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[kurban78]

Strange, I had a good impression of Khatmandu when I spent 1 week in the valley back in 1995. But overall, it's all the cities in the valley that are worth the trip! I loved it 100%. Maybe because it was a radical change compared to the months I spent in Delhi.

Ty to enjoy tibetan food, it's very good, especially the momos, that are close to chinese wantans.

I'd not recommend to live in Varanasi because in summer and mansoon months, it's dreadful! Believe me, i experienced it!

Where are you heading now?
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"Je n'ai rien à perdre dans ce monde plein de haine PUISQU'ON EST DéJà MORT!!" - L'Esprit du Clan.

[MetaLark]

Oh my goodness, Postoak! Are you alone on this trip?

It seems to me rather scary to have a leg wound way over there. Is it getting better?

[postoak]

Yes, I'm all alone. My wife thought it was dangerous to come. (Seems not to be to me, so far.) I seem to be getting better. I bought some shorts to keep my pants from chafing my sore. (I made a good joke that my legs were more blindingly white than the Taj Mahal, LoL.)

No Tibetan food so far, just Mandarin and Indian. This is what the hotel offers. I smoked a sheesha (water-pipe) in the hotel bar. I didn't see this offered in India.

The Hindi temples I'm visiting aren't nearly as interesting as the Buddhist monastery I saw in Tibet. Oh, I bought a chess board in the local market -- made in China. But most of their souvenirs are made locally.

India is more exotic than Nepal. Anyone visiting these 2 countries should go to Nepal first. The people are friendly, but not uber-friendly like the Indians. I just love the Indians. They're my favorite people, so far.

By less exotic, here's an example. The road traffic here is all cars, trucks, and motor cycles. In India, it is all that, plus 3 wheeled bicycle "rickshaws", and a host of animals. BTW, driving is on the opposite side both here in Nepal and in India, like the U.K. and Japan.

I plan on making one more trip alone, next year, to South Africa for some plains game shooting, and then my wife should be traveling again with me.
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[postoak]

Kurban, were you doing diplomatic work when you spent several months in Delhi? What did YOU think of India?

Some more observations I wanted to make:

The Ganges, at Varanasi, is a beautiful green color. I thought it would be muddy and polluted, but it isn't (although it no doubt has some serious germs in it). I saw a man pulling some nice fish out of the river. I think, tho, that the bathing in the Ganges thing wouldn't exist anymore if not for the tourists who want to see it. It's just a few hundred people who come down and bathe.

The greatest number of tourists who come to India are Spanish-speakers, and mostly from Spain, for some reason. They outnumber all the others, combined.

The swastika symbol is much more in evidence here in Hindu India than in Buddhist Tibet. I see it quite often. Since the "star of David" is also a popular geometic motive, you sometimes see the two side-by-side on a building.
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Yes, I know how to spell. I'm using Freespeling: http://www.freespeling.com/

[kurban78]

No diplomatic work at all. I was around 16 -17 years old and we were there with my family because my father had a short term contract for an architecture project. We were living in New Delhi in Aurangzeb Road, if it tells you something.
I really loved my time in India, and except in Tamil Nadu, I felt safe overall. Once you get how India functions, you can go alone no problem. My father duties were relatively light so we travelled quite a lot. For instance we visited extensively Rajahstan (my father loved Udaypur so we went there during numerous weekends or in the Mountain sation of Mount Abu not too far away from Udaypur). We made the Gange Valley as you as doing (did you visit Kadjuraho with its erotic temples?) with Varanasi etc... (btw, the Gange bathing, it depends at what time of the day you go there. If you go at dawn or sunset, it's overcrowed. It's not for the tourists at all, it really does mean a lot to hindus!)

We visited Tamil Nadu (extrem south of India) it was very beautiful but the local population was not very friendly and they were behaving like Hindu Talebans! I really loved Kerala, both its mountain jungles, coffee plantations and the backwaters canals.

However if you want to amazing temples, visit the Jain and hindu temples in Ranakpur and Mount Abu. But the best for me were the hindu temples located on an island in front of Bombay (ok Mumbai now) and the Buddhist-hindu temples and caves of Ellora and Ajanta at 400km east of Bombay. Really breathtaking.

At some point, my mother got sick because of the monsoon weather and we went to Kathmandu for her to rest. We were in Hotel Shangri-la. Very nice one. But I insist, try tibetan food, you won't regret it.
We did the same once again for my mother and we spent 2 weeks in Sri Lanka as well. I think people should visit Sri Lanka before India and it's really an amazing island, a real jewel.
Now, if we compare both Nepalese and Indian peoples, I felt the same with (northern) Indians being so polite and gentle. Northern indian women are the best looking women on earth, don't you think??
Nepalese are indeed a bit more loud but colder with foreigners.

You'll have to tell me if you would get the same feeling when you'll be back in Delhi. When we first arrived there, my father was a bit scared to have brought us there because mid 1990s India was quite messy and after one month on the roads of Rajahstan, when we got back to Delhi, we felt it as so clean and well organised compared to the countryside.

I would like so much to go back to India, especially in Kashmir and Ladakh. And in Mustang province in Nepal.

Don't worry, Spaniards are great travellers and in larges gangs lol. You know, for us in Europe, going to India requires only 6-7hours flight and the plane tickets are not too expensive. For instance, most of my friends have been at least once in India! It's a must for our young backpackers over here!
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"Je n'ai rien à perdre dans ce monde plein de haine PUISQU'ON EST DéJà MORT!!" - L'Esprit du Clan.

[plaasjaapie]

[postoak]

Yes, I visited the erotic temples of Khajuraho. They were extremely impressive. I wish I were seeing some more, older temples with no Moghal influence.

Kathmandu is a terrible place to visit. My strong advice would be (and I was given this advice by a co-worker, but it was too late for me to change my plans) would be that anyone visiting Nepal should get out of the city as quickly as possible and go to a smaller place. The traffic and pollution are terrible here. But my really best advice for anyone visiting Nepal would be to visit Tibet, instead.

I have figured out women's clothing here. Most women wear the sari, which is just a 4 meter piece of cloth wrapped around the body and then placed over the left shoulder. The outfit you may have seen where pants are worn that are very tight at the ankle and bunched up, and over that is worn a long, unbelted tunic, is called a Punjabi. Similar to that, is the kurtha, except the pants are very loose. The latter two are gaining in popularity at the expense of the sari, but the sari is by far the most widely worn.

Plaas, the major roads here are very good, as shown in that photo, but what is hidden is the trash and poverty on either side of the road. Also, they took that on a good pollution day.

I visited a cremation site today and saw a couple in progress. The "ashes", logs really, are lifted off the platforms and thrown into the river which the platforms face. This river feeds into the Ganges. The sight was really awful as the river is filled with trash and garbage like you cannot imagine. A boy was salvaging the wood to be used in some factory.

As for politics, the king was forced to step down 1 1/2 years ago, but all the people I talked to liked rule by the king. It was some 20,000 "maoists" (youth gangs, as far as I can tell, and probably financed by China or Pakistan) roaming the countryside, and the elite who wanted a share of power who wanted the change. Now the country is a total political mess.

Although Hinduism has 330,000,000 gods, I was oddly pleased to learn that the average Hindu can only name 10 or so. Even the priests can only name a little over 100.
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Yes, I know how to spell. I'm using Freespeling: http://www.freespeling.com/

[postoak]

Well, I take it back, Plaas. After taking a day tour of Delhi, I would say it is much cleaner than the rural parts of India. Trash isn't, usually, just strewn around and there are some very nice boulevards like the photo you posted. However, always lingering in the background is something rundown.

I inquired about living here. The doctor treating my leg in Delhi said it costs about 3.5 million rupees per year to live an upper class lifestyle here. He said you could get a bungalow in the country, which would require a staff of 10, or you could get a nice city flat and then would need "only a cook, a bodyguard, and a driver".

Did I mention that India is somewhat puritannical? It's between the West, and Muslim countries. All my drivers and guides here have been men, whereas all my guides in China were young women.

Kurban, I take my beautiful women where I can find them. However, I prefer the face of Scandinavian women the most, I think. Still there are some really attractive women. Some highlevel hotel employee just came up to my room with my medicine and was nice enough to dress my leg. She was tall, thin, and beautiful, with a lovely soft voice. What makes Indian women more attractive, on average, than American women, is that almost none are overweight -- virtually no young women are fat at all, and they have good figures. I've also been told they are very submissive to their husbands. They certainly can be short, tho. Some are just over 4 feet, I would say. I think my advice to young American nerds looking for a girlfriend/wife would be to come here or to China. With their relative wealth, they'd be able to latch onto someone, the American equivalent of which wouldn't give them the time of day.

Country women here certainly have hard lives. They get up early in the morning, fetch water in pots on their heads, fix the family breakfast, and then go work in the fields until time to come home and fix supper for their husbands. I asked several times what the men do and was always told "they do the heavy work", but was also told the women carry loads up to 70 pounds.
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Yes, I know how to spell. I'm using Freespeling: http://www.freespeling.com/

[postoak]

I forgot to mention that cricket is really popular here. I've seen boys playing it on vacant lots, and it is on TV so much that I've taken a primer on it so I can understand what I'm watching.
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Yes, I know how to spell. I'm using Freespeling: http://www.freespeling.com/

[plaasjaapie]

Cricket is great fun to play and fun to watch, too. In SA you used to pack up your BBQ smoker, a chiller of beer and your lawn furniture and headed off to watch the match in comfort. Great fun!
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Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
— Sir John Harrington

[postoak]

Well, after a 7 hour drive down across northern India that I found very interesting, I am now at Corbett National Park. I am staying at a place called "Cortbett's Hideway". It's a 5 or so acre compound behind a stone and barbed wire wall, that is like a botanical garden. Being just up in the Kumaon hills, it is a pleasant temperature. The hotel bungalows are very plesant, sort of a 1930's bungalow style with an Indian twist. They have al the conveniences and the place has a spa, swimming pool, cabana bar, and a restaurant with views down to the rock-lined river. I was warned not to wander around outside the compound at night because of the tigers and leopards that come down to the Kosi River (which the Hideway backs onto) for water.
_________________
Yes, I know how to spell. I'm using Freespeling: http://www.freespeling.com/

[MetaLark]

Hmmm...I can see why your wife didn't want to go.

[postoak]

I've not had the internet for a couple of days. My leg is improving but I'll see the doctor again when I go back to Delhi tomorrow.

I'm currently in Corbett National Park. Yesterday, I visited Naini Tal and Kaladhungi the site of Corbett's summer and winter homes. I toured the winter home, which is a museum. The park is about 30 miles from where Corbett lived. It's at the very beginning of the Kumaon Hills. Here, they are about 300 feet high (as measured from the top down the face of one. The forest is considerably more open than our Gulf Coast forests, and there are fields and glades, too. It is currently well into dry season so the streams are not flowing and some are entirely dry. The beds of the streams are always lined with rounded rock varying in size from a fist to a bushel basket. I was driven around all day in an open jeep, to look at game. Although you don't see game continuously, it's far more interesting than a stroll thru the East Texas Piney woods where you normally would only see crows and vultures, and maybe a squirrel. My visual "bag" was:

1 tiger
1 group of 10 elephants
12 or so barking deer
2 sambars
100s of spotted deer
2 mongooses
several dozen langurs
several dozen rhesus macaques (monkeys)
6 of another sort of macaque
about 3 dozen pea-fowl
about a half-dozen eagles of various kinds
1 owl
many colorful small birds
2 jackals

Seeing a tiger is by no means a given. Some people go 10 days and don't see one and others have 2 encounters in 1 day. I strongly recommend my bungalow hotel "The Corbett Hideaway" to any who come here. It is surrounded by the park. A local woman was taken by a leopard about 300 yards down the road, and one of the women who go in groups into the forest to gather firewood was taken by a tiger, both last year.

I had an epiphany the last day or two. The run-down buildings in the towns and cities are left over from the British days. The locals haven't been able to maintain the infrastructure, just as the South Africans aren't able too. In these hills many British lived, and you can usually spot their old estates because they're marked by 2 gateposts about 2 feet square and 5 feet tall (and made of brick covered with plaster, or else of concrete). Between them is a double panel wrought iron gate. The gate is wide enough for a carriage (or a car), but fitting a truck thru it might be hard.
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Yes, I know how to spell. I'm using Freespeling: http://www.freespeling.com/

[postoak]

I'm home now.

One thing I wanted to add that I keep forgetting is that it is not uncommon to see 2 men walking hand-in-hand or with one's arm around another's shoulder. You never see this among men over 30 or so. When I asked various guides about this, they were always quick to tell me this had nothing to do with homosexuality -- which it probably doesn't -- most of the time.
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Yes, I know how to spell. I'm using Freespeling: http://www.freespeling.com/

[plaasjaapie]

It doesn't. It's just a cultural thing.
_________________
Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
— Sir John Harrington