Stuck again, in Leh

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We are right now in Leh (Ladakh region). It took a pretty long bus trip again (2 days) to get here after we managed to get out from Srinagar. Srinagar was OK, we even started to know the city and the people (after 5 days there they were saying hello to us like if we knew each other from long time ago). I must say that the bus drive was very spectacular; it was the most impressive and scary road I have ever seen in my whole life. The funny thing is, that we will have to repeat it to get out of Leh!

We were planning to go to McLeod Ganj (where Dalai Lama lives) through another road (there are only 2 roads to get to Leh), but since the second road is still closed, we will have to enjoy again the 2 day trip back to the lovely Srinagar.

Here people are very nice, and they all look and act more like Tibetan than Indian. There are many of them that are refugees from Tibet. Even though we cannot carry or buy souvenirs, we bought a couple of Tibetan rings and bracelets with some mantras engraved (Om Ma Ni Padni Hum - the unity of the five elements).

We have visited a couple of places here (Tibetan palace that looks similar to the Potala palace in Lhasa, and a fort), but besides that, there is not much more to see... the Himalayas are beautiful btw.

Since the road is closed even to Srinagar, we are again trapped here without being able to go anywhere... not even paying! So we have to wait till the army fixes the road after the heavy downpour of rains. That is why we are doing all these posts btw :) If the weather gets better you won't here from us in a while.

Now it is 17.30 here and it is too early to have dinner...

Kashmir - India meets Muslim world

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We took a 26 hour buss to Srinagar, so now we are in Kashmir, enjoying the exquisite peace of Lake Dal, which hosts our house boat. The bus trip was an experience in itself. The farther from Delhi we were getting, the cleaner it looked. T-shirts and jeans were replaced by traditional Sikh or Muslim clothing.
The whole journey was filled with a cozy smell of smoke coming from fields were the farmers were burning grass to fertilize the soil. We passed a lot of villages where all along the road people were busy with their crafts and everything looked like it probably did hundreds of years ago.

A trip on Dal Lake was an unforgettable experience. Once we passed all the multiple shikara (boat) shops selling jewelery, crafts, drinks, etc. all the noise and chaos were left behind and we discovered the real charm of the beautiful lake with its majestic serenity, floating gardens of water lilies an lotuses, the peaceful rhythm of the shikara peddle, the reflections of the clouds and mountain in the water, local people collecting the grass from the lake to nourish their gardens, fishermen houses, etc.
The shikara man told us stories of Kashmir in his poetic broken English, expressing in his own way the tragedy of this area when torn by war and the bliss of peace.

We visited the Mughal gardens - a paradise of roses and water cascades. Lots of Indian tourists wanted to take a picture with us.
After the gardens we visited the old city - everywhere you can see a lot of police and army guys, sometimes barricaded in rolls of wire, preserving what might be a fragile peace.

Another wonderful experience was another Sikh temple on top of the mountain. We saw a lot of Indian pilgrims, rang dozens of bells and inside the temple a wise looking monk painted an orange spot on our "third eye chakra".

Delhi, the scam capital of the world

Note: this blog has been moved to http://jooiworld.com. You are welcome to visit our new - and improved - round the world travel website. This specific post can be found at http://jooiworld.com/posts/india-delhi-scams.php


We arrived in Delhi. The flight with Aeroflot was smooth and comfortable, with nothing remarkable about it except that we passed three (!) security controls with a Swiss knife. Delhi was overwhelming: rickshaws, cows, cars, people... all coexisting in the same spaces that it's a wonder to watch. The city is so polluted you can almost feel the exhaust fumes settling in your lungs. But through all this pollution you can still discern the incredible symphony of smells the city is filled with.


Finding the International Tourist Bureau (ITB) that assists foreigners in reserving railway tickets proved to be an incredible challenge, given the simplicity of the task. An invisible network of agents spans the whole of Delhi and consists of "tuk-tuk" drivers, "students who want to practice their English with you" and private tourist agencies, which claimed to be governmental tourist bureaus. The "students" fish out the unsuspecting tourists, gracefully pass them over to tuk-tuk drivers who convincingly drop you - fresh and ready to serve - at one of the agencies. There, an agent will try to sell you an overpriced trip arrangement over a delicious cup of Indian tea. An example of such a trip would be the one they were pushing on us: a bus to Kashmir, a few nights on a house boat, air-conditioned car tour over Rajhastan and the railway tickets for the rest of our trip in India. The pricing policy in these agencies is whatever the customer is ready to pay plus a bit more.

The biggest scam would await at the New Delhi Railway Station, where you are just a few meters away from the ITB you have been looking for. An innocent student would tell you that it's been moved (in our case - due to the coming Commonwealth Games) and send you to yet another agency. Luckily we made it through all these scams without almost any loss.

We are now out of Delhi's hassle and out of reach of all these numerous agents.