Elephants

A few days ago we visited the Elephant Conservation Centre near Lampang, in northern Thailand. This unique facility promotes the role of the Asian elephant in 'ecotourism' and provides free medical treatment and care for sick elephants from all over Thailand. The plight of Asian elephants is becoming a national concern. Many domesticated animals are treated poorly, and destruction of forests and ivory-trade poaching are placing the wild elephant population in increasing jeopardy. With only 2,000 remaining in the wild in Thailand, the Asian elephant is now classified as an endangered species. At the Conservation Centre we learned that working elephants -- in the forest industry, for example -- typically have a career of about 50 years, and that Thai law requires that elephants be retired and released into the wild at age 61. The elephants can live up to 80 years, and are handled by father-son teams, who see to an animal over the coarse of its life. We fed the elephants bananas and sugar cain, and were amazed at their dry, leathery skin. Inbreeding has become a problem due to low numbers of male elephants, so artificial insemination is now being used to avoid birth defects. The baby elephant pictured below is one of the first born by this method.

This might look like affection between elephants, but the one on the right is trying to steal bananas from the mouth of the other!

Bangkok Temple Tour

On our first day in Bangkok we visited the Grand Palace and other significant temples in the city centre.

The Khmer-influenced temple of Wat Arun.


A golden chedi at Bangkok's Grand Palace.


At the Grand Palace.


Reclining 42-metre long golden Buddha, at Wat Pho temple complex.


An example of Northern Thai design at Bangkok's Grand Palace.

Farewell to India

India made such an impression on us that we feel she requires some parting comments.

We thought we were fairly hardened travellers before we arrived in India. After all, we'd lived/studied in China and Lebanon, and just made our way through the Middle East. But we were not prepared!

When I was in China during the summer of 1999, I remember going to a backpackers' restaurant in Xi'an that had guestbooks where various travellers had written their thanks, or impressions, or notes to other travellers. Many people were complaing about something... the buses, or taxi drivers, or getting sick, or spitting on the street.... One person had written "You should all stop your bitching. China is the goddamn Ritz compared to India." And now I know for sure: China is the goddamn Ritz.

The India we saw is rough, poor and very unequal. In a country where the minimum wage is somewhere around $2 per day, tourists are an easy source of income and the hassle factor is very high. I will never again take a paved sidewalk in a major city for granted. After two bad samosas in Agra, both Jerome and I can also testify that it is possibly one of the worst places in the world to get food poisoning. And just when you feel things are looking up, you step in a cow patty.

But in India we also saw some of the most wonderful things of our trip. People were very nice and helpful. The food was wonderful (minus those Agra samosas). And until India, nothing almost moved us to tears as did the Taj Mahal.

We were only able to visit a tiny corner of this country, and were barely able to scratch the surface of India, and I'm sure we'll be back.

Last Pictures of India

The "Blue City" of Jodhpur, view from the fort.


Jodphur Fort. View from Saji Sanwri Guesthouse.



Jain Temple in Jaisalmer Fort.


Camel Safari in the desert near India-Pakistan border.


Jerome and Mr. India, the best camel in Jaisalmer.

Bangkok Arrival

We arrived in Thailand early this morning and headed for that mecca of the western tourist: Khao San Road. But having long ago decided we had outgrown our true backpacker days (other than our love of banana pancakes and the fact we do carry backpacks), we're in the strip's only self-procraimed "boutique" hotel (it has a hair dryer!).

We've been touring Rajasthan for the last 10 days, mostly on dial-up internet, hence the lack of posts. We'll try and put a few pictures up of our activities.

More fun in Udaipur

We are really enjoying our time here. Today we took a four-hour horse ride through the fields, hills, villages and streams around Udaipur. We even saw a 5-foot long bright blue snake!

(Caroline's side note for the horsey set: these are Marwari horses, check out the ears!)




View of City Palace of Udaipur from our hotel balconey.

Reunited

A few days ago we met up with our Australian doubles, who we had travelled with in Jordan and Egypt, as well as their friend Andrea from Germany. We spent an evening in Choki Dhani, a mock Rajasthani village where middle-class Indians go for elephant rides, magic shows, and a guy who dances on nails, not to mention the boy on a pole (see entry below). Here we are having dinner (this is also the only known photo of Jerome in a turban):

Udaipur

Today in Udaipur we took an excellent cooking course with Sushma at Hotel Krishna Niwas, where we learned how to prepare garam masala, masala chai, homemade paneer, butter masala gravy, dal, chapatis, and stuffed parantha. In the afternoon we visited the city palace overlooking the lake that makes this town famous.

Chapati lessons. The first person who writes a comment under this post wins a free Indian meal cooked by Jerome!

One of Udaipur's main streets decked-out in silver tinsel.




Autorickshaws are a very cheap way of getting around the cities in India.

Images of India

We have seen all the incredible images that are conjured-up in the great novels of India: elephants, camels, colourful saris, lush green gardens, snow-capped mountains, wretched slums, beggers on wheels, overflowing trains and buses, snake charmers, piles and piles of suitcases for a single traveller, aggressive monkeys, and now this:

This young lad gave a spell-binding performance of acrobatics and spin atop this 20-foot bamboo poll.


A Pushkar monkey, moments before he leapt in my direction and sent me running.

Taj Mahal in Agra

We were totally floored by the beauty and elegance of the Taj Mahal. It is by far the most impressive building I have ever seen. Every time I looked up I was shocked. The inlaid marble is incredible, and appears 3D in some places. The Taj Mahal definitely belongs on the list of the 7 Wonders!

The Punjab

We just spent two interesting days in Amritsar, the capital of the Punjab region, and home to the Golden Temple of the Sihks. Everyday approximately 40,000 pilgrams visit the temple and get fed there too. Despite the crowds, the temple-complex was very pleasant and we met many really nice people who wanted to shake our hands and take our picture.

While in Amritsar, we also hired a taxi to take us to the Indian-Pakistan border, where everynight thousands of citizens from both countries gather to cheer on their soldiers and to taunt the other side as the gates are closed and the flags lowered. Way too much nationalism for my liking, but fun and interesting nonetheless!

Bangkok-bound

Well, you voted and we responded. We've got a ticket to Bangkok for late October.

It helped that all the Delhi-Hong Kong flights were sold out.

Buildings

Al-Azhar Mosque, Cairo. Built by the Fatimid Dynasty, 970 AD.


View from minaret. Al-Azhar Mosque, Cairo.


Burj Al-Arab (the Arab Tower), the world's only 7-star hotel in Dubai. There was so much humidity, and we were on a bus, so I couldn't get a better picture. The hotel is designed to resemble a sailboat. Rooms are $5,000 per night.


More buildings in Dubai.


Humayun's Tomb, Delhi, India. A fine example of Mughal architecture, 1592 AD.

McLeod Ganj

Yesterday we arrived in McLeod Ganj, home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government in exile. The travellers here appear to be a curious mix of young western hippy-types, Indian tourists, and Tibetan pilgrims. I'm not quite sure where we fit in, but I suppose into the hippy category! Jerome says "NOT".

This morning we visited the temple, where lots of monks and pilgrims were praying.

The main statue of Buddha, with food offerings of McVities biscuits and other goodies:


Monks on lunch break:

Hotels 2: Naggar

Finally it all came together (see post below) and we got hot water, good food, and a nice view, all in the Hotel Ragini in Naggar!

Jerome relaxes again, while admiring yet another nice view.

Hotels 1: Manali

I've never understood the fascination that some people have for hotels, and how much they are willing to spend on a bed to sleep in for the night. Really, isn't one Quality Inn just like any other? Of course, people like me stay at Quality Inns. Unless we're backpacking around the world in which case we stay where the Lonely Planet guidebook recommends.

Along the way, we've had some winners (Elif Star in Turkey and the Windsor Hotel in Cairo come to mind), and some losers (Safwan Hotel in Lattakia, Syria, where entering the bathroom was enough to make me gag).

In Manali, the Lonely Planet recommendation was the Sunshine Guest House. An old British Raj house, it was full of character. Jerome lit a fire in our room for the evening, and by day we sat on the veranda, admiring the view down the Kullu Valley while drinking gin and tonics. All this for only $8 a night!

The Sunshine Guest House from the gardens:



Relaxing on the veranda, British style.


The view, with some snow capped peaks in the distance.


However, we have a pretty consistent record of rarely achieving clean sheets, 24-hour hot water, and natural sunlight in the same hotel room. In this case, the sheets and pillows also appeared to be left over from the Raj era. Thank goodness for those sleeping sacks!

hill station location update

We spent three nights in Shimla, then took a local bus for 10 hours, which in fact rode more like a tractor without suspension and necessitated us both taking our first Gravols of the trip, to get to Manali. Manali was full of Israeli backpackers and drugs. It is also famous as an adventure travel launching point. After 3.5 months of travel, we are too lazy for adventure. We left Manali after two nights and moved for two nights to the pretty village of nearby Naggar. I'll post some photos when we get off Naggar's dial-up internet!

Please Vote

Hey avid readers -- we need help deciding where to go next. After India we only have 4-5 weeks left of traveling, and we want to use our time wisely. Right now we are debating between China (a very interesting place to visit) and Thailand (a very relaxing and beautiful place to visit). Please cast your vote on the now 'poll' application on the right hand side of our blog and, if you have time, give us your reasons in the comments section below this post. Thanks!

Head for the hills

After Cairo, Dubai, and Delhi all in a row, we needed to take it down a notch! So we made like the Delhiites (or like those British back in the day) when they want to escape the city, and headed for the hills. Shimla was the summer capital of the British Raj, and much of the architecture feels very British.

We (and a lot of cockroaches) took an overnight sleeper train to Kalka, where we changed to the very pleasant Shimla toy train. Another six hours and 96 km we were up in the clouds.

Is this England?



No, too many monkeys... They are everywhere in Shimla and they want your bag/food/glasses. A friendly local man got us some sticks for protection.

Delhi tour

We had three days in Delhi (one more than anticipated because we got on the wrong train Monday morning... I swear, it was the station's fault and we weren't just being stupid!). We spent much of the time eating dosas and trying to decide where to go next. On Sunday, we hired a car and a driver and did the super tour of the sites. We also let our guard down after three months of sucessfully avoiding forced shopping expeditions and were taken to an "art gallery famous in all of India" (aka, souvenir shop). A select few other places we visited:


The Raj Ghat. This black marble slab marks the place where Gandhi was cremated.


The Ba'hai Lotus Temple. Almost every western tourist we have seen in India looks really really dirty and haggard! This is only day 3 for us, so stay tuned.


The Qubt Minar tower, built circa 1200.

Later that evening, we treated ourselves to a meal at Bukhara in the Sheraton (not our hotel!), on the recommendation of my cousin's husband Paul, who's been to Delhi several times. Jerome declared the Peshawari lamb to be the tastiest piece of meat to ever cross his lips.