Mumbai and Goa

Spider after a night on the beach of Goa!!

Whose a star?

After nearly 3 weeks in Bikaner it was time to leave... but how? Buying a train ticket was pretty difficult and involved several trips to the train station before finally getting a ticket to Mumbai.  Arriving in Mumbai we soon realised it was a big city full of modern buildings mixes with the older Indian slums, a city of contrasts for sure with the worlds most expensive house in one part of the city and one of the worlds biggest slums in the other part.

We were fortunate to stay with Sid who we had found through couch surfing his flat was situated on top of the building his family had owned, with the sea in front and the Mumbai test cricket pavilion in the back.  We were only in the city for 18 hours having a train leaving at 5am, in fact we just sat up having a drink with Sid on his roof terrace, during the day we had been able to have lunch in Leopolds and then walk around the Indian gate area.  India gate was full of Indian tourists having their photos taken by professional photographers they almost all wanted to have the girls in the picture as well especially Lili... again you get the sensation of what it must be like for celebrities in their lives, with people stopping, staring and asking for your photo... that's the life of a white tourist in India.

India Gate Mumbai

Mumbai traffic

Leopolds!

Random Indian family!

We then caught a day train to Goa, by leaving at 5 am we were on the beach by around 3pm which gave us plenty of time to find a beach hut and negotiate the best rates. We stayed on the Palolem beach for the first two nights then swapped for a house on the quieter beach of Patnem where we stayed in a compound which was home to three other families with their kids all from Israel.

I managed to rent a scooter and had fun buzzing around the roads avoiding cows and other road users.. it was great to have the freedom of the bike, so we could go to different beaches and to the market once a day to buy fresh products, Lili made friends with the fish wives at the market and did a great job of collecting free fish from many of the ladies.

Lili and the fish wives

Goa did not feel like India, it had a distinct European feel to it...   You could easily stay here, with great weather open beaches and cheap restaurants ... Party for those who wanted it or just relaxed beach life for others..

Bikaner and the Shri Ram heritage hotel.

Hotel decorated for Diwali

Its been an emotional roller-coaster the last few nights!! Sharing a dorm with people who are less than appreciative of your wife and daughter can be stressful but hey that's life suck it up and get on with it, coz round the corner is the next great surprise...

The journey from Kota bagh to our next destination Bikaner was a mixture of bus and train journeys with a stop off on the way at our friends house Rohit who hosted us in his families house in Rudrapor on our way to Haridwar where we caught a train to Bikaner. Thanks Rohit and family we had a blast!!

View of the Ganges

Rohit and family

The bus journey was again rather crazy with drivers who think they are playing play station and play chicken with oncoming traffic...  We sat on the back seats and a few times found our bums around 30 cms off the seat.. so proper roller-coaster stuff..

In Haridwar we saw the Ganges, which if I am honest was rather disappointing as it was a mere trickle.. apparently the whole place had been a flood back in June with lots of people killed.. but not the day we were there..

We arrived in Bikaner which is in the Thar desert and were met by our host Yogendra (Yogi) he took us back to our new home for the next few weeks, where we were volunteering again..  I have been mostly helping with SEO and website improvement... here one more back link for you..lol... www.hotelshriramheritage.co.nf/ 

I recently wrote this guide for his profile, which lists some of the sites of Bikaner...  I have added our 
photos of the relevant places.
Let me tell you what you can see in Bikaner:

An amazing red fort, this fort dominates the city center with its high walls which are beautifully decorated.  The fort has its own museum which you can visit to see historical artifacts and learn more about our history.

In the old town, there are many Havalis which are large houses again typically beautifully decorated with fine carvings.  There is also a spice market which dates back many centuries to when Bikaner was one of the main towns on the spice routes.  Religion is an important part of many peoples lives here and we are not short of some fine temples.

The camel research center is a great place to visit in the afternoon, you can see hundreds of camels in this place, taste camel milk and even enjoy a camel ride.

The rat temple as it is colloquially named offers a quite different experience... this temple which is around 30 km's from the Hotel is filled with rats who are well fed and encouraged to room free within the confines of the temple... You can roam around with them scurrying across your feet!!

Lallgarh Palace, is the royal residence of our royal family, still inhabited by members of the family and also part taken by a hotel and museum which is open to visitors.  The Palace was designed to similar specifications as Buckingham Palace of London England.

Diwali was held on the 3rd of November, its called the festival of lights and basically its a big night for everyone with plenty of fireworks and household parties... Every household tends to clean their house and paint it in preparation for the arrival of a goddess who likes everything neat and tidy...  Shame they don't pick up all the rubbish on the streets as well!!

Kota Bagh - Himalayian Jungle

From Kashmir we decided to travel South and East to be under the Himalayas rather then on top of them!
We drove from Srinagar to Jamu in a 4x4 Taxi, the driver said it should take around 8 hours but we had heavy traffic most of the way so it ended up being 14 hours, fortunately we had given ourselves plenty of time before our train was scheduled.  On the platform of the train we met Rohit and his family who were travelling on the same train as us, Rohit is living in New Zealand but from India originally. He made sure we were settled on the train and talked with us for some time.

The train was a 3rd class AC which meant three beds upper, middle and top on two sides of a cabin so 6 of us... really it was quite good and we all slept well, waking up the following morning feeling good and able to enjoy the rest of the journey.

We arrived on Hariwar train station and the place looked like a mess!! Fortunately we were soon in a prearranged taxi and on the way to Kota Bagh and the jungle.

We had seen monkeys on the road the day before but this was the first time that Lili had seen them properly and pretty close, we arrived at the driveway and climbed down the path through the banana trees.  We were greeted at the bottom by Arun our host and a few other volunteers.  Quickly we were aware at how beautiful the place was and how alive it was! Plenty of birds like bee eaters and others that I had never seen before.

The first night was spent having a drink with everyone which was quite fun and entertaining, largely due to Arun who is a rich old drunk crazy Indian guy, at least that's how he described himself... he was quite fun but really changed after a few beers and a bit of rum!!

The next morning I went for a walk by the river and quickly bumped into many spider webs... I remembered the scene from Lord of the rings when Frodo had problems with a big spider!! The spider here though seemed quite friendly towards humans or at least they ran away when I put my hand near them, which was comforting.

The first week we shared the house with Jimmie and Sara, Jimmie and myself both liked taking nature photos so were happy to go off on early morning walks looking for good subjects to snap! Sara is Spanish so it was nice to hear that language again after a few months..  We painted the house of Arun and cleaned his garden of weeds and in the afternoons went for walks.

The second week I met some of the local villagers and got talking to them.  JP Pants and family will remain close in our hearts as true Indian family who wanted nothing from us other than our friendship and maybe a diamond ring when his daughter gets married! But Mr Pants you are a true gentleman and scholar and a good friend and yes I will write to you!!  Easier if you join the world of the internet though!

Kota bagh village was about a 1 hour walk from the house, just as we entered the village there was a school which had lots of monkeys roaming around the grounds, we went in out of curiosity and of course the kids wanted to talk to us and take pictures etc... it was all very cool and the boys were good to chat with and have fun with.

On the final days before leaving the rice became ready to harvest, so the girls joined the other women in the fields cutting the rice and having a good banter with them as well.

After 11 nights in the jungle countless spiders of all sizes, three scorpions, hundreds of butterflies and birds and some new friends it was time for us to leave and head for Rajasthan!

Srinagar

Srinagar has been described as Venice of the East and Heaven on Earth.  It is the capital city of Kashmir.  A valley hotly disputed between kashmiries India Pakistan and China.

It is dominated by its lakes and mountain backdrops. We were furtunate to enjoy the experience of staying on one of the 1200 house boats that are home to many people on Lake Dal. Like in Venice the local transport are small boats with a single rower, here the boats are named Shikaras.

Oar boats Dal Lake

Lili and Sandrine on Shikara Dal Lake

Dal Lake is full of boats and people, but no noise, as all the boats are hand powered not a motor boat in sight.  The only sounds to be heard are the sounds of the many birds, with flocks of Black Hawks circling above and occasionally swooping down to catch fish from the lake to three different kinds of Kingfisher and herons.

Kingfisher on Dal Lake

Heron on Dal Lake

On our second day in Srinigar we had the great of pleasure of holding Lilis second birthday..  We invited the only people we knew in town and our friends Saqib, Melanie, Jeane and Rihan went and bought a chocolate birthday cake some pic nic stuff and headed to the botanical gardens.. The weather was great, the place beautiful and we had a party in the park with the kids running freely and all adults enjoying it too..

Everybody who I talked to asked me how long I had been in Kashmir and did I like it, my customary response was just a few days and yes it was very nice, they would then tend to say how it was the greatest place on earth and by the way don´t believe what they show you on TV about Kashmir. The feeling I got was that everyone was very patriotic if slightly paranoid. At the time of our visit the news said that 40 militants had crossed the border from Pakistan and were now in India and the Indian army was killing some and still chasing others...  We met two journalists working for Times of India who told us they were in town to cover the story, I expressed my belief that it all seemed rather like a show, the journalist looked straight at me and said yes, it was all a show for politics, there was never any invasion of militants...  Perhaps the Kashmir people were not so paranoid after all.  

Kashmir is Muslim dominated and the morning prayer call was followed by one hour of singing from 5 in the morning till six, which is unusual as prayer is a time of concentration, I asked my friend Saqib about this and he said he believed it was from the time that Kashmir had been mostly Hindu, once the Hindus had reverted back to being Muslim they still continued to want to be noisy as is typical in their religion so that is why there was singing in the morning... whatever the reason it was pretty strange to be woken up to a city singing every morning..

After 9 days in Kashmir it was time to leave, Danial the brother of Saqib had successfully booked us on a train from Jammu to Haldwani, it was to be our first Indian train journey.  Before we left, we took another Sikara ride and also visited a national park which is famed for its black bears and leopards, unfortunately the only ones we saw were in an enclosure for rescued animals, we did however have a close encounter with a Himalayian Viper, which is a deadly snake, our park ranger/guide removed the snake with a stick, clearing it of the road where it had been and placing it safely to the side.  

Room with a view,  black hawks were constantly around us and getting photos was easy

.

View of part of Dal Lake from mountain