Red Fort, Delhi, India

Sukhothai, Thailand

Old Leh

A local at the Hemis Festival

View from Shanti Stupa

More Stupas

Stupas

Not a good place to be stuck

Our Road...

Red Fort, Delhi, India

Jama Masjid, Delhi, India

Jama Masjid, Delhi, India

Sukhothai, Thailand

Sukhothai, Thailand

Leh Palace from behind

Stunted mountain cows

Shanti Stupa

The view from Shanti Stupa

Mudbrick-walled laneway

The view from our guesthouse window in Leh

A good place to be stuck...

Vashisht, Himachal Pradesh, India

Red Fort, Delhi, India

Jama Masjid, Delhi, India

Sukhothai, Thailand

Pay Charity Tax $200

There's a lot of people in India, and everyone wants something - the easier they can get it, the better. Introducing two young, naive travellers who've lived their lives in an honest society; like lambs to the slaughter in scam-fest India. Spot the scams in the stories below to win your prize - just leave your credit card details here...

Before we left Delhi, the usual tourist spots beckoned. Number one on the list was India's largest mosque - the Jama Masjid of Delhi. It's a mosque. It's really big. And very intimidating. The walk from the road down the entrance alley lined with sidewalk stalls (ie. people sitting on the ground with their wares laid out in front of them - the phrase "You have turned my temple into a den of thieves." comes to mind...) was confronting because we were so obviously the minority. Yes, John looks like an Indian, but he looks like a bad Indian beacuse he has a white girlfriend.

Baggage and security checks proved that we were indeed rich Westerners carrying too much gear to visit a mosque. After paying the 'camera fee' (no, keep looking, this is a legitimate fee), we were instructed to take our shoes off and advised to give them to the shoekeeper for a small fee. But after having Tevas stolen from Tonsai, John was not about to risk having his ultra-comfortable, ultra-expensive boots waylaid by some unfortunate. Holy place or not, there were too many people eyeing our wares.

At this point we were approached by a guide who strongly advised us to leave our shoes because: (John's Interpretation) "...it will be too much of a hassle for you to keep picking them up and putting them down when you are taking photos." At which point John says "No, it's OK, I'll get the camera out now and leave it out - it's no hassle. I'll just put my shoes down here..."
GASP
What the guide actually said was " You don't know the correct customs in reagrds to shoes so it will be easier (and safer) for you to leave your shoes here." John had just placed the soles of his shoes on the ground - a highly disrespectful NO NO.

The score so far: John is a Westerner in a Muslim mosque; he has a white girlfriend; is walking around with a prominent camera; has just dropped his heavy boots on the ground after being told not to; they probably think he's American; and he's refused to use the services of a genuine attendant.

The stares from all sides said "This is our place of worship, you're not here to worship, why are you here?" As the guide rushed through a history of the mosque, we were crowded within a foot on any side by people standing, just staring.

We were then given leave to explore at our own will, and told once again not to put our shoes down. We made our way to a minaret (tower) where a shoe attendant took our shoes and put them into storage. Approaching the spiral stairwell inside the tower, it became apparent that the space within which we were to ascend, was exceedingly small and cramped. And with many people going up and down, the prospect of getting stuck in a people jam became all too real.

If you're claustrophobic, don't climb the 40 metres to the top. The final platform is like a cage, a little bigger than the passage itself, only with ten times more people. The stunning views of the mosque, Delhi and the Red Fort in the distance gave John's claustrophobia a good respite (read distraction). After five attempts at going up, and getting stuck in three people jams going down, the open courtyard, regardless of stares, was a welcome relief.

The overall impression of the mosque was stunning, majestic, and in some ways inspiring. A place of tangible devotion that makes you wish you could believe in something as strongly as the devotees do. Then again, maybe the feeling of unwelcome was just the insecurities of two atheists.

On our way out, our 'guide' asked for payment:
J: 10 Rupees?
G: No, not enough.
J: How much then?
G: As you see fit.
J: 20 Rupees.
G: No, no, no, no.
J: How much then?
G: As you see fit.
J: 30 Rupees?
G: No, 50.
J: (quite irate) 50 is too much.
G: (quite irate) 50 Rupees only $1 for you.
J: No, we are from Australia - you know, Shane Warne? Steve Waugh? (T: Glenn McGrath?) 50 Rupees is more than $1 for us.
G: No, $1 for you. Adam Gilchrist is the best.
J: Fine. (As you can see John is very good at negotiating prices.)
NB. Some of the above conversation may have been amalgamated from several conversations...

Oh, we got our shoes back by the way, after paying 20 Rupees for storage. So, we paid for the privilege of using our own camera, we paid to get crushed in a human mass in the tower of terror, we paid for someone to stick our shoes in a cupboard, and for a guy in fast forward mode to talk to us for two minutes and tell us what we already knew from reading Lonely Planet. The cost of worship these days is getting higher, even if you don't. Maybe it has something to do with the price of oil.

We left the mosque perturbed after a local came up and told us we'd paid too much for the guide (no this is not a scam either). From there it was a two minute walk across the road, dodging cows, buses, tuktuks and cycle rickshaws, to the Red Fort. The shortness of this journey did not stop one persistent cycle rickshaw driver from following us the whole way, offering to drive us for 30, 20, 10 Rupees.

The Red Fort (Lal Qila) is big. And red. Its walls and turrets loom impressively out of Old Delhi. Another baggae check proved that we still had too much to carry, but this time they took it into storage - J: "See Tiff, it's a good thing we bought a padlock." T: "Yes, dear."

Entering the main fort we were greeted by machine guns sticking out of a sandbag bunker. Our camera and we were quickly ushered away, and we were told not to point our barrel at their barrels. Fine exhibits of Mughal architecture (arches and pillared columns and vine-y designs) and the ruins of the 17th century Emperor's formal place of residence were clustered amidst gardens and empty (imaginebly magnificent in their day) watercourses. All the while, huge, beautiful and majestic hawklike birds of prey hovered, soared and glided overhead.

The normal arguing over autorickshaw (tuktuk) fares ensued, but after much storming off and being pursued, we finally got a price that we agreed on. Arriving back at the shopping strip near our hotel, we bought a prepaid sim card to contact home. Watch this thread.

Wondering around the following day we were approached outside the New Delhi train station by a well-spoken Indian man who gave us lots of helpful information and told us not to trust anyone - not even him. He recommended going to the Foreigners desk to buy train tickets, but told us it was not in the actual station.

The next day we went back to buy tickets and he 'happened' to be there. He helped us gauge which train we needed, what time it left, how much it should cost and other relevant information. He then recommended that it would be easier for us to buy tickets at a government tourist office as the train station attendants didn't really speak English well.

He showed us the Government tourist office in our Lonely Planet, which validated his story well. He put us in an autorickshaw and negotiated the price for us (we got this very cheap I must say) and we were taken to the Government office address (I followed this on the map). We pulled up to an official-looking place with the tourism india website on its' door (pointed out to us by the auto-rickshaw driver).

The train station dude told us that there was free internet at the office (we had to check dates for meeting friends in Manali), but when we got there, they told us to go next door to the cafe. As we were walking away, the rickshaw driver quickly stopped us from leaving saying it was free inside, and then argued in Hindi with the staff on our behalf. We eventually used the net in an office (which did not look set up for general use) with the excuse that they sent us next door because they had been having power blackouts all day.

We got a lot of good information about our plans, but when we were about to purchase trains tickets (they had looked up the info on the Indian Railways website) we were told that there were none left in the class we wanted. We were then pursuaded to buy bus tickets, including a lift to the station, which we found out later were at around double the price we should have paid. Using the Lonely Planet state government bus ticket prices as a guide (745Rs AC) we thought 1250 each was a little expensive, but allowed for inflation and using a private bus company.

The first real hint that we had been duped was when the tickets were written out on the receipt of one, 'Exotic Adventure Tours'. Then, in the rickshaw home (the same driver had waited for us, but we managed to avoid 'waiting fees') the driver asked how much we had paid. When we asked him how much we should have paid and he said 800-900Rs we were a little put out.

The day of our departure we asked the hotel to call us a taxi (to go to the office where we were to get our transfer to the bus station). We had decided against an atorickshaw due to our volume of luggage. When the hotel tried to charge us 280 Rupees to go 3km away, we refused and kicked up a stink, trying to retain the hotel's services at a vastly reduced price. We were told that there's a time and place for bargaining and that this was not it. Needless to say we left the hotel on bad terms.

So we walked to the nearby train station and got 100 Rupees straight away. We were too drained to argue more. Arriving at the other end (after driving around the city's ring road at least a half a dozen times, and stopping to ask for directions that many times again) we were charged an extra 50 Rupees for parking. What a crock! Tiff told the driver on no uncertain terms: "I hope you get bad karma!!!"

Looking for a pharmacy outside the office, Tiff found the REAL government office (looking quite a bit dingier than the agency we had been visiting) two doors down on the other side of the internet place - a discovery we would have made earlier if the original autorickshaw driver hadn't spotted us heading in that direction and herded us back inside. Looking then above the 'Tourist Information' sign on the agency's building, Tiff saw a small plaque listing the place as 'Exotic Adventure Tours' recognised by the Indian Goverment. Asking other tourists in the office made us realise that many people were being misled in this way, but we figured that if we got to Manali we weren't doing too badly.

This is where our 'transfer', an autorickshaw, shows up to transport us and our luggage to the 'bus station'. We had to lay our backpacks across our laps just to fit in the thing! The 'bus station' consisted of a dairy stand and many tourists sitting on the side of the road. Two hours later, our bus comes. The same bus that we had seen sitting on the other side of the road an hour previously. Asking around, we found out that we had paid around double what we should have.

The whole time we were experiencing this, we were asking ourselves, what's the catch?, and still didn't see it coming. It was so subtle, and everyone acted so genuine. The whole thing was inconceivably well-planned, with so many variables and links in the chain that we thought it couldn't possibly work so effectively. Both times we were at the office there were other Westerners there, so we believe this scam must be seeing a lot of traffic. We were prepared for the 'office closed, burnt down, non-existent' spiels, but not for the subtle intricacies of a different plot - our tools (maps, Lonely Planet) used against us. Although we didn't lose a lot of money, our pride (when we discovered the scam) took a beating. In the end we were just happy that the bus existed and took us where we wanted to go.

Fifteen minutes down the road, we stopped for an hour and a half, and then stopped periodically every 15 minutes after that so that the owner of the bus (a boy who looked around 15) could bang bits of the bus body back into place. Oh, and there's a 'luggage tax' for each piece of tourist baggage. John wisely paid, ensuring that our luggage was still on the bus at the other end.

The night was spent listening to polyphonic horn tones, both from our bus, and oncoming traffic, everytime we rounded a corner or passed another vehicle. The road was long, slow and in dubious condition. Women were throwing up out the windows from about 1am onwards. No wonder it took 16 hours to travel 500kms.

The trip would have been much more gruelling were it not for two chatty New Zealand Poms. The girls had almost been done in on the bus scam too, but their sharp Kiwi minds (and a lot of luck) had prevented this. We were the only four foreigners - lumped up the back of the bus together.

The next few days were spent in a luxurious, too expensive room, with views of plunging green valleys, quaint villages, snow capped mountains and rushing rivers. The food and views on our rooftop restaurant were unequivocally delicious and romantic. A walk to the river proved that 'picturesque' in India means 'far away'. Get too close and you'll realise that you're standing in someone else's poo.

We stayed in Vashisht, nestled high on the valley slopes and set far above the Delhi-esque New Manali. The slate roofs with smoking chimneys, cows on front porches and famrmers carrying basket backpacks full of fodder, made a sigh of relief from the stress and traffic (human and otherwise) of Delhi. We could easily have stayed here for weeks. The only time ur blood pressure went up was when Italy cheated Australia out of a second-round World Cup win. We're not usually football (or soccer) fans, but any connection with home (especially the thought that loved ones were watching the same live game) was welcomed.

We met briefly with some climbing friends from Tonsai, and then, at 3am, departed from Vashisht in a jeep with eight strangers on a meet-thy-maker style journey. John slept for the first three hours, missing out on Tiff making peace with the world - she honestly thoguth she was going to die. But breathing and a tranquil trust in the universe got her through the first of 10 high passes. The rest of the journey was just as hair-raising - only in daylight. Passing trucks with only a breath between the jeep's tyre and the sheer drops of thousands of metres into valleys below, left all passengers gripping their chairs and instinctively leaning away from the edge of the road. The road, if you could indeed call it that, was at worst little more than a single laned 4wd dirt track. We wondered how a bus - one of the other transport options for this trip - was able to pass these sections.

Speaking of options, we chose the jeep as we deemed it to be safer, roomier, cheaper and quicker (doing the trip in one day instead of two). Of course we got it wrong on all counts. There was only a single driver for the entire 20 hour trip (oh, and it was only 500km), there were four people crammed into the three person back seat, and a delay meant we had to stay the night at a 4630 metre pass. One of the main reasons we had wanted to do the trip in one day was to avoid a stay at a 4253 metre camp and risk altitude sickness. Well, we got altitude sickness.

The realisation sinking in that yes, we were staying the night here, that no, there is no way we could go further that night, put an especially surreal turn on events. The light was fading fast over an alien moonscape, so barren and different from the greenery of Vashisht. Deep rifts of snow on closeby hilltops were a gentle hint of the impending night's cold. And our bodies were not responding well. John almost passed out from the effort of lowering our bags from the top of the jeep and Tiff was vomiting beside tent pegs and car wheels in 0 degree temperatures. The air was so thin, seemingly devoid of breathable oxygen, and the pressure inside the head was intense. The altitude was like a looming presence unto itself.

Coming inside from the harsh, dry cold to a warm, orange gaslight glow and hiss was a small comfort. Unfortunately the pressure didn't change in the tents. The settlement was simply a series of these large, conjoined parachute tents, cosy mind you, with a kitchen and lounge out front and communal sleeping quarters out back. No toilet block - just the open landscape running beside a major watercourse. 'Open toilet' was a term we became quite familiar with over the two days.

But through it all, the welcome and comfort of the local hilltribe women was to be surpassed by none. They offered medications to still Tiff's stomach (although gratefully declined in favour of the tried and true Diamox), and their folk dancing and song after all the traveller had gone to bed provided an eerie backdrop to an extraordinary night.

Oh, and the reason for our unplanned, high-altitude sleepover: goats, or at least that's what we thought at first. Pulling over to the side of the road behind a long queue of trucks, buses and jeeps, our driver up and left, leaving us to guess at the external goings on. We decided to investigate, and rounding the corner of the road, we saw goats. Just a whole lot of goats. Sitting across the road, not a care in the world - except the big river rushing down the mountainside where the road used to be. Oh well, back to Manali we thought. The driver just laughed.
" No, no, we fix" he said.
"How are you going to fix that?!?!?!? There are foundations that need to be laid and a river that needs to be stopped!?"
"No, no, bulldozer, push dirt over."
"Interesting."

Noone seemed overly concerned so we went for a stroll in the mountains. Of all places to be stranded, this was possibly one of the most beautiful. Green terraced fields (reminiscent of South America), views over the valley and rushing river below to the glaciers on the far side. Four hours later with a dodgy, precarious dirt bridge and water diverted along the roads on either side, we were once again on our way. Looking back we could see the temporary (we hoped) bridge being washed away, little by little.

Back at camp, we rose early and once again heard the call of the open toilet - as did everybody else. Finding a patch of 'unused' pebbles, far enough away from your next-door neighbour that you didn't get stage fright became an unusual way of bonding. " Hi, my name's Bob, I poo beside the road."

We were too high, but in order to get down, we had to go higher. This led us to the highest motorable road/pass in the world at 5360 metres. It was all downhill from there thankfully. But the journey continued to be punctuated, every 15 seconds, by the driver spitting out the window. It may or may not have been the contents of a small packet of seeds (?) he periodically emptied into his mouth, as he gracefully discarded the plastic wrapper out the window. We hoped they were caffeine or amphetamine - something to keep him alert on the long, treacherous road.

We arrived in Leh shaken, rattled, bruised, bumped, numb, nauseous, fatigued, dehydrated, migrained, but otherwise in one piece. THANK THE MAKER! Or should that be the driver? The Manali to Leh road was all at once magnificent, sweeping, soaring, horrible, painful and desolate, hauntingly provocative, beautiful, intense, terrible, life-threatening and life-affirming. It was everything you want in an adventure but everything you try to avoid. From the boom to the wow and the whoar and the whoosh, and the bwoozsh and the, and the... WOW! We're in the fucking Himalayas man! What John's trying to say is: from sweeping plains to soaring mountains, lush green to barren desolation; we are in the Himalayas and it's great. It's humbling. On a political note, the Himalayas don't belong to India. Nor any other country. They just are.

We've been in Leh, in the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir, a week now, meeting up with another friend from Tonsai - the info fount, Daniel. He has given us much sagely advice and put us on a good path to start a trek. We took a stroll to Shanti (Peace) Stupa which overlooks Leh town - a lovely patch of green in predominantly dirt-mountain surrounds. It was exceedingly tranquil as befitting a place of worship.

However, it wasn't long before that curse of John's bad karma (he killed a God in a previous life don't you know), struck again. He's been bed-bound with a throat and chest infection diagnosed at the local hospital (yes, this is "The Sounds That Travellers Make", otherwise known as "John's World Hospital Tour"). A tummy bug at the end of this leads us to ask, 'how many different types of antibiotics is it safe to take at one time?'. There's Doxy for malaria, Roxi for the chest, and Floxi for the tummy... So we've seen very little of Leh, except the mountain views and narrow, quiet, secluded mudbrick-walled lanes visible from our guesthouse window.

In other news: our ipod's broken; our GPS, which is being returned after being fixed in Taiwan, has been seized by Indian Customs in Delhi; the sim card we bought in Delhi was disconnected due to the friendly staff at our Pahaganj hotel (SHELTON) denying to Airtel (phone company) that we had ever stayed there; and the sim card we acquired in Manali that we were assured would work in Leh, doesn't. India's been good to us.

Things that make you go hmmmm... India:
Personal hygiene is a choice not a law.
Having said that, toothbrushing is almost a religion here.
Religion brings out the best of people and the worst of people.
It's only our fresh water supply - you can do everything in it.
A little music goes a long way; an ipod goes a very little way.
You CAN get a full tummy on vegetarian food.
McDonalds has a Maharaja burger and no beef or pork.
Just because they moo or oink doesn't mean they're special.
Cows still need hugs. So do puppies.
How many jeep drivers does it take to change an oil filter? Not enough, call more.
The Indian head wobble is real, and grossly understated in stereotypes. (sorry Milli)
Colour is defined here, and defines here.
It's surprisingly, disturbingly easy to ignore beggars.
Prayer flags are beautiful.
Hilltribe women are tough.
The brown, weathered and wrinkled faces and hands of the hilltribe people are beautiful to behold.
Who needs anti-wrinkle cream?
Most Westerners seem to think that the locals wear their pajamas all day and try to dress accordingly. Stupid Westerners. The locals dress like us.

Principles to live by:
Trust noone, get hurt by none, miss out on the adventures.
Peace: It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of all those things and still be calm in your heart. (Thanks Adz!)
You can always be worse off.
Pork and Beef.
If there's a seatbelt, use it, but don't be surprised if there isn't one.
A genuine smile given or received, can make a day, build bridges and restore faith.
If you're on a winning streak at cards, don't get your hair cut.
A market is a market is a market is a market is a market is a Thai market is an Indian market is a market in Fortitude Valley. It's just a market, get over it.
Don't trust any piece of electronic equipment unless you are in the town where you bought it.
A journey of one day sometimes takes two.

saintrinity
John and Tiff

p.s. Congrats to Jan/mum on her first ever online chat session through gmail!!!
p.p.s. There is no prize, this is a scam.