at last few days in India.

at last, we reached amritsar. going to visit the famous golden temple 2morow. it's in the state of Punjab. all singh here. it's the center for the Sikh.

N 31deg 38.019'
E074deg 52.613'

u guys back at home must be very comfortable, sitting behind the moniter reading this with a glass of beer, thinking of tomorrow's work stuff. over here, we are thinking how to survive in Pakistan with the current situation now. bombing everywhere. i will see how it goes. it will not be an easy task in pakistan right now for us but we will be going there in 3 days time. we are lodging at the border now, hoping to recive more news.

some intresting places along the way

10 feb 2008. at Agra, we found this hotel, we request 2 pitch at tent as it was only 100IRP (S$3.80) per night and we are allowed to use the toilet and shower. it's where the famous Taj Mahal is where people all over the world came to see the number one world heritage. we are sleeping in a 4 degrees celcius condition at night!

TJMHL on my hands. we are not allowed to take pictures inside the main tomb. i heard that some of the thumbs of the workers have been amputated because they do not want a repeated perfection to be made again.
Entrance fee was 750IRP SGD$28.57 per person and we cannot take pictures? we took a auto rickshaw (175IRP) to the rear of the Taj to get a better view.the visitors at Taj were standing there to take pictures at our site where they paid to appricate our view. hee..
road the state of rajastan border.

14 Feb 2008. we are at Jaipur, the biggest city of Rajastan. so called the pink city.

17 Feb 2008, we reached Pushkar, the holy village of Rajastan. we met intresting traveller along the way and watch the sunrise together. this is a vegetarian village. no meat. no alcholo. guess what, i found a beer shop just outside this holy village just less than 1km away. in 3pm, the locals are already drunk there!

this teaman sell tea on his mobile shop. when he is on move, he would put the pedestal and the whole tray on the head, making the overall height of 4 meters.in the morning, they would come to this lake to pray and bath.(Left to right) Marthar (spain), Sam, Gary (UK) and a Korean couple joined us as they reached Pushkar at 5am in the dark and cold morning where no one is on the road, searching for a place to stay. we accompanied them along with the sunrise. along with them is Gary on the same bus.
nice friends all over the world and she's from Argentina. the night was so fun chatting at roof top as i forgot to ask her name. sorry my friend. if you see this please do tell us your name. she was brave! she travelled alone!my first engine oil change for Hope Too.

so near only? along highway 8, this is a very unique road marker promoting the village of Deogarh.

N 25deg 33.105'

E073deg52.790'

19 Feb 2008, the place where octopussy was filmed. Udaipur. we had a romantic sunset boat ride in the lake.

City Palace nearing sunset.
This is where the Maharaja lived.
along the boat ride in the evening, before sun totally sets and the moon rises above the City Palace.
the famous lake palace hotel at night
at the guest house , the entance to the parking lot fits exactly Hope Too's side panniers.
we often cook our own meal in the guest house to save $.

along someway to Jodhpur, we got off track from the main highway and it rewarded us with very intresting road. Discovery!

21 Feb 2008. Johdpur was named the blue city. it's amazing fort has convinced us for a really worth of a visit! it has a audio tour guide. it's one of the finest fort that we have ever visited.

with us was the owner of the guest house, sunrise guest house. great parking. good people. nice room. worth the $$$! call mr prakash or mr anil at 09828272031 or email" anilsunriseguesthouse@yahoo.commr Prakash is only 28 years old! i think he is a bollywood star.

this magic carpet, at Jalsalmer. should we buy one back for uncle dickk?along the way to Jalsalmer. desert highway.

jalsalmer! great desert safari on camel!

we had the 2 days one night camel safari at the royal Thar desert. rajastan. i believe it's the nearest desert from singapore. sand are so find and untouched. sand dunes left over are the best to apprciate.

the camel man is nice. the tour operator at our hotel is nice because he is a great businessman, man of his word. Hope Too is there without us for a night and when we are back, we found Hope Too sleeping at his rest spot peacefully. thank god nothing has happened to it.

the Arabian night was the best in the night. sleeping with just thick blanket provided on the sand, 4 inches above our eye level is the stars. it's so close and so clear. we laid down peacefully on the cool sand counting stars.

later the next day we went to the famouse Sam desert to watch the beautiful sunsetting into the sea of sand. camel riding can be tiring to your arse but it's fun and rewarding. knowing the behaviour of the camel is intresting.

can you see my location?mr amar and his assistance prepared our dinner. fire was started by the dry twigs collected easily by the nearby bushes. dishwasing liquid is not popular in the desert survival, instead, sand is used to clean the utensis and then rinsed with a bit of water.
h

Rajastan!

once we cross from the state of Uttar Pradesh into Rajasthan, things are TOTALLY DIFFERENT! there still be a bit of touts, there still be people coming to see Hope Too. But these people do not do it the Uttar Pradesh way. i see Rajasthan as a better and richer state. the kids do not come to you and ask for money instead they would say hello to u. the grown up have their own business to care about and they 'mind their own business'. they still see us for a second and the smile is much more genuine. suprisingly, hotel and guest houses here are more cheaper and better than in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

we are in Udaipur today.
N 24deg 35.630'
E073deg 41.845'
Udaipur is known as the most romantic city in india. we had yet to explore the town as the journey today from Pushkar is about 280km, taking a hard 6hours. Pushkar is a very small village but known thro out the world for it's camel festival in November. thou people and place are much nicer, today's oncoming vehicle is very aggresive. trucks head on towards your direction, forcing Hope Too's brake smoking and my feet trying hard to reach for the ground. there are some parts of the highway where there is no road shoulder and the opposite truck is overtaking the vehicle infront, coming straight towards us, leaving us with only 1 foot of clearance space.

gotta sleep early tonight. going to the lake with Sam tomorrow to watch the romantic sunrise!

more to come.

india pics

at last.

this is to the birth place of the buddha at Nepal

we are now at Jaipur, Rajastan state. lots of camels and the people are less of a hassel.

more desert and sand. it's definatly a richer state.

got a few arguement with the locals about taking pictures of me, especially my wife. im not being stingy but they are not up to good deal. they have never seen a asian lady in their life before. each will STARE, yes STARE at her and give her an evil smile, not like the usual smile. they just take out their camera and shoot at us. i give my palm out to the camera and said : NO PICTURES!!!! unless they are genuine people that is intrested in my bike. road here are tough. we cannot manage to stop anywhere because the village will come and gather around us close enough, just as near as one foot away. even stopping at traffic lights, those walking pedestrain will come to Hope Too and look over my meter even in riding. I CANT STAND IT! these are the city people. they disrepect the tourist.

i was conned a few times by the local. overcharging us double by the loop hole. darm those people. it's hard earn $ and they think it's easy money. so far most of the people we met are up to no good. they see us as rich tourist. im not a tourist. im a traveller.


beautiful Varanasi. but people just shit on the street, like animals!the river of Ganga behind Sam is the Holiest river in India.

strange culture

first day when we got into a india hotel, it's full because there's a wedding function. there's no reception nor person incharge of the hotel. everyone juz crowd around Hope Too and us. when we got a room and shower ourselves, we went down. they invited me to their buffet dinner. everybody is so friendly and we started chatting with each other. then we start taking pictures. they are camera freaks! when they are in the picture, they will feel so happy. so, after one picture and after one picture, they would request for another pose and take more pictures.


some of them are friendly and some suddenly don't like us. we tried to go into the restuarant to take pictures with the guide of a local but we were chased out of the hall!


i went out to see around the road, another says in a serious tone, 'it's dark here, you have had your dinner, please go back to your room, please, this is india.'


i just want to loitter around with them and chit chat. maybe im attracting too much attention from the guest rather that the attention should be at the bride and the bride groom.


wierd.


we respect their culture and religon by not taking pict, i feel they do not respect us by intruding into our personal space and our breathing space. as a tourist, we respect their culture by not doing some things that they don't like, but what about us? do they know what we like and what we don't like?

while i was walking to the hotel counter to check the rates out and Sam was with Hope Too to guard the stuff, one indian man was chatting over the phone, walked in circle and spotted Hope Too. he got nothing to do but to use my foot brake pedal to remove the mud/shit on his shoe while chatting on the phone, like how some of us draw rubbish on paper while chatting on phone. then he stepped and release the brake to make loud click noises. Sam as looking straight at him but his mind is on the phone. i saw it while i was coming back to Sam and he walked away.

they would gather around us and and lay their elbow with their body weight on Hope Too's side panniers. at the hotel, Hope Too was covered. As soon as i remove the cover to do some admin stuff, 4-8 person would gather and ask the WWWHH. 1) Where you come from? 2) What is the tank capacity? 3) What brand of made it is? 4)How much can u go with one liter of petrol? 5) How much it cost in Rupees?

i start to love them. some like to guess where we come from by saying hello in japanese or korean. i didn't reply and they tried harder by saying some country names like Taiwan, China, Thailand, Japan..... hoping i would react. even they say Spore i don't care. if they come infront of me asking me to visit their shops or introduce their services to me, i would say in a strange language back to them where i don't even know what am i talking about.

i start to be curious about them. the more i fear them, the more i want to get near them. some people dislike because some of the indian here are dirty. i want to train myself that they would avoid me as if i first saw them. i want them to automatic avoid me. maybe be more dirty than them? may be more persistant than them by asking back question to them? maybe to those touts, i would try to talk about taking money from them.

it's starting to explore india and the people here. it may sounds wierd but i want to look into my fear and overcome it. im very used to the horn here. even i would horn like them.

on average, i can only go on 40km every hour on the highway. the days are short and night falls early. i got to reach a town maximum 200km away everyday.

well, i will try harder to find a better internet cafe in India to upload my pictures here.

Gong Xi Fa Cai...

huat ah India!

Thank You!

i would like to thank Tanglin Secondary Military Band Alumni friends (AKA TTMB), all the majong kakis, contributing to our RTW fund. they are Guoliang, Dehua, Xianghui, Haojie and Jianhao. thanks mann.. i appricate u guys effort!

also to Koh Chin Yee, have not seen you for many years as u guys are in UAE. miss the days together! will u fly to anywhere along my route? thanks for your 'one road prosperity' donation. so far it's the largest donation to our fund. please please, i wanna C u!

thank you all my friends!

GONG XI FA CAI INDIA!

hello everyone back in singapore, drink beers, eating steamboat with family, buying new clothes and watching the count down TCS 8 in your comfortable living room with your family.

we are at Varanasi, India now. highway roads are deadly with rushing trucks and buses coming into your lane and squeeze you to the side of the road. i got to look out holes, cows, man, trishaw, bikes and everything that is about 100m of my radius.

city condition is bad. jammed with rickshaws and human! Hope Too goes screaming as her heater fan turns on.

we read the lonely planet, guest house is about 100-200IRP per night ( SGD$3.80-$7.60) but that was on the date of published. we went in it was 450-600IRP (SGD$17.00 - $22.00)! we ended up going round again to search for the safest (for Hope Too) and cheapest around. there are many many guest house we can stay but they do not have carpark. we end up staying in 300IRP (SGD$11.40) with lousy toilet and 20 mosqito to fly around your ears when we sleep.

terrible! i got to cover Hope Too as soon as i stop anywhere but not possible because they would come like magnet and look, touch, observe Hope Too and us. when we about to leave a meal point, looking back it was like a village meeting, causing traffic jam along the highway because trucks also stopped to view us.

last point was at Nepal, Lumbini where we visited the birth place of the Buddha. we stayed in a Korean Temple where lodging is free. the meal and lodging is the best and most peaceful that i can ever get! Sam slept in ladies dorm with 2 china and a japanese girl. i slept alone in a big dorm. all 3 meals was provided and Hope Too was sleeping outside our dorm. i feel so safe! meal was buffet style with big pots of home cook food. u gotta wash your own dishes and make your own bed. i want to stay longer till chinese new year but it's too comfortable here. all you need is a donation into the box and that's it!

we left early morning to the border. getting into india is easy. all documents done!

we set off to a town called Bauhalganj. only hotel is full as there's a wedding function going on. we were to wait outside the hotel and surrounded by about 20-30man, touching Hope Too and look like us as if we were from Mars.

note: when i say hotel, the standard is dusty road, people spiting in front of u, along the fence of the road there are man urinating like a public toilet. the hotel is like Jalan Besah type of building, facilities are in 1960s and there isn't much lights. toilets are always wet with many mosquito, blanket/bedsheet/pillowcase are used and dirty! no bare foot in the room as the floor is very dirty! AND THEY ARE CHARGING US 300IRP!>!>?!??!?!?!?@#?$#mfskhfi#$oH5 B'QERlwejfl:k$jTU48 05$^$#^%#$!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i miss CNY. chinese new year songs, greetings, goodies, food, relative and friends. can somebody mms me photo of food and pic of CNY? can somebody MMS me songs of CNY?

i recive mms and sms free!