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

On the road from Leh to Srinagar

I have been told to use less facts and more emotion in my blog.... so lets see how this goes...!

So having met Mel, Saqib, Ryan and Jane the day before we embarked on a two day adventure through the Himalayas in their car.

An early start and we just about managed to stuff 6 adults and 2 kids luggage and all into one car... Driving in India is always an experience and much of that comes down to who is driving you as much as who is on the road with you... Saqib turned out to be a good driver, fast and likes to overtake as much as possible, but I think we all felt safe.

The landscape was stunning with desert mountains mixed with river valleys of the Indus and scattered villages.along the way.  We stopped for lunch in a village with a camp-site called swastika which does not mean the same for Indians as it does for many other people.

Saqib was keen to get to one stretch of mountain before dark as it was single track dirt road which meant if a truck was coming the other way, you had to reverse with sheer drops into ravines...nice... we were making good time when we came across a small obstruction, the had dug the road up and were placing a metal pipe into the hole, the whole thing took about half an hour... finally we made it to the mountain path and fortunately followed another car and came across no trucks!!

We arrived at our destination after a couple of stops to check our paperwork and pay some road taxes... Kashmir the land of red beards and Islam in the mountains.

The farm where we stayed was based in a rural village where the did trekking up to nearby lakes... we spent the day with them, horse riding and walking before continuing our journey onto Srinagar.

Leh, India, the roof of the world!

Leh is a major city located in the most northern state of India Kashmir and Jamul. This state borders both Pakistan and China and has been subject to many battles both for sovereignty and control.

Leh has a civil population of 70,000 people and an army population of 700,000. Geographically it is important; somebody told me that LEH stood for Life Ends Here.   Leh is situated in the Himalayas it is one of the world’s highest cities located above 3500 meters.  When we arrived at the airport I noticed a sign on the wall which was talking about altitude sickness which was possible for people above 10,000 feet, Leh is about 11,200 feet above sea level.

We got out of the airport and were met by a group of guys who were touting for business, I walked past them but Sandrine got caught in conversation with one and we ended up getting in his minivan type taxi to go to the hostel that I had booked for one night, on the way he introduced himself as Dowji, I thought he was not too dodgy but still the name was quite close. DJ was explaining that we could stay in a guest house of his or one of his cousins for 5-600 rupees a night, our hostel was costing 700 so I was interested.  When we got to our hostel he looked at it and said why did you book here, very far from anything and old and sometimes people here sometimes not… I looked at him then the place and I agreed… I said DJ show me one of your guest houses… five minutes later I was standing in a clean room with double bed and on suite bathroom with a small well-kept garden and views of mountains from the bedroom and bathroom windows, we settled on 600 rupees a night and said thanks to DJ. That’s when my headache started.

Altitude sickness does not affect everyone but is quite common none the less, for me it was a chronic migraine type headache which lasted for nearly 24 hours and kept me in bed for the same time.  In fact everyone is requested to rest for the first 24-36 hours once arriving at altitude.  One of the other guests staying in the house was a French couple they had some pills for altitude sickness, one type from France in a white box and instructions and the other type in a brown bag from a local monk.  I took the brown bag!  I took the brown balls that resembled rabbit droppings and crushed them into hot water and drunk the brew.  The taste was rather earthy but not unpleasant; however 5 minutes later I was running for the toilet and losing my stomach!  Whether or not they had any effect I have no idea but by morning I was feeling better.  Walking at altitude takes a little getting used to as there is less oxygen your body suffers.  Lili also caught a bug and was sick alongside me and then continued for several days after.  Of course we want her to get well but she is so calm when she is ill it is like having a little peace and relaxation that we normally do not get with her…

In Leh the people speak Ladachi and the most common word that you hear means hello, goodbye and thank you, this word is Jullay, what a great word it is!!  We spent the first week getting Lili better and just resting ourselves with short walks into town and early nights.  Leh is a small town mostly supported by tourism, the highlight of the week was the final day of the festival, this involved some speaking from politicians and dancing from locals dressed in traditional clothes… the clothes and dancing were great, the speeches were a little strange…

We had dinner in the house of DJ, with his sister, bother in law and nephew, Lili was looking quite weak and ill, so the boys took her and Sandrine off to the hospital, the doctor confirmed that there were plenty of people at the moment with this bug, gave us some medication and recommended to keep her hydrated with mineral salts and water, Lili refused to take her medication nor would she drink the salty water!! A couple of days later it was my turn to take her to the hospital as she still was suffering and we wanted to see the pediatrician.  I got to the hospital waited in line paid 2 rupees was given a piece of paper then stood outside the appropriate  office with 10-15 other parents, we all gave our slips of paper to a nurse, I waited 10 minutes under the curious scrutiny from all the other mothers and guess whose name they called first…mine… sometimes it helps to be a foreigner in India, I said sorry to the other parents as many were obviously in line before me, but hurried in past them no matter… I hate queuing!!  Doctor gave me a prescription for antibiotics but thought she was fine; Lili refused the medicine again…  Next day we took a day trip to Shay and a small village next to it where there was a Buddhist temple the monk gave us some medicine and asked us to return the next day which we did… Lili was almost back to normal, the monk told us not to worry she was fine… and she was… playing with the young boys who were staying at the temple and training as monks.

With Lili feeling better, we also started to enjoy Leh and enjoy the natural beauty of the place; the mountains are very dry and basically desert like. Leh is very remote and suffered from many power cuts which was fine but meant that you needed to carry a torch with you everywhere.

In Leh there was the Santi Stupa overlooking our house which is a Buddhist monument with pictures describing Buddha’s life, it also gave a great view of Leh and over to Leh temple which in its time was the highest building in the world!

 I kept asking the price of getting to Manali and how long it would take. Manali appeared to be the only way to get out of Leh before the potential of snow arrived… 16-18 hours on a minibus on a non-tarmacked road did not seem that much fun, but what were our options?

We went down to breakfast and found that the internet café that served breakfast as well was without power so we decided to venture a bit further into town and came across another place which seemed cute, we went inside sat down but were unhappy of the small of diesel from the generator so went outside and sat at one of the tables there. There were some French people talking to a German lady, they heard Sandrine talking with Lili and Prunelle in French and soon started chatting, the conversation soon went onto what everyone was doing next and how we were getting there.  They it seemed were going to Kashmir in their own car a mere journey of 13 hours on a better road than to Manali… yes!!! They invited us to j

oin them on their journey…. Thank you Saqib and Melanie…

We said goodbyes to our host family that night who we had spent several dinners with and some good time learning about the region religion and languages.  Sandrine had cooked one of the meals she had learnt in Turkey; unfortunately I think she needs a little more practice... 

Istanbul is a crazy city

So our time in the south of Turkey has come to an end.  The sleepy fishing village of Turgatries long behind us.  We said our farewells to the farm and headed to the big smoke!

We boarded an overnight coach from Turgatries to Istanbul main station and from there a second coach to Taksim Square.  All coaches in Turkey are pretty good apparently, they have movies and headphones with your own screen and can change channel. So we just chose the company with the lowest fair and were happy with our choice.  Lili was very excited running around the inside of the coach for the first 4 hours until finally she calmed down and slept around 11pm, the coach made several stops picking up more passengers and picking up fuel.  The fuel stop was very peculiar, basically a service station just for coaches and their passengers, with thousands of Turkish people running around serving tea and stretching their legs. The bathroom you had to pay for 1.5 TL, which was a surprise to me. Eventually after 13 hours on the coach and no sleep, we arrived into Istanbul bus station (6.30 am). which was pretty easy to use and we found a great cafe selling buns and drinks, surprisingly cheaply. The first we really saw of Istanbul came thereafter with our journey to Taksim Square, it was Monday morning traffic at 7.30 and it was heavy, cars, buses trucks all trying to get to work.  

India New Delhi

India!! New Delhi

We received our Indian Visas on Friday afternoon of the 20^th Sept then immediately changed our flight tickets to that evening.  Not that we disliked Istanbul but reasoned that India would be less expensive for accommodation…

We said our fairwells to Turkey after a five week spell in the country and boarded our flight to India.  We had a short stop off at Sahara airport close to Dubai, so got to see a little of the desert.  We then boarded our flight to Delhi and arrived 12.30 in the afternoon of Saturday.  After all the customs procedures, paperwork etc. we picked up our luggage and found our pre-booked airport pickup driver.  He took us directly to the Smyle Inn which is in a street which some people would consider an open sewer but many other people call the place of work and even a place to sleep.  Fortunately the Inn was clean the room basic but with all that we needed,  WIFI and cable tv on a plasma screen! India is certainly a place of contrasts.

Nearly forgot, the traffic… so coming from Istanbul where the traffic is very heavy and people drive quite aggressively I thought Delhi would be much the same, and it is, it also is very congested, more motor bikes and smaller cars than turkey, but that is where the comparison ends.  In Delhi they seems to have no notion of what lane discipline is, they just constantly change lanes, beep their horns at each other, drive down the wrong direction on bicycles into traffic, seemingly play chicken with other drivers whilst overtaking…. Pure mayhem to foreign drivers…

Our airport driver wanted a tip, but I had no change to give him, since we had just arrived, I offered him a 2€ coin, which would be a very good tip, but he did not accept it and instead walked away in a huff!!

After having dropped our bags off we decided to find something to eat and were directed to Nirvana, imagine only 2 hours after being in India and we found Nirvana already, who said it takes a life time of self-sacrifice and dedication!!   Ok so I play on words, it was just our local restaurant where we adventured into the local cuisine and where not disappointed.  We were soon talking to a young Indian name Pelota who spoke good Spanish and wanted to speak with us in Spanish.  He worked for the local tourist office where they arrange everything from Golden triangle tours, Delhi day tours, local advice etc.  Pelota was quite gentle in his approach so we spent some time with him took his recommendations from the menu and talked about local customs, gods, railways, public buses etc.  We did buy the Delhi day trip from him, which meant we had a driver and a car for the day take us to some of the attractions, cost about 9€!

Pelotas recommendations were; train travel is good, but you normally need to book 1 week in advance, as a foreigner go for the air conditioned wagons as these have security and therefore no hassles from the mafia, “his words”.  Public buses are for 50 people but 100 people will have a ticket, so you may have a seat or you may be on the roof!  Tourist buses, which of course are more expensive, have 50 seats and 50 tickets!!

Our Delhi day tour was on a Monday when everything is shut, we went to a Hindi temple to start, which was very nice, set in a nice garden which was peaceful and the first time that Lili could run around since we had arrived, 48 hours before.  We all had a blessing of some kind and red paint daubed on our foreheads. Everybody walks around barefoot.  Next we stopped at a Sikh temple we arrived at the foreigners office and where greeted by a kind gentleman who took some time to explain a little about the temple, he asked why we thought most people went to church, mosque or temple, and I replied to pray, this he told me was the first mistake that everybody made, he said the purpose of the temple or church which applied to your religion was to instruct to learn.  We went into the temple and there was a band and a singer in the middle with everybody who wanted to sitting around listening learning. We met up with the Sikh host again and he showed us the second part which was a canteen and kitchens, apparently anybody was welcome to eat and to help in the kitchens again this was all part of an educational idea.  We then stopped for lunch in the Red Onion and had some very nice food served by some very friendly waiters who all wanted to play with Lili of which she obliged.   Part of the tour we stopped at a shop, the driver instructed that we should go in and have a look around, I did, saw plenty of carpets and friendly faces saying hello sir, and promptly left the building, our driver did not look too happy but a stiff word from me meant we were soon on our way to the next tourist attraction which turned out to be some big tower which we had to pay to go inside, not being overly happy I saw another temple just up the road, spoke to one of the tour guides and he informed me the temple was open and free… We went back to our driver and instructed him we wanted to go to the temple up the round he obliged and dropped us in front of a six lane road which was a little overwhelming to cross safely, we did in the end manage to do it with the help of red lights and hands held up to drivers, they may not follow road rules but running over foreigners is not something Indian drivers want.  Across the road we also found a Buddhist temple, which had a big Buddha and views overlooking Delhi, which gave it much better impression than the ghetto we were staying in.

We have decided to go to Leh which is one of the highest villages in the world.  Having been here 24 hours, I can tell you it’s beautiful, I can also say I had altitude sickness and Lili still does, the other girls have been fine.

Bodrum Ecofarm; living the eco-dream, Turkey

Bodrum Ecofarm..

We are currently staying with Cem and his family at the Bodrum Ecofarm.  This small family run Eco farm has become our home for three weeks where we work in exchange for food and accomodation, part of the http://www.workaway.info network of hosts around the world which we will be using.

Bodrum Ecofarm is the first farm of this kind in the area, its the brainchild of Cem (pronounced Gem, he is a real Gem!!) who wanted to spend more time with his young family after spending the last 25 years as a boat captain and dive instructor around the local Aegean sea and as far afield as Thailand.  He brings a well organised approach to his business as well as an air of relaxed calm, his change from a seafaring expert to a man of the land seems to be going well.

The front gate!

The farm consists of a growing population of chickens, around 35 currently and 10 more eggs being incubated as I write; 3 Ducks, 2 Dogs, 1 Turkey and 5 Sheep.  Cem hopes that over the next months to buy more animals so that eventually they will have enough eggs to feed the house, the cafeteria and be able to sell to market. https://www.facebook.com/BodrumEcofarm

The main economic activity of the farm is serving breakfasts.  The farm can seat around 40 guests who can enjoy an organic Turkish breakfast, which consists of Tea, Cheese, lemonade  Honey, fresh bread, olives, cherry Jam, Eggs and other condiments.  Delicious! 

I made this sign which means breakfast in Turkish!

The land is situated 2 km from the beach close to the centre of  Turgutries which is about 20 minutes drive south of Bodrum on the Bodrum Peninsular.  Boasting 7000 m2 of land there are around 200 lime, mandarin and orange trees.  After many years of neglect the trees are not in optimum health but Cem believes with some TLC and personal management mixed with plenty of water he can improve their health and ultimately increase their fruit production.

Our main roles as "workawayers" have been to look after the animals by feeding them and watering, which needs to be done twice a day; helping out in the kitchen preparing and serving breakfast to the guests; weeding; building a road with stones so that guests can walk around the farm easily; gardening; painting; creating a video for advertising.  Playing with Cem´s daughters Ada and Maya.

The road that Russ built!

This cock wakes me up every morning!

I keep reminding him of his role for Christmas!!

The farm built by Cem and supported by his hard working wife Lale has been built with children in mind, there is a large play area with games, seats, Wendy house etc.  The Eco farm also has a climbing frame, slide swings etc... It means parents can enjoy their breakfast in peace and let the kids get on with it...  We are enjoying a similar feeling with Lili!!!

Kids building bricks we made and painted

Sunset at local beach!

Turkey! Land of the wolf!!

Its August 2013 we are here in Turkey, the first country outside of Europe!! Just...  Landing at Bodrum Milas airport we were met by 37ºC so pretty warm...  The girls (French) walked straight through customs no problem, me being a British passport holder had to buy a Visa 15€!!! Shocking!!

We were met by a driver to take us to our apartment which was in the direction of Bodrum, Ali Baba he said was his name, he spoke a little French and so we got in the car and conversed a little...

The apartment was on top of a hill leading down to a bay overlooking the Adriatic, great little spot  https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1103776

We had our own private beach and bar/restaurant and a beautiful bay with clear warm water to swim... perfect!!  So our driver from the airport turned out to be  our neighbour and the father of our host...  He and his wife invited us for dinner, which consisted of olives, cheese, yoghurt and bread, all a staple part of Turkish cosine.  Turkish people up till now have been super friendly and welcoming, I have spent the last week listening to Turkish courses trying to learn a little... at first listening the words are very different from any Latin based language but with a bit of perseverance i have learnt a few words and phrases and the locals really appreciate it, most speak some English but not all, in fact we have found many people speak French rather than English...

The apartment had beautiful sunsets every night accompanied by a strong wind as the sunset and the land started to cool.

After four days we are on to our next destination  Bodrum Eco Farm, where we will stay and volunteer, lets see what this new challenge and adventure holds in store for us...