Jill and Bow's Travels

Sri Lanka Pics!

Well our 'honeymoon-like' tour of Sri Lanka is finished and we have no regrets. We couldn't wipe the smiles off of our faces for the entire trip!

Colombo is well known for it's inexpensive shopping, Odel's, Arena and House of Fashion. We hit them all and it was a fantastic experience. These pics are from a temple we came across in Colombo, but we didn't see many (we are kind of 'templed out').

The Ceylon Continental, the first of our luxury hotels and were we ever in heaven! Nice big room, ordered room service and a beautiful pool overlooking the ocean, what more could backpackers ask for? haha!

Sigriya Rock... what an amazing place. A king built this amazing fortress/palace way back in the 5th century and it still exists today, though there has been much decline it is still unbelievable to visit! He also had a harem of 500 women and he had each and everyone painted on the rock face on the way up to the top... but unfortunately only 18 or so still exist today (one of the existing portraits is included below).

The next set of pics are of the ancient city of Pollonaruwa. We found it very similar in ways to Angkor but not as exquisite. Judge for yourselves... but it's still beautiful in its own right.

Hotel Giritale, our next hotel, was just as amazing... look at those views, sunsets and the pool! Sri Lanka is definitely treating us right! The band was actually nice enough to come over and serenade us as we ate! I felt like climbing under the table, but we had fun with it!

On our way to Kandy we stopped at the Dambulla Rock/Cave temple and it was such a unique place. Amazing sculptures of Buddha's and paintings all over the caves in the side of the rock! We really enjoyed this little side trip.

In Kandy we saw another temple that was quite interesting actually, and then saw a cultural dance program.

We also went to the elephant orphanage in Pinnewala, just an hours drive from Kandy. Did we ever enjoy this experience. We saw the elephants working, getting fed and bathing!! Very entertaining.

The Royal Botanical Gardens in Kandy was also nice. Here are some pics of the beautiful flowers, colourful trees and giant bamboo. The last pic is of one of the many couples who were trying to seek privacy all throughout the gardens. There were couples everywhere so we thought we tried and get a candid shot of at least one of them! haha

Here are some close ups of the tea plantation and then some of the countryside. As you can see it is very lush and has many terraced rice fields and tea plantations up in the hills around Nuwara Eliya. What a scenic drive, though many hairpin turns up and down the mountains.

The beach in Hikkaduwa, another beautiful view!

Some unique characters along the way...

Heavenly Sri Lanka

We've just spent nine days on a relaxing holiday in Sri Lanka. This tropical island has it all - elephants, ancient cities, temples, beaches, tea plantations, spice gardens, friendly people, and beautiful scenery.

We had heard so much about Sri Lanka (Ceylon) from Jay and Fiona and other people we've met along our travels. Everyone had raved about it and for good reasons. It is truly a perfect spot for an all-in-one holiday.

We had booked a driver and hotel package through a company we found over the Internet called Exotic Tours. They promoted luxury vacations at budget prices, so we had assumed that we would have a driver and stay at guesthouses like we did in India. We were so wrong. They had booked us into beautiful hotels, all with pools in great locations in Sri Lanka. We were completely shocked when we arrived at the Ceylon Continental Hotel in Colombo on our first night, we were practically jumping on the bed. It was like staying at the Westin Hotel, which is a big step up for backpackers like us. All of a sudden we felt like our tour of Sri Lanka changed from budget travellers to honeymooners.

They had organized our tour in in four sections - city sights in Colombo, ancient cities, hill country, and then the beaches. We spent some time in Colombo checking out the city, enjoying the hotel pool, and shopping. Anyone who has been to Colombo will probably mention Odel's since it's a famous spot for westerners to do great shopping at local prices. They also had a gelato shop, which was heavenly for us since we hadn't had any delicious ice cream in months.

After a day in the city, we were dying to get going to see the interior areas, which really interested us most. Our first day out of the city, we went to Sigirya Rock, which is a massive rock fortress rising out of the flat land. We climbed it to check out the ruined royal palace on top that was built in the 5th century. At one point, there were over 500 paintings of women (frescos) all over the rock, which were supposed to be of the king's harem. Now there are only eight left for visitors to look at.

That night we stayed at a hotel that overlooked lake Giritale, which they called a tank, meaning that it was man made. From the balcony of the hotel, we watched the sunset as herds of elephants walked along the far lake shore. We could hardly believe what we were seeing - it was incredible!

The next day we went to a place called Polonnaruwa, which was an ancient city built in the 11th century. At that time it was the capital of Sri Lanka. We spent a few hours with a guide exploring the ruins of palaces, temples, universities, and other ruined buildings. Our favourite sight there was a huge stone reclining buddha.

After the ancient city tour, we made our way towards Kandy, which is a very popular area in Sri Lanka. On our way there we stopped in the morning at a place called the Dambulla Rock Cave Temple. We climbed many stairs to find a long narrow white temple built into the side of a huge rock. When we went inside, there were about five different caves gently lit up so we could see many buddha statues and colourful paintings all over the walls. This temple dated back to the 2nd century.

We carried on making our way through the scenic and lush countryside towards Kandy. We had one more stop along the way and it was at a spice garden. They took us around their garden of spices and then gave us an herbal face, back and neck massage all to entice us to buy their products. The massage was wonderful, especially after the Indian massage experience. I now get a little bit nervous when hear or see the word "massage". I think I'm over that now!

When we got to Kandy, our driver took us to the main temple in town, which was in the royal palace. In Sri Lanka about 76% of people are buddhist, 10% are hindu, 7% catholic, and 7% are muslim. We would often see the temples, churches, and mosques all in the same block of town, as was the case at this palace. There was a bit of an eerie feeling as we went in because in 1998 they had a suicide bomber attack there, killing 25 people. We had to go through two security checks before getting in.

While in Kandy, we also went to the elephant orphanage in Pinawella, where we watched about 50 elephants roaming around, then being fed. We later headed down to the river to watch them all come running down the road to get into the water to get cooled off. Watching them play around in the water was one of the highlights of our trip.

Our driver also took us to the botanical gardens, which was obviously "the" place to go to make out. We couldn't believe it, every tree stump, pathway, or somewhat hidden spot was taken by a couple cuddling or kissing. There must have been at least 200 couples there all making out on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Our last sight in Kandy was to see the cultural dance show, which was a mixture of dancing, drums, flips, and then fire walking.

From there, we headed up further into the hills towards Nuwara Eliya. The entire drive up was winding hills in tea plantation country. Green shrubs of tea plants everywhere you looked - a beautiful sight. We did stop along the way to see how tea is processed and had a hot cup before carrying on.

Our last few days were spent on the coast at Hikkaduwa beach. It was nice to relax on the palm tree lined beach and to swim in the Indian Ocean, but we both agreed that we much preferred the lush land and sights of the interor.

The exciting news from our time in Sri Lanka was something that happened at home. Paul and Becky had a little baby girl, Emma Lucy Morin, on March 23rd. We were so thrilled to hear this great news. We've seen many pictures of her and she is truly precious. We will be looking forward to meeting her when we head home on May 25th.

We are now in Kathmandu, Nepal. It's a wonderful spot. Many travellers are busy scurring around to get gear and permits to start trekking. The streets are filled with shops, internet cafes, bars, and restaurants. We had a good dose of western food cravings fulfilled here, which is always a treat. We had an amazing view of the himalayas as we flew in; however, the landing was a bit too bumpy for my liking. With all of the turbulence and wind coming off the mountain range it felt like the whole plane was totally out of control. I'm not looking forward to the flight out.

We're heading off tomorrow to start trekking the Annapurna circuit. It should take somewhere between 16-20 days. We won't be online until we're done. We'll be sure to email home when we get back.

Until then,
Jill

India pics continued...

Here are the pics from Agra and Varanasi! From the Taj Mahal to our experiences along the Ganges!

The only reason most people visit Agra is to see the infamous "Taj Mahal". It is breath taking and you will see how it changes colour in the different pics.

Here are a couple of shots where the locals either wanted us to take a pic of just them or if they wanted us to be in it. Apparently though, they don't do this for enjoyment, as you can tell by their own facial expressions!

Other sights around Agra. The red fort, a mosque, marble works factory and how the 'truckers' take pride in their vehicles! It's unbelievable how most trucks are all painted like this or decorated.

Our train experience! On the way we both had our own bunk, but on the way back we had to share the same amount of space. We weren't as comfortable but as you can see from the last pic, we were better off than most (sorry it's sideways, but you can see the people all lying in the aisles!).

Varanasi, what a city... Our boat trip down the Ganges will never be forgotten! We saw the sun rise and then slowly but surely the locals made it down to the ghats to either pay tribute to family members who have passed away, bathe, wash their clothes, fish... all in the same body of water! In the last pic you can see how by 7:30 the riverside has come alive. (probably not the best way of phrasing that... oops)

The streets of Varanasi. Like Delhi, you can pretty much see just about anything... speedbumps are much bigger though! (cows, haha)

Everything Is Possible In India

In South East Asia, all of the locals say "Same Same, But Different", here the saying is "Everything Is Possible In India" - and its true.

We ended our two week trip with our guide, Balwant, in Agra to see the famous Taj Mahal. It was built in 1631 by Shah Jahan to house the tomb of his second wife who died during childbirth. It took 20 years to complete and over 20,000 people worked on it. It was built in white marble with carved flowers filled with semi-precious stones. It is such a work of prefection that when it was finished some of the workers had their hands and thumbs amputated so it couldn't be replicated.

As we approached the Taj area, we had to jump on a battery operated bus because they recently banned all motor vehicles within a 4km area of the Taj to try to preserve it from polution.

As we approached the entrance, we couldn't actually see the Taj. We paid the $25 entrance fee, went through security and then were in the grounds. We walked through some gardens, then into another dark building with more security, then through a doorway and there it was - the most beautiful building in front of you that you could ever imagine seeing. I guess we had both anticipated it to look just like the millions of photos that we have seen over our life time. There is no way anyone could describe just how beautiful it really is. It does literally take your breath away for a moment when you first see it.

There were tourists absolutely everywhere you looked, but that didn't seem to take away from its beauty. We spent the next couple of hours taking way too many pictures and enjoying the different stages of the sunset all around the grounds.

Once again, we had more pictures taken with locals. At one point, Bow had offered to take a picture of a family with the Taj in the background. Then all of a sudden two locals asked me if they could get a picture with me. They took one and as I looked around there's Bow holding onto the family's baby and they are waving me over to take a picture of both of us with their children. After that, the father wants his own photo taken with us. Although we thought it was quite unique, we realized that we were basically doing the same thing taking pictures of women and men in Rajasthan in their bright coloured clothes.

From Agra we travelled on the overnight train to Varanasi. Varanasi is one of the oldest and holiest cities in India. We had heard so many things about it from friends, other travellers, and our guide book. It's along the sacred Ganges river. It's famous for its locals bathing on the ghats (steps leading to the river), pilgrims coming to wash away their sins, and people bringing their loved ones to cremate before spreading their ashes into the river.

Our first experience with Varanasi was with the rickshaw drivers. We had heard that Varanasi is the number one place in India for hounding and people taking advantage of travellers. The second we got off the train, people were on us to take their rickshaw to a hotel. We decided to walk because the place we wanted to go to looked quite close in our guide. It was so difficult to try to convince rickshaw drivers that we actually wanted to walk. One guy followed us for about 15 minutes after we told him at least 10 times that we didn't need a drive. Then finally I heard Bow say to him in a very serious voice "please leave us alone, we're going to walk". As we walked on, we would look back and he was still following us, but a bit further behind and when we would look, he would stop or duck in somewhere. We giggled to ourselves. We had to ask for directions about five mintues later and then he approached us one last time. At this point he said 20 rupees (60 cents) instead of 40 rupees. Then I heard Bow say "at this point, after telling you so many times that we want to walk, you couldn't pay me to get in your rickshaw". He then said "5 rupees, 2 rupees, free!". We walked on and giggled again to ourselves. We finally arrived at our hotel by foot.

We've spent a few days here. The highlight of our first day was the Indian massage - if you could call such a massage a highlight. We had heard about these massages from Bob and Susanne who we had met in Cambodia. They said that it was more of an experience than relaxation, so we were a bit prepped for what to expect. I was booked in for 2:30pm and Bow was going at 4pm.

I went in first and stripped down to my undies. The woman quickly looked at me and pointed for me to take off my undies, ring and watch. So I did, but then I looked over at the massage table and there wasn't any sort of sheet or towel for privacy as we're so used to when we get a massage. Not only that, but the door was wide open and there were two other women having their feet massaged in the next room who could definitely see part of me when I was on the table. Just as I got on the table, another western woman came in looking for her clothes. I kept saying to myself "it's all about the experience". I lay on my stomach and before I knew it, my entire backside was being slapped and massaged with mass amounts of oil. She had no qualms about oiling every orifice of my body. All the while, the door was still open and her assistant kept coming in and out. Just when I thought she was finished with the oil, she put on another entire coat of Ayurvedic hot oils.

Then it was time to turn over. Before I could even think about how nice it would have been to have had a sheet or towel, I was completely oiled up on my front. I couldn't help but laugh when she was massaging my chest like she was cleaning clothes on a washboard. Then all of a sudden I looked up and I could have sworn that the little black box thingy with a red light on it looked like some kind of camera. Then I had thoughts of me being seen in real time on a web site, www.MyFirstIndianMassage.com and then I really couldn't hold in the laughter.

The massage also included a head and face massage. When I got up to leave, I almost slipped on the floor because my feet were so full of oil. I looked in the mirror as I was leaving and my oiled hair stood totally on end and looked like my girlfriends had just crimped and teased it for a fun night out. The massage was by no means relaxing, but was 100% an experience.

The funniest part of it all was that as I was heading back up to the room to shower the oil away, Bow was sitting waiting for his turn. He asked how it was but I was beside the woman who massaged me so I couldn't give him a true heads up. His experience wasn't as crazy as mine since the man massaging him didn't make him take off everything. We had many laughs talking about it afterwards.

Yesterday we got up at 5:30am to head down to the ghats to take a sunrise boat ride to see the local washing ritual, the pilgrims doing puja, and to get a glimpse of the cremation ceremonies. Bow and I had our own boat with a guide. It seemed a bit intrusive to be watching all of these intimate things - washing, praying, and people mourinng - but that is the western view, the locals don't seem to mind it at all. The river was filled with tourist boats.

The thought of washing, drinking, and brushing your teeth in the same water where people were having their ashes spread and dead bodies sank was inconceiveable to us. This is what we watched. It was so foreign but so fascinating at the same time.

Later on in the afternoon, we took a rickshaw down to the burning ghat where the open cremations took place. We had seen a bit of it from the boat, but we didn't really know much about the whole process and thought that we would like to learn about it since we were here. We weren't too comfortable with the whole idea, but went down anyways. There weren't many tourists around and basically when we got there a local approached us and told us where it was appropriate for us to stand. We met another couple from Australia who we stood with to watch and we exchanged what little information we knew about the process with one another.

It was a large area with around 10 cremation fires going on at the same time. There was wood neatly piled for the families to buy before the cremation. When it was a family's turn to cremate their loved one, they would first dip the wrapped body in the Ganges and then they would be cremated. At the end, their ashes would be spread in the water.

A local approached Bow and I as we were watching and said "cremation is education" and then spent the next 40 minutes explaining the entire process of the ceremony, including how this all came about in Hinduism. It was really interesting to learn all of the details. Not everyone can be cremated. Children under 12, pregnant women, lepers, holy men, and animals aren't able to. Instead their wrapped bodies are tied to cement and are sunk in the bottom of the Ganges. Often the bodies can surface.

Everyone in India wants to come to Varanassi when they die to be spread in the Ganges. It therefore can be quite expensive to get there depending on the cost of flight, train, or car. Some people then can only afford to be cremated at home and then have their ashes spread at some point in Varanassi. The man told us that 100 people are usually cremated at the burning ghat per day. The wood is 150-380 rupee ($5-$13) per kilo and you need 250 kilos to be cremated. It used to be quite common that widows would jump onto the burning fire (after a little opium) when their husbands were being cremated because they were seen as outcasts to society and would never be able to afford such a ceremony. This doesn't happen anymore; however, widows are still seen as unlucky and often come to Varanasi waiting to die. The guy asked us if we could give one of the widows a donation for a proper cremation ceremony because she had no family to pay for her. We gave one of the widows some rupees and then later realized that it would be one of the strangest donations we will ever have to make. Varanasi was a real eye opening experience. There is no doubt that we will never forget this place.

Tonight we take the overnight train back to Delhi. We leave on Tuesday for Sri Lanka for nine days before heading to Nepal to go trekking in the Annapurna region for almost a month.

India pics.

We had so much fun in Rajasthan that we can't believe our time is already over. But as you will see, we took full advantage of the time we did have!

Ever wonder how people get around in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh... well, here are some pics that will hopefully answer your queries! The streets of Dhaka!

Sharing a cab with Raaj and Bholan.

Raaj and Bholan's families!

Our trip to the cinema where we saw our first Bollywood movie and came across the band, as well as our trip to the Sikh temple! The last pic. shows a little boy who was lying on top of this 30 foot pole and spinning around to the beat of his father's drum.

Our day around Delhi, and yes there are cows all over the road! We saw a nice Hindu temple, a snake charmer, another Sikh temple, India gate, the Lotus temple, Qujt Minar and then our visit with Shweta!

On our way to Mandawa, our driver Balwant! We saw another Hindu temple and then the beautiful Havelli's in the village. Jill fraternizing with the locals in the last pic.

On the outskirts of Bikaner we stopped at a cenotaph, the rat temple (where they actually worship the rats, yuck) and then inside the fort. As well, we visited a camel research centre. You can see that one of the camels has designs shaved into it's hair, this is done for the camel fair.

In Jaisalmer we stopped at another cenotaph just before sunset, hence the wonderful colours hitting the sand stone monuments. We also took a boat tour around the natural lake that has many unique buildings surrounding it. What a beautiful picture of the fort in the background! The rest of the pics are just intertesting shots we took inside the fort and of the people. The one guy with his arms out, he is holding his mustache. If you look close enough you will be able to see it.

On the way to Jodhpur, we stopped to see another fort along the way and this is the garden where Jill and I enjoyed our 'free' cup of tea. Then there was a chilli market along the side of the road as you can see, yes those are all red chilli's that are spilling out of the back of the tractor. The rest of the pics are of the fort and inside the fort. Now do you see why Jodhpur is also called the 'blue city'? That is one of the many young lads that got a pic with Jill, and then outside of Jodhpur we visited a little village where we saw some people weaving and doing pottery.

Ranakpur was home to the most beautiful Jain temple in all of India! It's magnificent! There are over 160 columns in the temple and no two are the same.

Udaipur, aka the 'lake city'. The first pic is the beautiful hotel totally surrounded by water where the James Bond film, "Octopussy" was filmed. Those are some of the Ghats where people come down to bathe and wash their clothes, as well as some other interesting buildings that border the lake. Jill and I also ate our dinner overlooking the hotel watching the sunset, and the last pic is the city palace museum.

On our way to Pushkar we stopped off at some temples that contained the 'Karma Sutra', or erotic carvings. Then we had our mishap with the car as you can see Balwant and the other guy pondering what is wrong. We watched the sunset with the rest of the town's population as soon as we entered Pushkar.

In Jaipur we saw the tiger fort, the Hawa Mahal and the Raj Mandir, the gorgeous cinema where we saw the bollywood movie 'Khakee'. The bottom three pictures are at the Amber Fort, where we rode elephants up to it. These were the same elephants that we saw at the elephant festival the day before, that's why they are all painted and decorated!

The Elephant Festival. We had such an unbelievable experience! You can see the many decorated and painted elephants, camels and horses, as well as all of the people in their festival dress. Everyone was dancing and playing instruments. Yes that is an elephant painting, and below that you can see the 'trunk to trunk' race, the game of polo and the tug of war! What a great day!

The celebration of Holi (colour festival). The first picture is one of the many vendors selling the colour powder and the next one is the result of what it looks like when it gets plastered on you, as you can see from our multi-coloured faces. Apparently it turned out that Balwant, our driver, was quite the dancer! It must have been his Punjab upbringing!

Sights along the highway...

The people of Rajasthan showing their many colours!

Rajasthan Tour

So far so good! We have been all over Delhi, Mandawa, Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Ranakpur, Udaipur, Pushkar and now Jaipur. Our 14 day tour is about to come to an end, but not before we see the Taj Mahal in Agra!

Alright, where shall I start? After leaving Raaj and his family we headed down to the Praharganj area and found a guesthouse, Anoop Hotel. As Jill mentioned we booked our driver with the travel company downstairs in the hotel and then also booked a tour around Delhi for the next day. This was a good idea for two reasons, one, we would see most of the highlights of Delhi and two, we would get a day with our driver before heading off on 14 day tour of Rajasthan together.

The day around Delhi turned out very well on both accounts. We saw many temples, both Hindu and Sikh, Qujt Minar tower, India Gate, the Lotus Temple (Bahai) and then visited with Shweta, a friend of Tati's who Jill met in Canada last year. We met her at her office, which is where Tati worked for three months last year. Shweta was glowing in her last month of pregnancy. We tried to get the name out of her but she told us that they don’t actually choose a name before the birth date. She will receive a letter based on the date of the Hindu calendar and will have to choose a name starting with that letter. We had a lot of fun meeting up with Shweta – she’s great to talk with and has an extremely contagious laugh.

We were excited to get started on our Rajasthan tour so we told Balwant, our driver, to pick us up at nine! Mandawa was our first stop. It was this little village off the beaten track that is known for its 'havelis'. These are huge, old mansions with colourful painted murals on the walls both inside and outside wall. Very rich families lived in havelis. Balwant took us to see a few of them around town. He wanted to guide us around because he said the kids were very clever, meaning they would ask us for pens, gum, shampoo or rupees. The minute children would approach us and ask us the intro question “where are you from?”, he would quickly jump in and say “Alfganistan”. They would giggle and usually leave us alone.

Our next stop was Bikaner, which was the beginning of our 'Fort Tour'. This fort, Junagarh, was quite impressive with its 986m-long wall. We were lucky we had a great guide and Balwant also joined us for his first time touring the fort. Considering that he has been driving all over Rajasthan for over five years, he seemed to be doing a lot of firsts on our trip. We were very happy with Balwant. He would take us out of the way to see interesting things, bought us fruit or local goodies along the way and answered all of our many, many questions during our drives. Our guesthouse was quite nice in Bikaner. While there we ran into an Israeli couple that we met in Delhi just before we left for Rajasthan. They are doing a 31-day tour but had mirrored our tour for most of our time. We kept running into them because our driver and their driver work for the same company so they always use the same guesthouses.

Jaisalmer, also known as the 'Golden City' because it borders the desert, was a beautiful little city. We stayed at another 'out of the way, family' guesthouse, which was quiet but had an excellent view of the fort. This fort was remarkable to look at. Honestly, it looked like a huge sand castle that overlooked the city of Jaisalmer, quite stunning! Five thousand people still live inside the fort and there are many little streets with many shops selling textiles and silver with everything in between. It was very fascinating to walk around amongst the locals, as well as with many other tourists. We tried our best at bargaining with some merchants but they seemed to be much more difficult to barter with than those we have already experienced along our travels. Balwant told us that Jaipur is the place to buy most things because most of these other cities that we are visiting, their prices are really blown up for the tourist trade.

This was the first place we stayed for two nights and most tourists that come to Jaisalmer go on camel safaris. We didn't go for the simple reason that we had already done one in the Sahara in Morocco, plus we wanted a day to relax around the city. We spent the day seeing another haveli and then most of the day enjoying the narrow streets in the fort.

Our next major stop was Jodhpur. On the way there we stopped at a little place called Pokran, and saw another fort where the steep entry fee included a free cup of Indian chai tea. Jilly and I took advantage of this considering the garden where we drank our tea was the best part of the fort. Jodhpur is known as the blue city since most of the buildings in the old city are painted bright blue, which made for a great sight from the fort.

We arrived in the late afternoon so we had time to enjoy the last bit of the sunset as we walked around the Royal Palace Hotel – once the royal palace, now a hotel. From there we went down to the clock tower and night market! Craziness! What an eye opening experience this was. This made Delhi seem slow and quiet. It was so fantastic that we had to return the next evening for some more sensory overload. The streets were jammed packed with people, cows, pigs, market stands, tuk tuks, rickshaws, cars, you name it basically. Many people would approach us with the standard questions “where are you from?”, “what is your name?”, “are you married?”, “how old are you?”, and even sometimes “are you muslims or Christians?”. Most people were just curious and genuinely wanted to know and then there were a few that wanted to sell you something. The second night down there we must have had over 30 people approach us altogether.

The highlight of Jodhpur was the fort. It was set up on a rock ledge in the middle of the city overlooking the bright buildings. It was very well set up for tourists with an audio tour to guide you through and tell you the many stories of the fort and palace. There were many buskers in the fort to play us music and show us traditional Rajasthani dances.

One of the funniest thing that happened there and continued to happen was that young Indian boys would approach us and want their picture taken with Jilly. At one point, I was in the middle of taking her picture when two guys asked to take their picture with her. They each had their turn. The first guy got close to her and just as his friend took the picture, he leaned over to kiss her cheek. Very funny!

From Jodhpur, we continued onto Ranakpur. This was the most scenic drive. There were many rolling hills and little mountains along the horizon, lots of stonewalls like in Ireland and many fields of wheat with amazing ways of irrigating their crops. They would have two oxen hooked up to this pulley contraption that allowed this string of pails to pick up water from the well. The oxes would walk in a circle while these pails would scoop up water in the well and then raised up and poured into a trough where the water would run all along the irrigation that was set up. Other than four guesthouses (no stores or other restaurants), the main attraction to Rankpur was the incredible Jain temple. It was nice to stay at a place completely out of the hustle and bustle of a city or town. We also met a young couple from England that we talked, ate and played cards with for about six hours. It was lots of fun!

The Jain temple was phenomenal! It contained something like 1200 pillars and each with its own unique carving patterns. Even a few Karma Sutra carvings mixed in with everything. These sexual carvings were often incorporated somehow into temples to educate people about sex.

While at the temple, we met a cinematographer from England who had just finished filming the final scene with Reese Witherspoon’s in the upcoming movie, Vanity Fair, at the Jodhpur fort. We missed it by a couple of days, too bad.

Our next stop was Udaipur, which is also known as the 'Lake City'. It has a lot of water throughout the city so it is also called 'Venice of the East'. There is actually a very expensive hotel right in the middle of Lake Pichola where the James Bond movie, Octopussy was filmed. We did a boat tour around this lake and then ate a wonderful dinner overlooking the hotel while watching the sunset. Very romantic I must say! We also toured the city palace museum. It was quite an amazing building but Jodhpur's fort is still the place that stands out. We didn't spend much time in Udaipur because we realized that 'Holi' was fast approaching and we wanted to be in Jaipur for that celebration. Holi is the annual festival in which all of India celebrates the end of winter. March 6th was Holi, but on March 7th they also have the colour festival, where everyone gets powdered colours to throw and rub on one another. Most of the locals like to get drunk and dance in the streets and it can get quite dangerous for tourists, so we were told that we wouldn’t be driving anywhere on the 7th. Therefore, we left Udaipur after one night, and made our way to Jaipur, but first we spent one night in Pushkar, to break up the driving.

On the way to Pushkar we ran into some minor technical difficulties... our car got very sick and was affecting the steering. Not good! Our driver kept trying to reassure us that there was nothing wrong, yet we drove at 50 - 60 km for the next two hours. We finally came across a little mechanic along the side of the highway in this little village and he figured out what was wrong. Jilly and I were relieved to say the least, considering that this road we were on was the most stressful all trip. Many trucks and buses were flying with no care in the world about what was in front of them. Driving in India is definitely not something someone with a weak heart should experience! Not to mention the obstacle course of many animals and broken down vehicles that you come across. It's wild!

While the car was being fixed Jilly and I amused ourselves with taking photos of the local children. We are still not sure if they have ever had 'tourists' stop in their little village before because it was the only place where the kids didn't ask us for anything. We had a fantastic hour watching them pose for us and giggle when we showed them their pictures on the digital camera.

Pushkar was a very quaint little town, which had a lake in the middle where everyone went to watch the sunset along the many ghats that are on the side of the lake. Ghats are steps leading into the water where the locals go to wash themselves and their clothing. We arrived just in time to see the sunset, have dinner and then tour the streets to see what the local merchants were selling. We ended up buying some more books to read along the way before retiring for the evening.

Jaipur is the capital city of Rajasthan and also known as the 'Pink City'. Balwant told us as we were arriving that there would be an elephant festival on the evening we got there and that was all that we could think about. We were so excited! Before the festival began we saw some other 'tourist sites' and also bought tickets for following night’s Bollywood movie at the famous 'Raj Mandir' cinema, which looked more like an old style opera house.

That night we went to the elephant festival. When we walked into the stadium at the festival we quickly decided to walk down with the other tourists onto the grounds where the elephants were waiting to come out. It didn't take us too long to realize that this was our best decision we could have made. There we were amongst all of these beautifully painted and well dressed elephants, camels, and horses. The locals were in their full festival costumes dancing and playing instruments - it was unbelievable! We were snapping photos like madmen. Another surreal experience!

The festival involved an entrance parade of over 50 elephants along with the other animals, marching bands, and dancers. The rest of the festival included a 150 metre race, a elephant polo match and then had a tug of war with an elephant versus the tourists. We were so lucky to be able to be in Jaipur on this day, we couldn't have planned it any better!

The next morning Jill and I woke up to Balwant banging on our door. He wanted us to come out and celebrate Holi with he and his fellow drivers, other tourists and our guesthouse staff. As soon as we put on our clothes it took two seconds before Balwant had put green dye on our faces. Once we stepped out of the guesthouse entrance we then had the colours of the rainbow thrown at us and rubbed on our faces. Everyone was dancing, drinking and hugging each other. What a sight to see! Even the pictures don't do it real justice but at least they will show you a little of what we experienced! During this day, no shops, restaurants, stores were opened until after 5 pm because nobody wanted to have colours all over their store or goods. We didn’t get much to eat that day with everything being closed, so when we got to the movies it didn't take us too long to inhale three boxes of popcorn, two bags of chips and three chocolate bars! Yep, we totally pigged out and enjoyed every minute of it!

Our last day in Jaipur we visited the two forts that overlooked the city. At the Amber Fort we actually had an elephant ride us up to the entrance, much better than walking! Many tourists decide to take this mode of transport up and down, so needless to say there must have been a minimum of 30 elephants that were doing this and they just happened to be a lot of the ones that were decorated up at the elephant festival. The next fort was named the Tiger Fort.

We will finish our tour with the Taj Mahal in Agra before saying goodbye to Balwant and we will then head onto Varanassi by train.

Until next time,
Bow.

I will try to upload our pictures of Rajasthan soon!

Happy Birthday Rhonda!