Kuala Lumpur

New country and new excitements! We toodled it down on an AirAsia flight down to Malaysia to meet up with Maggie and Caren. It was just too brilliant for words. In a nutshell, there was four of us in a little room (an impressive mess), Gin, a birthday cake and candle, a really big climb of a rooftop wall, eggs for breakfast, an outdoor swimming pool, lots of walking, tasty foodstuffs, a bit of shopping, several giggles, and a lovely spoon. What a hoot. I feel very sad that they have gone.

End of India

The end of India was grand. We dashed it around all the sights and treated ourselves to an ice cream on the beach (with our wages). However, the belief that we had been quite glamorous in being extras in a Bollywood film was dashed quite quickly when we went to see a different Bollywood film at the cinema. Apparently you don't have to be very pretty or glamorous to get picked up for these things :(

Glamorous Times

We had been in Mumbai about thirty seconds (I'm discounting the 2 hour sleep we had in the train station. Ladies' waiting rooms - we love you) when I realised that I liked Mumbai, and about five minutes when I realised that I loved it. The like after thirty seconds was because it was so clean. After a lot of dirt, it was exciting to things like road sweepers and a scattering of public bins. I could see road signs everywhere, and greenery. Lots of greenery. The love after five minutes was because as soon as we pitched up at our hostel we were touted to go and be extras at a Bollywood Movie. Before we had time to ask to see a business card and actually check these people were genuine (this was a mild worry ten minutes later), we quickly checked in, showered (we had been on trains for two days)and we were in the back of their AC car dashing along to the 'set'. It was ace.

First we were presented with costumes. There were some corkers. Think tacky eighties, rubbish disco-wear, add a few more sequins and clashing colours and that was it. Amy did quite well, instantly being presented with a hoe-down denim number but mine were relatively normal. That is until the final costume change. Costume change sounds so glamorous. Even more glamorous when I say we had three. I even got my hair done. I probably have to mention, however, that it looked no different in the before and after shots, and I didn't feel at all glamorous as I'd made the mis-calculation of not wearing any make-up (well, I thought that we were all but film stars and these kind of things would be taken care of for us)and had to beg one of the dancers for a 'smidge of mascara'.

Anyway, it was a disco night scene with a full on Bollywood sing-a-long and dance. We essentially had to dance and stop, and dance and stop, and dance and stop for 8 hours. Brilliant. This, however, was not the exciting bit. At about 6 o'clock the 'shoot' was over and people prepared to go back home. A select few though were chosen to stay back and film a night-scene. They offered us double the pay and the enticement of a free dinner and we said 'bring forth the next costume change'. It was at this point we started asking a few questions about the film like "what's it about?" and "where's it set?". It turned out that it was set in Chicago, in winter, and the next scene would be a nightclub queue. We were in Mumbai. It was about 35 degrees. We got handed winter coats, gloves, scarves and hats. Act cold they said. Oh dear. I can't think of many times in my life when I've sweated more. A man had to come around ever take and dab our faces with a tissue to get rid of the trickling sweat. However, it at least was quite easy to act cold as we were all so desperate to get inside the club, like you do when it's freezing. Except on this occasion we wanted the air con, rather than the heater. One poor boy was forced to wear a balaclava.

It was a super fun day. The best of it being that we got free food - lunch and dinner, and we got payed. Even with the 'double pay' it still only worked out as 12 hours for 12 pounds, but it really did seem like a fortune at the time.

Holi Day

After asking "So when is Holi Day?" to almost everyone we met in our entire time in India and always getting different and vaguer answers, the festival finally arrived. It started with a little bus trip to a local market, spotting a couple of people with colours sparsely sprinkled on a few parts of their bodies. When we arrived, however, we were faced with a full on colour fight. About twenty men were all heavily involved in splattering themselves in as many colours as possible. All of them clutched several bags of powdered dye. Our error was stopping, watching and, I think essentially, photographing. We were quickly targets. It started with a small, green smear each on the face (this is the part of the body they always went for. This then quickly became a beacon that we were fair game and an hour later we had been attacked around ten times and had most of the colours available displayed on our skin. It was hilarious. We then got a bus to another market, Anjuna. In Anjuna people were a little more professional about the whole affair. It wasn't just smearing dye on your face it was pre-mixing the dye with water and launching it with bottles and water guns. We walked around 100 yards from the bus stop to the market, it took about an hour, and we literally didn't have a space left on our clothes that hadn't been coloured. It got so bad that in the end we picked up two five year old girls to help run the 'gauntlet' sections of the road. There was colour everywhere. On people, the houses, the roads, the stalls and the cows. It was brilliant.

Excitement and Disappointment

We found a thin cotton sleeping bag that was compact, lightweight and suitable for hot climates, i.e the current climate that we are in, in a shop in Udaipur. Basically a sewed up sheet :)

We had no money when we saw it and forgot to go back and get it :(

Goa

We are in the South, in Goa, and there's not much to report. Other than the fact that I love it here. I've been itching to head to the South of India since the beginning of our trip. It is so much more relaxed and has a completely different vibe. When we arrived Amy started to feel unwell on the bus and sat down amongst everyone who was stood up. She instantly had elderly women offering up their seats for her, stroking her hand and rubbing Tiger Balm on her forehead. Everything just seems more relaxed and a lot more friendly.

We've set-up camp in Panaji - mainly because our hotel manager keeps suggesting things for us to do, so we keep booking more nights here. Last night he suggested we went to see Slumdog Millionaire, seeing as everyone in India is crazy about it, at the cinema. It was great. We even splurged on popcorn (we opted for caramel over the cheese variety). I'll admit that we nearly didn't go because we turned up ten minutes late and I am a manic perfectionist and I can't stand to watch a film when I've missed the beginning, but Amy prevailed. I did enjoy it, but I will be thinking about those ten minutes and when I'll get my opportunity to see them for probably the entire trip. Today we bussed it to a Spice plantation, which was a bit of a let down and ended up being more of an expensive spiced up meal, though we ate so much (free for all buffets are my favourite) we won't be needing any dinner. And tomorrow we are trying out a ferry to some wildlife Island thing. And the day after that is already covered by another town nearby, and the best flea market in Goa. It's so nice to relax a little. Now we just need to hope the manager runs out of activities for us so we can finally make it to a beach.

Afternoon Tea

Udaipur felt like something out of 'Passage to India'. This is a slightly bizzare thing to say, seeing as I've not read it, but I'm assuming it is filled with stereotypical 'British India'. We had done all of the tourist things. We even randomly bumped into the driver we had from Delhi and he bundled us into the back of his car, next to his confused tourists, and took us to some places around the city that our penny-pinching wallets wouln't have allowed us to get to otherwise. The setting of Octopussy was going well. It nearly, however, became amazing. After visiting the lavish palace we spied a restaurant on the front of the lake that oozed rich 'British India'. We casually said that it was pretty then continued walking. Neither of us are sure who spotted it first, but both of us were as equally gripped. Afternoon Tea This Way. Afternoon Tea? As in scones, jam and clotted bloomin cream? Afternoon Tea in a posh restaurant, on the side of the Lake in a complete setting that yelled for a posh frock and a giant hat. We had to have it. Unfortunately, the Afternoon Tea was not at the original restaurant that we had spied. This meant that we spent about an hour hunting for the right one, the excitement, and price that we were willing to pay for it, building. We ended up sneaking into several posh hotels that clearly didn't want us to be there in our quest for confectionary. In the end, disappointment loomed as we found the correct location, only to be faced with a posh, yet quite dark and dingy room. This was not the 1920s Poirot-fuelled image that we had had in mind. We settled for stealing toilet roll from the posh toilets.

21st Birthday Present

My parents aren't yet aware, but I have just spent the first ten pounds of my 21st Birthday Present. This is experiences and skills. Travelling is not an experience that I'm allowed to count and spend the money on as it was never something I wasn't going to do. However, going to a cookery lesson does count. We splurged a tenner in Udaipur on a cookery lesson to learn how to make exciting things such as chai, chapati, paneer and, of course, curry. It was like something out of Blue Peter - with all the ingredients prepared earlier. We even got a little recipe booklet. We loved it so much that we are debating another in the South of India. Long gone are my days of 'throw every spice that I can get my hands on in'. I think I might actually now be able to cook a curry!

I Love Trains

I literally love train travel. And my reasons are ten fold:

1. In every train station there is a Ladies' waiting room where we tend to set up camp before and after our trip. This means that we can sleep before and after the journey, recharge our phones, wash (a smidgen), and always always always listen to a fight kick off between some of the women. This is usually the women in charge on a power trip. They all get very into it. This is very interesting to watch though a tad annoying when it's at 3 am and you really just want to sleep. In Jodhpur we slept in the train station about four times-through being back and forth to Jaisalmer. By the end, the cleaning boy waved to us when we entered the station, and we had managed to fashion two small tables into a pretty impressive bunk-bed. The Ladies' waiting rooms have saved us from being whisked off bleary-eyed to expensive, rubbish hotels by wide-awake touts. They mean we almost get a full night's sleep on a night train because we can top-up at them. And we sometimes (ladies don't like to talk much to us) meet people. They are great.

2. There is always someone in our seats and there is always about ten people around us trying to sort out where we should be, and where they should be.

3. Chai, chai, chai...The array of foods and drinks that run up and down the train every five seconds. We started off hating the call of 'chai, chai, chai' that pumped out constantly through the night as we tried to sleep, but now I find it quite lulling. I love all of the foods that are available and the fact that, if you miss one vendor, another will be along in literally five seconds.

4. They fixed my bag. I made a friend on the train who told me that the call of 'chain, chain, chain' would fix the zip on my bag. I was dubious. So, the next time I heard it, I grappled for his attention and uselessly pointed at my zip thinking he would just laugh at me. I'll point out that the friend was long gone so I had no authentic Indian support and just a niggling feeling that he was having me on. The 'chain, chain, chain' boy grabbed my bag, whisked off the zipper, fiddled for about a minute deciding which of his collection would be appropriate, and then whipped the new zipper on, giving it a few clip, clip, clips, and he was done. Amazing. It works better than new.

5. The on/off syndrome. The trains stop constantly, either at stations or at random patches of grass. This apparently is the cue for everybody to jump off the train, and then when it starts moving, hop back on. Whether it be a bus or a train, no-one can sit still. A pause at traffic lights is a sufficent reason to be off.

6. The pack lunches people bring on the trains. I love watching the sheer quantity and variety of food that people unpack at dinner time.

7. There are always a handful of euch creatures.

8. When we aren't sleeping, the scenery is beautiful.

9. They are a 'free' night's accommodation.

10. We always make at least one friend per journey. My last one was en route to Goa. He slept next to me on the upper berths that were separated only by some thin metal wiring. It almost felt like we were in bed together. I thought he was a starer (an Indian man who will ask about your marriage situation and whether he can kiss you). He turned out to be lovely.

Lying

It is a little worrying how much the lying is making us lie. I really like India but the tourist industry is horrible. I thought it would just be hassley, but it beyond that. Everyone lies. So many people are involved in commission that you can't trust anyone's opinion about any hotel, shop or mode of transport. If they tell you your hotel has burnt down, it probably hasn't. If they tell you it's a dodgy hotel, it probably isn't. If you ask directions for one hotel, you'll probably be given directions to somewhere else. If you try and find the Government Tourist office, you probably never will. Apparently they all are. If they tell you that you can't sit and watch the funerals at the burning ghats from the stairs of the ghats, but you will have to climb a small tower to be away from the family, it's just a ploy to charge you for walking up the tower. If they tell you that the only way to get somewhere is by taxi, it's definitely not. If they tell you that there are no government buses, just private ones, it's a lie. And it's never usually a 'good price'. I can't even remember the lies that we've been told. Fortunately, the only one we have fallen for was in Delhi. I don't think I've mentioned it before, because I had some serious sense of humour failure about it. This lie involved four different people, all seemingly unrelated, but now we realise connected, telling us the same things until you believe them. One of them was dressed up and pretended to work in the station, the second pretended to bump into us then mentioned he worked at the station (he had a fake name badge and everything), the third was the rickshaw driver, and the fourth was at the official 'Government Tourist Office'. The events were thus:

We headed to the station to find a train ticket out of Delhi. We were asked for our tickets, and then told that foreigners could not buy tickets from the train station and had to get them from the Government tourist office. Have you a lonely planet? This is the office on the map (the correct one) - I'll get you a rickshaw. No thanks. I swear there is something dodgy with that-let's go find somewhere to sit and eat and read the Lonely Planet. So we walked to find somewhere. Another man - about 5 mins from the station - struck up a conversation with us and casually mentioned he worked at the train station. So we ask him how we buy tickets. He reiterates what the man at the train station said. Both lyin and both doing it brilliantly. The technique is such that they start to point out the way to go, then say 'oh hang on I'll show you', then make a big show of helping you out but they really have to be somewhere else, then a big show of bargaining the rickshaw price (who will have later received a commission) and use the Lonely Planet to show you the right Tourist Office and the drivers the wrong one. They also rush you away from you sitting down and figuring it all out because every single one of them independently say that it is Holy Day tomorrow and no tickets will be on sale. Armed with the prior, and true, knowledge that you do need to book ahead, we then get convinced that there are no spaces on trains out of Delhi to the North for 6 days, because we are being shown the real train-booking website but it is failing to mention the held back tickets for the Tourist Quota. Three hours later, deprived of food, in a hot stuffy room we are convinced that we can't get out of Delhi by train for a week. The pressure heightens when we remember that we've already lost a week to the snow at Heathrow, and the belief that it's Holy Day the next day, meaning the Train Station and that Office would be shut. Defeated and exhausted, we get a six day tour of Rajhastan. I wanted and did cry. Paying money for something that you don't even want, but only buy because you are backed up into a corner. The Holy Day con. Four separate, apparently unconnected, people telling us that it was Holy Day made us believe it, and made us part with money. Needless to say, it wasn't Holy Day. Seven months of ridiculous saving, only to have some lied and whisked away from you because you are naive and they really know what they are doing. We had been in so many 'Government Tourist Offices' before then and left successfully, saying we'd think about it and so later find out it was a con. But the pressure of the Holy Day got us.

So, now we lie too:

This is our second trip to India (as we did go to Nepal briefly this is technically true). We are sisters. I oscillate between having a boyfriend and being married. Both of our careers are as waitresses. Every place we turn up to we claim to 'have a reservation' to dodge hotel touts. We always know where we are going, even when holding a map. We lie about our destinations when we get into autorickshaws, asking for a monument nearby rather than a tourist office or a hotel so that we don't get carted off to the wrong place. We claim that we've seen it for half that price elsewhere. We have been meeting imaginary friends for dinner, at hotels, at monuments literally all over India. In Jaisalmer we said we were only there for the one night to visit some friends we hadn't seen in ages so we wouldn't be interested in a Camel Safari. This enabled us to be carted off to a hotel at a discount price so that they could spend the next morning trying to sell us their Camel Safari, and then give us a perfectly good reason to rebuff their advances, check out the next day before they put their prices up and move on to the next discount hotel. And then there is the biggie. The lie so engrained that I've almost started to believe it. The lie that we began in Delhi, completelty simultaenously, without any need to confer, when we realised the true extent of the lying-money-grabbing tourist industry. We are in India for 6 weeks and then we go straight home. The lie that we had to adopt to stop touts eyeing us up for our entire 8 month fortune.

I don't like the lying. The Delhi incident was horrible and caused Amy and I to have our only and first argument. It also makes it more difficult to enjoy India. We spend so long ploughing and swiping away the lies that we don't get to see what it is really like. We go to the South in a few days and maybe stay with a couple we met at a train station. I'm hoping the lies might stay at bay long enough for us to catch a glimpse of the actual Indian culture.

Jaisalmer

We got to Jaisalmer a few days ago and hop-skipped it onto a tourist camel safari. Everyone here tries to get you to do a camel safari-luring you with cheap accomodation and so on. As ever, we found out later that we payed more than some people, but less than others and blah blah blah - same old story. We had about three hours on a camel - Amy describes it as uncomfortable but I would describe as rhythmic. We camped. Had a fire, food, watched the sunset, watched the sunrise and somewhere inbetween slept under the stars in the desert. This might well be my favourite thing so far. But then I've always been a bit of a lover of camping. We could see more stars than even in North Wales. It was bootiful. I even managed to remember my gorillapod thing this time and it had it's first real outing as a useful thing to have brought. For techno phobes-a gorrillapod is a tripod that clings and bends to any material, making it perfect for taking photos in rocky, sandy, fenced locations. It's first outing should have been when we climbed Sarangkot to see the Himalayas, but I was so blearly from the 5 o'clock start that I, like a numnuts, forgot it. As an aside, I don't think I've mentioned that. That was also beautiful, but harder work on the thighs, it involved less sleep and a dog unofficially named 'Banana Lassi' that guided us the entire way. Anyway, ten minutes of faffing and a near miss of the actual sunrise and the gorrillapod came up trumps with some joint, desert, sunrise photos - about ten of which I might erase.

Revenge of the Jam

So we finish packing up our room in Jaisalmer, ready to head off to another hotel that will take us on our Camel Safari. All bagged up and I spy the blue squelchy bag that encases The Jam on the side. I'll say now that I didn't have any room. The reality being that I couldn't bear the effort of hoisting my bag down, un-doing the strap and wrestling with the jammy mess until it was roughly wedged against my luggage and lovingly spreading it's stickiness amongst my clothes. I reasoned. There is only a smidgen left; we haven't got any bread anyway; I think I hate Jam. It got left in the room. My punishment came swiftly. In the blue bag with the Jam was my new favourite toy. The camping cutlery set that Amy got for me. The handy, whack-them-out-whenever cutlery set that gave me a swell of smugness as oggling onlookers could only wander at the genius of having a knife, fork and spoon camping set that made eating on trains a culinary delight. I am going to be nice to Jam from now on. I am afraid it might take my camping plate next.

Further proof that the sleeping bag is amazing

Even when it is too hot for a sleeping bag, it contiunes to add to my sleeping delight by making a sumptiously comfy pillow. I think when I get back I might just start carrying a sleeping bag around with me wherever I go. To the shop, to the cinema, to work (what work?). I bet I'd start discovering even more uses for the sleeping bag. Maybe I should just quit this travelling malarkey now and start my book, inspired as I am: 102 (I would choose 102 because I think 101 is overused in novel titles) uses for the sleeping bag. It's literary gold. I really think my father should stop worrying that I'll never find a career. I am going to be a millionaire.