Day 272 - Missing Tiger, Hidden Temple

The first thing we did after stepping off the train in Jaipur was extricate ourselves from a potentially violent encounter between a particularly persistent tout and random hot-headed Scottish bloke who we had very briefly befriended on the train (I know! A Scottish hot head! Who would have thought?).

He seemed upset that Indians were constantly trying to trick him. He seemed to believe that physical violence might provide a solution. I smiled sweetly at his (long?) suffering girlfriend, bravely told everyone involved I didn't know him that well and left.

The second thing we did was correctly identify our hotel pick-up guy. This was made particularly challenging by the existence of three other random individuals, all hell-bent on impersonating said pick-up guy. Suddenly the fact our hotel had provide us with a 'secret' code didn't seem quite so ridiculous.

We may have been in different city, but we were definitely still in India.

Vanood - the authentic, 100% genuine pick-up guy and hotel owner - scooped us up in his arms like children from a sandbox and took us upon our way. Just two kilometres later, the Hotel Krishna Palace greeted us with a four-storey smile that looked like it had stepped right out of the British Raj. My inner child clapped it's hands in joy as we were shown to our room; a marble monstrosity, stretching out as far as the eye could see, punctuated in the middle with a big four poster bed. Moments later, hot water was gushing from the shower head strong and even, steam filling the bathroom. It was bliss. The trials of the past week suddenly seemed a long way away.

Obviously, we stayed longer than planned. We took breakfasts on the lawn (wot wot), ate home-cooked curries on the roof and lazed the days away, marveling at the lack of smog. Not even being chased up the street by an opium-crazed tuk tuk driver, convinced we had agreed a price of 2,000Rps (AUD$50, or 20x the going rate) for a nearly disastrous five-minute trip from the markets, could dampen our spirits. Vanood simply smiled and bade us to our room. Within fifteen minutes the clearly-rooted individual was gone, no doubt to deliver another poppy-induced nightmare unto unsuspecting tourists.

We spent 4 nights in all in Jaipur. It's funky little dust-ball of a city with plenty to do and see, in addition to hanging around letting the accumulated stress of Mumbai and Delhi flow away. The monkey temple was as it says on the packet, with only one attack of The Usual Nonsense ("You want me to give 5,000Rps 'to Ganesh' because you tied this piece of string on my wrist?"). The Red Fort was also impressive and the visit to the Old "Pink" Market, so called because it was painted the traditional Indian celebratory colour for the visit of King George, was a very different kind of shopping trip.

Four days later, we jumped in a car and headed south-east. The promise of wild tiger spotting was not one Mrs Bell could pass over.

Ranthambore National Park is, so the brochures say, the most likely place to see wild tigers in India. Unlike many other national parks in the sub-continent, it has not been rorted by corrupt government officials working in legion with poachers. For some reason, some cultures (Chinese cultures, in particular) believe that eating bits of tiger is good for your health. Personally, I am of the opinion that tiger bits look best attached to tigers. Call me old-fashioned.

The evening safari was an enjoyable jaunt around the park in an open-backed truck. The scenery was nice. The conversation was wonderful. We talked about how amazing it would be to head north to Palm Beach one summers' day with a bunch of mates in a similar type of open-backed truck. We saw deer and elk and the occasional monkey. Mr and Mrs Tiger however, all 40-odd of them, chose not to grace us with their presence.

Next day, we decided to try our luck again. This time, an early morning safari. We enjoyed the very same scenery from the back of the very same open-backed truck. We chatted (more quietly this time) about how not-so-good it was to ride around on frosty early mornings in the previously discussed and very same open-backed truck. Again, no shortage of elks, deer, monkeys and even the odd wild boar and crocodile for good measure. The closest we got to tigers was seeing a paw print on the track.

"I don't believe a word of it", said a dejected Mrs Bell as we piled back into the car for the next stage of our trip,"I don't think there are any tigers here at all"
"What are you suggesting?," I inquired, You think they are lying about the tigers? That the poachers got them all?"
"They can bloody well have them," replied Mrs Bell, stuffing her camera back in her bag. "Stupid kitties"

Note to tigers (and other wild animals in general); you might want to sort your game out a bit. You know, make more of an effort for Mrs B in future. She's not been happy with your collective performances of late (see El Manu post). She's into you, but where is the love in return?

And so, to the final leg of our journey; Agra. This tiny little town, a few hours south of Delhi, is a quite unremarkable and charmless little shithole which I would normally rather plumb the depths of my urethra with a rusty coathanger than visit, if it weren't for one thing. The Taj Mahal.

We'd really mulled this one over. The scummy reputation of Agra (otherwise known as Toutsville) had made us decide against going more than once. However, the warnings of a hundred Indian waiters rang in our ears, "You cannot visit India and not see the Taj Mahal".

So, we mounted Operation "In-and-Out". Arriving late at night, we ducked into our hotel and slept. Then, before the sun had even had a chance to think about rising, we were en-route and on foot to (allegedly) the world's most beautiful building.

You may recall the reason we ended up going first to Jaipur, rather than Agra, was because of fog. Well, it turned out that in the week since our absence exactly SFA had changed. We wandered around in the thick pea-souper for a half hour finding a mosque, restaurant, camel stables and man with no legs crawling down the road until we finally found the western gate of the Taj Mahal.

And so entering the famed complex, we trotted up to the hallowed main gate, ready to be met with another of the most famous photos in the world, and we saw...well, do you remember what happened when we finally got to the sun gate at Machu Pichu? Yep, well this was pretty much exactly the same. Fog. Mist. Smog. Whatever you call it, it weren't the Taj, I can tell thee.

In fact, we didn't catch our first glimpse of the Taj until I nearly walked into it, from about five metres away from it

But here's the thing. Our initial disappointment began to give way to something else. As we wandered around the building, marveling at the huge slabs of porcelain marble and ornate carvings, I became slowly aware that we felt very alone. There was, as far as ours eyes could see, very little evidence of other people. As the Taj slowly appeared and disappeared in the mist, illuminated by the blood-red sunrise burning through, it felt like we had it all to ourselves.

Now, I'm not much of a temple connoisseur. I appreciate the history, splendour, opulence and scale of a good building, but I'm not the "ga-ga" type. Once you've seen one pyramid/ obelisk/ ruined Mayan city/ historical palace/ whatever, they all seem to blend in to each other.

The Taj, however, is nothing short of awe-inspiring. It is the ultimate tribute to love or, as Mrs Bell put it;

"Look at it! Why can't every husband be as generous as him?" she says, with playfully accusative tone, aimed in my direction
"Never mind that, my love. If I were you, I'd be more concerned with trying to work out what she did for him, n'est pas?" I volleyed back with interest. She must have been some woman.

The Taj really is one of those places that photos will never do justice. It's not a big as I thought it would be. Somehow though, sat grandly upon it's 5-metre high marble base, it looks enormous. Grandiouse. Ethereal. At times, I had to wonder whether it was truly of this plane of existence, or whether it was floating there ready to phase out into another dimension at a moments' notice.

And another thing they never tell you about the Taj; the acoustics in the main burial chamber are amazing. I could have sat there all day listening to the surreal cacophony being generated simply by people speaking softly within its' walls.

Tomorrow, we head back to Delhi. The day after, we will be far south, in Kerala. I can't say I have loved the north. It is a manic pace of life that doesn't appeal. However, things have improved since that first few days in the country.

Now, let's see what difference 3,000kms makes.


Photos from Jaipur, Ranthambore and Agro, I mean Agra

Day 268 - First impressions of India

Truth time; I´m struggling. I truly am.

India scared me from the start. Nonetheless, when we made the decision to alter our itinerary (sayonara wintry, budget-busting Turkey), we jumped into the idea of spending an additional ten days in the sub-continent. After all, everyone loves India. Right?

Well, so far it seems: everyone but us.

Mumbai came first. It was so stressful I wrote a haiku. It goes a little like this:

Mumbai, old Bombay
So big, scary, smelly too.
Don't poo on my head!

Craziness, that´s what Mumbai is. Traffic! Noise! Pollution! Scud taxis! Like You Have Never Seen Before. A seething human soup, bubbling away like botulism. It´s like it was designed by a kid with ADHD, a pack crayons and a serious grudge against little cartoon houses with picket fences. The curry was good though, obviously.

We went shopping. It only made matters worse. Two days later the missus and I agreed. It was time to get away. We´d been told to head up north by train. We packed up, bid goodbye to our room/cell and did as suggested.

You know how crowded it can get at rush hour in Wynyard? You know how you can sometimes have to line-up for as long as ten minutes to get a ticket? Well, buying train tickets in Mumbai makes rush hour in Wynyard look like a bloke in a field swinging a cat. 100 different windows. More options than a BMW brochure. No queuing system in sight. This is what the phrase ¨organised chaos¨ was invented for.

Onto the train we boarded. 16 hours north to Delhi. And, in all fairness, a rather enjoyable journey it was too. If there is one thing that cannot be faulted, ´tis India Rail (no. of commuters: 1.15 billion). It really does put City Rail (population; 4 million) to shame.

How was Delhi? Well, pretty much the same, only colder and even more full-on. Even more poverty everywhere. More scams than the http://www.snopes.com/ database (for non-internet geeks, the metaphor; ¨an episode of Only Fools and Horses¨ may work better). Seemingly little, if any, concept of personal space or a desire for privacy.

It was not going well. I spent my days deliberately ignoring people as they chased me along streets trying to sell me goods and services I neither needed nor wanted, dodging rogue traffic, being stared at and generally wishing people would stop treating me like a stupid, walking wallet. Then, everything got even worse.

We booked tickets to travel to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. We got up at 5:30am to get to the station. The train got canceled due to fog. We went to another station to get a later train, only to be told all trains were full for two days. We changed our plans and decided to head for Jaipur. We bought our ticket then went downtown to kill time. We bought a sim card for my mobile. We discovered the ticket guy had booked us the wrong day. We made our way back through the seething masses, peddlers, beggars and scam artists to the train station, where I then discovered the sim and credit for my phone had not been activated as promised.

To recap, at this point we were stuck in a seething mass of a city, with no place to sleep, a phone that wasn´t working, a ticket for a train leaving next day, an empty belly, no beer in sight and a rapidly declining sense of patience.

But then, something odd started to happen. The ticket guy managed to squeeze us onto the right train. A guy selling scarves in the bazaar didn´t try and rip us off, but instead proceeded to sort out my phone problems. We even managed to make the train just before it pulled out of the station, even when we thought we´d missed it. Outside the window, the sun began to show through the perpetual fog that had masked the city for two days.

I still don´t get it. All around me I see poverty, struggle, filth and the crumbling heritage of an enduring culture. I see chaos and, like surely so many before me, find myself asking how such chaos can function. ¨It has been this way for thousands of years¨, comes back the rather vaccuous response, ¨it just works¨

Yes, I understand that. I understand that India´s social system has endured for far longer than my own. However, it still doesn´t work for me as an explanation. Is the fact that it has been this way for that so long and produced this, justification for it ¨working¨?

I write this now en route to Jaipur. Rachel is sitting opposite me, mouth akimbo as she sleeps and the Indian countryside drifts gently past. We both need to get away from the madness of Indian cities. People, people everywhere, simply no space to think.

Maybe in a weeks´ time, away from the cities and into the towns, I´ll be able to write and tell you how I finally get it. How it all just clicked and I saw India for the amazingly spiritual country it really is. How I´m coming around to being a more rounded, patient and deeply grounded person who really understands what life is all about (man).

Then again, perhaps not. Perhaps I will still look out of the window and see a developing country whose economic miracle seems built upon the exploitation of people by morally-culpable corporations using low wages to achieve 15% year on year-on-year profit. Meanwhile, children eat from garbage bins metres from where the same corporates´ call centres answer our calls and wish us a good day.

I don´t know which it will be. But, hey, I guess that´s why I´m here. Right?

All the photos from picturesque Mumbai and Delhi.

Day 259 - Checking out the Nether regions

In 1946, shortly after the end of World War II, a young boy was born to a large Catholic family in the Dutch town of Nijmegen, not more than 30 kilometres from the German border. He was, by all accounts, a strong and willful child and it came as little surprise when, at the tender age of 22, he left home to make his way in the world. He took a job as a chef - the cooking tradition ran deep in this family - on board a cruise liner in the Holland-America Lines company.

He traveled the world for sometime, no doubt enjoying the pleasures of each port of call in between his long hours. One fine day, his boat docked in Sydney. Who knows what forces were at play that day, but the man decided to end his tenure and instead make his home in the Great Southern Land.

Years passed and the man married. He made a home, first in Bexley then in Illawong, and brought up two fine children; a boy and a girl.

One night, his daughter was out with friends for the night and met a boy. They liked each other and eventually married. Then, one day nine years later, they too replicated the footsteps of the man and made their choice to see the world.

That in a nutshell, is how Rachel and I ended up in a car, traveling around the worlds´ lowest country.


We set out from the ´Dam one cold frosty Monday morning. NYE was still ringing in our heads. We'd lingered in the capital for a few days further, mostly to spend some time with Rachel's family and pass a throughly enjoyable evening with Taz and Nic, as they passed through the city en route to Austria.

However, we were both determined not to fall into the trap of hanging in the capital. Most tourists rarely get out of Amsterdam, if they even manage to make it out of the red light district. However, if they did, here is what they would find out.

The Netherlands is very small. If you really wanted to, I´m guessing you could get around it in a day. We chose to take a more leisurely pace. Our week-long journey consisted of a loop, heading north out of Amsterdam via Groningen, Appeldoorn, Arnhem, Nijmegen (of course!), Maastricht, a strictly non-Dutch dinner-date in Bruges (to mark B off the alphabet dating list), then back to the ´Dam via Utrecht.

The Dutch seem fiercely proud of their country and of their history. Throughout the countryside is a definite air of preservation. Like Amsterdam, most cities seem to have developed over time with a deliberate focus on retaining their medieval nature. History seems somehow more important here than in, say, London for example, where ancient gothic cathedrals often share a street with hideous 70s shoe box towers.

It's also fairly easy to see why the Netherlands is the most densely populated country on earth, a fact that used to seem preposterous every time I heard it. As the kilometres ticked by on the open road, I was aware that the moment one small town would disappear, another would appear over the horizon in no time at all.

And what small towns there are. Picturesque little clusters of neatly-arranged, identikit homes arranged around logical town squares, with the odd antique windmill thrown in for good measure.

Logical is a good word for it. The Netherlands seems so logical. It's logical for it to be neat and tidy, so it is. It's logical for there to be good public transport, so there is. Hell, it's logical to allow people to buy whatever they want wherever they want, so they can.

Then again, logic disappears when confronted with Dutch roads. Road signage suddenly disappearing never to be seen again, cocky bikes who can do no wrong in the eyes of the law coming at you from all sides and parking costs that would make your accountant blush. Did I mention that, outside of Amsterdam, the Netherlands is not a place for tourists?

However, there are some superb places, which funnily enough I think I enjoyed all the more because of the snowy embrace they were locked in. Volendam, barely north of Amsterdam, is an amazing little fishing village, where we got to walk across a frozen bay (think Sydney Harbour-sized and frozen) to watch ice sailors speed on past. Sleen, a tiny little village that looks like it fell straight out of It's a Wonderful Life. Arnhem and it's 1000+ shoe shops. The old square in Nijmegen with pubs that look like they've been pulled forward in time from the 1500s. The living museums that are Maastricht and Bruges (yes, I know it's in Belgium. However, according to many Belgians that may be simply a matter of time). The same goes for The Netherlands' largest student town, Utrecht.

However, special mention must be saved for last. When Rachel said she wanted to take me to a Dutch amusement park, based around the theme of fairy tales, in the middle of deep winter, I was naturally a little dubious. I am so glad I went.

The Efteling, for me, sums up what it is about the Netherlands that makes it so unique. In a world of Disneyland, consumerism, the sexualisation of children, Bratz, Lindsey & Britney, Fast Food and Playstation, it is incredible this place still exists. This is not a theme park of giant rollercoasters (though there are some), adrenaline thrills and buy, buy, BUY merchandising. Instead, it's a place of f grottos and round-the-world anamatorics that look like they stepped out of Willy Wonka's factory. An ice skating rink. Cross country ski course. A fairy tale land made of toadstool houses and quaint little thatched homes. A full-sized Persian Palace straight out of Aladin. All covered in that magical white dust we call snow.

The Efteling is a place of imagination. Everyone should take their kids there and watch their eyes pop out of their heads. Even better, lend them to me and I'll take them.


All the photos Rachel took of her favourite Nether regions are here. Ooo missus.

Day 249 - New Years(h) and more in Ams(h)terdam

Look at that over there", says Iwan pointing out a reveler dressed all in orange, except for a sole, spangley, silver bow tie,¨That's typical Dutch¨

It´s a phrase Iwan has used a lot over the past few days. Again, he's right. It's amazing how such a diminutive country can claim so much that is distinctly unique. The food, the desserts, hugely popular trance DJs with egos to make a deity blush, dykes, windmills, tulips, splitting a bill, canals, wheels of cheese, that assured sense of confidence and a football team that would probably be the worlds´ best if only they could stop arguing amongst themselves.

Strangely though, Iwan had never heard of a Dutch oven. So, I explained it to him and suggested he give it a go with his wonderful girlfriend, Julia.

Rachel and I first met Iwan and Julia, in Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, many moons and a life time ago. We were like ships passing in the night, but all enjoyed each others´ company. Iwan owns a boat company in Amsterdam and Utrecht and, as most of his fleet would be out of the water during winter, he invited us to Amsterdam to be shown an oranje New Years´.

Amsterdam greeted us with the same wintry how-ya-doin' as England. It seemed the whole of Europe was locked in the same snowy embrace, though strangely the Netherlands seemed to be dealing with it somewhat better than most.

Customs was easy. Well, for me at least. Rachel, on the other hand, got a hard time from the uniformed officer for having a Dutch passport but not speaking Dutch. This was to become a recurring theme during the holiday.

"Do you speak Dutch?", says customs officer (or Dutch person who has just found out Rachel has Dutch nationality).
"No", says Rachel, knowing what's coming.
"But you have a Dutch passport?", says customs officer
"Yes", replies embarrassed-looking Rach.
"Terrible", replies unimpressed customs officer, indicating the encounter is now over.

We made our way quickly to the home of one of Rachel's old friends, Renae. Renae moved to the 'Dam seven years ago, where she met the love of her life. Her invitation to stay in her home, even whilst she headed north for New Year with her new family, was a god-send. Her spare room came equipped with a double bunk bed; and I mean a bunk bed which is a double bed. Brilliant!

We set about exploring Amsterdam, beginning with meeting Iwan not far from the central shopping district in Amsterdam, the Leidseplein. It was there my culinary education began.

"Try this", offered Mr de Ploeg that first day, handing me a length of harring (raw herring) doused in onions and pickles, "it's typical Dutch". Rachel declined, claiming (with some justification) she has been made to eat her lifetime fair share of harring already.

Foul as it may sounds, it's actually quite palatable. Kind of like a fishier, slimier version of sushi. Rachel relented and joined in, noting how much better it tasted now she was older. We both made a mental note to introduce harring to Taz and Nic they arrived a few days later (see here for Nics' classic reaction).

Amsterdam is one of those cities that is very easy to wander around. That's exactly what we did with the last two days of 2009. First with Iwan's help, then later solo. We bought things we really shouldn't have bought, ate food we really shouldn't have eaten (frites with thick mayonaisse, frikandel, croquettes and appelflop) and soaked up the ambience of one of the worlds' indisputably most beautiful cities.

Even in temperatures dipping below zero, it was impossible not to occasionally stare out the window of the latest cafe into which you have taken a hot-chocolaty refuge and think 'wow'.

So, things came to pass. Three days shopping, eating and drinking later, there we stood. Smack-bang in the middle of the dancefloor at Knalfuif, just one of the many NYE parties in Amsterdam, as the clock slowly approached midnight.

Then, as Iwan pointed out to me the many items of genuine Dutch-ness, I slowly and ominously became aware of one trait not so typically Dutch.

When it comes to parties, fancy dress in Australia tends to be more popular than Bob Hawke in an RSL. That night, it dawned on me that the same wasn't true of the Netherlands.

We had been told the theme was 'space'. We went at it with enthusiasm. We shopped for great costumes that would do us and Australia proud, in this city of 'crayshy' party-people.

However, as we stood in the middle of the packed dancefloor surrounded on all sides by fashionistas and beautiful people, we took a long hard look at ourselves. Rachel, dressed in a Virgin Galactic hostess outfit that wouldn't look out of place in a lingerie magazine. Myself dressed as Captain Kirk. You could say we felt a little out-of-place.

It's hard to look cool when you're the Star Trek geek in a nightclub. Even when you get to take the hot hostess girl home afterward.

2010. Live long and prosper.


The Amsterdam photos are here. Isn't that weird?