Anna and Heidi Explore

We finally arrived in the tropical paradise of Goa. We spent a day in the capital Panaji which was very chilled and had beautiful colourful architecture remiscent of europe and lots of windy side streets to explore. The following day we missioned the local bus service up to Anjuna beach to celebrate Holy. Holy is a festival celebrated all over India where people have a great time throwing colours (powder paint) over eachother, everybody gets involved and its a real blast. A group of about 10 children attacked us from all sides and we ended up purple, green, pink, yellow and blue!!
Desperate to chill from the manic rate at which we had been travelling so far,we set ourselves up in Anjuna for 6days. The atmosphere wasnt what we were expecting - as the place was still in the aftermath of the tragedy of the english teenager. There were a few parties going on but they were eventually shut down by the police, one night we were listening to live music in a restaurant called 'Janet and Johns' following an immense seafood buffet and the police came in and shut it down at 10pm!
The first half of our week in Goa was spent in monsoon style rain which didn't allow us to get much sun, but as soon as it cleared up we got enough sunburn to last us the week. We hired mopeds to explore the north coast, Heidi taking control of the bike and loving every minute of it (even Anna commented on my excellent driving!)

Mumbai was our next stop, we travelled on the konkan express railway with some guys we met at the station, and ate like kings, it was some of the best food we ate whilst in India!! The trains are amazing with snacks, main meals, chai, coffee, cold drinks and all sorts of wierd and wonderful nik naks on sale. We also had a tranvestite join the train and come and harass Anna for 10rupees, he was really agressive. They go up to the Indian men and try to embarass and shame them into giving them money, sadly this usually works (but not on us!)

After hearing horror stories about Mumbai were glad to say none of them are true, we thought Mumbai was beautiful and clean with lovely recognisable architecture and an exciting buzz. It was evident it was and international and sophisticated city (we could tell that from the price of beer if nothing else). We visited the caves on Elephanta Island and spent our last night as bollywood stars! We were recruited by a western talent scout to be extras in a Bollywood film, we were picked up at 5pm, drove for 3hrs through horrendous traffic which made Anna sick and unable to work (she spent the night on the back seat of the car and was a prime target for lots of mosquito's!) Meanwhile Heidi boogied away with the other extras in a party scene in a Hindu film called 'Careful my dear'. After the slightly traumatic experience we got a few hours kip and borded a train to the north.

Our first stop was Udaipur in Rajasthan. Home of James Bond Octopussy, a beautiful mountain city surrounding the lake. We visited Monsoon Palace in the Sajjan Garh wildlife sactuary which was also one of the locations where James Bond was filmed. The palace was set on top of a distant mountain range, we watched a beautiful sunset, with panoramic views of Udaipur. We decided to treat ourselves to dinner at a Boutique hotel and had wine and a delicious meal of chicken and goat next to a pool on a roof top with views of the Lake Palace! We felt very extravagant and decided to return the following day to use the pool! We both got a henna and some new clothes to restyle ourselves as proper travellers!!
Next on the agenda was Jaisalmer. We booked what we thought was to be a luxury sleeper coach, but really our tiny double booth served only as a hard trampoline for the full 8hours of our journey, our bodies lifted several inches into mid air many times - Im sure you can appreciate how bumpy the Indian roads are! After a night of torture that we thought would never end, we finally arrived in the desert town, home of the golden sandstone fort and camel safari's. We booked a 2day safari, setting off at 7:30am we drove 50km into the Great Thar Desert. Our camels were called Cola and Johnny, Heidi's camel was hilarious with a wonky face and a bad temper! After a few hours trekking we stopped for lunch, our two guides Karim and Gagan cooked us lunch of magic chips, onion pakora, chappati's and spiced vegetables - very delicious, and eated in desert style with our hands. A further few hours and we were in the sand dunes right next to the Pakistan border. The sight of the dunes was amazing and it was very surreal to think we were actually in a real desert! We set up camp for the night exploring the dunes and sleeping under a million stars, it was the most beautiful sight and not one we will ever forget.
Camels are a very bumpy ride, and the experienc wouldn't have been complete without the spitting and farting for good measure!

Having spent so much time in the south we hadn't left ourselves long for the north so we had to scarper quickly to Delhi and Agra before our departure. Delhi was a shocker, having thought we'd seen all India had to offer we arrived and were taken aback by the rubbish and sight of people using the train tracks as public loo's right before our eyes. Delhi was bigger, dirtier, smellier and far busier than anywhere else (almost more than everywhere else put together!) and we were pretty glad we didn't have much time there. A short stint in Agra also gave us time for the Taj Mahal, this is truely a beautiful monument and we felt our India trip was strangely complete after seeing it. It really doesn't disappoint and is exquisite in the attention to detail in the carving of the marble and design of precious stones used for detail.

So to sum up!...India was everything we were and weren't expecting, the people are beautiful honest friendly and always helpful and once you get over the amount of rubbish every sight you see is full of amazing colour and vibrancy... Anything can happen and it always works out, (that is the beauty of travelling) and it did many times...

India...we'll be back! xx