Slumdog Billionaire

Mumbai, India

In this blog: I see what the British left behind, visit the slums of Mumbai, and see the most expensive house in the world.

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6 months on the road... the route so far. Large map here

So first of all, a brief side note in that my arrival in Mumbai marked six months on the road. I'd like to say it's been awful, terrible, the worst experience of my life. But obviously I can't. I'm thoroughly enjoying the amazing experiences, unique sights and various wonderful people I meet, all often at unexpected moments. Sure, occasionally it feels a bit pointless, and making every decision on your own can be a bit draining, but it's all character building. I've learnt a lot about the countries and places I've been to, as well as assorted history I probably should have learnt at school, and have a broader understanding of the rights and wrongs of the world. And it goes without saying it's been a lot of fun! India itself has been a surprise as well; much more tolerable than expected, and full of excitement, chaos, and life. In fact the two months I expected to spend here have long come and gone, and I'll be here at least another month.

It's been a rollercoaster - but a good one - lots of excitement with the odd moment of feeling sick.

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I'd been a bit apprehensive about visiting Mumbai, but it took a while to actually realise this until I realise I'd been putting off visiting. I wanted to go but at the same time I didn't, I guess I had preconceptions that it was a huge overcrowded city, gridlocked, full of slums, dirty, noisy and unpleasant. In fact, it had elements of all of the above, but is overwhelmingly a modern, clean and developed metropolis and the source of half of India's tax income thanks to being the finance centre. In fact it turned out to be quite an endearing place, and I ended up quite liking it.

I arrived in the city mid-morning on a sleeper bus though can't say I was able to sleep a lot, and experienced straight-off the gridlock I'd heard about. Like Manhattan, a lot of the city is built on a peninsula, with too many people and cars in too small an area, and also like Manhatten were the hundreds of skyscrapers present, often surprisingly modern. Contrasting with this, the mass slums in various areas were also very apparent. It struck me straight away I was about to experience a very different India. 

The commuter trains at a quieter time of day

It was a lovely warm morning thanks to being much further south, and with the bus stopping far uptown, I took the urban train further south to the affluent Colaba district, witnessing packed commuter trains travelling with people hanging out of the wide doors that are left open all the time, a striking sight that took me back to Slumdog Millionaire which was filmed here. Partly thanks to people falling out said doors, Mumbai rail is the most dangerous in the world with a shocking 2,700 people dying every year - nearly ten every day. Property prices, and therefore accommodation prices are high in Mumbai, so once in the Colaba area I ended up taking a tiny windowless room on a fifth floor backstreet building, which sounds grim but was actually very clean and tidy so I didn't mind too much. Except for the urinal blocks they liked to put in the communal bathroom sinks to keep them fresh, which made me want to vomit every time I brushed my teeth. What a strange idea.

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I went for a stroll round the local area, which was cleaner, much less chaotic and generally more 'normal' than I've been used to of late - one of the most obvious differences being that there were actually pavements to walk on. Oh the little things. I reached the waterfront and saw the Arabian Sea for the first time, a refreshing feeling when you've not seen the sea for a good couple of months. A shoeless child of about seven followed me along the waterfront begging for money, the most persistent I've yet encountered - but as mentioned before it's not wise to give to them, cruel as it sounds, as it encourages dependency on begging, and often the money goes straight to discretly-hidden gang leaders instead of the kids anyway I understand. I passed India gate, an arched monument built by the British long ago, and beside this, the luxurious Taj Mahal Hotel where the devastating Mumbai terrorist attacks happened in 2008. I stopped nearby and tried a Kulfi Falooda - a desert of a soft dough with almonds and cherry, drizzled in pomegranate seeds and milk, pretty nice. 

British colonial architecture - the high court

Mumbai, or Bombay as it was then, was very important to the British back in the day and consequently retains a lot of relics from the Raj era. I walked to the district known as Fort, passing cricket pitches, grand museums and art galleries, the university, cathedral, fountains, parks, and the old city hall. All of these were crafted from local stone in a hybrid of British and Indian styles, but looked unmistakably British in origin. 

That night I met up with Shaun, an Australian who I'd been hanging around with a month or so before in the North Indian town of Rishikesh. We'd got on well and stayed in touch, and fortunately our travelling plans coincided in Mumbai, and so began a few evenings of beer and banter, starting at Leopolds, a place I discovered the next day was one of the other locations of the Mumbai terrorist attacks, oh joy. Lightning never strikes twice in the same place though, or so I hoped. Shaun is a long-term traveller of about eighteen months, and supports himself by doing copywriting for businesses and websites based back in Oz - he can work anywhere in the world as long as he has an internet connection, a dream job some would say.

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Thursday 16th Jan

Victoria station

The next day I took one of the old and characterful Mumbai cabs uptown, and set off around another part of the city. There were more relics of the British Raj - the rather grand Victoria Station which was more like a cathedral inside, some government buildings, the Central Post Office, and Crawford market. The latter was huge, and the speciality here seemed to be pet shops, where cages were stuffed often uncomfortably full of rats, mice, pigeons, cats, dogs, gerbils and brightly coloured birds. Not all together I must add, though that would be quite exciting to see. 

Further up the peninsula, I stopped as I walked past a university which was having some sort of games afternoon, and smiled whilst watching them do a tug-of-war competition in, of course a very Indian way. I spent the rest of the late afternoon at Chowpatty beach. It was a surprisingly impressive clean and pleasant stretch of sand, bang in the heart of the city, and was the perfect place to be in the late afternoon sun. Women sat on the sand in saaris and burkas, whilst chai-wallahs walked by carrying kettles continuously chanting 'chai, chai, chai' to the obviously tea-starved public. Not even tea-mad England has a cuppa on the beach.

Chowpatty beach

Mumbai is the home of Bollywood - the Indian film industry, and so there's cinemas everywhere. That evening, with not much nightlife going on locally, me and Shaun went to see Grudge Match, starring Robert de Niro and Sly Stallone, which in fact was American. The first surprise was to find that when you ordered food beforehand, they delivered it to your seat during the film. A great touch. The next was having to stand, along with the rest of the audience at the start, for the Indian National anthem which I decided wouldn't win any awards for catchiness. The cinema itself was fantastic, with a quality of picture and comfort of seat better than anything at home. Interestingly, despite being an American film with the dialogue in English, which many middle and upper-class Indians speak as a first language, it was also subtitled... in English! I guess some find the American accent unclear. Half-way through, the film abruptly stopped, and it was soon apparent it was for an interval. So old-school, I love it. It's funny how something as simple as going to the cinema can be so subtly so different in another country.

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Friday 17th January

Mumbai is sadly associated all over the world with it's slums, and the British-Indian movie Slumdog Mlllionaire gave us all an insight into what they were like. However, like many movies this portrayal was a little skewed as I've since found out. 

Dharavi Slum from the railway station

About half the population of Mumbai live on just 6% of the land in such slums, and Dharavi, filming location of said movie, is the largest. In fact it's the second largest slum in Asia. When I first heard a while back that companies do tours of the slums for tourists, I thought it sounded pretty low - turning people's misery into an almost circus-freak-show type attraction. When I looked deeper though, I learnt the company doing the tours aimed to build awareness of the reality of the conditions, gave eighty percent of the profits to community initiatives in the slum, and don't allow photography. It then sounded a bit more dignified and respectful, so inteagued, I decided to go along on one of the tours of Dharavi.

On the half-hour train journey there, I was surprised to see an Indian ladyboy (news to me) poncing around the carriage making strange sounds, then touching people on the shoulder and demanding money, followed by supposedly 'cursing' them if they didn't oblige. Fortunately I was out of range, but it was a peculiar sight to witness. Our tour group arrived at the station right beside the slum, and the thirty-odd people split into groups of seven. Our guide was a local chap and was very good at what he does. He was keen to emphasise that the aforementioned movie portrayed and exaggerated the bad sides of the slum, without pointing out the good sides. Good sides I thought? He led us into the nearest area, where the main business is recycling. All sorts of stuff is recycled, and is mostly done painstainingly and dangerously by hand. Plastic, paint tins, and drugs containers, all ripped apart manually without any safety equipment, and processed by cleaning out, burning off, dousing in chemicals etc, before putting through small electric-powered shredders and crushers, made in the slum. Some of the waste is from India, and some from abroad I understand. After all, those container ships bringing shiny goods from India to Europe can't go back empty, so why not pass our waste onto more desperate and less safety conscious people to deal with eh? The sad way the world works unfortunately, and we're all part of that chain whether we like it or not. You have to admire their ingenuity in making money from nothing, but the conditions these people were working in were pretty dismal. They seem to be tolerated out of a combination of desperation, and the lack of knowing the real consequences, earning each of them between £1.50 - £2 a day (150 - 200 rupees).

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Further on we came across some sewing workshops, where groups of about ten men sat in neatly laid out rooms making shirts. To be fair they looked reasonably content and the conditions didn't appear too bad. A lot was for the local Indian market, though the guide said some items were for Lee Cooper, via a middle man of course. The way that game often works. The surprise was that far from the local population wallowing round in piles of dirt and faeces, the paths round the slum were mostly concreted, everyone had a legal electric and water supply (I say legal - people used to tap in and steal it), there was a market, shoe shops, pharmacy, restaurant, hotel and butchers. We continued into this maze, past a guy being given a cut-throat shave whilst sat on a barrel, then some kids playing on the ground with medical waste. 

We were led into the very densely packed residential area, down very dark and narrow paths past houses, ducking below sagging overhead cables, and being careful not to get lost. The houses were almost all brick-built rather than tin shacks, and families mostly lived in single room homes about the same size as the average bathroom at home. Whilst it was obviously a completely inadequate standard of living in this day and age, at least they appeared to live with at least some dignity. The government are slowly doing something about it, bulldozing some areas and rehousing people in tower blocks, though not nearly fast enough. We continued on, looking in a small leather processing factory, watching women making pappadums on baskets laid on the street, kids playing cricket on the edge of a rubbish tip, and a very dirty looking river. We stopped at a community centre and saw the projects the charity was funding and organising which were all very positive.

It was a fascinating tour, though the whole way round I felt as if we shouldn't be there. We were obviously just generally interested, but it felt like they saw us as the rich people looking down our noses. That said, everyone was either friendly or indifferent towards us, so maybe this is just my imagination. Instead of coming away feeling a sense of despair, I saw a real sense of community, people working hard to better themselves, better sanitation than I imagined, and a good basic level of infrastructure. Yes, it all looks a bit inhumane to an outsider, but if you don't know any different do you see it as bad, or just normal?

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Antilla - a house in the shape of a tower block

Once the tour had finished, I left the group and in a complete contrast to what I'd just seen, caught the commuter train a few miles south, and walked to a very posh part of town to see Antilla. Worth over US $1bn, Antilla is the most expensive private residence in the world, and owned by the richest man in India. It's hard to believe the two areas I'd visited that day are so close, but such is the diversity of India. Built in 2009, it's been controversial ever since completion, with some saying it's an icon of the city and an inspiration for people to work hard and dream big - 'look what you could achieve'. Others say it's disgusting, and completely insensitive to build such a place when so many people live in such squalid conditions, and I tend to agree with the latter. The easterly windows even look out over Dharavi slum just a few miles away. The whole area was a surprising contrast to the previous two months of India, with Mercs, Golfs, Skodas, Hondas and Beemers cruising around, big posh houses and trees overhanging tidy streets, and I really questioned if I was still in the same country. 

Mumbai was a happening place, so more tales follow in a day or two. 

The chaos around Crawford market. The guy with the basket is a freelance delivery man, India's version of FedEx maybe?

Traditional Mumbai taxis

Crawford market

Pull!

Gandhi's House

Ahmedabad, India

In this blog... I go to Gandhi's house, visit a step well and, errr, eat a pizza.

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After the lake cruise at Udaipur, I took a mid-afternoon bus to Ahmedabad, about five hours south. Ahmedabad is a typical Indian commercial and industrial city, and not really a common stop off for tourists, but I wanted to break up the long journey south to Mumbai, and there were a couple of things worth stopping a day for. Which ended up being three. 

Saturday 11th January

Motorway services

As ever, there were a few interesting happenings on the dual carriageway on the way. The road was well built and fast, and we passed along scrubby hills, later followed by flat arable land. A jeep overtook our bus, and despite doing sixty miles an hour down the outside lane, had four people sat on the roof and one sat on top of the spare wheel, which certainly made me double take and smile. A cow walked up the fast lane towards oncoming traffic which swerved around without eyebrows being raised. Brightly painted lorries overtook, hooting their two tone horns. We braked hard for a very out-of-place and unmarked set of speedbumps on a fast section, presumably there to slow everyone for the corner - what's wrong with using a sign?! At late dusk, a tractor with a trailer packed full of people, pulled across the centre of the road, and onto our lane with no lights on. Lights seem to be very much optional until needed here, only used when you can no longer actually see.

Our driver was typically lacking in skill as well, constantly swerving out violently to overtake and therefore making the bus lurch to one side. At one point something hit the roof, possibly a tree branch, and immediately after, strangley the whole cabin filled with smoke, which soon dispersed when everyone slid open the windows. For some peculiar reason the bus terminated about eight miles outside of Ahmedabad, which annoyed me greatly since I'd booked a bus to Ahmedmabad, and not 'eight miles north of Ahmedmabad by a hardware shop'. I took a conveniently-waiting rickshaw for the final leg, with him trying to scam me as usual, until I asked the bus driver the distance and worked out what it should cost, finally agreeing the right price.

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I found a hotel in the very noisy city centre known as Lal Darwaja, and after moving to the second room since the first was missing an entire window pane (fairly handy in a city as noisy as this), I checked in. This process in India is always typically beaurocratic, requiring you to fill in a 'foreign guest' form followed by a separate guest book, both requiring every conceivable detail including your age and marriage status, followed by them photocopying your passport and visa and submitting it to the Police. Here in the state of Gujarat, I interestingly also had to give my left thumbprint as well, apparently a security precaution, but gave the feeling of checking-in at jail. That night, I was still recovering following a week of 'irregular bowel movements' and couldn't face Indian food, so went to a nearby pizza shop. What they cooked up wasn't a bad effort, though Indians are definately best at their own food - though at £1.50 (150 rupees) I couldn't complain too much. Just as I went to bed at midnight that night, what sounded like a live drumming ensemble, or possibly a crew of jackhammers, started up on a street nearby, but thankfully stopped after half an hour. Indians are so tolerant to noise (read: totally oblivious) and seem to have no understanding that their neighbours might want to sleep.

Sunday 12th January

The guys at the bus stop in Gandhinagar

I was heading for Adalaj step well, about fifteen miles north of town and walked to the local bus station to find a way there. There's never any signs to tell you which bus to get on, so I asked around until a conductor told me I was on the right one. Which it actually wasn't it transpired. I ended up another five miles north of where I should have been in the city of Gandhinagar, and was pointed not across the bus yard, but to a dusty car park along the road for the connecting bus. Once there, a group of about ten guys were sat around some shacks idly chatting, and enthusiastically called me over, with one of them turning out to be the conductor. In broken English they asked the usual set range of curious questions, and kindly provided a chai (masala milk tea) in return. Friendly bunch. 

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Adalaj step well

I eventually ended up at Adalaj step well. A step well is exactly as it sounds - a well, with a stepped embankment surrounding it, built in a range of styles. This was a particularly grand and impressive one, built from sandstone in the sixteenth century by a king in honor of his wife, with extremely detailed carvings and mouldings. An.interesting sight, and pleasing to see that it was well preserved. After an hour I walked back to the main road and a local lad helpfully hailed the right bus back to the city. It was so jam-packed, as they often are, that I had to sit right by the windscreen on the engine cover, facing backwards and grabbing the handrail. The hot seat you might say. I stopped for lunch in a fairly smart looking restaurant (though still a bargain) and tentatively tested my stomach with a thali - a set lunch comprising a range of spicy soup, curries and accompaniments, washed down with a lassi - basically a glass of yoghurt by my reckoning. I didn't really enjoy the meal for once, and wasn't sure whether to blame that on the food, or my still recovering intestines. Probably the latter.

Gandhi's bedroom and living space

I walked to Ghandi Ashram (Sabarmati), where Ghandi himself lived for thirteen years between 1917-1930. An ashram to remind you, is an Indian concept, a spiritual commune where like-minded people live, pray, study and work. The ashram is now closed and preserved as it was, with a fascinating museum within on Gandhi during this period of his life, and the display of his bedroom made it clear to see the simple and unmaterialistic life he lived, whilst devoting his life to freeing India from a British rule. His approach was through protest and non-violence, and really struck a chord with the world. And worked, for India was set free from Britain in 1947. I was quite taken by what I'd learnt about the great man, an inspiring figure around the world.

I'd planned to catch a night bus to Mumbai that evening, but back in the room just felt shattered, and lacking in appetite, eventually having another small and boring pizza. Funnily enough, the illness and therefore delay of my departure, had a silver lining a couple of days later as you'll see in the next blog.

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Monday 13th January

With nothing else I wanted to see in Ahmedabad, I took the opportunity to catch up on writing my blogs, but not until I'd spent an hour sat in a cafe waiting for my breakfast to turn up. Despite complaining twice and being told to wait, after an hour it turned out they'd not actually written down nor passed the order to the kitchen - the second time in as many weeks this has happened. Writing down orders here is rare. Delirious from hunger, I walked out in disgust and instead ate chapattis with veg curry next door. The rest of the day was spent sitting in my hotel room with the windows wide open, letting in the glorious warmth. I realise sometimes I pack too much into my time without a break, so it was good to relax for the day and just write. And after a couple of months of often being in the cold, the heat was a pleasant change. 

The chaotic city markets

Around 5pm I was done, and decided to go for a stroll round the nearby street market; as usual hectic, noisy and dirty, and full to the brim with clothes, housewares and every bit of tat you could possibly want, as well as the usual crowds of thousands of people with motorbikes ignorantly beeping to try to pass between. I was a both a bit shocked and amused (does that make bemused?) when I found a guy sat on the pavement, legs dangling in the rubbish filled gutter, whilst another man sat alongside, cross legged in the lotus position applying a tattoo to the guys forearm, using just a little battery powered kit. I then realised this wasn't just one guy, but a whole line of around twenty of them - an extra-hygienic pavement tattoo parlour. He asked if I wanted one. Funnily enough I declined.

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A strange perculiarity was the amount of belt shops nearby to my hotel, there must have been over twenty of them. Having made do with a crappy plastic belt since loosing mine in Germany months ago, I took advantage of this and ironically despite the huge choice, bought the simplest brown leather one I could find for just £3 (300 rupees), which the owner even tailored for me by cutting to size and putting an extra hole in.

I was looking at going to Alang the next day, a town six hours away where the world's largest ship breaking facility  can be found, a place where old ships from mostly developed countries come to die due to the much lower cost. This is due to both the low labour cost, and the blind eye often turned here to safety and environmental implications that couldn't happen at home. Passing your own problems to someone else basically, at a big cost to their health and environment - manynpeoplemdie there every year. It comprises a six mile long beach, where they intentionally drive ships at full tilt into the sand to allow them to be dismantled. I've seen a documentary on it before and it looked an amazing place to visit, but because of said issues, security is now very tight so I wouldn't have seen that much given the long journey. I consoled myself by reading some great blogs on it, by a retired American captain who goes there to buy salvaged goods to sell on, and also a backpacker who visited in 1998. Both very interesting. 

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Having a TV in my room for a rare change allowed me to flick around the Indian Sky TV channels that night, which were mostly in Hindi with the odd US import, and on the whole pretty cheeses and rubbish. After some time without seeing a movie, I was pleased to find and watch the Sly Stallone movie 'Lock Up' though, which despite being in English, had English subtitles - maybe Indians struggle with the accents or something. 

After a bit more reading about the city I was in that night, I found by chance my timing coincided with a big event, so despite not really liking this particularly dirty and noisy place, decided it was definitely worth adding yet another day. 

Getting a quick tattoo done... by a guy sat on the pavement

Mountains of Manali

Manali, India

Bad buses, mad drivers, mountains and skiing. It's been another crazy few days in India.

There was only one direct link between Dharamasala, the fantastic hill station I'd been staying at and my next destination - Manali, and that was the local bus. I was too late for the daytime one, and for some reason thought the nightime one would just about be OK. Surely being a ten hour journey, the bus would be of a reasonable quality I thought. I was so wrong. 

To catch said bus, I took a connecting bus from my hotel in McLeod to a few miles down the road to the main bus station in Daharamsala and waited patiently, with fingers crossed that the bus would be OK. Unfortunately what turned up was the sort of thing that you wouldn't even want to take to the next street, let alone spend nine hours on - an knackered antique of a thing, with barely any suspension, no heating whatsoever, and sliding windows that constantly rattled themselves open all night. Then there was the fact that the seats were more suited to schoolchildren - three seats on one side of the bus and two on the other, with so little legroom that I had to sit bolt upright the whole time to stop my knees smashing against the hard plastic back of the seat in front. And so little shoulder width I was squeezed solid between an old guy in a blanket and the window for the first couple of hours. I thought about giving up and hopping off when I saw a hotel along the way, but knew I'd be in the middle of nowhere, with exactly the same problem the next day. 

The road the entire way was narrow and terribly surfaced, following the contours of the lower Himalayan mountains and sometimes even turned to dirt track for short sections. We stopped every so often at ramshackle little villages for passengers to get on and off, all wrapped in old blankets. At about 11pm it started getting quite cold, then by midnight it was absolutely freezing. Normally to escape the cold you have the option of moving about, putting on the heating or putting on more clothes. The latter was all I could do, putting on almost everything I had and was still cold, as the only moving about I could do was walking around the now near empty bus shutting various windows as they shook themselves open. Needless to say I didn't sleep a wink - It was sheer hell - the worst journey I've ever had, or could hope to have.

To top this off, the previous day at the bus station the ticket man told me the bus would arrive in Manali at 6am just when many hotels would just be opening up for breakfast. But the hell wasn't over - the bus actually got into Manali at 4.15am, everything was shut, there was no-one around and being at 2,000m altitude it was still pretty cold. I had a map with some hotels on it in my Rough Guide book and got walking to get warm, in the vain hope something might be open. My only stop was on a quiet lane for a minute, watching an electricity pole fizzing and popping as it short circuited, blowing out flames and sparks in the dark of night.

After half an hour or so, it was looking like my only option was to spend some time sitting in one of the small booths that house ATM's, until finally my luck came in when through the window of a small hotel, I made out in the darkness a guy asleep on a sofa by the hotel reception. I knocked the door, then knocked louder again and to my delight (but not his) he awoke, let me in and had a room available... at £3 a night. Oh the joy I felt!

I slept until around 11am, waking up still cold, tired and generally in a foul mood. I didn't like the town nor want to be there. But after some breakfast and a walk in the warmer afternoon sun, my mood defrosted as I wandered across town, taking in a 15th century Hindu temple, stopping for a 10p cup of tea, walking through a nice patch of woodland by a river and eventually to the upper part of town where they had some natural outdoor hot springs. I passed up on the chance to bathe as they looked pretty grubby, but the locals seemed to be enjoying themselves - taking baths and washing their dishes just outside. Manali wasn't quite so bad after all.

The next day I'd booked up for a tour of some local sights, and got picked up by a minibus from my hotel. I wasn't actually sure where we were going to be honest, the place names meant nothing to me so it was a magical mystery tour. In fact it turned out that we were actually heading up one of the highest roads in the world - Rohtang Pass, stopping at a few spots on the way. Not bad pot luck eh! About half an hour in we stopped at a shack by the road where they were renting ski suits. Typical India - they were about thirty years out of fashion - proper 80's all-in-one brightly colored jobs - I'm fairly sure they bought a job lot of old gear from an American resort. At this point I started chatting with a group of young Indians who were also on the tour, who told me the reason for the clothing was that there was skiing at the top of the mountain and we could all have a go. Definately not something I expected to be doing in India!

Well won't you just look at all those curves - foreground and distance

It turned out the scary bit wasn't to be the skiing, but the getting there. The road climbed from an altitude of about 2000m in Manali up to just under 4000m at the top of Rohtang Pass, and did this via a narrow snaking road that turned back on itself time and time again to climb the face of the mountain. The road was pretty narrow and poorly surfaced, sometimes just turning to dirt track where the surface had washed away or been taken by landslides, and had no barriers despite the regular sheer drops beside. Not necessarily a problem if you take it steady but our driver did no such thing, flying into blind corners too way too fast and a couple of times overtaking other cars and buses. I don't mind admitting I was terrified. I've never in my life told a bus driver what to do, but I couldn't help but tell him twice to slow down, and at one point without even thinking shouted 'please don't' when he started to overtake. Now I've done the odd bit of extreme sport before, and only a skydive compares to the fear I felt going up this road. I was pretty delighted when we got to the top. 

One of the unsurfaced bits of the road to Rohtang pass

I wasn't expecting much from the skiing which was just, as well as it was nothing more than a lashed up bit of fun. There was no hire shop, no selecting the right size equipment, no setting up, nor qualified instructors. Instead, there was a couple of guys in trainers who gave you the only set of boots, skis and poles they had, and then held on to the elbows of people to keep them upright as they attempted to ski for the first time. It was hilarious to watch. Politely denying their help, I had a couple of runs down the only slope, which was rather icey and gentle, and with no ski lifts had to walk back up. Typical India once again, they'd managed to turn even a beautiful snowy mountaintop into a muddy, rubbish strewn mess.

Top of Rohtang Pass, 3978m

Check out the gear!

The drive down was a little less rushed though not exactly relaxing, and we stopped on the way at a frozen waterfall and then for a couple of people to do some paragliding. Needless to say I was pretty pleased when I got back to the hotel in once piece that night!