Argentina Redux We´re back in Argentina, I´m just using this blog as a spot to put up some photos.

Rio De Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro, or hiojejero as the locals say it, is hot. Its got the copacabana and the ipanema - the ipanema is aparantely classier, I couldn´t tell! Its got the Maracana stadium, with insane drummers. Its got endless mountains with great views. Some really strange restaurants, from Rodiros (waiters serve you white chocolate pizza till you explode) to fruit milkshake jelly bars. Great shops - well, OK shops, but the prices are half that of england.
And I´ve got a mere 48 hours of travelling left. See you all soon!

Brazil

Wow, its been a while since I updated this. I've gone all the way through San Pedro, Salta, Posadas to Foz du Iguacu. That's Chile-Argentina-Brazil! Some very long bus trips, only 22 hours left to get to Rio. Its now sunday in Foz du Iguacu, and everything is completely shut down (except this internet cafe). Brazillian Portuguese is incomprehensible.
The Iguaca falls are awesome. Eighty meters high, the huge river Parana runs out of basalt and plummets. You can walk over, around and up to the falls on walkways. I don't think even the photo's will do it justice, let alone this description.

San Pedro de Atacama

There are millions of tourists in this village. I've met more londoners here than in SE Asia! There's a lot of things to do, mainly tours to weird lunar rocks, deserts, salt flats, a cool 3 day 4x4 trek to bolivia that I'll do next time. Even a royal visit- Queen Beatrix of Holland followed us up a sand dune to see the sunset over the valle de la luna. The border crossing was deserted - it took 4 hours for the lone officer to deal with us all. The andes are incredibly high - we went through the lowest pass at 4300m (no air!), and there were another 3000m of mountains towering over us.
Not a lot in Salta - Posadas though. Or Paraguay - I popped over for a daytrip. I think the Lonely Planet got it right when it said Paraquay's biggest highlight were Jesuit ruins that "weren't worse than Argentina's".
A week on the Copacabana awaits. Or maybe the Ipanema. That's the kind of choice I like...

Santiago, Valpraiso and Vina del Mar

I`ve shaken off the belgian guys - I think they were just coming back from a club as I was leaving for valpraiso. I can`t believe how many 2-litre boxes of wine (60p) we got through. Santiago is great - really lively, really good atmosphere, lots of things to do, pretty cheap - more expensive than Jakarta but not a dump. The street market was very entertaining - every so often the police would come and it would evaporate in ten seconds flat. Wait a few minutes, its back up and running. The shops all have very bizarre ticket systems - queue in line, get told to buy ticket, queue to buy ticket, get ticket, get ticket stamped, pay for stamp, queue to exchange stamp for item... But hey, the prices are about half that of europe and the items feel just as good.
Valpraiso (prounounced Vlprsi as far as I can tell) is a bit of a dump - "colourful" hillside neighbourhoods, half the chilean navy in the harbour and a big port. Vina del mar is pretty good - not a lot here, but its a nice place. Tonight its overnight to La Serena where they make the Pisco - grape brandy.

Chile - Pucon

Pucon is a lot like Barilloche - but nicer, younger crowd, and cheaper. I`ve been here three days and I`m going rafting today, I`ve been hydrospeeding (down the creek without a paddle, merely a lump of polystyrene you bounce of the rocks with), and climbed up a volcano. I met up with 3 belgian guys - Jan, Guy and Dave, and for the record, their insane activites have been perfectly sensible.
The volcano - vulcan villarica- was really good. You climb up to 2860 metres high, walk round the green and red stinking crater, and then tobogan down. Without a tobogan! Its packed ice all the way to the top, you have padded trousers, serious boots and an ice pick to steer/brake with. I`m amazed no one got hurt... still, I`d rather be doing it that way! In case you`re wondering, if you are sliding down the ice a la vertical limit (the film), those ice picks can bring you to a complete halt. Oh, and I went to a hotspring afterwards - more of a lukewarm spring.
The costs? Hydrospeeding - 10 pounds, volcano 20 pounds, rafting 10. I don`t want to think how much they would cost back in england.
I have to get a move on - I have just over 3 weeks left to cover north chile, north argentina and south brazil. Santiago tonight, then Valipraiso, San Pedro de Atacama and then Argentina, Salta, Corrientes, Foz du iwazu and then Rio. Only 6 overnight bus trips left!

Barriloche

Lots of lakes, rivers, mountains - the Andes, forests, beaches, steaks, ok, the steaks aren`t quite as big as the landscape, but they are pretty huge. I went rafting down the river Manso all the way to the Chilean border, class III and IV rapids, it was great. Again, the devalued peso is making everything really cheap, and it was never expensive in the first place! Barriloche is like a swiss town - the centre is actually made of log chalet buildings, with St Bernard dogs wandering around for you to take you picture with (at a price). Aparantely, this is where every school kid comes after finishing high school to have a week long party - they`re still in school right now. I met a Argentinian jew, who was determined to go to Israel to sign up for the army out of moral duty. It makes a change speaking english out here - there seem to be very few tourists.
Valdivia in Chile tomorrow, then Pucon, Santiago and San Pedro de Atacama, where it has never rained.

Penguins by ze millions!

Yup, there is indeed a million strong colony of penguins in patagonia. And a couple of welsh villages that do a roaring tourist trade in tea and scones, not very many actual welsh speakers left though. Elephant seals and sea lions, just lying around watching the tourists. I didn´t see any whales though - wrong time of year. Its quite weird the sheer barreness of patagonia - its hundreds of miles of scrubland as far as you can see.
Barilloche tonight - the lake district.

Purto Madryn

I´m headed down to Puerto Madryn this evening - a mere 19 hour bus ride. Its got millions of penguins, beaches, and welsh villagers. I´m not joking! Seriously, there are Welsh villages there. Either that or my lonely planet is lying. Aparantely there´s also german villages outside Sao Paulo.
There isn´t that much to see in Buenos Aires - caminito, a lively tango-y place, recoletta cemetary, where they buried Evita (eventually - she wasn´t aristocratic enough) and err, lots of old european buildings. Really, really good food - haunches of meet delivered as fast as you can eat it for 2 pounds. And riots as police evict squatters - fortunately, it was only the squatters who were rioting. This has absolutely nothing to do with my decision to get out the city, honest!
I was going to head for lost inca cities, but the problem with inaccessible mountain fortresses that are so remote they escape destruction and looting is that they take a long time (a week by bus? I lost count after 72 hours...) to get to. Inconsiderates. Still, that¨s a good trip in itself - cly to Cusco, go Macchu Pincu, Lake Titiaca, the salt flats and fly out of Sucre. Maybe next time. I´ll instead loop through Barriloche to Santiago, up through Chile and back accross Mendoza. Or I´ll meet someone who has a clue and end up in the antarctic. I don¨t really care!

Buenos Aires

I´m now in Buenos Aires, if you hadn´t already guessed from the title. Its nice, warm, cheap, full of Argentinians who look ad speak Spanish and are all football mad. Internet cafes are back to reasonable prices (one thing I didn´t expect from america, it had worse connections than the jungle! I think everyone´s got broadband at home). Already been mustard squirted, and then mysteriously quickly some passer by happened to have a paper towel (he claimed it was birds, no breed I´ve heard off! Still, I didn´t taste it to make sure), and an intense interest in my bag and pockets, don´t think he got anything. Buenos Aires is a big city like any other. Now, do I go south to penguins or north to the lost cities of gold?

Las Vegas and Grand Canyon

Las Vegas was gratuitosly ostentatious. Good fun, pretty cheap for America - I suspect subsidies to get people into the casinos. Just a tad over the top though - fake volcanoes, new york skylines, eiffel towers, arthurian castles, waterfalls, white tigers (ok, they were real), more neon than you can shake a stick at. Great food - eat as much as you like for $10, and its really nice food. Nothing to do except see the casinos at night, so I did a day trip to the grand canyon. This is worth seeing. I can´t really describe it. Its too big. No, its bigger than that. Its 3 kilometers top to bottom, and about 180 degrees left to right. Errr... here´s a picture.

Road Trip round california

I've got a week and a car in california. I've just gone up to San Francisco, down the coastal road, I'm back in LA, headed to Las vegas today, grand canyon tomorrow, LA again then I fly to Buenos Aires (assuming the plane isn't stuck in New York). Phew. So far it hasn't been too bad, as there's another driver - shame he flys out today. It works out cheaper than the buses! San Fran was really nice but very expensive. LA is a bit rough - Hollywood et al are quite cool but thats about it.

Tokyo and out

In the last 7 days, I`ve hit 9 towns, had about 500 pounds worth of shinkansen, been up mountainous mysterious esoteric mountains, bathed in volcanic hot sand, seen the Ninja-dera and digested a rail timetable. I`m now glad to be in one place for the next 6 days. Tokyo is big. There`s not a lot in it, either - or there might be, but you need to be Japanese to get there. Its a bit depressing, talking to some english teachers who are fluent in japanese - people refuse to talk to them. I think its the other side of the politeness- anyone who cannot manage a three hour tea ceremony is ostracised. Los Angeles on the 15th!

Next saturday is going to be the longest day of my life - about 48 hours long. My flight leaves Tokyo at 19.00 and arrives at 14.00 - on the same day! The original plan was to cross the date line on my birthday just to really confuse people, but alas, the flights didn`t work out.

Wow, I actually hit all the places on my earlier plan. I think its the cold - you want to rush around, to warm up! Kanazawa was a nice, little town with a great garden/park and ninja temple (the current owners deny that it was ever used for secretive ninja training, but the sneakiness of the traps in it and the tourist board say otherwise.) Koya-san is the headquarters of the esoteric buddhists, very tranquil and holy, and halfway up a mountain in a ceder grove. I stayed at one of the temples - ancient paper screen walls, calligraphy on the walls, a zen garden outside my window, practically open to the elements, and a 10 course vegetarian meal served in my room. Japanese food is a bit bizarre; shall I just say, they have sour puddings. Not sweet, not salty (like the Thais), but tongue churningly sour.

There are a few cheap places in Japan - there seem to be a mysterious unpublished lot of "economy hotels". Not "love hotels" - room rates by the hour (aparantely, entirely legit as most of them are used by people looking to get away from families...). There`s Sun-plaza in Osaka which was 1700 yen a night (9 pounds!), New Koyo in tokyo at 15 pounds a night. I haven`t bothered with the youth hostels, they all seem to be 20 pounds a night for a dorm bed. Sushi is great, and cheaper than sandwichs. Even so, I`ve spent 40 pounds a day, which is less than most other travellers here but a lot of money.

Kyushu

Phew. This is a lot of travelling. I`m now in Beppu, the hot spring and tackiness capital of Japan. Sand baths, dodgy museums, hot springs... thats about it, the beach is far too cold. I`m taking an overnight ferry to Osaka, then onto the mountain retreat of Koya-san. I went up to Mt Aso today, nice to get some snow! Unfortunately, it was closed due to huge clouds of sulphur being belched. I suppose that`s the risk of visiting active volcanoes!

Kyoto

Kyoto is very nice. There are over 2000 temples and shrine, a huge castle, loads of day trips - I`d recommend it on any trip to Japan. I ended up staying there 5 days as there was a nice, cheap hostel (the Tour club), and tons of day trips - to Nara (the ancient-ancient capital, Kyoto was the capital after about 1100), and to Himeji (the huge castle where they filmed "You only live twice").
I`m now in Hiroshima, at the hypocenter of the blast (don`t ask "what blast?"). There`s a park, a library, a museum, a cultural center, and the one surviving building - quite how it survived a direct nuclear bomb, I don`t know. Its sobering.

I`ve started the rail pass - I have 7 days of free trains (well, 140 pounds for the 7 days). I`ve already used up 160 pounds worth of travel in 2 days, so its worth it! Next stop Beppu, for some relaly tacky hot springs, then Aso for the volcano, then Koya-San for the mountainous temple retreats, then Kanazawa then Tokyo. I`m putting it down now just so I can see how badly I veer from this plan!

Japan

Did I say Hong Kong was exp... oh, I`ve done that one. I`m now in Kyoto, having flown into Osaka. Its freezing cold -1`C out there. I have practically all my nice sunny clothes on at once. Ok,�@ok, I`ve just had 3 months of tropical sun, its about time I got some cold weather.
Kyoto is absolutely full of temples, castles, history, gardens - its quite a nice place. Far more expensive than Osaka, which had a castle and an aquarium. With an obscenely large whale shark. The only other gaijin out here seem to be english teachers. The hotels are really weird - I`ve just about got the hang of the shoes thing -don`t wear your shoes, ever- but the opening times? Restaurants closing at 6.30pm, hotels closing for 6 hour lunches, shops opening 10am including breakfast bars... maybe it`ll make sense in a week or so.
There`s a nice free internet connection at this university, I may be here often!

Hong Kong

Did I say Singapore was expensive? Whoops. Hong kong is.. less expensive than Japan is going to be, but still thrashes Singapore. Hong Kong does actually deserve the "bustling" and "vibrant" accolades, both of which my Lonely Planet fails to mention this time! Very good food, the source of Dim Sum, huge skyscrapers, weird artificial parks and a big hill. The book says the shops are real rip-offs with terrible reputations, but they are cheap. One of my friends bought a digital camera here (Nikkon Coolpix 885 if you're interested) and it was under 200 pounds, according to pricewatch.co.uk the best you'll do in Britain was 350. However, I don't actually need a digital camera.
Its very nice to be back in cold weather. 10-20'C feels like a freezer after the 32'C steambaths I've been in the last 3 months. Yes, Hong Kong is about as far south as Egypt, weird currents and stuff. Japan this Saturday, even colder.
I've been thinking about the most outrageous lies I've been told while travelling. I liked the "oh, so sorry, that hotel is full and it burnt down yesterday". Also the "I don't want your money, only a hundred rupees will do". A special award for enthusiam goes to the Kashmiri tout in New Delhi who patiently rang a non-existant number, had a conversation with himself for 10 minutes, and wrote down the huge numbers of people on the waiting list for every train for the next week. Of course, he had a car and driver available for hire seeing as I couldn't go by train... (None of the trains were full. This is an incredibly common scam). The airport in Bali that charges you 15$US as a service charge (over the airport tax), to provide no service whatsoever. The 3 Sweedish girls who want to go on a trek, but need 3-4 other people to fill up the group (told to us 3 european blokes... needless to say, the girls didn't turn up!). Taxis, everywhere.
I'm curious. Who's reading this? Send me an email on matthewharrup at hotmail.com (I'm trying to keep my email address away from robots).

Singapore

I've just had four days in Singapore, off to Hong Kong today. There's not a lot to see here, and its expensive, but the night safari was excellent and off course, drinking a singapore sling in the Raffles hotel.
For the night safari, there's a patch of rainforest left in Singapore that they've converted into an open zoo and filled with creatures that only come out at night. You can walk round the safe bits or catch a tram through the bits with fierce creatures in them.
Had a weird "steamboat" for dinner, a plate of raw meat and a pot of boiling water, it was like a do it yourself stirfry, except it was more a stir-boil. Never seen it before, but the locals were doing it so why not?

Indonesia

I can't make up my mind about Indonesia. Its had the best and worst accomodation, some of the hardest travelling, nicest places and complete slums. Its got unspoilt jungle except for the swarms of mutant bees hovering around your face, and I suppose that is actually natural. Huge volcanoes. Ancient temples that have nothing to do with the muslim/christian people - Borobudur and Prambanan. Bali, a tourist tout's dream. And lots of geckos. Geckos are really cool, one turns up in the room and ten minutes later all those annoying mozzies have been eaten.

Bali

So much for the plan! We went to the east side, changed our minds, went to the north, then to the south. For an island only 40 miles long it really shouldn't take 4 hours to get one side to the other. The north was really nice - maybe 10% full, with huge discounts on all the hotels. But it had black sand beaches that just looked dirty. We went on a dolphin trip, except the boat broke down and went around in circles for 2 hours.
I'm down in Kuta at the moment, Liz has just flown back to London. Its quite busy, but most of it is desperate hawkers who do not take no for an answer. It can get quite annoying, the sheer persistance of some of their attempts. Like moneychangers who keep saying "is that enough?" when they've given you half the ammount - they don't expect to get away with that one, they just want to wear down your defences so they can shuffle some money back to them (and they did even though I was watching carefully- bizarrely though, we went back and complained and got most of it back). Its a different attitude out here - no one is ripped off, but some people are better hagglers than others.
Having said that, its a very nice beach down here, lovely sea, very cheap accomodation (5 pounds a night double room/bathroom/swimming pool), very cheap and very nice food, a steady 32'C at midday... Ah well, its only money, isn't it?
I'm now planning on doing some diving. Well, some chilling out, then some diving.

Java

Java's been a bit of a disappointment really - far too many people in it, lots of hassle, nothing works as it should, and you have to add 50% on to all the given times. Jakarta was too hot and humid, Bogor rained all the time (aka "the city of rain", with 322 thunderstorms a year!), Yogya was "cultural" i.e. full of people doing "traditional" things for tourists that they'd never do normally.
I'm off to Bali tomorrow - the flight from here is 30 pounds, and it'll be nice and deserted. We'll head up to the east side, just under the volcano.
Lizzie - my girlfriend- has arrived, I may be frogmarched away from any internet cafes for the next two weeks. Hmm, I wonder if she knows this address...

Christmas on the beach

Well, I've ended up in yet another huge, noisy, polluted city. Jakarta -according to the guidebooks- has a nice little string of islands, called the Pulau Seribu or thousand islands (I wonder if that's where the salad dressing comes from?) just north of it. I went to the one I could afford, it was OK -they are definitely western prices and Indonesian pollution. Stick to Thailand for the beaches! But just spending Christmas on the beach was good enough.
Tourism is right down at the moment, I think due to last year when there were a number of incidents on Christmas eve. Nothing's happened so far, touch wood.
My airplane ticket got soaked, all the ink was washed off and the magnetic strip stuck to the next ticket. So I tracked down the Lufthansa office with the cunning plan of rearranging all my flights by one day - for free - so they'd have to reprint them all! Turns out I didn't need to do that, they took one look on their computer and offered me a new ticket. I like this service, its almost enough to make be stop buying bargain bucket tickets. Well, nearly enough. Dunno what's happening with United - I'm flying LA to Buenos Aires with them in Febuary, its just they're about to declare bankruptcy.
Next stop: Yogyakarta. Or Parangaranadarenan. Can't decide - one has huge temples (borodubur) and volcanoes, the other really good beaches. Ah, the stress of travelling, the hard decisions that have to be made...

Oook Oook!

Phew. I've had a slightly hectic two weeks, I'm now in Medan in Summatra. Surat Thani, Hat Yai, Penang, Medan, Bukit Lawan, Lake Toba and back to Medan. Where do I start?
Penang - in Malaysia- was nice, but quite expensive (Malaysia is reasonably developed!). Had a really good garden, with locals walking past the palm and banana trees to gape at some really exotic trees - evergreens, oaks, etc. It had a huge Xmas procession with marching bands, Christ squads, floats, charity collectors, dancers, the lot.
I basically spent too much time in Thailand - it was very good, very cheap and lots of backpackers. I'm now going to have to skip Malaysia and Singapore.
Summatra (Indonesia) is very cheap as well. I trekked through the jungle for 2 days trying to see an Orang-utan, then saw one 5 minutes away from the town! I think it had just been released back into the wild. There are no internet cafes here - well, ok, this one, but this is in a city of 2 million people.
Lake Toba was quite good as well - a huge volcanic crater lake and island 800m above sea level, maybe 50 miles wide? Completely deserted. Tourism is right down in Indonesia at the moment.
I'm now going to have to fly to Jakarta - I made the mistake of assuming that anything that fits onto a single page in the lonely planet is about an overnight bus ride accross. Its 48 hours solid to jakarta, and the plane is only 10 pounds more.
Now comes the expensive part of my trip: Hong Kong, Japan and Los Angeles. And my girlfriend turns up for 2 weeks!

Ko Pagn Nagn

I'm now an open water diver. There's a big storm coming - its raining a lot and the sea is incredibly choppy. Diving is great.
Ko Pagn Nagn is a bit quiet, not exactly what I was expecting. I'm on the relatively undeveloped north side - and there's no one here. I was going to try Bottle Bay, only reachable by boat, but the boats aren't running (that storm again).
Off to Malaysia -Penang- tomorrow, I've got to get a move on!

Going Diving

I'm now in Ko Tao (Turtle Island) just off Ko Pagn Nagn(lets-get-plastered-every-full-moon island). I'm just about to start a PADI open water diving course - 4 days, 100 pounds (inc. accomodation). The water is really clear out here, there are coral reefs you can snorkel to, the islands a bit of a mess though. Still, I'll be spending 4 days in the water! If I don't come back, I'm probably shark food. Or impaled on coral.
I've now seen Die Another Day and Harry Potter 2 on "DVD", I'm not entirely sure they're legit.

King's Birthday
It was the King's Birthday yesterday, lights up everywhere, free haircuts, the bars stopped serving beer as a mark of respect - aparantely, its one day you should actually be good on. I even had a tuk-tuk driver undercharge me when I was in a hurry in torrential rain. Now I've seen everything.

Wandering around Thailand

Nothing much to say really, Lopburi and Ayutheya are really quiet and full of ruins. Do them as day trips!

Cooking in Chiang Mai

I've just had a one day cookery course -10 pounds including all ingredients and stuff. Went to the market to buy all the spices, ludricously cheap over here - 3 pence for lemongrass, fresh ginger and coriander. Ate 7 dishes today, I'm feeling quite bloated. Thai food is very easy to cook, just add sugar, fish sauce and oyster sauce to everything. Then ginger and chicken for stir-fry "chicken with ginger"... etc.

Carrying on the theme of bizarre criminal cases, there's a journalist over here in prison for 5 years for abominable slander. The King of Thailand is incredibly respected, as is the entire monarchy, and the current king loves sailing. What's this journalist in jail for? He referred to the king as the "skipper" of the country! I bet our own royal family wished they were treated like that.

Trekking in the jungle

Well, I'm knackered. Three days of climbing straight up muddy, forested hills only to clamber back down again. How that elephant I was riding managed to make it up a 45' mud slide I don't know, wherever it put its feet (paws?) down they stayed. The white water rafting was great - about a class 3 rapids if that means anything to you. We then had to take the life jackets off, put the comfy inflatable dinghy away and get on 10 sticks of bamboo, and carry on down the same rapids! The raft nearly sank the moment we got on it. There were 9 of us in the group, just the right number. We didn't so much visit the hill tribes so much as see 3 shops in the middle of nowhere - it was so wet the first 2 days the villagers didn't want to come out. I was completely soaked through and muddy all over for the entire trip. It was great. Did I mention the mud?

Don't know what to do now! Carry on in the north, which is cheap, cooler and interesting, go down south to the beaches, travel through Ayuthera / lopburi / lam phun -all the capitals of various ancient Thai kingdoms... I'll relax today and maybe pinch a full Thailand guide book, my S.E Asia book is a bit thin on this.

Chiang Mai

I'm off trekking north of Chiang Mai for the next few days - going with Lenna guesthouse's organised trek. If I'm not back by wednesday, I've been eaten by an elephant. I sincerly hope these remote hill tribes I'm going to see do not have internet cafes, that would really spoil things.

Bangkok

Bangkok is absolutely full of temples ("Wats"). There are temples with 40 foot high swings, temples with 47m long reclining gold buddhas, temples with yaks, temples within temples within palaces. And then there's patpong road, which shall we just say is about as far away from the religious life as you can get.
Everyone stays in Khao San road, there must be over a hundred cheap hotels here. By the way, don't trust any spelling while in thailand, there's at least 47 different ways to translate thai script into english - thai is a tonal language, the same word spoken high pitched/ low pitched/ rising pitch/ falling pitch can mean different things.

Loy Kratong

I was quite impressed. Here's a local festival with huge oppurtunities to fleece tourists wanting to see something cultural, and no one would tell me a thing about it! They all light candles on decorative floats and set them going down the river. Something to do with appeasing river gods, dunno. Also lots of beauty competitions.

I'm now off to Chiang Mai, up in the north to do a bit of trekking. Even though the buses are cheaper and faster than the trains, with air conditioning as standard and free drinks (water/coke) being served regularly, I'm taking the train.

Thailand

Well, I flew into Bangkok, took one look at it and thought "I need a week on the beach". So I went straight to Ko Samet, a little island 3 hours away. Its a bit like greece, only cheaper, nicer, friendlier and hotter.
A couple of people have been badgering me for photos, and being lazy, I've turned to google. So here goes: Ko Samet beach
I'm back off to bangkok pretty much right now. Thailand is great, I love it!

No more India!

India is just about OK. I think the telling thing is that I've spoken to about 20 other travellers, 15 of whom -all first timers- hated it completely, couldn't wait to get out. The other 5 hated it first time, but found themselves coming back (one guy was on his 5th trip). That makes sense - its getting easier to do simple things now (I actually caught a rush hour train into delhi! The sleeper dropped me at delhi jn which wasn't even on the map, must have been the equivalent of croyden). Now I know to ignore everyone who initiates a conversation (contrary to their opening line, they do want your money), and only talk to people on trains/restaurants/tourist sites.
Its a real shame, because you come over here with a smiling face, wanting to talk to people. Its not that the scams against you are particularly ingenious (taxi drivers telling you your hotel's burnt down, gem exporters, people not giving change/ deliberately giving wrong advice etc), its that they are 100% persistant. You can't do anything unless you know how its done, which you can't the first time around. Someone will work this out, and deliberately set out to confuse you. I can't really blame the Indians - the average wage is $350 (US) - so there must be 500 million people on less than that. Quibbling over 50 rupees (about 70 pence) seems silly, but if its your average daily wage and you can double it by lying to a foreigner (who can put together $1000 for the air fare, so isn't exactly badly off), then why not?
I really wish I had more positive things to say about India! Shimla was nice, so was Udaipur - watching Octopussy on the lakeside and seeing the same views as in the film was great (how that rickshaw driver got past the Jagdesh temple I'll never know).
Its cheap - I've spent under 200 pounds and I've been living in hotels, eating in restaurants and travelling around for 4 weeks. No complaints there.
A couple of impressive temples, forts (Jodphur especially) and the Taj Mahal, a few conversations with students (one precocious 10 year old who'd already learnt english and wanted to talk to me in french was good fun)... that's about it.

Thailand tomorrow. I've survived India, what can they possibly do to me in Bangkok?

Udaipur

Ok, ok, that last post was a bit sceptical, possibly a bit of venom in there even. I've now recovered from a nasty mugali, had 10 hours sleep in a reasonably clean city and India seems a whole lot better. Everyone I've spoken to agrees that the further a place is away from the main trains / buses, the nicer it is. Which is a shame, because it makes it really hard to get to. For example, we actually had a travel agent actually help us book a ticket here (I know, didn't believe it myself). We walked past a market and didn't get hassled by vendors, who weren't annoyed and angry with us for not buying their goods.

Udaipur is a city on two lakes. Its got a huge palace, a ludricously expensive 5 star hotel in the middle of the lake, a couple of impressive temples and lots of good accomodation. Its quite pleasant. Things are tailing up quite well -I'm off up to Jaipur tomorrow, and then back to Delhi Wednesday to fly out Thursday to Bangkok.

Temple of the Rats

Aparantely, there's a temple dedicated to the Rat god (one of 330 million Hindu deites) somewhere around here. Of course, you still have to take your shoes off. There are thousands of rats swarming all over the place. Its very auspicious if one runs over your foot. The luckiest thing of all - and pilgrams come miles for this - is to eat food that one of the rats has salivated on.

I don't know exactly where this temple is, and I might not try too hard to find it.

Diwali

Diwali in Delhi - sounds like it should be good. It actually sounded like 6 hours of fireworks, firecrackers and other assorted gunpowder devices going off at close proximity (they even let them off inside the hotel). Not much on the streets, I suppose its really a family thing. No booze - 95% of india seems not to drink. It was OK, worth seeing just about.

I'm currently in Jaipur, and its the filthiest, noisiest, most comission hungry rickshaw/persistently annoying beggers/ slimiest confidence scamsters I have ever seen (and I've been to Eqypt). They call it the pink city -pink is the colour of hospitality over here, but I reckon its more apricot. I'm off to Udaipur (where they filmed Octopussy) tonight, just killing time until the train gets here. I'll be glad to get out of India (14th Nov) - there are only so many "bustling" and "vibrant" (copyright- Lonely Planet guides) cities I can take.

Taj Mahal

This is awesome. A stonkingly huge marble mausoleum to hold the remains of Muntaz Mahal, the emperor's wife. Five storeys high with a huge onion shaped dome on top - 500 years ago. Just for decoration it has four big minarets, two mosque-like buildings (one is completely usless as it faces away from the holy land- just for symmetry!), gardens, everything.

The same can't be said for the surrounding polluted city, the agravation from the touts is extremely annoying. One guy followed me for half an hour, refusing to take no for an answer. My advice to anyone coming is get on a tour - turn up at the train station, on a coach, see everything, back to the train station. You are not missing anything in the city.
BTW, the wonderful people at blogspot let you put images up here, as long as you pay them 20 quid or so. I'll think about it - I need an internet cafe with a scanner before I can upload images anyway.

Shimla

Shimla is great. Its the old British summer capital, 2.5km up in the Himalayan foothills. A tiny railway crawls for hours up through valleys and switchbacks to get up here. Very clean, fresh, lots of treks, great views, I love it here.

There's a monkey temple on a big hill a few miles east. Millions of really crafty, cheeky monkeys. One of them did a commando raid swinging through the door to the temple (over my head), snuck into the alcove, into a chest containing a packet of nuts and out again before anyone could blink. (No one minded - in a temple dedicated to Jaakhu you let the monkeys do as they want).
The main street here - the Mall - is straight out of Brighton seaside. One huge church, big promenade with ice cream stands and donkey rides, mock tudor state buildings, hundreds of Delhites showing off their English. And the himalayas in the background.

Breaking Indian news:
The biggest story here (forget Ulrika!) is the lynch mob that killed 5 dalites who were suspected of killing a cow. The general consensus is that they were taking justice a bit too far into their own hands. Aparantely a post mortem on the cow revealed it had died naturally. Don't mess with cows in a predominently Hindu country.

Delhi

I've arrived in Delhi after a 23 hour train trip. They had hundreds of people selling Chai (tea) - I'm really not sure how that much tea could be drunk every few minutes.

Mumbai was just getting too hot and sticky. When its too hot to sleep, and too expensive for air con, its time to move on.

Thus Spake Zarathrusta

India seems to be the most religious place in the world. Forget the major religions -Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian, everywhere has those. I just went on a tour, saw the Towers of Silence where the Parsis leave their dead to be picked apart by vultures.

And if you thought that was grim, aparantely there aren't enough vultures anymore so they're resroting to chemicals!

There's also the worshippers of Jain, who beleive every living thing is sacred. They pray with a cloth over their mouths to protect the bacteria that would otherwise die when exhaled.

Kashimir isn't a war zone

According to this tout who was from the area and trying to do some seriously hard selling. He implored me to get out my bible of travelling - lonely planet- and check what he said. It said: "Kashimir is a war zone. Don't go there. Beware of touts doing the hard sell on it."
After that, he kinda quietened.

Its started! I arrived in Mumbai at 01.00am today, the 30'C and humidity were a bit of a shock. Its a very busy city, you can't move without being offered a bongo / giant inflatable 1.5m pear (well, its pear shaped, dunno what its supposed to be) / dotted by a holy man.
I'm currently wimping it out in an air conditioned internet cafe. Bombay airport is aparantely used to long haul flights coming in at midnight, they had entire bureaus of 24 hour hotel booking places. Overpriced by several hundred rupees of course, but hey, that's less than a fiver and I wasn't going to argue.
All the tourist destinations seem to be $10 for foreigners, and 10 rupees (15 pence) for indians. Every street corner has fruit juice stands where they freshly squeeze it, hand you a glass to down it and take a whole 15 pence off you (I know, I've tried several!)

Just got my India Visa - took an entire morning. Aparantly, tomorrow is Dhurussa (of course) so everything's closing down, and everyone is applying today.

AAAARGH! The Star alliance counts miles travelled overland towards their milage! This is mad, they're not paying for the train or bus, I am. I could walk round the world never catching a flight and they'd charge me £1550 for the privilege. Time to re-check the one world alliance.

Update: Due to a slight miscalculation, I've had to lop 1000 miles off the roundtrip distance - so I'm now going overland Buenos Aires to Rio de Janeiro. I always wanted to see Iguaçu Falls anyway- 275 waterfalls over 3km wide of mountains, right on the Argentina- Brazil border.

A huge gap has appeared between posts, I'm not exactly sure why. Ah, I had convert line breaks on... lets turn it off.

I've got an itinary:
London -Bombay	18th October	LH4789/760
Delhi - Bangkok	15th November	TG316
Overland to Bali
Jakarta to hong kong	13th January	SQ143/2
Hong kong - osaka (kix)	22nd January	NH176
tokyo (NRT)- Los Angeles	15th Feb	RG8837
Los Angeles - Buenos aires (eze)	22nd Feb	UA867/855
Buenos aires (eze) - rio	15th March	RG8637
Rio - london	7th April	RG8756

Testing 1-2-3

I think I've got the hang of this blog

To anyone thinking of going, check your itinary with an actual rtw person, I've found travel agents are pants at this kind of thing. E.g. routing Buenos Aires to Christchurch via new york (18,000 miles) and claiming it blows the milage allowance (duh).
First stop will hopefully be brazil. If I can get the ticket. Otherwise its india.

I'm going round the world!

Instead of keeping a diary or writing tons of postcards, I thought I'd post an account on the web.

If you need to contact me, I'll be checking matthewharrup@removethiswordfornospam.hotmail.com

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