From Aurangabad on Tue I take a 2 hour bus to see the Ajanta caves, then a 2 hour bus further to a train station for a 24-hour train to Varanasi, arriving Wed Mar 5 at 19:15
and stay one night
Then a night train to Agra, arriving Fri Mar 7 at 6:10
Then a night train to Jodhpur, arriving Sat Mar 8 at 7:20,
and stay one night at the guest house.
Then a night train to Jaisalmer, arriving Mon Mar 10 at 5:30
Then a night train to Bikaner, arriving Tue Mar 11 at 4:40
and stay 2 nights in Bikaner, inc. 1 night camel safari
On the evening of Thu Mar 13 I take a night train to Delhi and on north to Chandigarh to visit a friend’s friend’s Sikh parents (arriving Fri Mar 14).
Which will probably only leave 2 days in Delhi at the end.
I arrived in Aurangabad today, which is hella hot in the daytime, but reasonable in the evening. Very dry landscape.
The reason I’m here is I visited the World Heritage site Ellora Caves today (a must see!), which make the Mamallapuram rock carvings look minor…
More detail later, this internet place is closing soon (I really wanted to get some big highlights done of previous stops
There are 34 “caves” (some Buddhist, some Hindu, some Jain) carved out of the cliff-side between 7th and 11th Century)
Cave 16 – the huge Kailasa Temple (bigger than the Parthenon!)
Expensive hotels here. My half-decent budget hotel is Rs900/$22.50 per night (usually I’ve been paying Rs400/$10 most nights).
And I don’t even have my own toilet (though I do have a (bucket) shower in my room). Sigh.
And check out time is noon, so even though I’m here 48 hours (6am to 6am two days later), I’m paying for 3 nights! Well, he did give me a discount (only Rs500/$12.50 for the first “night” from 6am to noon today).
I ended up sleeping a few hours upon checkin because I didn’t sleep well on the train last night, despite following the lead of 3 Indian-Canadians from B.C. and paying for an upgrade to AC2 class (from AC3) via the conductor. Funny, AC2 was waitlisted when I tried to buy the ticket, and now there are at least a dozen empty berths.
Mumbai isn’t as bad as I expected, but I’ve only seen the small Colaba area near my hotel… after a late “brunch” (a South Indian thali) during which I read up and highlit my guidebook, I’m now ready to get out and explore!
India Gate
Terry Fox is alive and well in India, or at least his memory is! (for your Canadians)
Despite being ill last night (thankfully briefly), I wanted to make some more comments/updates on food/drink and prices…
Beer: In Goa, beer is cheaper: only Rs60/$1.50 for a large Kingfisher, and Rs35/$0.88 for a small (regular) Kingfisher, which I hadn’t actually seen until this point. The Goan beer Bello tastes worse, in my opinion. I’ve also seen Budweiser and Fosters here in Goa. On that note, the Kingfisher colours/advertising/slogans remind me a lot of Budweiser, actually…
Bread: I had written that adding things to bread other than ghee/butter (e.g. garlic) wasn’t “worth it” despite the small cost because there just wasn’t enough to notice the difference; well, I found an exception in Arambol, Goa: mint paratha. There is definitely enough mint to notice, and it makes it even more tasty!
Quality: I’ve had over 100 meals in India now, and I’d say I’ve enjoyed all but 1 or 2 of them (and maybe disappointed at the lack of variety, but no the quality, of 2 more meals). And the one I clearly remember disliking was because it was all (deep) fried and bland.
Which means over 95% of meals have been good or better, which is more than I can say than any other trip (or eating out back home, for that matter!)
Tip: fried almost always means deep-fried here, not stir-fried (even if the oil isn’t heated quite as much as the trans-fat inducing high heat back home)
You may have noticed in some photos that I’m wearing a wood (sandalwood? rosewood?) bead necklace…
I bought it in from a girl on the street in Chennai (surely overpaid at Rs20/$0.50) hoping that would deter further bead necklace salespeople –
but I fear it probably had the opposite effect, as in this tourist was gullible enough to buy one, maybe he’ll buy more! Grr…
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…
North end of beach (my hotel is on the right edge);
Sunset saxophonist (no, he’s not playing every night)
Kingfisher bird (as in the local beer and airline);
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.
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)
Indian birthday partyat the rooftop resto where I had lunch (they spoke a mix of Hindi and English, but sang Happy Birthday in English)
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
