Dali Lama!! From a distance when he met with a US political figure to discuss about china in his home. The hall was full of people, we had to hang on to a wall to see, but we heard the American patriotic speech blah blah but nothing was really resolved. Did you all see it on the news??? We can't believe we're here right now, even though it's really sad.

Anyway….we're off to catch a train to Madhya Pradesh in the centre of India….a place called orchha. We were going to go to Varanassi from here but decided to go and see the religious side of life in the jungle in the centre. We spent an afternoon with the coolest couple and their daughter (who they'd brought to India for six months of the year for her 13 years of life) who told us abut the best tiger reserve In India there too…. We'd heard of it, but they're the 1st we met who'd been and say there's loaddddds to see. Hope you're all well…..and that we haven't talked on too much…..sending lot's of love and see everyone on the 30th April!!!!!! xxxxxxxxxxxx