Final days in India.
18th June 2006

Air coolers are all very well but altitude is the better solution.
Rum Tum Tiggers return to the lowlands
Avoiding pot-heads on the hippy trail
Tibetan government in exile
Sikh style and British shame in Amritsar
Religion as Helen sees it

Escape from Delhi

We’ll try to be brief. We’ve been shilly-shallying around northwest India keeping our fingers crossed over getting the Iranian visas. We now found ourselves glowing in the satisfaction that our application has been approved in Tehran and getting the visa is simply a question of how long they’ll take to do the paperwork. So we prepare to head onwards. We have absolutely no idea what the quality of internet provision is and so we can’t guarantee updates. No doubt we will be surprised and discover a vast improvement over the disappointment that was vaunted as techno-India.

We left Delhi in search of cooler weather. To the north is a little town on the lowest slopes of the Himalayan massif called Dehra Dun. The name has an odd fascination for me, when the Great Survey of India (a huge undertaking that is worth reading about if you get a chance) was made, this was the base where myriad mathematicians sat with their log tables performing endless triangle calculations. Now there is a museum along with the enduring headquarters of the Survey of India. We passed through the town on the way up to Mussoorie and it was so dull and a real hassle to navigate we decided not to bother with the museum after all.

I could not understand it. Pat has been whittering about going to the Survey of India Museum for months and almost instantly had lost interest. It was true that Dehra Dun is a paricularly uninspiring place, but it was the level of ‘Indian-ness’ about the traffic and the pedestrians through the town that persuaded him that he had no desire to re-enter it. Added to which there were the ‘Just go straight’ directions from people. The final straw was on the narrow twisty walled road up to Mussoorie an oncoming car overtaking three cars on a blind bend leaving us the only option to squeeze between the wall and the overtaking car. It was a moment where I thought a collision was inevitable and was prepared for the worst. I still don’t know how we appeared the other side unscathed, certainly we each lost one of our nine lives.

Mussoorie is a hugely popular hill station with the Delhi-ites and we can see why. It only takes a few hours to get there and the air is cool and pure thanks to the huge toll put on vehicles in the town centre. Still not sure whether we were conned or not, but the claim was that it was 100 rupees each time to enter the main street. We knew this was true for cars, but it seemed unreasonably steep for a bike, when on all of the toll roads we go free. Anyway, it meant that the hotels on the strip were out of bounds and we found ourselves at a reasonable place with a nice view, and overly attentive staff. It was 3 times what we had expected but what the hell - this is tourist-ville, after all.

Indian driving, still fresh in our minds, I asked the manageress if Indians have to take a driving test. She laughed, of course not, you just pay for the license and walk out to your car. This I hasten to add is an internationally accepted license. This explains a lot, but the thought is terrifying, all those people let loose on the roads with machines that can kill. It is no longer surprising that no one uses a mirror, no one checks the road is clear before pulling out, doing a blind U-turn at any random point is permissable. We discovered later that there is a rudimentary test, involving starting and stopping the car but that if you pay an extra ‘fee’ you can get your license without it. So many things are now clear. The fact that a number of drivers, think that driving slowly is safer regardless of the manoeuvres they make. So that when they pull out of a side road without looking into your path, and you honk your horn at them, they generally slow down or stop, meaning that they block your path for longer. But if you have never been taught to drive, then instinctively, the solution to any dangerous traffic situation would be to slow down. I don’t know the figures, but if 3500 people die a year on the Bombay railway alone there must be 100,000 or more people killed on the roads here each year, so how can people be so oblivious to the potential danger, how can they confidently set off down the road behind the wheel of a car, with no idea what they are doing?

Mussoorie must have the shortest cable car ride in the world. To the top of a rocky tump, that takes about 5 minutes to walk up (given the locale, this was surely the safer option!). There were other entertainments for the Delhi-ites. The thing to do apparently is to dress up in local traditional dress and have your photo taken, at the summit. Being the sort of tourists who shy away from our photo being taken, it was not exactly our bag, but this did nothing to deter to 10’s of hawkers thrusting photo albums of people in the local garb under our noses. I am thinking of getting a T-shirt made with ‘The more you hassle the less I am likely to buy’ written in all major languages. It won’t help though, we can be walking around with helmets over our arms and still people will ask us if we need a taxi or a rickshaw ride. There are times that I tire of the continual pushing to buy.

We were hungry and migrated to a restaurant full of Indians, always a good sign. We found ourselves at the restaurant that must have inspired the ‘Spam and Egg’ sketch - but this was dosa central. We have neglected to talk much about Indian food. Mainly because most of the food was familiar to us but the Southern Indian cooking is new and delicious. Clearly, all the curry houses in India are run by northern Indians. Any way back to the point - dosas. A dosa is a paper thin large crêpey things, stuffed with a variety of vegetarian delights, with a bowl coconut puré and vegetable masala to dip your dosa in. There were a baffling array of options of filling, gauge of dosa, accompaniments and so forth. We took the simple option.

It’s the done thing to take a stroll along the less developed side of ridge. In theory there were meant to be wonderous views of the himalayas, but for us there was nothing observable. We took a rest-bite at a chai stop on the way, and chilled out overlooking the valley. There was the unmistakable sound of early Led Zeppelin, wafting over from the chai seller. He had clearly a rather eclectic taste in music. Somehow, it all fitted - the tranquil view; the good tea; the rare track of 1970s hard rock music. OK you can’t picture it, maybe you just had to be there.

There were some lovely homes clining to the hillside. It was hard not the be a little nosy as we walked above them and unavoidably glancy down into their yards. In one the owner and his family were playing cricket, nothing particularly unusual in that really, but they were all speaking English to each other rather than Hindi. As we watched them playing together, a troop of monkeys trotted brazenly into their house via the back door. Now we were in a quandry, should we alert the family calmly enjoying cricket, that their home is about to be ransacked by burgling monkeys, when by doing so we confess that we have been nosying over the fence. While I was deliberating thee moral issues, a scream came from the house and the primates charged back out the back door. Problem solved.

This may seem a minor issue to most of our readers, but Mussoorie is also home to some of the most frequent, clean and well equipped public toilets in Asia. Whole temples to defecation. Why there are quite so many, is anyone’s guess, maybe the local mayor had bowel problems or someone on the council had a tiling company. Whatever the reason, it was a ‘refreshing change’.

Nahan is rather less exotic than Musssoorie. It doesn’t have the location, history or bearing of the hugely popular hills station and so maintains its funtional small town charm. We’d taken a back road to get there and were pleased that, for once, a thin black line on the map did not turn represent a nighmare road but was a pretty pleasant alternative to returning to Dehra Dun. It should have been wonderful, in fact, as we would be passing the much advertised Kempy Falls. The falls were not hugely wonderful in truth and it was just another location where snack vendors could set up. Indian weekenders were arriving in droves to have a look. Just in passing, I must mention that the capacity of Indian manufactured vehicles is quite extraordinary. There was a time when humourists in England would draw attention to the number of Indians that could fit into a Cortina/Datsun or whatever, but those images pale into insignificance when one watches a Tata Sumo discharging its load. The really odd thing though is that when you look into one of these overfilled conveyances you’d hardly notice that it was jam-packed. Everyone seems to be able to arrange themselves into a comfortable position.

Nahan was supposed to be a cobble-paved maze of markets on a steep hillside. This is partly true but it seems that in the spirit of development the town planners are having the cobbles lifted and putting concrete paths in their place. All very practical but just a little soulless. More in keeping with the traditional feel of a cobbled town was the lack of internet facilities.

Things were a bit strange at the hotel. The local copper kept furtively arriving in the restaurant in the company of a pony-tailed youth. Judging by the goings on, the youth was permitted to purvey hashish to the people of Nahan so long as the policeman was kept steadily stoned. I was a bit miffed that I wasn’t offered some. Clearly I look as square as Jan the German regularly pointed out to us. A huge wind blew up and heaps of mangoes dropped off a tree onto a corrugated roof opposite our bedroom window. With the rain still falling, the ‘lad’ from the hotel was sent out to gather them up. As soon as it dried out, the rest of the local children arrived in search of windfalls. They were sadly disaapointed but danced around on the unconvincing rusting roof anyway. I’m sure there’s something about early worms that can be gleaned from all this.

The weekend now over, it was safe to return to the more popular hill station trail. The next unmissable cool spot was Shimla. I’ve no idea where I’ve acquired an association in my brain between the word Shimla and the British Raj, but research suggests that I have not been in the least mistaken. The curious truth about this rather tiddly little town set amongst pine trees on a precipitous ridge was for many years the home for the British government of all British concerns from Aden to Burma. Even when the capital was way over in Calcutta, the whole shooting match packed up its bags when the heat got unbearable and decamped by train to Shimla. There are surprisingly few ‘obviously British’ buildings left but the town square (in fact a triangle) is marked out by a few slate-roofed, stone buildings including a particularly steroeotypical anglican church and the Gaiety Theatre. Some of the more upmarket hotels that are tucked away in the trees have a bearing that gives away their roots. Apparently many other less permanent wooden buildings have deteriorated badly through lack of maintenance and so the concrete revolution is gradually sweeping through. Long gone are the days when apparently there was a sign up by the square that declared “No dogs or Indians!”

There is something quite un-Indian about the town, or at least the touristy section on the very top. People look really quite pale - I though people looked more Italian than Indian. There was no mistaking the police as being decked out in local fashion. They wear the most wonderful little turbans with segments of 5 inch diameter pleated circles arrayed in them rather like circular ice-cream wafers running fore and aft.

The beverage made by using a tea-bag in a cup of boiling water is known in these parts as dip-dip tea. And why not.

Owing to it’s steep hilltop location access to the town is a bit tricky. There’s a ring road that crinkles its way around the side of the hill a couple of hundred feet below the square. It is not a wide road and requires a little give and take between drivers (particularly the drivers of buses and trucks) for the traffic to keep flowing. Indians are not renowned for their giving and taking in traffic situations and so the ring road becomes close to complete grid lock with alarming regularity. The balcony of our hotel afforded a splendid view of about 3 km of stationary traffic and I was inclined to suggest some kind of Pooh-sticks game but as pretty much all the vehicles were white it would have been very difficult to judge.

No visit to Shimla is complete without braving the monkey infested footpath to the summit of the hill where a hindu temple is located. We nearly made it but found the scarey fascination of the monkeys with Helen’s glasses a bit too disturbing. These viscious little monsters regularly steal occular corrective wear and Hippy is a bit lost without her specs so risking it wasn’t worth it. We discovered how it is that the monkeys are so screwed up before we truned back. Families were beating them away with sticks when it suited them to do so but then throwing sweets out to them willy nilly. Poor monkeys obviously end up a bit schizo.

Springs and bearings

Close by Shimla is a set of hot springs and Hippy was in need of a bit of a hot soak so we dropped back down into the valley. This entailed a beautiful coast with the engine off for about 30 miles. Tattapani is an important crossing point for the secondary road network over a raging river.

As we arrived a family were leaving, who were eloquent, proud and educated Zoroastrians. In my ignorance of world religions I have only just become familiar with the term. There is something always intriguing about words with zeds in them, so Zoroastrianism has inherent appeal. What they told us of the major tenets of their faith made me promise to myself that I must try to find out a little more about this ancient religion. There was something to do with 9 eternal fires that I didn’t entirely understand, but what attracted me more was their belief that honesty is a fundamental moral and that respect for the environment is paramount. To the extent that traditionally the dead are left to out in the elements to decay and for their bodies to feed the scavengers and return us to nature. I did wonder if you were a card carrying Zoroastrian in the UK, whether the authorities would allow you to have remains left to the elements. Could the family take the authorities to court if it was refused, for not being ethnically fair. Mind you Zoroastrian began in Persia, where the dry heat would probably tidily dessicate a body before it had chance to get horribly smelly, whereas in the dank UK climate it would be a whole lot more gruesome process. Rather flippantly, I rather like the idea of becoming a Zoroastrian, not least of which because I would have something to put in Religion box on forms, and hopefully it would be something that would so befuddle the authorities that if I became ill, they would be unable to rustle up a suitable spiritual leader to harass me in hospital.

There’s a new impressive bridge which is a blessing as the former crossing was by a suspension bridge which had had most of its decking burnt away, whether this was before or after the creation of the new version I cannot be sure. There is a big story behind the building of the new bridge. More important than refreshing the jaded old crossing, the bridge has been raised in preparation for the raising of the water level when a dam is built downstream. This is just yet another dam project to produce electricity for India that has caused something of a stir. Residents of the valley are a bit miffed that the government has only offered 80% of the value of their properties. It could be an even greater loss than they think, who actually puts the value on their property, I wonder. Unfortunately, Indian casualness has left huge numbers of people without title to their property. They must rue their lack of foresight when they kept putting off registration til tomorrow. The government has, not unreasonably, fixed a date at which registered properties would be entitled to compensation in order to prevent spurious land grabbing.

Kaku, who was telling me all this, was reasonably happy with his compensation but is reluctant to start another hotel business knowing that all his hard work can be wiped away so swiftly by a political decision. He had a good old rant about the members of parliament and the levels of corruption. Apparently there are 12 or more political parties in India and consent of several of them are required to form a coalition. The upshot is that no prime minister dare tackle a minister over corruption issues for fear that his party pulls out of the government and leaves a hung parliament.

We got onto the subject of which people in India could be considered honourable and the prime minister, who is a sikh, was one of them even though he seems powerless to put the house in order. Kaku then classified various regions of India as follows:-
Goans - lazy
Punjabis, Gujuratis and Sikhs in general - honest and hard working
Mahdya Pradeshans - would stab you in the back for 5 Rupees
Nagalanders and others in the north-east - eat anything including the worms from rotting meat
Delhi dwellers - devious
Pakistanis he considered to be a backward people, whereas India has come on leaps and bounds since independence. Nice to know that mild mannered brahmin caste chaps can be as biggoted as anyone else!

In residence were a couple of Spaniards the male half of who was something of a maestro of the jew’s harp. He was quick to correct us as to the official name for the twangy instrument but I confess we forgot in quick order. Of all the versions of the instrument - it seems that is has been adopted by diverse cultures in different materials from bamboo to precious metals - Jaido rates most highly the iron ones made in our own beloved Birmingham. Pleasant to know that while general industry is severely in decline in Blighty, the creators of dentally clamped objets de musique are turning out quality goods. Not sure it will prop up the balance of payments though. Jaido’s judgement may be considered suspect given that he rates very highly the British supermarket. We probed him and he reckoned it was the fruit and veg departments that had such wonderful variety that really impressed him. He did agree though that despite the huge range there was not a lot of flavour to be had.

There was something very peaceful about Tattapani that encouraged one to rest and relax. If it were not for the swarm of mosquitoes the came at dawn and dusk to disturb the peace we might still be there. There were other delights to the rumbling river alongside the hotel, the locals were pleasant and friendly, but were not into the professional scamming and fiddling of many Indians, there were long, low furry animals that the locals called nevels (or in Indian-English mongoosies). There were wee strolls to sites of interest e.g. a Shiva temple cave and such that gave us excuses to hang around. The Shiva cave hike was into a pleasant gorge and the locals had clearly decided that natural stalagmites made suitable lingae for worship. At least these are generally, phallus shaped, whereas most of the orange painted boulders that are meant to be in the image of Hanuman (monkey God) or Ganesh (elephant God) never bear the slightest resemblence to the idol they are meant to represent. Come on Hips, you’ve got to use your imagination! Oh, and some drugs may help.

On another stroll, we were enthralled by the goings-on of the locals. A first tractor went down to the riverside gathering boulders in a trailer, a second followed but this time under the direction of the directionally challenged, who steered their pal over all the most awkward bumps imaginable. As the trailer tipped and grounded, got wedged and jammed, I could see that they had now completely blocked the exit route for the first vehicles. Genius! Decidedly more inventive were the creative local youths; 3-castor go-carts come soap-box carts. With the single castor derived from an old engine bearing in the front and a stick and rope arrangement for steering they were having a wail of a time.

Hips never did get her hot spring experience, I’m afraid. The baths that were on offer looked unconvincing and the weather was just a tad too warm to make it really appealing.

It was unclear on the map why 150km should take over 6 hours to get to Mandi. Then we got onto some very twisty roads. Some parts were absolutely perfect, others pretty dire. It certainly didn’t help that poor Hips was feeling off colour. We took a couple of breaks in quite extraordinarily English scenery. OK, so the hills were rather more impressive in their scale but the stone built and slate roofed cottages could have been transplanted from any number of British villages. The surrounding woodland was mainly pines so that narrows it down a bit I guess.

It was pretty sweltering in Mandi and we were thankful to find a room at a former princely palace which, as we have previously ascertained, were built intelligently to ward off the worst of the climate. There was no clever accounting for the vagaries of modern electric supply in the original conception and so when the Indian power company failed us for the evening we had to resort to candles on the dinner table. Whether it was the enforced romantic atmosphere I can’t say, but the comestibles were superb. I cannot comment with any certainty on the aesthetics of presentation, of course, but in the light of day the dining room itself turned out to be a treasure, decorates as it was with small arms and group photos of Maharajan conclaves from the 20’s to the 50’s.

Hippy took rest in our cave of a room as best she could amidst the usual cacophony; on this occasion we had failed to notice the temple opposite our bedroom separated from us by only 20 feet. Until the bells commenced at evening pooja, that is. I was away from the room while the peal was in mid swing and so was rather bewildered to find my dearest writhing on the bed with a pillow clutched around her head. Bit of a complete shock, we’d thought that our room tucked around the back from the main street would be the perfect convalescent haven. When our poor neighbour commenced a session of the loudest chundering it has ever been our misfortune to witness and tried masking his embarrassment by turning his telly up to top whack, our tranquil paradise was complete.

No clarification on this one, but I can only assume that there is a local variety of Sikhism judging by the almost-turbans that the guys were wearing. I’ll leave my sartorially specific missus to describe them ....... Pat reckoned that they looked like chip wrappers. Not sure what wrappers he is referring to - certainly not the newspaper variety, but more the grease-proof wee bag inside the newspaper, or even a sideways Nepali hat. OK it’s not helping but the thing is they semed to be very localised, no where else in India had we seen them before or since.

Nagar means snake, Naggar means other creepy crawlies

And so to Naggar. We needed more coolth and so headed back up the valleys on the road to the overly touristy town of Manali and the pot smokers paradise of Parvatti Valley. We did our best to avoid either and ended up taking a little side trip to this little town where rooms were rumoured to be available in the restored castle. Hippy stepped over the threshold to be greeted at the reception by a mobile phone obsessed lacky who scantly gave her the time of day. Judging by his monosyllabic responses, there were no longer dormitories at the castle although they were clearly advertised behind his head. We took his obstructiveness as an omen and accepted the offer of a room at a reasonable price from a nice chap over the road. It didn’t look much of a castle, anyway.

All was well until we were turning in for the evening, replete with a passable dinner from a ‘continental food’ restaurant over the way. Our hired sleeping space was now paying host to an immense spider. Using the dust bin (and still trapping one of its legs) and a sheet of newspaper I managed to transfer it to the undergrowth at the side of the hotel. While in the process of doing so, the ‘boy’ from the hotel showed his face and politely informed me that arachnida grande was not harmful in any way. By now, Hippy had started a systematic search of the room for spiderly siblings only to discover ........ a scorpion nestling in her bike trousers in the wardrobe. It had clearly mistaken our folded trousers as a suitable crevice to shelter in, it’s black colouring perfectly attuned to the worn-shining gortex. This was getting a bit silly. The lad seemed rather more concerned about the scorpion and once I’d donned my bike gloves and transferred the critter outside, het set about beating it to death with a stick.

I have no idea how the scorpion got in the middle shelf of the cupboard, but it set me into minor paranoia, of gingerly shaking every item of clothing and placing it in a sealed zip up luggage. Even putting my feet into the bed, got me all jittery. My brain tried to rationalise with my primeval fears, there had probably been scorpions in other hotel rroms but we had not seen them and therefore careless strewn our clothes about for them to hide in. But all my fears could think of was all the uncheckable niches thery could be in - between the mattress and the bed frame, on top of the pelmet for the curtains, in the folds of the curtains, down the back of the skirting board, in the tap, down the drain. I had never really thought about it before but any room is a scorpion’s hiding heaven.

Hippy slept little that night. Can’t imagine what her dreams were about. The bedding could have caused nightmares on its own, who on earth would think of taking a bed sheet decorated with assorted Disney characters and tie-dye it with ludicrious, luminous colours?

By daylight, the castle granted us admission for the less than extravagant fee of 20 pence each. It wasn’t much of a castle but it was an attractive pile all the same and displayed wonderful execution of the local building techniques. Mostly walls seem to be constructed without mortar but with timbers running through and along them to hold it all together. Nice work but makes it bleedin awkward to maintain, gov.

We strolled around the village, admiring the flora and fauna. I have never seen so much ‘weed’ growing wild, the verges were waist high in the stuff and the unmistakable aroma filled the air. I suddenly realised how laughable the concept of trying to control the distribution of this technically illegal herb is. None of the stuff around us was being cultivated. Marijuana is truly a weed here, there is no way that locals could be seriously prosecuted for having it growing in their garden - it naturally strangles out crops. Maybe it was my imagination, but the cows, dogs and sheep seemed remarkably chilled. Clearly, the natural flora has a diverse set of consumers.

The temples in Naggar had a clear Nepali influence, with tiered wooden pagoda affairs which complemented the pine trees that clung to the hillside. Sadly modern-day spaghetti wiring rather marred the intricate wooden carving of the doorways and pillars.

The village seemed to be strangely popular with Russians. We had not seen any Russians so far on the trip (although Goa is reputed to be riddled with them) and here every second tourist was Russian. Doh! How thick are we? Some famous Russian painter had chosen to make Naggar his home, but his gallery was closed so we cannot comment on whether his productions were to our taste.

We had got high enough to be touching the edges of more diverse cultures of mountain peoples. The ubiquitous sari being a rather impractical item to be floating around in the cooler mountain air, has not been adopted and the women prefer a layered tabard tunic affair, in woven cloth. The draped fine headscarves of most of India are replaced by any handy piece of of cloth tied bandana style around the head.

The food also was kind of more natural and (for want of a better word) wholesome) without the glisten of ghee and heavy spicing. The portions were generous, fresh and tangy. Add this to an excellent cake shop, with top danish pastries and coffee, and restaurant serving a respectable version of pizza and pasta, we had some of the best food available in this small village since we had left Goa.

Home of the Dalai Lama

We moved on to Dharamsala, in fact McLeod Ganj (MG) - a satellite town up the hill. MG was not really what we had envisiged, we kind of pictured twisty cobbled little humble streets. Instead we found a place that was full of backpacker restaurants, places offering genuine computerised Tibetan horoscopes, meditation and yoga courses. It seemed to lack the serenity that I had mentally associated with the current home of the Dalai Lama.

For this is the place where the Indian government offered as a base to His Holiness when he walked over the Himalayas with his entourage to go into exile after the invasion of Tibet by the Chinese. Totally in the keeping with respect for His Holiness, a number of Buddhist monasteries and Nunneries have been established in the town. The Government of Tibet In Exile continues, trying to help Tibetan refugees and foster the survival of the rich Tibetan culture, keeping alive the traditional Tibetan art of medicine, skills of carpentary, and the language that is being systematically annihilated in their homeland. The hope is that if the Chinese government ever allows Tibet the autonomy that the Dalai Lama requests there will a fully functional government to slot into place and start to revive Tibetan culture.

There is something infectious about the serene contentment on the faces of the Buddhist devotees roaming the streets. If Buddhism could maintain such contentment in the face of such adversity, then there is something very special about the religion. There was no tension, no signs of resentment, despite being displaced and their culture being dissolved in your homeland, the occupying Chinese having destroyed 6000 of their monasteries not to mention killing 1.2 million peaceful Tibetans.

The Dalai Lama tirelessly courts the dignitaries of different governments trying to lobby them to put pressure on the Chinese to give his nation their freedom. He is always calm, he is always non-judgmental and wise, I admire his ability to believe that ultimately his passive morality will win. The cynic in me wonders if he has ever got angry, when he again deals with the hypocrisy and broken promises of governments does he rent his frustration in the privacy of his room. If he does not he is truly a remarkable person. Rather childishly, if I were granted an audience, my one question to him would be whether when he was a kid and someone borrowed his bicycle and brought it back with a bent front wheel did he get annotey.

I wondered to myself how China gets away with it. It generally has a poor human rights record, the brutal invasion of Tibet and the subsequent belittling of Tibetan culture seems to have been accepted by the world at large. Nobody puts sanctions on them, in fact the opposite we all seem to be almost daily increasing our dealings with them. I would rant about how they’d been given the ultimate vote of approval by the sporting world - the Olympic Games, but it is not without precedent; think Berlin, 1936.

In both Tibet and Myanmar there are legitimate leaders that their populace looks up to, who are not being allowed to govern their country. If we ousted the military control there would be a suitable set of people to put in their place. If we helped these countries to regain their legimate authority, we could be respected for our actions, but what do Bush and Blair do? They invade countries where they leave a bigger governmental mess than before.

Karma must have been in our favour because we managed catch a glimpse of the elusive Himalayas. Everyone in town that we spoke to told us that it had been clouded out for days but when we’d arrived, the snow capped peaks gleamed above the Indian plains.

A curious thing happened in the internet. I was writing an email to my sister when a nun sat down silently beside me. At first I just assumed that she was waiting for a spare terminal and then I noticed that she was leaning over and reading the contents of my email. I felt unnerved, what would a nun have with the rambling between a pair of Brit sisters? In fact I was so unnerved that I cut the email short and left, feeling my privacy had been invaded by the most unlikely source. Later on that evening I reassessed the situation, maybe instead of reading my personal communications she was intent on learning how email functioned and I had left without offering her any assistance. She had not asked for help, but maybe lack of a common language had deterred her, or a vow of silence or maybe convention meant that she could not put her inquiries to the male running the place. Was she a nosey nun or a perplexed one trying to master technology. I will never know.

We were like a couple of giddy school children. I’d been mentally considering options as to how to get back to Europe should the Iran visa situation not come to anything and, what do you know, our approval reference numbers arrived by electronic mail. We had dinner with a young Canadian chap who must have thought us a little deranged; we sat with beatific smiles for the evening. As we were wearing matching white pyjama trousers that we purchased in Delhi, we must have appeared like some loony religious group. Fair play to him for not judging us poorly. Anyway, now we were set to conclude our odyssey as no obstacles bar our way back to Blighty. I’m still worried about where to get tyres from, though.

Amritsar - serenity and shame

Our final port of call in India was Amritsar, famous for its Golden Temple and the senseless slaughter of huge numbers of peaceful, unarmed protesting Indians by a squad of loony British soldiers, an event that pretty much sealed the fate of our sub-continental territories. For once, the Lonely Planet map of town had us somewhat bamboozled. We were looking for Mrs Bandhari’s Guesthouse (apparently a local institution but seemingly unknown by the locals) but owing to the scale chosen for the map of Amritsar it was just off the edge of the page and there were two roads heading in similar directions. We were baking hot after being in the mountains for a while and getting no help from folk in finding the place even when it transpired that we were about 100 yards away left us in poor humour. The celebrated Mrs Bandari’s was incongruously located in the middle of the military cantonment and recognisable only by crudely handpainted 4 inch lettering on a slightly tatty metal gate. We chose to camp at a rather exhorbitant rate rather than take a room in the ‘ancestral home’ of the Bandhari family which appears to have stood on this spot for all of 80 years. I’m afraid that to justify the prices that they’re charging on the grounds of antiquity they need to mothball it for a century or so and then re-open. We didn’t sample one of the rooms which are apparently full of period pieces.

Central Amritsar is a curate’s egg; hugely crowded streets surround the stunningly beautiful and tranquil Golden Temple complex. We braved the traffic to get to the temple when perhaps taking local transport would have been easier and cheaper. Had we not gone independently, though, we would not have had the experience of riding into the Sikh pilgrim’s guesthouse. We only wanted a spot to park but everyone was most insistent and we were relayed by well intentioned, pointing officials until we found ourselves in the courtyard of an impressive hostel. Contrary to our perception of Sikhs as supremely trustworthy people, they seemed to think that there was a security issue with parking Berthette anywhere in the public eye. It all got a bit strange when they started re-arranging beds in a dormitory so that we could bring our baby in for the day. Whilst doing our best to be polite and accepting of their good will, we had to start insisting on not going any further; I had visions of breaking off the mirrors again from attempting a doorway too narrow. Ultimately, when we returned from visiting the temple, we found Berthette cunning disguised as a pile of blankets. Security overload.

I believe it is a fundamental of the Sikh religion (apologies to adherents if I’m wrong on this) that vengeance is not just acceptable but right and proper. Their warishness is manifest in the numerous plaques of war memorials that line the marble walls of the cloister surrounding the Golden Temple. I’d like to say that places of supreme religious focus generally concentrate on world peace but on reflection I know that I’m wrong, cathedrals in Europe, for instance, are full of reclining knights with swords and shields laid across their chests and walls full of memorials to the fallen of assorted military skirmishes. It is customary for hard-line Sikhs to bear arms and this was clear to see from ladies with small daggers to chaps carrying huge baulks of timber or extremely handsome sabres in ornate sheaths. At the very entrance to the causeway to the Temple itself, a chap had his sword out and was brandishing it with gusto as he seemed to be arguing a point of religious significance. He was extremely animated and judging by the horrified expression of passing devotees, this sort of display was pretty bad form. I’d like to think that the unsheathing of the sword signifies being in the chair just as holding the conch in Lord of the Flies but it is quite possible that this chap was in fact threatening to dispatch his opponent unless he retracted. One doesn’t hang around to see the outcome in such circumstances. After all, we had been rather incautious in failing to arm ourselves before entering the area. Tsh, tourists, eh?

Perhaps the most memorable experience for me at the Golden Temple was walking around bare footed, as is required, and returning to the shoe counter without having dirtied my feet. I’ve been pretty much unimpressed by the majority of Hindu temples where barefootedness is considered appropriate seemingly in the hope that the procession of clean footed visitors will clean their floor for them. Entry to the temple is free as is shoe storage for the duration of your visit. Cool water is provided, as is simple food and accomodation should you require it. A fan cooled canopy is provided for one’s comfort on the approach to the temple itself. Yes, much respect is due to the Sikhs, they know how to promote themselves. A rather annoying chap hassled us outside the complex asking us for money for food. Knowing full well that he could get his fill for free from the wonderful folk inside we suggested, “Don’t be so Hindu!” He immediately turned on his heel and left us alone.

Within a couple of hundred yards of the Golden Temple is Jalianwalla Bagh, site of the massacre in 1919 of about 500 unarmed protestors and the injuring of 1500 more by our glorious forebears. So hideous was this slaughter that many people died by trying to take cover down a well; those at the bottom, obviously did not survive. One can only suppose that the commander was suffering terribly from the heat to think that slaughter of innocents so flagrantly would ingratiate the colonial masters to their loving subjects. I’m sure, or at least I hope, that this event is now used as an example at Sandhurst as an example of how not to manage situations. Certainly the lesson has not been learnt universally and specialists in the psychology and dynamics of riots in China, for instance, might have considered the ultimate outcome of this unwarranted attack when they decided to tidy up Tianamen Square. Still, China rumbles on, occupying peaceful countries and still hosting the Olympics but I’ve said all that.

There’s a jolly little museum in Amritsar that contains very little aside from weapons, portraits of assorted worthies and evidence of military campaigns. My favourite display, which was unique in not being in one of the above categories, related to the Koh-i-Noor which readers my know is both a top curry house in Leicester and a large piece of highly compressed and heated carbon which resides in the coronation crown of our own dear queenie. The history of the rock is one of bloody battle after bloody battle after each of which it changed hands, to the victor, of course. It’s transit to Britain was brought about not by a battle for a change but by sufficient menaces being brought to bear on the contemporary incumbent who ‘gifted’ it to the monarchy. Who would have thought that such a peaceful transfer of wealth could stir up such nationalistic feeling. Next thing you know the Greeks’ll be wanting their marbles back. Funny old world.

Outside, on a more peaceful note, we munched on our iced mango pulp and watched the crows dining. We were surprised at their intelligence as they picked up large chunks of stale bread, transported them over to a bowl of water, plopped them in to soak and then wolfed them down. I wondered whether if, had someone put out a bowl of butter and one of jam, the might not have prepared themselves a continental breakfast. Yes, it was certianly hot in Amritsar and it was begining to get to me.

I will remember Amritsar for 2 things; turbans, in every florescent colour imaginable which, I hasten to add, make apt sunglass holders, complemented by some truly handsome majestic moustaches and beards and the warm reaction of the pilgrims to our presence. A family of sisters introduced themselves as my sister and their older male relative as my father, the language barrier dissolved by their genuine enthusiasm, and welcoming handshakes and smiles. It is hard to put into words but we left India with a wholly differing opinions of Sikhs and Hindus. In Hindu temples the response to us had been in two forms that of suspicion and as a potential for either selling to or begging from.

The Hippy guide to religion

India is a place of rather in-your-face religion, with shrines all over the place and holy cows ruling the roads. It seemed wholly appropriate to try and get our heads around the fundamentals of the various faiths that make India tick.

This is a cynic’s run down. I know there is more a lot more to these faiths and this is an agnostics outsider view

Hinduism.
1. Basic values: reincarnation (vegetarianism being a by-product), caste system, fate, giving alms, non-violence and patience. Propagating a rather fatalistic perilous attitude to life’s activities.
2. Meditation and yoga help you to follow the correct path in life, and being a good person in this life moves you closer to a better life next time and ultimate peace.
3. The main book of values the Bhaghavad Gita, brings you many karma points if you can recite it by heart. It is deliberately repetitious, to enable the chapters to be used as mantras for meditation and yoga. To me, it is irritatingly flowery and pretentious using ten pages of big words to convey a reasonably simple concept e.g. if you get too passionate about something you stop thinking straight, so it is best to be unemotional about things. But then it seems to contradicts itself by saying that you should care for and love your family dearly. Certain things are left open to interpretation, e.g. the term family, as far as I could tell was not defined, the family of human kind or biological family?
3. There are many myths and Gods (many of which are progressive incarnations of the original three, Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu which in turn are conveniently facets of the one God meaning that they can claim to be monotheistic when arguing with other religious folk who insist that monotheism is essential). There are so many that it insures that there must be at least one that appeals to everyone. The top three seem to be Shiva, (the destroyer), Ganesh (good luck and success) and Hanuman (for ? fun playfulness)
4. Some Hindus have said that you cannot really become a Hindu unless you have Hindu ancestors, bit like Judaism in that sense.
5. I never really got to grips with it, maybe I didn’t give it a chance.

Bahai
1. Believes that fundamentally all religions are the same and that different prophets have come to steer us back to the original path, when we begin to drift away from the essential values, e.g. Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Mohammed, Bab (Bahai prophet from Persia)
2. Values being - one God, honesty, non-violence, equality of people, free education for all, respect and care of the earth which we have been put in dominion of. The values are all admirable and their efforts to unite bickering devotees of differing faiths is bordering on courageous.
3. It sometimes tries too hard to rationalise religion, when religion by definition almost is unprovable because it relies on faith. Like many religions it uses spurious arguments to ‘prove’ the existance of God. e.g. we know the world is imperfect, therefore we must have a concept of perfectism. If it is not in the world we know, then our reference point must be the perfection of God. I was impressed by this philosophical arguement. Or the concept in physics that no energy is ever lost it merely takes a different form, or the water cycle, proves God’s existence, because it is all too neat, to not have had a higher power arrange it.

Islam
1. There are five pillars of Islam
- declaring that there is only one God and his name is Allah
- praying five times a day
- giving of charity
- making Haj by visiting Mecca at least once in your life.
- to follow the rules of Ramandan
2. There are other values in the Koran which has a large chunk of the old testament in it. Honesty, equality of men and women, hospitality, to stand up for your beliefs, idols are bad, that kind of thing. Again admirable standards. The Koran also has rules of inheritance, law, food etc. Theoretically making it a religion that should be quite easy to follow, with all parts of life covered in the Koran.
3. For something that is believed to be the delivered word of God, it seems incredible to me that there are so many interpretations of the Koran, the Sunnis, the Shiites, the Ismailis amongst a few who all claim to be following the same words. The interpretation of the equality of the sexes and how far to go when standing up to your beliefs, seems to vary the most between the groups.
4. Many Islamic groups feel that fundalmentalism is born out of ignorance of the true teachings. The fundalmentalists obviously disagree.

Christianity
1. The Old and New testament of the Bible are often misquoted by people. The Old Testament shared with Judaism. (and indeed accepted to a degree by Islam, too) Using both parts of the Bible tends to mean that a Christian can find something in the Bible to justify a whole multitude of contradictory behaviours.
2. Old testament seems to have all the exciting blood and guts stories, about plagues and vengeance and the New Testament has all the Love and forgiveness stuff. The gospels disagree with each other which in some ways makes the whole thing more credible because eyewitnesses never agree with each other, but also opens the door to multiple sects and interpretations of right way to follow the religion.
3. The belief that Jesus was the literal son of God is the bit that Judaism, Islam and the Bahai faith rather baulk at. The Bahais interpretation and attempt to unite believers, is that, everyone is the son of God and Jesus was no different.
4. Fundamentalist Christians seem be arrogant and narrow in their interpretation of the Bible, despite its blatant contradictions.

So far our knowledge of Buddhism and Zoroastrianism is a bit sketchy. But, as an outsider to all this religion, it seems that religion on the whole, can be used to both show kindness and cruelty, tolerance and prejudice, to unite and divide people, to liberate and to subjugate. The basic values of all seem good, but seem too often twisted in the hands of those who are narrow and arrogant, to victimise and abuse others. As far as I am aware Buddhists and Bahais are passivists. It would be nice to think the meek will inherent the earth, but I somehow doubt it.
If there is a God would He/She or It allow belief in Himself to be used against others? Maybe ironically then, does killing in the name of religion ultimately prove of the nonexistence of God?

OK, so we weren’t brief after all