I wanted to tell you all about the 16 nights we spent in India in January. I sat down to write about it and was rather overwhelmed as I didn’t know where to start. I have decided to give you the basics this time and fill you in on more of our adventures at a later date.
Bill and I have visited this extraordinary country three times before but always in a group. We wanted to go again but see places new to us. When we looked though the usual travel companies we could not settle as there was so much duplication from previous visits. We also realised that tour companies tend to put you in luxury hotels, and you do not feel you have seen the real India. After some investigation, we found that we could make our own itinerary and book a car and driver at each destination so that Bill and I were taken to some extraordinary places.
I shall start with Mumbai – we visited the city outdoor laundry which employs 2000 people, we chatted to the lunch box wallah who supervised the delivery thousands of home cooked lunches to city workers, bought chillis at the spice market and the list goes on!
From Mumbai we went off to Varanasi where our tiny hotel was on the banks of the Holy Ganges. I will never forget our visit to this special place. Our guide had arranged for us to have our own boat so we could sail down to the Ganga Aarti. We had a really good view of the ancient Hindu religious practice performed at the banks of the river every evening before sunset. My husband, Bill, who goes to football matches and knows a big crowd when he sees one, guessed at over 40,000 worshipers that night and it was astounding particularly as we were up at sunrise to see hundreds of Hindi worshipers bathing in the river.
There is so much more to tell you about India.
To be continued…
