India

India – phew! What a place. Having been a couple of times before for work, I was really looking forward to exploring familiar and new places with Nick and the children. It’s such an eye-opening country, so vast and varied! 

Our trip from Kyrgyzstan was pretty dreadful. Our flight left Bishkek at 9pm, had a 5 hour layover in Tashkent in Uzbekistan, and landed in Delhi at 6:30am. We chuckled as we landed in Uzbekistan, having found getting a visa in my SA passport unplayable (not quite sure what the SA govt has done to annoy Uzbekistan) and eventually given up, we were here anyway – well, we would see the transit lounge of the country! At 11pm, with very tired children, we were ushered from the main arrivals hall to queue in front of the most pedantic man we’ve come across on the whole trip, who painstakingly pored over our documents for 20 minutes while the whole queue shifted from one foot to another– from flight numbers to Kyrgyz visa numbers to Indian e-visa documents, he wanted it all – for transit?! I have a fairly long rope, but this guy was beyond the pale! Eventually he let us through for the 5-hour wait and we headed straight for the nearest café for supper. When the meal was totalled at the till, Nick did a double take – 460,000 Som?!! It is not often that you get a 6-figure restaurant bill, but after a quick check of the exchange rate we realised it was an acceptable rip-off and coughed up. We then blew up our lightweight inflatable mattresses and tried to get the kids to settle. And who appeared? The pedant! He had hunted us down in the waiting area, wanting to take photos of our passports and clarify more details. Jeepers. I can’t imagine what it’s like if you actually want to leave the airport building…

Delhi

By the time we landed in Delhi, we were hot, tired and ready for a wash. I had asked Ravinder, a wonderful driver, who had taken us around in Delhi on previous trips, to come and fetch us, to skip the airport taxi driver nonsense for once. In his gentle way, he welcomed us to the city, dropped us at our AirBnB on the western edge of New Delhi where we rinsed off, and collapsed under fans for a weird, deep, morning sleep.

A few hours later we groggily emerged onto our balcony that overlooked the comings and goings on the street below: street dogs cruising, cows hunting out watermelon skins between plastic bags, kids playing or running errands, a pile of old building supplies, the ubiquitous tangle of electric cables, and a stream of wagons pulling colourful arrays of fruit and vegetables. We soaked it all in, loving the warmth, hardly able to believe that we had been in snow the morning before; and enjoying the novelty of sights, sounds and smells. 

Just being in Delhi is enough of an experience, we didn’t feel the need to rush around seeing all the sights – there are so many things to see, and we were feeling the need to pace ourselves. One thing I did want to do was to take the family back to the Gurudwara Shri Bangla Sikh temple that had made such an impression on me a few years previously. Ravinder, an attendee at the temple, picked us up, weaving expertly through the endlessly hooting traffic, and took us to the temple via Raj Path, with India Gate just visible in the smog. We took our shoes off to enter the gold-capped, white temple building, walked through shallow foot baths and were given head and leg coverings from communal bins – I couldn’t help remembering the rounds of headlice that used to cycle through the kids in my Jewish preschool, where the boys shared yarmulkas from a similar bin. Oh well, when in Rome…

The hall is heavily gold-encrusted but has a relaxed and peaceful feel, with live musicians playing chapters from the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy Sikh text, and families congregating under ceiling fans, listening and watching as holy men gave blessings to babies, and others shuffled respectfully around the altar towards the holy waters outside. What impressed us most about the whole place was the kitchens and feeding hall, where donors provide money or food directly, and volunteers cook rice and dhal in enormous vats, roll and bake chapatis, and serve food to 10 000 people a day! It’s an extraordinary expression of faith at huge scale, and what is so interesting is that everyone is welcome – rich or poor, all faiths, all castes. A man who was showing us around said that while the poor come to fill their bellies, it’s a really good thing for rich people to come and eat as well, to be humble, to feel equal, and to be able to receive charity as well as give it. We asked if we could eat in the hall, and, once the floors had been cleaned from the previous serving, hundreds of us were welcomed in to sit, back to back, on folded blankets, while servers offered plates, and generous servings of dhal, rice and chapati. It was delicious, and deeply humbling to be given freely from a community’s generosity, and to feel equality in such a physical and practical way. Three people down from Nick, a young street child – probably 6 years old - had brought in her younger brother – probably 4 years old - and was helping him to eat; opposite me a young man tucked in eagerly to second and third helpings. We felt very moved by the experience, and both children, surprised at first that anyone could eat here, commented on how good it must be for a community when people eat together in a way where everyone is treated equally.   

With lots to talk about from our temple visit, we visited Raj Ghat, and the platform on which Ghandi was cremated, a simple and meaningful memorial garden which forms part of a huge collection of rolling gardens, brimming with flowers and trees. It’s one of the surprises of Delhi – the madness, the noise, the congestion and the chaos is patchworked with huge green spaces, where you can sit under a tree, watch the striped squirrels or admire the jewel-coloured sarees and salwar kamees' that stay miraculously bright despite dust and smog. 

The Ghandi museum across the road was surprisingly unimaginative and uninspiring, so we moved quite quickly through the endless black and white images and tiny text, and headed instead to a chowk (street market), where Ravinder, once again guided us through the throngs of people and offerings, pointing things out and helping us to see things through his eyes. After buying an Indian outfit for Carys it was time to head back to wash, change and catch an uber to meet Sorbojeet, a wonderful colleague, whose sister, mum and step-father we’ve had the privilege of working with in various contexts. Sorbojeet, his wife Bani and daughter Ania were taking us to dinner at the restaurant that is famous for inventing butter chicken and dal makhani – a real treat! We dressed as respectably as possible, given our limited wardrobes, and called an Uber. Which cancelled. So we called another. And another. And another. Eventually, with time running out, we bailed on e-hailing and all 4 of us squeezed into the first tuktuk that came along – the kids were delighted to zip in and out between the cars, start up conversations with other tuktuk passengers when traffic slowed, and feel the wind in our hair. We arrived, only a little late, sporting a rather windswept look, and had a most delightful dinner – with wonderful company, and the most delicious butter chicken! It’s so interesting chatting about current events in different countries – we really notice how west-informed our views are, and it’s a great opportunity to expand our perceptions of things.

Our plan for the next day was to do some shopping – mostly things for our trek in Nepal, and a souvenir or two. One of the upsides/drawbacks of extended travel is that it's easy to forget what day of the week it is. Turns out it was Sunday, and Connaught Place, where we’d just made our way, was completely shut. Looking lost and confused, a very helpful/ persistent tuktuk driver managed to persuade us into his vehicle and took us to shops he knew were open – a ‘supermarket’, a shoe shop and India Loom, which specializes in the smoothest salespeople in the world. While we were surprisingly successful, it became clear that we would need a mall of sorts (eurgh) for the last items. The mall and its surrounds was an experience of Delhi on steroids – an intense nidus of gridlocked, hooting traffic, cruising cows, ragged children dancing for money, men in saris begging aggressively, tuktuk drivers haggling en masse for passengers while some guy beat their tuktuk roofs with a stick, clouds of mosquitoes, moneyed shoppers chest to chest beneath high-end labels advertised on big screens, and a funfair complete with lights and sounds in the parking area. If you don’t usually have sensory integration challenges, this is a good experience of what life is probably like for people who do – complete sensory overwhelm. We found what we needed (have we mentioned how much we love Decathlon?) and left before our unpracticed operating systems started to glitch and meltdown. 

While the kids and I washed and packed clothes, Nick (bless him) climbed into a taxi with the things we wouldn’t need for India, to store them at the airport luggage storage. After a lot of back and forth, seven cancelled taxis, a dead cellphone battery and a fair bit of anxiety, it was nearly midnight when he got home (lots of adventures in India!) and we fell into bed exhausted.

Agra

We had been warned. But the pull of the Taj Mahal was too strong to deny. So we booked a ‘perfect tour at reasonable price’ and headed to the station at 6am to catch the train to Agra for the day. We were glad to have the taxi driver exit the car with us and guide us through the sleeping bodies that find home in the station, past the board of “Missing” posters – many of them children – and onto the right carriage. He ran us through the usual scams – don’t believe anyone who says the train is cancelled/that you’ve got the wrong seats/etc, etc, - and then waved us off as the sun rose in a perfect pink ball through the smog on the horizon. 

As we pulled into the station a few hours later, we wondered how we would find the right person on the Agra side, but Malik found us, and warmly welcomed us with marigold garlands. Agra itself is pretty grim. To get into the Taj Mahal complex we had to squeeze through a crack in a partially locked gate (an ineffective attempt to keep the street urchins out) and past a granny having her morning motions on the pavement. But for all that Agra lacks, the Taj Mahal knocked our socks off. One is never sure, visiting a really popular site, whether it will measure up to expectations or be a bit of a letdown. I think all the warnings about what a visit can be like served to lower our expectations, and we were blown away by the complex's intricate beauty. A fulfillment of a memorial promise to his 3rd and favourite wife, who died giving birth to their 14th child, the Taj was built by the 5th Mughal Shah. It took 22 years to complete and was built with a massive outlay of public funds for a very personal reason. (When the Shah set about to build a reciprocal ‘Black Taj’ for himself on the opposite bank of the river, his son put a stop to the spend by placing his father under house arrest.) Although the people of the time may have funded the build with little benefit to themselves, their descendants 350 years later are now reaping the benefits as it is the main generator of income for the region and completely sustains the town.  Malik knew all the perfect 'Instagram' spots and comandeered our camera. He then got us to do all the ridiculous tourist poses... you've just got to laugh and go with it!

The Agra Fort was an unexpected bonus – an insight into the lives of the shahs – and visualizing the moats with crocodiles and the surrounding buffer zone filled with lions and tigers captured the imagination of some of us! Between the Taj and the fort, we were taken to a stone inlay cooperative workshop. Although we had been warned beforehand that this was a setup for a tourist sale, the handwork was beautiful and detailed and we didn’t walk away without a small purchase.

Varanasi

As the spiritual heart of India, Varanasi had captured my imagination years previously, and I'd been yearning to go. We found our way to the main New Delhi Railway Station station, and settled in to booked seats this time, for the 8-hour journey east. 

The usual hustle and bustle of trying to find a reasonable taxi to our homestay was hot and animated, and we eventually, somehow, found all four of us plus our bags plus driver squeezed into a 3 person tuktuk. Despite the hooting and swerving, both kids fell asleep on the 20 minute trip - Carys was wedged between me and the bags, but Daniel was upfront next to the driver, who ended up driving with his one arm around him to stop him from falling out onto the road!

Sona met us warmly, and showed us into our two rooms in her home, where we collapsed under fans in the heat of the day, and only rose in the cool of the late afternoon to plot our days in the sacred city. Her brother, a musician and qualified tour guide, met us at 10 the following morning to take us on a walking tour of the ghats and alleys. He was very knowledgeable, but palpably sad, and we learnt that his wife had died of Covid, leaving behind a 2 month old baby. The ravages of the epidemic are still being felt in multiple ways across the country.  

We wandered past chai wallahs selling delicious spiced milk tea in clay cups, down the alleys to Assi Ghat, and then along the holy Ganges, trying to absorb it all. Varanasi is a place of incredible intensity - all the colour and chaos of India, but much more condensed and organic, pulsing along small winding alleys that heave with life and death. Compared with Delhi, it feels like there are more dogs with more mange, cute puppies everywhere, more dog poo, more cows and cow poo to dodge, weirdly lots of vomit, mourning family members ceremonially carrying the corpses of their loved ones on bamboo ladders, decked with bells and marigold garlands, down to the cremation ghats, where goats nibble on the marigolds, while the wood for the cremation fires is laid. Ascetic saddhus with dreadlocks and orange robes exchange blessings for food or money, mourning male family members have their heads shaved to mark their grieving process, leaving little piles of hair in unexpected places. Pigs rummage in stinking tributaries, while local pilgrims take sacred plunges in the holy Ganges water to clear their karma, local children splash and swim, old men wash themselves and women do laundry on the ghat steps. Bizarrely, on the other side, tents and camels claim the sand for the dry season - to be evicted by the river when the monsoon reclaims it all. As we walked past the two cremation ghats,  Manu explained the process of mourning, and we all were struck by the visible and tangible relationship with death, bodies visibly burning on the pyres, and the process totally integrated into the daily working life of the city. It's so different to our cultural denial of death - from face cream to funerals, death is at best perpetually avoided, at worst sanitised and made as invisible as possible. Here, death is as much a part of life as washing or eating, and the role of Shiva - the god of death and transformation - looms clear and relevant over the city, where the sacred and the profane are different sides of the same coin.

At a certain point, when the heat was peaking, we were dripping with sweat, the sounds, smells and human crush became overpowering, Daniel found it all too much and burst into tears with overwhelm. Carys has an uncanny capacity to roll with things and was still fascinated by the novelty of what she might see in each little alcove or bump into around each winding alley.  We compromised by ducking into a fan-cooled bakery/confectionary shop that sold a delicious range of unknown silver, gold and green goodies that packed a sugar punch and gave us the fuel needed to find a tuk-tuk and head home. We all felt the need to rest and process our outing, and collapsed under fans again to rest. We re-emerged in the evening to catch a boat towards the daily evening ceremony at one of the two most popular ghats. Our captain was a wily navigator and rowed his modest vessel expertly between larger, motor-powered boats to find a spot to watch the synchronised movements of priests, fire, bells, copper cobras and music. While we were taking in the event - and marveling that it happens on this scale every day - the mosquitoes took advantage of our ankles and gave us impressive Join-the-Dot fields on our legs.  As we scratched our way homeward, we stumbled across a New Year celebration that was getting going at Assi Ghat - complete with flying paper lanterns, live music and a gathering of local celebrities on stage, welcoming the Maharashtrian New Year in. Down 'Puppy Lane', greeting the vendors selling essentials from tiny spaces in their homes, our environment was becoming familiar and less overwhelming. It's a funny thing how quickly one adapts and starts to carve out a space that can feel like home - humans really are adaptive creatures.       

Sona had recommended that at least one morning we wake up before sunrise to watch the morning Aarti (ceremony) at the Ghat near where we were staying. While there was unequal enthusiasm about getting up in the dark, the ceremony was something extraordinary. The formal part of the ceremony, was perfectly timed to coincide with the sun rising luminous over the waters of Mother Ganga - welcoming the new day in and giving thanks for another day of life. This was followed by a trio of young musicians playing haunting, ancient music as the sun rose, and then the daily free community yoga class on the ghat steps - grannies in one area, young men in another, young women in another. 

We stumbled upon a great young tuk-tuk driver who patiently took us around and waited for us as we explored the Hanuman Temple (home of the Monkey god), tasted freshly squeezed sugarcane juice, and tested different chai offerings. A shaded verandah spot offered welcome relief for lunch overlooking the Ganges - Varanasi looks quite peaceful from this aspect! And then we got into the nitty gritty of learning how to make paneer butter masala and butter naan under the tutelage of Sona in her tiny and simple kitchen that consistently produced the most delicious food.

When it was time to leave Varanasi, I had the feeling that there was so much more to explore, but that the curiousity that had drawn us here had been satisfied.  We started packing - and Nick checked our flights to Kochi for the next day only to find that our flights had been cancelled! Sona, ever hospitable and helpful, quickly contacted her cousin, a travel agent, to see what he could do to help us. She told us he could book flights for us - at a reasonable price - and so he did. Except the flights were to Chennai, not Kochi, 600km away, on the other side of the country! Oh dear.  Sona was mortified when she realised her error, but as often happens in travel - the things you don't plan have a silver lining and offer something unexpected. We decided to  cut our losses and travel to Chennai (via Hyderabad) anyway, and find our way to Kochi as soon as we could the following day.

Chennai

As an unplanned detour, our stop in Chennai was meant to be as quick and painless as possible. We had booked a (very) cheap hotel close to the airport with a free airport shuttle and breakfast included. In reading up about Chennai during our layover at Hyderabad airport, we actually regretted that we had not planned to visit Chennai for a few days - it seems like a really interesting place. From the air we could see the long strip of palm-tree lined beach and well-planned streets. The Golden Swan Hotel isn’t in the greatest neighbourhood, but it turned out to be nicer than we had expected. Although it was dark by the time we got there, Nix insisted that we experience a little bit of Chennai while we were there. We strolled down the street and found a friendly local fruit juice seller and bought some delicious jugs of freshly squeezed tropical fruit juice while enjoying the goings-on on the street. Another wonderful interaction with a nut seller left us feeling like we were missing out on what Chennai had to offer. We ordered a surprisingly good room service dinner and settled down to relish the aircon and soft beds. 

Kerala

Fortunately, it wasn't long before we got a flight to Kochi, and as soon as we exited the Kochi airport we knew we were in a different part of India – and we liked it. The (fully solar-powered) airport had a low-key feel, but the parking area was landscaped and decorated like a 5 star-hotel. The heat, humidity and plants were all reminiscent of Durban. The whole place felt relaxed and spacious. Our taxi ride took us along the main highway through Kochi and out the other side to the backwaters. We remarked that if we had been in Delhi, the spaces between the cars on the freeway would have been filled by another two cars and at least 5 tuk-tuks!  Our riverside retreat in Panangad was just what we needed. The large spacious house was situated right on the water with a large verandah complete with a swing chair and lounger. We arrived early enough to spend the whole day chilling out on verandah. The water was beautiful to look at – perhaps not beautiful to swim in – but we were able to take refuge from the heat in the airconditioned bedrooms or just drench ourselves in the shower. While we watched the local fishermen and assortment of water birds, the kids hunted coconuts and tried their hands at badminton. Our family excursion on bikes was short-lived because all the bikes were adult-sized and Daniel was struggling to start and stop on the narrow streets with much traffic, so he and the mom decided to turn back. Carys and I pressed on to the local supermarket and returned with two shopping bags bulging with bananas, grapes, pineapples and jack fruit.  We were astounded that the local food delivery app, Zomato, worked in this rural backwater and we were able to order two sumptuous dinners of biryani, chicken65 (sticky sweet and sour chicken – apparently a thing), chapatti, porotta (sort of shredded roti), and yummy gummy halwa. 

Anne and Bob wanted us to share their fond memories of Kerala and had generously booked us a night in a houseboat, so we headed over to Kumarakom to board our vessel. We were greeted by Captain Manish, Cook Kevin and The Other Guy, who were to be our crew for 24 hours. The kids jumped aboard and rushed around, excitedly exploring the luxurious rooms with en-suite bathrooms and the cushioned viewing deck.  We pottered down the backwaters for an hour and then stopped for a first-class lunch of the local fish. The rest of the afternoon was spent chatting to Manish and exploring the narrow waterways, villages and the rice paddies that are completely surrounded by water. All of village life seems to be centered on the waterways, with people fishing, shopping, travelling, washing and partying in the water.  The houseboats (of which there are many, although it doesn’t feel crowded) have to stop at 5:30pm to allow the local fishermen unhindered access to the waterways. We moored at a quiet spot owned by the houseboat company and Manish gave us a tour of the riverbank, including the local banana trees, bats and our first trip into a rice paddy. Daniel was itching to fish and Kevin leant us a small rod to have a go. Despite the surface being alive with small baitfish we couldn’t raise a bite. Instead we resigned ourselves to watching locals net bucketloads of fish while the sun set golden over the water. 

After an early breakfast we sailed back up the wide waterways and realised our luxurious cruise was over all too soon – such a great experience! We were very grateful that Manish had organised a friend to taxi us across to Mararikulam, where we were looking forward to hitting the beach! In contrast to the privacy of our riverside retreat and the luxury of the houseboat, our accommodation at Marari Beach was a modest homestay. Binoy and Swapna greeted us warmly when we arrived and introduced us to their children, Anita, Anthony, and the hilarious little one whose name we forget. The place was small, clean and richly decorated with Binoy’s plaster artwork, and only 200m from the beach! It took us all of 5 minutes to dump our bags, put on cozzies and head straight for the water. And it was amazing. The water was super warm, and the long, steep beach was almost empty of people. We bobbed and wallowed and giggled at how glorious it was to swim in the warm sea again. When we judged that sunburn was about to get real, we tiptoed across the hot sand back to the house.  For the three wonderful days we spent there, swimming in the sea was the undoubted highlight, with the morning swims while the water was still glassy being the best.

On closer inspection and in chatting to our hosts, we realised what their setup was. The two modest AirBnB rooms were the family-of-five’s sole income. They had obviously forked out as much as they could afford to build the rooms with en-suite bathrooms, hot and cold water, air cons and fans. Meanwhile, the family all slept in a single room, used an outside toilet and washed at a single tap in the front garden. Binoy was an unemployed artist and Swapna was studying to be a nurse. Everything they earned from the accommodation was being used to send their kids to an English medium school in the hope of a better life for them. A very humbling realization for us, but we were glad to be able to spend our travel money in this way. We chose to eat dinner there as well, both because it was easy and delicious, and because it contributed a little more to their business. Unfortunately we could only eat there twice as two family emergencies took them away for the other evenings. Instead, we walked down to the beach where there was a casual assortment of ramshackle restaurants. They served great food, however, and sitting under the palm trees with our feet in the sand as the moon rose over the sea reminded us of the African East Coast and we could have been in Maputo or Dar es Salaam. It was wonderful to stroll back home along the beach in the dark with the warm breeze coming off the sea and ghost crabs scuttling all over the place. 

We had learned from our time in Kerala that it is definitely a more chilled part of the country than our other stops. It is also more Christian, and in a 5 km run I passed 5 (fairly large) Catholic cathedrals, but only one Hindu temple. We are not sure if this has anything to do with the fact that we noticed that none of the shops or restaurants sold alcohol. After 5 days in Kerala without a beer, Mrs Graham insisted that we track down some brew. A Google Maps search proved fruitless so we strolled up the sand road to a taxi driver who knew the place – 3km away and he could take us there for a fee. We jumped in the smallest 4-wheeled passenger vehicle on earth and buzzed our way to the liquor joint. The place was a bit like a rural Eastern Cape cash ‘n carry, but with fences and gates to carefully monitor who goes in and out. Alcohol is clearly heavily regulated in Kerala. Nevertheless, we returned triumphant with three enormous bottles of various Kingfisher brews, only to discover that: a) they were warm and we had no way of cooling them, and b) they were horrible. Oh well, sometimes you win… Luckily a cold 7Up can turn a lousy warm beer into tasty, coolish shandy. 

We didn’t want to leave our sunny beach spot, but Nepal was calling us northwards. It was going to be too logistically difficult to get to Kathmandu in one shot, so we headed back to Delhi for one night to break the trip. We got to Kochi airport comfortably early to do the ridiculous Indian airport security routine and passed through to the boarding gate. As we were looking for a lunch bite, we heard my name being called over the loudspeakers to urgently report to the airline staff. While we were wondering around trying to find the airline staff I was meant to report to, they called Nix’s name too. We weren’t late. Were we in some kind of trouble? We finally found the relevant authority, who started asking whether we had a power bank in  our check in luggage, which we didn’t. Anyway, there was a problem with one of our bags and I had to report downstairs to sort it out. I left Nix and the kids at the gate and headed downstairs only to be told to wait, then to leave my bag, phone and wallet in a locker and go through this security door with an army officer on the other side. Oh boy… After another three security checks (the Indians really are ridiculous with this) I was presented with my bag and told that there was a lighter in it (which there was). This is the same lighter that had travelled on about seven other flights, but somehow the Indian airport security found it. I quickly pulled it out and left it on the counter. Issue resolved. By the time I got out of the bowels of the Kochi airport our flight was boarding and Nix was mildly panicked, not knowing what the issue was, where I was, and not being able to contact me. I sprinted to the gate, inhaled a blueberry muffin, and we were on our way to Delhi.

Delhi (again)

Like Chennai, our stop in Delhi was a quick in and out, so once again we booked a budget hotel. There must be hundreds of budget hotels around the Delhi airport, half (or more) of which are almost certainly scams. I waded through pages and pages of hotels on Booking.com, using all of my travel experience, spidey-sense for fake reviews and healthy in-built skepticism to finally select The Caves Hotel. At R400 a night, for the four of us, including breakfast, it was a gamble, but let’s just see… 

If you’ve read any of our other blog pages you will note that we have learned a thing or two about airport taxis and in this regard, Delhi airport is surely one of the worst. However, having been there for the bag storage, and having had a pleasant experience with the Delhi Traffic Police operation, I thought I had the solution. On arrival at the airport we went to pick up our stashed luggage, happy to be undercharged by almost half, and headed for the Delhi Traffic Police booth. It was like a video game, dodging the hordes of touting taxi drivers, but when we got to the booth it was empty. We were accosted by a very persistent driver, but I shrugged him off and headed down the rank to another Delhi Traffic Police booth. This one was staffed and I followed the same procedure as before, paid the reasonable fee and headed to the first waiting taxi. Suddenly, another taxi darted around and parked in front – driven by the same persistent driver I had shrugged off earlier. I told him that I didn’t want to get into his taxi and headed for another one, but the other drivers insisted that I go with the eager guy. As we were loading the luggage there was a lot of haggling going on behind me, and the driver started talking about cash. I got a very bad feeling and started yanking the bags out of the boot and onto the road. After another refusal to get in, the driver and his mate tried to reassure me that he was legit and that the ride I had paid for was valid. I reluctantly and very grumpily got into the car, at which point the mate started to insist that I pay him as a porter for loading the bags. I shut the window and told him to get lost. 

Anticipating another scam, I started yelling at him again, and he tried to assure me that this was a shorter way. We checked the map, and, as the crow flies it was a shorter route, but crows don’t have to contend with a thousand vehicles coming at speed in the opposite direction.  No amount of abuse would convince him to go another way, and so he proceeded to creep into gaps along the edge of the road, inching the wrong way up the freeway. We realised we were helpless and just had to see where we ended up. It took us about 15 minutes to travel the 500m against the traffic versus the 5 minutes it would have taken us to go the sensible way. I don’t know if he was trying to scare us or what, but eventually we did turn into a road in the vicinity of the hotel. As soon as we got within walking distance of the hotel I told him to stop and we bailed out as fast as we could.  Mission accomplished, he stood there smiling at me and then…asked for a tip. A final barrage of abuse from the man with steam coming out of his ears and I turned and stormed up the street to find The Cave. The family followed at a safe distance.

Apart from the warning signs of the ridiculously cheap price and the vague location of the hotel, I should have noticed that The Caves Hotel is also called something else on the sign above the door. Oh well, in we went. We were made to wait in the lobby for 10 minutes while a lackey rushed out with linen, clearly only preparing the room when we arrived. We were then taken up in the rickety lift to our ‘quadruple’ room. In the room were two beds. A double and a single. By quadruple they clearly intended three people to sleep in one bed and one in the other. Or something. The linen had ominous yellow dirt patches on it and it was clear that the bathroom hadn’t been cleaned in a long, long while. There was no hot water and the air con didn’t work. I was at the end of my tether and needed something to calm me down. Fortunately, just down the road from the ‘hotel’ there was an ice-cream seller and chocolate ice creams all round did the trick. On returning to the room there were a series of negotiations on who would sleep where, Carys opted for a blow-up mattress on the floor and Daniel got the single bed.  Cigarette smoke started seeping under the door from the room next door, as the occupant cranked up the volume on a Bollywood action movie. It was going to be a long night…

Well, all we can say is that we survived and we learned a thing or two about how to spot what Richard and Melissa would call a ‘bunghole’. Having learned our lesson, we forked out for the hotel taxi shuttle and arrived at the Delhi airport in time to meet up with my mum and her partner Dave, who were going to join us in Nepal. It was an emotional reunion and so nice to be with family and familiar faces after a long time on the road.

India is so many things – colourful, loud, warm-hearted, exhausting, spiritual, rich, welcoming, dirty, fascinating, a sensory overload, inspiring and infuriating, full of history and a depth of culture – in some ways a world unto itself. You can love it, you can hate it, or even a bit of both – but it certainly changes you, and the way you see yourself in the world. Which is what travel is for - right?