Mysore

We decided to pay Mysore a visit as we read it was the yoga capital of India and we were both keen to do a few classes and chill out. We had imagined a lovely peaceful village setting and a meeting of yoga folk from around the world.  As per our usual India experience though, things turned out to be not what we expected. There were no lush green fields with guitar circles- however did that image get in our heads anyway? Instead, Mysore was yet another busy, bustling, beeping, polluted city. And we couldn’t even find any yoga for the first 24 hours! We arrived in the evening, booking into a hotel which I dubbed the mental asylum. It featured huge lockable gates and a grey concretish block of rooms, with huge bars on all the windows. It was certainly reminiscent of the mental hospital era, right down to the metal trolleys that eerily wheeled down the marble corridors (carrying piles of blankets rather than medical supplies but still). At the front counter sat a man behind bars who handed us a pile of papers to fill in so we could be ‘admitted’ and as we climbed the stairs to our room I couldn’t believe my eyes -a sign on the wall read ‘Please Keep Silent - Do Not Cause Disturbance To Other Inmates'’ I knew it!!!

Anneke was trying not to think about the fact that we were staying in an ex mental asylum and she repeatedly tried to convince me that it was a very old colonial hotel that had fallen into disrepair, and the sign was just some mistranslated English. I SUPPOSE she could have been right… it could have once been an expensive hotel that simply went on operating for decades without maintenance, cleaning or fumigation, yet still tried to retain a semblance of its former glamorous life. This could explain the extended check in process (used to be exclusive and hard to get into), locked gates (to keep the riff raff out) and trolleys (once serving fancy room service food?). Her theory was made stronger by the hilarious moment when a newspaper slid under the mouldy, decaying door at 7am, settling into grime and dust. A newspaper? Really? Do you think perhaps that the cost of delivering a newspaper to every room in the hotel could have been better spent on….a broom? Strange.

On the back of the mouldy decaying door, however, was a very surprising sign…it read: ‘This hotel is a vegetarian hotel and all guests are to refrain from bringing any non-veg items onto the premises’. Wow, impressed! Speaking of vegetarianism, over here they don’t say ‘Are you a vegetarian?’ with a slight rolling of the eyes. Instead they say -‘Do you eat non-veg?’ like ‘non-veg’ is the unusual alternative lifestyle. I even get to roll MY eyes at tourists who lament that there are no meat dishes on the menu! I never thought I would ever say this but it’s so exciting being part of the majority. And, to top it all off, those special ‘non-veg’ restaurants STILL have to have a separate KITCHEN for vegetarian food so as to not contaminate our meals. HOW COOL IS THAT! After spending 6 months in South East Asia trying to pick chicken beaks out of my soup I’m sure you can appreciate the excitement.  

Anyway, one big attraction in Mysore is the Palace which, on Sunday evenings gets entirely lit up for an hour. It was absolutely spectacular. The area was buzzing with locals and we stayed for the whole time taking in the atmosphere. It was here that we met our tuk tuk driver who agreed to do some research for us and find the elusive yoga that was supposedly all over the place. He also convinced us to do a ‘city tour’ which we thought would probably be crap but then thought, well, why not. Turns out it wasn’t too bad as far as these things go. Even just gazing out to the streets was exciting. While by now the sights of various animals weaving in and out of traffic was getting a bit blaze, but we were quite surprised to see that all the cows in Mysore were painted bright yellow – apparently due to a cow festival going on at the time. They DO love colour over here! I often joke about people here must think… Why have a plain car/house/wall/dress/doorstep/face/hand/elephant when you can have one covered in colours and patterns? I like this a lot. Our driver took us to a silk making factory which was amazing, especially because we could wander around wherever we liked, and touch everything. We saw a huge room full of filthy old machines that were dripping oil and patched up with bits of paper and wood. Each machine was manned by a rough looking individual in dirty clothes. Yet, the men were all delicately hand looming reams of intricate, patterned silk which emerged without a mark or flaw! Amazing!

The ‘cigarette making factory’, next on the list, proved interesting as well. We were driven to a spot down an alleyway in the part of town where houses were made out of old bits of wood. At the top of a concrete staircase was a room of men, sitting cross legged in silence, moving nothing but their hands which were making tiny little beadie cigarettes with astonishing speed. Apparently they make 2000 a day each. They seemed to find it fascinating that we found them so fascinating. It occurred to me that we don’t usually think about where our products come from and who makes them. As expected, our tour eventually ended with us being ripped off at the tuk tuk drivers friend's incense and oil shop. For some reason, although we kept saying to ourselves -  This is the guys friend’s shop, its completely overpriced, we should leave now etc etc. We somehow ended up buying a whole lot of essential oils. I blame the free samples that came accompanied by hand massages. As it turns out, the oil was to come in mighty handy during our 3 day no-shower stay at Kokal Village so it was money well spent.  

Later that afternoon, after finally doing a yoga class, we both decided that it wasn’t worth sticking around Mysore just for this. So we planned our departure for Ooty the next morning and entertained ourselves by watching a Bollywood movie with no subtitles (which was actually quite fun). 

Hotel worker asleep in the hallway of the ex mental asylum

Newspaper seller on the street

The Palace - the photo doesn't really do it justice

Guy making beadies

Yellow cow!

Bangalore

Our next destination was Bangalore, the IT hub of India. This city didn’t attract us particularly but a friend of the family Anneke used to nanny for in London had invited us to stay with them, and we were curious as to what sort of life they live over here. The couple and their 3 children, one born in India, had been living in the city for the past 5 years or so. After hearing that their DRIVER would pick us up from the train station at 6am, it was all a little bit exciting. 

So, talk about extremes. We started our journey being picked up by the family’s driver who kept calling us ma’am and drove extremely slowly and carefully through the traffic with the air conditioning blasting. As we looked out the window we were amazed at how all of a sudden we were in a little bubble of clean air and quiet, watching the craziness of the streets as if on a muted TV screen. This just got even stranger when we reached the ‘gated community’, a guard opened the door and we drove up to complete mansion. The house itself was amazing: a luxury property with marble floors, floor to ceiling windows, giant carved furniture and beautiful art all over the walls. The sprawling garden was tended to by a flurry of gardeners. Our bedroom, if you can call it that, was like a self-contained 5 star hotel room with about 17 pillows and an actual mattress! (not just layers of a strange plant matting substance that we have become accustomed to). As we arrived, the kids were in the middle of the morning rush, eating breakfast and getting ready for school while chatting away in a cute English-Indian accent. Hang on a minute… These kids were eating Cheerios cereal and peanut butter on toast. As the maid cleared away the plates and brushed the children’s teeth, we were informed that the cook was away at a wedding for the weekend so our host showed us around the kitchen, telling us we could help ourselves to anything. The kitchen was fascinating. It was a complete replica of an English kitchen, right down to the brands of soap and cleaning products.  Our dirty clothes were whisked away and came back freshly laundered in English washing detergent and fabric softener. Most of the products in the house were imported in giant container loads from England. Wow.

While we marvelled at this, the couple generously offered to give us their driver for the day to show us around the city. We excitedly accepted and devised a long list of things to do. In reality, we spent the entire day in one small street shopping with fervour. It was so exciting. My first purchase within 5 mins was 15 pairs of earrings at one stall and it just got crazier from there. We would ask each other ‘Do I really need two saris in identical fabric?’ The answer- ‘No not really, but they are so cheap you could wear one (?) and make cushions out of the other one!’… Seriously, this line of reasoning was used. And worked. Ditto, when purchasing 3 pairs of shoes of the same style. ‘You could probably find them back home…. But not for $2!, (maybe put the 4^th pair back though)’ conveniently forgetting that these damn shoes would have to fit into an already overstretched backpack for the next god knows how long, and then fall apart the first time I wore them. We had only done half the street when we realised it was time to go back. I did feel sorry for our driver who was literally waiting at the other end of the street for hours, and ready with the yes ma’am and no ma’am as soon as we saw him again. But it was certainly nice to step back into the air conditioned, quiet and pleasant smelling car for the drive home.

The family took us out to dinner at an Italian restaurant that night which was one of the most fancy and amazing restaurants in the city. Despite this, the meals were hovering around the $8 mark, THAT’S how cheap it is over here! We were driven to our destination in the car, as if it as was some sort of limo on the Bangalore city tour, sipping on glasses of wine and feeling very important (actually I lie, they were the children’s tommy tippie plastic mugs, to prevent spillage, but don’t let this minor detail distract you from the glamour of the occasion). Wine is so expensive over here that we hadn’t tasted it in weeks! We arrived at the rooftop restaurant and ate pasta and seafood and imported cheese – that wasn’t even processed! It was amazing. The next night we decided to check out the nightlife so finding the only suitable outfits in our packs, we went out to a bar in the IT district, or should I say we were driven to a bar. It was an awesome night but one person we met in particular was hilarious and I feel the urge to share with you our little encounter, even if it was one of those kinda-have-to-be-there moments. He introduced himself as Gabrielle. How many Indian men do you know named Gabrielle? Let’s call him Derek ‘Gabrielle’ Zoolander. 

Anneke and I were standing at the bar sipping on what were supposed to be margaritas but tasted more like chlorine. A guy walked in, half a metre taller than anyone else in the room and looking very beefy and proud of himself, I said to Anneke ‘I bet that guy is a heartthrob around here’. He saw us, came straight over and said ‘hello’ and we started chatting (clearly a male model wouldn’t immediately approach us in Sydney but remember, over here we are celebrities!). Everything about this guy screamed DEREK ZOOLANDER, from the way he ordered his vodka and soda then folded a napkin in half, long nails bent slightly upward, little finger pointing out and wrapped his fingers around the drink with this napkin to avoid getting condensation on his skin. To the way he checked himself out in the mirror behind the bar in various poses while mid conversation. He was with a short dumpy guy who he vaguely introduced as his brother. His brother stammered ‘h…hhhhello’ and then remained silent, being cut off by Gabrielle whenever he tried to speak again – probably only in tow to make Gabrielle feel better about himself. After a while we were both fighting the unbearable urge to crack up as if watching a bizarre comedy unfolding right before our eyes, but somehow I managed to ask with sincerity ‘So – what do you do?’.  It was like he had been waiting for this question all night… before I had even finished speaking, the word ‘Model’ confidently escaped from his mouth and corresponded to the single-movement extraction of his palm pilot from back pocket and flick open of the cover, with a twist of the wrist, to a photo of... himself (of course) walking down a catwalk (an impressive move I must say, most likely practised for hours in front of the mirror in true Derek Zoolander style). ‘See?’ He said flicking the touch screen across with a swish of his long fingernail.’ See?’ Cue photo slideshow: Gabrielle doing the actual literal blue steel at ‘Kerala Fashion Week’, Gabrielle doing the actual literal blue steel at a photoshoot in Malaysia, Gabrielle doing the actual literal blue steel in a restaurant with his friends who were all smiling normally, Gabrielle doing the actual literal blue steel on the beach at Goa with his dumpy brother who was frowning. ‘See? See??’ He said. more flicking…. Gabrielle doing the blue steel with a 50 year old European woman who was smiling in a confused manner… ‘Germany!’ He said… ‘My friend’… (smugly) ‘See?’ flick flick, ‘See?’ ‘AUSTRALIA’ … ‘My friend’…. ‘See?’ flick flick ‘Another Australia!, See!?’ 

Yes Derek ‘Gabrielle’ Zoolander, we do see, and thank you for enlightening us to the eventual outcome of all these photos we have posed for. Hahahaha.

Post Gabrielle, we met lots of other people, lots of middle class Indian people our age who were working in IT. They had all travelled loads and worked overseas, and were pretty cashed up, drinking cocktails and pricey wine all night. Their favourite food was pizza, a western novelty, and their favourite city in India was Delhi – for the nightlife apparently. We were given a dozen drunken recommendations on where to go out there which I immediately and annoyingly forgot. The rest of the night consisted of more chlorine cocktails, more meeting people and even some dancing (Gabrielle left at this stage because he didn’t like the DJ), and all this before the ridiculously early, government imposed, closing time of 11.30, after which our half-finished cocktails were poured into plastic cups to take away. We were considering going to an after party with our new friends but then we remembered our driver was waiting outside for us and had been all night. So we said goodbye and found our him, asleep in the back seat, all the way home telling the poor guy all about our hilarious night to which he replied ‘yes ma’am’ to everything we rambled on about as we collapsed into fits of laughter. He was probably thinking about how he would have to stay overnight in the servants quarters of the family house that night due to the wild dogs on his route home that attack him on his motorbike (true story).

All in all, Bangalore ended up being a luxury break on our backpacking journey. Our clothes had never felt cleaner, we got to have a night out with middle class Indian kids, and we both developed abs by laughing about Gabrielle so much for the rest of the week. On a serious note, the experience did emphasise the massive, massive disparity between rich and poor in this country which I’m still getting my head around. Those in the lower castes are often suck in a life of servitude, partially through the Hindu religious system that stratifies society and preaches that the only way to move up the hierarchy is through living dutifully within ones caste with the hope of being reincarnated into a higher caste. The cycle of poverty further prevents people from breaking out and receiving the education or living the future they may want to, as it does elsewhere in the world. On the other hand, Bangalore was also awash with young people making money, having fun and loving their country. Hmmm. The verdict: Bangalore: A new perspective on India. 

Guy on a rickshaw

Dude manning his 'Nighty Shop'

Public phone

Soft toy stall, strangely displayed on motorbikes

Sari purchase in progress!

Hampi

Leaving our memories of Goa behind, we decided on Hampi for our next destination. As may become standard, this post will begin with a crazy transport story: There was no train from Goa to Hampi but being a well-travelled tourist route there was a ‘sleeper bus’ which sounded doable so we promptly booked it, despite Anneke’s reservations about motion sickness. As it turns out, the slightly nauseating rhythmic sway of the bus would have been a delight compared to what we actually experienced. Anyway, excitedly we boarded and discovered our spot was at the back of the bus which was one giant bed which we were sharing with a bunch of other new friends. With others jealously looking on from their bunks at the front (well, we thought so anyway), we were all remarking about how we were soooo lucky to have the whole back to ourselves, like a giant slumber party… it was going to be the best journey ever!

After all laughing and joking and finally settling down to sleep we were rudely awakened by our bodies flying into the air and thumping back down with a back-shattering smash. What the? We thought, as Anneke popped her anti-nausea pills and tightened her motion sickness bracelets, and I swallowed another sleeping pill. Weird. But it was only the beginning…. I can officially report that the road from Goa to Hampi contains approximately  352 of what I can only imagine are very large speed bumps and while the driver slowed down to take the front wheels over the bump, and we had just managed to get two seconds of drug induced sleep, he then promptly speed up and we all awoke in fright as the back wheels hit at an astonishing speed. So it was with very bleary eyes that we alighted at 6am in a new place, after no sleep, with about 20 tuk-tuk drivers shoving maps in our faces and offering us temple tours. Having once again done no research on our destination we were quite surprised to discover that Hampi actually had temples, but in any case the thought of doing anything but sleeping was making us both feel ill so one guy offered to help us find a guesthouse for just 10 rupees (20c). Gosh that’s awfully cheap, I thought, but we agreed, only to find that the ride was just 30 seconds long. Mission successful though as we found the first decent place and passed out.

Hampi turned out to be completely awesome! When we had recovered from our pharmaceutical hangovers we went out to explore and found that the area was completely surrounded by ancient temples! But unlike preserved  tourist spots we had explored previously, such as Angkor Wat, there was no entrance fee, or restricted area or anything. In fact, one of the temples was in use as the main place of worship for the area and smaller remains had been claimed as convenient shop fronts. Yes, I’m sure this was adding to the ruin of these precious archaeological sites but let’s be honest: HOW COOL DOES AN ANCIENT TEMPLE LOOK WHEN CONVERTED INTO A SHOPFRONT! (photo below). We spent the day exploring these sights and more, until temple fever hit and they all started blurring into one under the massively hot sun.

The main market area was the most colourful and interesting place we had seen in India, there were stalls selling all sorts of stuff from chalk to chickpeas. Monkeys played all over the place. We wandered around in the evening and noticed there was a strange feeling in the air which we discovered was due to a festival in progress. We heard a loud booming coming from the temple and went to investigate. Walking past a group of women singing with a huge crowd watching, we discovered a strange procession of drummers. Chained to the wall opposite was an elephant, painted up with chalk and munching on chickpeas. The animal rights activist within me was slightly upset but the cultural enthusiast took over and we watched eerily as the progression emerged, consisting of 4 men carrying an empty chair on their shoulders which looked like it represented some sort of deity. People came up to the chair and smashed open coconuts, juice spraying everywhere, placing the flesh on the chair. A man carrying one leg of the chair started eating some of the coconut flesh but I’m not sure if this was related or whether he was just hungry. Anyway, the whole thing was quite fascinating. Then finally came the elephant, unchained, parading along. People were handing out coins which the elephant picked up with its trunk, gave to its handler, and patted the donor on his or her head. I wanted to participate but I felt too sorry for the elephant and also the whole scene reminded me of a clip I once saw in the doco series ‘When Animals Attack’ from which I have mental scarring. 

The next morning when awoken at 6am by the guesthouse owner noisily washing aluminium dishes outside our bedroom window which wouldn’t close, we decided to move to ‘the other side of the river’ that everyone had been talking about. This was fabled to be a travellers paradise, relaxing and peaceful with a river on one side and rice paddies on the other. It was everything we had been promised! I tried my first Indian yoga class and loved every minute of it, the teacher was so strict but inspiring and I managed to do a  headstand without using the wall for the first time ever (considering I have been attempting this for the past 4 years it was really quite an achievement). The teacher was unbelievably flexible, and he kept demonstrating, then saying 'if still comfortable... then do this...,then this.... then this' at which point Anneke started hyperventilating and another girl in the class took photos. 

The next morning we decided to get up ridiculously early and watch the sunrise at a ‘Monkey Temple’ which was also supposed to be amazing. So we hired bicycles the night before and set off at 5am to find this elusive temple. Once again, a slight bit of research may have been useful as we were going off some guy who told us, it’s about 2k up that way – pointing vaguely to a road.  It was pitch back so we shone our torches in front of us. After a little while, Anneke started saying she felt nauseous. While I did feel bad for her, mornings do not bring out my more sympathetic side and I was like- we got up at 5am, let’s just get to the damn monkey temple and see this damn sunrise- also feeling slightly nauseous but passing this off as a side effect of the early rising to which I am not accustomed. So when we saw the first hill-ish looking thing on our right we both decided – that’ll do. There seemed to be no path so we got our torches out and climbed some rocks which led nowhere. Anneke decided that she was over it and going back but then I saw a guesthouse in the dim light which boasted a ‘sunrise view’ so we parked up there, snuck up behind the guesthouse and climbed the hill. Hooray, a sunrise view, of sorts, there was a small temple-ish, thing and some dogs, and a lizard. And the sunrise over the paddy fields WAS amazing, temple/animal/sunrise experience: Check!

We slunk back to the guest house and Anneke feeling decidedly ill planted herself down on the loungers to chill out while I, still in denial, decided  I would go to another yoga class. Bad idea. It was about a quarter of the way through that it dawned on me I was not feeling good. Attempting backbends and stomach twists suddenly started to make me feel very strange. I kept telling myself mind over matter mind over matter but then it just became too much and I had to run outside and spew. NOoooooo! Cue horrendous day of drinking water then spewing it back up again all day. When fragile and shaky I checked my facebook that evening I noticed that Anneke had tagged me in a post the previous day : ‘I love travelling with Jen, even the food is an adventure, ordered two totally random dishes for lunch and it was delish!’ Grrrrrr. Luckily, in an attempt to master the various Indian cuisines, I had written down the names of what we ordered for future reference. The names now come in handy for knowing what NOT to order as that particular combination of spices still makes me feel queasy.  So basically, the rest of our time at Hampi was spent in a kind of forced relaxation, where we sipped on lassis and watched the days go by as we recovered. Not too bad really :)

Piles of chalk for sale

Ancient Ruins shop!

Man trying to tempt the monkey with chickpeas

Street Shot on the temple side of the river

Temple awesomeness

Hampi from high up

Cool drink?

Washing clothes at the river

Umbrellas for sale

The elephant

The sunrise!

Goa

The legendary Goa…  Recommended by friends, and fellow travelers, it seemed the hippy scene and beach trance parties are one of those overdone-but-have-to-experience-it stops on any serious backpacking journey around India, much like Thailand’s full moon parties.

The verdict: really??

After the craziness of Mumbai we picked a pretty chilled beach to start with, arriving in Vagator early in the morning after catching the overnight train. The train, let’s start with that… staying true to our backpacker budgets we booked the ‘non air-conditioned sleeper carriage’, which basically means you have a little bunk bed to yourself in a big open train with fans blowing round dust and cobwebs all night. Much better than the non-reserved seating though, which actually never sells out because an unlimited amount of people can squeeze into the carriage (we were to experience this later in our journey). On this occasion we managed to get the top bunks which are the best because you can hide away and sleep. Technically. In reality, once you get over the griminess of the bed, then recover from the terrifying experience of the toilets, and after the Indian teenagers below have finished playing cards and drinking but BEFORE the other Indian teenagers start singing at the top of their lungs ‘happy songs, because we are going on holiday’ (I asked) to the tinny background music of their phones, and the chai man starts yelling out Chaiiiiii chaiiiii chaiiii at 5am while walking up and down the aisle repeatedly- not much sleep actually gets achieved. But hey, after endless cups of chai we were both so high on sugar that somehow we made it through.

So we arrived at our chosen destination with excitement, found a room and headed off to check out the beach and hopefully meet some other travelers. Walking down to the beach we were surprised by how quiet it was and even more surprised when we reached it and found it was only 50m long and housed just one dilapidated restaurant (which served the most disgusting food), and a handful of beach chairs. The chairs were mostly inhabited by obese Russian package tourists in skimpy bikinis. One was receiving an oily massage from an Indian man in a safari suit. Strange we thought, but our eternal optimism meant that we persevered, thinking… well maybe everyone is still sleeping after those awesome parties. So we parked up on one of the chairs and got some sun action. After a while we started to get restless and something just didn’t feel right so we went for a walk and discovered that while we were on Vagator beach, just over the rocks was ‘Little Vagator’ which in true Indian irony was 10 times bigger than Vagator and housed all those little restaurants and beach chairs, aggressive fruit sellers, and even more aggressive sarong sellers, that we had been expecting. Unfortunately, the place was still crawling with package tourists but luckily the more obese ones hadn’t bothered to walk over the rocks. We parked up at one of the bars for the evening and entertained ourselves by watching a 40 year old Indian tourist, who had clearly regressed to childhood, rolling around in the shallows then throwing a tantrum when the lifeguard finally made him come in because it was getting dark. 

Despite having an awesome night we both felt there must be more to this place, so the next day we went for a massive walk around the rocks to nearby Anjuna beach, supposedly where all the parties are. As we walked along, to our left we had the unfriendly Russians sunbathing and to the right we had the over friendly Indian tourists who all wanted photos, all of them. This was serious paparazzi territory but considering the disappointment I had experienced when asking an interesting looking person for a photo on the street and being refused, I felt it necessary for my photo-karma to say  yes, despite considerably slowing down the journey and never mind the niggling thoughts over what these photos were actually going to be used for. After a while we noticed that the men, having likely been rejected when asking for photos before, started to employ some interesting tactics such as: A person coming to stand next to us for a normal photo then just before the snap, the phone makes a swift turn to the side and catches us instead, surely resulting in the most unflattering photo you can imagine. Ironically, this is also the tactic we use to get photos of people that may not appreciate having their photo taken, but just have to be snapped, like Russian men in loincloth thongs (I will restrain myself from posting the photo on here but seriously, do tanlines matter THAT much to you that you have to spend your entire holiday looking like a cross between Borat and a Kalahari tribesman?)

Anyway, as we climbed up onto a cliff we stumbled on the first of what we labelled ‘ancient trance ruins’: a nightclub, probably once beautiful, now empty and being slowly reclaimed by nature. As we sat there in awe a friendly security guard came to enlighten us about the fact that new noise restrictions have come into place and the famous Goa beach parties have now been curtailed. He clearly thought the information was sufficient enough to count as some sort of pick up line as he tried to kiss Anneke when we moved on. Luckily she managed to turn it into a cheek kiss at the last minute. Anjuna beach shacks were a lot funkier than Vagator and we settled on the busiest one to have another sunset drinking session and listen to a band. This time we entertained ourselves by remarking on how everyone in Goa is old. Even the band members looked about 60. We were about to write off the whole place as a has-been when we discovered that there was another bar down the beach that that actually had people in it as well. 

Before we noticed the bar we saw 21 strange glowing lights on the beach which turned out to be 21 identical stalls each selling imported chocolate, chai, cigarettes and omelettes. We wondered how the stalls actually made money considering there was a stall to customer ratio of 1 at the time but slowly people started coming into the bar, although it remained largely empty all night. The look was- laddered stockings, paired with fur vests and goggles with a shaved or partially shaved head and a few dreds. Or, knee-high roman sandals and a boob tube with fluro accessories.  How exciting we thought: INTERESTING YOUNG PEOPLE! - until we realised that everyone was in their own little world and completely unfriendly, and by then we were so tired, we didn’t even feel like dancing! So, then followed a confusing moment where we realised that although we had managed to find a trance scene of sorts, we didn’t even want what we had been searching for the entire time. This then forced the question of why we had actually come to Goa to listen to trance when we hadn’t been to a proper dance party since Anneke had bright red hair and I had dreds. Furthermore, what the hell were we doing at the beach in India with a bunch of Russian tourists when we live by the beach in Sydney?! Bewildered, we considered getting another drink and people watching before I suggested making use of the convenient chai stalls to consider our options. 

Feeling flat and disillusioned we sat down at the stall by the entrance, but as the caffeine and sugar hit us from the chai we suddenly remembered about that other reason we came to India: the cultural experience! So, noticing a group of guys at the chai stall (who also happened to be young people) we introduced ourselves and found that they were on a weekend holiday from Pune. In a relatively dry country the free flowing beer demanded by tourists and therefore provided through loopholes and backshish made Goa an excellent holiday destination for these guys too. From there, basically it turned out to be an excellent night all round as we spent the night discussing Indian life and culture and the world’s problems and all those interesting topics that are fun to talk about after a few drinks. Cultural experience, Check. 

In conclusion, we could have just read the Lonely Planet which retrospectively informs us that we are years too late for the trance scene in Goa, which we didn’t really want to see anyway, so I guess the conclusion is, well. Uh… let’s just forget about all this and move on… 

 

From the crowded train station waiting area...

To the beach!!

the lifeguard shack

 ancient trance ruins

Another beautiful sunset :)

The Beginning!

Hi Everyone! 

So, I’ve been in India for almost a month now and I know my blog has been guiltily sitting here empty and you are all wondering how my travels are going, well, I’m officially going to get this thing started…

The adventure began in Mumbai in mid January when Anneke met me at the airport fresh from Arambol, Goa, where she had been for the past two weeks doing yoga and an ayurveda course. As you may remember, there was a certain ill-fated accident at Burning Man that pretty much screwed up our last overseas venture so it was so super exciting to finally get to travel together again.Yay. As I write this Anneke is on the first leg of a 4 day trip back home and I am chilling out at Varkala beach in Kerala missing my partner in crime already! But anyway, back to Mumbai in January… Anneke looked like  the perfect picture of ‘chilled out hippy traveler’, complete with anklets, floaty top, beads, bracelets and even a bindi! Wow. However, as we walked down the street to the taxi that would take us back to the dodgy room we had booked in Colaba we discovered fast that Mumbai is anything but chilled out. 

The lack of footpaths was an initial worry for me as we seemed to be mostly sharing the road with trucks, cars, motorbikes, bicycles, hand drawn carts, horses and other miscellaneous vehicles- All of which were ruthless in getting to their destination as fast as possible. There seemed to be no particular road rules, or even a centre line. Signs such as the green man, or even traffic lights, seemed to exist simply as a pretense that something was being done about the chaos. The only thing that appeared to prevent accidents was a complex horn beeping system. This proved difficult to understand, although we tried. First we thought a beep meant ‘coming through’ but then we noticed a variety of horn techniques: short light beeps in quick succession, loud medium length beeps , a simple tap on the horn and the traditional Sydney ‘the light is GREEN’ long loud beep. Each beep seemed to have a corresponding interpretation such as, ‘I’m overtaking you’ or ‘don’t overtake me’ or ‘you can’t come through’ or just simply ‘nobody else is beeping and it’s too quiet’. In conclusion, a very noisy way of doing things but it does seem to work somehow, even if Anneke kept having a heart attack whenever we got the considerate ‘loud medium length’ (interpretation: I’m behind you so don’t walk out further onto the road).

Due to our excitement and rambling about this trip at home In Australia we received many warnings and horror stories along the lines of the men being sleazy, the cities disgusting, beggars intolerable and crime ridiculously high. Many people said they actually hated India entirely so we were seriously expecting the worst, and after a decent amount of travel between us that was quite extreme. So we were both surprised at how AWESOME Mumbai was. An Indian taxi driver in Sydney once said (insert accent) ‘If you go to India you will not need to go to Mars’. I can definitely see where he was coming from with that statement when examining the crazy streets of Mumbai and it is a very good thing, I mean, I do also want to go to Mars but India is definitely satisfying me at the moment.

As we explored the streets we discovered that, much like any city, people were going about their daily business as usual. Although, in Mumbai, daily business included things like: A man driving his Mercedes up to a dodgy alleyway street stall just making it over the piles of rubbish and rubble that seem to be everywhere – then being served 20c meals in his front seat, (tightass maybe, but I like to think he just liked the food better – we ate there too). The constant chewing and hoiking of various unusual looking substances on the street is another interesting routine, ditto the men making and selling the unusual looking substances out of leaves and brightly coloured smelly pastes. I found ‘typewriter alley’ the most fascinating… a whole street of men dressed in suits, sitting on the curb in the searing heat, typing away on antique machines with all the pride and seriousness of company directors. Funny.   

As the evening progressed we decided to take a sunset walk to Haji Ali mosque which is on a little island off the coast that can be crossed to at low tide. The area was popular with locals and provided us with a total cross section of Mumbai life: street stalls selling delicious food, piles of rubbish, goats picking through the rubbish, disabled beggars, well dressed families, young teens listening to music on mobile phones, women in saris, women in hijabs, women in jeans and t-shirts. Basically a total mismatch. The most fascinating thing about the city is of course that while we marveled at these things, and so, so many more, the locals were unfazed, completely used to this way of life.

 

As the sun was setting we sat down to take some photos. While Anneke was fiddling with the settings on her camera I happened to look around and discovered that as we were absorbed in taking photos of the sunset  there was a group of young teens absorbed in taking photos of us with their phones! We stood up surprised and as the curious group kept staring, both Anneke and I burst out laughing. There was a strange kind of stand off, then one guy got up the courage to say ‘hello’ and when we responded they all wanted to chat and have more photos. Considering the hundreds of photos we had snapped on the streets that day it seemed rude to refuse so we posed, and posed and posed… it was hilarious. We did decide to call it a night though when a woman came over and thrust her baby into my arms for a photo, seriously strange. If you are considering becoming a celebrity I would definitely recommend coming over here first to get a taste of the paparazzi experience, it is an odd mixture of flattery, sleaze and bewilderment. Yesterday a woman sitting next to me on the train blatantly stuck her phone in my face took a close up photo, smiled, then put her phone away. I suppose while we are wondering why they want a photo of us they are probably wondering what we find so interesting about a cow eating out of a rubbish bin.

The next evening, after spending the day away from the craziness, checking out ancient monkey infested ruins at Elephant Island, we decided to have a night out on the town. On arriving at the Blue Frog bar where a cool Indian band was supposedly playing we found the place was decked out like super flash 70s restaurant, with circular booths sunk into a silver amphitheatre facing the stage and disco lights projected onto everything. It was bizarre. The band came on and all their songs were in broken English with humorous forced rhyming . I have to say I was a little disappointed having expected Hindi, but they were grungy and interesting and their fans in the crowd seemed to know all the lyrics, even headbanging along to the slower songs. It was a fun night but we were quite tired when the place closed and we went to get a taxi home which was hands down the scariest ride of both our lives, ever. The driver was quite possibly drunk as he drove as if in some sort of computer game speeding between non-existent gaps in traffic and waaay too fast. Luckily the beeping system warned others of his antics and everyone moved aside for us. When we asked him to slow down, he sped up with a chuckle, taking delight in scaring us. We both opted to hug the seats in front of us considering there were no seatbelts , it was indescribable. And to top it off he tried to charge us double the agreed fare when we arrived! By then our tiredness had subsided completely  and we refused to pay the extra and had to go and drink beer for hours to recover from the journey.

SO, that was Mumbai, next stop... Goa!

Despite my lame photography skills I somehow managed to take this amazing photo of crows at sunset.

My favourite man working from typewriter alley

Unusual looking substance vendor