Perhaps we should fire this bad boy up again?

What do you think Mrs B?

Shabby posting explained or the end

So it went something like this: we briefly returned to England, played some cricket, went to Pin and Liz's wedding (v. good), then to Majorca for Kate and Nick's wedding (yet more fun), then Chamonix to see Patrick for a couple of weeks, followed by a week by the sea in Spain, where we mainly just played tennis and drank rioja; then back in England for Womad, a visit to the shires with a dog called Luther, a week on the Isle of Wight, Britain's answer to Lord knows what and finally we've come to rest in Surrey, home of the burbs, motoroways, middle England and MR and Mrs Brewster senior.

Somewhere along the lines we completely forgot we were writing a blog. But as none of the above counts as travel and is really just holidays, we felt it was too dull.

The good news is our carbon footprint should no longer be expanding at the same rate, we have no flights booked to go anywhere, the bad news is we're homeless, unemployed and there is a recession on.... and India seems like it was in our Gap year after university... in other words a long time ago.

We had fun though

This post is for our English readers. Yeah right

In tribute to the greatest Kiwi strap line, we've done a list of Indian contenders should Tui have international expansion in mind:


All vegetables washed in purified water.
Please queue here.
It's hand-made by my family.
I collect foreign coins.
Super-fast broadband connection.
It's 100% silk.
We have no mosquitos here.
We never normally have power-cuts.
That bus isn't running today. (only used by taxi drivers)
I give you best price.


For the English all can be better understood here: Tui's website

Jailsalmer and Johdpur

We're moving along at a healthy pace, not too long left, in fact by the time we've posted this, two days. We're now in Pushkar, about to go to Delhi, but before that we spent two days in Jaisalmer and two either side in Johdpur.
We had some fine desert dust storms, a sacred cow butting incident (the cow is OK), a lot of haveli touring, dinner in a not-completely-dry cow dung restaurant, we visited a fortress that wouldn't disgrace North Wales and finished it all off with some wrestling with the furniture salesmen of Johdpur, after all we hadn't shipped anything on the basis of cubic metres and you're meant to experience everything when travelling, or something like that.
While all this was going on, we had intermittent periods of cajoling and then skulking from our driver, it depended on what we wanted to do and whether that could earn him commision, if it couldn't he wanted us to do what he suggested. All vaguely trying. But we liked him none-the-less and tipped him well.
Back to Jaisalmer, it's built with a honey-coloured sandstone that makes even a pile of rocks look attractive, which is lucky. It was what you'd expect from the Thar desert in early June; lovely, quiet, full of goats and camels, but very hot, in fact we've got a whole post devoted to the signs of excessive heat, but we'll only stick it up if the blog is getting too exciting, so not much chance of seeing it. To sleep, while staying acclimatised, we had to resort to AC, which we set at 30 degrees, a good five degrees cooler than the night, so we don't know what happened to the desert is cold at night thing.
Another side post that may come your way is the study of Indian ear-hair, it's uses and abuses, a much neglected subject - more later perhaps.
Johdpur sported the second totalitarian flight of architectural fancy from an English architect and I can only apologise on behalf of our nation for its ugliness. The first we saw, Lutyen's new Delhi was in the finest grandiose fascist traditions, but the second didn't even manage ascetic beauty, it could have been il Duce's country residence, it was so big, brutal and ugly, not to mention dark inside. Total waste of effort, it's now an outrageously expensive hotel - Mrs B's G&T cost more than our room in town. So on to Pushkar and it's very happy cows.

Udai-poor....... you're allowed to groan

Udaipur gets our vote, the finances took a Rajput War-Elephant of a battering, but the senses were satisfied. Thanks go to Mr Harvey's client in Delhi, who was keen to impress one thing on us 'you have to stay in Kankarwa Haveli' and the man could not have been more right. It was lake-front luxury; three rooms, a terrace over-looking the summer palace, all a perfect blend of the 'new and old' and all for only 20GBP a night - you've got to love the off-season.

The money hit came in the shops, although we may have given a different impression in previous posts we'd planned to do India shopping in Jaipur, but that turned out to be a shopping dud, the result was the morale of Mrs B. suffered, which in turn meant I suffered. Fortunately the shopkeepers of Udaipur rode to the rescue on their curly-eared horses.
We're not going to list purchases (dull for you, traumatic for me), but the various mediums should give a sense of spread: teak, marble, flax, cotton, wool and 'cashmere' (we suspect more wool) - in short no natural resource was spared. The shopkeepers have style, they charmed us, then fed us tea and only after that did they skin us, we thoroughly enjoyed it, but wore ourselves out - in fact it could be offered as a cure for shop-a-holics, it wouldn't surprise us if the end result is a shop-keeper holiday marking the three days the Brewster's were in town.

Udaipur also has tres flash restaurants, the first night we had a tented dinner on beds in a garden, the next a private turret overlooking the lake and we rounded it off in an establishment that wouldn't disgrace central London, where five people beavered away looking after just us, all for the price of a pret lunch - it would be disgraceful, if it wasn't so good (we may have said that before).
Finally we fled the scene of our buying crimes in a car we've taken for eight days to do the western part of the state, so I suppose we're back on honeymoon, rather than honeymission.

Kipling country - Ranthambore & Bundi

Ranthambore National park - ostensibly the home of Shere Khan and Bagheera, yet our jeep safari yielded just one lonely tiger footprint. Accommodation was provided by a former hunting lodge with incredible views over the park, but the lodge is now unfortunately run by the infamous RTDC tourism department so what could have been amazing ended up being a lacklustre version of its former glory or future potential. No doubt some investor will capitalise on the opportunity before too long.

Not to be discouraged by the non-appearance of our (honeymoon-card) car or driver, we set off for Bundi later in the day. The train was delayed by two hours, not necessarily unusual or notable in these parts. The buses on arrival in Kota weren't running either, ditto. TV crew interview of Mr & Mrs Brewster in Kota station about how the lack of transport had affected us - mildly interesting but as we had only been in the place 10 mins with a main objective to leave, we couldn't really pass much comment. Upon reaching the guesthouse in Bundi we were immediately swarmed by Western tourist inhabitants asking; "how did you get here?", "what was the journey like?" Erm - all fine we said, just jumped in a taxi, why? It transpired that they had been stuck there for four days and had heard all road and rail was closed due to Gujjat troubles. Ah. Our travel problems that day started to become understandable.

We decided to ignore the outside issues and concentrate on exploring Bundi which is a lovely town. Kipling apparently wrote part of Kim here, an unsurprising fact once you start to enjoy the (relative) peace of the place.

Bundi palace was one of the most stunning we have seen in India. Clinging on to the side of a mountain and crumbling haphazardly down the sides it shows that the maharajahs really knew how to flash their cash. Incredible courtyards, gardens and murals all over the walls and ceilings. A proper treat. In homage to the release of the new Indiana Jones film, the husband embarked on a remarkable mission through a "secret way" up to the top of a tunnel, which required wading through bat droppings so deep they squelched into his Crocs, and hearing just the whoosh (like a fan he reckoned) of a wall of bats flying just past his head. Not for girls, happily.

Final comments on Bundi relate to our guest house. There is a make of ancient air conditioning unit which we call the Desert Storm. It's about the size of a Mini and is attached to the outside of your room. You have to fill them up with water each day. Anyway the pins on our DS plug broke so we sent for the guy to fix it. Oh no problem, he said, we'll just do it direct and proceeded to strip the cord down to the wires and popped them directly into the socket. As you do.

Next stop U-U-Udaipur.

Delhi-Wallah dinners and the scam

Next stop Delhi, capital of all tall Indian travel stories, not to mention the country. We were very smart - as in posh - in Delhi. We had two equally spoiling dinners, to which our only contribution was our questionable humour. We were not very smart - as in brains - because we stayed in a bad area and got scammed by the oldest scam in the (guide) book.

First the dinners - Mr Peter Harvey of international jet-set and medi-pack fame - shouted us some of the best sushi we've ever had, at a hotel that can only be described as over-the-top and we capped the evening off by allowing his clients to pick up the bar bill. Have we no shame. Apparently not.

This was followed the next night, by dinner at Tim, Anna and Felix Bond's - Felix at just two weeks old was much better behaved than us. We failed to arrive with even one bottle of plonk and the culmination of the night saw us finishing the last of Tim's whisky. So in summary, both times we were the guests from hell, but lucky enough to have heavenly hosts - hallelujah.

It was so good to see friends and in the case of the Bond's eat a home cooked meal, that we spent our hangovers thinking more than ever about our return to the UK and what we've missed while we've been travelling.

We loved the Bond set up in Delhi, there is the swish modern flat, which neccessitates a cook, cleaner and driver - this is expected otherwise you're not playing your part in redistributing your wealth. Their address is brilliantly simple - say this to anyone in Delhi and they can get you there: S501, GK2. Blows those pesky postcode things out the water. Anyway they were a world away from the muddy street scene of our hotel and we were very pleased for it.

Finally the scam. We'd both read about it and still got done, it's that good. We arrived at the station to book our tickets to Jaipur, on the way in a man asked what we're looking for, informing us the tourist booking office is under refurbishment and we should talk to one of the staff upstairs. We walk upstairs (bearing in mind there are thousands of people everywhere and the place is a building site) and the first official we ask confirms the story and tells us where to go and says how much to pay in the Tuk Tuk. We head to the tuk tuk rank, another man asks where we want to go, we tell him and he says he'll take us and names the correct (good) price. We smile and hop in - half way to our destination - we spot the flaw in the scam - you never get a tuk tuk for the real price - ergo we're being scammed. So it proved, its perfect execution is what let it down - nothing works so smoothly in India. Once we got to the travel agent, we just walked away, but totally aghast at the brilliance of the scam and only out of pocket to the tune of two (correctly priced) tuk tuk rides.

Luck now led us to Agra

Our arrival in Lucknow wasn't lucky, but like all these things is was a gradual decline, and we only realised how badly it had gone when we hit the bottom. It started at Varanasi train station, which appears in constant crisis, with pilgrims asleep, eating, crying and praying on every square inch of the floor, as you'd expect this somewhat impedes station efficiency, not to mention our brains.

Once on the train we had the usual seat shenanigans, after all we'd failed to pay baksheesh for a good seat, so the top bunks for us - think big luggage rack. Our train then ran into a summer dust storm, which enveloped everyone and everything, it was twilight at 2pm and looked more like Africa. At Lucknow the storm had taken the form of 'mini-cyclone', with trees and power-lines down. Enter worst tuk tuk driver in India, who not only didn't know his home town, but got cross with us about it. Thankfully, once located, our homestay was all calm and relaxing, if completely dark. It wasn't till the following day we saw our problems in perspective - the news reported the storm had killed over forty people across the state.

Lucknow's residency, scene of the infamous mutiny/first war of independence siege, was evocative, but not in the way we'd expected. All the British memorials felt out of place, they're the same as the ones in the Churches at home, just in a park in the middle of a modern city in north India. The British government of India has left little or no legacy with the people, except perhaps the schools and universities, the residency is there, but it feels meaningless to most people, including us.

We went for the overnight express to Agra. Our berths were excellent, the only problem was the over-enthusiastic air-conditioning, which meant we had to use blankets. The berths themselves could not have been cleaner or more private.

You all know the reason for going to Agra, but it turns out that as well as the mighty Taj there are three other sites that surpass everything else we'd seen. The only thing that lets Agra down is, well Agra. The government must take oodles of cash out of the place and absolutely zero makes its way down to the town.
The Taj didn't disappoint. We can confirm it's wonderful, whopping and white. In fact it's size and simplicity were the two things that struck us, and the fact that inside it's strangely small and dark. The one odd side effect of seeing it is to wonder if we haven't got anything better than Big Ben or Tower Bridge to set against it as the site of Britain - but I somehow think not - suggestions on a postcard.

The other sites included a mosque in the middle of nowhere that was magnificent and resulted in me staring open mouthed, Mrs B got a little bored; Akbars mausoleum, which for sheer scale was unbeatable and Agra fort, so much better than Delhi's version.
The Agra gripes were: we weren't staying in 'The Oberoi', the hotel next to ours, but a world away in quality. Our friends who'd stayed there will remain nameless, but I will say - even though it was your honeymoon - it sets a very bad wife precedent that can't be matched by all of us.
The other Agra gripe was it cost 750rupees each for us to get into the Taj once, between us we could have paid for 70 Indians to visit, but because of the heat we could only be there either early morning or evening, not both, this was a shame, as we'd definitely have gone back if I wasn't so tight.

What's different about India? Varanasi.

From Mumbai we cheated again and flew to Varanasi, believe us we saved some travel pain. Varanasi is a place like no other, we'd heard so much about what it was going to be like, but as they say, nothing prepares you for the reality. At best, it has only a passing interest in the modern world, which isn't to say people don't like money, after all that's a long standing love all over the world, but what makes it ageless are the sights, smells, people and rituals, and especially those smells.

Varanasi had a couple of things we'd be happy to never see again - the bloated body of a sadu (holy man) trapped on the anchor ropes of the pontoon bridge, children swimming in a river that can only be described as putrid, and deprivation around you all the time. Mumbai and her slums had energy and there was money, but Varanasi is like an old, bent-backed lady, who has nothing, except her routines and rituals. Ritual is everywhere all the time: ritual prayer, singing, cremation, shaving, washing and play. As our highly informed readership no doubt knows, when a Hindu dies, part of their ashes should be mingled with the waters of the great mother Ganga, if you die in Varanasi you're cremated on the banks and all your ashes make it into the river and you have the added bonus of dying in a place that ensures you're spared the pain of re-birth and get a one way ticket to Nirvana.

The cremations where the simplest and most striking for us. The claim that the fire used to light every pyre has been burning non-stop for three thousand years sounded a little tall, but it's what everyone believes, so who am I to argue.
Varanasi also had plenty of exuberant Indian tourists, we like these guys, almost as much as they like their children practising their English on us. India's middle class has cash and they're currently on holiday, the only tricky question we get is - what's different about India? A question we found surprisingly hard to answer.

Rupee, rupee, rupee - sung to 'Ruby, Ruby, Ruby' by the Kaiser Chiefs

Our long weekend in Mumbai was the travelling equivalent of the city break; there was the nice-ish hotel, lots of treats, some classic sites, handbag shopping (ahem), a tour, a flash dinner and the result was we spent more Rupees in three days than we thought it was possible to spend in a week. Superfluous as it is to say, Mrs Brewster loved Mumbai. We were also just lucky, we did everything we wanted to do.

So what, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls were the highlights?
Well we've gone with three:
The first is mine and a little boring, if I hadn't been writing it, it wouldn't have made the list. It was my visit to 3's contact centre. Over the last five years I'd spent so much time talking about 'the Indian contact centres' it seemed daft not to visit. They far exceeded my expectations, with the buildings, scale, facilities and feel all being of the highest standard, in fact all better than our equivalents in the UK. So my thanks to Arun for sorting it out.

The wife's highlight was dinner at a restaurent called Indigo. It was all brillantly over the top and in three hours we dumped 6,000 Rupees, or $US160, with the average daily income in India at around 60rupees, you can imagine what one hundred days of pay can get you; a hefty sense of guilt and a healthy hangover - money well spent then!

The team highlight was our visit to Dharavi, Asia's largest slum. The company we did it through seems to be doing everything for the right reasons - we'll let their website do the talking - Reality Tours.

What we'll just say, is if you find yourself in Mumbai you must do this tour, it's disturbing and inspiring in equal measure.