Its been a few days since our last update, and whats more we've lost the travel adaptor so slowly but surely all our electronics are failing. We are still going strong, and have just arrived in the mountains of Shimla in the north of India. But we've got a few days to track back on first...
From Agra we caught the train of death to Jaipur, but things definitely picked up since we got there. We headed to the nicest cheap place in the guide book, which usually means they have no rooms when we get there... but as luck would have it they had a lovely room which we managed to haggle down a bit too (its all about the 50p haggling...)
Compared to all the other rooms we've stayed in this was like the Ritz, all lovely details and it was spotlessly clean for a change.
Jaipur was a very different city to Agra - where as Agra seemed very poor, Jaipur was very afluent in comparison. The old town, inside the famous pink walls, was fairly typical, but in the south of the city there were western style shopping centres and bars. But you are never very far away from the animals on the roads, no matter where you end up in India...
As we mentioned in the last update, Jaipur is something of a legend for shopping. The full range of Indian fabrics, jewellery and arts and crafts are on offer from countless shops in the bazaars in the old town. Alex was obviously in her element, and we spent a good few hours each day browsing and haggling.
One of the highlights for us was going to see a bollywood film in the incredible art deco cinema - the film was absolutely crazy, trying to put it in one genre would be impossible. It started as a teen high school drama, then came some epic musical bits, then it went a bit karate kid, and then suddenly the leading chap found out he could see the future and it went a bit Nicholas Cage action thriller... the dialogue has chunks of english dotted through it so we could pretty much make sense of it. Really good fun though, they should make more films like that for western audiences we reckon =)
So that led us up to the 24th, Alex's birthday. We started sightseeing in the mountains behind the city - its called the Monkey temple because of the army of monkeys have have settled in the temples. The temple itself was a bit run down, but the temple at the top had an amazing view over the city. We got tourist trapped in the temple, we were too sweaty and horrible to dodge them, hence the crazy monkey poo "good luck" dots on our heads!
We spent the afternoon shopping for jewellery, and then headed out for some cocktails in the evening. You can just about see the lovely bracelet we found for Alex's birthday present in this picture :
We had a lovely few days in Jaipur, and we were a little sad to leave. We'd made our lives a little hard by arranging two days of travelling - the first was back to Delhi on the train (7 hours), grabbing a few hours sleep before hitting a morning train to Kalka (another 6 hours) and then a crazy "toy" train up the mountains into Shimla (another 6 hours). Quite the mission, but we survived it. The toy train was a proper narrow gauge railway through the mountains, it was only about 30 km but it really did wind around forever.
We were really knackered when we arrived, and stupidly we thought 300 rupees was too much of a rip off to get a cab to the hotel (normally you pay around 50 rupees for a reasonble length journey). The trip to the hotel turned out to involve queuing up for ages to get lift up the mountain, and it almost killed me walking up the final bit of hills to the hotel with the packs on. Really daft turning our nose up at the 4 quid or whatever it would have been in the cab... oh well.
We've arrived in Shimla at peak season, so the place is buzzing. Its peak season as people leave Delhi and surrounding area to avoid the heat before the monsoon, so its almost bearable up here. Our hotel is a real shocker compared to the last place, and to add to our worries there is a drought as the monsoon is so late this year. This means no running water up here... so its water out of buckets all the way. Joy!
The view over the balcony is amazing, wish we had a good photo though, but as we've left the power adaptor in Agra (gah!) we haven't got any recent ones. The city is perched up in the mountains, sprawling over a huge area. Anyway hopefully we'll have some pictures next time. There is a big old queue for the one computer here, and we are getting rude looks, time to sign off =)
So we have now finally arrived in Jaipur after the worst train journey in the entire world, every compliment we previously made to India's railway has now been retracted! First off we arrived at the station at 5:45AM to find that none of the stations announcements had been turned on. So we spent about 30 minutes trying to find out which platform our train was on as there were no railway staff around and only one person at the ticket desk, who couldn't really speak English and didn't seem to bothered about answering anyone's questions. After finally finding the right platform the station came to life with windows xp welcome sound and the departures board finally lit up. Unfortunately for us, our train was going to be delayed by 2 hours!
Soooo 2 very grumpy hours later our train pulls in, we had to run about a mile to reach our end of the train with our massive bags only to find the right carriage and promptly start receiving abuse from a very loud and assertive Indian woman. Turns out our entire carriage had been hijacked by a group of 70 Jainist pilgrims, who were trying to rearrange the whole of aircon class (about 5 carriages) so they could all sit together. Not too impressed with this, we decided to improve Anglo-Indian relations by ignoring them and taking our seats in the middle of their jolly.
Big mistake. We were quickly surrounded by all the children who decided we would be their morning entertainment...not really what we wanted after only 4 hours sleep, but hey we decided we'd go with it; after all it was only a 4.5 hour journey. However, it seemed like our day was only going to get worse when James started chatting to one of the blokes - apparently the train was a new (very flakey) service, and if the train was 3 or 4 hours delayed that was considered on time. They had come prepared with enough food and snacks to kill a hippo, we on the other hand had missed brekkie and wernt very happy with the idea of staying on the hell train till mid-afternoon with no food or water!
As by this point it seemed the journey couldnt possibly get any worse, we accepted our fate and got on with it. Luckily the Jainists decided to forgive us for taking their seats (they are pacifists after all according to the guide book,) and shared their snacks and water with us. The rest of the journey picked up and we chatted happily and ate all their food! :-p
The train ended up being 4.5 hours late so we arrived in Jaipur at 5pm (it almost got a whole lot worse with us accidentally jumping off at the wrong stop then thanking god they dont bother shutting the doors on Indian trains so we could jump back on after it had started moving!)
After all this excitement/torture, we've now landed on our feet and are staying in a gorgeous hotel. They've decorated it to perfection, the room is massive and even has a bath (yey!) Its still less than 10 quid a night for the 2 of us as well, and is easily nicer than any hotel we've stayed in so far.
We're off to explore the Pink City now, Jaipurs ancient walled city. Then hopefully its off to start some shopping....
So the train from Delhi to Agra (a very very good train, according to the man at the station) left at an eye-wateringly early 06:15 am, so we were out with our packs on for the 1/2 mile walk to New Delhi station at 05:30. Fortunately it doesn't get scorching until about 8am, so the walk wasn't particularly unpleasant.
New Delhi rail station was already a mass of bodies when we arrived - people are sprawled out everywhere you can see, sleeping, napping, lying on massive piles of goods and fabric... you name it, its got a person on top of it. The station was remarkably well set out, and to be honest it put London Bridge to shame in terms of getting us to the right train on the right platform.
On the train, there seems to be a system in place whereby a segment of seats in the 3rd class (thats top class here, I think 1st class is cows and chickens..) are held for tourists wandering in and paying top dollar for fancy air con seats. So we were sat with 6 or so other tourists and it was a remarkably straight forwards journey. Oh and when I say top dollar it was still only about 8 quid for both of us to do a 2 hour journey in massive comfy seats, with air con, and breakfast... bargain.
We were pretty knackered at this point and worried we'd fall asleep - the train was going all the way back to Mumbai - so we had to try and stay awake so we didn't miss the stop. It was pretty easy going, although the view out of the window was pretty hard going as we passed through some of the slums that spilled out onto the railway land.
So we arrived in Agra and were pitched headlong into a swarm of animated rickshaw touts and taxi drivers. Not what you need in a new place and after only a few hours sleep. We managed to fight them off as far as the official government prepaid rickshaw shack (basically set up so the touts and hawkers cant rip you off straight from the train...) We'd already booked our hotel here so we all we had to worry about was not being taken for a ride in the wrong direction. We needn't have worried as we were picked up by a charming chap who insisted on showing us his little customer comment book - he'd asked the tourists he'd driven for in the past to write something about him in the book; despite claiming that he couldn't read or write english - brave chap. It looked like he wanted us to hire him to take us around the sites but we were too dazed and hot to take him up on his offer, so we just checked into the hotel and went straight for second sleeps.
As we arrived on the Friday, we couldnt jump straight into the Taj Mahal - it turns out its closed all day. So that afternoon's fun was Agra Fort, not too dissimilar from the Red Fort in Delhi. (Same old story, rubbish locked down iway internet cafe again, no photos to show you yet!) This was really amazing for two reasons - a) you get an amazing view of the Taj Mahal across the river and b) they have wild monkeys roaming free in the grounds.
It turns out this isn't particularly rare, but as tourists relatively fresh off the boat this was quite amazing - until Alex got a little bit too close to one of the babies, and then for a second it was a bit scary =)
We had dinner at a restaurant recommended in the guide, and had a really delicious chicken dish, cooked in a cream curried sauce and topped with omlettey style egg. It was definitely the nicest curry I've ever had, but unfortunately that high point quickly deteriorated into a huge pit of despair in the evening. I'm pretty sure it wasn't the fault of the restraunt, as I was feeling a bit dodgy before we ate, but anyway we had to call the night off early and before too long it was obvious that I'd succumed to Delhi belly as well. India 2, Bentley/Shaw 0 on that front.
To make matters worse that night there was the usual powercut, which knocks out the fan and the air con. Usually the hotels have a backup generator which brings the fans back up, but you have to wait for the main power to come back to get air con again. But after one and a half hours the air con still wasn't working and I couldn't sleep a wink... talk about all the bad things happening at once! Alex has an uncanny ability to sleep no matter now hot it was, but eventually she had to wake up to see why it was so warm - and to witness me going a little bit mental because of the illness and heat combination. In the end it was so bad I left the room to try and see if someone could fix it - but there was no one around in the hotel. In a final fit of despair managed to find the circuit breaker box, and through sheer fluke alone managed to get the A/C back up and running. Despite feeling monumentally tired (this is still the day of the 5am start from Delhi...) and sick, that moment when the air con unit chugged back into life was one of the happiest moments of the trip so far ha! =)
Ok so I'm clearly basking in my own pity there a bit, and Alex is sure to not let me get away with it for too much longer. The following day was a write off for me, but Alex was able to get a bit of shopping in whilst taking care of sick old me. Fast forward 24 (gloriously air conditioned I might add) hours...
So everyone says "see the Taj Mahal at dawn"... so there we were again up at 5:30 raring to go... I'd just about got my world back together and we set out down the 100m walk from our hotel to the west gate entrance. They've got a really good thing going here in Agra - they charge locals about 15 rupees to see the Taj, but charge the tourists 750 - most of which goes to the local council. Its pretty obvious that not a penny of this actually gets spent on making things better for the locals, the roads are awful and the open sewers are everywhere. So its a little bit gauling, but it has to be done.
Moaning aside, the Taj was probably the most amazing thing either of us have seen.
The sheer scale of the place is breathtaking, and as you get closer the transition from the scale to the tiny attention to detail sets you back again. We spent an hour walking around and taking hundreds of photos - and then we came across more monkeys and took yet more photos of the creatures. Fortunately Alex stayed well clear this time so no run ins with angry mother monkeys.
This is our last day in Agra, and with the missed day yesterday we thought we'd try and cram some more stuff in - we hired an autorickshaw and headed off 10km outside Agra to Sikandra, a moment to one of the shahs that had something to do with Agra (ok, our grasp of the local history is a little tenous...). We never made it in the end as the dual-carriage way we were on backed up with traffic, and the rickshaw driver told us the road was closed ahead. You can imagine our panic when instead of waiting in traffic or turning off and heading for another road, our driver pulled a u-ey and started driving back down the highway the wrong way!!! Just when we thought we were safe, at the first junction he came to he pulled another u-ey and started full pelt up the wrong side of the road, straight into the oncoming cars. At this point its fair to say we were bricking it (a fairly uncomfortable situation for me, considering the previous 24 hours...) but there were some other cars doing it to, so it didn't seem too much like certain death.
That side of the road quickly became block too, and after 30 minutes of furtively trying every side road and dirt track in sight our intrepid driver called it quits. He swore blind we were only 500m away from the place, and that we could walk it, but we thought best not and decided to head back to Agra. Instead we visited a couple of other sites, including something the locals call the Baby Taj. If it wasn't for the real thing, this momument would be the top attraction around here, with the same amazing marble filligree and inlays, but sadly it doesn't really get a look in and was a bit run down.
Thats about it for now, our tickets for the Taj are good all day so we are going to go see it again as the sun sets. Tomorrow its another crack of dawn train to Jaipur... home of the pink city and - according to the rough guide - the best shopping in Asia. Some may say this is a convienent coincidence considering its Alex's birthday on the 24th...
Edit - here is a pic from sunset, there were hundreds more people there in the evening and we were pretty much constantly accosted by people taking photos of us (ok, mainly Alex) and wanting to practice their english...
(ps sorry for typos, we didnt have time to proof read this one!)
We've been a bit busy over the last few days so no blog action... so we've got a few posts to catch up on.
Our last day in Delhi was a scorcher, so we scoured the rough guide for some shade and decided to head to a nice are of park called Lodi Gardens. The guide didn't really set our expectations really high, but it turned out to be one of our favourite bits of Delhi.
The park itself was lovely and green, with quite a lot of hosing action to keep everything from drying up - most of the sites we've seen so far have been dry, with empty fountains and ponds. There was a real sense of peace and tranquility, considering the entire park was ringed by 4 lane crazy roads as well. The park was organised around three or four ancient temples, which were in surprisingly good nick considering they were in a free park with no one to guard them - its the kind of thing that would have been vandalised to hell and back if it was left alone in England for more than 20 minutes.
The other highlight was the amount of wildlife that had made the park its home - there were geese on the ponds, huge birds of prey swooping between the trees, and countless little squirrel/skunk creatures on the ground. Will have to upload a photo because we see these little things everywhere now!
This is Alex standing in the door way of one mausoleum looking over to an ancient mosque, as you can see the gardeners were hard at work even though it was free to enter.
Later on that day we took a stroll down to the other main bit of colonial designed New Delhi, the Rajpath. This is an enormous tree lined boulevard with a monument called India Gate at one end, and the India parliament buildings (I think!) at the other end. We tried to get to the parliament buildings but they shut the road leading to them at 8pm, so we had to suffice with the Arc de Triumphe-esq India Gate end. And obviously the gratuitous long shutter delay photos weren't far behind...
I think the monument is to the soldiers lost in the various conflicts that India has fought in (I think most of the earlier ones were pretty much the conflicts that the UK launched India into to be honest...)
After that we headed back to Connaught Place for a rock night at another bar recommended in the Rough Guide... after 2 weeks of no music it was quite a treat but sadly we had to get up early the next day for the train to Agra...
After almost two weeks of being professional tourists, we've done our first day of real sightseeing. We managed to run the gauntlet to Old Delhi to visit the Red Fort (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Fort).
Its a massive old Mughal fortress, read the wiki bit if you want to know more as I'll only get something wrong! It was pretty amazing to see this huge fort stuck pretty much in the middle of the chaos of Old Delhi.
The entrance to the fort used to be lined with shops for the finest craftsmen in India, but these days its been given to the tourist tat sellers...
From there on in its pretty grand inside, lots to look at but by this point is was so hot that I had to rest in the shade every 2 minutes. Alex was loving it though, especially when one of the "official" tourist guides came over and started asking me about English history. Not what you want when you are about to pass out from the heat!
We've not quite mastered the long arm photos yet, and we didn't really want to hand the camera over to anyone, but here is a picture of us both to prove we are actually here together :) (our paranoia was made worse with constant signs about pickpockets etc inside the fort!)
We just about made it back in one piece, it was another fairly hairy autorickshaw journey back to our hotel afterwards.
Ok so that picture was from last night, but it sums the crazy rickshaws up pretty well. We managed to visit some equally crazy bars in Conaught Place last night as well, the weirdest was a rodeo themed place where you sit on saddles at the bar :
And here is Alex on the main bazaar near where we are staying :
We've uploaded a few more pictures from Goa as well, I think you can click on the images and it should take you to the full album for all our photos so far.
Thats about it for now, the heat of the day is starting to fade so its time to go and find somewhere to eat!
In what many people would view as a crazy move, we've left the beautiful calm laid back world of the Goan coast, for the absolutely insane world of central Delhi. People did warn us how much of a shock it would be but I really don't think we were expecting it to be this different!
Our last days in Palolem were good fun, but we had a quite a lot of rain - we decided to make good use of my last minute CBT course in the UK and rent a scooter. I'd just about figured out the driving system (everyone over takes at all times whilst beeping none stop seemed to be the important parts) so we boldly rented a little black thing from the guest host we were staying at. Only cost about a quid for the day, so it was pretty good value.
So we set off, granted a little wobbly at first, but the roads are very quiet and we quickly got the hang of riding with someone on the back. There wasn't really much problem about getting lost, as there were only really 4 roads in the area. It was pretty good fun pottering around, we found a market so Alex had to try and buy as much as she could carry; this time she held herself back and only bough some pomegranates and some Indian sweets. Embarrassingly enough I couldn't figure out how to undo the straps on my flipping helmet, fortunately the locals were pretty handy. (Ok ok the strap release bit was broken, honest!)
We thought we'd head over to the next beach, as an Irish couple we'd met the night before said it was worth a visit. Halfway there we started to see other people stopping their bikes under trees by the side of the road seemingly randomly, but after 30 seconds the heavens opened. They have some crazy 6th sense about when its about to rain... anyway, we got soaked and managed to pull in at a closed restaurant with a covered bit at the front. Then came the thunder and lightening, and lots more rain. After about an hour we gave up waiting and rode back at a crawl, getting hopelessly wet through. Good fun though =)
That was the last adventure for Goa, the next day we packed up our stuff and went around the town looking for the cheapest cab we could get to the airport. Sure enough a chap offered a knock down price and we thought our luck was in... but it turned out he was a total mentalist. Anything that moved caused him to hit the horn 1-3 times (seemed to depend on the size of the thing that moved, bikes = 1, cows/rickshaws = 2, trucks = 3+) which quickly became annoying. He also seemed to go faster the nearer we got to the airport, so we practically flew the last few km with us holding on for dear life in the back. A false economy if ever there was one.
The flight was uneventful, I made another Indian friend (although this was our first invitation to dinner, people are very very friendly it would seem) but Alex was starting to feel a bit poorly...
So Delhi - the first impression was the incredible heat. It was pretty hot in Goa, but very humid, but Delhi was like a furnace. Thankfully it seems a lot less humid, but that is replaced with smog/fumes/dust. The taxi ride into the city really opened our eyes to the typical tales of Indian driving - what seems to be a pretty good system out in the sticks seemed totally crazy when scaled up in the city. Mopeds and autorickshaws weave between the other cars with about 2 inches of clearance; the cars and taxis jostle constantly to try and get their noses ahead at each junction. Quite the introduction to the city thats for sure.
We found a room pretty easily, the first place we tried from the guidebook looked really nice but was full, but thankfully we found something similar just around the corner. We arrived around 6pm, which must have been evening rush hour as the whole place was just swarming with people - imagine central London at rush hour but with roads the size of pavements, and everyone and everything trying to get passed each other at the same time.
The room we found looked dodgy - the fluorescent light wasn't working, and the aircon wasn't going. What with our massive culture shock we were coming up with all sorts of con style conspiracy theories, but it turns out there was just another power cut. (Thank god for my head torch or we wouldn't have been able to see a thing, thanks M&D :)) By that point Alex was feeling really rough - we'd only been in Delhi a few hours and already she'd got the signature ailment. I wont say anything else in that department, other than it was a tough night but shes feeling a lot better today!
So slowly but surely we are getting used to the non-stop hustle and bustle. We managed to make it into the centre of town today - and within 30 minutes we had been approached by 4 people trying to con us into visiting one of the fake "official government tourist offices". Fortunately the rough guide had done a good job of warning us about the scams (they take you to a shop that has been made to look like the tourist information office, get a cut of massively expensive train tickets etc etc.)
This was at a place called Connaught Place, part of the British designed bits of New Delhi. The whole area is a huge set of concentric circles, which makes the con even better - unless you really know the area you've no idea which segment of the circle you are on, and the shops pulling the con are in pretty much the same spot on each of the segments. So all in all a pretty hard going morning. It would seem we need to be a lot more cautious about the previously friendly greetings we've had.
This afternoon was another mission, this time booking train tickets for our visits to Agra (Taj Mahal), Jaipur (Pink city, and Alex's birthday; the guide book said it was the best place for shopping in Asia...) and then up north into the mountains near Shimla. Thats a total of about 40 hours on trains, so hopefully splashing out on the air con seats will be worth it.
Alex spent the afternoon sleeping it off, so I had to visit the station solo - it was amazing how much less hassle I got from the rickshaw touts and other people marching around with a grumpy look on my face by myself =) I think we are both starting to acclimatise a little, so for once I wasn't dripping with sweat which might also help a bit.
Tonight we might risk taking the camera out and getting some photos, and maybe venturing out to get a bite to eat and hopefully a beer! Until next time...
Today marks a week since we left, but it definitely feels a lot longer already! We've made a shortish hop down the coast of Goa to a place called Palolem, which is the beach the guides and books are raving about. I'd love to show you a picture of it with us in it, but this is another internet cafe with dodgy rules. This place has gone as far as demanding "NO UPLOADING AND DOWNLOADING" which makes any sort of use of the internet a challenge, but whatever... I'll just steal other peoples pictures for now =)
Palolem is a little villiage clustered around the road that leads from the mainland towards the sea, but the highlight is the sweeping bay lined with forest and palm trees. There are a couple of small islands at the ends of the bay which keep it quite enclosed, and Alex has already managed to get in a bit of a swim.
The journey down was ultra lazy, we just got a guy from down the road to drive us here in his car. He claim to be a taxi but his boss was "borrowing the proper car" for the day. Either way it was definitely better than the 2 hour/3 bus nightmare alternative. Weather wise its still really hot, and amazingly humid - we haven't seen any real rain for days now which might be making it worse.
The guide book served us well for the accomodation, we found a reasonable little place at the back of town for 3 quid a day, can't complain. There definitely seem to be more tourists here than at the last place, even though its much more remote... must have something to do with the fact that its on the top 10 list in pretty much all the things to do in India lists. Everyone is so much browner than us, so we think that puts us quite low down the travellers pecking order. We have none of the following :
A crazy tan
Massive dreadlocked hair
Lots of tatoos
Huge necklaces
So we definitely look like the virgin travellers - tan wise the factor 50 is doing a pretty stirling job. Alex is obviously going brown, and I'm just going different shades of red. We may consider doing some sunbathing tomorrow to try and move us up the traveller scale a notch.
Thats about it for now. We'll try our luck at a different internet place, hopefully they wont notice the camera and usb action next time.
We've made it to our second stop, a place called Benaulim in South Goa. We've found a much more draconian web cafe with all sorts of access restrictions so we can't upload any photos sadly :(
The journey down here was a small mission, as it was the first bit we've done under our own steam with our packs on. Obviously we ignored pretty much all the advice and packed everything we'd ever need so things are a little heavy going in the baking heat. We made it as far as the bus terminal in Panajim (thats where we were before) and got ourselves on a bus to Margao (the Goan equivalent of Birmingham by all accounts.) This wasn't so bad, it was pretty fast going and we managed to get off at the right place.
The bus stations we've come across so far having been massive chaotic affairs, with people shouting destinations all the time and 10-20 buses charging around and another 20 or so parked up. People have been really helpful and always point you in the direction of the right bus. One pitfall is that places seem to have at least 2 names; the one the government would like people to call somewhere, and the name people actually do call it... sometimes its not entirely clear which one the guide book is using. Anyway, we managed to find the bus to Benaulim - only to find the driver asleep on the back seat.
Turns out the bus wasn't due to leave for a while so we sat in the baking hot sauna for 30 mins or so. The journey from Margao to Benaulim was a bit more hectic, lots of stops and traffic and shouting as we made it through the town. Once we hit the coast though everything seemed to calm down a lot.
The ride took about 30 minutes to get to the crossroads at the top of town, at which point we were back under our own steam with packs on our backs. We had a guesthouse place in mind nearer the beach, and set off - ignoring the usual shouts for taxis and autorickshaws. Silly silly move, within minutes I was soaked with sweat and Alex was cackling gleefully at my misfortune. The walk took about 20 minutes, I must have lost about 4 pints of water but we made it, and the place had air con!! Heaven.
The sun had come out completely by this point and it was baking hot, so the beach was the best place for us. Its still the off-season here, so there is hardly anyone around; we walked for miles down the beach and didn't see another soul. Because of the rains there are really bad undercurrents in the sea, so sadly no swimming for us.
Come the evening the few bars that are still open at the beach front came alive a bit. We sat looking out onto the sea and had a beer, played some cards (Jen - Alex has already started beating me at cribbage gah!) and then had the tastiest whole red snapper we'd ever eaten, all for about 3 quid each. Bargain. Looking forward to dinner again tonight thats for sure.
From there we moved onto another bar on the beach and drank 90p cocktails until we were a little tipsy(!) and then headed back. Thanks to the air con I managed to get a good nights sleep, but sods law it was actually too cold for Alex - typical!
Today we've been wandering around, its been cloudy but the humidity is a killer! We might rent some bikes tomorrow and explore a bit, but there really isn't that much to do here - there aren't any watersports or beach sun loungers as its the off season. So we may look to move on after that, either further south to another beach or start thinking of heading north towards Delhi.
Hopefully we'll find a better internet place soon and can put some more pictures up!
Monday, June 8, 2009
First post time - against all the odds we made it in one piece to Goa. The flight to Mumbai/Goa from Heathrow Terminal 5 was painless, we even got our bags back once we landed which was nice. We had a very brief view of one of the massive shanty cities as the plane landed, but that was our only glimpse of India proper. A brief trip between airport terminals was all it took to get us onto our connecting flight to Goa - I was hoping the plane would be old school and have propellers and everything but sadly I'm living back in time and everything is amazingly modern here.
It only took 45 minutes to make it to Goa, where we had to face our first minor challenge of getting to the place we planned to stay. They'd not returned our emails but the guide books seemed pretty sure the place would be empty in the monsoon season. Anyway, we ended up in a crazy retro taxi completely lined with leopard skin (I have photos on my iphone, but haven't found any wifi yet.) The monsoon was kicking off full blast and the taxi wasn't exactly water tight, but we made it to our accommodation pretty easily.
The guesthouse we were heading for is called the Afonso in the old Portuguese area of Goa's capital, Panajim. They must have seen us pasty white tourists coming a mile off, as we were thoroughly counter-haggled into the "last" room they had free, but still its so cheap you can't really complain. I've not done a great job of taking photos for half this stuff (we were jetlagged!)
We made it out for our first real curry that night, in absolutely pouring rain, and it was really really tasty - either the whole spiciness thing isn't as bad as people say or they've doctored our tourist curries perfectly.
Day 2 - it was still tipping it down in the morning, but around 11am the rains stopped and we headed out on our first sight seeing mission to Old Goa. This is the old capital city and has a lot of old Christian churches and colonial buildings left over from the Portuguese. One the way home we had our first auto rickshaw ride, which was an experience =)
Day 3 - Full day of adventure today, and our last day in Panajim. We had our first experience of the Indian bus service, which was completely overwhelming in most parts but we managed to pull it off without too many problems! We ended up in somewhere called Ponda, where we ended up doing a 7 temple marathon via auto rickshaw. The Hindu temples were amazing but all exactly the same in terms of layout, but with different colours and decorations inside.
We are thinking of heading south tomorrow - the weather has definitely picked up today so the beach may not be totally out of the question. Touch wood. It'll probably get ten times worse as soon as we can see the sea, but whatever. That's about it for now... as ever we'll only update this a few more times before we forget about it completely, but you never know :p
