Much to my shame the blog schedule has now slipped so drastically that I’m covering two weeks at once. Hopefully this frequency will be manageable in the future – particularly as the next edition is due in a few days. Please don’t expect double the quality.

Nepal is the second country we’ve visited on our trip so far. We flew the couple of hours from Delhi to Kathmandu with IndiGo, a low-cost Indian carrier. Having much experience with similar airlines in Europe (EasyJet, Ryanair, Wizz Air, Norwegian) we though they compared very favourably in terms of punctuality / state of the aircraft / baggage allowance. They also managed to (eventually) successfully find and send on K’s hold bag, which they had removed from the plane before take-off after discovering a portable battery inside. Tip to avoid an anxious flight – keep batteries in your hand luggage as they clearly scan for them.

We had just under two weeks in Nepal, split between the capital Kathmandu and Pokhara, a lakeside city close to the Annapurna range of the Himalayas.

In Kathmandu we stayed on the border of an area called Thamel. Thamel is very much a tourist trap, though this does have its advantages; English-speaking locals, toilet paper sold everywhere (this can be an issue in S & SE Asia), pubs showing Newcastle United. Trekking is to Kathmandu as yoga is to Rishikesh, and Thamel has lots of places you can buy (dubiously branded) mountaineering gear alongside the usual ‘local’ souvenirs.

Nepal, and Kathmandu in particular, ‘felt’ quite similar to India when we were out and about, but more laid back; certainly less intense. Taxi and rickshaw drivers generally take (one) ‘no’ for an answer and there is 95% less horn use. Pollution in terms of vehicle fumes is still an issue – many people wear face masks on the street and this is something we would have seriously considered doing ourselves had we been staying for longer. On a more positive note the local cuisines are also pretty similar – definitely a good thing.

The Nepali Hindu celebration of Tihar took place during our time in Kathmandu. I think I’m correct in saying this is a regional version of Diwali, though this is probably an oversimplification. Certainly lots of lights appeared around town, as well as mandalas on the doorsteps of homes and businesses. K got her bag back around the first day of the festival too, so even more to celebrate!

We were never sure exactly what was being celebrated, but on the final day of Tihar (possibly also new year’s day, though don’t quote me on this) the centre of Kathmandu was occupied by lots of very merry teenagers partying in pickup trucks. Lots of dancing around sound systems, both on the street and in the trucks.

Our visit to Swayambhunath, a Buddhist temple complex, was much calmer. Situated on top of a hill, there are great views across the city, plus lots of monkeys to try and photograph.

On Wednesday 30th October we took the early morning bus to Pokhara, which is about 200 km west of Kathmandu. I’d read the journey was pretty hair-raising due to how the drivers navigate the narrow roads with precipitous drop-offs, but we found both the driving and the roads to be fine. Things get trickier in monsoon season apparently. The journey took a reasonably pleasant 6 hours on the way to Pokhara – the return trip was a significantly less fun 9 hours.

Although Pokhara is the second-biggest city in Nepal, the area where we were staying felt more like a small lakeside town. We were in a homestay rather than a hostel or hotel, with the owner’s family living on the first floor, and this contributed to the relaxed atmosphere. A row across the lake from the city is the Shanti Stupa – one of many world peace pagodas built around the world. We enjoyed the walk up and views from the top.

Pokhara is the set-off point for some Himalayan treks, including the Annapurna Base Camp (ABC). We didn’t have enough time to do any serious trekking on our visit, but certainly something for the future. We did manage a walk up a mountain next to the lake called Sarankot, which has great views of several Himalayan peaks. Sadly you also need a clear day to actually see much. Sarankot is very popular with paragliders; once we got near the top they pass very close overhead or even beneath you, which is slightly surreal.

After a final night in Kathmandu we flew to Thailand. Baggage arrived safe!

I’m going to claim that the weekly blog post schedule is slipping because our itinerary has become more active over the last week or so. An increase in activity wouldn’t be difficult – during our time in Rishikesh the most taxing daily activity could be the discussion (argument) around where to eat dinner. We’ve discovered that where we have less than, say, four days in one place we feel the pressure to switch into aggressive sightseeing mode versus something more sedate. You may think sedate = lazy, and you’d be correct, though we do need to set aside time for work and future trip planning admin.

The overnight bus to Jaipur (17th/18th October) was a success (credit to K). Easy to book online, the company text you a link to track where the bus is (relieved fears it wasn’t going to turn up when half an hour late), and certainly the most comfortable overnight travelling I’ve done, as you get a bed. See picture below – either side of the corridor are two rows of pods, double beds to the left and singles to the right, with a screen for privacy.

Friday in Jaipur was an example of ‘aggressive’ sightseeing (for us) – after arriving at 7am and finding our guest house we walked to a cafe opposite Hawa Mahal (Palace of Winds) for breakfast. Views were great, food was not. We then took an auto-rickshaw via Uber to the Amer Fort and wandered around the surrounding grounds, including another fort, Jaigarh, that sits above it.

The best way to see the fort is from the hillside opposite, climbing up stairs built into a series of fortifications topped with towers along the ridge of the hill. We had one of the towers to ourselves, and spent some time taking pictures of the fort in the sunset (and in doing so preventing an influencer-looking couple from doing the same – they raced up as soon as we left).

Next was the Albert Hall Museum back in town, which is only 100 INR if you go after 7pm. This wasn’t the most thrilling part of the day, although they do have some interesting musical instruments on display. On the way we stopped at McDonalds (I know…) – I at least got a paneer burger. Finally we walked home past Hawa Mahal again.

The next day we took a trip to a couple of temples on the hillside at the eastern edge of the city – Sun Temple and Hanuman Ji or Monkey Temple. Lots of well fed monkeys at both, it’s good karma to feed them apparently.

On Sunday 20th we took an early morning bus to Delhi. We often use the Wikitravel website for travel tips – the entry for Delhi has a number of warnings about various scams, one of which is for your taxi driver to falsely claim your hotel has recently closed and encourage you to book into another. Our experience was fine though – an uneventful Uber to our hotel in Paharganj close to New Delhi Train station. We definitely lose traveler (and probably moral) cred for taking Ubers, but it’s great not to have to barter.

It was dark by the time we’d checked in and eaten, but we managed to take the metro to see the Red Fort before bed. The walls cover almost 2.5 km, very impressive walking around close up.

The Delhi metro proved a cheap and convenient way to get around the city – single trips were between 10 – 30 INR. Unfortunately not the best experience for women – K got sick of being stared at and each train has a women-only carriage to combat gropers (K – “not the right measure to address the problem”).

Humayun’s Tomb is another impressive complex of buildings and gardens. There were lots of school kids visiting too, so we got a lot of ‘hello’s!’, a few selfie requests, and a couple of handshakes. Certainly worth visiting, if only for a walk around the gardens.

Per the scams section of the Wikitravel page, plus various conversations with people who’d been before, we’d expected Delhi to be quite a slog, but we didn’t find it to be too much of a challenge. I think our period of acclimatisation to India in (relatively calm) Rishikesh was a real help here and, in fairness, we only spent 3 full days in Delhi. To be specific, by acclimatisation I mean getting used to 1. incessant beeping from traffic 2. rubbish everywhere 3. harassment from people keen for you to buy stuff. We actually found Jaipur to be worse than Delhi on these terms – we had an open sewer complete with foraging pigs next to where we were staying.

On Thursday (24th) morning we got up far too early for our flight to Kathmandu and arrived at the airport 3 hrs 45 mins before the flight departed. We’re splitting our 12 days in Nepal between Kathmandu and Pokhara. Nepal fact – time here is, weirdly, GMT+5:45 (only discovered this today). More on Nepal next time!!

There are elections this week in Rishikesh. Haven’t worked out for what exactly, but I assume regional as there was a national general election earlier this year. A couple of methods of canvassing have made an impression on us. One is slowly driving a 4×4 around town with speakers mounted on its roof rack, alternately blasting Indian pop music and (presumably – my Hindi hasn’t progressed beyond namaste) someone reading from a manifesto. The other is the posters stuck everywhere. Every candidate is assigned a symbol – here’s ice cream and pineapple:

This week Karolina has been to a few yoga drop-in classes, including at the school she attended last year, as well as a lecture about Tantra and a breathwork session. Her thoughts on the breathwork session: “a powerful and strange experience”. She also had a think about ‘dynamic meditation’ at an Osho centre but decided against it. There are a few Osho places around town – in the 80s some of his followers deliberately poisoned hundreds of people in a city in Oregon in an attempt to rig a local election. There’s a great documentary available on Netflix called Wild Wild Country about this and everything else they got up to.

We both also attended a couple of satsangs at different ashrams. They both had a similar format: you first arrive to singing of mantras accompanied by musicians and then await the guru (not entirely sure if this is the correct term – certainly both were senior spiritual leaders). Once the guru arrives they first direct you in around 15 mins of meditation, followed by a lecture – in one of the sessions this was reading and analysis of a holy text. Finally attendees are invited to ask questions of the guru – these ranged from queries on the reading to “what is love?”. Both sessions were also filmed, and one was live streamed on Facebook (click here for a sample).

In both cases I was struck by both gurus’ relatively informal way of speaking and interacting with the audience versus the reverence displayed towards them by the other members of the ashram. In one of the sessions we were read a list of dos and don’ts before the session began. I guess in fairness they want to make sure day trippers such as myself don’t ruin it for everyone.

K caught part of a festival involving fireworks and effigies of Rama and Shiva being set alight.

We spent a couple of days trekking to waterfalls (waterfall count now 3), and every day eating curry in our favourite restaurant (80 INR for a thali so big they have to bring it to you in stages as everything doesn’t fit on the plate).

I also discovered how to add hyperlinks to the blog, so I hope you clicked some.

We go to Jaipur on Thursday (17th) evening.

Our travels started with a flight to Delhi via Kiev, followed by a taxi to Rishikesh where we’ve been staying for the past week.

The drive north from Delhi was about 7 hours and gave me my first introduction to driving in India – e.g. 6 lines of traffic despite only 3 lanes, double overtaking on blind corners, use of the horn as a greeting to other drivers. Cows on the road become more of a feature inside towns, where they are unhurried and unmoved by the traffic. No-one beeps at the cows.

Rishikesh is in the foothills of the Himalayas and sits next to the Ganges (Ganga) where the river is fast flowing. We’re staying in the north of the city in an area spanning both banks called Tapovan, and there are usually a few white water rafting trips visible (also faint screams heard) when crossing either of the two bridges. Cows also use the narrow bridges and have right-of-way, as you’d imagine. Monkey troops hang out on the suspension cables.

Rishikesh is a holy place for Hindus; it’s mentioned in religious texts and today has many temples and ashrams. No meat or alcohol for sale. Long a site of meditation it is the “Yoga Capital of the World” according to Wikipedia – certainly it’s packed with yoga schools. Tapovan in particular is very touristy, though per the above you get a mix of both Indian pilgrims, and foreign and Indian yoga students. Aside from traditional yoga classes there are many other related practices available – ayurveda, reiki, astrology.

As a further example of a related practice, Karolina went to a sound healing session yesterday. “A 90-minute session of deep relaxation through the vibration of various instruments: Himalayan singing bowls, didgeridoo, binaural beats, sound of sitar, recordings of nature and many more.” She found it “purifying and calming”.

This week, aside from general pottering about, we went to a wedding of two teachers from the yoga school Karolina attended last year. Most Indian male attendees were in western dress, unlike the male western attendees. Despite hundreds of guests and a large buffet it was over in a few hours, granted this was the second day of celebrations (we think).

At sunset on Gandhi’s birthday (2^nd Oct, a national holiday here) we saw a ritual called Ganga aarti at an ashram (Parmanth Niketan) next to the river.

Yesterday we hiked up a series of waterfalls called Neer Garh a few kms up the road from where we’re staying. Had our first picture request (as in to be in a picture with a local). If you keep walking up the trail beyond the 3^rd waterfall you’ll eventually reach a small camping retreat. It has a café – lucky as I had run out of water.