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I recently took a tram in Bern, Switzerland’s capital, at eight o’clock one Monday morning. It was full of truly miserable people. You would have been forgiven for thinking they all had lost their families, their homes, their friends, their jobs and all their possessions, and on top of it had just been diagnosed with a terminal illness that gave them just a month to live.

Now, I know that if you take the tube in London at 8 am on a Monday morning, the passengers will not exactly be whooping from the joy of going to work on a dark winter morning. Most of them are nursing their hangovers and comedowns after a wild weekend and are not really too excited about another boring working week. But there is a difference between that slightly hungover Monday morning feeling and the all-encompassing misery that hung over the tram in Bern. (I know what all you Swiss readers say now: you can’t judge us based on just one tram journey! No, I can’t, but this has been my experience on every bloody tram journey I’ve taken in Bern over the last two years so stop making excuses and read on).

Every passenger on that tram belonged to the richest 5% of the world’s population. With very few exceptions, everyone in Switzerland belongs to the richest 5% of the world’s population. I hear you Swiss readers scream “I’m not rich!” and I know that in Switzerland you’re considered poor if you don’t own two new cars and a personal Jacuzzi, and if your wife has fewer than 20 pairs of shoes, but that is exactly what puts you in the richest 5% of people in the world.

So why are the people in (one of the) wealthiest countries in the world so unhappy? Does all that wealth not make you happy after all?

When I walk by an Indian slum, let’s say the one in Mysore I lived down the road from for a few years, there is a smile on most people’s faces. These are people who live in huts that are boiling hot in the summer and that leak badly during the monsoon, and that do not have 24-hour electricity or running water or sanitary facilities. The kids pee in the ditch and run around barefoot without diapers or even pants, laughing as they step in pig poo. There is a communal tap that gives every family in the slum their water for cooking, for making tea, for drinking and for washing themselves. There are kids and adults and old people, there are cows and goats and pigs, there are dogs and cats and there are also rats, but most of all there are loads of smiles and laughs.

Now I’m not one of those people who think you should smile even if you get dysentery (although it helps to laugh at the shlts). But what I do wonder is why the people in the wealthiest countries in the world are so often so bloody miserable?

Pangong Tso, Ladakh

After descending from Chang La the road continues through green fields where wild horses graze and little Himalayan marmots come out to sunbathe and play. And then you catch the first glimpse of the bright blue waters and the rocky lakeshore.

Pangong Travel Permits and Accommodation near Pangong Tso

Most of Pangong Lake is in Chinese-controlled territory. Because of Pangong’s proximity to the disputed border region, tourists are only allowed to visit the lake as far as Spangmik village. You will also need an Inner Line Permit to visit Pangong. Travel agents in Leh arrange permits and this is the same seven-day permit that also allows you to travel to the Nubra Valley and other sensitive areas. Foreign tourists should travel in a group of four, but travel agents can put groups together. It is best to carry least 5-6 copies because the permit is checked several times on the route to the lake and every checkpoint will keep one copy.

Accommodation at Pangong Tso

The same travel agents that arrange permits also arrange jeep tours to Pangong Tso. You can visit Pangong on a daytrip from Leh if you don’t mind a lot of driving on mountain roads in one day, but a daytrip leaves you very little time by the lake and you might be driving back in the dark. When I visited a couple of years ago, there was basic accommodation in (and along the way to) Spangmik, mainly in tent camps and in local houses. Most Pangong Lake accommodation comes (or did when I was there) without running water or electricity. There are guesthouses in Tangtse village, about 40 km from the lake, as well as a few restaurants.

At this altitude it gets cold at night so bring warm clothes (an extra fleece and a hat will come in handy) and a warm sleeping bag. You might also want to bring snacks and a torch (flashlight).

Responsible Travel to Pangong Tso

Chang La, on the way to Pangong

As remote areas such as the Pangong Lake open to tourism, the consequences can be catastrophic if we don’t respect the environment and the people who live in these beautiful areas. The environment around Pangong is fragile and it is already suffering from increasing amounts of visitors. According to WWF India, increasing tourism to wetlands such as the Pangong Lake can affect the breeding of waterfowls, disturb wild animals, increase pollution along trekking routes and campsites, increase pressure on grazing lands and cause problems such as rubbish dumping into streams and in marmot burrows.

If you decide to visit Pangong, do not cover the lakeshore with toilet paper (actually, do not use toilet paper at all) and do not leave rubbish around. If you can’t find a place to dispose of or recycle your rubbish, bring it back with you for recycling or proper disposal. WWF India has more about the challenges of increasing tourism to sites like the Pangong Lake.

*some would disagree and say it’s only about the 4^th or the 5^th highest

Thinking about travelling to India for the first time?

I’ve written loads of tips for first-time visitors to India, but I get lots of emails from first-time travellers asking for advice for a trip to India. If you are planning your first India trip, here are some posts I have written to help you plan, pack and prepare for the beautiful madness and the mad beauty that is India.

How to Survive Being Sick in India

How to Survive Culture Shock in India

How to Take a Rickshaw in India

How to Travel by Train in India

How to Travel in India

How to Use and Indian Toilet

India Travel Tips for Women Travellers

India Travel Tips: How to Pack

India Travel Tips: India Travel Health

India Travel Tips: Planning an India Trip

India Travel Tips for Women: Packing for a Trip to India

India Travel Tips for Women: What to Wear in India

3 Safety Tips for Women Travelling to India Alone

3 Simple India Travel Tips

and don’t forget my Ebook South India for Women Travellers: How to Survive and Enjoy Your Trip!

When I returned to Europe in 2009 from a trip that lasted more than three years and included lots of travel around India, studying yoga in Mysore and long trips to nearby countries including Thailand, Singapore and Nepal, I was more than ready to leave Asia. Europe was, in my mind, a paradise where everything is clean and efficient and functions perfectly. Europe was the dreamland with no

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cheating rickshaw drivers and no bureaucracy that has been created to extract bribes from foreigners by driving us so mad that we’d be happy to pay anything just so we would not have to fill in another inexplicable piece of paper. Europe was a place that had decent bread (and that means bread that is baked in an oven and is not flat), non-spicy food, cheese that actually tastes like cheese. My Dream Europe had cold crispy winter mornings and people who would get things done in three working days without asking for a “present”.

The disappointment was so great that I am still not sure if I am going through a reverse culture shock that has lasted over two years, or if my mind had simply created an illusion of Europe that never existed in reality.

I know I’m lumping the whole Europe here in the same category. The main disappointment was Switzerland, the land of chocolate and cheese and efficiency and quality, of which I found the first two in abundance but noticed the last two lacking somewhat. But it’s not just Switzerland: the Europe I missed while I was in India is falling apart.

I still love the food: the bread, the chocolate, the cheese. I still love the peace and quiet and privacy that I missed so much in the constant noise that is India. But in I also feel increasingly lost, disillusioned and out of place.

The European efficiency and quality are simply not there anymore. While the cost of living has gone up, the quality of pretty much everything has gone down. We pay more and more for services and products that give us less and less value and take longer and longer to be delivered. People have to work more and more for less money and for no job security, hard-working honest people who thought they were pretty secure are suddenly struggling to make ends meet (while others can afford to pay £136 million for a penthouse flat in London yet refuse to pay council tax), the job market keeps reminding us that absolutely nothing in life is certain – not even that job you have been doing for the last 30 years and thought you’d be doing until you retire. While all that affects how I feel, I am also feeling out of touch and out of place with smaller things. The conversations I hear people having about the American Idol (I mean who gives a feck?) and other crap like that are so foreign, so alien and so irrelevant to me that I’m wondering if it would have been better to stay in India.

I miss many things from India: green coconuts, palm trees, sunsets over the ocean, old ladies selling garlands of fresh flowers on the street, cows walking around as if they ruled the world. But what I really miss is about travelling in India is that feeling of living in the moment, not knowing what will happen the next day or the day after, having a tentative travel plan but knowing that you might end up doing something completely unplanned anyway.

I actually like to have a routine and I even develop routines quickly when I travel, but sometimes it is also good to shake your routines up a little and travel is an obvious way to do that. And it is not just chilling out in a hammock that I miss. When I travel I like to have a purpose and I like to work (hence the poorly paid but time-consuming career in travel writing). Most of the time on my three years of travels I was pretty busy with stuff. Interesting stuff.

But of course now India is making it harder and harder for us to go there. Not that long ago it was possible for a Finnish passport holder to get a 5-year tourist visa for India from the Indian embassy in Helsinki in three working days. Now the visa process has been outsourced (yeah, you know what’s going to happen when you hear that word) and the maximum you can get is a year (but you’ll still have to get out after 6 months and not go back in for 2 months), it costs a lot more than before, and people on discussion forums are talking about 4-week processing times. Oh, and you have to provide proof of a valid travel insurance or you can’t even apply!

So I keep thinking about India and I find myself increasingly thinking about all that was good about travel in India. How do you bring all that back to your life in the West? How do you survive the shock of returning “home” when home is not what it used to be? And what is it about India that keeps calling us back? What is it about India that gets so under our skin?

Merry Christmas, happy holidays and let’s hope that 2012 will be a better year for me, for you and for the world than 2011!

A squat toilet and Western toilet in one room!

Why the Squat Toilet is Better than a Western Toilet in India

A squat toilet can be a lot more hygienic than a Western toilet especially it is a public toilet. When you squat over the hole on the floor, you do not have to worry about your skin coming into contact with all sorts of germs that you have to worry about when you sit on a Western toilet seat. In the West you might carefully place some toilet paper on the seat to protect you from germs but in India you rarely get toilet paper. Apparently squatting is also healthier than sitting down on a toilet seat. I haven’t been convinced about the theory yet but squatting sure develops your leg muscles.

Why the Left Hand and Water Method is Better than Toilet Paper

Most Indian toilets do not have toilet paper. Instead, you will usually find a bucket of water and a jug, and you are expected to use these to wash yourself after you have done your business. Some modern toilets have handheld showers instead of jugs.

Many first-time travellers (and some of them have emailed me) seem so nervous about having to use water and soap instead of toilet paper that I wonder if they actually ever even wash their butts in the shower. What is cleaner, people: wiping your butt with a thin piece of paper, which, if you really really think about it, never completely cleans your butt but actually just spreads the poop around – or washing the poop away with water? Provided you wash your hands with soap after washing yourself (and I hope that you do even if you use toilet paper) the left-hand-and-water –method is more hygienic and keeps you cleaner than toilet paper.

After living in India for more than three years, I got so used to the water method that I still use a jug of water at home. If I have to use toilet paper, for example in a public toilet, I never really feel like it does the job. Really. All you toilet paper freaks, you’re walking around with tiny bits of poop still stuck onto your ass.

The water method is not just more hygienic, it is necessary in India where the drainage system is not able to handle large amounts of toilet paper. There is usually a bin in the toilet for depositing used toilet paper, and you should bin your paper instead of throwing it in the toilet – but this brings me to another question: how hygienic is that bin filled with used poopy toilet paper that often stands there for days surrounded by hundreds of flies? It’s a massive health risk.

Seriously: learn to use your left hand and water. As long as you always remember to handle food with only your right hand, you’re cleaner with water than with toilet paper.

Happy Diwali! (Ramesh NG)

Diwali, or Deepavali, is a bit like Christmas in India: one of the biggest parties of the year. The Sanskrit word deepavali translates as “rows of lights” and means little oil lamps or diyas that are lit at night during Diwali. Deepavali is celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs and Jains, and as with most festivals in India, the legends and traditions associated with Diwali and the ways to celebrate it vary in different parts of the country. Festivities spread over five days and the main day of Diwali is the 15^th day of the month of Kartika in the Hindu lunar calendar. That is today.

Photo: Ramesh NG (Wikimedia Commons)

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If you have visited Indian Travel Journey more than once over the last few days, you might be wondering why it looks different than before, and more importantly, why it looks different every time you visit.

It started out as a small experiment after some technical problems, and the idea was to change just one small thing… but it’s ended up in major changes on how the blog looks. It’s not there yet but it’s half way there. Meanwhile Indian Travel Journey stays online so please be patient while it develops!

Drink Green Coconut Water!

Please note that these tips are not intended to replace qualified medical advice. If you’re sick, go to a doctor. I’m sharing a few tips here but I’m not taking any responsibility for your health.

When Delhi Belly Hits…

1. Throw up. The sooner you throw up, the sooner you’ll feel better. Don’t be afraid of vomiting, because you want to get the bug out of your system and the two ways of achieving that are vomiting and shltting. You ate something that made you sick and now the stuff is in your system, and you want it out as fast as possible.

When Delhi belly hits you will probably vomit anyway, but it’s a good thing. Drink a lot of water and if it comes up it comes up (and brings some of the contaminated food with it). Staying hydrated is extremely important because you’ll lose a lot of fluids through vomiting and through diarrhoea. The vomiting period is usually intense but short, and is probably over in a few hours or, if you wake up in the middle of the night and start to vomit, you’ll be throwing up the last bits of stomach acids by the morning.

2. Don’t take Immodium unless you have to travel urgently (for example, you’re in the middle of the mountains and need to go to the hospital but can’t because you’re crapping your pants every five minutes). Immodium stops the diarrhoea, but what you want is to get rid of the bug that’s causing it, which means lots of trips to the toilet.

3. Drink coconut water. The water inside green coconuts is excellent for rehydrating your body during and after a stomach bug, and it’s great if you have fever too. It is also gentle to the stomach and tastes nice. If you can’t keep anything else down, sipping fresh green coconut water often helps.

4. A little bit of Delhi belly tends to go away in a day or two. If it doesn’t, or if there is blood in the stools, if you have high fever or other symptoms, or if the diarrhea is especially furious and you’re dehydrating fast, go to the doctor or the hospital. Ask other travellers or your guesthouse for a recommendation (some doctors may even come and visit you). If it is not a simple 24-hour travellers’ diarrhoea, it might be amoebic dysentery, giardia or maybe even something to do with intestinal worms.

The only way to find out what’s causing your illness is a stool test, so you’ll need to provide a stool sample to get diagnosed and to get a prescription for the right medication. Doctors’ fees and medicines are incredibly affordable in India, and the right medication gets rid of the parasite surprisingly fast (although some parasites, such as giardia, may come back). Ciprofloxin and other general antibiotics will kill bacteria but may not work against Indian parasites so you will need something stronger. Cipro, by the way, is available over the counter from Indian pharmacies.

5. Don’t eat curd (yoghurt) until the worst is over. Curd is sometimes recommended for stomach bugs in India, but being a dairy product it does not necessarily help in the first stages of Delhi belly. I used to eat yoghurt because it tastes nice, especially if you’ve been vomiting a lot, but it is apparently not a good thing to eat any dairy while you’re having diarrhoea. (I was recently told by a National Health Service nurse to stay off dairy while having the shlts so that’s some professional advice for you.)

You will probably fast for the first few hours since you’re unlikely to want to eat while you’re throwing up all the time. As soon as you can eat again, stick to bland foods such as boiled rice (but eat freshly boiled rice and not stuff that’s been sitting around for days because that’s likely to give you a new bug ) or plain toast. Drink lots of water and coconut water. Once the worst is over, curd is an excellent home remedy for getting your stomach back to normal. If you are taking antibiotics for the bug, eat lots of curd to balance your guts.

6. Don’t worry. 24 hours of Delhi belly is not going to kill you. Even if it’s giardia or amoeba, it most likely won’t kill you if you get treatment. Yes, it’s awful, but many of us get it every time we visit India, and it’s just one of those things India does to you. If the symptoms continue, visit a doctor; if you have symptoms after returning home, go to the doctor and get tested for parasites, preferably in a place that knows something about tropical illnesses.

South India for Women Travellers

South India for Women Travellers: How to Survive and Enjoy Your Trip  is my first ebook and it is packed with travel tips for women planning to visit South India. From where to go to what to wear, South India for Women Travellers offers practical no-nonsense India travel advice.

It includes

• tips for planning a trip
• advice on what to wear in India
• tips for  staying healthy and safe while in India
• a short guide to South Indian food
• advice for train travel in India
• ideas for places to visit from beaches and wildlife parks to Hindu temples and ashrams
• insights into South Indian culture, including major Indian festivals

and much more. The focus is on Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Goa.  South India for Women Travellers is a book for first-time visitors to India, solo women travellers planning a trip to South India or for experienced women travellers who want to get more out of their trip and understand South India a little bit better.

11580 Words

$3.99 USD

Available now from  Smashwords!

If you have a blog…I have 5 (five) free ebooks to give away, but you’ll need to review the ebook or mention it in ablog post, and link back to this blog or to the book’s Smashwords page. Contact me via the contact form and include a link to your blog and your email address so I can send a coupon for a free ebook download.

But of course I fell, and the water in the Ardèche River was very cold on this particular September morning. And I had not even had a coffee.

The Ardeche Gorges

The Ardèche River flows through the Ardèche Gorges in a series of rapids in the Gorges de l’Ardèche nature reserve. La descente de l’Ardèche is an approximately 30 km trip down the river in a kayak or a canoe. The town of Vallon Pont d’Arc is the starting point for river trips. Several companies hire kayaks, and many campsites along the river arrange trips. If you start just outside Vallon Pont d’Arc you can paddle right under le Pont d’Arc, the natural stone bridge that is one of the biggest tourist attractions here.

Most companies offer day trips and two-day trips. Depending on your starting point, you will paddle between 24 and 32 km. A half-day “mini-descente” (6-8 km) is available if you have little time. It is entirely possible to paddle the whole distance in one day, but an overnight trip gives you more time to enjoy the scenery and to take breaks for swimming, sunbathing and just hanging out by the river.

Camping in the Ardèche Gorges

If you choose a two-day trip, you’ll spend the night camping in the nature reserve. Camping in the wild is forbidden and everyone must stay at designated camping areas (bivouac). There are two bivouacs, Gaud and Gournier, and tickets should be bought in advance. Apparently the number of places is limited and the high season can get very crowded, although when we did our trip it was September and we were able to buy the ticket on arrival at the bivouac.

Kayaking in the Ardeche Gorges, France (Enzo Coribello)

Pack your own tent, sleeping bags and mats. All your gear will be packed in waterproof containers. The bivouacs have showers and toilets but no food. It is important to take enough food for the duration of the trip (which we didn’t do) as food is not sold in the bivouacs (which we didn’t know). Drinking water is available and the bivouacs have barbecue facilities (which don’t help if you didn’t bring anything to put on the barbecue). Bring warm clothes for the evening especially if you are kayaking outside the hottest summer months. September nights can feel chilled when you’ve been soaked in the rapids. Bring high SPF sun protection for the day.

Most trips end in Sauze or a few kilometers further down the river in St. Martin d’Ardèche. You will be picked up at the end of the trip and driven back to the starting point. There is a coffee shop and restaurant near the end point in Sauze – for this caffeine addict the lovely coffee in that lovely place was a gift from heaven.

Tips for kayaking the Ardèche Gorges

Most rapids are grade 2 and even first-time kayakers can make the descent, but you need to be able to swim. Although the descent is generally safe, fatal accidents do occur. All kayak hire companies provide life jackets. The most popular way to descend is in a two-person kayak. Some experienced canoers make the descent in a single-person canoe. Children can often travel as a third passenger in a kayak, but the minimum age is 7.

The descent is usually available between April and October when the water level is high enough. During the peak tourist season in July and August massive crowds descend the Ardèche daily. For a quieter trip, try the beginning of the season in May or the end of the season in September. The Vallon Pont d’Arc and Gorges de l’Ardèche Tourist Office has a list of some of the kayak rentals in the area.

Le Pont d'Arc, Ardeche, France

Other Things to Do in Ardèche, France

As well as the gorges this scenic area has lots of other attractions and activities:

• hike in the Gorges de l’Ardèche nature reserve or combine hiking with kayaking
• visit Le Pont d’Arc, a natural stone bridge over the Ardèche River, carved by the river itself over centuries. You can see the bridge from a viewpoint on the road between Vallon Pont d’Arc and St. Martin d’Ardèche, and there is a small sandy beach by the Pont d’Arc, accessible from the road.
• the 36 km route from Vallon Pont d’Arc to St. Martin d’Ardèche is a scenic drive along the canyon rim with several viewpoints for good views over the gorges. The roads are a heaven for motorbike riders, but accidents are common as it is easy to drive way too fast here
• several limestone caves in the area are open to visitors. The Chauvet Cave where prehistoric art was found in 1994 is not open to the public, but a museum has been established to give visitors a chance to see reconstructions of the original cave walls and photos from the real cave.
• there is a lovely Lavender Museum near the village of Saint Remèze. Highly recommended.

Where to Stay in Vallon Pont d’Arc

The Vallon Pont d’Arc town has hotels and holiday rentals and several campsites are set up along the river. They range from one to four-star camping. Most have restaurants, small shops and other services, and 4-star campsites come with fancy facilities including swimming pools and tennis courts. Campsites are usually open from May to September/October and daily rates vary depending on the season. The high season in the area is around July and August, and if you want to avoid the crowds, it is better to go in September or in May/June.

Most visitors arrive by car, campervan or motorbike. Vallon Pont d’Arc has a bus station with departures to nearby cities. The nearest TGV train stations are in Montélimar, Valance and Avignon.