Incredible India: Unity in Diversity...

Tashi Dele my friends!

Sitting on a wonderful beach a little South of Mumbai, I'm happy to tell you that your ever-travelling friend is still doing perfectly fine :-) Although I'm still pretty badly infected by the 'exploration-virus', you shouldn't worry too much, since I'm still having the time of my life and new plans for various destinations and activities are still being made...

Last time, when I wrote you an update, I was waiting in my (rather dodgy) hotel room in New Delhi for my friend (and former-roommate), Josine, to arrive. To kill the time, I met up with a former team-mate of the McGill squash-team, who's living in New Delhi with his parents and after a day of sight-seeing and keeping up with each other's lifes, we decided to give it a try... in their latest model Mercedes (yes, it's true: also in India there is extreme inequality) we drove to a sort of 'country-club' in a chique suburb of New Delhi to play an international squash-match... how do I miss playing 5-6 times a week!! Due to his 'home-court-advantage', Team Holland unfortunately lost the match: 1-3, but next time we'll give it a try in my home country :-)

The next day, a new episode of my travels started when I picked up Josine from the airport. For her, to acclimatise to this new, ridiculously crowded and chaotic country of extremes (by the way: there is no better place for that than New Delhi), we decided to stay two more days while making plans for the coming month, during which we would travel toghether in India. Roughly speaking, our plan was to travel 2 weeks in the region North of New Delhi, two weeks throughout the touristy state of Rajastahn and to finish in India's biggest city: Mumbai. Using public transport to get around and sleeping in budget hotels we had a really good time together, seeing many of India's (tourist-) highlights.

After spending some days exploring the mountains of Manali and relaxing for a while in the Tibetan colony of McLeod Ganj (there is the seat of the Tibetean Government-in Exile and the residence of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama), Amritsar was a personal favorite for me. Located near the border with 'best neighbour' (...) Pakistan, every day between 60.000 and 80.000 Sikh-pilgrims gather at its 'Golden Temple' for religious reasons. The Sikhs, who are easily recognised by their turbans, didn't agree with the rather infamous caste-system which was introduced in India and supported by the Hindus, believe in equality for all and at Amritsar, their most sacred place situated in the state of Gujarat, everyone is welcomed for free accommodation and food, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year... Although we didn't stay in one of their enormous dormitories, we did spend an entire day around the beautiful Golden Temple and enjoyed a surpisingly varied meal. After having had the chance to look behind-the-scenes of this huge project (and its kitchens), Josine 'paid back' her meal by helping to clean the dishes, while I was serving chapatis (bread) to the pilgrims: altogether a wonderful experience!

Spending a long day in the sleeper-train... wait, let me first explain something about the train system in India, which has probably the most extensive network in the world and which serves millions of commuting Indians every day. Basically, I will go to the nearest train station some days in advance of my planned trip, to make a reservation. After the inevitable queuing, after filling out a single 'reservation-form' and paying for the tickets (the total amount can be calculated by, among other things, the distance to be traveled and is for Western-standards dirt-cheap), the reservation is made. There are several classes and depending on the length of the journey, there are so-called 'Sitting Classes' and, the ones I always use: 'Sleeper Classes'. Sleeper Class is subdivided in 'SL' (what most of us would know as 2nd class): 3 births on each side, non-Airconditioned and two more births on the other side of the pathway, '3AC': (1st class), Airconditioned with 3 more comfortable births on each side, '2AC': the same with 2 births on each side and '1AC': the highest class possible with just 1 birth on each side... So far, I have only traveled SL, which saves a lot of money and is in fact perfectly fine since it's not over-crowded (the poorest Indians travel Sitting Class) and if you have the most upper birth you can actually lay down whenever you want. By the way, there's no need to be worried about getting hungry or thirsty on the train since there will be someone yelling: “Chaiiiiii!!?!” almost every minute and there are many food stalls along the way and other Indians serving complete meals in your cabin!

So Josine and I spent a long day on the Sleeper Train, passed New Delhi and started our second part of the trip with a visit to well-known Agra. Well-known... maybe not the city itself, but it does house what is perhaps the most beautiful building in the world: “A small teardrop on the cheek of Eternity”..., the Taj Mahal :-) Despite being among hundred of other tourists and having to spend some nights in what is perhaps the most touristy place in India, the Taj didn't disappoint us and having breakfast in the early morning with a superb view over this white-marble structure was a great experience. The State of Rajastahn, also known as 'the Desert State', was home to many Raj's or princes, some of whom still live there in the most beautiful palaces and so-called Havelis. Josine and I traveled along a major tourist-route and spent a few days in each place to soak up the atmosphere and to visit its highlights, including many palaces, forts and lakes. We both very much liked the Camel Safari, which we did in a city called Jaisalmer...

After having spent about 3 ½ months in the region now, I realise that one of the most striking features of India is without any doubt its diversity. Leaving alone the diversity and colorfulness of its people, it is simply amazing to be hiking in the stunning Himalayas at one moment, to drive around on a camel in a desolated desert a few days later and to sip milk from a coconut on a bounty-beach, which I'm doing right now!

... Back to Jaisalmer now: we booked a one-and-a-half day camel safari, (which seemed to be enough, since the prospect of sitting wide-legged on a camel for much longer didn't seem very appealing) and after a short jeep-ride, we were left alone in the desert with two camels and a very friendly and knowledgeable Muslim-guide, listening to the name 'Kamal'. Slowly moving from desolated settlements to the most beautiful sand dunes, we would stop once in a while for Kamal to make us, with very few ingredients, the most tasteful meals and, of course, to make sure we drank enough chaiiiii. Kamal picked us a nice spot to camp for the night and lying in our sleeping bags with three extra blankets, we witnessed a wonderful starry night and we finally fell asleep to dream about more adventures to come.

At the end of our trip together, we spent some days in the fairytale-city of Udaipur with its picturesque palace built in the lake (as used in the Bond-movie: 'Octopussy') and went hiking in the 'National Reserve' (also honey-moon city no.1 for just-married Indian couples) of Mount Abu, before making our final train-journey together to Bollywood-city: Bombay. This is just five days ago now: I dropped Josine off at the Internationl Airport, picked up my Bajaj-scooter at the train station (where I had sent it to from Calcutta), had it serviced, remembered with millions of Indians the terror-attacks in Mumbai which happened their exactly one year ago, made some friends along the way and finally left off for my next challenge: making it to the Souther-most point of the Indian sub-continent on my old Bajaj... the city listening to the beautiful name: Kanya-kumari! Although I actually had in mind to drive straight to Goa (India's beach paradise), I met an Indian at a restaurant along the way, who assured me that a place called 'Shriwardan' would be 10.000 times (at least!) more beautiful than Goa and at that very right moment, I decided to change my direction and to give it a try. Although I'm using three different maps for this journey, none of them contained this place, let alone a road to get there... With the help of some locals and after having thought of turning around about three times due to tough road-conditions (my Bajaj is strong, but I shouldn't push my luck too far!), all of a sudden I entered the small market of Shriwardan. Before I knew what was going on, two Muslim-guys on a motorbike asked: “Hotel?? Follow us!” and there I found myself driving on to a wonderful beach to reach their resort. Three nights have passed now, and I'm still amazed by the beauty of Sriwardan: an amazing beach, a lot going on a bit further at the busy fishermen's village, perfectly clean water to swim in, a good stretch to go jogging while the sun is setting, fresh fish and other delicious dishes prepared by the staff here, sleeping in a wooden hut made high up in the palm-trees and maybe best of all: I haven't seen any single other tourist yet and the local people here don't bother me at all... what a luck, thanks to the Indian guy at the restaurant, I discovered this little paradise..., here sits one happy traveler :-)

At the end, some practical information.... 'the Agenda'! Roughly speaking, my plan is to drive further South during the next three or four weeks: visiting some of the beautiful places in Goa and Kerala and trying to reach Kanyakumari just before Christmas. In the meanwhile, I will try to look for an internship or perhaps even a small job for the first months of 2010 in South-East Asia. As most of you know, I wanted only to travel throughout the Indian sub-continent, but for South-East Asia I would love to get my lazy ass finally going a bit again :-) In the end, I just recently graduated in International Law and I'm really curious about finding out about the various career opportunities which lay ahead of me. For South-East Asia, I want to focus upon the Human Rights field and I will be looking to get some valuable working experience, both to just make a start and to see whether this is a field where I would like to work in for a while... I'll keep you up-to-date, and if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know! The 27th of December, I want to be back in New Delhi to visit an important cricket match (I'm starting to get really into India's no.1 sport now!), which is the very last one in the Series between India and Sri Lanka. Perhaps just after that, I'm considering to make a small detour to Pakistan to visit a friend of mine who's sister is getting married and finally, I will try to make my way back to the Himalayas to go snowboarding in what is one of the world's best-kept winter-sport secrets, Gulmarg in Jammu/Kashmir!

From beautiful bounty-beach, I wish you all the best and I'm looking very much forward to hearing from all of you again! In the meanwhile, I will just keep enjoying traveling to the fullest extent possible and via this website, I will try to make you all a little part of it... take it easy,

Marijn