Posted by Jackie Hewett on Mon 12th January 2009 at 03:39 AM, Filed in India, Travel Tips
These tips should help smooth your way if you are back backing within India, or at least an independent traveler. The tips are based on personal experience of 3 different trips to India.
Essential kit to take / carry during your travels:
• Ear Plugs - especially if you intend to travel by bus at all (see travel below)
• Wet Wipes – including some anti-bacterial ones for your hands before eating
• Loo Roll – if you are caught short and have to use a public facility don’t expect to find any
• Diorite & re-hydration sachets - need I spell it out!
• Bicycle lock and padlock – for your backpack & use it ALL THE TIME!
• Money belt (in preference to a ‘bum bag’ or ‘fanny pack’) – to wear under your clothes & keep your passport & ticket information in it too
• Cereal / energy bars brought from home – better than chocolate as they won’t melt and very handy for emergencies where you really don’t trust the food in your environs
• Mosquito Repellant
• Spare sheet – if you intend to stay in very cheap places
• Mosquito net – again if you indent to stay in very cheap places that may not supply them and in a high malaria risk area / time
• DON’T take expensive jewelry or watches – they will only make you even more of a target
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Many of the Ladakh festivals take place in winter which is a relatively idle time for the majority of the locals, but the Thak Thok (pronounced Tak Tak) festival takes place in the on the 20-29 of the ninth Tibetan month (around the 11th / 12th August).
Thak Thok means ‘top of the rocks’ and is 4-km up the valley from Chemrey on a lumpy outcrop of eroded rocks, and the small Gompa (fortified place or monastery of learning) here is the sole representative in Ladakh of the ancient Nyingmapa order. The wonderful monasteries are fanstastic centres of Buddhist art, literature and culture and Thak Thok has many new temples adorned with gleaming new Buddha’s and garish modern murals and has a sacred meditation cave at the centre. Many of the festivals take the form of dance dramas (including the secret masked dance) and take place in the gompa courtyards that are meant to revitalise the spirit of the people.
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Posted by Jackie Hewett on Wed 16th January 2008 at 02:58 AM, Filed in India, January
Bikaner is set in the heart of the dessert and before the advent of modern transport replied heavily on camels. In fact the Bikaner army even had an elite camel corps called the Ganga Risala who played an active part in both world wars and Indo-Pak wars. Even today, Bikaner has the only Camel breeding centre in India.
The annual camel festival is always in January, and in 2008 it takes place on the 21st and 22nd. The event is organised by Rajasthan’s Department of Tourism, Art and Culture specifically to (very successfully) attract tourists who attend in their hundreds. The festival opens with a procession of camels decked out in their ‘Sunday best’ against a backdrop of the Junagarh Fort. The procession finishes at some open sand grounds (also used a polo grounds) where most of the festival events take place.
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