Oh yes… Pokhara was the big pouffe of our trip. The place where we decided to visit and put our feet up for a while after our trek up that little hill you may have read about in our last post. As it’s only a short bus ride from Kathmandu – well, 8 hours, but we’re used to those sorts of journeys now – we were planning to pop over for a couple of days after the trek. We’d heard so many good things about it from people we met while we were trekking, that we decided to sacrifice a couple of side treks on the way down to be able to relax there for a little while longer. I have to admit that the decision was slightly influenced by a few mornings of waking up at 5am in a tiny timber room to the sight of my own breath condensing in front of me, exhausted after only getting about three hours sleep, with dry cracked lips and a very sore throat. The thought of chilling out at a lakeside restaurant with a beer and a pizza was somewhat attractive at 5500m, and we booked our bus tickets straight away once we got back to Kathmandu. We could’ve flown a 30 minute flight but the only time we wanted to brave Kathmandu airport again was to get out of Nepal. The following morning, we we’re on the bus heading for Pokhara!

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After our brief stay in Siliguri, we took the toy train for the 7 hour journey climbing 2000m into the Himalayas to its terminus in Darjeeling. After so many kilometres travelled horizontally over the previous 7 weeks, it was amazing how much India changed after a travelling a couple vertically. Not only did the obvious things change, like the climate, the vegetation and the wildlife, but it was also the changes in the people and the food and drink that made Darjeeling one of my favourite places in India.

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Our journey to Agra started with us being ready for breakfast with plenty of time to eat and get to the station for our train. So we sat in the garden of our guest house in Jaipur and ordered some food. The staff in the kitchen, all 4 of them, then proceeded to take almost 40 minutes to fry two eggs which left us with no option but to take the first auto-rickshaw we could find otherwise we’d miss our train. Being two tourists with huge packs on our backs (and fronts), asking to be taken to the station and looking like we were in a rush, we were prime targets for an absolute ripping off. We decided to take this one on the chin and pass on our frustration with a bad review of the kitchen staff at the hotel on Trip Advisor!

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Yes, a bit like Marmite. I’m talking about the whole love it/hate it thing.

Up until our arrival in Delhi, India had been amazing. Of course, before we left to come to India we had read about how challenging and frustrating it can be, but we’d also read that the rewards for coping with the challenges are greater than at most places a traveller can go. Up until Delhi we’d had the energy to cope with the frustrations and setbacks it had thrown at us. But we’d never come up against The Delhi Evil Army of Auto-rickshaw Drivers (probably their official title). Sometimes in our 5 days in the capital these people made us angry enough to hate everything about Delhi and made the thought of heading right to the international terminal at the city’s airport oh-so-attractive.

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Despite being water bombed (and Alexandra egged) last night on the way to a restaurant for dinner, we decided to brave the streets of Delhi this afternoon for the Holi celebrations. We intentionally wore nice white tops and, as we thought, like a red rag to a bull the happy locals just couldn’t resist getting us involved. We had water poured over us from the top of buildings, water bombs thrown at us from every angle and people jumping out from behind corners to squirt blue dye at us. Then there was the powdered paint which was lovingly smothered all over our faces and heads by well wishers, and unfortunately for Alexandra, accompanied by a good old grope from some of the more drunk of them.

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