World Challenge Expedition to India
From the 26th of November to the 17th of December, I, along with other pupils from my school, went to North India on a World Challenge expedition. It was brilliant.
We left Brisbane on the 25th of November, our packs on our shoulders, our smiles glistening with excitement; finally, the day had come. India... Here we come!
After 2 long flights and an awfully long wait to exchange a little bit of money, we stepped foot in the bustling cosmopolitan city of New Delhi, the beating heart of the subcontinent.
We would be spending most of our time further North in the Kumaon Hills of Uttarakhand, so we all eagerly hopped on what we thought would be a short, relaxing ride. Bumps, beeps and bashes, it turns out Indian roads aren't the most relaxing, nor the most civilised strips of tarmac in the world. I soon figured out that Indians are the worst theoretical drivers in the world, however, they are the best practical drivers in the world.
Finally, we had arrived in Nainital, which is a fairly large town in the Kumaon Hills. Rumour had spread that there was a Dominoes Pizza in town; there are plenty of opportunities to have more Dhal, Rice and Chai. At the moment, we all wanted pizza, garlic bread and fizzy drinks.
The next couple of days involved learning (very basic) Hindi, having a look around town, eating cookies in a cafe so that we could have the wifi password, and buying knock-off watches. My 'Tissot' broke within a couple of days.
We then took a jeep up to Mountain Quail Camp, where World Challenge's 'In-Country Agent', Siddarth Anand, runs his own adventure tourism business, called 'Blaze-a-Trail Adventures'.
Siddarth very kindly let us sleep in his log cabins that night. The following day at 4am we caught a jeep to the tiny village of Birthi, and from there, our trek began. I was leader for this bit; students mutually agree as to who will be leader for different legs of the trip. It was imperative to me that I led this bit, for this was the bit that had always captured my imagination: walking through the stunning Himalayas mountains.
The trek was fantastic, we all made it up to the top of the Rantham Pass, which stands at 4000m above sea level, unfortunately clouds rolled in when we were at the summit, as such we were unable to see the huge mountains such as Nanda Devi. The trek down that day was pretty poor, I must admit, I didn't take my walking poles because they had frozen over that night, so I left them at camp to de-freeze. This proved to be a mistake as I felt the agony stabbing at the knee I had surgery on 4 months before.
I found it awfully sad to leave the big mountains, and I pledged to Saneel, who was our guide (he was excellent), that I will come back here to go on a big expedition. Upon hearing this he said, "Take me with you!"
The following stage of the trip was the 'Project Phase', where we would help out a local community. In the 4 days we had been assigned to this village, we were tasked with 3 objectives
1) Build an incinerator so the people can burn their rubbish.
2) Build a guttering system so that water security could be improved for the village.
3) Build a 2 brick-high barrier on a woman 's patio.
I had been assigned to the 3rd task by the new group leaders. We had finished it within 2 days, so for the next two days myself, along with some others spent the next couple of days trying to exchange money in the State Bank of India, which might just be the most inefficient bank in the world. Eventually we traded our US Dollars with a shop manager whose daughter is studying in America.
The next day we went to Jim Corbett National Park, where we went on a magnificent safari to try and find tigers, unfortunately we were unsuccessful, but nevertheless, the animals we did see were unprecedentedly beautiful.
Rishikesh and Haridwar were the next two destinations on our bucket list, so were caught a taxi there. Both of these towns lie of the Ganges, which is the most sacred river to Hindus. The area of Rishikesh we were in was essentially 'hippy central', everyone was wearing baggy trousers, flip flops, and all of the people had rather silly haircuts. It gave a 'fake' vibe to the whole place. However being a tourist area, many of the shopkeepers would accept my Australian dollars, which I still hadn't exchanged (there were 5 days left) so I picked up a Jacket and Shirt, which have since shrunk in the dryer.
Haridwar was spectacular, we went to one of the Hindu ceremonies on the bank of the Ganges where I recieved a Tika (one of the dots that Hindus wear on their foreheads), after watching Levison Wood's 'Walking the Himalayas' I had a little 'fanboy' moment knowing that one of my most inspirational figures also took part in that ceremony (but on a different date of course.)
We caught an overnight train from Haridwar to Jaipur, which is the capital of Rajasthan (ie. the Desert State), I found a good way to tell if you are in a desert or not is the prevalence of camels. I had been camel riding in Dubai before, so I thought I was vaguely aware of the shape of size of a camel, but these Jaipur-ian camels were huge! I was blown away by the size of the camels. Jaipur was definitely the best city I visited in the whole trip, we were able to exchange money at a private sector 'Money Transfer shop', and lots of it. We travelled to Amer Fort, a spectacular palace built almost 500 years ago by the Mogul Empire. I was particularly interested in the Jantar Mantar, which is a huge sundial built 300 years ago, the technological thinking behind the sundial is mind-blowing, the angle, height and location behind the monument would be a huge challenge even for today engineers and scientists.
Agra was our final destination before we would go to Delhi Airport, although it was a long time ago, my Great, Great Grandmother was baptised and most likely born here. Agra is the tourist centre for India, it is home to the Taj Mahal, which is probably the most stunning building in the world, and attracts up to 4 million tourists every year.
I hadn't been sick the whole trip! I was so happy to have beaten my mother's predictions on acquiring the infamous 'Delhi Belly'. When we arrived at Delhi Airport, I saw the well known and well missed McDonald's symbol, and I probably had one to many nuggets. One hour after I had arrived in Birmingham airport (I had a holiday in the UK afterwards) and told my mother I had not been sick, I ended up vomiting at a service station.
Anyway, as I said at the start of this post, it was fantastic. India is a country that has really captured me and I will return in the near future, probably 2018, but for now, that's secret.
