The Himalayas

   Shimla, the cosy capital of Himachal Pradesh gave us Christmas-feeling.

We arrived by bus to Mc Leod Ganj 5 o'clock a.m. Best time to arrive, no?

A tibetan mother together with her daughter arriving with the same bus as we did asked us if we have anywhere to stay. Since we didn't these wonderful people must have felt sorry for us and invited us to their tiny home where we were fed with loads of chai and chapathi with peanutbutter. Life works in mysterious ways sometimes.

                                           Trekking up toTriund, made us realize we're not in the best shape of our lifes. (Damn you Indian-cookies!) On the other hand we realized we are a splendid duo also when it comes to performing the Moulin Rouge-medley.(and the other song is called "come what may", not "come want me" as Nina thaught) The view, the green grass and the hot chai waiting on top made it worth the effort though. As we tried to express in the very pictureless post from Shimla : we really like it here and some parts of us feel like just hang around forever, taking artsclassess, meditate and chit-chat with Tibetan refugees. Tomorrow evening we have a train (or actually bus&train) to Varanasi so we guess that's not gonna be the case. Goodbye mountains, we'll miss you.

                                            

Maybe interesting to someone?

Number of...

places we stayed in: 30 (out of wich 23 were hotels, 4 were couchsurfers, 1 were our friends and 2 the farms we stayed at)
overnight-trains : 4
most expensive hotel: 450/person/night
cheapest hotel: 50/person/night

Shimla

We wanted to post some pictures but our computers says no!

Wich is a shame beacause we're in the mountains and the only thing we're doing is walking around sighing,
and telling each other how beautiful it is here.


We were missing forests, here they have a lot. In the distance you can see snowy mountain and there's
plenty old charming wooden-houses. (oh no, now this sounds really boring, it's not!)


Well well.
You guys have to use your imagination for now.
We'll have some dinner.

On the phone

Nina : Hello, I was just calling to ask what movies you are showing this afternoon?
Cinemaguy: Men not allowed!
Nina: That's ok we're three women.
Cinemaguy:, No no, Men not allowed!
Nina: yeah...ok. But what movies do you show?
Cinemaguy (annoyed): MEN-NOT-ALLOWED
Nina (confused) : yes yes. I understand. But WHAT MOVIE?
 Cinemaguy hangs up

First we we're considering if Nina has a very masculine voice talking on the phone but we realized
later arriving at the cinema that the movie really was called like that: Men not allowed.

Do you want to play Holi with me?

Too lazy to write:

Golden temples, pakistani borders with kind of silly rituals. Two spongebobs in the same game. Attempts of musical-improvisation. Getting up at 4.00 am to see how they carried a book (we didn't know what it was until afterwards) from one place to another. Falling asleep again getting the best sleep ever in a long time. Turbans turbans turbans everywhere, even on women. No swimmingpools. Postcardhunt. Cafe coffe day and a couple of lassis. What to do for Holi?!

The trio's in Amritsar, Punjab.
We'll do better blogging next time.
Promise.

See you tomorrow Delhi!

And we're expecting company. On Sunday the duo will grow to a trio for some time!

Mission Khir-hunt complete!

F-I-N-A-L-L-Y
We've been dreaming  about it at night. We've talked about it, thaught about it.
Felt dissappointed sad and frustrated in almost every restaurant since Mumbai.
We would not wish our worst enemies what we've been through in our search for
the feeling of once more enjoying a good Khir.

But,

Here int Agra we finally found it.
In a restaurant where the chairs have pink satin wrapping.
Life can finally continue as normal, the missing puzzlepiece  has been found.



Logbook: 19.11
A very happy Mr Oshman & a even happier Simosa21.
Over and out.

THE TAJ MAHAL

In Pushkar

We went out early this morning because we wanted to hike up a hill to one of the temples
 here before it gets too hot. On our way we met another tourist who was friendly enough to
tell us that in a couple of minutes a weddingprocedure would pass us. So we joined the crowd
and got to see 6 camels followed by 51 soon-to-be husbands on 51 horses on their way to their soon-to-be wifes.

This is one of the nice things about India; we went for a hike but we ended up at not only one, but 51
weddings instead.


ps. Some progress in the Khir-hunt, but still not a real creamy Khir. We're getting more and more desperate.

Our Route

The Route so far!! I would say we left 1 or 2 kilometers behind us... The green line shows our future plans, until we end up in Kolkata. There Nina will leave me (sniff!), and I'm gonna make my way to Nepal, where I'm gonna stay for another month.

In the pink city

12 well spent hours in a sleeper-class train full of military-men later we ended up in Jaipur 5 am in the morning. We had an adress written down but our phone ( we have some issues with tata docomo) was dead
and we really had no idea of how far or where we were about to go.
Outside of the railwaystation we had the usual welcoming crowd of eager rickshaw-drivers
and "touristguides". It's always a nice way of starting the day haggling about the price and saying "no thank you" a hundred times!

In the end we made our way to our couchsurfer Pushpendra. Who lives in Amber, walking distance from the fort. So we spent this day in his company, with him showing us around here.

Tomorrow's Simis birthday and we're gonna head off into Jaipur-pinktown first thing in the morning toghether with some other couchsurfers we met.

But before then we need some of our precious beautysleep.
So goodnight readers. Goodnight blog.

Day 8

Still no Khir. No success in the hunt.
Now we understand that indian "creamy" is not what we consider creamy.

BUT...we got a  reliable tip about where we can find some good Khir.
So tomorrow at 10 am we are gonna be located at the creepy restaurant around the corner.
Hoping that the exchange is gonna go smoothly and that there is a high quantity of that white stuff.


Logbook 21.51.
Next report coming up.

Simosa21 & Mr. Oshman

Easy Rider-Wannabes

 Tatatataaaaaaaaaaa! So here it is: our motorbike for a day. 

 Nina happily united with her camel. Aren't they a cute couple?

 And now guess what this is?!

This is Nina!