Never say no. If someone has organised a bespoke tour of a part of the world you know little of, grab it I say. That philosophy found me travelling with five girls with high-end cameras and a passion for India.

I have spent the last week in the Gujarat area. We started in Ahmedabad, one of those cities I had seen on airport departure boards but never expected to visit. It was typical India, dusty, noisy and a little bewildering but at least it wasn’t scorching hot it’s winter and a mild 30c ? Ahmedabad has a famous kite festival and we arrived on the tail end. Kites bobbed and swooped high in the air. Other kites hung limp and lifeless after tangling with the mess that is India’s power supply.

As the sun sets we walk the city mesmorised by the silhouette of kite flying boys atop roofs or any high vantage point. Clutching large spools of cotton in one hand, steering with the other they pulled and jerked their fragile kites higher and higher. Like everything in the world it becomes competitive. The thin cotton is coated in fine glass shards to cut the string of others in fights. Much like dog fights between tiger-moth aeroplanes during wartime something’s don’t change. You can imagine my surprise on reading the local newspaper to find that 16 deaths had occurred during the festival mainly from motorcyclists having their throats cut by the tangled glass coated kite string, whilst others had died from electrocution or falls.

In Bajana we headed out at dawn to a barren salt marsh to checkout the temporary home of millions of migrating birds from Europe. First we spot fine flighty waders and pickers shimmering at the water’s edge. Next, white and grey herons always alert and stock still till they pounced on a tiny fish. Flocks of common cranes rather big and ungainly till they reached full flight and the seat belt sign went off.

A moving island of excited pelicans dipping and bobbing as they drained their beaks of a salty breakfast. The movement from shore looking all the world like a paddle steamer ploughing up river. Inland nobel eagles their heads high sat on the tallest bushes surveying the breakfast table.
We pull into the flashiest hotel we’ve stayed at in Bhuj. “Don’t get excited it’s like faulty towers” announces our guide, Jassa. It certainly lives up to its reputation. Rosie informs the receptionist that the shower doesn’t work. The woman turns to her and says “There are no showers in reception.” “That’s true” replies Rosie “but in my room there is and it doesn’t work.”
I arrange for clothes to be washed, it is a task fraught with potential disaster. I hand them my list of items. The receptionist spreads my clothes out along the reception desk nodding at each item but we dispute my listed three pairs of socks. “There are six socks” she announces with a straight face. I’m left to ponder that statement all day. I pick up my laundry on our departure day. “Are you leaving she asks ?” “Yes” I say and by the time I have returned to my room everything has been stripped and my bag sits outside. My medication on the bench has been trashed. Our guide chastises the boys. As we leave one of the room boys follows me to the bus and hands me a small hastily folded envelope. “ Here are your tablets “ he says quietly.  They have rummaged through the rubbish and found the two tiny tablets. I shouldn’t swallow them but I do. In fact I should be dead by now. You just have to accept that this is India.

For all of that you are often left with your mouth wide open in awe of a beautiful temple or majestic palace. We have visited a number of step wells built a thousand years ago often with rather lavish carvings in the columns and walls. Water being the corner-stone of survival, the wells were dug deep. As we worked out way to the bottom you could feel the temperature drop. On a stinking hot summers day you would not want to leave but you knew Mum would be screaming for that bucket of water to cook dinner.

After a long day of bouncing around on Indian roads we arrived late at a hotel near Gir National Park. Straight after dinner everyone raced to their beds as we would be on a safari at dawn. The only warm clothing I had packed was a sleeveless vest, well it is India I thought why would you bother. The following morning in our open-air jeeps we bounced about on dirt roads, the hair on my arms and legs standing bolt upright in the near zero temperatures. I prayed for the sun to peak over the hills, simply to thaw me out.
A small battalion of jeeps raced about hoping to spot an Asiatic lion. After a while we began to enjoy the deer, the peacocks, a pair of hyenas and three mongoose. We were mesmerised by the mongeese standing bolt upright, suddenly they scampered at speed. We turned in the opposite direction to see a very large male lion come into the frame. I had been told that the Asiatic lions would be small, this one was massive and rightly deserved his title of king of the jungle. Everyone raised their cameras as one, like trumpets heralding his arrival. All you could hear were cameras clicking wildly like a plague of cicadas.
But the job I don’t want is the one where you track the lion on foot with nothing more than a stick and your best running shoes on. Two of these local fellows had coaxed a lion from a pride of four, tracked it towards the road for us to see. There are five hundred lions, each has an entourage of two trackers somewhere nearby. Can you imagine the government gazetted job application ?
Wanted : lion observer and tracker.
Protective equipment : one spindly stick.
Skills: The ability to run like the clappers.
My non-negotiable pay-rate would be high, very high and would include a fresh pair of underpants every morning.
Late in the day we venture out again, the hot dry ground now sparse of animals all hiding under a shady tree as I would if left out here. As dusk starts to take the bite out of the day we head towards the exit. We spot two trackers sitting in the grass waiting whilst a female lion and her cub snooze away the afternoon. After a while she wakes, stretches long and lumbers towards us. Her cub is like all young, full of curiosity, excitement and energy. Mum ignores the cub but never lets her get further than a paw swipe away.

The holiest pilgrimage for a Jain devotee is to Shatunjaya Hill. Jain people come from all over India to climb the 3750 steps to the top of the hill supposedly shedding their materialistic beliefs along the way. Which is I guess why the fellow being carried aloft on two sturdy poles by four sherpas is gleefully handing out crisp 10 rupee notes to all and sundry and feeling rather chuffed at the gesture. A life of wheeling and dealing then immediate salvation by throwing a few bucks around when the end is nigh. Footnote: I keep the 10 rupee my first souvenir.
Many pilgrims are carried up some old but just as many getting to the top with the least amount of effort. I’m thinking the guy I spotted in a gold jacket with a mobile phone hard to his ear is going to miss the spiritual moment. They look like people aboard desert camels lurching about, the strain on the sherpas showing. The sherpas balance the large poles on their walking sticks for their rest breaks beads of sweat shining on their brow, it’s a gruelling job.

 

At the top we visit some of the shrines watching as the devotees prepare offerings, piles of rice, money and precious metals. The walk to the bottom is grinding on your knees and tight on your calves. We all pull up at the bottom walking like we are in desperate need of a loo (which has often been the case….. ) We reflect over a lime soda at a roadside stall avoiding the persistent beggars. For me, seeing a nun who had been near us for much of the way down reach out and take Karen’s hand.The two of them continued rhythmically down the steps. When they stopped and parted the pureness of the gesture needed no words other than an open smile. A treasured observation. Back down at the bottom we reentered the cauldron of over-enthusiastic stall holders, spruiking stick sellers and professional beggars complete with someone else’s baby in their hip.

 

It was about time to move on and a day later we headed to the airport bid fair well to our guide and driver and flew South to Cochin. The flights were uneventful and I sat back to read the Indian Times, the worlds largest selling paper. My eye caught a snippet on Jet Airlines. Isn’t that the company we are flying with I thought peering out at the wing ? Yep. The article confirmed that two pilots had been banned for five years for fighting in the cockpit mid-flight. In fact at one point actually leaving the cockpit.  I struggled to concentrate much after that and far too easily imagined our pilots fighting, ignorant of the mountains ahead. The mountains ahead guys go back and steer…

It was close and sticky in Cochin and we immediately started to see more Western tourists. No longer were we a curious group of six in-demand for selfies. The hotel teased us with a pristine pool. I rose early the next morning to swim before breakfast but first needed to wait as the pool wallah methodically vacuumed the bottom of the whole pool. He wound up his hoses as I slipped into the water. I swam feeling the tension of our city walking, marathon bus bouncing and pilgrim shuffling melt away. The best breakfast followed. We walked the promenade of Cochin fort watching the fishermen twirl their weighted circular nets hopefully and gracefully into the churning sea. The girl’s cameras were in overdrive, fishermen, net fishing and an aroma-free fish market where the produce shone brightly.

 

We rock and roll out of Cochin in our bus up into the tea growing area. Our little bus climbs steadily up into the fog and tea growing hills of Munnar. It was like being in the Dandenong ranges and a far cry from Cochin’s steaminess.