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);
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…
Alappuzha (Alleppey) was nothing exciting in and of itself, it’s more of a gateway to the backwaters. It sits roughly in the middle of the at least 120km long (north to south) stretch of backwaters; I’m not sure how wide it is (though it is wide too). Basically the area goes from Kochi (Cochin) at the north end all the way Kollam in the south (which is just north of Varkala). It’s so large that we actually travelled on “national waterway no. 3″ for part of the ferry ride! And there are canal-side signs showing direction and distance to towns, just like highway signs!
Popular cheap backwater cruises include: Kollam to Alleppey (8 hours by public ferry; the guidebook says this can get boring, but a few travellers I’ve met say it was interesting, what with all the village stops along the way) and the public ferry from Alleppey to Kottayam (2 1/2 hours), which is east of Alleppey and has more frequent trains to Kochi.
There are recommended half or full day tours out of Kollam, Alleppey and Ernakulam (the mainland part of Kochi, which is where the train station is).
You can rent houseboats designed like a kettuvallam (rice barge) which come in a range of sizes and luxuries; all of them are relatively expensive.
These 2 pictures are from the canoe ride I did out of Alleppey with Annerose:
Village in canoe going past a simple houseKids walking along riverbank
The highlight for me, though, was doing a 2 night backwater village homestay. As the guidebook puts it, “set in a typical and ridiculously picturesque backwater village.”
The erudite Thomas, who spoke great English, had homestays in his house and his sister’s newer house next door, plus “overflow” of sorts in a group of 10 or so other villagers’ houses.
The home-cooked food was very good (Thomas’ mother did the cooking), with the 2 lunches being spectacularly tasty!
The cost for a single was Rs750/$18.75 in the older home (which I took), or Rs1000/$25 in the newer home, including all meals and cold bottles of purified rain water.
The village itself, on the island/village of Chennamkary, was a 1 1/4 hour ferry ride (Rs5/$0.13) from Alleppey. Actually, Chennamkary is an almost circular island that is 30km in circumference, with a population of 4,000. However, most of the land in the centre of the island is rice paddies (at 1m below sea level), leaving really only a narrow band of solid land (100m wide or less) along the island edge for houses.
I walked in the village, rented a bike to explore the island further, and we hired a motorized boat for a 3 hour sunset cruise. Thomas’ mother also gave cooking classes (no time for me though).
One night we even took a canoe ferry across the canal to the mainland (although it looks like another island) and an auto-rickshaw to a temple to watch a Kathakali, a traditional Keralan dramatized play performance, with a green-faced actor accompanied by a few other actors and drummers and singers. The main character uses mainly mudras(hand gestures) and facial expressions. Here is the main Kathakali character, who has the divine power of always telling the truth:
Kathakali character
Misc notes about Kerala, which is an understandably proud province:
highest literacy rate in India (and if treated as a country, one of the highest literacy rates in the developing world!)
lots of schools, and lots of kids in school
little poverty (and few very rich people)
state govt has put money/effort into land reform and infrastructure
state govt is the communist party but democratic
See also previous posts on Alleppey and backwaters…
Tip: skip the night in Alleppey and head straight for Chennamkary village homestay!
The flight was great, though I was only in Bangalore (in the state of Karnataka) long enough to sleep, eat breakfast and wander the veg/fruit/flower market. The cones of coloured powder are kumkum, used for bindi dots on the foreheads of married women, as well as for religious rituals.
Kumkum, used for bindi dots
Update: By the way, Bangalore looked like a western city at night from the airplane, with real suburbs and such. It was also quite clean, at least until I got near the market… The air was noticeably cooler in the evening than anywhere else in my trip thus far, quite refreshing. And in Bangalore, by law, the auto-rickshaws have to use the meters (which are never used anywhere else), which are Rs12/$0.30 for first km plus Rs6/$0.15 per km after that.
Then I took a 2 hour express train at 11:00 to Mysore, which is southwest of Bangalore. I’ll be here 2 nights, then on Tue I will take a mid-day train to Bangalore, spend 9 hours looking around, then take a night train north to Hospet, the gateway train station for (fabulous) Hampi (where I’ll spend 3 nights before going to the beaches in Goa).
In a fit of planning activity, I have my next 3 trains booked!
There is a big Maharaja’s Palace here, which is lit up with 96K light bulbs on Sunday nights for one hour – and as it turns out, today is Sunday! They also light it up for the Dussehra festival in Sep/Oct. I saw this girl at the train station in Mysore right after I booked a future train – she reminded me of that famous photo of the Afghani girl with the blue eyes (which I recently saw on a book cover in a shop).
Maharaja's Palace in Mysore, lit up on Sunday nightIndian girl with blue eyes
Update: I bought some fruit today in Mysore, since I have been a little negligent in that department. Some at the market, some on the street. Four plum tomatoes for Re1/$0.03 (Rs5/$0.13 per kg, I think he rounded up my 4 tomatoes without weighing them), a red papaya for Rs10/$0.25, 15 finger bananas for Rs10/$0.25 (they range from Rs16-20/$0.40-0.50 per kg), and some “peas” (single pea-like pods on little leafy stalks). I didn’t buy any (to avoid over-buying at once), but pomegranates were also Rs18/$0.45 per kg.
I was hoping to get the backwaters written up tonight, but I’m just too tired. And I’m not sure if I’ll be up for it after a 12 hour organized tour of Mysore and surroundings tomorrow!
On Kingfisher airlines – yes, the same company that owns the popular Indian beer Kingfisher (they are quite the conglomerate; they also have branded bottled drinking water). And I did see actual kingfishers on power lines in the backwaters…
The flight is 1hr20min flight, vs a wait-listed overnight train ride.
Does anybody work with outsourced IT in Bangalore, such that I might meet with a local IT guy for a coffee or drink?
I’ll probably go to Mysore in the later morning, then return to Bangalore for a few hours on Tue before boarding my (already reserved) night train to Hampi on Tue night.
At 2:10 in the morning, that is, on a night train that puts me in at 6:30 in the morning. I have a sleeper berth in AC3 class – that’s open compartments of 6 berths (3 per side) with A/C. Since I have a cheap hotel room (Rs160/$4 per 24 hours, I took it an extra “night” and so I can snooze tonight before going to the train station.
I did notice on my previous train, also in AC3 class, that there is no extra luggage room for my backpack – it will have to go on the berth with me!
Kanyakumari (Cape Comorin), informally known as Cap Com, is at the southern tip of India, where the Gulf of Bengal, Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea all come together.
After one day and night there I start heading up the west coast to the state of Kerala; first stop will be Varkala, a cliff-top beach town (there is a beach below).
Today I tried to go to a bank to change a large bill (Rs1000/$25 is extremely hard to use, but that’s what the ATM mainly spits out), only to discover that it was in fact Sunday and the bank wasn’t open. Oops!
Did I mention I’m very much looking forward to seeing the ocean again after 5 landlocked days? Getting tired of temples and cities…
Here is a photo from the vegetable market in Madurai:
