Hippy Hippy Shake

Before Mumbai we spent three nights in Udaipur, India's "most romantic city." It's definitely India's most 007-y city, as the James Bond movie Octopussy was filmed there. We watched it on a rooftop restaurant at sunset, and it was pretty neat to be overlooking the lake and palaces used in the filming of many scenes. We did find the local Indians to be very friendly once we ventured out of the tourist bubble.

Craig took a one-on-one cooking class from the woman who owned our hotel, Manju. The food was prepared in her family's kitchen while her curious adult children watched and asked Craig many questions. Andrea joined in for the final feast, but the family was very confused why Craig was so interested in cooking and Andrea was not. They didn't even believe we are married - I guess Andrea just isn't a traditional enough wife!

From Udaipur we headed to Mumbai, and we've already recounted our Bollywood adventures. We found Mumbai to be modern, cosmopolitan, fairly clean, and absolutely massive, with a population of 16 million. 2.5 million people alone pass through Mumbai's main train station each day!

Next we headed to Aurangabad where we did a trip to see the ancient Ellora Cave Temples, a series of 34 rock temples carved into a 2 km-long escarpment. They were built by Buddhists, Hindus, and Jains between 600 AD and 1000 AD. The incredible thing about them is that they were literally carved out of the mountain from the top down (so no scaffolding was required - smarty pants). Many temples were three stories tall with intricate carvings. The main temple required the removal of 200,000 tonnes of rock! Neither of us are huge history buffs but we were still amazed at the scale, detail, and longevity of the structures.

For the past six days we've been relaxing in Goa, India's Beach State. We spent five days at Arambol Beach, and today moved on to Palolem Beach (four local buses and five hours later). It doesn't feel like Real India - the small beach towns are completely geared to Western tourists, like in Thailand, with cheap beer and beach huts. Where we are now is full of European tourists and loud techno music. The first beach, Arambol, was claimed by hippies a long time ago. There were more dreadlocks, men in speedos/thongs/their birthday suits, and women sunbathing topless (in India?!?) than we could shake a stick at. Only the cows on the beach reminded us where we were.

We've been enjoying a "break" from Real India. The Arabian Sea is warm and the beer and white wine is cold. In Arambol we rented a beachfront apartment for $10 CAD per night. Randomly, on our second last night, we met a couple from Guelph, Ontario, and spent a few nights sharing some drinks and travel stories on our patio.

We're hunkering down in our beach hut here in Palolem for another three days before we keep moving south. It's nuts to think we only have another three and a half weeks here in India!