17/03 – Recovered from Manali to Dehli bus journey. Booked train tickets to Varanasi. The plan was to fly from there to Nepal before working our way back down to Goa to meet the pudsey crew coming out on holiday. Today was the start of the ‘Holi’ festivities, to celebrate the beginning of spring, which involves lots of colour, crazy celebrations and paint throwing. Today was more of a practice day with big groups of grinning Indian lads testing their aim with a few water & paint bombs.
18/03 – Stu had been pretty ill through the night and was still bad all day. We had to postpone travelling to Varanasi, which meant heading back down to the station and running the gauntlet of paint bombs. As the train wasn’t departing until 20:00, we were able to head down once the celebrations had died down, and witnessing the state of some of the people staying in our guest house, we were glad we did! They were covered from head to foot in splashes of red, blue, green, purple and yellow – looked good on someone else. Got to the station and back unscathed with tickets to varanasi booked for the next day.
19/03 – Stu feeling much better. Decided not to bother going to varanasi / Nepal and head straight to Goa to get some rays. Planned a day in Agra and then to head to Mumbai to spend the weekend at Ste & Zoe’s.
20/03 – Early start for Agra. Immediate hassle from touts, taxi drivers and the like. Sorted out transport to take us round the city and to Fatehpur Sikri. The Taj Mahal is as beautiful as you would imagine – a complete contrast from Agra itself. Agra fort was less impressive and parts of it were closed. In hindsight, I would have preferred to have done Fatehpur Sikri in the morning, as that was much more impressive. The down side was that the touts and guides were much worse at Fatehpur, and with the heat of the day and their refusal to take ‘no thank-you’ as a final answer, politeness went out of the window!
21/03 – Left Dehli, for Mumbai, on the overnight train. Set off at 21:00, due to arrive at 15:00 the next day. Not much to report really. Got on train, had some grub, played cards, went to sleep.
22/03 – Got into Mumbai slightly later than planned (about 16:00). Headed straight to Ste’s. Went out for some food and got really hammered in the irish bar. Quite funny that they advertise a ‘geniune irishman’ available for hire for story-telling, dancing and up for the craic. He probably comes dressed in green with a big ginger beard.
23/03 – Recovered from last night. Went to the 7 star Marriott Hotel – unbelievably posh place. Stayed in the pool most of the day, before getting changed and heading back down to the Marriott to watch the cricket final. This was a big day, and lots of Indian families were dressed in their Sunday best, watching the game on giant screens. It all fell a bit flat once Australia racked up their total and India lost some of their key wickets, which was a real shame because the whole country would have gone nuts if they had won.
24/03 – My turn for the Bombay belly. Just what I needed in advance of another long train journey. Ventured down to Dardar station to book the tickets for Goa. Beaches here we come!
25/03 – Early start. Long train journey with lots of teeth clenching as the immodium started to wear off! A 12 hour journey admiring the scenery which compensated for the fact that the train carriage was like a blast furnace. First one to see the sea gets an ice cream. I think baz and stu still owe me that!
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