Tag: India

We are in Chennai, but only just. The time spent in Candolim was just what I needed. I met up with a lovely English (well almost English, from Watford) couple who were kind enough to take the old man under their wing. We had a great time and I thank them. The day before we were scheduled to leave Candolim I notice that Bridget's rear near-side tyre was a little deflated. I found a garage with an airline just down from the hotel and they agreed to inflate it for me. However the tyre didn’t want to play and on closer inspection I found it was badly cut in several places. This was obviously as a result of the road conditions coming into Goa. The guys at the garage quickly replaced the wheel with the spare but we haven’t been able to get a replacement tyre so we are hoping that we don’t get another puncture. There are two alternative main routes from Candolim...

From Udaipur the plan was to drive to Vadodara to stay over night, but I couldn’t find the hotel. This is the second time I have tried to stay at a Holiday Inn but have been totally unable to locate it. Either my navigation is rubbish, or their directions leave something to be desired. Given that I have found my way over 8,000 miles successfully I think my navigation is reasonably average. Anyway as there was still plenty of time I decided we should strike out for Pune, which was to have been the next stop after Vadodara, some 250 miles further on. Unfortunately the road surface deteriorated again making progress painfully slow and it soon became obvious that to reach my destination that day I would have to drive in the dark, something I had avoided doing previously. Then to make things a little more interesting the heavens opened and it poured. When it does this in India it really...

The drive from Agra to Jaipur was easy and uneventful, taking 3½ hours to cover 180 miles. However I then spent another two hours driving around the city trying to find the Holiday Inn, receiving numerous conflicting directions from Jaipur’s traffic police. Then to cap it all a boy on an overloaded bicycle misjudged the amount of space he needed and ripped off my nearside mirror whilst I was stopped at some traffic lights. On the basis that the cost of a replacement would be more than six months wages for him I put it down to experience and added it to the list of parts required when I arrive in Perth. I hope the MG club there is well stocked with spares!! Jaipur, also known as the Pink City, old pink not ‘Brighton’ type pink, is so called because of the colour of the local building material. Compared to other cities that I have visited in India it appears more...

Agra is, I’m told, a city of some 2.5Million inhabitants but there is little to recommend it to tourists other than the obvious Taj Mahal. Seeing these world famous sites does not always live up to our expectations and I have to say that the Taj is one of them as far as I am concerned. I far preferred the Golden Temple in Amritsar where my expectations, due to my ignorance, were low, but that said the site was far cleaner and better presented than the Taj Mahal. A little like the Red Fort in Delhi it needs cleaning and the grounds require far better maintenance. Most major tourist authorities around the world, in charge of sites that I have had the privilege of seeing, make an effort to present not only the site to the best of its ability, but also the surrounding area. The conditions, I am afraid to say, in Agra are that the roads are atrocious, the streets...

New Delhi is a clean modern city that contains the Embassies, tourist hotels and shopping centres that most modern capital cities have. However there is also old Delhi which is a little run down and doesn’t really give a damn about tourists and prefers to stay the way it’s always been. Nothing wrong with that but it also wants to attract the financial benefits brought by tourists without putting in the effort of making them feel welcomed. Of course they can’t have it both ways and the epitome of this dilemma is the Red Fort. This item is in desperate need of cleaning, a little maintenance and some entrepreneurial flare. When you consider the basic offering, it is tired, dirty and in need of some renovation (a little like me really). It is registered as a world heritage site, but is poorly cared for. However with cleaning, a little restoration and some imagination it could be a major international attraction. If the...