The Mystery of the US Marine Dogtag

Posted on May 21, 2012 by Ciara

Hi! I have an interesting little story that you may enjoy…

While we were in Hue a few days ago, Dylan and I were on our way to see the Imperial Enclosure. We passed by a couple of men who were selling antiques on the side of the road. They had old soldiers’ caps, and antique radios and all sorts of war memorabilia. Dylan stopped to take a look at a pair of old army pilot headphones and I had a look at a collection of dogtags from soldiers of both sides of the Vietnam War. Now, I was a bit sceptical that the dogtags were genuine because I thought It was quite unlikely that these men had them, and had so many of them, and were able to sell them for the equivalent of just a few Euro at the side of the road. Surely there was some sort of American organisation or the like that would have bought all these lost dogtags from the War. On the other hand, they did seem to be genuine. They certainly looked battered and as if they had been through a war over 40 years ago. As we had a glance through the collection, there was one in particular that was quite beat-up. It was engraved with the name E. W. Hetcher, and a few other details such as USMC which we assumed meant the US Marine Corps, and it said this soldier was Catholic. I was hoping that these were real dogtags but I figured that even if they were fake, at least they looked cool!

After a bit of haggling, I bought this dogtag as a birthday present for my Dad ( I know it seems like I’ve let the cat out of the bag here with regards to my Dad’s present, but you’ll understand as you read on…)

We had a great day wandering around Hue’s Imperial Citadel, which is a UNESCO World heritage site. The old town is surrounded by a moat and it is very picturesque. That evening, as we were back in our room, I started to google information on missing dogtags from the Vietnam War, just to see if I could authenticate the ‘Hetcher’ dogtag. After a few minutes, I got kinda excited. As it turns out, there are thousands of genuine dogtags belonging to US Marines which are still hanging around Vietnam, regulary sold in markets, or on the street or in little shops. The locals continue to find them in the forests and jungles using metal detectors. I read about an American anthropologist who once purchased 1,400 real US dogtags from a Vietnamese man who was selling them in Hue and was trying to reunite them with their original owners. I also found out how to make sense of the engravings on my dogtag. I was able to tell that E. W. Hetcher was indeed in the US Marine Corps, that he had a gas mask size ‘small’ and that his blood type was ‘O’. I then googled ‘E. W. Hetcher Marine’. Google wasn’t helpful as it kept trying to suggest I was looking for the more common name of ‘Fletcher’ but after a few negotiations with Google, it finally allowed me to search for Hetcher. That lead me to a Memorial webpage dedicated to a man from New York who was named Edward Wayne Hetcher. The webpage was set up by this man’s wife and son in 2008 when the man died. The webpage included a long biography about this man’s life, lovingly written by his wife. He became a marine at the age of 19 and served in Vietnam before returning home and starting a family in Yonkers in New York. He was awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart for heroic actions during the war. The biography said that the couple were married in St. Joseph’s Church in Yonkers, NY – my fantastic detective skills lead me to the discovery that this man was a probably a Catholic. How many E. W. Hetchers, who were Catholic, could have served as Marines in the Vietnam War? Not many, we thought. So we came to the conclusion that I probably have this man’s lost dogtag in my handbag.

I am in the process of trying to get in touch with the man’s family so I can reunite them with the dogtag. On the downside, it looks like my Dad won’t be getting a present of this antique but I’m sure he won’t mind given that it was because of him that I bought it and it’s hopefully now going to make a bereaved family of a war veteran very happy….

I’ll keep you updated on the developments. Also, Dylan has just put up more photos of Hoi An and Quy Nhon,

Ciara xxx

Sapa to Hue

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Ciara

Hello everyone!

Very sorry I haven’t posted a blog in a while. Vietnam agrees with me. It’s been my favourite country so far. Well, Vietnam or India, I can’t decide between the two…. We had a very productive few days in Hanoi when we first arrived there – lots of museums, including the Women’s Museum which was very interesting. A lot of Vietnamese women were quite physically involved in the Vietnam War becoming spies and the like. On another day, we visited a temple which lies on the Hoan Kiem lake (a pretty lake right in the centre of the city). The lake has a small population of turtles and apparently it is really rare to spot one but I was one of the lucky ones! A lovely little turtle was looking up at me from the surface of the water. I was delighted with myself!

We took a short train ride to Sapa, which is about one hour away from the border with China. It was fantastic to have a few days in cold weather, after the heat of the last few months. The mountains surrounding Sapa were colossal and dramatic and just generally breathtaking! I really enjoyed when we drove on the motorbike for about 30kms in any given direction because we passed through villages and countryside that seemed void of tourists. We always smiled and waved at the local people as we passed by and after the initial look of scepticism on their faces, they always broke into huge smiles and waved back. After a day exploring, it was really nice to arrive back in Sapa town to have dinner. It is a charming town with loads of feisty saleswomen from the Hmong tribe all about the place, selling handmade bags and bracelets. I chatted with a few of them and they were the most giddy people ever, even when we said we weren’t going to buy anything. One woman told Dylan that she was his ‘other mother’, I’m not really sure where she was going with that but she was extremely happy with herself regardless. I got the impression from Dylan that he wasn’t really into the idea though….

As Dylan said, we had a bit of an adventure with the Russian motorbike. Nevertheless, as we made our was slowly back to our hotel that night, we agreed with each other that despite the problems with the bike, it had been an amazing day. We saw some things, and some people, which we would never have seen otherwise. When we stopped at a family’s hut, (literally in the middle of nowhere), they really did their best to look after us as did all the many people we met along the way that afternoon. Later on, we wandered into a little house looking for something to eat or drink and we were surrounded by about 30 tribal women. Even though I dont think they come into contact with tourists too often, they were delighted to see us and look after us, it was really nice. After we eventually reached our hotel, we rewarded ourselves with a few drinks and feast of authentic Vietnamese food with our new friends, a Vietnamese man and a Chinese man whom we met on the train to Sapa.

After 5 wonderful days in Sapa, we made our way back by train to (hot, humid) Hanoi and then onwards to Hue, where we are now. The city is small and has a nice vibe. We are going on the ‘DeMilitarized Zone’ tour tomorrow, it’s a full day trip around a lot of the sites of conflict of the Vietnam War. We are being picked up at 6am though so I better get an early night.
Miss you all by the way, and I hope all is well,

Love Ciara xx

Igor & Suki

Posted on May 6, 2012 by Dylan

Hello readers.

Right so we left Hanoi 3 days ago to come here to Sapa which is a smallish town up the mountains near the Chinese border. Before we left Hanoi we went to a few museums and got to see some really interesting things.

Burning notes? We saw this in a temple in the middle of Haon Kiem lake in the centre of Hanoi – I have a feeling it’s fake money though!

We also went to an old prison which was really creepy to see. They even had an old guillotine there.. John McCain (US presidential candidate against Obama) was also held there in the 70′s

Right so we got an over night train up to sapa and arrived in at 5am, got collected from Lao Cai which is about 40 mins to sapa. Unfortunately our room was not ready so we had to wait until about 12pm which wasn’t great, but our hotel (Cat Cat Hotel) really is lovely.

Awesome view from room.

So Sapa is really a trekkers paradise. It’s full of tourists with their walking shoes on and lots of tribal women trying to sell you some stuff they have made. The Fanispan mountain is here and its the tallest mountain in the Indochina region at 10000 ft. The “Hmoung” tribe are all over the village and they can get quite pushy when trying to get you to buy their things but it’s all good.

So day two in Sapa and I decided to get a motorbike for three days to go exploring and to find some remote villages etc.. Everyone here seems to drive a Honda 50 type bike but I tried to find a more hardcore bike that could do some off roading because I knew we were going to find some roads that were not really roads. So after a bit of searching I found a guy that rented Minsk bikes. Now I knew of these bikes and they are soviet made and generally known to be very very reliable because some parts are made of cast iron etc.. what a mistake this proved to be.

So I get “Igor” filled up and we get ready to go exploring on the indestructible motorbike.

Here is me all happy with Igor:

So we do around 40km, see lots of things from waterfalls to really small villages with kids everywhere.

Then the clutch starts slipping and we are in the middle of nowhere an at the bottom of a huge valley.

After about ten mins of tinkering with my leatherman on the clutch I ended up having to push the stupid thing up the mountain. Being made of super heavy Russian cast iron this was not an easy task.

Eventually nurse the bike down to some village and come to this small house and ask the family who had no English and probably had never seen a mad tourist like me before with oil over my hands, I ask with sign language if they had any tools.

Myself and the dad tweak with the clutch a little more and get it to hold 1st and 2nd gear for a bit.

So a bit more nursing along and a lot of cursing we are about 30km away from Sapa and the feckin front break cable snaps. So now we are at the top of a mountain in the middle of space and have a stupid heavy bike that won’t move or stop very well. Luckily the rear break was pretty good so it wasn’t all too dangerous. A few km later with countless stops at houses and makeshift mechanics houses we get to some village and one mechanic fixes it the best he could so we could get back. A lot of mechanics looked at the bike and had no idea how to fix it as they were only used to the more reliable japanese bikes such as Honda and Yamaha.

We get back to sapa after a very long day and I bring the bike back to the guy with a very hot gearbox and a broken front break. He didn’t care in the slightest, he knew the clutch was gone because he says “oh yeah I should replace that” Muppet. I asked him for any Japanese bike for the next day and it was no problem.

What a day..

So today he gave us a brand new Honda with only 100kms on her.

We named her Suki. What a brilliant machine. Moved forward well and stopped just as well. we did about 100km today and saw lots. More foggy today which was a nice change from the really hot weather we have had for the last two months.

I even got to watch some tv with a beer which was nice:

anyways I hope all is well with you guys.

Talk soon

Borders, buses and buffalos

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Dylan

Hi.

Luang Prabang in Laos was great, very quaint little town. One night there was monsoon rain and the most insane lightening storm ever, for a few minutes the sky was just constantly being lit up.. Great stuff

So we organised a bus to bring us from Luang Prabang to Hanoi in Vietnam. It was 29 hours long. Yes 29 hours long.

No toilet which was a pity.. It was quite an adventure because just after the border crossing (all ok) the Vietnamese police pulled us over and seemed to have an issue with our driver and took his licence off him and the bus had to be driven by the other driver.. Bit mad really. Also on the bus of 50 people there was 7 tourists and the rest were loation people. It was fine but it was tiring.

Arrive into Vietnam at 12am and get to our hostel which we prebooked.

Hanoi is such a bustling city with people everywhere and things of all sorts to see around every corner.

Yesterday we went to the army museum by rickshaw:

It was a huge place with everything from tanks to planes

After that we went to the oldest university in Vietnam.

Going up north to sapa tomorrow (3rd May)

I’m actually really tired now so I’m not going to write anymore I’m afraid. Talk to yas soon..

Ps I thought I had a photo of a buffalo but I didn’t

Lazing in Laos

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Ciara

Hello

Hope everyone is well. We’re nearly one quarter into the trip, isn’t that crazy! We’re both getting to the stage that we usually don’t know what day of the week it is….True Holiday spirit.

A few days ago we arrived into Vientiane which is the capital of Laos. Our guide book told us that, for a capital city, Vientiane is more sleepy than the sleepiest city in Thailand. That it is. We had 3 nights in Vientiane, and even though we both really enjoyed the tranquil atmosphere, there wasn’t that much to do. I did really like just wandering around most days. Laos was occupied by the French around 1946 and the influence is quite noticeable. For the first time on the trip, there is an abundance of baguettes and croissants at the food stalls. There are mostly French tourists here and the road signs are in French too. As Dylan said, we splashed out and had a fancy dinner in a French restaurant one night, absolutely amazing food. And it cost us €11 in total. The other evenings, however, we ate at restaurants at the side of the street for €5 (including drinks), and the food there was scrumptious too. We’re both getting pretty good at budgeting. The money we’re saving is going towards things like the visas we needed for Laos and Vietnam, as well as the sleeper buses to move from one city to another. We spent about €40 for the two of us for an overnight bus to Luang Prabang, the little city that we’re in now. The bus journey took about 12 hours and was really comfortable, each seat reclined all the way back and we got a free noodle soup at a stop along the way. The only downside was that the 2 TVs on the bus played the most awful Laotian pop music videos you could ever imagine. Incredibly melodramatic and cheesy, and each one was set in the same house (with the same actors – as if we wouldn’t notice). The usual storyline centred on sad looking woman holding a baby while her husband-person was at either an office or a very boring looking party. It was incredibly hilarious, except that they played these same videos for the first 2 hours of the bus trip. ANYWAY…

Luang Prabang is extremely pretty. Prettiest place on the trip so far I think. There are white villas with blue shutters everywhere and loads of wooden guesthouses with balconies – we could have booked a very basic room for about €5, but we’re spending €12 for a room for the two of us in a gorgeous wooden guesthouse, with air conditioning etc, it’s really worth it for a few days. The lady who owns the place has absolutely no English whatsoever, but she enjoys to chat away to us in her own language anyway. We were chatting to an Irish couple who spent €40 per night on a guesthouse right across the street and it looks exactly the same as ours so I think we got a good deal! We visited the Royal Palace Museum today, where the former Royal Family once lived (the monarchy became no more in 1975). The Palace wasnt as lavish as one would expect but we also got to see the former king’s fleet of cars, most of which were big Fords that were given as gifts from the US. We’ve been to the main night market for dinner over the past few nights. Tonight’s dinner was extra special due to a city-wide power cut. We ate at the market tables in candle-light, it was lovely. The city is quite small and there really isn’t a lot of tourists here, which is nice. We’ve been meeting the same people all the time, it’s as if we’ve all become part of the community for a few days.

That’s all for now,

Lots of Love,

Ciara xxxxxx

My passport must be flagged or something..

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Dylan

Howdy.

Right so we went back to Bangkok for two days just to organise getting up to Chiang Mai and thus into Laos. The whole new year thing over here is ridiculous.. As Ciara said they splash you and then put clay on your face…well there is more to it than that.. Just imagine you happen to walk through a fire stations training day and u get the picture..stupid little 3 year old kids with water pistols bigger than them getting you right in the face.. Not cool.. Then this one girl right comes up to me and puts the so called “clay” in my eyes.. Turns out she mixed it with some sort of peppermint cream or deep freeze, toothpaste… The stuff made me blind for a few mins…why would she do that?

Anyways it was a lot of fun when we got into it… Had my stuff well waterproofed so I wasn’t too worried..

Here is Ciara after about 2mins after getting out of the rickshaw:

And the main street..’twas bedlam

So after all that we organised a train to get us up to Chiang Mai. The last train we were on was in India so we were interested in how the trains were going to be like here.

(I put the flash behind the green curtain)

They were very clean and nice but they really didn’t run on time at all.. Well it was over 5 hours late getting into CM.. Luckly we didn’t have to catch a plane or anything so we were not bothered..

Get into CM and get a ricky (rick shaw) and make our way into the center to find our hostel…absolute war zone again..we had to really cover up our bags and hope for the best that they would not get wet from all the mad loonies out there… One kid had a hose that was like 3″ thick and would really get u wet in like 1 second.. Our driver was about 100 years old but he was a really good driver and he tried his best in keeping us dry.. They even put massive ice cubes in buckets and use that water with a bucket to through at you.. Now warm water is ok but ice water is a whole different story.. If I’m ever back in Thailand for new years its time for revenge..(I did really like it though)

We had 3 days in CM. Now there was not a lot to see CM so i didnt really take a lot of photos. Well actually there was that moat.. And that fountain.. And the night market.. Damnit I shoulda really used the camera more.. Well here is an image of a donkey from the Internet to keep you happy for now:

In the evenings we ate on the side of the road in the little stall resterauant things.. They are everywhere in SE Asia and we could get 2x pad thai and 2x beers for under €4, I really love them because the food is amazing as is the price.

On the second day in cm we rented a little scooter bike..driving gears with no clutch takes some getting used to but I got it after a while..

We drove around just to explore and we found a few temples up the mountains and it was a great day out from the city..

Next we had to organise a minibus to bring us from cm into Laos across the border..we shared a 12 seater with 10 other tourists. We were collected second and then went onto to next hotel and so on.. About the third stop we collected these two Japanese tourists.. They get on right and we take off and I look at the guy and say “Bangkok yeah?”… You should have seen his face… Then I told him we were going to Laos and it was all good..

12 hr overnight journey to get to the border and the driver really drove quite well so we all slept ok.

6am and we get to the border and fill out of forms etc and one by one we hand in our passports into the little office and they say we can collect our passports from window three in a while.. So Ciara gets hers second then everyone else gets theirs and then they shut the window…”jaysis what’s goin on” I’m thinking.. You see this isnt the first time this has happened to me..then about 10 mins later they open the window again and start giving out the passports to the people from the next bus that arrives.. Getting a little worried now.. About another 5 mins I see my passport and he shouts out Diiillan.. All good, no problems.. But I do think my name is flagged or something..

About 8am and we get into the embassy area of Vientane and we are looking around for the embassy of Vietnam because we have to get our visas.. It’s not the same as Laos where you get a visa on arrival.. Vietnam needs it organised prior to arrival. $55 each later and it’s all sorted..

We have only been here for two nights but it’s really nice.. We shopped around for a hostel/guesthouse and the best deal we found was 110000kip (€11) for a night for the two of us including ac and breakfast..good deal for this area.

Yesterday we walked around, saw the Mekon river, well what’s left of it:

It will be back though in about a months time when it’s monsoon season… Should come in 50 meters..

Went to a temple and well something interesting happened:

ITS NOT WHAT YOU THINK SO RELAX

I found this ring on the ground…for about 5 mins I thought we are going to be staying in the best hotels for the rest of our trip because I was going to sell this thing for thousands.. But the ring turned out to be a very good looking fake and probably is not worth much.. Ah well..

Last night we decided to get away from Thai/Lao food and we found this little French resteraraunt called l’alsace.. What a gem.. Laos was colonised by the French years ago and you can really see it while walking around.

The resteraraunt was run by this typical sweaty fat French man called Jacques. We had pâté to start and it was according to Ciara “the most amazing pâté ever” it really was.. we ordered pork and chicken for main but he was trying to push us into getting the Sauerkraut and bratwurst – he must have made loads of it

It was such a treat to get all this amazing food while in the middle of SE Asia.. Bill came to €11 including drink..Thanks Jacques..

So that’s all i can write for now… I’m going to get Ciara to proof read to make sure my engerlish is readable..

Talk to yis later

Tsunami alerts and Water fights

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Ciara

Hi! Greetings from Chiang Mai!

We’ve had 2 wonderful weeks in Thailand so far. We saw plenty of golden, heavily decorated Buddas, and extremely pretty temples. We spent a day on the Khao San Road which is just full of young Westerners, drink, fake goods and very little authentic Thai culture but it we did have alot of fun for the day. As Dylan said in his last post, it took 14 hours on an overnight bus to get to the islands in the south. We all arrived bleary-eyed at the port after this long journey and caught a ferry to Ko Phi Phi. On the way, we passed spectacular little islands dotted around the tropical water until we reached Ko Phi Phi. The island has a main town which lies in between two beaches. It is a really chilled-out place. On our first night there, we had dinner at a restaurant on the sand, and no-one seemed to mind that the tide came in underneath our dinner tables! For 5 lovely days, we ate well and worked on our tans.

On our second last day in Ko Phi Phi, Dylan suggested we walk up to the island’s Viewpoint, which meant following the evacuation route up one of the mini-mountains. The island had been hit badly by the 2004 tsunami. Of its 10,000 inhabitants, 2,000 were killed and much of the infrastructure was destroyed. At the Viewpoint, Dylan and I were about to get a glimpse of how far the island had progressed since that day. They had rebuilt a lively and thriving town in the middle of this little piece of land. The very next day we caught a ferry back to the mainland at about 1pm. An hour or so later, we arrived at the port in Krabi. A bunch of us were booked on a bus to bring us to Bangkok. As we waited at the station, a few Italian guys seemed to be very interested in what was happening on the television. We soon found out what the fuss was about – the earthquake had struck Indonesia about half an hour beforehand (while we were on our ferry), and a tsunami alert had been issued for the Indian Ocean. Our beautiful little island was at that moment being evacuated to higher ground. It was such a strange feeling to know that our ferry was the last off the island before all this had happened. While we were having breakfast that morning, we had sat and watched all the newcomers arriving on Ko Phi Phi, many of whom didn’t necessarily have pre-booked accommodation. It must have been quite frightening to be wandering around the town after hopping off the ferry, with a backpack on, trying to negotiate the price of a guesthouse only to be suddenly caught up in a tsunami evacuation. While I was thinking about this, Dylan reminded us that we were still only about a mile from the port, on the edge of the Indian Ocean, and if our bus could hurry up and pick us up soon, that would be great. Which it did. Thankfully, the tsunami didn’t really materialise, but it was a worrying and thrilling few hours to say the least….

Anyway, we arrived back in Bangkok at the start of the Thai New Year. Friday was the first day of a four day water festival to celebrate the occasion and I can’t emphasise enough the chaos of that day! Upon stepping out the door of our hostel, we were splashed with water. Within a few minutes we were completely drenched. We hopped on a tuk tuk to get closer into the centre of town but there was only so far the driver could bring us because the centre of Bangkok has succumbed to a massive water-fight party. It was bedlam! Now, I’m sure a couple of decades ago, it was perhaps the norm for the Thai people was to use little bowls of water to splash over neighbours and friends. However, what we saw was men, women, children and the elderly fully-equipped with the latest, most forceful Super-Soaker guns. As well as that, everyone had a little bucket of wet clay and would rub a little bit (or in some over-enthusiastic cases, a lot of clay) over whoever passed them by. Very quickly we both realised that there was no point fighting it, so we simply joined in the celebrations. On Sunday night, we took a train up to a smaller city up north called Chiang Mai, where the water festival was also in full swing except they didn’t use any clay. We’re here for a few days; it has a lot more charm and is more peaceful than Bangkok but its still a pretty decent sized city. Our next port of call looks set to be somewhere in Laos. Hope alls well with everyone.
Love Ciara xxx

And we thought the Irish are big chatters..

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Dylan

Hello all…

So we have left India and have arrived in Bangkok, Thailand.. First reaction: great place.. A lot easier to take than India.. I think India really toughened us up and this place seems to have a lot more tourists. If someone asks you in India to come into their shop or something they ask like 10 times even when you say no.. But here when you say no that’s it and they leave you alone…

When we arrived here we had to get a metro from the airport to downtown… That was quite a weird experience because we were used to travelling by mad trains and buses in India and next thing we were underground in some metro and it was like being in London..

Arrive in our hostel and it’s more like a hotel than a hostel.. AC and everything… Jaysis they even gave us water in our room.. Nice

Thailand seems a lot more expensive than India but still nowhere near our prices in Ireland..

640ml bottle of tiger beer: 100 baht (€2.45)

It looks like in the next few months we are going to see a lot of temples.. They are everywhere..Kiva comes to mind…

On our first day here we got a rick shaw (tuk tuk) to the city centre.. The rick shaws here are way faster than India.. 650cc compared to 150cc…

So we get to this temple right and this guy whom looks like a budda himself gets us to sit down and talks to us for at least 20mins… He is explaining to us where to go.. What to see.. What to eat.. What to buy etc.. It was great really but after a while we kinda wanted to go.. Our secret word is “thirsty?” and this means that either one of us wants to get out or leave wherever we are…

But then while just walking around Bangkok people just come up to you and try to get into a dmc with you (deep meaningful conversation) right in the middle of the street they try and organise your whole trip and get you to go where they want.. It’s not a scam or anything it’s just that they really like talking with foreigners.

The other night we went to chinatown and it was brilliant..millions of stalls everywhere selling everything from fish heads to pencils.

Yesterday we went to another few temples.. But the one that was really amazing was the “reclining budda” 150ft (46m) long entirely covered in gold!!
Ciara was really taken back with its sheer beauty..

Today we went to this shopping mall called “mbk” just imagine dundrum town centre on steroids..

On the way we saw some monks..

Actually last night we bought some Irish flag badges… Because everyone asks you every two mins where you are from I decided to sew the flag onto my bag..

Solves a lot of questioning.. Probably my best sewing job yet.

At the moment we are in the lobby of the hostel and waiting for someone to pick us up to bring us to our bus.. We have organised a bus to bring us overnight to the very south of Thailand to a small island off the coast called “phi phi” we will be staying there for five nights and then up to make our way into Laos..

I think Ciara will right a proper blg soon with good English etc..

Hope all is well with you guys..

Talk soon..

Dylan “the irish budda” Murphy

Ps there is more photos on the “all photos” page: http://zee.ie/index.php/all-photos/

We upload photos here more often than updating the blog so keep an eye on it..

Back to Delhi

Posted on April 1, 2012 by Ciara

It is hard to believe that we are already one month through our trip. In a little while, we will catch a 5 hour flight to Bangkok, leaving behind the wonderful place that is India. India has been challenging but in a good way – our time here has given us a great sense of a culture that is quite removed from ours. Saying that, one of the best things about India is that it is extremely welcoming to people like us even though we come from so far away and we can seem quite alien to many of the locals here. The people are incredibly nice; despite the sheer busyness of the cities and towns, most of the locals have a very easy-going and relaxed way about them. We very quickly got to grips with the way things work – such as making our way through a manic bazaar, bargaining with rickshaw drivers, figuring out the railway system etc. It is just a very exciting and unpredictable place. We’ve been to museums, temples, the Taj Mahal etc., which have all been great, but I think the most enjoyable part of India is simply the everyday culture. You could simply be walking down a street and, all at once, you could see decorated elephants, random fireworks and somebody skilfully carrying a massive lawnmower while they drive their moped.

We’ve had a busy week as we made our way from Delhi to Agra then Pushkar to Jaipur and back to Delhi. Dylan has filled you in on the ‘attack of the monkeys’ night in Pushkar – it was like something out of a film. We were sitting with lemonade watching the monkeys from afar when they suddenly appeared on our rooftop within seconds, surrounding us, it was mad. And they were huge!

After Pushkar, we drove to Jaipur aka the Pink City. The city centre is a very pretty place as the ancient observatory (Jantar Mantar) and two palaces are all beside one another. We got chatting to a rickshaw driver who brought us to the Water Palace – literally a Palace in the middle of a lake. From where we were standing on the shore, it looked like there had been an accidental flooding because the building looked as if it has just dropped into the water, but in fact the Palace had been built on a tiny island. From there, our rickshaw driver showed us the factories where all the lovely fabrics in the markets come from. And then he brought us to a garden where we met 4 gorgeous elephants who were having a day off from their festival duties! It was amazing. We gave an elephant named Minny a big hug and a pet, it was all very exciting!

We arrived back in Delhi by train on Friday night. As we had been here before, we had this great little feeling of confidence as we got off the train and made our way through the chaotic station. Dylan even approached some American tourists to help them out with directions, they seemed a little lost and bewildered.

Our next blog post will be from Thailand (I cannot wait to eat all the noodles),

Lots of love to you all,

Love Ciara xx

Monkey town

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Dylan

Hallo all..

Im writing this from Jaipur.

So I’ll tell yis about the last few days..

From Kerela we organised a 44hr train ride from Kochi all the way up north to Delhi. Our train was leaving at 23:30 so at least we could get a decent sleep.. We booked 1st class which wasn’t really that amazing but we had comfy beds and jaysis they gave us food every hour or two.. We were woken up with tea and biscuits then corn flakes then a whole monster breakfast.. Then a while later soup, then a whole lunch! Then a snack of more tea and biscuits then a huge dinner.. More snacks etc.. ’twas mental..

The 44hrs really were not too bad.. The scenery was all very barren and very similar all they way up and we just listened to music played games etc..

So we get to Delhi and man it’s a crazy place.. Everything happens very fast and it seems more busy than Mumbai.. We were swamped by taxi and rickshaw drivers when we got out of the train station all shouting different locations that they could bring us.. Then I found this one guy who was just keeping quite and we asked him how much to our hostel and he said 200ruppes.. So we went with him..

From the directions given from the hostel it seemed that our hostel was in a bazar and the taxi driver literally drove through all the people to get us to our hostel… I kinda felt bad because he nearly ran over some people but it seems like what they do here..

Here is the bazar:

So first day in Delhi we strolled around the bazar.. Went to the rail museum which was great.. Some really mean looking trains there:

In Delhi we organised a car to drive us to Agra (Agra fort and taj mahal), Pushkar (crazy monkey town beside some religious lake thing) and Jaipur (don’t know yet because we haven’t ventured out yet)

Our driver was called Sunjay and he drove very well.. We were told that we would be getting a car with ac but the little 2 cylinder tata didn’t have it which was a major pitty because the roads are super dusty and having your window open all the time wasn’t the greatest..

Here is a monkey at some check point:

And Ciara laughing at it..

We got to Agra after 4hrs and went straight to the Agra fort and looked around.. A tonne of Indian tourists there.. They had to pay 20 ruppes in and we had to pay 300 ruppes… Jaysis

Now the taj mahal was an experience…

30 ruppes for an Indian tourist and 750 for us suckers.. But it was well worth it…

When you get into the grounds there is a definite aura about the place.. Really well maintained and exactly what you think it would be like..

We looked around for a few hours and waited for sunset which was cool..

Everywhere we drove our driver knew a place or someone in which he tried to get us to go to a restaurant, shop camel ride etc..he was trying this so he could get commission.. Got kinda annoying after a while..

Stayed one night in Agra and in the morning started our 9hr journey to Pushkar.. We didn’t know much about Pushkar but we were told it was defo worth a visit..

In the car for 9hrs we got to see some really mad stuff.. The record for people on a motorbike is 5 up and Ciara has seen this twice and I haven’t seen it yet.. 5 people on one motorbike? Madness..

Some of the vehicles on the road are like something you would see in mad max.

Got to Pushkar to our €2.93 a night hostel which was really nice…
Walked around.. Seemed like a really chilled out place with loads of hippies again and markets.. Good feel to the place…then we nearly got scammed by some guys at the lake to donate loads of money to the temple.. Yeah right muppet…

Had dinner in some mad cafe and then went back to our hostel.. So we are just looking at the city go by when we see some monkeys on a roof opposite out hostel they are just hanging out then it seems like all was well.. Then there is like 7 big monkeys screaming and jumping from roof to roof.. They then jump down on a family’s balcony and they all scream and run inside.. So myself and Ciara are getting a little concerned now but it’s ok because these monkeys are not on our building… Then bang the whole bleedin army of monkeys jump onto our roof and the manager comes out with this big stick.. There is one monkey right beside our table but the manager said its nothing to worry about.. Sure…

So we get used to our monkeys screaming and causing havoc and our manger comes back and says if you see “red faced” monkey it maybe a little dangerous… Right that’s enough we thought and went straight to our room..jungle out there it was

Left Pushkar next morning early and drove to Jaipur.. Our driver constantly tried to get us to go to his hotel or get a massage etc… We politely declined and gave him a 500 iru tip and left him.. This hostel seems nice and we are here for four nights then train back up to Delhi to get our flight to Thailand which is on the 1st of April..

I hope all is well where ever you are and keep up the comments.. It nice to see what everybody thinks and what’s happening back at home.. I hear it’s 18-20 degrees.. That’s great..