India

India is a nation renowned for its contrasts, the extreme divide between the rich and the poor is the most documented of these. However, I am not sure there is a starker contrast between the charm, yet pure pandemonium of the capital city, Delhi and the much more relaxed environment of the Ladakhi region in the far north of the country.

These two equally incredible places were the mainstays of a recent trip I made to the Indian Republic with the charity Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO). After spending a stressful, yet fulfilling few months raising money for both the trip and the charity I met twenty-nine complete strangers at London’s Heathrow airport who were to join me on the trip. When we arrived back in Blighty twelve days later, every single one of those twenty-nine had become good friends.
Arriving at Delhi airport at around midnight, I foolishly assumed that dress that it might be quite cold so dressed accordingly (a hoody and full-length trousers in case you are interested) but when I stepped out of the air-conditioned airport terminal into the 28 degree heat- at midnight let us not forget- I realised that I had a fair bit to learn about this country and part of the world.

After a much needed rest at our hotel that night, we enjoyed our first day in Delhi the following afternoon. A whistle stop of tour of the city and mostly its landmarks by coach. Driving past poverty I had never experienced before in a comfortable, air-conditioned coach felt like I was cheating slightly and was not exactly what I had expected to see of the city. This was supposed to be our only experience of Delhi before we disappeared into the Himalayan mountains the next morning and I went to bed that night pretty disappointed, but fortunately fate decided to have a little say in the matter the next morning.

It is fair to say that forcing thirty people to wake up at 2.30am for an early morning flight does not make for the cheeriest crowd. And when that flight travels all the way to its destination (Leh in the Himalayas), hovers above the airport for forty minutes then returns to its origin because weather conditions will not allow it to land, you might expect the mood of the group to be darkened still. For whatever reason, however, the mood in the group remained upbeat even when we were informed that the next flight to Leh would not be until the following morning and for me, and a few others this was due to the fact that we were now able to experience Delhi properly and on our own accord.

A group of five of us made the taxi journey to the Chandni Chowk area in the heart of Old Delhi that afternoon. If you have ever wondered what it feels like to be a celebrity for a day, travel as a Caucasian Westerner to Delhi. Literally everyone on the streets gawped as our small group passed and many of them came up wanting to shake your hand. I must admit to being slightly annoyed by this at the beginning and believed that all these people had an ulterior motive to being so friendly. Eventually I realised my ignorance and discovered that these people we were meeting, and Indians in particular, are genuinely friendly people and are simply excited to see a face they usually see so rarely. Indian people have very little idea of personal space- and if you see the amount of people packed onto the Delhi streets you will understand why- and being a typical Brit that enjoys their own space it certainly takes some getting used to having people crowd around you but you later understand that this is simply part of their culture.

The streets of Old Delhi are littered with markets selling almost everything you can imagine, and the endless amount of shops appear to sell pretty much the same things and some of the poverty in the area is awful to see. Despite the difficult conditions some of these people live in they are extremely happy, friendly people and one of the highlights of my visit was seeing children, who are free of any worries, playing happily in the streets.

Satisfied that we had now seen the real Delhi another early start the next morning saw us fly north into Leh, this time successfully. Our hotel at the bottom of the hill leading to Leh town was a fantastic place to relax after an eventful few days. Fortunately, six of us had been given what we referred to as the penthouse suite. Our rooms were on the hotel rooftop and stretched out in front of us were the stunning, rugged Himalayan Mountains with the bottom end of Leh town sitting in the middle. Considering we had just flown directly to 3,500 metres and a few of the group were suffering from altitude sickness so this was the perfect environment to relax in.
A few hours sleep in the shadow of the Mountains and we were refreshed for a short visit into Leh town. After a steep climb up the hill- and at altitude this is particularly difficult- we made our way into the capital of Ladakh. Leh is a completely different proposition to what we had previously experienced in Delhi. A much slower pace of life and while locals still tend to stare at the Western tourists, it is from a distance. The appearance of people in Leh is also very different from the rest of India. It may have had something to do with the amount of Tibetan refugees in the area, but the majority of Ladakhi have an almost Chinese appearance, another vast difference to the rest of India.

The following day finally saw our first day of hiking, but with the high altitude it was to be acclimatisation rather than any real hiking in the mountains. The walk took us through a strangely green, agricultural area set in the middle of the otherwise barren Himalayas. That is part of the beauty of these parts, while the majority of the landscape is dusty and sandy there are patches of contrasting landscape. At the very peaks of the Mountains in the Ladakhi range sits snow and in random areas in the valleys are these lush, green surroundings.

After three hours or so of walking along relatively flat terrain we arrived at the bottom of a Buddhist monastery, our destination for the day. If the altitude had not affected us in the first few hours, it certainly took its toll during the steep climb up the five hundred or so steps to the monastery itself. Something I learnt quickly on this trip was that a difficult climb is certainly worth it once you reach the top and that was certainly the case in this instance. The monastery sat at the top of a large mountain and gave us a stunning three-sixty degree of the valley we were in. More lush green areas sat in pockets in the valley while the rugged Himalayas stretched out beyond. The monastery itself was also extremely interesting, especially for someone with a loose interest in Buddhism.

The acclimatisation set us up for the following day, where we spent three days trekking the Himalayas. What we had come to do! Once again, the first day was reasonably relaxing, traversing slowly up a path, about five hours walking in total, to our first campsite, but not without a slight scare. Our tour guide, Libby had gone ahead of the group in a land rover to ensure that everything was set-up when we arrived at our campsite early afternoon. Libby and the driver, returned from the campsite and jumped out to walk the last two kilometres with the whole group. About two minutes later, a JCB sat in the middle of the path, blocking our route. Libby explained that when she passed five minutes or so earlier the path had been completely clear, but now the JCB – that had somehow got there incredibly quickly – was clearing away piles of slate and mud that had resulted from a landslide minutes earlier, which would have landed directly on top of the group if we had arrived at the wrong time. Safely back at our stunning campsite, nestled between another beautiful mountain and the Indus River, we were able to relax for the evening before our big day of walking.

As mentioned earlier in this piece, an early start is difficult at the best of times, but when you have just ‘slept’ on a bed of rocks and used half a bucket of water to wash yourself as well as having absolutely no natural light to pack our bags and get ready it becomes even more of a challenge. After crashing around the campsite we were finally on the Mountain by 6 am. Due to the challenge presented today some of the group who felt that they would struggle with the twelve hours of difficult hiking took a simpler route to the evening’s destination. The rest of the group set off.

Four hours later after some moments where it felt impossible to carry on we reached the top of the first pass. About a third of the day’s hiking was out the way. Someone remarked that it was 10 am and we had been out for four hours in another of the Himalayas stunning environments and I could not help think that by 10am on a Saturday at home I would have probably just rolled out of bed.

Now all throughout our time in the Mountains everywhere you looked seemed like it was straight out of a postcard, but the second part of the trip gifted the group with, certainly for me, the best views I had ever seen. Another four hours or so of walking, but this time a more flat route but just off the path at what felt like inches to our right were sheer drops that came close to giving a few members serious bouts of Vertigo. The stunning valleys and contrasts in shapes of the Mountains provided with further beautiful scenes.

Part two of the day was out the way and it was onto the final part of the days walking. When our guide, the extremely knowledgeable local Tashee, informed us that the village we were staring at from the top of the mountain, set in yet another beautiful valley, was our destination it felt like it was a mere skip and a jump away. Three hours later, with nothing left in the tank, my knees feeling ready to buckle, a stumbled into our campsite, relieved but extremely proud of the hard work we had put in.

A completely different landscape greeted us again on our final day of trekking in the Mountains. We took a fairly relaxing stroll along one of the tributaries to the Indus River, again in variation to the mostly rugged Himalayas, the area was heavily protected by trees and extremely rural. Crossing the Indus on one of the dodgiest bridges I have ever seen- if you have seen Monty Python the Holy Grail you will know exactly what I am talking about – we continued to climb further up the Mountains in the scorching midday heat. After just short of five hours of walking we arrived at our final destination in the Mountains, a football ground that had been converted into a campsite.

If we were expecting a nice relaxing, afternoon and evening to chill out we were to be completely mistaken. And while it certainly was not what I wanted at the time, that afternoon and the following evening will go down as one of my highlights of the overall trip. Due to some fortunate local knowledge of one of our guides, we were invited to visit a Nunnery at the very top of the town, where the child Nuns would do a song for us all. Wanting to bow out of Ladakh in true style, the whole group – thirty of us plus guides – piled into the back of a truck to take us up the hill to the Nunnery.

While the songs sung by the Nuns were difficult to understand and slightly repetitive, it was a truly stunning experience to see this further side of Ladakh. It was clear that some of the girls were extremely into the whole religious experience, praying and looking genuinely tense through the singing while others, who appeared to have been sat in the ‘naughty corner’ next to the elderly nuns just wanted to enjoy themselves, and that was also brilliant to see. After a quick mingle with the children outside it was back in the lorry for a lively and entertaining trip back down to the campsite.

Straight from the campsite, for those of us who fancied it, it was a short walk up further hills to the relatives of one of our guides. This was a beautiful, simple, genuine Ladakhi house. Single pains of almost plastic for windows – it can get to below minus 20 in the winter – and when one of the group asked what the people did here when it got cold, the old lady who lived in the house simply explained, in Ladakhi before being translated by our guide, with a huge grin ‘We wear a lot of clothes.’ After testing some Yak Milk Tea – which was actually quite nice – and the local beer – which wasn’t – it was back to the campsite for partying. In truth it was the guides, who had been so fantastic through our four days in the Mountain, that it was an opportunity to party for. A fire was set up and the locals as well as us tourists when we felt like it had a great sing and dance around it.

After a quick stop over back in Leh for an opportunity to catch some more bargains in the market it was onto Agra, home of the famous Taj Mahal, for our final destination of the trip. A journey of about 200 kilometres from Delhi airport to the home of the seventh wonder, on English roads you would expect to take three to four hours maximum. But these aren’t English roads, in fact, many of even the main roads resemble roads used for off-road 4 x 4ing and it was seven hours after we left Delhi that we were safely in our hotel in the heart of Agra.
As we trudged into the town, bumping around on the roads, our guide announced that next to our hotel was ‘the best coffee shop in town. Costa Coffee!’ A huge laugh went around the bus at the statement but I think some of the group were tempted to try it, and it’s next door neighbour Pizza Hut ,after a fortnight of curries. Once again, Agra was a completely different place to anywhere we had been before in India. The main street is littered with people trying to sell things to the Western tourists and tacky, neon lights shine across the street from the many hotels along the main street.

You get the feeling that without the Taj Mahal nearby, Agra would have absolutely nothing. But the influx of tourists attracts a high amount of locals who believe that these Westerners may give them a way out of the desperate poverty around them. Our final morning it was, yes you guessed it, another early start and after a slight celebration the night before this was a bit of a struggle. Eventually, however, we made our way into the grounds and passing through an impressive fort on the East side of the famous temple, the Taj Mahal stretched out before us.
It may have had something to do with the horrendous hangover I was suffering with, but it was not quite as striking straight off as I thought it might be. However, as you get closer and recognise the stunning white marble covering this stunning temple. Once you have removed your shoes and put on a pair of ridiculous white shoes- which feels like the locals have given you just for a laugh – it is into the temple itself. While small and dark, the inside is even more stunning. A torch pushed up close to the stones illuminates the individual stones into life, showing beautiful colours and the designs, particularly on the roof, are an added piece of the beauty of the building.

The groups thirst for this world-famous landmark quenched it was time to begin the epic journey home. Thirty hours we travelled for before finally arriving, bleary-eyed back home.
Sitting home now weeks after the trip, back in my usual job in the city I can sit back and think about the magnificent memories of this wonderful experience. The small introduction I had into this beautiful country was enough to push me to visit the country more thoroughly in the future but what will stand out most of all, and I don’t care if this sounds corny, is the magnificent people I met on the trip-surely that is the most rewarding experience of travel.