The trip so far

An english breakdown of the trip so far since most has been in Dutch and pretty much useless to any foreign readers..

The very short version: India is noisy, smelly, crowded and very chaotic, and we love it...

The somewhat longer version:

Thus far we have travelled the northern part of India: Delhi - Haridwar - Danaulti - Mussoori (all 3 in Uttranchal)

We had to flee Delhi after 3 days to come back later once we're accustomed to Indian life, if you're fresh it's just too much all at once. So we decided to trek up north a bit, see the Himalayas before it got too cold. We basically decided on to options (east and west of Nepal) and simply went to the trainstation to see what was the first train to either direction, which turned out to be west.

After a false start, sitting in the wrong train ending up yet again in Delhi, we ended up in Haridwar. One of the 7 most holy cities in India, this is where the Ganges comes out of the mountains and into the plains (and it's still clear), so no alcohol and meat/eggs to be had in this town.
After arrival we both ended up with some form of Delhi belly so the no alcohol was actually quite ok to get the intestines all back in order, hopefully we're immune for the rest of the trip no we're up and running again.

Haridwar itself is an oasis of peace and quiet compared to Delhi, though it's still a mess according to western standards. Some nice scenery of the Himalayan foothills and nice and friendly people. After a stay of about a week we heared about a rock festival in Danaulti, a tiny little village a bit further up in the mountains. This pretty much sounded like music to our ears (if only to get away from the very crappy speakers played at way too loud levels in every car/rikshaw around) so next stop Danaulti.

The trip itself was about 100km, which in India means one day travel, with some great scenery and what must have been one of the greatest roads I ever travelled (in one of the most crappy cars at way too high speed, good it was dark so I couldn't see how far we would fall if we slid of the road :)

The festival was an experience: just a field of grass, a stage,a PA system and a lot of rock bands from around India (some surprisingly good). Refreshments had to be gotten in the village itself. Danaulti itself has some great views of the everwhite Himalayan mountains (which are still ~100km straight north).

After the festival was over we decided to head a bit down to mussoori, a hill station just north of Dehra Dun, to have some relaxation in the mountains before it would gettoo cold. It's so peacefull and quiet up there that you'd almost forget you're in what must be the most crowded country in the world (there are more chinese, but there's also a lot more China to fit them into).

We met some people on the festival with which we ended up sharing a room in Mussoori and it turned out our travelling plans (as far as we are planning that is) were pretty much in the same direction. So after a week in Mussoori a party of 4 headed down the mountain towards Bikaner to indulge in a visit of the Rat temple and a camel safari into the Thar desert.

Internet time is running out now so I'll post more later about Rajastan and the desert.