This was written on Monday (24th) night and Tuesday (25th) morning at two airports whilst on my journey between the two halves of my gap year. I'm sorry it hasn't been posted until now, but Internet has been very rare and I have only just got my personal Internet stuff sorted. Anyway, these were my musings at the time whilst waiting for my planes and running on a severe lack of sleep (so excuse any incoherent bits please). As you have hopefully figured out by now, I am in Uganda and am enjoying a very relaxed week whilst I settle into this beautiful and extremely hot country which will be home for the next five months or so. But for now, here is what my last week in India looked like:
This photo doesn't show much of the craziness sadly, but you may be able to get a taste of the way this city is clinging to the hillside for dear life. It looks like an slight tremor would send the whole 1.5 million inhabitants careering down the valley. Apparently earthquakes are rare, which is a relief; monsoon isn't, so I can't imagine how this city survives on such a gradient with so much rain. It is truly fascinating and if I ever come back to India, it is on my list of places to go to go sure. We only spent the day there, but we were able to see much of the city which is surprisingly European feeling - the cobbled streets, old buildings and an Anglican Church reminded me of quintessential England whilst the overall landscape was quite French alps-esque (in my opinion anyway). We even got to see the Himalayas (apparently the mountains where we have been living don't technically count, so I have seen the foothills and the official ones now).
Perhaps the most comfortable (and longest - about 15 hours) bus ride to Jaipur followed on Tuesday night which was extremely windy and picturesque and as descended the mountains. The next morning we were in the desert in Rajasthan, Jaipur to be exact. Wednesday wasn't the best day due to sickness (not mine) and a lack of plans. Top tip for travelling in India - don't be spontaneous!! Book your tickets through an agency (we spent over an hour trying to book train tickets to Jaisalmer beforerealising it was impossible at such short notice) and make sure you know where to find a hotel room. We managed, and in the process discovered why Jaipur is called the 'Pink City'.
I love the buildings so much! Not all of them look like this, but whole areas of the city are all this colour and style. Having been forced to stay overnight in Jaipur we proceeded to leave the city on an afternoon excursion up into the hills, and it was the best decision! Almost every ridge of every hill had forts running down them, which you could properly explore with no 'red tape' holding you back. Seeing Jaipur from this perspective was awesome! My geography nerd came out again and I took so many photos, trying to capture the cramped and quite geometric city - I'm sorry it's not as good as the real thing!
It's crazy! And so I fell in love with Jaipur too. Thursday night we got an overnight bus to Udaipur, another city in Rajasthan loving called the 'White City' or 'Venice of the East', although you can't see why as clearly unless you take a boat trip on the lake and see the palace (the second largest in India). It was pretty impressive and this is only a portion of it because I couldn't fit it all in the frame. Sadly we didn't have time to go into the place so I can't give any more details about it.
The rest of the city is also European feeling. Apparently the city was designed by French students (I think form Paris) and by Indian ones, so the French-y feeling makes sense. It is a classic tourist place full of stalls to buy things you don't really need, and you can wander down small winding alleys to your hearts content. We noticed that if you an older hippie traveller, then Udaipur is the place for you!
One really cool thing we did there was have a complimentary nail art session whilst in an art shop. Many of the artists in Rajasthan specialise in miniature art work, and it is really very impressive to see! Whilst browsing, the owner offered to paint a peacock on my nail. I know this isn't a good photo, but hopefully you can see the crazy detail of it - he even did my name along the nail rim.
Friday night I headed back to Delhi on my own to have an extra day with a family we know there. Top tip about buses to Delhi: make sure you know exactly where they will drop you off and double check if there are two places in the city with the same name! Having Old Delhi and New Delhi can be confusing when neither is specified but both parts have 'Khanna Market' I discovered. It was heaven to be in a house with hot water, big comfy pillows and duvet and to have my own room - but also weird as I don't think I've had my own room since leaving England. I even got to eat proper cheesecake and call home, what more do you need? On Saturday we went To see the presidents gardens which were open for the last weekend. They are very much like a garden in England or France, but still the flowers were beautiful and the size was quite overwhelming. Unlike the British garden experience, here we had a strict path to follow so were in the biggest continuous flow of people and were whistled at every time you paused for more than 20 seconds. It was quite bizarre!
Yesterday was our final day in Delhi and having been reunited with my friends on Sunday, we did the necessary trip to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. It was nice not to be on the verge of throwing up like I was last time I was in India with mum nine years ago! We had a slightly stressful time though, but all in all it was good fun and it really is a spectacular building.
Two tips of you do Agra: 1) Dont take laptops, rape whistles or tripods in because they will just send you back out to deposit them in baggage area and then you have to queue all over again - poor Kris found out the hard way and it put quite a downer on our time there. 2) If you want to do a round trip from Delhi to Agra in a day then leave very early and leave very late. Just incase any of you are going anytime.
So, this is it! I am now in Africa, sat at Addis Ababa airport waiting for my connecting flight to Entebbe! I am so happy to be back in Africa - if I could be anywhere in the world it would be in Africa (worked out well, huh?) but I would want all of you to come and bring home to Africa. The first half of my gap year is closed, and the second is just starting. The last five months or so has been such a wonderful time for me, especially in my faith - it's been life changing, as cliched as it sounds. I have grown and become more rooted in my relationship with God and my identity in Him, but the coming months will test that now I have left the 'bubble' of India and having other fellow believers around me all the time. I am entering this time completely unsure of what the coming months will hold, and I will keep you updated as they are revealed to me more and more, but having a blank canvas for God to work on is pretty exciting, at least for me! Lets see what Africa holds...
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