The Kashmir Life

28th to 31st July - Kashmir

All i can say is i'm truly relaxed at Dal Lake, the staff are nothing but great giving us free boat rides, showing us the local cuisine and joining us for a drink in the evenings and having a laugh. The other travellers here roaming from all over the world are also brilliant, this is exactly what i wanted from this adventure, to meet people and learn about others experiences. Our second day here started with just relaxing out front with some Kashmir tea, quite literally the best damn tea around, possibly better than green tea. This was followed by a two hour long boat ride out into Dal Lake, between six of us we had two boats, we jumped in around the middle for a swim, the water is beautiful here, full of reeds and they'll sure as hell drag you down but your usually fine! We've spent most of our time with Henry and the two girls Fran and Amy, they're the first people we've spent several days with and i'm glad we met them. 
     We headed out into the Himalayas for two days and one night, i've never been struck by such beauty and i've travelled around places like Norway and Iceland. Turquoise rivers filled with drift wood and a mountain range covered in 200ft trees. If i wasn't blatantly aware i was in India, i'd of considered it to be Canada's national parks. The staff on the trekking couldn't of been better, we had a huge fire going and within hours we're all sat around having a BBQ with some beers. With a hangover and only four hours sleep i managed to pick myself up from the crammed tent and capture sunrise within the valley, to be stood in such an area with only the sound of a gushing river and wildlife was brilliant. I've already let Naz, the manager of Safina Houseboats know that in a few years i'm returning for a month and i'm planning of hiking the Himalayas properly. I've been shown photographs of a location thats a four day hike, two huge lakes surrounded by mountains. It's got similarities to Snowdonia but on a much bigger scale!
     On the evening of the 30th we arrived back at the boathouse to meet two new guests that are travelling India for several months, Robin and Mitch, they've both come from Devon. The next morning both Fran and Amy were catching their flight to the Philippines so we planned a little 'leaving do' and most people staying at the boathouse came and joined, two bottles of rum later between us three and there was a group decision to head out on a boat again. I knew straight away i was not up for swimming at 3:00AM so we paddled around the area for a short time before making our way back, however... After the boat kept rocking from people shuffling about we started to take on water, quite a lot of water intact. Literally 5 meters from land in started going down rapidly, most people jumped onto land safely leaving just me and Henry at the back as the boat completely submerged. There goes my tobacco, money and our flight back to Delhi paper work. My own fault i know. It was actually hilarious though, after making sure we're all on land we tried to resolve the situation, getting the boat tied to the dock and trying to pour the water out, bare in mind this boats not small and its filled to the brim with water. After that i jumped in for a second time trying to gather up all the loose wood flooring that had began floating off into the lake. I need to learn that drink boating never pays off.
     Today we were invited to Naz' house for dinner, what an amazing offer. We've only known him for a few days and he already treats us like permanent residents! We all sat around on pillows and were given this huge buffet of curries, naan and rice. The food was amazing. These are the kind of things you can only hope that happens on a trip like this, to meet people and see their way of life, not just be caught in a tourist trap. Wez in some respects allowed us to see a side of indian tradition we normally would never get the chance to. With Fran and Amy up to leave for their flight it was quite an emotional goodbye, we'd spent only days with these two but we all got on so well. They're the first group we've had the pleasure of joining with so we've been told not to forget it! I'm hoping they have a great time in the Philippines, i might be there myself in December! Hopefully a night out in Manchester early 2016 could be on the cards.

Amy, Fran & Henry

Me & Ben relaxing

More relaxing...

Green water

Just before diving in

Passing from boat to boat

Me, Dan & Ben

Henry & Amy

Himalayan Family

Kashmir tea before setting off

The walk into the mountains begin!

Ben at the camp fire

Himalayan Valley sunrise

Group shot 1

Group Shot 2

The Beautiful Place That is Dal Lake

27th July - Delhi & Kashmir

Yesterday started with a very crazy morning, exactly what we've learnt to expect, we woke up at 8:00AM ready for our flight to Srinigar in Kashmir, turns out our taxi driver waited downstairs for 1hr 30min! Didn’t even let us know that he was there and thus we sat in the hotel room worried we were going to miss our flight until we finally went downstairs to see what was! A rushed journey through the hectic New Delhi streets took us firstly to the wrong terminal and we now only had 45min before our flight left the ground. I’ve no idea how but we got straight through check-in and security and were sat on a plane in no time. Finally leaving Delhi.

The flight across to Srinigar gave us amazing views of the snow topped Himalayas! Snow in India, its very confusing at first! We were met at the airport by Ash a funny guy that took us to the docks of Dal Lake where we were staying, even driving through the town we all agreed how much more relaxed it was than Delhi. We jumped onto our first long boat with some nerves, especially with all my camera equipment! We cruised nice and slowly to our new home for 5 nights, a boat house, the inside looks like an old victorian manor which is so different to what we’ve been staying in. We had finally landed in a relaxed, friendly place! The people here’s are brilliant, Pier is an Australian who’s a retired artist that has been travelling for years simply living off his pension. He instantly invited us down to the boats seating area for both Kashmir tea and hash. Then there is Henry and Andrew, great guys that have been in and out of travelling for some time, again they made us feel at home straight away. Our arrival was shortly followed by both Fran and Amy who had been only a few hours behind us through Delhi after John at the tourism office set them on our path up North. Two great girls from Manchester that luckily are interested in doing the same activities here, two days with a single night of camping in the Mountains along with a boat ride across Dal Lake, its around 18km! It’s great to be in a bigger group, meeting same minded people and generally having a laugh.

We sat up way into the night, all of us just drinking and relaxing by the water. After several hours Asher who works at the boat house took us into the lake, its pitch black water with an array of lights from all the boats on the sides, such a great scene. These boats are not big by any means, probably 8 of us crammed onto it! When the water got deeper we decide to jump in, midnight swimming is not something i expected to be doing in India, but i’m not complaining, it was such an experience. 

Snowy mountains from the plane

 Chilling on our first days arrival

 Going for a boat ride

                                                                Surrounded by mountains

Fishing

More fishing..

 Taken from my houseboats porch at sunset

Taj Mahal & Back Again

25th to 26th July - Agra & New Delhi

We arrived in Agra last night and our first thoughts were this looked much more like an India we expected! Our hotel was the best so far with what i was personally hoping for.. Really friendly staff, its a long cry from Karol Bagh, any time we mentioned where we began for 48 hours everyone pulls a face. That kind of face that tells you immediately you did something wrong! It was definitely not a good place to be. We awoke at 4:00AM ready to capture sunrise at the Taj Mahal, this would be a dream, i've seen stunning photographs of this and would of loved to capture my own twist on such an icon piece of architecture. Unfortunately and typically of me, timing and photography, it was cloudy. None the less we met our tour guide along with the same taxi driver from yesterday, Pardeep, and we headed into the Taj Mahal. Our guide explained all the history and details which was fantastic and incredibly insightful, i love to know information about places i visit, typically i would hate a guide but for this, it was well worth it. By 8:00PM we were back at our hotel having a quick breakfast (finally had my first traditional Indian breakfast which was brilliant but spicy) and then off to Agra Fort, a huge structure build on the other side of the Yatzy river, again it was hugely impressive and great to be learning about Indian history. After a few complimentary stop offs to our tour guides commission paying shops which has now become a tradition we set off back to New Delhi to relax with Jess at her dads house out of the city centre.
     It was so relaxing to have some beers, play some music and laugh about the crazy time we've had so far! We met Goats, Jess' house manager who is both hilarious and a genuinely amazing cook, he threw together some stuff and within no time we had an array of amazing food which literally blew my mind, if anyone wants to taste traditional home cooked food, he's your man! Dim Sum, just ask for the dim sum. He even organised our hotel just 20 minutes away, takes the pressure off me so i'm not complaining.
     Our next morning was great! We had a lay in until 10:30AM, actually the first night we had a normal amount of sleep and woke up refreshed from it. We got picked up straight from our hotel and taken back to Jess' and got a full day of relaxing! Swimming, beers and again, amazing food. Tandoori chicken and garlic naan's, food cooked traditionally and right in front of us, couldn't ask for anymore and i'm so grateful to our host, Jess. We met a family who worked for Jess' dad Nigel, lovely people! Their son Ruben is a brilliant lad and far too smart for only being 8 years old. All four of us swam, played football, tag and some how we got high powered water guns, the GoPro footage will be brilliant. By sunset the three of us we're so tired, broken by a day and actually being active whilst Ruben was still of energy. His family left and we all only hacked a few more beers before calling it a night after having Indian Dominos, it was homely in some aspects to have something i'd normally eat! Tomorrow we're up early again and heading up to Dal Lake near the Himalayas, from what i've seen it looks amazing and i've researched the boat house we've booked. It literally looks like a manor home crossed with grunge.. Difficult to explain but i'm sure i'll get a photograph.
   

Taj Mahal

 "Please can you take a picture"

 'Shoe socks' - To keep dirt out of the Taj Mahal

 Agra Fort

 Agra Fort - Courtyard

 I always lose my shades!

Traditionally cooked tandoori chicken

Our First Experience of The Capital

22nd to 24th July - New Delhi

It finally hit me waking up after the 12 hour flight from Brussels to New Delhi, we were almost landing and i looked out the window seeing a bustling city at night, only an orange haze could be seen across the horizon whilst listening to the weirdly calming classical music the airline played.

     Straight out from the airport we were hit by the boiling night time heat of 30c and instantly asked by several people to get into a taxi, luckily we got straight into what we believed to be the more ‘formal’ taxis and we were dragged around New Delhi for over 40 minutes with no luck, just being told that its EID and its a bad time to visit, the taxi drivers pointed out bike gangs left, right and centre that just drank and would not consider twice robbing you for what you possessed. Finally we arrived at a tourism office where we met the nicest guy so far! He helped ringing our hotel, which was originally booked online, only to find that they hadn’t kept our reservation and within 2 hours of being in New Delhi we had nowhere to stay and it was pushing on 1AM.. Thankfully our new friend took us to a local hotel, reasonably good price, just to put our head down for the night! We’re planning on heading back there tomorrow and asking for some more pointers of how we should exit New Delhi. So far.. It’s been a crazy few hours and its a far cry from safe out of the hotel at night time!
     After revisiting the tourism office we were still down on our luck, they offered us package holidays travelling the route we intended but for crazy prices which are well out of our budget. We’re finally settled into a different hotel for a single night, still a very worrying looking area filled with the expected city hustle and bustle. On the bright side we finally plucked up the courage to begin an exhibition to an ATM and i’ve finally got Indian Rupees! 

Ordered our first proper meal whilst in New Delhi, chicken chow mien.. Surprisingly great! Not quite the traditional indian cuisine but i’m still putting off the whole ‘too spicy’ situation. Been sat around in the hotel for most of the day, still trying to pull ourselves together and work out how to tackle the challenge that is this city. I’m opting that we visit the Lodi Gardens, a beautiful botanical garden which would give us some optimism for the week to follow. After this i believe we’re meeting Jess, Dan’s friend that has a house over here. Its a 40min drive out from our area of Karol Bagh which is fine, its just the fear of getting home safely when the night kicks in and the possibility of ‘bike gangs’ reappears.
     Just arrived back at our hotel in Karol Bagh after a night out 30 minutes away in the ‘real’ New Delhi, the place we originally planned to experience! The people, the streets, everything was exactly how i imagined. After meeting Jess and her dad, Nigel, we realised, up to now, we have been missing out and have decided to give Delhi another try after visiting Agra tomorrow. We visited an incredibly posh looking bar on the backstreets of a small village, it looked so out of place from what you would expect but yet for the first time since we stepped foot off the plane, we felt welcomed. Free pour cocktails are typically something you only wish for when drinking but this place was handing them out, concoctions were arriving in barrels, horns and with ice lollies. Three/four drinks later and the taxi drive home was much more interesting.. When we woke the driver up that waited outside for over three hours! We have also been invited by both Jess and Nigel to visit their farm house just out of the city centre and I’m genuinely excited, this emotion has been lost for the last few days and i’ve simply wanted to leave to our next country. We’ve been told about huge outdoor BBQ’s, swimming pools and the promise of a real shower! Sounds a little ‘typical’ holiday i know, however with this we’ve the correct platform to head out and really experience New Delhi, the culture that i’ve been craving since our arrival.

     We started our day with a mixture of confidence, ambition and all those other ‘feel good’ things.. After a slightly better breakfast at the terrace of our hotel we got ourselves packed and started our venture to see the real New Delhi! I’d like to think of myself as reasonably well travelled, i can typically spot a scam from a mile away, we jumped into our first ever tuk tuk and set sail for the Indian Gate, en route our driving persisted it was either closed, we had to pay to enter etc, obviously all fake! Just laugh it off and carry on moving i always think. Things began to take a turn for the worse when without even realising our tuk tuk driving arrived at the tourism office, which we later found out to be completely fraudulent and we have actually been on a two day binge of being rinsed for what ever they could! I headed inside the office to find the same guy from yesterday who offered us loads of information but inevitably tried to force us into booking a £500+ tour across North India, thank god we didn’t take it! He, out of nowhere decided that because our plan had changed over night that i was a lier, he accused me whilst walking me out telling me to leave. He then to my horror placed his hand on my shoulder and said.. “If you lie in Delhi, somebody will fuck you”, defending myself was useless as he shook his head angrily and walked off. First threat of the trip. The tuk tuk driving finally, after further persuasion took us to the Indian Gate, such an amazing piece of architecture and a for the remembrance of those lost in previous wars. A combined British and Indian flag fluttered in the mild wind whilst with our bags we walked around for a good 30 minutes in around 35c heat. This, combined with being asked by almost every person there if i want to buy random ‘tat’ led me to beginning to feel slightly sick and hazy, it was difficult and after our morning experiences we didn’t want to get any kind of transport anywhere. Another thing to add at this point was how popular we were with the Indian public when visiting the Gate, everybody wanted photographs with us, we felt like small time celebrities. This, even though feeling awful was possibly one of the first genuine smiles and laughs from today.

     Be it by a stroke of luck, right place right time, i don’t know, but we happened to start speaking to a genuinely friendly guy that informed us of a real tourism office that was ran by the government, my first thoughts were its obviously the same place and i didn’t want to show my face there ever again! We reluctantly agreed to be taken down the road to an ATM, we all needed cash at this point and our options were slim, as we set off our drivers brother jumped in, within minutes we realised these two were actually god sends, couldn’t of asked for more from them! They genuinely felt for us after explaining our few days visiting their city and they took us to the real, government ran tourism office. Here, we walked in and were greeted by a guy called John, given a sugary brew and placed in an air conditioned room, this helped me come back around and i finally started to feel better! After explaining our situation and the fairly bad days we have had so far we we’re told that John is literally here to help tourists, in its most simplistic form, its his job. We debated our options for India and what we could do within budget, the weather in south India, Goa was looking awful and after over an hour of discussion we opted to head North into the Himalayas on Monday, a few days from now and firstly heading towards Agra to see the Taj Mahal which so far this day we thought it would be impossible because of the lies almost everybody fed us. John got us some food, water and gave us wifi, all for completely free! After this we took his phone number and set off in a private car to Agra. I’m writing this whilst sat in that said car, our driver is brilliant, he’s funny, relaxed and even bought an AUX cable at a set of traffic lights so we could throw some music on for the four hour drive. We’re quite literally all, including our driving, raving to live sets of Daft Punk whilst driving down Indian motorways. Within a matter of hours our Indian experience has gone from in tatters to a hugely exciting visit North for mountain hiking, lake swimming and white water rafting! We’ve had a lot a bad luck so far, i’m really hoping this pulls through and happens. Our humble abode of choice is a boat house literally in a mountainous valley, as a photographer i crumbled at this option. I’m hoping for a nice hotel where we actually have three beds, not one (yes its literally been three in a bed since we arrived) and if i’m really lucky, a friendly bar selling cheap beer!

 First morning in Delhi - View from outside our window

Same thing, different window!

 India Gate - Looks much bigger in person

En route to Agra