Indian Subcontinent 2008 - 2009

Gallery: South India

rickshawalas — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:44:00 GMT

Circumnavigating the Subcontinent – Mission completed

rickshawalas — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 00:11:00 GMT

Total land kilometres travelled: 15,000 km + (see the map of where we have been here:
View Larger Map

Since we last left you at the end of our trip through the tribal areas of Orissa we have travelled around the bottom half of India! As we ventured south the weather became hot and steamy, the food took on a tropical twist and the local dialects changed every 100 miles. We have visited 15 places in the last month – here are the highlights:

Pondicherry - A side-trip to France

We started our southern journey in the French colony town of Pondicherry in the middle of the Eastern coast of India. We had to double-check our map when we arrived because we could have sworn our train took us to the south of France: cobbled streets, French street names, shop owners calling me Mademoiselle and more middle aged Europeans on bicycles than you can shake a stick at. The only thing missing was the cheese and wine (but oh, how we searched!) The highlight of our surreal stay in Pondicherry was meeting a wonderful little homeless family who lived on a pile of construction sand outside our guest house. We noticed straight away that their gorgeous little baby girl Vallamaia had a distended pot belly and big sad eyes – she was seriously malnourished. We took the mother, grandmother and Vallamaia to the local hospital where she was seen by a doctor, had a series of blood tests and given treatment. The doctor educated the mother on how to feed her child. We then went and bought the family big sacks of rice, dahl, chickpeas, flour, oil etc and some clothes for the children. See a photo of little Vallamaia in the photo gallery. This mission was generously funded by a friend of ours in the UK. These sorts of experiences have taught us that you can change lives with what Londoners spend on coffee in the average week. After Pondicherry we made our way further south to Madurai which has amazing colourful temples that attract pilgrims from all over India. We then caught a train to the southern most tip of India, en route to Varkala in Kerala on the West coast.

Varkala – The Subcontinental Algarve

It turns out that Varkala’s serene beach and coastline had some sort of underground tunnel to Liverpool. With more Italian restaurants than chai stalls – we felt out of place and far removed from the Indian experiences we love. However – once we got used to the cockney accented tabla players, and moochy long termers escaping the European winter we enjoyed having fresh seafood and beers on the coast after a refreshing swim. We lasted 2 days then got back on the train...

Blissing out on the Keralan Backwaters

We spent 5 nights in relaxed Allepey on the Keralan coast – best known as being the gateway for the backwaters. Stayed at Vrindavanam Heritage Home which was a nice guest house set around a courtyard filled with palm trees, tropical birds and hammocks. Sounds perfect expect the place was ‘run’ by a pack of indifferent, boozy, foul-mouthed idiots who spent their days swearing at guests and their nights partying in the courtyard on brandy and pot to trance music. After 3 months of bathing with cold water from a bucket and sleeping with cockroaches rattling around the room we treated ourselves to 24 hours on an amazing thatched house boat. Our driver pottered us through the backwaters past villagers diving for shells, fishermen in canoes selling big fresh water prawns, women washing clothes under the palm trees, and kids going to school by boat. Our cook Suresh whipped up the best food we had eaten in 3 months. Feasting on Keralan seafood and sipping cold beers on the rooftop was one of the best moments of our trip.

Laid back colonial life in Fort Cochi

We emerged from our life of luxury and caught a local bus north to Fort Cochin (Kochi) where we spent 6 nights. Fort Cochin is an ex - Portuguese and Dutch colony with history dating back to 1500’s. Many of the shops, and especially hotels date back to medieval trading times. The place has a real feel of history interspliced with palm trees, curries, seafood, rickshaws and tropical weather. We met lots of wonderful locals in Cochin who made us feel very at home.

Hill stations, Palaces and the long journey north

With time pressing, and deadlines to meet, we started to trek north. From Fort Kochi we journeyed 12 hours north to the hill station of Ooty where the wonders of India froze our Keralan sweat into Ooty icicles. To defrost we headed further north to the Palaces and amazing bazaars of Mysore, then back to the coast – to Mangalore – before travelling further north to Margao in Goa – where we spent the day with Cisco’s family, before catching our 3rd overnight train in as many nights to Pune.

A five hour bus ride from Pune now finds us in Nasik – an amazing, vibrant but little-visited town on the banks of the holy Godavari river. Each day we wander in awe past pilgrims bathing at the ghats, women washing clothes and children, and holy men conducting Hindu ceremonies as the ghat meets the water. Nasik is a mini Varanasi - we are captivated by its spirit and sense of religious excitement amidst its calm flow of life. Nasik is the epitome of everything that is beautiful about India – the perfect place to be in as we bring our journey to a close.

We did it! Circumnavigating the Subcontinent – Mission completed

4 months, 3 countries, 45 cities/towns/villages, 18 train journeys, 31 local bus journeys, four ferries , 41 Guest Houses and countless rickshaws later we are closing our amazing odyssey.

Tomorrow is the day we have been dreading for the last 4 months. Tomorrow we leave on our final train for our final destination. Our journey ends on 28th February at 7:10am when Air India lifts Cisco back to London. Its too soon. Its heartbreaking. It feels awful; like the last day of holidays before school starts... I have tried to sell Cisco’s passport on the black market but it seems no one wants to have to grow a beard that bristly :-)

We have no words for how amazing India is – her people, culture, landscape, history, food, colours, romance and adventure – all of which have left an indelible imprint in our hearts.

We also can’t begin to describe how amazing our journey has been.
We have seen so much, met so many wonderful people, laughed until we cried and woke up each day with excitement and wonder at what may lie ahead of us. This is what life should be about....

We want to send our love and thanks to everyone who has supported us both on this adventure – your emails and blog comments have made us feel that you are travelling with us – which we wished you had been...

What’s next?

What? – we don’t know...where? – that’s the exciting part....

It hurts to close this perfect journey. But we know the next one won’t be too far around the corner....

With much love, until next time - Chloe and Fra xoxo

"Don't look now, there is a turd on your shoulder"and other stories from Orissa, India

rickshawalas — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 22:23:00 GMT

Total land kilometres travelled: 8,500km and counting

Where we have spent the night:

29 guest house beds

8 train beds

3 bus seats

1 village hut

Dear friends and family – we have just spent an amazing 10 days exploring the beaches and hill tribe areas of Orissa state in North East India. We are in the progress of moving south along the coast to the bottom tip of India.

Puri Beach

We travelled 8 hours by train south from Kolkata to reach Puri – a beachside town on the cost of Orissa. We spent 4 days in a beachside cottage beside a fishing village – passing the time by having massages, swimming, drinking cold beers and meeting fellow travellers. However, our sins of gluttony and sloth were soon punished when we both got sick. Chloe ended up in hospital with a needle in her hand and Cisco is on antibiotics – but luckily it was short lived and we’re feeling back to 100%.

The theory for the sickness lies in the state of the beachside fishing village we stayed next to. Puri beach could well be renamed Poo-ree beach because, imagine if you will, the beach is littered with hundreds of human turds. Walking along the beach we had to keep our eyes trained on the sand to avoid stepping over a poo or a person in the process of making one. I saw more bare bums in this week than I have in my previous 31 years, which sounds exciting, but trust me, it wasn’t pretty. I wanted to chip in to buy everyone a shovel – but one village woman I met told me this is the way the village has always worked: everything is done in the open. To add to the grime we also saw kids playing cricket around puffy dead dogs (who had their legs bound and been drowned) and dozens of massive rotting turtles (whose legs had been slashed by fishermen so they couldn’t swim). The villagers lives and work in these putrid conditions – which is incomprehensible to us but normal and acceptable for the happy villagers, which of course is the main thing. However, we did stop eating seafood after we saw where the fish were coming from and, most importantly, what they were probably eating.....

Note: don’t worry - we walked to a clean part of the beach for the swimming – but it didn’t stop Cisco saying to me “Don’t look now, but there is a turd on your shoulder” when I came up for air.

We met two kindred spirits & fellow adventurers in Orissa – Nettie and Jack from Holland. I am sure they won’t mind me telling you that they are 67 and 70 and still choosing the adventurous road in life. Beyond being amazing people – they showed us that being young at heart is the only prerequisite for travelling and exploring this amazing world.

Hill Tribes of inner Orissa

We decided to buck the trend and head to inner Orissa to visit the villages near the jungles and hills where the Adivasi tribes live. Due to logistics and restrictions not many people come to this part of Orissa: to visit most surrounding areas you need a permit and a guide. We decided to venture forth without either and it was the best decision we had made. Because the tribes live so remotely and so traditionally its impossible to visit the actual tribal communities in the jungle so we headed for the villages nearby to see them as they come down from the hills for their weekly markets.

The highlight of our visit to the hill tribes was a 3 day stay in Koraput village - which is near to the Bonda tribe. This tribe still hunt with bow and arrow and are distinguished by their tribal facial piercings and are known as “the naked people” for wearing little clothing. We were in Koraput on the day which the Bonda tribespeople come down from their hills to sell their crops to the village. Their appearance is very different to the Indians we had met so far– some look almost African or Aboriginal - women wear three large gold hoops through their noses and most limbs are roughly tattooed. All tribespeople are barefoot and dressed in a simple piece of material wrapped (to varying degrees) around their bodies – usually accompanied by a baby in a sling or a stick from which they hang their wares. The Adivasi are known for their happiness and zest for life: they believe in appreciating their gift of life by celebrating it everyday. We loved seeing such a different side of India and were shown yet again how the simple life can be the happiest.

While in the tribal areas we visited a village called Rayagada and after meeting a young schoolboy on the street we were invited to spend the day with a local family there. Uncle and Aunty, their 3 foster children and maidservant Onu adopted us for the day – driving us up into the hills to see waterfalls and rivers, showing us the full collection of family photo albums and feeding us an amazing thali of local Orissan food. Little maid Onu was wonderful – so shrivelled up and bent over but so warm and wonderful. She had been living with the family for 36 years and had long since passed her useful and productive days, but she was considered family so still lived in a tiny room out the back of the house. We love Uncle and Aunty – so generous and loving to everyone who touches their lives.

Why we love India

India has shown us that the people with the least are those who give the most: always with a smile and open heart and never with an expectation of return. We saw quotes written around Orissa which we really liked. Here is one variation:

“The measure of a man’s wealth is what he has when you take away his money”

This focus is why, without exception, the Indians we have met are so rich in spirit and such amazing people. This is why we love India.

We will leave you with that thought as we head back into the Pondicherry chaos.

With much love

Chloe & Fra xoxoxoxo

Gallery: Orissa

rickshawalas — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:30:00 GMT

Rice Paddies, the world's longest beach, 600,000 rickshaws and becoming a celebrity in Bangladesh

rickshawalas — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 23:33:00 GMT

Total land kilometres travelled: 7,000 and counting…

Dear friends and family – since we last wrote we have been clocking up the mileage and seeing incredible Bangladesh. Bangladesh was like nothing we had ever seen – stunningly beautiful but so simple and almost operating in a little world of its own. No tourists, very little infrastructure, a society deeply rooted in the fundamentals of the Koran and a shocking lack of reliance on The West (including English language and western education) to get things done. The simplicity of life and innocence of the Bangladeshi people was refreshing after the cloying, tourist-savvy industries of insatiable Kolkata. Bangadeshi people taught us to let our guard down again and it was a wonderful experience.

We spent 2 and a half weeks getting back to basics in Bangladesh – here is the journey which unfolded...

Off to Bangladesh - Dramas at the border (take 3):

Once we had the great news that there was no post-election violence in Bangladesh we packed up our backpacks and set off for the next adventure. It takes 16 hours on bus and bus ferry to get from Kolkata to Dhaka.

It took me three days, three visits, one “interview” and many Rupees at the Bangladeshi Embassy in Kolkata to get my Visa stamp in my New Zealand passport. According to all official literature, signs and even the Bangladesh High Commissioner himself – for some lucky reason Irish passport holders are exempt from a visa – no stamp and no fee required. BUT, in this part of the world when things sound this too good to be true – you can be guaranteed dramas ahead! The High Commission warned Cisco that although he doesn’t need a visa – that the immigration guys at the border may or may not agree with this rule. We asked for a letter, some or even a visa stamp and were told it wasn’t Consulate Protocol. But here is a phone number to call when you get in trouble. Hmmmm....

So on the 4^th January we set off at 5am for Bangladesh. We were at the Benapole border by 9am – sailed through Indian immigration and customs – but, not surprisingly, things came unstuck when we reached the Bangladeshi officials. To cut a very long and frustrating story short we were told “no visa - no entry” and we had to go back to Kolkata to get a visa in Cisco’s passport. They refused to call the High Commission to get this verified. We were then split up into different rooms and given the same questions over and over again (what were our intentions in Bangladesh, where we will go, how long we will stay, our jobs, our relationship to each other etc). They obviously wanted to corroborate our stories. After about 90 minutes the Official questioning me said it was impossible to get Cisco into Bangladesh and his commander was requesting that he be deported back into India immediately. Soon after Cisco appeared again and said they admitted he doesn’t need a visa but that he must now fly into Bangladesh – no entry by land allowed. All that was missing from this administrative farce was the ubiquitous request for baksheesh to “oil the wheels”. After 2 and a half hours they obviously got bored with their show of power and let Cisco enter on the condition we exit from the same point within 3 weeks OR ELSE. No complaints from us – we grabbed our passports and ran for the bus before they could ask for the cash!

World famous in Bangladesh:

160 million people live in Bangladesh and 85% of them exist on less than 1 GBP per day. Bangladesh is a Muslim country (85% are Sunni Muslim) – which means no more cold beers at the end of each day and I am usually the only woman on each street or in each restaurant. Infact because Muslim men can’t touch women and don’t really see or converse with them, I am for the most part ignored (I am actually scary to small Muslim boys) and Cisco is the definite celebrity attraction. They say Bangladesh is the place you come the closest to having celebrity status (without the salary). We quickly realised we would infact be travelling Bangladesh in a revolving troupe of 35 friends.

The hot topics for discussion were:

“my country?” (aka where are you from?)

“my name is?” (aka what is your name?)

Once they heard we were Julie and Francisco from New Zealand (they can’t pronounce Chloe and have no idea where Zimbabwe is – in the hopes of a speedy interaction it was best to keep things simple) some inquisitive people were thankfully off as fast as they appeared.

For others no amount of hinting or feigned yawning was enough to convey the idea that perhaps we didn’t want to spend our Bangladesh holiday in their constant company. Bangladeshi people are sweet though, very humble and kind and welcoming. We have collected a book full of Bangladeshi cell phone numbers – usually given without their name and certainly without purpose- and I have the feeling our new best friends will genuinely be expecting for us to call...

A big reason for the huge interest in being our new best friends is the fact that very few westerners visit Bangladesh. In the 2.5 weeks that we were there we didn’t see another traveller. It was lovely to feel so remote but our novelty meant we were like animals in a zoo everytime we stepped outside. I estimate we are now the homescreen of approximately 23,500 Bangladeshi mobile phones. Some people asked to take our photos (usually in various poses of their choosing: shaking hands, pretending to read a book together, arms around like we were long lost buddies), some pretended to take a photos of their friend who was suddenly very conveniently standing or sitting beside us, but most often we would have a camera phone thrust in our face. We were tempted to invested in two full length burqas so we could walk along in peace; but the moon telescope (aka THE CAMERA) probably wouldn’t not be convincing accessories for two inconspicuous Muslim women going about their business. I played tricks on the crowd following us one day as we walked along the main road of Cox Bazar – stopping, turning back, crossing the road and crossing straight back again – and yes they followed every move we made. We were tempted to start breakdancing as we walked, but that would have just been mean...

For the record – I am applying for Cisco to have honorary New Zealand citizenship in reward for services rendered towards Bangladesh-New Zealand relations. Bangladeshi men LOVE New Zealand because (they think) we are as mad about cricket as they are. At the end of our trip Cisco was having great yarns about Flemming’s retirement, Vettori’s fast bowling and whether Astle was better than Cairns. Infact by the end he had fabricated a whole split personality of being a New Zealand Professor of Management at Wellington University who plays cricket at the weekends– very funny to listen to until we met a Professor of Economics on the ferry...

The best rickshaw ride of my life in crazy Dhaka:

Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh. The city has 20 million people and is one of the most heavily populated polluted cities in the world – they say on a good day you can chew the air for breakfast. Dhaka traffic is insane – it took us about 2 hours to travel 20 km. This may have something to do with the estimated 600,000 cycle rickshaws on the roads. The cycle rickshaw wallas (bless them) peddle like crazy through the chaos and the heat for just a handful of cents. These guys cycle like they have engines on board and an inbuilt GPS system. We literally flew through the busy roads – averting collisions with buses, trucks and other rickshaws at the last moment and with a fraction of a molecule to spare. To quote a good friend of ours – if there was newspaper between us and the other vehicle the writing would have been scraped clean off. It feels so damn dangerous, but its simply exhilarating and the biggest (legal) thrill you can get in Bangladesh.

We loved Dhaka for its old-world sense of chaos. All signs are in Bangla script, I had more luck communicating with locals in Hindi (and that is saying something) and they haven’t yet learned from their Indian cousins that tourists are infact both wealthy and stupid and prone to dishing out money to anyone who should ask.

Island life Bangladeshi style:

For the remainder of the trip we visited Chittagong, Cox Bazar (the world’s longest beach) and spent 4 lazy days on Saint Martins Island – a tiny coral island with a population of 5,000 – most of whom live in grass huts and spend their days fishing, fixing nets and living the good life. There are no vehicles or roads on the island: only bikes and one central foothpath which connects one side of the island with the other. We loved being on the island – the only thing missing was being able to swim (I tested it and the water is no barrier to deterring or dispersing our local crowd) and to be able to sit with a cool drink at the end of a long day eating fish and reading. Saint Martins Island is probably the world’s only tropical paradise without a beer fridge. We met amazing people on the island – self sufficient families with no money but who were generous and genuine without expecting anything in return. One amazing family invited us to their hut for an afternoon. Before we left the old granddad climbed the tallest coconut palm and chopped the top off two coconuts for us to drink the juice inside. The way his tribe of children pounced on the empty coconuts to get the few remaining drips showed me this was a very special occasion for them and what they had given to us was an incredible gift.

If all this island life sounds lazy – it was – but we certainly needed it in preparation for the 4 day trek down to Orissa, India where we are now. One 3 hour ferry, two 14 hour overnight bus trips, one (surprisingly uneventful) border crossing, a final 6 hour bus back to Kolkata and then straight on a 12 hour train trip down south to Orissa. We are in a small village in central hills of Orissa as I type this. We are here to see the hill tribes – they live completely segregated from Indian life here (they are exempt from the Indian caste system, and many still hunt with bows and arrows and do not wear clothes). More on this new adventure next time..

With much love and big hugs,

Chloe and Fra xoxoxooxxo

Gallery: Bangladesh!

rickshawalas — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 22:24:00 GMT

Christmas, Mother Teresa and exploring in Kolkata, West Bengal

rickshawalas — Sun, 4 Jan 2009 17:03:00 GMT

Total road distance travelled: 5,255 km

Dearest friends and family – assalam alaikum from Bangladesh!! We can’t wait to share with you our most recent adventures and photos (check the photo gallery. We have managed to load some of Ciscos into the gallery this time!) We feel like the stars of some epic adventure movie or a National Geographic documentary. Its all still so amazing, breathtaking and simply WOW ...

We spent 10 days in Kolkata over Christmas and New Years Eve– we did some amazing work with charities, met and spent time with new friends from all around the world and celebrated (commiserated) the halfway point of our 4 month adventure.

We are now in Bangladesh which is a chaotic soup of unexplored excitement – but before we jump to that, here is the brilliant journey which lead us here....

Working at the Mother Teresa Mission (by Francisco)

I’ve always wanted to volunteer in Kolkata and was fortunate enough to do so at one of the ‘houses’ set up by Mother Teresa. The day after arriving in Kolkata, I left our guest house at 6am and walked through the back streets of Kolkata, making my way to ‘The Mother House’ – this is where Mother Teresa used to live. The streets were already alive with activity – chickens tied to bicycles being taken to the markets for slaughter , people washing on the streets, market stalls opening for the day, chai on the go, a hive of activity going on.

Arriving at the Mother House

I had no idea what to expect and anxiously waited outside ‘The Mother House’ with other volunteers – I met a wonderful nursing couple (David and Kajal), originally from New Zealand. We were summoned inside and directed to a hall where we waited for the 6am mass to end (mass is conducted every morning and is attended by around 100 volunteers from all over the world ranging from the age of 18-80 along with 120 nuns). We all received breakfast (a cup of chai, a banana and a slice of bread), said a morning prayer with the nuns and were then told which ‘house’ we would be sent to work at (there are around 8 houses in total, some caring for disabled children, others for lepers, AIDS patients, the dying and destitute). David, Kajal and I were sent to the Kalighat district (this is where Mother Teresa set up her first house for the dying and destitute – the house is known as Mother Teresa’s first love).

My experiences at Kalighat home for the dying and destitute

After a 15 minute bus journey and a 10 minute walk, we arrived at Kalighat (the building was colonial in style, old and run down from the outside). Beggars and sick people were at the entrance – we walked into the house and were instantly greeted by the smell of illness in the air. The house holds 100 patients (50 men, 50 women). On a daily basis, volunteers travel to train stations and walk the streets to find the patients living and dying in squalor conditions. The patients are brought to Kalighat to die with some dignity.

Stretcher beds littered the hall at the house , a scene often depicted on TV of suffering people in camps. We were not orientated into what we should be doing so simply took it upon ourselves to get on and help wherever we could. We were told to wear aprons – they had the words “Jesus is our All in All” printed across them. From then on, our duties included handing out breakfasts, feeding patients who could not feed themselves, handing out medication, sitting with patients to comfort them (the human touch is so incredibly powerful - the poor, dying patients clutch the volunteers’ hands with all the strength that they have), handing out more bread and more chai to the outstretched hands and cries of “brother, brother”, collecting the plates after breakfast (which sets the wheels in motion for us to all do the washing up and drying), followed by nearly 2 hours of hand washing clothes, sheets, blankets, towels, aprons and cloth in massive concrete tubs. All the laundry is taken to the rooftop and laid on the roof and washing lines to dry for the day. Before we know it, it’s time to hand out lunch, feed the patients that cannot feed themselves, collect the plates and start the washing up again.

David and Kajal applied their nursing skills by dressing wounds, administering intravenous drugs and helping with physiotherapy. A scene that I will never forget was that of a young volunteer carrying a very thin, weak woman across the street and into the house – it was so sad to see the desperation in the woman’s face. Later that day I learned from Kajal that the woman had a massive hole in her head with her brain visible, maggots crawling inside the hole. Kajal helped to pick out the maggots and dress the wound. One woman had an open wound on her leg, this too was infested with maggots. Most of the patients that we helped where suffering from Tuberculosis or had their toes or feet amputated. Kolkata has a large number of rickshaws that are pulled by men running barefoot through the streets. They cut their feet by running over broken glass or rusty wire. Their feet then become infected, they don’t have the money to care for themselves and so the infection becomes worse, leading to amputation.

I remember sitting and feeding an old, weak, blind man. He held onto my hand so tightly, he was crippled and twisted over. I looked down at him and only imagined all the pain that he has suffered through his life. He was the first person that I went to every day. I greeted him every morning by holding his hand and touching his head – he would slowly reach to his forehead , touching it as a sign of respect.......

I arrived early at the house one morning and began handing out the breakfasts – I heard a man dying, surrounded by two sisters and two volunteers – his desperate last breaths were hard to bear: he was around my age. The nuns prayed to him and gave him his last rights, he died a few minutes later. A second person died in the time that I volunteered, fortunately I did not witness that death. We were doing the laundry the next morning, four men arrived and carried the bodies past us to the crematorium. The bodies are accompanied by volunteers as the dead often have no families. Volunteering at Kalighat once again restored my faith in mankind – there are some truly incredible people in this world who help those less fortunate, who put other people’s lives before theirs. One elderly Italian nurse has been volunteering for over 10 years. She was constantly on the go, dressing wounds, administering drugs and just spending time with patients – she had a broken leg herself!

I met some incredible people during my time there – so good to see so many young people giving their time to help others.... This is an experience that I will never forget – I will certainly return and help where I can. I also questioned why I didn’t become a nurse or doctor – it was truly rewarding helping others. I think of so many of the patients daily....

Working with the children of prostitutes:

In the afternoons we spent some time at New Light – which is an orphanage/refuge for young children of prostitutes. Kolkata is the Indian capital of prostitution – many of the young women are bussed here from small villages in Nepal after being promised husbands and/or jobs: neither of which eventuate. In time these women have a litter of unplanned offspring, and because the women are forced by their pimps to work around the clock to pay off imaginary debts, the children are left unattended and vulnerable on the streets. Many end up abused and/or in the same trade. The orphanage we worked with provides a place for 40 of these little kids to sleep and play. It was so wonderful to compare these happy, talkative and clean children to those we see sleeping on the street and picking up sacks of rubbish. All the kids wanted was love and attention – which wasn’t hard to give when they were so special.

New Years Eve Indian style:

We spent New Years Eve and the nights leading up to it with some cool travellers we met: Kajal and Dave from Noo Zillund and Pete from Australia and Anais from France. On the rooftop of the Guest House we drank Indian red wine (Yippee! Finally!) and “He-Man 9000” Bengali beer before we walked into the madness on the streets and joined a local party on another rooftop (accessible only by a bamboo ladder – give me strength) which was pumping with renditions of the omnipresent frenzied Bollywood dancing from the big screen.

Apart from coming to know the strength of a He-man hang-over, from our new friends we also learnt the value of having a useful profession: Kajal and Dave are nurses so were able to provide some really useful medical assistance at Mother Teresa’s, while Pete and Anais are street performers (who busk their way around the world - amazing) and gave the kids at New Light a circus show that children in their position never usually have the good fortune to see.

Unfortunately, and somewhat surprisingly, neither of the charities had many requirements for IT Project Plans or Investment Business Cases (shame....) but we helped with our time, energy and love which are luckily still useful commodities wherever you are in the world.

What we have learned about poverty in India:

Poverty in India is hard to face. Despite the awful heart wrenching examples of human suffering we see on a daily basis, we have always tried to help by giving money or food or water or clothes and walk away hoping that we have made some small difference to someone’s day, even if its just a full tummy or a warm body.

Sadly we have been learning there is much going on beneath the surface of the “begging industry” that its no longer clear who we are helping when we try give to those who need it most. Here is the sad truth we have learnt so far:

· Many of the beggars have “beggar masters” who control their begging takings in exchange for “protection”. These ties and networks often work all the way up to the police force so trying to take a beggar off the streets or giving him/her a meaningful job is no longer just about money when this many corrupt people have an interest in the life (income) of each beggar. How can we hope to help when for even the police the best & only place for the beggar to be is on the street?

· We see so many people on the streets who are missing arms, eyes, legs or have extreme disfigurement. These people lie on the pavement moaning and crying – often waving their stumps and writhing in pain. It is simply heart breaking to see and we always have given them women. We were shocked to learn that most of these poor souls had been enticed to the city from villages at a young age with promises of jobs, taken to beggar masters who maim them, drug them and force them to work as their employees on the streets for the rest of their lives. Its just too horrible an existence to comprehend....

· The young women in ragged saris clutching tiny dirty babies asking for “no money – just milk powder” rent the babies from poorer families as props and have arrangements with stores to sell the unused powder back to the shop for a percentage of the price. Again, this money feeds up the beggar master chain to anyone but the woman and the little baby...

· The young children living and begging at railway stations are orphaned after they have been taken from villages and promised a job in the city, only to be used as slaves for disgusting groups of men. Some of these children escape and have no choice (or hope) but to head for a railway station and try to beg for enough food to eat each day. Some of these children we have seen have been as young as two or three years old. Often these kids have become glue addicts – we’ve been told by Indians we know that this is to block out the pain of what they have been through and to numb the hard corners of each day. We have sadly witnessed the effects of this glue sniffing on little children: some are in a trace, some are acting in a bizarre fashion and some are already in the grips of being crippled by the glue. So heart breaking to see.

Exploring Kolkata:

Kolkata is a cool city – based on what we had read we had been expecting destitution and poverty, which sadly of course is there, but it is also surprisingly modern. There is a clean (what?!!) and organised (thanks to the men with guns) Metro system which connects most parts of the city. There are also trams and buses which are neither clean nor organised, but this is why we loved them for our fix of drama and excitement.

We spent our free time here walking everywhere our legs would take us: local markets, the villages in the old Chinese part of town, crazy bazaars and tropical parks; the best places were definitely not in the city and not in any guide book. One day we jumped off a bus outside town and discovered the most amazing village into which I would bet no foreigners had ventured in recent years. We had an amazing day here and Cisco got some brilliant photos of villagers going about their daily lives. These people were so poor but so humble – we got invited for chai so many times and never once was payment expected or accepted. In Hinduism a guest is equivalent to God – which I think we in the West could (and should) learn from.

Speaking of hospitality we were so lucky to spend a brilliant day with our friend and colleague Jayanta. He treated us to an excellent tour of Kolkata, fed us amazing Chinese food and ice cold beer– but mainly it was so good to meet him and hang out after working with him remotely for the last 18 months. We’re definitely hoping to see him again on our travels...

Moving on:

We stayed at Mooch-Ville (aka Hotel Paragon) which seems to be the Kolkata magnet for long-term loafers, bearded hippy drifters and 4am callisthenic lovers. We could go back in 2 years and continue the same conversation with the same people. One scraggy old Korean woman has been living in the shared dorm for the last 16 years... (she of 4am aerobics fame). Although we are indeed bearded drifters we didn’t see the point in sleeping our days away so were so excited and to get on the 5am bus to Bangladesh on 4^th January, with no idea what lay in store for us on the other side of the border or in the weeks to come..... the second half of our adventure begins!

Lots of love Chloe and Fra xoxoxo

Gallery: Kolkata, West Bengal

rickshawalas — Sun, 4 Jan 2009 15:57:00 GMT

Gallery: Nepal

rickshawalas — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 22:27:00 GMT

Stuck at the border, a rickshaw crash, Himalayan trekking & an elephant rampage - Welcome to Nepal!

rickshawalas — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 21:15:00 GMT

Total road kilometers traveled: 5,255km

Dearest friends and family – and Merry Christmas!

We have just spent an amazing 2.5 weeks in Nepal and have come back to India in disbelief about all the amazing things we did and crazy things that happened to us. Nepal was a very new experience for both of us – we entered via a remote border crossing in Western Nepal without maps, a guidebook or any preconceived ideas about what to see, where to go and how to get there. We learnt that the best adventures are those which are unplanned, and uncertainty leads to more time exploring and less time checking our watches. I am sure we missed the top tourist attractions of Nepal but we wouldn’t have scripted our adventure any other way! We didn’t see a single ‘western’ visitor for our first week in Nepal – so we felt very immersed in the local culture and people – exactly how we had hoped to travel.

Nepal is very poor: 82% of people in Nepal survive on less than ₤1 per day. Females have a literacy rate of 25% - so ¾ of all women can’t read or write their first language. It has a wonderful mix of Tibetan, Chinese and Indian influences on culture, religion and food. The eclectic nature of Nepal was most obvious and interesting to us in its people: you will see the amazing different faces of Nepalese people in some of the photos in our gallery. As usual Fra has some brilliant photos which are hopefully making their way to the gallery soon… we will keep you posted.

Here is a how things unfolded:

Dramas at the border

We last left you as we were about to cross the border into Nepal. It was an amazing thing to walk from one third world country onto another – to be part of such a varied flow of traffic between India and Nepal was a wonderful experience: Tibetan families travelling on horseback from their frozen mountain homes to warmer climes for work, traders trying their luck across the border, and cycle rickshaws staked with boxes, animals, people, food and bales of hay. Most people were on foot as we were. All was going perfectly until we waltzed into Nepalese territory without $US : mandatory is you speak to Nepalese Border Officials, not a problem if you speak to the chiefs on the Indian side. So there we sat stuck in no mans land without the hard cash for a visa. We couldn’t go forward to the Nepalese bank 1km away (tantalizingly close) and the nearest source of $US in India was 7 hours back in Lucknow (nooooo!!!!). So we had an amusing encounter with the Nepalese official stamp man who stared poignantly out the window for what seemed like hours in an oscar-winning performance as he pondered our options. We knew the option and it started with Baksheesh (bribery). What we didn’t know was his price for accepting our Indian Rupees, GB pounds, Euro or even good old New Zealand dollars. Lucky for us his blackmarket money man was in India for a wedding (yay wedding season) so we had to beg for $US from a Doctor who ran an orphanage in No Mans Land. Luckily Cisco is the prince of charm and instead of asking for the cash he spent a lovely afternoon touring the orphanage, meeting his family, learning about operations, and talking with orphans : meanwhile I was killing time back with stamp man. The charm worked and 3 hours later we were skipping across the border in the dark, baksheesh money intact for a rainy day.

Rickshaw crash

Nepalganj is Nepal’s least busy border crossing from India. It only gets 20 tourists a month, most of whom probably wisely get the first bus out of there. Nepalganj is dark, dusty and dreary (think Deliverance Country with rickshaws) – but we liked it. We knew it was something special when we piled onto cycle rickshaws to head into “town” and I couldn’t be sure if it was my driver’s teeth or his eyes which were redder. He quoted me “twenty ruppppeshhhhhhhhh” and it all went down hill from there – literally. Next thing I knew he was careering towards a deep ditch and his slow motion attempt to pull out of the descent resulted in me going one way (onto the road) and the rickshaw seat another way (off the side) and the wheels happily rolling away down the road back to India… Unlike most travellers we got to experience the real Deliverance Country as all buses were cancelled for 24 hours due to a bus crash on the highway and a resulting bus strike…which brings me to…

On the road again…

Bus travel in Nepal is a risky business. Most guidebooks advise strictly against it. One writer suggested that Nepalese buses are held together by wire, string and the collective hopes of everyone on board. We now understand what he meant. Rickety buses, devil-may-care drivers and poorly maintained and perilous mountain roads means getting from A to B is an adventure in itself and one best rewarded with a cold Nepalese beer to celebrate that we made it through another day. The ubiquitous GOOD LUCK brightly blazoned across the back of every bus in Nepal did little to ease our anxiety as we felt our bus lean and pitch towards another crevasse, burning around hair-pin corners and switch-backs at break-neck speeds But when local buses are the only mode of transport what could we do but say a prayer and hold on tight?

We traveled on about 15 buses through Nepal and each day we passed at least two crumpled remains of buses sitting sadly at the bottom of mountain gorges or still clinging to the side of a cliff. The worst day was later in our trip when we passed within 2 meters of a bus crash which had only just happened – killing 23 people on board. Simply devastating. The sense of danger on Nepalese roads was very real and not something we will miss. Thank goodness we are back in safe old India (never thought I would use the words safe and India in the same sentence but hey, its all relative…)

However- bus travel allowed us to get close to the locals (and their animals) and also to see some simply mind-blowing scenery of the amazing Himalayas…

Mud hut villages, Elephants & Buddha

From the salubrious border town of Nepalganj we tested our nerve by taking 3 buses East for 10 hours to Lumbini – the birth place of Siddarth Gautam (aka Lord Buddha) in 623 BC. This was a real highlight as we stayed in a remote village made of stick and mud huts – which we explored by bike and foot for 3 days.

We then ventured further East to a village in Chitwan National Park where we saw elephants swimming in rivers, relaxed in the greenness of everything and started to clean the patina of Rajasthani dust from our skin.

No power!

Nepal is in the middle of winter – and in the middle of an electricity crisis. Load shedding for 12 hours a day (soon to be 18) means that Nepal is a very cold and dark place. We lived by candle light most of the time – which was not too bad as it meant we didn’t see the ice forming on the buckets of water in which we had to wash. I could say all the candle-light made Nepal romantic but at 2 degrees the only thing romantic is the thought of a barrel of rum infront of a hot fire… (sadly none in sight)

We’re in the Himalayas!

We traveled 8 hours north to Pokhara, in the Annapurna Range of the Himalayas. Hooray! What a feeling to be surrounded by so many magnificent snow-capped mountains. Their size is overwhelming. Pokhara is a town on a lake which is encircled by the mountain range – simply breathtaking. Unlike some visitors who train for 6 months to take a 20 day trek to the main peaks – we decided to do a day trek to the nearest mountain on the edge of the lake. Our only preparation for the 1,600 meter climb was a chicken pie. It was a painful (if I am honest) trek to the top but the views were simply – well, no words really sum up the feeling to climb that 23,795^th step over the summit and see the Himalayas unfold before you. Something we will never forget…

We love Kathmandu

From Pokhara we caught another bus along the precarious road to Kathmandu – the capital of Nepal. What a fantastic city! A wonderful fusion of Buddhist temples, Tibetan food, Chinese traders and the odd Bollywood song blasting from a rickshaw. We spent my birthday exploring the local markets, drinking Nepalese beer and eating my favourite food (Tibetan Buffalo Momos) at the most rustic restaurant you can imagine (see photo in the gallery) It was perfect!

Sunrise on Everest

We ended our trip to Nepal with a visit to Nagarkot – only 29 km (but 3 hours) east of Kathmandu. This tiny village is perched on a mountain range and from its northern peaks it has amazing views of the Everest Ranges. We woke up at 5am – defrosted – and walked to a peak to see the sunrise across Everest and the entire Himalayan Range. It was a breathtaking experience and the lack of tourists in Nepal at this time (no one is mad enough) made us feel like the only people lucky enough to see such an amazing part of our world. By now we were old hat with local buses so we traveled back down the 7,500 ft mountain on the roof of the bus (usually saved for goats, bales of hay and Nepalese needing to buy the cheapest seats).

Border dramas take two…

To catch our train back to India on the 23^rd December we had to travel 10 hours by bus from Kathmandu – back along the same switch-backs and hair-pin corners – to a different one-horse town on the border. Not far from the border we hit a traffic jam. We happily started packing our things ready to go through immigration. After a while of waiting, an insane story got back to the bus that in a village 5km up the road a wild elephant had emerged from the jungle and attacked a village: something we couldn’t have predicted or concocted if we tried.

However we found the story was true and sadly, people were hurt and homes were damaged. The poor villagers had decided to barricade the road until officials agreed to replace their houses. This took some 7 hours. We attempted to walk through the village at one point in the hopes of reaching the border before it closed at 10pm – but were strongly advised that, given the anger in the village, this was far too dangerous and risky for us to try. Finally some agreement must have been made and the road was re-opened. We finally made it to the India border at 8:30pm – hooray! Only to be told they decided to close the immigration at 6pm and we had to come back tomorrow. One more night in a sagging and moudly Nepalese Guest House wouldn’t kill us –so we woke at 5am the next day and after the long and adventurous journey to get there – we almost ran across the border to India.

Final things we noticed about Nepal:

Bottles of mineral water have an ingredient listing and measurement for Faecal Coli (lucky all checked out to be zero…buts its always wise to check)

In 2 weeks we have eaten a whole buffalo. This is the only real meat in Nepal. Our favourite is a “Buff Momo” – our local Momo joint went through 250kg of buffalo meat per day…

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We just arrived in Calcutta after an 18 hour train journey from the border– had a warm shower (well, bucket) for the first time in a long time. It Christmas Eve but apart from the odd sprinkling of tinsel around tourist shops you would never tell we are about to celebrate Christmas!

Merry Christmas from both of us and lots of love

Chloe and Fra xoxoxo

P.s off to Bangladesh next after their election on the 29^th December – updates to follow…

Gallery: Jodhpur to Nepalese border

rickshawalas — Sun, 7 Dec 2008 16:27:00 GMT

Drunken bus drivers, jippy guts & meeting Government Officials on the way to Nepal

rickshawalas — Sun, 7 Dec 2008 16:05:00 GMT

Kilometers traveled: 4,025 km

Dearest friends and family – greetings from the Himalayas!

We have been on the road for some weeks now – and not had any access to email or the web in the places we have been, plus there have been powercuts everyday (load shedding for up to 8 hours per day)– so we have so much to update you on!

Since we last wrote we have traveled by train, bus, rickshaw and foot to get from Jodhpur in the Thar desert of India to the Annapurna range of the Himalayas in Nepal where we are now…we have seen and done so many simply amazing things its hard to know where to begin or how to describe how fantastic everything has been. Everyday begins with the unknown infront of us and ends with another brilliant adventure and lots of wonderful stories to tell.

We are now 5 weeks into our trip and are both well and very happy. We hadn’t eaten meat for a month until we had buffalo for lunch today. Despite our sometimes dodgy diet (weird things from questionable kitchens) we had both been holding up pretty well until Cisco picked up some stomach bug which makes the long bus rides an interesting & nerve-wracking experience (for us both…so far so good!)

Here are some highlights from our last 2 weeks. Please check out the photo gallery for accompanying photos. You will have to make do with the pictures from my camera as Cisco still hasn’t been able to find a safe computer on which to download his. Hopefully we will have some for the next entry. He has been taking some fantastic photos so we will try to get a preview up as soon as we can!!

Leaving Jodhpur

After we left the village in the Thar desert we went back to Jodhpur where we spent an eventful week doing all sorts of interesting things. I taught English in the afternoons at a school for girls from the Untouchable caste. Working in an open air Indian classroom was a fantastic experience but actually quite hard work because each 90 minute lesson needed planning and preparation and also for me to learn the rules behind English verb conjugation – which we all take for granted when we speak English as our first language. I also took Hindi lessons every evening on the rooftop of our guesthouse which helped me confirm the DIY Hindi I had been using for the last 2 years.

We made two cool friends while in Jodhpur: Eliza (who was my co-teacher) and Mattias (who is living in India for his geology research). See a photo of us in the gallery.

I am on the board of advisors for an NGO (Non-Govt Organisation) in Jodhpur (and Cisco helps them by taking photos of the school etc) which focuses on literacy and empowerment for girls and women in Rajasthan (http://www.sambhali-trust.org/). The founder of the NGO (our friend Govind) asked if we would help him prepare a presentation on the struggles of Rajasthani women for delivery to Austrian communities next year. For our research we put on our tidiest clothes (eg my least dirty Indian outfit) and had the bizarre experience of interviewing the Police Commissioner of Jodhpur and the District Magistrate of Jodhpur. These guys are very senior (people kept coming in bowing almost in half) but being foreigners we were ushered in straight away as for some strange reason it was a cool thing to be seen with us in their offices.

One last happy thing about Jodhpur: I got to meet the 2 children I sponsor to attend school. Their father pulled them out of school to work last year because they couldn’t afford the fees, but Govind arranged for me to fund their schooling instead. Now Deeksha (10) wants to be an engineer and Atish (8) wants to be a pilot (yay!)

On Friday 5^th Dec we took a 17 hour train ride across the top of India to get to a point near to the first border crossing into Nepal; unfortunately that point happened to be Lucknow. Our train arrived at 4am, drunken fights broke out in the hotel through the night (not us this time, some other people ;-), the place was covered in thick smog dawn to dusk, and something evil infected Cisco’s guts.

Luckily we had to check out at 6am the next day so decided to get the heck out of there and make our way to Nepal. We had to take 2 buses to reach the border (190 km in 7 hours). The Indian roads are crazy at the best of times, but our second bus trip was even more hair-raising than usual. We realized our bus driver was drunk when he stopped for a leisurely 5 minute leak 2 km after we took off. He came back and for the rest of the trip he was steering with one hand, talking on his mobile with the other and facing the back of the bus as he had long conversations with the guys at the back. We lost count of the number of near head-on collisions with trucks which were wildly honking and flashing their lights – so we moved to the back of the bus where we felt safer. After a very uncomfortable journey we finally arrived in Rupaidia….

Rupaidia is a small village on the India-Nepal border, but it was heaving with life as Nepalese and Indians made their daily border crossing for work and trade on horse-drawn and cycle rickshaws. For the first time we had a glimpse of Nepalese people and were in awe of how different they look to Indians: almost like a cross between Tibetan and Chinese. We were so excited to be so close to Nepal – where it looked like we would have a completely different experience to our last month in crazy India.

See the next entry for the dramas as we tried to cross over the India/Nepal border.,.

With much love from us both,

Chloe and Fra xoxoxo

Gallery: Rajasthani Desert

rickshawalas — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 22:42:00 GMT

Rajasthani Desert

rickshawalas — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 21:45:00 GMT

Total land distance traveled: 2,293km

Dear friends and family – hello from Jodhpur, Rajasthan.

Firstly, thank you to everyone who has emailed us about our safety after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai on Wednesday. We are both safe and well. We were in the middle of the Thar desert when the attacks were happening (more on that later) so we only learnt of them on our return to civilization last night.

There is a lot of talk about the attacks here – and some violence is ongoing, but lucky (for us at least) it seems it is confined to Mumbai for now. We are however learning as much as we can about the attacks so we can take extreme precaution as we continue our travels. We have been advised to do our best not to appear English or American as these Westerners are most likely to be targeted. Thankfully Indians are warm and welcoming to New Zealanders and Irish travelers so our passports will be a real asset as we deal with Indians in the coming months. Cisco is going to remove his NY cap from now on as he’s been asked on several occasions if he is American. We also aren’t doing any touristy things on this trip so won’t be visiting places where large crowds gather. Thanks for everyone’s good wishes for safe travel J

Since we left Udaipur last Saturday we have had a wonderful time in the desert. Although its winter here it gets up to about 38 deg Celsius in the daytime. We’ve added photos of most of the below antics to the gallery – pls check them out. (Note: None of Cisco’s photos are on this time due to a virus on his external hard disk which we hope to resolve soon)

Our bus trip up to Jodhpur took us through some amazing desert landscapes, remote villages, and mountain ranges. The highlight of the trip (for Chloe) was when the old granny in front of Cisco got sick and started spraying her rice & green curry lunch out the window – which blew back and covered Cisco who was trapped in his seat and couldn’t move, who in turn wanted to spray his samosa lunch. It was ok though as he had the remaining 5 hours on the bus to dry out.

We spent a few days in Jodhpur (which we both love) and were then offered the chance to go and stay at our friend’s ancestral home in a village between Jodhpur and Jaisalmer (near the Pakistani border). We traveled by local bus for a few hours into the middle of nowhere where we spent the following 3 days in a village with no running water (infact hardly any water at all), no electricity, no shops/markets, no toilets or showers – basically just sand, mud huts, cows and goats. We ate dinner cooked on an open cow-dung fueled fire in a hut made from mud and sticks. Our meals consisted of dried chapatti soaked in freshly squeezed goats milk and bovine chai. We had an audience watching us so we had to eat, smile and nod with approval. Cisco said it reminded him of the sour milk Darnie sells in Kadoma. (poor Darnie)

No one in the village (of about 10 families) spoke English so Chloe made everyone laugh with her crack-pot Hindi. Despite the isolation (we had to walk 4km through the desert to get to the nearest road) we loved being in the village because of the sheer simplicity of life and the quiet and stress free life people live here.

While we were in the village there were two weddings going on – and also an exorcism. Our first night was pretty freaky. At night the village is pitch black – and everyone is in their huts by 7pm. Later that night we heard a blood-curdling scream of a woman who was wailing and screaming for over half an hour in the darkness. We were concerned what was going on so observed from a distance. After a while a fire was lit and men sat around her and started chanting and shouting and looking like they were drawing evil spirits out of her. Very spooky stuff…

While in the village we walked to a nearby village (pop 3,000) with a school which our friend Govind has set up. This village is very dusty and dirty and doesn’t get any tourists, so we were like movie stars for the day. There are some photos of Setrawa village on the gallery.

We are now back in Jodhpur where we will stay until next Tuesday. We then get a 17 hour train to Lucknow, from where we will start our journey north to Nepal.

Missing everyone – hope you are all well. Please keep up the emails and comments. Although we can only check briefly once per week its great to hear from you.

Lots of love,

Chloe & Fra xxxxxxxxxxx

Udaipur, Rajasthan

rickshawalas — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:37:00 GMT

Dear friends and family,

We are now at the end of a wonderful 5 day stay in Udaipur Rajasthan, and will be heading to Jodhpur, Rajasthan tomorrow by local bus (6 hours). Cisco says the buses here are just like the local buses in Zimbabwe. We love them because it gives us a chance to mix with locals (no tourists are mad enough to take local buses).

Udaipur town is set around a beautiful lake with a palace in the middle and more ancient palaces on its shores. Check the gallery for photos. Cisco took on board the advice from Johnny and we decided to take the first part of our trip easy so we don't get sick or burnt out. Most of our time in Udaipur has been spent walking through the old part of town and the back streets where we have met some lovely people and been invited for yet more chai and local dishes.
We spent yesterday afternoon at the home of a local lawyer after meeting his two lovely girls in a side street and they excitedly invited us to inspect all rooms of their home, their school books, their photo albums and to watch them sing and dance in both Hindi and english.

What we have both found is that children here are how we remember children to be when we were growing up. They still play outside and find all sorts of simple things to make games from. Yet again we have found a great respect that children have for their elders.

While most children remind us of our own childhoods - there is the heartbreaking reality of child labour on every street we find.
An example is in the chai shop across the bridge from the ghat (jetty) where we are staying. In this chai shop two little brothers work night and day - washing cups, serving customers, sweeping and cleaning tables. Sunil is only 6 years old and his brother Prakash is 9. Sunil has been working at the chai shop since he was only 5 years old. We felt so sad for these two little boys who wouldn't know the things children their age should be enjoying. But the harsh reality is that these two are comparatively lucky - some of India's other children live alone in rubbish dumps and eat scraps from the road, like the cows and dogs. We have seen some of these children on the streets of Mumbai & Amdavad, and are trying to figure out what we can do to help...
We gave the boys some biscuits and water and their eyes lit up like it was Christmas time. Since then everytime we walk past the chai shop they have big smiles and waves for us. It's awful that something so small, which we take for granted at home, is such an amazing thing for children like Sunil and Prakash.

On Tuesday we took a very long walk far off the beaten track to a local market. It was very rustic and full of buzz and yet people were still so welcoming to us. We quenched our thirst with a much-needed Kingfisher beer in the store room out the back of a beer shop (along with 6 local fellow-boozers)

Tomorrow we say goodbye to Udaipur and will be spending the next 5 days in Jodhpur. Chloe will get to meet the two little kids she sponsors to go to school (we will be staying at the school itself).
We also hope to gather a lot of information about how we can help here. We have already started some brainstorming...
The sad reality of the corruption here means that cash given to beggars or homeless will usually end up in the pocket of a beggar-wallah - literally someone who trades in beggars. So we are looking for other options...

We are safe and happy in India

Sending much love to everyone,

Chloe & Fra xxxx

Gallery: Udaipur, Rajasthan

rickshawalas — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:50:00 GMT

Gallery: Amdavad, Gujarat

rickshawalas — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:17:00 GMT

Amdavad, Gujarat

rickshawalas — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 17:01:00 GMT

Dearest friends and family,

It’s been almost a week since we last were able to jump online and get some photos and stories up – but SO much has happened. We’ve been to some amazing places and met some truly wonderful people on our journey from Southern Gujarat to Rajasthan.

Firstly we wanted to say how wonderful it was to log in today and see all the comments and emails about our last post. What a brilliant surprise! Its so lovely to know that you are traveling with us on this adventure. Everything has gone so smoothly – we are both well and safe and very happy.

Since we have been in India we have only been able to wash with cold water in a bucket and have not had the luxury of flush toilets. It sounds tough but it honestly hasn't been a problem because when we see families living on the street on a piece of cardboard we know how lucky we are to have access to water in any form.

Despite all their hardships, we have found children to be exceptionally polite and have a strong sense of values and respect for their family and their faith. Every child we meet just wants to learn or practice english so we have tried our best to help them as much as possible by sitting and talking with them. All the children ask for is "one pen" and when we hand them out its almost like we have given them a brand new computer game. Life is simple here and we feel very at home.

Here is what we've been up to since we last posted...

Amdavad, Gujarat: (NB: See the Amdavad photo gallery for the photos which accompany this update.)

When we last updated we were about to leave Diu in Southern Gujarat by overnight sleeper bus. We were heading back to Amdavad to find the family with the tiny baby in the Styrofoam box and to see what we could do to help them. It cost us £2.50 to travel 12 hours in the bus which was kitted out with 10 double beds – like nothing we had seen before! It was all fun and exciting until we started off and realized the rumours that this is one of the worst roads in India proved to be true. We were thrown about all night on the most bumpy bus journey ever. Cisco was concerned all night about his camera gear being smashed to pieces en route.

We arrived in Amdavad exhausted but excited to be back there and hopefully able to find the little family on the street. The best thing about our bus ride was meeting our new friends Mihir and Jyoti. Cisco greeted them with Namaste (Hindi for hello) and we ended up sitting and chatting with them all night. When we arrived in Amdavad the next morning they invited us to their home and made us extremely welcome. They offered us their bed to sleep in, made us a delicious Gujarati breakfast of Poha and chai.

Before lunch Mihir took us on our mission into central Amdavad to try to find the family with the tiny baby. The three of us piled onto his motorbike and headed through the crazy Sunday markets and traffic like we have never seen before: rickshaws, scooters, cows, bikes, carts, camels, buses, and wedding processions. After about an hour we found the family on the same street corner and Mihir spoke with them in Gujarati and found out that the baby wasn’t sick, just very weak and dehydrated, and had been since it was born. We then left for the bazaar and bought them rice, oil, blankets, baby bottle, rehydration salts, flour, and clothes for all the children. They were extremely grateful and we will never forget the smiles on their faces. It was hard to walk away when we wanted to do more- but the system here in India prevents this (more on this later). It was definitely worth changing our plans to come back and make sure the baby was ok and had the medical treatment it needed.

Back at the house Jyoti prepared an excellent lunch of dahl and tomato and potato curries which we ate on the floor with our hands. After lunch they insisted that we wore their traditional Gujarati outfits (see photos in the gallery) which we both loved. In the evening they took us shopping for Gujarati clothes and we ate corn and masala on the side of the road. It was a wonderful day and it was sad to say goodbye to our new friends as we boarded our train for Udaipur, Rajasthan at 11pm that night.

We love Gujarat- which was made special by all the wonderful people we met, especially Mihir and Jyoti.

Gallery: Gujarat

rickshawalas — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 22:41:00 GMT

Our amazing adventure....

rickshawalas — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 22:27:00 GMT

Where do we start????

We are less than one week into our 4 month adventure and already we have had the most amazing, exciting, funny, brilliant, breathtaking and humbling time.

We have never before filled our days with so many wonderful experiences - every moment is a wonderful blessing. We have made many friends – the people we met have been so amazing and are undoubtedly the highlight of our trip.

Our souls are free and happy and we can’t wipe the smiles from our faces…

At the moment we are in Southern Gujarat in a village called Diu – shortly to board a 12 hour bus for Ahmedabad (capital of Gujarat – 5 million people). We have spent most of the last 4 days walking through tiny villages hidden in the palm-trees and spending time with fishing families in the fishing village. The people in Gujarat are simple amazing - incredibly friendly, open, warm, funny and caring. We simply adore it here for that reason alone.

Cisco turned 38 (yay!) on the 12^th – we woke up on the train at 6am – caught a rickety old bus to the Diu (which took 4 hours) and spent the rest of his birthday swimming and exploring the village.

Diu is an old Portuguese colony so Cisco feels at home with the food and the architecture. We rented a motorbike while we were here (for 1 pound per day) so we were able to get off the beaten track to meet villagers who maybe see one white person a year. The place we stayed was a rusty tin hut on a deserted beach (complete with a camel) – this place cost us ₤3.50 a night and it was perfect. We made a lot of friends in Diu and feel very lucky to have had such amazing experiences with Gujarati families. We could spend the whole 4 months here…but we have so much more to see!

In usual form, Cisco has captured some brilliant photos – some of which we will post on here. I have set up a gallery for all the photos - please see the photo gallery link. For comments/descriptions just click on them or hover your mouse :-)

Here is a run down of the highlights from our last week:

Leaving London – this in itself was a highlight because we hung out at Heathrow for an extra 26 hours due to a delay on Air India.

Mumbai – we spent a day in Mumbai walking around the slum area near to Mumbai Central station. People here live in abject poverty on the side of the road – even tiny babies are out sleeping on cardboard with only the dirty clothes they wear as possessions. We handed out the baby clothes which friends at work kindly gave us and also some money – it was like Christmastime for them and a wonderful feeling for us to have put smiles on faces that day.

Ahmedabad - Gujarat – we took an overnight train to the most dusty, dirty, noisy and polluted city you could imagine. But despite the grime & poverty– the people in Ahmedabad are simply beautiful. Everyone wanted to shake our hands, buy us chai, invite us to their homes, treat us to snacks, show us their temples, have their photo taken – and wanted absolutely nothing in return.

Although the people in Ahmedabad are incredibly warm, we had some heart breaking experiences during our day here. We met a family of 5 who live on the pavement – their tiny baby (maybe a few days old) was in a piece of Styrofoam packaging from a TV box. The baby was so small and so floppy, inert and undernourished that if this little one had been lucky enough to be born in the West it would be in intensive care. We gave the family some money but we just can’t get them out of our minds - so we are changing our plans to go back to Ahmedabad to find them, see if we can arrange for a doctor to see the baby and to buy them some food, blankets and clothes for the children. We hope the little baby is still there…

We are both very well and very happy. For those of you enquiring as to the status of our stomachs – please rest assured that all is well in that department!

Over and out for now

Lots of love Cisco and Chloe xoxoxoxoo

p.s we will be buff in no time: It is 36 degrees and our bags are 35kgs each.....