The train ride from Varanasi to Khajuraho was the most pleasant of our trip. The train seemed a lot cleaner than the others, the people more pleasant, and each of the beds had a private curtain enabling us to hide out and have a little more privacy. It was about a seven hour train ride, most of which we spent napping and reading. Unfortunately we couldn’t catch a train directly from Varanasi to Khajuraho; instead, we went to Satna where the plan was to get a bus to Khajuraho. Upon arriving in Satna, we were suddenly surrounded by a swarm of about thirty men, each of them trying to convince us to take their car or auto-rickshaw to the bus stand or to Khajuraho itself. Every time we moved to the side to try and discuss the situation without strange men butting in, the entire swarm would move with us. It was quite an intense experience that we hadn’t come across before – it seemed that people are quite pushy in this part of the country. Eventually we agreed on a driver who took us to Khajuraho for only 700 Rupees in about two and a half hours. This was about half the time it would have taken the bus to get there, so worth every penny. We settled into the Surya guest house for 400 Rupees a night.

The next morning we got up and went to check out the main group of temples in Khajuraho. We were extremely impressed by what we found – they were similar to the temples and ruins in Hampi, but slightly older and better preserved. The main cluster of them is inside a beautifully landscaped garden that’s very well maintained. The temples were built in the eleventh century, if I remember correctly, and most of them honor different Gods. There are both Hindu and Jain temples, although all the temples in the main area are Hindu. What sets them apart from other temples in India is the erotic sculptures that are found all over them. They leave nothing to the imagination and everything from orgies to sodomy is portrayed. One of the main items sold in Khajuraho is the Kama Sutra – in book, calendar, or playing card form.

In the afternoon we took an auto-rickshaw to a wildlife reserve to visit some waterfalls and attempt to see crocodiles. The waterfalls weren’t hugely impressive, although the photos of the area during monsoon season, when it’s completely flooded, were interesting to see in their little museum. Unfortunately our attempt at seeing crocs was a bit of a failure, much like our nature walk in Periyar. However, the lake was pretty so we sat and enjoyed the view for awhile. Though we didn’t see crocodiles, we did manage to spot some antelope and a jackal, neither of which we had seen in India before.

The next morning we rented bikes and cycled to the other cluster of temples and through a couple villages to visit some solitary ones that are further out of Khajuraho. We saw a few Jain temples this time around, which were lighter in color than the Hindu ones. It was nice to travel independently for awhile, and we got a taste of what Cameron has been doing every day for three months People on other bikes and motorbikes wouldn’t stop talking to us and we had a few that rode along with us for awhile. Unfortunately the pushiness that we experienced in Satna was also a characteristic of the people of Khajuraho, which grew tiresome pretty quickly.

We relaxed and used the internet in the afternoon and spent the evening trying to figure out how to get back to Satna. The prospect of the bus was sounding rather unappealing, so we decided to try and contact Shasheel, the driver who drove us to Khajuraho, to see if he could take us back to Satna. Finding him was a bit of a mission, as he didn’t answer either of the phone numbers on his business card. He had given us the business card of a restaurant owned by some of his friends, so we decided to try giving them a call. This resulted in a huge amount of confusion, so we headed there for some dinner to try and clear things up and continue our search for Shasheel. While our mission to find him ended up being successful, the price we paid for this was possibly the most nauseating meal of our trip. We decided to go for some curries, both of which turned out to be sickly sweet. And not only were they too sweet, but one of them consisted of a foul paneer which was possibly the foulest dairy product I’ve ever tasted. The naan was also sweet, making the entire dining experience seem like a big dessert. We decided to order some fries to end the meal with something salty, which turned out to be the worst fries I’ve ever had in my life. Not only were they limp, greasy, and overcooked, but they seemed to be made out of sweet potato. So much for having something salty! We went to bed that night feeling slightly nauseated at what we had just eaten.

We spent the next morning using the internet before setting off for Satna to begin what would turn out to be yet another very long and unpleasant train ride back to Delhi. The only seats/beds that were available when we booked the train were in the regular sleeper class, which doesn’t provide you with pillows or sheets. We decided to watch some Gilmore Girls to avoid thinking about the unpleasantness of our situation. Right as we put in the headphones and started watching, a guy in his late twenties came over, plonked himself next to us, and asked us what we were watching. Instead of thinking that perhaps we might like some quiet while watching DVDs, he started chattering away to Lauren, who was sitting closer to her. Eventually he shut up, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Turns out this was a minute too early and he all of a sudden decided to listen to music on his cell phone, using the speaker and top volume. After a minute I couldn’t take it anymore and leaned over to ask him if this was his seat. No, it wasn’t, he was just sitting there to chat to us. So I had to break it to him that he was disturbing us and asked him to please leave. He left us alone for awhile, but eventually made his way back. He asked the guy sitting next to us, who had actually purchased that seat, so move so that he could plonk himself down next to us once again. This time he decided to ask Lauren out on a date for the next day. When Lauren politely declined, saying that she had friends to see the next day, he pathetically claimed he would love to meet her friends and invited himself along. I was laughing on the inside as poor Lauren tried to get herself out of this one. He bothered us once more later in the evening, but luckily we didn’t hear from him again after that.

What followed our encounters with him was one of the worst nights of sleep I’ve ever had before in my life. The regular sleeper class doesn’t have properly sealed windows, so there was a cold draft coming in that made the train freezing. I “slept” with my sheet and blanket over my head, partially to keep warm and partially to ignore the suddenly huge crowd of people that had gotten on the train. Poor Lauren spent half the night sleeping with other people’s luggage on her bed. Needless to say, we were pretty happy when the train rolled into Delhi at seven the next morning and we could get the hell out of there!

Oh, and one more thing about this train ride: every time we had mentioned to people in Khajuraho that we were taking a train from Satna to Delhi, they gave us surprised looks and laughed, telling us about other train stations. It turns out that not only did we backtrack from Khajuraho to Satna, but this train went from Satna all the way to Allahbad (an hour or two from Varanasi) and only then did it head towards Delhi. Essentially, we spent about eight hours that day travelling in completely the wrong direction, before finally setting off towards Delhi. Frustrating! I guess the train ride was worth it though, as Khajuraho was definitely a worthwhile and impressive stop on our trip.

Thankfully our train wasn’t delayed and we got into Varanasi at 5.00 am as scheduled. An auto-rickshaw driver found us almost immediately and drove us to the old part of town to find a guest house. We looked at a few, all of which were disgusting, until finding the Sing Guest House, where I bargained the room down to 400 Rupees a night. It was a pretty big guest house, with a little courtyard and garden in the middle. We collapsed happily into our beds and slept until the late morning.

After lunch at McDonalds and trekking around town to find an ATM that would let me withdraw more than 10,000 Rupees at once, we made our way down to the Ganges. Despite seeing the river twice before, in Haridwar and Rishikesh, it didn’t disappoint and it was the sheer size of the ghats that made it impressive. The steps leading us down to the river were steep and everywhere we looked there was some kind of action. Cows and goats were roaming around, people were bathing and doing laundry in the river, boats were going both up and downstream, tourists were strolling around with cameras in hand, vendors tried to sell us things, people played music – it was a busy atmosphere indeed. We walked towards the main ghat, passing one of the burning ghats on our way, where we saw several corpses that had seemingly been burning for hours and one that was being lovingly lit by a widower. This was without a doubt the most interesting part of Varanasi, as we’d already witnessed bathing and praying at the Ganges in Haridwar and Rishikesh.

Burning ghat

Main ghat

After a couple hours we’d had our fill and made our way back to our guest house for dinner. The old part of Varanasi is kind of creepy once it gets dark, with all the small alleyways and tight paths, so we were happy to make it back. Dinner, however, was one of the worst we’d had to date – Lauren ordered macaroni with tomato sauce that was made out of ketchup, and I ordered a curry that also seemed to have ketchup as one of the main ingredients.

The next morning we got up at the crack of dawn to take a boat ride on the river and watch the sun come out. Dawn and dusk are the busiest times of day along the Ganges, so there was plenty of action to be seen. Wrapped in our jackets and scarves, we witnessed people along every ghat bathing and praying in the water, despite chilly temperatures. We went further along the river than we had gone the day before and got to see the main burning ghat, which is bigger than the other. It seems that many hotels have their sheets washed in the Ganges, and we saw rows upon rows of white bedsheets drying in the sun.

Main burning ghat

After two hours we made our way back to the hotel for breakfast, before setting out with a guide (who we referred to as “the dude” due to an all denim outfit, aviator sunglasses, and a swagger like none I’ve ever seen before) who showed us the rest of the sights in Varanasi. The only noteworthy thing we saw was the monkey temple, into which we unfortunately weren’t permitted to take our cameras. I think it was a particularly lucky day of the week to be at this temple, so the place was swamped with people. We saw a large group of sadhus chanting, people touching and bowing their heads to special parts along a wall, and a casual religious sing-along along with the usual things we see in Hindu temples. After getting up at five and spending more than half the day sightseeing, we were happy to relax in our guest house for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Lauren was coming down with a cold again, and I mysteriously broke out in hives on a few parts of my body, so I think it was good to take it easy for awhile.

The next morning we slept in and enjoyed a relaxed day of shopping, using the internet, and sitting in cafes. We took a nice walk through the old part of town and went to see the prayer ceremony along the river in the evening. It was similar to what we had already seen in Haridwar and Rishikesh, except that it felt la bit like it catered to tourists. Noteworthy were several elaborately adorned sadhus, one of which was dressed entirely in gold; since sadhus apparently give up all material aspects of their lives in search of spirituality this gaudy outfit was a bit surprising. Luckily he seemed happy to let me take a picture, unlike another sadhu with a painted face who jumped up and growled at me when he saw my camera.

Varanasi was the number one place recommended to me by friends who had already traveled through India, so I had high expectations of the place. For the most part it didn’t disappoint, although after having been to Haridwar and Rishikesh already I can’t say that I was as mesmerized by it as I might have been otherwise. However, I am glad that we saved it for the end of our trip, as Varanasi is pretty grimy and filled with people that hassle you for all sorts of things. It didn’t faze us too much, but I can imagine that it might have been overwhelming at the beginning of our trip.

Rishabh had kindly invited us to stay at his house, so we took a taxi from the airport to his place. His house is newly built and in a lovely neighborhood in South Delhi. After freshening up in our luxurious bathroom we went downstairs for drinks with Rishabh, Shailey, and a few American friends Shailey had invited as well. After a glass of wine we headed to Amici’s for some authentic Italian pizza, a real treat after all the bad western food we had encountered in Kerala.

The next morning Rishabh cooked us Maggi noodles for breakfast and then drove us to the train station so we could catch our 11.00 am train to Varanasi, which was scheduled to get in at 5.00 am the next morning. Seventeen hours on the train – ahhh joy.

While the other train rides had been pleasant enough and the people around us civilized, this one was the polar opposite. It was dirtier and filled with filthy people who spit on the floor and burped out loud. Needless to say, it was a long, long trip. One of the men who sat near us and stared at us creepily for a good portion of the train ride was one of the most unpleasant people I’ve ever come across in my life. He had greasy, longish hair, a few missing teeth and talked in an unnecessarily loud voice, whether anyone was listening or not. Every time he took a sip of tea or water, he would slurp it and then release a loud “ahh” afterwards. The pinnacle of all this unpleasantness was when he wrapped a towel around his waist and dropped his pants, just centimeters in front of us. A minute later his underwear came off, before he put on a pair of white, kind of see-through pajama pants. He then changed into a long green tunic, with a gold chain attached to the neckline. When he finally felt comfy and settled back into his seat, he noisily passed gas right in our direction. It gives me goosebumps just thinking about him.

We passed the time by reading, writing in our blogs, and squeezing onto the same side of one of our single beds to watch some Gilmore Girls. My bottom was numb for the majority of this train ride, a sensation I hope not to experience again anytime soon.

Train food mmm mmm mmm

Though we were both fighting back yawns and craving a nap, we decided to power through the day and spend the afternoon sightseeing, as we had to leave Cochin the next day already. Our guest house provided us with a driver who took us around town for three hours to visit all the sights. They included a Jewish synagogue, Jew Town (yes, that’s really what it was called, although apparently only a handful of Jewish people still live there,) several Catholic churches, some Hindu temples, a ginger factory, an elephant, Chinese fishing nets, and a few too many tourist trap shops selling all the usual handcrafted items. Fort Cochin was a lovely part of the city with a small-town feel to it – I would recommend it to anyone thinking about traveling in the South.

Elephant poo

We went back to our hotel and collapsed on our beds for the next few hours. Our mission was to find a pizza delivery service, but to no avail. We ended up having to haul ourselves out of bed to get some dinner before falling asleep pretty early, per usual.

Jain temple

Ginger factory

Women sorting dried ginger into different sizes

Dried ayurvedic spices

A Cochin home

Jewish synagogue

Catholic church

Chinese fishing net

We got up early the next morning to go for a three-hour guided trek through the wildlife reserve. Our guidebook had mentioned leeches in the reserve, but we didn’t realize the extent of these leeches until we paid for our tickets and were given large sacks shaped like very baggy knee-high socks that we had to wear in our shoes and over our pants. THANK GOD we were given these socks. Within five minutes of beginning our trek my shoes were covered in tiny, squiggly, wormlike leeches trying to find their way into my sneakers. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so disgusted by a living organism and spent the entire morning searching myself frantically to make sure none of them were latching onto my skin. Luckily one of the guys in our five-person group, an Israeli named Udi, was very willing to help me get rid of any leeches that I found and picked them off me with his bare fingers on numerous occasions.

Tiger droppings

We had assumed that it was a given that we’d see at least a few elephants on this trek, amongst other animals. Unfortunately we were mistaken, and we saw very little wildlife in our three hours there. We saw one elephant from a distance, a squirrel, a monkey, some wild boar and were two seconds too late in seeing a leopard. Not quite what we had anticipated, but the reserve was beautiful and we enjoyed some fresh air and exercise along with the pretty views. As I had feared, a good fifteen or so leeches had made their way into my sneakers, so we had to spend about ten minutes cleaning out our shoes. Again, luckily Udi as well as our driver were willing to help me do so, so I never had to touch one myself. I opted to walk back to the auto-rickshaw in my socks rather than risk one of those blood-suckers getting to my bare skin and we headed back to our guest house for a quick lunch and to change shoes.

Tea plantation

Tea leaves

The highlight of Kumily was the tea plantation and factory that we visited in the afternoon. The surrounding area is beautiful, with plantations stretching as far as the eye can see. We took a guided tour, in which we learned all the different steps that go into the finished product. First it’s hand-picked by women in the fields, who spend eight hours a day out there and end up with over twenty kilos of tea which they carry in sacks on their heads to the factory. The tea is weighed there, to determine their pay for the day (which is something atrocious like 150 Rupees a day.) The tea is then laid out in heaps on the upper level of the factory, where it is left to wilt. It loses about twenty percent of it’s moisture this way. After that it’s put into a machine that chops it, then it goes through fermentations (which is where it gets its texture and flavor) and then finally it’s put in a huge oven that removes the rest of the moisture. The result is black tea that is exported through a middle man to various parts of the world. Apparently there are tea-tasters that are hired to taste every batch of tea that comes out of the factory, ensuring the quality is up to par. We had to skip the tasting part of the tour as it was getting to be late in the afternoon and we wanted to make it to one of the spice gardens before dark.

One day's pickings

Waiting in line to get the tea weighed

Our spice tour was given to us by a very entertaining older man who spoke unintelligible English. We couldn’t understand the majority of what he told us due to a combination of a strong accent and a mumble/lisp. He showed us many types of flowers, spices (cinnamon, pepper, cardamom, ginger, vanilla pods) as well as fruit (bananas, mini-pineapples) and vegetables (red and yellow aubergine, chilis.) The highlight of his tour was a story about a “negro woman” that didn’t listen to his advice and ate a chili known for being particularly spicy. This “negro woman” who “by nature has fatter lips than you or me” had to be taken to a doctor to ease the pain. There’s nothing like a little racism to go along with your spice garden tour.

Spices shop

We ended the day by meeting up for dinner with Udi. While having dessert at our guest house, out of the corner of my eye I saw two large creatures suddenly scurry out of a pile of wood and come charging towards us. I turned my neck to get a better look and luckily lifted my feet off the ground the prevent them from touching me, as they scurried underneath our table. Lauren didn’t notice them and was unfortunate enough to have one of them rub against her leg for a few seconds as he tried to find a way past her chair. She understandably let out a huge scream, not sure what it was but grossed out by how hairy and large it was. I’m about ninety percent sure that these were two gigantic rats – the biggest I’ve ever seen. After a day of leeches and giant rats, we were pretty ready to get out of the wild and get back into a city. We had to be up at 4:30 the next morning to catch a bus to Cochin – six to seven torturous hours on a public bus we weren’t looking forward to – so we went to bed early that night. I had a terrible night’s sleep, dreaming that leeches were in my sheets and rats were running through our room. Ugh.

There was no direct bus to Varkala, so we got another auto-rickshaw to drive us the last twelve kilometers or so. The driver’s brother owned a cute little guest house that he took us to, in which we got a room for 300 Rupees a night, the cheapest to date. The owner was a very friendly Indian hippie in his thirties, who didn’t seem to get guests that often and was very eager to talk to us. Every time we so much as opened the door to our room he would suddenly appear in the hallway. Unfortunately he had a rather unpleasant scent, which I’ve come across quite a bit in India but never before anywhere else. I think it might be the combination of unwashed hair plus some type of oil that people here put in their hair, but that’s just a guess.

Varkala is a cute little beach town with all the usual shops and restaurants that cater to backpackers such as ourselves. The highlight of the restaurant scene was a juice bar that whipped up any combination of fresh fruit one could think of. Pretty tasty, and at 50 Rupees a glass, a bargain. The beach in Varkala was gorgeous and Lauren and I both agreed it had a better vibe than the one in Anjuna. The sand was slightly whiter, the water nice and shallow, and the whole beach is surrounded by cliffs, making it very picturesque. Though we had been experiencing quite a bit of rain in Kerala, we got really lucky with the weather while there and had one absolutely perfect beach day with a blue sky and lots of sunshine. We couldn’t have asked for anything more. Varkala was relaxing and we didn’t do much besides bum around on the beach, sit in restaurants, and use the internet.

Bus to Alleppey

We decided not to spend much time in Cochin and to move further south instead. After an awful breakfast of veggie burgers and the strangest tasting homemade chips I’ve ever had, we set off on a public bus to Alleppey. We got lucky that we were the first ones on the bus and got a row to ourselves with all our luggage in the front of the bus. That made the two-hour journey easy. When we arrived in Alleppey we were escorted by a very smiley guy to a lovely little guest house called the Lemon Tree which had about eight bungalows with two rooms per bungalow.

There isn’t much to see in Alleppey, which worked out well as a big rain storm moved in, making it impossible to do much of anything anyway. The main attraction of Alleppey is that it’s the starting-off point for getting houseboats through the backwaters of Kerala. We booked one through our hotel for the next morning.

School of ducks

We got up early the next morning to go look at the boats before committing to the payment (3500 Rupees) and chose one of two that were offered to us. The boat set off at 11:30 that morning, giving us the entire day to relax on the boat and take in the scenery. There were three members of staff there to take care of us and we were served lunch, dinner, and breakfast the next morning. We had some interesting dishes, many of them cooked with coconut. The views were lovely and we got a sense of what every-day life is like for people who live on the water. We saw many of them fishing, doing laundry, and taking baths in the water. Luckily it was sunny most of the day, before another rain storm rolled in early that evening. I finished the second book in the Twilight series while on the boat, as well as catching up with some blogging. Not too much else to report!

]]> http://rebeccamcandrew.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/days-55-56-cruising-the-backwaters-of-kerala/feed/ 0 rebeccamcandrew IMG_5090 IMG_5102 IMG_5113 IMG_5116 IMG_5131 IMG_5136 IMG_5140 IMG_5141 IMG_5146 IMG_5152 IMG_5155 IMG_5156 http://rebeccamcandrew.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/days-53-54-36-hours-of-public-transportation/ http://rebeccamcandrew.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/days-53-54-36-hours-of-public-transportation/#comments Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:49:28 +0000 rebeccamcandrew http://rebeccamcandrew.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/days-53-54-36-hours-of-public-transportation/ ]]> As I mentioned before, the only way we could get from Hampi to Kerala was by taking a sixteen-hour bus ride from Hampi to Mangalore (starting at 4:30 pm and arriving the next morning) and then a ten-hour train ride from Mangalore to Cochin (starting at 2.30 in the afternoon, giving us about a six-hour layover in Mangalore.) At first glance, this bus ride seemed it was going to be more pleasant than the last one. The bus was much emptier, giving us the freedom to use some of the seats downstairs for the first couple of hours. Lauren had started the day off on a bad note by stubbing her toe which resulted in a huge blood blister, and her luck didn’t pick up much on the bus ride. At one point an Israeli guy’s big backpack fell from a bed right onto Lauren’s head, which was followed by her slamming her head into a metal post about thirty minutes later. Poor Lauren.

In the early evening we climbed up into our bed, which was at the back of the bus. We were right above the wheel and our driver wasn’t very smooth, so it was a pretty bumpy ride. Though this bus wasn’t nearly as smelly as the last one had been, every once in awhile I caught a whiff of something that resembled wet feet. After about an hour I began to think that maybe the smell was coming from something that Lauren and I had with us, so I proceeded to sniff all our belongings but couldn’t find the cause. After getting back on the bus after a quick dinner break, before climbing back into our bed I decided to sniff the sheet that was covering our mattress. Big, BIG mistake. I don’t think words can describe the foul stench that emanated from this sheet. Just the thought of it makes me want to gag, days after the fact. The sheet reeked of years worth of unwashed feet. It was so pungent I don’t think the bus driver would be able to remember the last time it was washed.

Needless to say, the rest of the bus journey was ruined by this stench, especially knowing that we were lying right on top of it, allowing it to seep into our clothes. I don’t think I slept a wink that night, between our driver slamming on the breaks every fifteen minutes and the wafts of old feet that seemed to get more and more frequent. When we pulled into the bus station the next morning I jumped out of that bed rather gleefully.

Not sure what to do for six hours in Mangalore with our heavy backpacks, we finally decided it would be best to rent a room for a couple hours so we could get some rest and take showers. The people in Mangalore were very unfriendly compared to other parts of India, and we couldn’t convince anyone to give us a room for a few hours for a reasonable price. Finally we had to give in, paying more than we should have, but we figured it was worth the money. We had very tasty dhosas with coconut chutney for breakfast, took showers, and laid down for a bit. As we left our hotel that afternoon, poor Lauren got a crotch-grab from a nasty man walking up the stairs as we came down them. To make matters worse, he threw her an accusing look as he did it, as if Lauren deserved it for some reason. Let me also mention here that the streets of Mangalore reeked of stinky tofu, a stench I didn’t think existed outside of China. We got a pretty bad impression of this city and its people, and were happy to move on from there. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who might be traveling in the area.

Getting to the train station was easy, as was finding our train. The train turned out to be a pleasant surprise. It was well air-conditioned and they provided us with pillows, sheets, and blankets in 3^rd class AC. It wasn’t as nice as trains in China, but for Indian standards we were impressed with what we found. We took naps, watched some Gilmore Girls, and had dinner on the train, all of which made midnight roll around pretty quickly, when we finally arrived in Cochin after thirty-six somewhat tedious hours. Finding our hotel wasn’t an issue and we sunk happily into our beds, relieved we had survived our marathon session of using public transportation.

We waited at the bus stop for about forty-five minutes with a crowd of other backpackers until the bus finally rolled up. By this time it had started to rain pretty heavily, so we trudged through puddles to the bus and waited our turn to get on, getting soaking wet in the process. For some reason the guy in charge of the bus refused to let us put any of our luggage in the lower compartment, so we all struggled to get on the bus with our big backpacks. There wasn’t enough room for so many people plus their luggage, so the bus was pretty cramped. We squeezed our luggage in where we could find space and found the double sleeper bed we had reserved and climbed up into it. For those of you who have never been on one of these overnight buses, they’re almost as high as a double decker bus at home with normal seats on the bottom and beds above the seats. One side has double beds while the other has single, and in the bottom at the back of the bus is a little alcove with about five beds right next to each other.

The bus

Our bed was slightly more spacious than we had expected and not too uncomfortable. Just as we were starting to settle in and relax a little, the bus pulled into a station and we were told all passengers to Hampi had to change buses. It was still pouring with rain, and we got even wetter than before. This bus was even more cramped than the last one, and our bed wasn’t quite as spacious. To make matters worse, the air smelled of dampness mixed with smelly feet. It was nauseating. To distract ourselves from the uninviting atmosphere and stench, we broke out Lauren’s laptop and indulged in three episodes of Gilmore Girls. By the time we made it through those it was midnight and we were both sleepy. Surprisingly, I think we both slept through the night and woke up at about seven the next morning to witness a gigantic traffic jam that we were stuck in. We ended up arriving in Hampi at 10.30, over three hours later than expected. Minus the stink, the bus ride was endurable, though it wasn’t an experience we wanted to repeat if we could help it.

The bus was swarmed by rickshaw drivers advertising guest houses when we arrived, making it easy to find a place to stay. The owner of our guest house, Rocky’s, was a very friendly guy who also owned a travel agency, so we spent our first hour or two in Hampi trying to figure out with him how best to get down to Kerala. We hadn’t realized how far in advance train tickets gets booked, and our lack of organization backfired for the first time so far. We had assumed there would be a train that went directly from Hampi to Cochin, but apparently this wasn’t an option. After checking for tickets on a million different routes that would take us to Kerala, we finally had to settle on getting another overnight bus to Mangalore and then a train from there to Cochin. This was another trip we were dreading quite a bit. After exhausting the travel agent with questions, we had a quick lunch, took showers, and then headed off in a rickshaw to see the sights of Hampi.

Hampi’s landscape consists of giant boulders, banana plantations, and rice paddies. Amongst all this are the ruins of 550 temples and monuments that date back to the fourteenth century. The city was formerly known as Vijayanagar and was one of the largest Hindu empires in Indian history; by the sixteenth century it had grown immensely and the city’s bazaars were a center of international commerce. The landscape is stunning with the contrast of the lush, green plantations against the sand-brown boulders and stones, and one can get a sense of the importance and grandeur of life centuries ago through the many ruins and temples that still exist today. This is easily one of the most impressive places I’ve ever visited and in 1986 the area was declared a World Heritage site.

We spent three or four hours that afternoon driving and walking around some of these ruins, which included former elephant stables, temples, bazaars, wedding halls, and a theater amongst other things. While we set off in the sunshine, we witnessed the clouds roll in and a bit of rain, providing for a variety of lighting in our pictures. We finished the tour by watching the sunset at a lookout point above a temple, which had a stunning view of the vast surrounding area. One of the most interesting things were the many boulders that are strangely balanced on each other; they look almost like they were arranged by humans, but they’ve naturally evolved this way over time. The ruins reminded us a lot of the Angkor temples in Camodia which we saw about four years ago.

After a tasty dinner at the Mango Tree, we went back to our travel agent to book tickets for the rest of our trip. We thought it would be best to be slightly more organized to ensure that we saw everything that was still on our itinerary for the next few weeks: houseboat, beach, and wildlife reserve in Kerala, Varanasi, and Khajuraho. Nineteen thousand Rupees and two hours later, we crawled into our beds, exhausted from the bus ride to Hampi and sightseeing that afternoon.

The next morning we got up at a decent hour and set off for another session of checking out the ruins. Except for a few statues of Hindu gods, we didn’t see much that we hadn’t seen the day before, but were still impressed and enjoyed a couple more hours of taking in the sights. It was a lot hotter than the day before, so we called it quits after about two and a half hours. We spent the next couple of hours attempting to get money out of the one ATM in town, grabbed some lunch, and then went back to take showers at our guest house.

Unfortunately check-out time had been at 9.30 that morning, so we didn’t have a room to go back to and get ready in. The owner of the guest house had kindly offered us the shower in his home, which we accepted gratefully. He was by far one of the friendliest people we’ve met so far on this trip and we enjoyed the chit-chat we had with him. His wife had given birth to their first child the night before, so I think he was in a particularly good mood. We were asked to take off our shoes before entering his home, which we happily abided by. However, after inspecting the toilet and shower, we decided it would be best to wear our shower sandals, per usual. We were careful not to wear them inside the living area at all and carried them into the bathroom with us. Before stepping out of the bathroom I took off my flip-flops and placed them on the floor next to my backpack. The owner noticed them a few minutes later and made an incomprehensible comment about them being there. I smiled and assured him I hadn’t worn them in the house, just while in the shower, thinking that this was okay.

For the next half hour that we were in his home, we noticed some hostility towards us that hadn’t been there before. He went from being super friendly to very short and cold towards us. During this time span we both used the bathroom once more, carrying our flip-flops with us, and he asked us at one point if we had used enough water to flush the (squat) toilet. We began to feel we had outstayed our welcome and got out of there as soon as possible. Retrospectively, we think that we offended him by having our shoes in the house. We can’t think of another explanation since he had been so genuinely friendly to us before. I guess this is a faux-pas in India – one that we won’t repeat! Neither of us liked that we had unintentionally offended him so badly, especially since he had been so amiable and generous towards us. Do any Indians reading this have some thoughts or advice on the situation?!

The same richshaw driver that had taken us around Hampi picked us up from the guest house and drove us to Hospet, a town nearby, where we were catching our bus to Mangalore. The trip from Hampi to Kerala deserves an entry of its own…

The highlight of our choice in hotel were our neighbors: two fifty year old Australian lesbians who were very drunk and/or high. They greeted us with a whiskey and coke as a welcome drink and escorted us to a restaurant on the beach for some dinner. A highlight of the conversation was a misunderstanding about Japanese encephalitis which came up when we were talking about malaria and other possible travel ailments. She seemed to think we were referring to an STD and looked at us with a very serious expression and said, “well, wear a condom mate.” We were both highly amused by these two characters and thoroughly enjoyed their company that evening. After they drunkenly headed back to the hotel we met two British guys – Tom and Oli – and had some drinks with them. Unfortunately we couldn’t find our way back to our guest house and ended up roaming around for an hour until 2.00 am when we finally found it. Phew!

I had one of the worst nights of sleep of my life that night. The room was unbearably hot and we had to sleep under a giant mosquito net that covered the entire bed and was touching me all night. We had to keep the unscreened windows wide open to allow for some air flow so I woke up at about seven to the sun streaming into my eyes. We decided to move out of this room and find somewhere with AC pronto. We looked around several guest houses before deciding on the Sai Prasad, in which we found two rooms next to each other with a shared porch. Cam would be joining us the next day so this arrangement was perfect. The hotel was also right on the beach which is what we had been hoping to find. I was feeling extremely hot and bothered by the heat after walking around it in it searching for a place to stay and ended up spending the rest of the afternoon in our cool room relaxing. We had a quick dinner and then retired early to watch some Gilmore Girls before bed.

The Sai Prasad

The next morning we woke up and decided to have breakfast at the hotel restaurant. A big party was planned at our guest house for that evening and preparations started early in the morning. While we were waiting for our food a girl began tying neon-colored yarn between two big palm trees, where the DJ would stand. We sat at one of the tables next to the palm trees and rather than asking us to move to another table, she planted a sandy foot right where my plate would be when trying to get the yarn to wind around a coconut. When I then asked her if she’d like us to move, she just smiled and said “oh, sorry!” I should probably mention that Goa is filled with hippies, and this party was being thrown by some of the most extreme hippies I’ve ever seen.

Cam was scheduled to arrive by about noon. He didn’t have too much of a problem finding the place and made it here just a half hour after his predicted arrival time. Rather than hanging around the craziness of our hotel we moved further down the beach for some lunch and spent the afternoon there hanging out.

Though the party was scheduled to start at seven that evening, by five o’clock, in broad daylight, the party was in full swing with hippies jumping and dancing to the heavy trance beats in the sand. Everything in our room was rattling from the loud music so we took quick showers and moved on quickly to have a drink somewhere else. We had a seafood dinner and some beers with the intention of perhaps joining in on the party, but every time we walked past it we stuck out like sore thumbs in a sea of dreadlocks and ali-baba pants. In the end we were out until about midnight before deciding to call it a night. The music pounded on until about four in the morning, but I somehow managed to sleep through most of it, only waking up once in awhile. Those hippies throw a crazy party!

There isn’t much to report from the next few days. They basically consisted of sleeping in later than usual, reading at the beach or on our porch, going for swims in the ocean, and alternating between the restaurants in our area. The weather turned overcast towards the end of our stay here and we’ve seen a bit of rain unfortunately. Still, we’ve had a lovely and relaxing few days here in Anjuna and I’ve especially enjoyed having some time to catch up a bit more with Cameron. This evening Lauren and I are catching an overnight bus to Hampi (a ride which we’re both dreading quite passionately) and Cam heads off on his bike again tomorrow, to continue further south.