Shortly after my last
post I visited Amritsar with Gigi, Andy and Fini – good friends I’ve made
volunteering. We visited the Golden Temple, which is absolutely beautiful and
just has a really peaceful atmosphere, even though it’s quite busy during the
day. It’s in the nature of Sikhism to be really generous, so when we arrived there
at 11.30 at night we were able to sit down to a free meal of dal and roti.
We
stayed at the home of Gigi’s sister’s in-laws – it was so kind of them to open
up their home to us and, man, did they feed us well! I ate some of the best food
I’ve had in India and I definitely ended up carrying food twins. I really
enjoyed eating a traditional Indian breakfast of parotthas (a flat bread
stuffed with spices and vegetables)… delicious! We also visited the Pakistan
border, where there’s a crazy celebration every night as they lower the flags
and close the gates. Everyone was dancing and the border agency staff do this
mad drill to much applause. It was weird to look over to the other side and see
that women and men were segregated in Pakistan, it did make me feel very lucky
to have the freedom I’ve been born into. Overall, it was a really wonderful
weekend!
On November 13th
we celebrated Diwali in Delhi. Diwali is the Festival of Light so Hindus
celebrate by lighting candles, putting up street lights, setting off fireworks
and deafening fire crackers. It sounded like a war zone outside a flat (it’s
really nothing on fireworks night in the UK!), but we got in the spirit. We
volunteers lit up our whole flat with candles, and then we joined our neighbours
on the roof of our flat and lit mini fireworks and watched everyone else doing
the same on their roofs too. It was a spectacular day!
A couple of days later
I finished my volunteering. It was really sad to say goodbye to the teachers
and students who are a kind, generous and inspirational group of people! I
still miss them now, and I’m looking forward to seeing them again in February
before I leave India. We enjoyed some nail painting (with the girls), dancing
and games on my last day, and you can see that some of the boys pulled off some
impressive moves!
I left Delhi and went
to Varanasi, which is considered to be India’s holiest city. The holy River Ganges
runs through it and it’s where Hindus come to wash and bring their dead. The
dead are openly cremated on the ghats, and then their remains are put in the
river. It’s incredible to witness such personal and meaningful events and I
actually found it quite overwhelming – it’s a lot to take in and certainly gave
me a lot to think about.
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| The ghats in Varanasi |
Next, I headed to
India’s most Southern state, Kerala, which is where I am now. I absolutely love
it here! It’s a lot more chilled out than the North, which is noisy, congested
and can feel a little oppressive. I spent my first week in a beach town called
Varkala, probably the most relaxing place I could go! I spent the day on the
beach sunbathing and swimming, and my evenings eating good food and staying up
all night drinking and chatting with other travellers. I was also introduced to
the fruit lady on the beach who sings as she sells her fruit, “Beautiful madam!
Pineapple! Yum yum yum yum!” I’m pretty sure all Varkala visitors miss here
when they leave.
I met some really cool
people in Varkala, who I’ve been travelling with since then. After one last
crazy night, at the Rock n Roll café (home to Varkala’s biggest dancefloor,
ooooh) and an hour or two of sleep, we got the train to Allepey. From there, we
explored the Keralan backwaters. We spent a day kayaking, which is a great way
to explore, because you can fit down really narrow canals, and just feel totally
lost in there (we had a guide of course, so there was no actual getting lost). The
next day we stayed on a houseboat for 24 hours – it was great to float along
playing music, chatting, drinking from coconuts and enjoying the beautiful
nature surrounding us.
After that we spent a few
days in arty Fort Cochin. We discovered a café called Teapot that does a decent
cup of English style tea! I do enjoy the Indian chai but do sometimes crave a
brew from home (sadly they didn’t offer Earl Grey at Teapot, my personal
favourite).
Now we’re in a hill
station called Munnar. Yesterday we went trekking through tea plantations and
spice gardens. It was so beautiful and we didn’t see any other tourists, so it
felt really special. This morning we visited the tea museum (despite all the aches and pains from yesterday) and learned how tea
is made. I think these couple of days have been very important to me as a
massive tea addict, it’s good to know my roots!
