Our bad driver and a forgotten blog

We normally have good rickshaw drivers. A few have gone a bit fast and or have been a bit aggressive but most are good. Today, we had the worst driver yet. First he bumped a parked rickshaw that he could have avoided. Then we came to some cows blocking the road. Instead of honking and inching forward, he inched forward silently. The cows started to fight. We passed one but the other one (with smaller horns) was too focused on fighting to move. Our rickshaw driver ran over his hoof which made the cow fall down. After we passed, the cow quickly limped away from the other cow. I guess our driver is not a Hindu; as cows are holy for the Hindus.

(An older blog entry that I forgot about: We had an interesting train ride from Jaisalmer to Jodhpur as we tried to explain ice hockey to three Indian men. We ended up using a notebook to draw them pictures. The train ride would have been good if I hadn't decided to go sit on the top bunk. The light was right above my eyes for six hours and I got a really bad headache. After a good nights sleep I felt better again.)

Jaipur-Pushkar

The next day in Jaipur was good. We walked around in the tourist area and Sam and I had to buy full price tickets for some outdoor giant sun dial park because we didn't have student cards. - I don't even have a student card. Anyway, it's illegal for us Canadian kids to not to be in school but the ticket seller said we needed our student cards.

I bought some more shoes. I now have two pairs of Rajasthani shoes. They are both camel leather shoes/slippers/flats. One plain and one fancy. The plain pair are pointy and the other pair are rounded. They were both around 6 canadian dollars 250 rs and 300rs.

We all had supper at the Tali house again but there were more people and not as many staff so they didn't try to force us to eat the food as much.

The next morning, we got on a bus to Ajmer. There we went to the lake and the park around the lake where Sam bought something like a giant popadom only greasier and stale and disgusting. A boy came up to us asking for money, Sam gave him the giant popadom. He took it but he wasn't impressed. We went back to the bus station where we had lunch then got on a bus to Pushkar.

Pushkar had lots of tourist shops and reasonable accommodations. We bought more shoes! Now Mom and I have two pairs each. Dad doesn't have any. Sam has one pair and his foot was used to size a pair for his grandpa in Canada. We ate at one restaurant and had a really good meal. We watched the kids make it till the dad came in, then he helped. The pizza was made by a ten year old boy and was great. It was funny to watch them start before their dad came because they were squabbling about who got what job and I don't really know what else because the were talking Hindi.

The next day we left Pushkar and went to Bundi via Ajmer again. We ate at the same restaurant at the bus station.

Jaisalmer-Jodhpur

Sorry I have't blogged for a while. I guess India took over. I am writing this from a sleeper train. The train started out fairly empty and picked up lots of people, from smaller stations in and around Delhi, who then got off along the way. This crazy period lasted about 3 hours. Then for an hour, later, it was busy but not crammed. Slowly it quieted and there were a few open berths. We were doubling up because we had wait list tickets so we spread out.

I saw a toddler on the train running up and down the carriage while the train was moving. That has got to be good way to gain balance.

We are in Jodhpur now. It's pretty nice, but I can't tell much of a difference from town to town. There are different things to see, more or less hotels, more or less shops, more or... But the rickshaw drivers are just as annoying, the children still want pens, the beggars are just as persistant and the smells still differ street to street ( or should I say alleyway to alleyway).

The Fort here was good but took a long time to go through. The audio guide here was a lot better than the French ones which dragged on for hours about boring stuff. I don't really want to write about the fort right now but I am sure that Sam and my parents wrote more than enough about that.

The hotels in India are interesting. The hotel we are in now has two small pretty chandelier light type things but they both have no light bulb. Instead they put a boring flourescent tube light in. ( I think that the chandeliers might not be wired in.

Sam, my dad and I went out to find supper. We wandered around for a bit then Sam led us in the opposite direction we were supposed to go. We found the place we were looking for eventually. It was the famous omlette place. I had boiled eggs which were covered with salt and pepper. Then we wandered a bit more and found a cart selling stuff that looked tasty. It had lots of different thing so we asked if we could have something spicy for twenty rupees. When shaking the chilli pepper on, the man at the stall turned around grinned at the man behind him then shook some more on. He also made us pay before we ate in case we didn't like it. We did like it and ordered another one after.

We are now in Jaipur. Sam and Mom went out for a few hours while dad and I stayed home and slept. Earlier, for lunch we went to the Thali House a restaurant down the street. Sam and I ordered Rajasthani thali's and they literally lined up to ask us if we wanted more rice, more dahl etc... They would not stop. In the end it was a joke and one guy kept coming up and almost insisting we had more food. Right before we left as a joke Sam said "more rice" to the guy who was asking us the most often. I was worried he might have actually came back with more rice, but he didn't.

Ooty and Mysore

29^th of Jan 2011

We are now in Mysore which is a welcome break, far from Ooty's dust and dirt. Mysore is still a city, but the main streets are kept “clean”. All the garbage is put in neat piles in the back streets, then the cows come along and eat half of it the city gets round to burning all the rest. That's how all the posh cities do it.

Ooty was good. Especially the trek we did. Which at times had a very similar terrain to the rocky portages we do in Ontario. Except there were no trees, no sounds of rapids and even though we could see for tens of miles there were no lakes. Which is funny because we were ten km away from Ooty which has a(n) (artificial) lake.

The only problem with Ooty is that it is very dusty and dirty and a bit smelly.

India

My new outfit.

Breakfast, well tea to start.

We are in India now! So far it has been great. A little too hot for my likings but other than that, fine. The streets are insane to walk on and to cross. You think that you are on the right side of the street, and that cars won't come right behind you, but, one happens to pass, then a car and zooms by behind your ear, and even when they are coming in front of you, the cars still seem to take you by surprise. When walking on the side of the road were no cars should be, you are still confused and almost get hit by motorbikes backing out. O.K., I am exaggerating a bit, its only during rush hour in biggish towns, on the main drags. In cities, they sometimes have sidewalks so only crossing the street is a big problem. Sometimes however motorbikes are parked on the sidewalks.

Okay, enough complaining, India is great. We are in Alapuzha and when you talk to the tourist information people instead of saying “Elephant ride?” they say “ boat trip?” Everywhere you look, they want to talk you into a boat trip in the backwaters.

But it is fun and the hustle and bustle is exciting. One time, we arrived at the restaurant in which we were to have lunch during Friday prayers (1:00-1:30). The restaurant was close to where they were going to pray (mosque or temple, I don't know). At 1:30 we were caught in the middle of a small crowd of people leaving after prayer, which was fun. Only problem was then the restaurant was full and we had to wait a bit for lunch.

We are now in north of Alleppy and here there are ice cream sellers everywhere selling mango double and what not. Mmmm!

Bye bye,

Mhari 

Photos from France

Minerve, France

A cold day in Carcassonne

Like my torch?

Paris metro.

More From UK

 I have decided to update you all about how I have been doing with my leg and life in general.  I am now walking without crutches.  I can bend my knee well past 90.  My knee doesn't hurt so I think that's pretty good. Christmas was really fun and it is almost the new year  ( Yay, more parties) though that means that mom and Sam will be leaving soon (wahhh).
I would also like to inform you that the time when people went to my blog the most was September ( I geuss school has slowed blog reading down) My blog was visited 450 times in one month. (crazy!).

UK

I am writing this from a couch which is quite very nice.  The only setback is that my leg is in a brace and I have a pair of crutches beside me.  Our last week in France was nice, other than the last few days, which I suppose you know about already. 
Since we have arrived in England things have calmed down a bit.  It is still Christmas time so there is that excitement to contradict the calm. 
I just beat my dad at Gin Rummy.  I was winning by almost 300 points.  Yeah!  In the end I won 7 hands and he won two.  I won with around 200 points.  He got better and I got worse as we played.

Queribus

Today we went to Queribus (Q)  and Peyrepertuse (P) castles.

Queribus  was the smaller castle but also the more important one historically; it was the very last castle where Cathars (Bons hommes) could roam, at all. The first known documentation of Q was in 1020. From 1162 it was the north gate of Aragon! I didn’t know Aragon really existed! In 1255, the French crusaders took the castle in their hunt of the Cathars. I think that Queribus fell because Cathars ran out of water, but I’m not sure about that.

Queribus and Peyrepertuse are both on rocky/cliffy mountaintops. 

The drive up to Q was on a small switch back road with amazing views.

It was a short walk to get to the castle from the parking lot. The walk and the castle had great views of the surrounding area. From the castle we could see the Pyrenees (with lots of nice snow on top). The castle sits at 728 meters in altitude.

Queribus Castle was in better condition than Peyrepertuse. We walked up a few stairs onto a viewing platform where we could see for hundreds of miles! Not that you couldn’t see for hundreds of miles from Peyrepertuse too, but you could not climb up stairs inside a building to get to the special viewing because the hole of the upper stories were in ruins.

We found a staircase in Q that led down to a dark passageway that went to a little room down the mountain. From there you could fire arrows and such at enemies that were still out of reach of the castle.

 

When we went to Peyrepertuse the road was even better than the Q one in terms of very sharp switchback roads. We had been warned by guidebooks that the walk from the parking lot to the castle was very very windy but there was actually no wind at all. Unlike the walk to Q it was sheltered most of the time and the views were short and sweet.

I will put stuff about Peyrepertuse later.

Hopefully.

Ma semaine en Auvergne

Pour quelques jours on fait des feux le soir, dans la cheminée de la gite.  Un sac de bois coûte 6 Euros.  On a brulé 3 sacs en tout. 

Hier, on a fait une randonnée de 16 kms.  Par-ce que pendant les premiers kilomètres on a monté, les dernières 10 kilomètres étaient faciles car on descendait.

La pâtisserie préférée de Sam est un Paris-Brest, mais après avoir gouté un pain au raisin, il ne peut plus décider.  Moi je pensais que je n’aimais pas les pâtisseries comme les croissants mais après avoir essayé un Saint Christain qui ressemble un croissant, sucré avec des noix , j’ai fait un exception.