H: I read an article written by a lady who used to travel a lot before Covid. She wrote that before travelling the unknown was ‘infinitely, deliciously surprising’. But that now travelling just felt like a long list of all the things that could go wrong.

I felt exactly this as we set off a month ago, and some things did go wrong for us, but I am so glad that we did it.

We have seen some amazing sights these last 4 weeks. We have seen markets, forts, temples and rural villages. We have covered nearly 6,000km on boats, planes, trains, cars, jeeps, bikes, motorbikes, tuk tuks, and camels. We have seen firsthand how huge populations live and the impact that can have on the surrounding area. We have enjoyed meeting some lovely people with some big smiles.

It’s incredible to watch the children in a country like this. To see what they find exciting, or what they hardly notice as being different. It’s been super hot, the food has been quite hard at times and it’s crowded. They’ve stood for endless photographs, had their cheeks pinched and have told roughly half of India’s population their names and what country they are from. We’ve had them up early, and kept them up late. We’ve changed our plans, or had our plans changed for us with little notice. And they just seem to roll with it.

The kids weren’t ready to come home - they seemed set to carry on indefinitely. G and I are not ready to finish either, but we are ready to say goodbye to India. It’s an amazing country but we are ready to find some peace.

4 flights later and we’re back in our home. Minus all of our luggage - our Cochin-Colombo-Singapore-Melbourne-Christchurch route counted as ‘extravagant’ according to the baggage help lady at Christchurch airport so our bags could be anywhere. But we did manage to come home with two extra things - two more Covid infections, this time for Ben and Leo.

I am super grateful for getting to spend such a special month with G and the boys. However much we try, there are so many distractions and commitments at home. It has been lovely to come away from it all and we are looking forward to talking about what might be next!

H: Covid wasn’t all bad. It made us slow down for the first time in 4 weeks. I have a massive inbox to deal with when we get back but whilst we’ve been away I’ve been filing these away into a folder so am living in a pretty good state of ignorance. So when Jamie was sick at the same time as me I had all the time in the world to snuggle up with him. As much as I would love to say I would do this if this happened at home, I don’t think I would - instead I’d be wondering what else I could get done while he slept.

It also meant we had to delay our flights by a few days, so once we had both recovered we could enjoy the last couple of days. Having done a lot of walking the streets while we were sick, G and the boys were ready for something else. A quick google and we found a wee theme park - a perfect way to finish the trip and for the boys to let off a month’s worth of energy! I’d originally thought it wouldn’t be a very Indian way to finish the trip but I was wrong.

Firstly we got there by tuk tuk. Despite it being an hour’s journey, and despite us not really fitting in a tuk tuk anymore - actually because of that. I wanted to make sure we made the most of being able to squeeze into one while we still can. It won’t be long before the boys don’t fit on our knees any more which will be super sad!

The park was really busy with locals out having an awesome time together. A separation between men and women was more obvious than it has maybe been before - some rides were for men only, with women and families having separate ones.

The kids loved it - in fact I think it’s the first time (like, ever) that we’ve actually had to force them to stop for something to eat. It was a brilliant day, and a light-hearted end to a big 4 weeks!

Until we tried to get back to our hotel...

Having been completely vetoed for a tuk tuk home, we thought we could get an Uber. This was probably best for me too as it had been a big afternoon and an hour’s rest in an air conditioned car would have been good for all of us. However the mass of locals who made it out of the park before us must have taken whatever rides had been available. We couldn’t even find a tuk tuk. It was 8pm and we had only had a quick small lunch. It’s also dark. And raining.

Eventually a wee local bus pulls up and G manages to find out it’s sort of going in the direction we want to go. Feeling relieved we have some way of getting nearer home we jump on and settle down to a comfy journey.

Just kidding. Every seat was taken, and then some. People were already sharing. So we stood in the aisle, holding on tight, trying to find some space on the floor for our feet as the bus hurtled round corners. Ben got lucky first - someone squeezed up so he could perch on the edge of their seat. 30 minutes later and I was feeling pretty sicky - hot, tired and hungry and yep, that little bit of claustrophobia was back. Luckily for me two men in the row next to me maybe realised I was a bit wobbly and scooted up so now I too could get about 10% of my bum on a seat.

Poor Leo and Jamie were further back and I could hardly see them, let alone help them. Eventually a man stood up to comfort a very distressed baby and let Leo have his seat. A lady next to Jamie moved her baby across so that she could put Jamie on her other knee.

Obviously we hit traffic - obviously because we were tired and hungry and wanting to get back quickly. And also because have I told you there’s billions of people here and the streets and traffic are mental?

After sitting stationary for what felt like an hour we got dropped in a town somewhere, I’m not totally sure where. But I do know that we could now get an Uber for the last half hour home. Although we didn’t go straight home, we went straight to a restaurant we’d found that was still open and made the kids stay awake enough to have a few mouthfuls of rice and curry at 10pm. Before they crawled into bed for a few hours ready for our flight home the next day.

We most definitely finished our trip in the same way as we’ve lived the last 4 weeks... on the fly!

H: A few days of laying low for Jamie and I, my NZ ‘7 days of infection’ finished and a negative RAT test, and we were good to go again.

G and I don’t have the best of luck with beaches while travelling. We ended up on an awful beach in Cambodia and got ‘Swine-flu’d’ away from the beach in Mexico. We didn’t come here to find a beach but did read that Kerala had a lovely coastline. We also read that a lot of those beaches were either polluted or had dangerous currents.

We read about one that was clean and good for swimming, so keeping our expectations low we set off. A walk, a ferry, a local bus and a tuk tuk put us on a reasonably sloped beach with large dumpy waves just off the shore. Not great for swimming but plenty good enough for splashing and for the boys to burn some beans.

It was neat to catch the local bus - most of our journeys have been too long so we’ve used cars and trains instead. I absolutely love seeing the kids settle in to whatever seat they can find. They don’t care who it’s next to or how far away we are - they seem so at ease.

We also got to see men working at the Chinese fishing nets. They are huge nets that lever down into the sea and after a few minutes the fishermen haul on long ropes that lever the net back out. They then run up the platform to the net to try and retrieve any fish they’ve caught before the birds beat them to it. They are impressive contraptions!

H: Not surprisingly, I’ve caught Covid. Not surprisingly because it’s a virus that keeps on coming, and must be very prevalent in a country with a population this size. Also not surprising because it really wouldn’t be an H-and-G-On-Tour trip without at least one visit to a hospital. And further unsurprisingly, because arguably this is the worst time to catch it.

I’d felt a bit bunged up for a few days, but I’ve noticed since catching whatever awful thing I caught when I flew to the UK last year that I often feel funny in the back of my nose and throat, and so I put it out of my mind. However a few days later I had a slightly sore throat and so tested. If I’m honest with 3 days left before our flight home, I did consider not testing. If the strange feelings a few days ago were the start of Covid, then by the time we were meant to fly I’d be done with my 7 days infectious period based on NZ rules, which have been towards the strictest of any country’s rules. I knew testing would open a can of worms, but it was the right thing to do.

So yesterday was filled with a day on Google, ringing the insurance company and airlines, and a trip to the hospital to get an official test. We told the lady at the hotel we’re staying in (blessedly the cleanest nicest one of the whole trip - meant to be an end-of-trip treat) expecting quarantine signs to go up on the door. She simply shrugged, told us that was just normal life, and pointed us to the pharmacy in case we needed any meds.

It looks like I can’t get on a flight until I am testing negative (which in theory can take weeks to do), or until I can get a doctors certificate explaining that I am symptom free. Which I pretty much am now so I will try in a couple of days, but they may make me wait for a week after my test to do that. I should have tested myself the minute I felt anything funny and we’d have been a few days further ahead.

Unfortunately I have spent the last 3 weeks snuggled up to the kids - in cars, trains, jeeps and at night. The ship has probably sailed in terms of isolation but we took a deep breath and splashed out for a second room in the hotel last night so I could avoid G, Ben, and Leo a bit.

Jamie, however, has a fever and has been vomiting. We have tested him and he’s clear, but he’s in with me for now, leaving G, Ben and Leo to go make the most of our time here. Unfortunately there is not a whole heap for them to do here, and the sea is too dangerous to swim in again. From what they’re telling me, they are out eating ice cream or fried bananas - I guess G is enjoying G, Ben and Leo time too!

After a fleeting bout of grumpiness and frustration I’ve come to realise it’s really not all bad. In theory the insurance will cover our hotel and some food expenses for our extra time here. In theory I am near the end of a very mild bout and apart from taking it easy to help reduce the risk of any long term complications, I can be free to enjoy some time too. In theory Jamie should perk up soon, and then we can all enjoy these extra few days.

The only downside is the lost income from extra time off work but we are here all together. Having been given some special extra family-only time, I am not going to grumble!

H: Since landing in Kerala all the Hindi we learnt in Rajasthan has been useless. I had managed to learn the two words ‘thanda paanee’ (cold water) and G outdid himself and learnt how to count to 10. However here they speak Malayalam instead - and fortunately some very good English! 

The streets in Kerala are very different, far more cars and far fewer motorbikes, and the shops and buildings are more modern. There are even supermarkets! But no cows and monkeys roaming the streets which is a shame.

In Rajasthan it was rare to see a lady not wearing a sari. Here it’s much less common, particularly for younger women. The men down here wear lungis or dohtis (they were called longyis in Myanmar) which are long pieces of cloth that are wrapped and folded to make essentially a long skirt. Many of the men in Kerala fold them up and tie them again so they are like shorts - chilled style! 

The vast majority (nearly 90% based on a 10-year-old census) of the population in Rajasthan are Hindu, with Muslims accounting for most of the remaining 10%. However in Kerala only half are Hindu, a quarter Muslim and nearly 20% Christian. In the area of Kerala that we’re in, the percentage of Christians is much higher. There are churches everywhere, big grand churches but also small Christian shrines which I’ve not seen before. I’ve never been to any other Asian country where Christianity is common.

One similarity between the north and south has been that everyone is convinced that Ben and Leo are twins! To Ben’s dismay when we explain that they are not, we’re often then asked who is older. Occasionally we’ve been asked if they’re triplets. 

Joking aside though, the main similarity is that country wide we’ve found the people to be lovely. We got impressively scammed as we landed, and we get the odd tuk tuk driver finding us off a train and asking for a ridiculous amount to be taken it to town, or following us along just to be super sure we definitely could manage the short walk we turned their services down for. 

But those few people aside we have been met with smiles, waves, requests for ‘selfies’, and help when we needed it. The continual hassle that we were bracing ourselves for has just not been here.

H: 3 hours into yet another hot 5 hour car ride, I wondered if we had made the right decision in trying to get up into the hills. We most definitely did!

It’s beautiful up here - huge views and we’ve left the heavy heat behind.

We spent the day with our guide, Sinesh, exploring the hills around Munnar. The land is covered with tea plantations and Sinesh explained that he was the first generation in his family not to be a tea picker, and that that was quite common for this generation because it’s beginning to become automated.

He took us to his village which is owned by a huge Indian corporation called Tata. They own the plantations in this area and the tea pickers can live in the village, with electricity, schools and medical care paid for for free, but with a low daily salary of R300 (about $6/£3).

His wife was lovely, super smiley and very welcoming to the five of us. She made sweet tea that the kids all but downed, and rice crackers (also sweet) that are made for the tea pickers to snack on when they are out picking. They explained that the women pick the leaves and the men do the packing and transportation of the leaves.

I love that the children can see and hear how other people live. They used a fire for cooking, with a gas stove that they used only if they had to because the fuel is expensive. He explained that they picked tea 6 days a week, and on Sundays would walk the 5 kms through the hills up to Munnar to buy groceries, and then would get a tuk tuk home with their shopping. It’s a different life to ours - ours is so much more comfortable and seems easier - but as usual the villagers’ smiles makes me question that.

From here we carried on to a cave and waterfalls and it was super special to see the kids so free. They thrive on being outside and they got to swim at the bottom of a waterfall, climb trees and pull themselves up a huge rock with a vine. We saw cardamon plants, black pepper, bananas, jack fruit, cocoa beans and rubber trees.

And elephants! They come out of the forest in the dusk and down to the river where there is a natural spring. There was a single elephant there and we watched it for a long time before a wild dog spooked it and it ambled back into the forest. Apparently large herds can come down and we waited for so long hoping some more would come. 2 hours later, in the dark having not had any tea and with three pretty wriggly kids we decided it was time to call it quits. Sinesh looked a bit disappointed but started back, saying he’d get his friend to ring us if more arrived. Sure enough, 20 minutes after we left he got a phone call and turned us round and sure enough there were 10 wild elephants now in the river.

It’s been a special day!

H: After another ridiculously early start (4:20 this time) we kayaked in the backwaters of Alleppey. It felt very nice to actually do some exercise!

Unfortunately as the sun came up we could start to see what we were kayaking through. Bottles and wrappers, abandoned jandals, trainers, a cushion, empty pill packet and a wine glass. For all the beauty here the litter is just as bad. It is a very common sight to see rubbish being discarded wherever it is created - we watched a young girl open an ice cream on a local boat and throw the wrapping straight over the side into the water.

I read one article that said littering can be due to a sense of caste. That to clear up their own rubbish would liken them to low-caste sweepers. I’ve no idea if that is true or not but the rubbish situation here is pretty grim. A news article I read stated that nearly 30% of Kerala’s water sources are fully polluted, with a further 35% contaminated. I do wish I’d read that after we went kayaking, not before!

H: A 14 hour journey by taxi, plane, plane, taxi, train and rickshaw and it feels like we’re in another country. After two weeks in the concrete jungles of Rajasthan I had never felt so pleased to see a tree. Which will amuse those of you who know (and are very rude about the fact) that I normally really dislike trees - mostly because they mean you can’t see the big views. But today I might have found a new love for them.

There is so much space. The houses have space, the shops have space, the roads have space. Although unfortunately there are no roaming cows here. Or monkeys!

The roads are quiet and with far fewer motorbikes. Today we actually went for a walk - along the beach (the sea too rough to swim in unfortunately and there’s a heap of rubbish on the beach, plus a turtle without a head and a bloated dead dog) and then found our way home through the backstreets. Awesome.

H: Varanasi is considered the spiritual capital of India. It is on the edge of the Ganges and Hindu pilgrims come to one of Varanasi’s 88 ghats to bathe in the holy waters of the Ganges and perform funeral rites.

India is busy everywhere but this place is something else - we’re not sure we’ve ever been anywhere quite so busy. Plus it’s 41 degrees so it’s not only busy but very hot too. It’s clearly a very special place for a lot of people.

We thought long and hard about it and decided that we would take the children to Manikarnika Ghat. This is known as the funeral ghat and is considered the most auspicious place for a Hindu to be cremated. Bodies wrapped in cloth and decorated with orange, red and gold materials and flowers are carried on stretchers down to the ghat. The cloth-wrapped bodies are washed in the Ganges and then placed on a funeral pyre. They are surrounded by wood which is set alight as relatives walk around the pyre. Cows roam the ghat eating the flowers that have been removed from the stretchers.

The pyres at this ghat are used round the clock, day in and day out. The belief is that people cremated here receive ‘moksha’ - which is the break in the cycle of death and rebirth and instead leads to salvation, which is classed as the ultimate goal in Hinduism.

It is a confronting place and I hope we did the right thing taking the boys. We talked as openly as we could about it, and tried to ignore our own preconceptions.

We finished a big day with a trip on the river to see the Ganga Aarti ceremony at Dashashwamedh Gaht. This is one of the most important and popular ceremonies of the Hindu faith. Offerings are given to the Goddess Ganga and small candles are floated down the river. Sadhus (Hindu monks) and pujaris (attendants to the Deities) perform with fire and smoke, whilst chanting and ringing bells on the top of the steps of the ghat. Thousands upon thousands of people are there to experience it. The ritual happens every single day and as far as we know, the crowds are as large each day.

Hundreds of boats like ours pull in and rope onto each other to create a huge wooden platform. Hawkers walk round selling the aartis, chai, water and balloons. The monks walk over this platform with a lighted wick to light the aartis that are then floated in the river. An open flame and hundreds of wooden boats - clearly not scoring highly on any health and safety reviews!

H: Well we may have come a long way round to do it, but we did manage to get an overnight train to Varanasi! We didn’t go and see any of the sights in Lucknow, the random town we ended up in to be able to get the train. Instead we spent time playing games in our room and ventured out once to an actual western-style mall (the first all trip) and had pizza for lunch.

Feeling refreshed, fed and rested, we all enjoyed the 9 hour train journey to Varanasi. We’d missed out on tickets in the non-AC carriage which we’d hoped to get to travel more local style. Instead we went in a 3-tier AC (which actually was also filled with locals) that even came with bed sheets. Luxury!

The kids loved it - Jamie was grinning ear to ear on the way to the train and Ben and Leo were both sad when I woke them up as we arrived into Varanasi Junction. It’s an awesome way to travel and I’m very glad we were able to do it!

H: OK I am definitely travel weary now! We’ve been on the go for fifteen days and slept in 10 hotels, one car and about to be one train. Given this, I wouldn’t expect to feel any differently and when we set off on each trip I know that I’m going to reach this point somewhere in each trip. This is that point for India!

There are amazing things to see, it’s an incredible country. But the streets are mental. They’re relentlessly busy and noisy and each step requires 360 degree vision to make sure you’re not going to get run over by a motorbike, tuk tuk, or cow. And that’s just for yourself - we’ve got three young kids to watch too. A few times we’ve wanted to sit somewhere quiet, or to try and have a picnic rather than eating in a restaurant, and there is literally nowhere to go.

And as usual we are travelling on a budget and so I often find the hotels we’re staying in aren’t clean enough to feel super relaxed in. I don’t mind how basic it is but I get all squeamish when it’s not clean. Which probably sounds ridiculous I know!

When we set off we’d fleetingly wondered about trying to get down to Kerala in the south of India where apparently life is quieter and slower. I’d say within a few days of getting here we’d decided for sure we’d move a bit quicker than we might otherwise have done to make sure that we could do that!

I so clearly remember getting to an island on a river in Laos and finally feeling at peace. And also reaching Bagan in Myanmar and being able to breathe.

Sometimes I fleetingly wonder what we’re doing in places like this, when both G and I would say our happy place is out in nature with no one around. India was clearly never going to get close to that - but I wouldn’t change it for the world. From previous trips I have learnt to accept that this is how I’m going to feel, to take a day of feeling bleurgh before taking a deep breath and carrying on. This is my deep breath!

H: In a fit of quite-out-of-character advanced planning, we had booked tickets on an overnight train to Varanasi for a few days time. Deciding each day where we want to go next is fun and free, but we are keen to get down in the south of India so thought we ought to make plans so that we had time to do that. Plus if the next few days were taken care of then G and I could actually just sit together one evening for the first time this trip, instead of spending it working out what and where was next.

What we didn’t realise was that the tickets we’d booked, although ‘confirmed’, were actually just confirming that we were on a waitlist. With 48 hours to go and finding we were only ‘40% likely’ to actually get a full ticket, the peaceful quiet evening we had had planned was then spent searching for tickets through any town in the state so that we could still get there.

So I’m writing this 4 hours into a very hot 6 hour train ride to a random town called Lucknow. We started off reasonably comfortably but before long the usual happened and we were 4 or 5 to a bench with people standing in any gap possible.

I normally don’t mind this but today claustrophobia started to kick in and so I really was just breathing through it and hanging out for the next breath of fresh-ish air to hit me, whenever that may be.

The kids aren’t phased - they’re over the aisle from me and are happily doing a puzzle book while locals look on, or staring in fascination at the hawkers squeezing down the aisle selling all sorts of food and drink. And zips.

G is sat with Jamie asleep on his lap so between them they’ll be a big sweaty mess. I got a seat across from them, surrounded by women in beautiful saris while feeling really very plain. And also, really very hot. And did I say a tiny bit claustrophobic?

H: We caught the train to Agra today. Apart from a few trains in the UK and one in Myanmar the kids have really not been on many, so they were pretty excited. Especially as the trains here have open windows and people walking through selling food and chai.

In Agra we saw the Taj Mahal. It’s a beautiful place - the white marble with its intricate carvings against a blue sky make it a stunning sight.

It was built as a mausoleum by an emperor in the 1630s. It took 22,000 workers 20 years to complete the complex. Each of the mausoleum’s four faces are identical and it is flanked by an impressive gate to its south and a huge mosque to the west. An identical building to the mosque was built to the east so that it remained symmetrical. It must have been a huge show of wealth at the time and apparently not long after it was finished, the Emperor’s son overthrew him and put him in jail where he lived the rest of his days looking at the Taj through his prison window.

We caught a tuk tuk home from the Taj and Jamie’s day was made when he got to sit on the driver’s knee and help drive. AND beep his horn at a cow in the road!

H: Today we hired bikes - very rickety bikes! G and Leo’s pedals were at such a slope they could only turn them 4 times before their feet slid off. My bike only had half a brake. Jamie’s was a bit too big for him so he was pretty uncomfortable - we tried shoving a spare pair of shorts down his own shorts for padding but it didn’t seem to help that much. Ben was sweet!

But despite all that we had a great 3 hours exploring Keoladeo National Park. Totally under our own steam, on pretty empty trails and only being stopped once by two men for a ‘selfie’.

It’s a bad season to see many of the birds that visit over winter but we did glimpse some hyenas crossing the trail in the distance and there was lots of other wildlife around. But all this paled in comparison once we got to see young monkeys jumping from a bush into a big puddle. And the icing on the cake was seeing some of the braver ones doing it from the top of a tall tree. Brilliant!

H: Today we hopped into another gypsy (an open top jeep) to try and find a tiger. Unfortunately our tiger-spotting luck was out, although we did see fresh (apparently) tiger footprints - if you squinted hard and had a good imagination.

Today was also our last day with Vijay so from here we are on buses and trains!

H: Today’s fort was a cool fort!  The palace has been restored but the fort itself lies in ruins. It felt a bit like walking onto a movie set, or like Siem Reap in Cambodia. The kids loved it. There were bats and monkeys and we very briefly saw a blue cow (a Nilgai, the larger antelope of Asia). 

One of the best things about today was that the fort was at the top of a big hill. This meant we got to actually do some exercise AND we didn’t have to dodge motorbikes. Or cows.

But the absolute total highlight of the day, maybe even the week, was finding a stall with a fridge at the side of the road, with a cold juice in it.

H: New Zealand has a population of 5 million. India has a population of 1.4 billion which is 280 times NZ’s population.

New Zealand has a land area of 268,000 km². India has a land area of 3,288,000 km² which is only 12 times NZ’s land area.

To make this easier to understand - for every square kilometre in NZ there are roughly 20 people. In India that number is 425! For reference, the UK is roughly in the middle at 280.

But today we found 3 streets in Bundi where these numbers were not so apparent. They were lovely!

H: As usual this is an incredible adventure, but it is not a holiday!

Rajasthan is awesome - full of life and sounds and colour. The people are friendly, the local dress is stunning and there’s some amazing architecture which isn’t something I often notice so I’m either getting old or it really is impressive. I’m so pleased we have made it here.

But it is full on, and travel like this always has its challenges.

Unwilling to let three small boys change how we travel, we generally move around like we did in our twenties. We come away with almost nothing booked and not much more even planned which keeps us free but means each day is filled with working out what to do or where to go next. However we do this with two big differences.

Firstly we have hired a car and driver (Vijay) for a week which we would never have even considered when it was just the two of us. Local transport is one of the best ways to get really immersed in local life but the distances here are huge and we’d be spending days on buses. Hopefully there’ll be time to do this when we’re doing shorter distances and we’re hoping to get the overnight train to Varanasi from Agra sometime next week.

We are countering the lost bus experiences by making sure we stop at local rather than tourist restaurants, especially when we’re on the road between two places. Vijay initially seemed hesitant to do this incase we will get sick but seems to have come to the conclusion that we’re crazy and so goes along with it. And probably sits in even more confusion when he sees Jamie and I, and Leo to some extent, barely eat a thing as it’s far too spicy.

The second difference is that we are heading to hotels that are not as budget as we may previously have stayed in. Which means when we get to a new place we no longer need to leave one of us somewhere with all the bags whilst the other trapses round the town trying to find somewhere cheap. I honestly can’t tell you if this change is because of the kids, or because I can’t cope with the grimy rooms as well as I used to. It’s the usual juggle of balancing price with not comfort but hygiene!

Having said that - let me tell you about tonight’s hotel which is at my limit of being able to cope with. It is cheap - which is great. The bed, as with all the hotels so far are solid. We’re basically sleeping on a thin mattress on a piece of wood but for me that is perfect. There is a fan AND a/c, although finding the switches for these has been a challenge.

About 10% of the water from the tap actually makes it into the sink, the rest sprays around the room. The shower is a dribble which makes it very hard to wash my hair, but somehow it manages to soak whatever dry area there was left in the bathroom.

It is right next to the train line and the road which might not be great for sleeping but it’s a cool noise to be next to.

On the face of it it is a posh hotel as it has a keycard for the rooms rather than the usual padlock. However they don’t work, so instead they either run after you to let you in, or even better they just let you loose with the master key.

And it is filthy. So bad that we actually asked for new sheets before we touched the beds. The bathrooms are pretty grim - I’m not sure when it was last wiped down but I’m pleased we’re just here for a night. The table for breakfast still had last night’s dishes on and you could leave footprints in the dust and dirt on the floor.

We’ve told the kids if we keep going under budget for our accommodation, then we’ll be able to afford a nice hotel later in the trip, maybe even with a pool!

H: Another day another fort - there was a lot of fighting in India centuries ago!

H: Ah bliss! I absolutely love seeing local life. I love the hustle and bustle, the noises and smells. I love the shouts and horn beeps and chaos.

However I also love peace and calm and quiet (as much as it can be with 3 young boys around), and that is very hard to find!

An overnight away from it all was lovely. We slept in a mud hut with a thatched roof surrounded by sand. I heard bird song and the wind. I think it’s the first time I’ve felt actually at peace in the week we’ve been here!

The journey to this bliss started with a very fun open top jeep ride into the Thar desert. This isn’t a desert like you’d picture, or like we saw in Oman - our guide called it a ‘living desert’ as some trees and shrubs do grow here and in the monsoon season farmers are able to grow crops. The jeep in the dunes was a lot of fun - the kids loved it.

Next a camel ride. I had forgotten how tall they were, but I had remembered how tightly you had to hold on while it got itself up from the ground! At the grand old age of nearly 10, rather than just 1, Leo is super proud of himself for managing to stay awake for the ride this time! I don’t think Ben remembered it from Oman either so it was a new experience for all 3 of them - it’s these bits of excitement that we really remember from these trips.

H: I had literally never heard of the Jain religion until about a month ago. Around 80% of the population here is Hindu and there are Hindu temples all over. I have seen a couple of churches and a few mosques but until today I had not seen a Jain temple.

It was a beautiful place - much more similar to the Buddhist temples you’d see in South-East Asia, with beautiful intricate carvings.

Jain people believe all living creatures are made equal. Care is taken in all that they do to ensure this belief is followed. Offerings are made so as not to attract bugs, root vegetables should not be eaten as it disturbs the soil, and Jain people do not use transport.

One symbol we have seen quite a lot this last week is the swastika. Again with the ignorance, I had thought this was just used as a symbol for Nazi Germany. In fact it is an ancient religious and cultural symbol of divinity and spirituality. It was also a symbol of auspiciousness and good luck for most of the Western world until the 1930s. I feel like we are spending a lot of time asking people we’ve met, reading the Lonely Planet or on Google trying to find answers to things we’ve seen!

H: The main thing I can tell you about Jodhpur is it has a lot of steps. I reckon we walked about 30 flights of steps tonight in an effort to find a restaurant (most of which are rooftop, with no menu on the ground floor) that we could afford. It’s more touristy here and so finding cheap (but also safe ish) food is harder. On the plus side we’re working off all the yummy Indian food and breads we are eating.

The streets are narrow and windy - they remind me of the souks in Marrakech. The buildings are a few stories tall and are equally as narrow and winding and intricate inside. Incredible! Many of the buildings are painted blue and a quick Google suggests this could be because the colour is associated with the Brahmins (Indian’s priestly caste), because it may reflect the sun’s rays and therefore keep the house cooler, or because copper sulphate is effective in repelling insects like termites and locusts. Take your pick!

India has many stepwells - something I had never heard of before. They are amazing stone carved wells, hundreds of years old that were used for water for the village. They’re super steep and the number of levels visible depends on how deep the well was at the time.

Toorji Ka Jhalra Bavdi has 11 levels, of which we could see 9. While we were there there were a film crew setting up there. By the time we went back the next day it had packed up but it sounds like a scene had been filmed there for a Hollywood movie, but that the name was secret!

I get a bit claustrophobic and so these narrow streets and noise can leave me wishing for some calm open space. Mehrangarh, the huge hilltop fort and Jaswat Thada, ‘Jodhpur’s Taj Mahal’, gave us some beautiful peace time.

The kids are still getting a lot of attention which they are dealing with very well. They are getting their cheeks pinched a lot! Poor Ben got his arm grabbed walking home one night by what turned out to be a lovely man who just wanted to say hi but it definitely unsettled him.

H: We are the worst parents in the world. We made the kids climb up a hill. No matter that we do this often at home - apparently the thought of having to climb 20 minutes up a hill was too much to cope with. Until we got 2 minutes up that hill and actually they realised that being away from the noise and the hustle was actually very relaxing.

We made sure they didn’t stay happy for long by pointing across the town to an even bigger hill that we were going to climb the next day. Yep - we were the worst parents in the world again.

Pushkar is a much smaller town than Jaipur and it was nice to be somewhere calmer. Although calm is relative - the streets are super narrow and the motorbikes whizz by at speed, beeping as they go. Add to this the cows that roam these narrow streets and it is mayhem!

We escaped the noise to go down onto the ghats. Ghats are a series of stairs that lead down to a river or a lake. Hindus believe that water represents God spiritually and so they bathe in the holy water at these ghats. I know so little about the Hindu faith and we have never travelled in countries where Hinduism is the main religion so it is nice to experience it a little bit. We hope to get to Varanasi, to see the famous ghats on the River Ganges there.

Pushkar is considered a particularly important, if not one of the ultimate Hindu pilgrimages to obtain salvation. It is home to the only temple in the world dedicated to Lord Brahma. Mahatma Ghandi’s ashes were immersed at one of Pushkar’s 52 ghats.

As for that second mountain - the kids all but ran up it. In great spirits, totally loving all the monkeys that you walk within touching distance of, and happy as in the cable car back down.

H: An amazing sleep later and we’re all feeling much better.

We went out to the Amber Fort and passed elephants and camels on the road on the way. So cool to see the kids’ excitement as they saw these animals for the first time.

We thought there’d be a lot of western tourists here - much more so than in Myanmar so we assured the boys that they wouldn’t be touched or asked for photos as much. We were wrong. It wasn’t quite at the same level as Myanmar but we have all stood for a lot of photos today!

We also went out to Galta - otherwise known as the Monkey Temple. It is a Hindu pilgrimage site nestled into the mountains. It feels abandoned and it is full of rubbish. And cows.

And monkeys! They are everywhere - running and playing and fighting throughout the complex. I’ve always found monkeys fascinating to watch and these were no different.

One had jumped onto someone’s parked motorbike and was starting to try and eat the seat. It then found its way up to the handlebars and to the wing mirror where it spent a while looking at itself in it. It then began reaching out over and over again - we think it was trying to reach the monkey that it was seeing in the mirror. Hilarious!

H: After the hassle and travel in the last 36 hours we were all very grateful to reach Jaipur. A shower and a nap later and we dragged three still very shattered children around the streets and bazaars before realising that we actually just needed more sleep and could try again tomorrow.

The roads are just as crazy here as other places. The unwritten road rule seems to be that if you can nudge just in front of someone else then you have right of way. And it’s absolutely fine to use the wrong side of the road if the right side of the road isn’t moving.

Four of us absolutely love the auto rickshaws (tuk tuks). Ben is less convinced just yet - he seems to have ended up on the edge and therefore gets up a bit close to the other traffic that come within inches of us!

I’m sure it won’t feel this way in a few weeks but it’s still strange to see cows wandering the streets here. They are sacred animals in the Hindu faith and are left to roam freely and eat the rubbish along the side of the road. Of which there is a lot.

H: We knew there were lots of scams in India. We’ve been so many places like this before that we really should have known.

If you’ve read any blogs from our previous trips you’d know that G and I have a score to settle with airport buses. It’s a wee while now since we managed a successful one and having been quoted $20 for a transfer to the hotel we’d booked, we decided we’d DIY it instead. The plan was to get the metro to the end of the line and walk the last 500m to the hotel. Easy right?

We’d landed much later than we’d expected to so it was gone 10pm by the time we had collected our bags and I’d found some clean clothes to change in to. The lady at the airport told us the metro shut in 10 minutes so with a backpack on our front and backs each we got a wriggle on and raced to the metro station. To find that the trains still ran for a couple of hours.

$6 later and we were at the end of the metro line, 500m from the hotel we had booked. However by now it’s nearly midnight and we’re in a busy city with a young family. So feeling proud we’d got this far and saved ourselves valuable travelling dollars, we thought we should maybe get a tuk tuk the last half kilometre.

On our way to finding a tuk tuk we met a very nice man who told us that there was a celebration/protest/riot in the area, that roads were shut and so we’d need to go and get a permission pass from an information centre on the way. It should have rung alarm bells - I mean it kind of did but this permission pass was free so we went with it. It was late, dark, we were tired and Jamie wasn’t feeling great. We also hadn’t had time to get a SIM card before racing to the metro (which it turned out we didn’t need to do) and so we had no data to be able to look up this pass online.

At the information centre another kind helpful man rings our hotel and passes on the bad news that the streets around our hotel are definitely shut due to the riot/protest/Ramadan and there’s no way of getting there tonight. Two other tourist couples are being told the same thing.

It was 1 am and our options now were very limited. We were wise enough to avoid the information centre’s back up hotel recommendations but with no internet we’d be left finding a tuk tuk and asking them to drive around one of the biggest cities in the world trying to find a hotel we could afford.

We had been unsure if we’d wanted to stay long in Delhi anyway so we decided to hire a car and driver and travel overnight to Jaipur. It was probably a stupid thing to do in hindsight as Indian roads are as mental as in other places and it turned out the driver had spent the day driving someone else to Delhi from Arga so probably wasn’t feeling super fresh but luckily the constant horn beeping kept our driver awake as much as it did me.

With some time in the car to get data working on his phone, G could find no news reports about any celebrations or protests or riots in Delhi. A further google shows that ‘the riot trick’ was the no 1 scam in Delhi - aimed at tired backpackers getting off the metro with no internet connection. I’m embarrassed that we fell for it hook line and sinker!

The kids had sat brilliantly through all of this - I am always so impressed with how they cope through the situations we end up in. Jaipur here we come!

H: I’ll start this first blog post in four years by telling you that I’m writing it while wearing some fetching Qantas PJs. I’ll get to the why later.

We are on our way to Delhi to spend 4 weeks in India. We only decided to come here a few weeks ago so it feels like it’s come around really quickly. The April school holidays work out to be longer than normal this year and we’ve had 4 years to save for it so we decided it was time to dust the backpacks off!

We’ve been super lucky with where we’ve been able to travel with the kids previously and it was definitely a wake up call when Covid hit. It was a reminder that we shouldn’t take being able to travel for granted and to take the opportunities when we can.

However I’m not sure if it’s because we lost Ness overseas, or because Steph is so unwell with Long Covid, or just that it’s been so long but I was much more unsure about travelling this time than I have ever been before.

Time will tell if we made the right choice - I hope this trip is as amazing as previous trips have been. It’s certainly very special to be about to experience somewhere so different together again.

The four year break we had in travelling has been a long gap for the boys. Jamie is older now than even Ben was when we took them to Myanmar so it will be a very different trip. We’re really looking forward to seeing what they find exciting or interesting this time that they maybe didn’t last time.

One good thing about the boys being older is that when we were told our connecting flight to Delhi was delayed by 4 hours, there wasn’t even a second of cold sweat or need to work out where we were going to find the energy from to entertain them for that extra time.

There was actually a big bonus to the delay - a $15 meal voucher. Each! For a family who choose not to eat out very often (so we can afford to travel like this), it was pretty exciting for all of us. The kids were over the moon that they got to choose their own food AND not to have to share.

Ben and Leo were completely happy to binge watch TV - they watched more TV on these two flights than they’ve watched in the last 3 months at home.

Jamie started well but by the time we finally boarded our connecting flight in Melbourne he wasn’t feeling too good. We figured he was exhausted given we were up at 4 this morning and apart from the croissant he got with his meal voucher, he’d really not eaten anything in the 12 hours we’d been up.

He slept on me for the first 6 hours of the Delhi flight, woke up to vomit all over me and then slept 6 more. Hence why I am writing this in the Qantas PJs they gave me. 11 years of flights with kids and this is a first!

Maybe, just maybe, that’s our trip’s drama over and done with already. Either that or it’s a sign of things to come.