New Delhi Old Delhi - Sensory Overload

Sleep wasn't really happening for me last night and with a 4am wake up tomorrow I should be asleep... But sadly not!

Breakfast at the hotel was a mix of western cornflakes and toast with (what I chose) Indian coconut noodles, paratha and banana.  We met as a group at 9am for our walking tour and made our way down to the Metro Station.   On the way we passed a school where I watched the joyous faces of children under umbrellas and raincoats dancing under open hoses.  

The Metro was certainly an experience I'm used to the tube in London impact that this was something else! Security is much tighter and to even enter the station you had to go through security scanners similar to in an airport.  There are separate carriages for women which I'm not sure how I felt about, but were certainly more pleasant than being crammed in with multiple men!  It's probably one of the only countries that I would feel tall living in!

We arrived in Old Delhi and it was very much sensory overload!  Walking through the streets you could smell at any one point in time urine, the heady sense of sweet incense, marigolds flowers, disinfectant, rotting rubbish and tasty street food being cooked.  You are surrounded by street vendors, men, women and children on their daily commute via TukTuk, motorcycle, rickshaw or car and the poverty stricken beggars offering to weigh you in exchange for money.  It was simultaneously overwhelming and amazing.

We walked through the crowded and chaotic streets of old Delhi stopping briefly for various explanations on buildings and to sample samosas and jelebee sweets from authentic vendors.

We walked up to the red temple or Jama Masjid - Delhis oldest mosque.  We had to put on even more clothes to enter the mosque despite being fully covered and it was interesting inside, but what intrigued me the most was the group of women and children trying to ask me to take the photograph in exchange for money.   however I've left my camera outside because it cost £3 to take photos inside.  

We then wound our way across Old Delhi to the Sikh temple - Sheeshganj Guruwara which was plush but not overly  ostentatious inside.  What was most intriguing about the temple is that it wasn't just dedicated to worship, there is a whole mass production kitchen attached where people were queueing up to eat ready for lunch.   Some of the group got to try their hand at making chapatis.   We had to remove our shoes to enter the temple and as we walked across the marble in bare feet we were aware of just how hot the day had become.  At the end of the tour we decided that we were all hungry so our leader Raj recommended a restaurant in New Delhi called United coffee house.

United coffee house was icy cool with air-conditioning and very plushly decorated. I stuck to my theory of eating vegetarian food and had a very interesting cauliflower dry curry with fresh coriander and rice.  We had a quick wander through the market to take on some of the atmosphere and then took our guides advice and jumped into TukTuk back to the hotel.  We went to the pre-booked police TukTuk station, but we're still beset by touts trying to earn our business.  It was a 20 minute ride back to the hotel and very much an experience that is hard to describe, although very similar to the traffic in Nepal!  Needless to say I don't think I would ever be able to drive in Delhi!

After a brief freshen up at the hotel we met as a group to discuss our next days activities and decided to go out for another bite to eat together. I decided to sample the strong elephant beer which was pretty strong at 8%!  I also had dhal with rice which was delicious and enjoyed getting to know the other members of the group much better.  After the meal we decide to stop at The Perfect Hotel for a rooftop beer and drink before bedtime.  

It's now midnight and I've packed my bags ready for a 5 AM departure from the hotel, but once again I am not sleepy thanks jetlag!

Day 4 - Bali Adventures Day Tripping!

Rachel's husband like many Balinese men seem to be has many different talents and different jobs including a bar job at Hibiscus (where Rachel met him when he was doing magic tricks - another talent!), raising/herding ducks, wood carving, export and driver/tour guide!  We booked Made to take us on a day of exploring.

Made picked us up from our hotel at 9am (well 20 past by the time we stopped messing around) and we headed off first of all to have a look at some silver smithing.  There wasn't a huge amount of demonstration to be seen, but we got to have a look at some of the raw materials and then we looked around a huge shop of some beautiful pieces.  For the equivalent of £8 I bought some lovely silver and amythyst stud earrings.  

Next stop was a beautiful waterfall - It was a few steep steps down to the waterfall and then a scramble over some rocks and then edging around a watery ledge to get right up in front.  The roar of the sound of the water was at the same time intense and crashing, but also extremely calming.  I clambed across to get a closer look whilst Anna looked at butterflies - there are so many gorgeous butterflies in Bali, just hard to get a decent shot as they have a habit of moving around!  I asked a nice couple by the waterfall to take my photo, but in actual fact my "selfie" was probably a bit better!

We clambered up the steps again - hot work! - and then it was onto our next stop - coffee and tea tasting.  A lovely chap took us through a garden of all sorts of interesting plants - I'd never seen cloves growing before and they look as you would expect, but also quite different, also he showed us chilies, cocoa, coffee, evil lemon, ginger, a strange looking different type of rhubarb and ginseng.  

We got to meet a Civet - the mongoose type creature that is used in Bali to create the famous Civet or Luwak Coffee.  Civet Coffee apparently is produced only in Bali and only 300kg per year is manufacturer so it's considered a real delicacy!  In fact whilst all the other coffee and tea we tasted were free - our Civet coffee was 50,000 rupiah (£2.50) for a cup.  Civet coffee is produced by getting the Civet to eat coffee beans, these are then fermented in the stomach and quite frankly excreted before being collected for roasting.  The shell of the bean is removed and the bean is roasted and ground as you would with a usual coffee bean.  We waited with anticipation to compare and contrast standard Bali Coffee with this delicacy of Civet coffee.  

We were fortunate enough to sample a whole host of different varieties of tea and coffee and so here are my opinions on each taste test!

Mangosteen Peel - fruity, but not overly sweet, apparently good for all sorts of ailments including preventing stress, cancer and anti aging - I decided to buy some of this to take home at the end!

Coconut Coffee - Like a syrupy latte that you might get from Starbucks, really sweet, but not too sweet.

Bali Coffee - slightly bitter, a bit like Turkish coffee, but without all the sugar added - grainy finish at the end of the coffee grounds.

Ginger Tea - sweet, much more fiery ginger taste than you usually would expect.

Ginseng Coffee - considered buying some of this - good for male virility and tasted almost similiar in sweetness to the Coconut Coffee.

Lemon Grass tea - loved this one as I love the flavour of lemon grass and it was sweet as we found out they had added sugar to everything!  

Cocoa Spices - similar to the "aztec tea" that they give you to try at Cadbury World - really fiery spice and dark chocolaty flavours.

Lemon Tea - Sweet and sour - nice lemony flavour - I would have bought this as well!

Vanilla Coffee - Again - very similar, but nicer, to a Starbucks latte with vanilla syrup.

Bali Cocoa - chocolatey and not overly sweet - not quite as spicey as the Cocoa spices, a really smooth flavour.

Red Ginger Tea - Similar to the ginger tea, but not quite as fiery.

Luwak / Civet Coffee - So this was nice, smoother and much less bitter than your usual Bali coffee, but the question of whether I would buy it specially or take any home, not for the price as the differentiator wasn't really there.  

We also got to try milk chocolate, vanilla chocolate and orange chocolate - all were lovely flavours, but slightly unusual textures - a bit too gritty and waxy compared to what we are used to in the UK.

Anna has been on the hunt for some wine glasses and with a whole host of glass shops on the route we were driving she got Made to pull over and have a look around, although nothing quite right for what she wanted to pay, but looking at the craftsmanship was really interesting in itself.  

We then reached the Elephant Cave Temple which oddly had a pan-piped version of "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion as we arrived.  I had long trousers on, but Anna had to borrow one of the stock sarongs to be "decent" enough to walk around the temple.  In the temple there was a very shallow pool with lots of huge fish that couldn't even seem to fully submerge themselves in it.  The entrance to the "Elephant Cave" was an ornate, and quite scary looking carving.  Once in the cave it was a heady smell of lots of different types of incense burning in a very enclosed space and it felt almost sophorific - would be good for all sorts of strange thoughts whilst meditating I thought.  The temple was set in quite shelving slopes of jungle, so it gave us a good opportunity for exploring and we passed a few locals including one lady who was naked and having a wash in the stream!

After a brief drive we got to the Holy Water temple - I've been here before, but it's really stunning and I was happy to have a second visit.  There are various jets of water that the idea is that you walk along and pray at each.  People make loads of colourful offerings that run into the water and make a beautiful watery scene and there are even bottles on sale so you can collect your own holy water to take home!

There is a huge fish pool with loads of Koi carp everywhere and the colours make an incredible sight.   I particularly liked the view of the garden where they were washing and drying all the tourist sarongs that you borrow to be able to enter the temple against the lovely lush green rainforesty setting.

They cleverly make you walk back past all the shops to get out of the temple and so you have people running after you offering you all sorts of good bargains and less value for money options - i.e. 1 banana 1 dollar!  I especially liked that they had a Princess Diana head to model one of the kaftans on sale!  Anna bought some carved masks after a bit of negotiation, but I managed to escape without spending any more cash as it's dangerous in Bali as there are so many lovely things you can buy that aren't even tourist tat and they aren't expensive, but I'm on a desperate mission to declutter!

By this point we were pretty hungry and so were pleased to get driven up to Kintamani for lunch!  It was a buffet style lunch, not cheap for Bali at 120,000 rupiah or £6, but it's the price you pay in tourist places and we got to eat whilst looking out over a volcano which you don't get the opportunity to do all that often!

We started the route back to Ubud and stopped off at Tegalug rice terraces - beautiful view that they used in Eat Pray Love I believe and I got a nice picture of a chap working in the rice terraces complete with a hat that was woven from banana leaves!

The last stop on our whistlestop tour - Made crammed in loads for us on the one day! - was to see some white cranes flying over at 6pm to a particular tree - there were loads of them!  They were on time and it was really strange how they all navigate to the same place each day - you can tell that this is the case based on the amount of guano on the ground beneath!

We arrived back to the hotel exhausted from our fun, but busy day and so then it was a quick meal at one of my favourite places in Ubud - Juice Ja where I tried a locally brewed beer called Stark.  I also decided to be naughty and have some ice cream and tried both Pannacotta and Tamarillo ice cream - Pannacotta was pretty much just a very vanilla flavoured ice cream, but Tamarillo definitely tasted as described!