Literally. At both ends. But better this morning (only had a bland breakfast though). Not sure what it was – everything seems suspect in restrospect! I hope Christian and/or Silje (from Norway) weren’t sick too (although that would narrow down the bad (sea)food!)
I’ve checked out now, and am sharing a 2-hour taxi to the Margao train station (Rs1000/$25) in a few hours with Max, yet another Austrian.
Actually we’re paying a little more (Rs1200/$30 total; 2½ hours + church sightseeing) to make a detour to Old Goa and look at some of the churches there (something I had planned on doing as a day trip from Panjim (Panaji) but ditched to stay at the beach).
At 18:00 departs my 12 hour train to Mumbai, which has the most expensive hotel rooms in the country…
On Monday I moved from Benaulim beach to Arambol beach, one of the northern-most beaches in Goa (which is a comparatively small state for India).
The move required an auto-rickshaw, 2 express buses and a local bus (3 ¼ hours total), plus some time in one of the towns to hit an ATM and top-off my Indian mobile.
Hanging out on the beach with new friends, listening to live music in the evenings, etc. Non-busking western saxophonist on the beach for sunset last night!
Much busier here than in Benaulim, way more stores and restos and Internet cafes along the road leading to the beach (the village of Arambol is inland over 1km).
I burned some more photos to DVD to free up 2 full memory sticks and now it looks like my first DVD might be corrupt?! This was on the laptop of my Quebec friend Nicole, who I ran into again here (having first met her on the train from Mysore to Bangalore); now she’s in Rajasthan at an Indian wedding, crossing paths with her daughter who is also travelling in India…
(I bought 3 blank DVDs for Rs100/$2.50)
I’ve had surprising trouble getting on the Internet here – either the connection is down, or hotmail has been down, or power outages, or simply closed (they open late, close early). Update a few hours later: I’m trying again, but the power was out, though I did get to use one of the computers on their battery back up, but the Internet is painfully slow so more highlights from recent places will have to wait 2-3 more days until Mumbai.
I decided to stay an extra night here, so my next move will be tomorrow back to Madgaon (Margao) to catch an 11-hour night train to Mumbai, where I will be for 2 days.
I did take a second yoga class here, which was great, way better than the first one! The yoga instructor makes all the difference…
Kingfisher bird (as in the local beer and airline);
North end of beach (my hotel is on the right edge);
Sunset saxophonist (no, he’s not playing every night)
Note that “Highlights of [town]” blog entries are usually out of sequence wrt other entries, i.e. they tend to happen after I’ve moved on.
For example, the recent Highlights of Kochi and Bangalore entries came after my general Hampi and arrived in Goa entries, which does NOT mean that I went to Kochi and Bangalore after Goa…
The city market was fun, but nothing special (compared to other markets).
Quite disappointing really overall (not even good Internet cafes!) as it is too Westernized – see my previous posts about it.
Indian birthday partyat the rooftop resto where I had lunch (they spoke a mix of Hindi and English, but sang Happy Birthday in English)
Auto-rickshaw meter in use (it says Rs12; while it is the law in Bangalore to use the meter, only one of my 3 rides actually did)
Combo squat/Western toilet (the seat is in the up position) at my cheap hotel
Kochi (Cochin) consists of a mainland part (Ernakulam), a peninsula (Fort Kochi (Fort Cochin)) and some islands (Vypeen and others). There are inexpensive ferries running between them, e.g. Rs2.50/$0.07 between Ernakulam and Fort Kochi.
Fort Kochi (Fort Cochin) is where most tourists head to (because mainland Ernakulam is a big dirty busy uninteresting Indian town, although that is where the train station is located (and named after)).
Highlights include:
Cantilevered Chinese fishing nets along the waterfront promenade
It’s green! As in parks, trees (reminds me a little of the French side of Pondy)
Fresh fish catch brought in by the fishermen (which you can buy and take to a resto to have it cooked, although I didn’t actually do that)
Refilling water bottle from a 5 gallon jug for Rs5/L (less/re-use plastic!)
Nice sunsets!
Kathakali Centre (if I hadn’t just seen one a performance at a temple a few nights earlier, this would be the place to go!)
Traditional sights that didn’t wow me: a church; Santa Cruz Basilica (though on Sun evening they do a procession around the basilica while firecrackers go off)
See also my previous post(s) on Kochi…
Photos: fresh fish for sale (lobster too, in his hand); Sun evening procession around Santa Cruz Basilica
Fresh fish for saleSun procession around Santa Cruz Basilica
I also bought two India-related books at a bookstore here:
Are you Experienced? by William Sutcliffe, about a first time backpacker in India (written by a 26 year old Brit, the characters are younger)
Holy Cow! An Indian Adventure by Sarah MacDonald (written by an Australian woman who returned to India 11 years after hating it the first time)
Restos I recommend:
Talk of the Town – on the 1st floor (2nd floor north american naming convention)
Salt ‘n’ Pepper – a sidewalk resto
New Ananda Bhavan (near the Kathakali Theatre) for a great thali lunch (Rs25/$0.63)
Ba’Sheer Juice on the waterfront for inexpensive fresh fruit juice (no water/ice/sugar!)
Misc photos: kids playing after school with what looks like a church steeple on the ground;
kid selling Spirograph (I remember having one as a kid!) for Rs60/$1.50 as he demonstrates it on his large paper
Yesterday was not fun, what with, umm, stomach issues, on the train yesterday (at least the toilet was pretty clean on the train, being in one of the better classes).
I arrived in Margao (Madgaon), the main train station town in Goa, in mid-afternoon exhausted and not feeling well.
So instead of 2 auto-rickshaws and 2 buses up to Arambol beach, I took the fastest route to a beach, which was a 10-15min auto-rickshaw ride to nearby Benaulim Beach (only 6-8km away from Margao).
I slogged along the beach to find a room at the beach huts, and the 3rd or 4th one did have one available (albeit with the tiles ripped out of the bathroom for renovation).
I drank 1L water with oral rehydration salts, took a brief swim, huddled on the padded lounge chair (free!) to watch sunset, and then slept off and on until the next morning (no dinner).
Today my stomach feels better. I had an exciting porridge breakfast (mmm), and a slightly more substantial lunch.
I was going to try to move to Arambol today, but it turns out check-out is at noon (not 24 hours from check-in) so I am staying another day (which is also safer, methinks).
The beach here is very wide, with light rolling waves and a good breeze. Lots of restos on the beach, but spread out enough to not be manic.
This is the main part of Benaulim beach (my bungalows/hotel is a 5 minute walk north of here, where it’s a little quieter)
In these first 18 days, I think I’ve experienced just about all the main transportation modes except for boats and internal flights. No camels yet either.
In increasing order of size/cost:
There was no night train from Hampi. I should have considered the night sleeper bus (apparently you get a sleepable bunk – not reclining seats). Then again, The Book says to avoid night buses. Then again, I’ve met plenty of travelers who like them.
In the meantime, some more Hampi photos:
– the river, with laundry drying, looking from my side (Hampi Bazaar) towards the calmer other side (there’s a small boat crossing)
– giving a monkey a drink (yes, that’s my hand); the cap on the water bottle is loose so that it dripped (one monkey later bit a hole near the bottom of the bottle, so I closed the cap and used that as the water “spout”
Unfortunately, I had brought the wrong spare SD card (memory) for the camera and had no space half-way through the feeding frenzy (I had nuts and bananas for them too). Part of that problem was that I had organized the photos by location in a separate folder, so when I popped the card in it said no photos to display and I assumed it was empty, instead of checking that there was room for 500+ photos…
Communicating in English: Note: there is a movement in India to make Hindi the official country-wide unifying language, but south India is resisting the idea because English is the common second language – hardly anyone speaks Hindi in the south. Recall that virtually every state (certainly in the south) has its own language (a Dravidian language in the south, which is very different from Hindi).
Alleppey and backwaters:
In the backwaters village homestay, Thomas’ mother did the (excellent) cooking. She also gave cooking classes (no time for me though).
Tip: skip the night in Alleppey and head straight for Chennamkary village homestay!
Including this mother with baby – so cute! Had to include this pic for Susan!
Apparently the mother’s very red face means she is ready for to mate again…
They may be wild, but they are definitely used to humans – they will take bananas and nuts (one at a time, stuffing their cheek) out of your hand, and drink water from a loose-capped water bottle (one actually managed to twist the cap off) or from a half-coconut shell, even tipping it up like a cup!
I didn’t do any of that direct interaction (other guys did), but I’m heading up there again today with supplies!
Oh, and one of them kept touching my back while I was crouched taking photos and videos – they’d definitely get into a backpack or bag if you left it lying on the ground…
Monkey with baby on board
On an unrelated note, I was recently asked: How are you finding communicating in India? How common is English?
A: English is quite common (less so in smaller towns, but people who deal with tourists speak English, except for the canoe paddlers out of Alleppey
That being said, their English is hard to understand due to to the strong Indian accent (think Apu on The Simpsons but even stronger) – I frequently have to ask What? and Sorry? to get them to repeat it…
An exception of course is better- or foreign-educated Indians, their English is very understandable. Note: there is a movement in India to make Hindi the official country-wide unifying language, but south India is resisting the idea because English is the common second language – hardly anyone speaks Hindi in the south. Recall that virtually every state (certainly in the south) has its own language (a Dravidian language in the south, which is very different from Hindi).
