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Since I last wrote liv and I made a highly memorable journey. Having done numerous train trips we thought it would be good to test out what a bus in India is like. Assured that this is a sleeper bus compete with beds, cutains and other such luxurious parts we booked a 12 hour overnight bus to Mumbai. Little did we know that our beds we about one metre from the top of the bus, I encourage you to imagine how tippy big buses feel from normal seats... times that by about 200 and you get the feeling of being that high up in a bus hooning along the sometime unsealed roads of India. After discovering that if you lie down the nauseous/about to tip over and die feelings are less intense the bus wouldn't have been so bad, that is if it was quiet.
However, there was a speaker with a soundtrack to a movie in hindi going at more than full volume for the first 4 hours or so... all we managed to gather was that there was a lot of car tooting, running steps, heavy breathing and yelling on the film. Oh, and the constant 'Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeiii' piercing squeaking of some speaker malfunction going on at the same time. But again, after constructing a quite impressive speaker plugging up device resembling a hammock and involving 2 scarfs, a bag and about an hour of effort it wouldn't have been so bad. That is if the temperature wasn't so painful. India is hot, pretty hot and generally quite humid. Therefore, its totally understandable that the idea of an air conditioned bus was tempting.
So, we splashed out on a "AC sleeper bus with amazing suspension so you can't even feel it moving"... NEVER AGAIN! We absolutely and totally froze... about 2 hours in there were some more construction attempts, this time to plug up the AC fans which were not turnoffable. We gave up when we realised that most of the cold air came through the walls of our little compartment. So it was the trusty 'all the clothes we had' tactic... unfortunately when your used to mid thirty temperatures there are hardly any thermals/scarves/beanies/gloves etc in our bags.
So shivering the night away we entertained ourselves by giggling away at the ridiculousness of paying exorbatant amounts to get frostbite and at the loudness of the man snoring opposite us. I think I got a total of approximately 20 minutes of sleep. Luckily we stopped twice and after our 7am stop could relax as afterall, our arrival time was 8am... we arrived over 5 hours later.
To sum up one of the most entertaining months of my life:
Total time spent in India = 23 amazing days (not in anyway long enough!)
Most scenic spot = Mussoorie. There was no where else that had the same breath taking views that the hill station had. Waking up in the morning to look out over the clouds, the mountains and the town below was unbeatable.
Favourite place = Udaipur. Combination of peaceful lake setting, lovely people and hilarious memories.
Number of times we were robbed = once, and we were in the room at the time!
Place I wouldn't return to = Agra. Although the Taj Mahal was stunning and I would definitely recomment seeing it if your in Agra, but the city itself didn't do anthing for me.
Most touristy moment = Getting the classic photo of the 2 of us at the Taj.
Lassi tally = I won with 22 to Liv's 18 (she traitored to milkshakes - disgraceful!)
Chai tally = 56 between us.
Best meal = paneer korma at the New Royal Restaurant in Dehra Dun
Noisiest place = Dehra Dun by miles, and no, shutting the door and blasting up Bollywood's most unwanted does not drown out the noise!
Times we were in the paper = once, photo and all, AND it was even read as far as Delhi!
Saddest moment = finding out that jalebis (honey pretzels) were glutenous :(
Times offered opium = about 3, all by the same creepy guy offering rickshaw rides before coming up behind us and whispering "Joint? You want opium? I have!" nice....
Grossest food = fake cherries - they looked like really nice cherries but tasted like a combination of flower petals mixed with soap suds...
My favourite quote = "You see, once a day has passed, you cannot actually get it back." (how very enlightening!)
Marriage proposals = 2 (quite pathetic compared with African tally!)
Best lassi flavour = tied between banana and mango, either is like a drinking liquid heaven
Best way to pass 25 hours on a train = Indian place name boggle, Olachel (card game created by 2 awesome travellers) and counting starage percentage over the day...
Worst pick up line = "If I could rearrange the alphabet I would put U and I together." (gag!)
Loveliest people = far far too many to count but to name a few: sweet family whose older sister did our heena tats while the cute grandma made us tea, the youngest girl showed us photos of her whanau and the boy enjoyed taking super blurry pictures with my camera, hilarious Lala who had the best giggle in India and made our necklaces, internet cafe guy who said we were typical 'gentle' kiwis (not very realistic but quite sweet), guy who found us our camels to ride who had amazingly long hair on the rims of his ears, guy on the train who overhead our starage counting and still helped us find our way out of the train station, the artist who showed me how to use rock colours to paint with, "Look some bones are still here" burning ghat guy, super cute old pottery man who introduced us to the addictive pottery wheel, Indian version of munchkin at the restaurant in Varanasi, Pablo Picasso and about 600 more!
Not so awesome people = super rude "You are not listening" travel agent who got quite aggressive when we didn't want to hire a car and a driver for 2 weeks, guy who ripped us off at the Golden Temple, actually anyone who ripped us off (list is fairly long!), anyone who didn't stop staring after multiple glares and 12 hours on a train, crazy rickshaw drivers who dodge the cows but not us...
Number of trains travelled on = 4, totally 63 hours, about 583,967 stares and numerous cups of chai.
Number of photos taken of us = 9 that we know of and thats not including the ones of us as camel jockeys as we couldn't begin to count those!
Times hit by motorbike = 1
Times hit by rickshaw = 1
Times hit by bicycle = 1
Times that liv was head butted by a cow in the street = 1 HILARIOUS moment
Time it took us to learn the road food chain = about 2 hours in Kolkata (For future reference - cows>trucks with men with guns> buses> cars> taxis> motorbikes> autorickshaws> scooters> normal rickshaws> bicycles> locals> indian tourists> dogs> foreign tourists)
Pidgeons witnessed being zapped on power lines and plummeting to ground = 4 (at least)
Best sales tactics = toss up between the very persistant walk along beside us for about 20 minutes or the "Oh you want 'x', my uncle has a shop with many 'x' - very cheaper!"
Times that we were ripped off = about 5 times daily.
Number of people that commented on the craziness of us travelling in sleeper class = probably about 12
Times when we were crippled with laughter and couldn't walk/talk/act sensibly in any way = countless!
Best travel companion a girl could wish for = LIV!!!! Thanks for: not being jealous when my camel was cooler than yours, being sympathetic when Delhi food triggered my up chuck reflexes, keeping me up until 6am talking about anything and everything, buying me the most gorgeous earrings from our good friend, for being able to laugh with me about everything from being ripped off and disgusting toilets to food poisening and being constantly stared at, being tolerant of my youngest child ways, convincing me to buy/not buy things I love/don't need resulting in my staying on budget but having AWESOME stuff to rummage through when it arrives, putting up with my "hey liv, you awake?" insomnia, not creeping every night, managing to ignore my singing along with ipod in african languages I don't know, being spontaneous enough to decide where to travel the next day but organised enough to remember to book some things in advance and just generally giving me abs from all the laughter. Thanks so much 'my good sister' - I seriously can't wait for all the planned and unplanned adventures yet to come. XX P.s remember when we were in India?
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