Although Palolem Beach had less of a laid-back, hippy vibe and more of a European package tourist feel, we ended up enjoying our four days there. We found three great restaurants we became short-term "regulars" at that served excellent, authentic, cheap Indian - one place came complete with a local cow who showed up every night to be fed by the cook. Once again, we met a fellow Canadian who we shared a few meals and drinks with - but this time, we did not have our own apartment where we could entertain.
Next up we headed south on an overnight train where we shared our berth with a very friendly Indian nun (Christianity is fairly common down here in the south) who, as usual, had many questions for us about Canadian culture and our impressions of India. When we awoke we were in the southern state of Kerala, home of the world's first freely elected communist government in 1957. The state has the highest literacy rate of any developing nation (91%), a life expectancy 10 years higher than the rest of India, and an infant mortality rate 1/5 of the national average.
Kerala has become a major tourist hot-spot, which unfortunately has made it not our cup of tea.
At our first town, Kochi, we got to see old cantilevered Chinese fishing nets in action. We met a bunch of people doing the Rickshaw Run, a charity event that involves driving a tuk-tuk across India in 14 days (crazy - see www.rickshawrun.com). Talking to these folks made Craig insanely jealous that he had not yet driven a tuk-tuk himself, so as part of our bartering that afternoon our rickshaw driver let Craig do a few laps around the neighbourhood in the rickshaw on our way back to our hotel. Also in town we did a day boat tour of some of the 900km of backwaters in the area, narrow rivers that are a highway network of sorts for many village residents.
Next up was the beach town of Varkala. This town felt as touristy as Kochi. By "touristy" we mean that it had no authentic Indian food (just expensive "Chinese/Italian/Continental") and everything was way overpriced. It almost felt like a resort town, since everything felt so Western-tourist-geared. Two days here was enough.
Today is our second day in the state capital of Trivandrum. We walked around town today and visited the zoo. Strangely, this zoo had many large empty enclosures, and kept the big cats (lions, tigers, and jaguars) in the smallest cages we'd ever seen. The animals were pacing and making lots of noise. It was sad.
During the day, the temperature has been soaring well into the mid/high 30s. It is HOT here! We sweat like mad, while the locals wear pants and sometimes even a jacket or a turtleneck!
Tomorrow we head for Cape Coromin, the southernmost point of the country. With a population of 20,000, we are excited to get back into real small-town India.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
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!
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!
Thursday, March 11, 2010
We Don't Know How To Put This, But, We're Kind Of A Big Deal...
So we are in Mumbai right now.
Walking down the street yesterday, we got stopped by a scout and asked to be in a Bollywood movie. Even though we were fresh off an overnight bus from Udaipur and tired, how could we pass it up? We got picked up down-town around 4pm and got driven to the studio lot. There we got wardrobe/hair/make-uped up. Shooting took until around midnight. We got food, water, chai, and 500 rupees each (around $12.50 CAD).
Andrea played one role, and Craig played two roles so he had to go through wardrobe twice. Let's just say that his moustache was a deciding factor in which roles he'd play. We're not going to tell anyone exactly what roles either of us played until the movie comes out.
It's called "No Problem" and stars Anil Kapoor of Slumdog Millionaire (the game show host) and former Miss World Yukta Mookhey.
For people who are not familiar with the Bollywood industry, it is the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai. It produces more films per year than Hollywood, and has the same or greater yearly worldwide audience. Basically, Bollywood movies are HUGE here - a way bigger deal than English-language, Hollywood films.
We're excited to see the finished film and see if either of us made the cut!
Walking down the street yesterday, we got stopped by a scout and asked to be in a Bollywood movie. Even though we were fresh off an overnight bus from Udaipur and tired, how could we pass it up? We got picked up down-town around 4pm and got driven to the studio lot. There we got wardrobe/hair/make-uped up. Shooting took until around midnight. We got food, water, chai, and 500 rupees each (around $12.50 CAD).
Andrea played one role, and Craig played two roles so he had to go through wardrobe twice. Let's just say that his moustache was a deciding factor in which roles he'd play. We're not going to tell anyone exactly what roles either of us played until the movie comes out.
It's called "No Problem" and stars Anil Kapoor of Slumdog Millionaire (the game show host) and former Miss World Yukta Mookhey.
For people who are not familiar with the Bollywood industry, it is the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai. It produces more films per year than Hollywood, and has the same or greater yearly worldwide audience. Basically, Bollywood movies are HUGE here - a way bigger deal than English-language, Hollywood films.
We're excited to see the finished film and see if either of us made the cut!
Friday, March 5, 2010
Holi Moly, It's Mr. Desert!
Our next stop was Agra, home of the world-famous Taj Mahal. We lined up at 6am to "beat the crowds" but about a hundred other people also had the same idea. It was still worth the early wake-up call. The sun rising on the white marble building was beautiful, and it was still much less busy than at midday. The Taj is the "ultimate monument to love" - an emperor built it in memory of his wife who died during childbirth. In India, there are always "Indian prices" for things and "foreigner prices" - for the Taj, we paid 750 rupees each ($19 CAD), while Indians pay 20 rupees ($0.50 CAD).
Since Agra as a city doesn't have much more to offer than the Taj, we headed to Jaipur after two days. It was another city that sounded better on paper than it was in reality - it was busy and loud and probably not a necessary stop. The only neat thing we saw there was the Monkey Temple, which is exactly what it sounds like: a temple with hundreds of monkeys living around it. We even saw a motorcycle crash after being overwhelmed with monkeys grabbing their bags full of vegetables. Hand feeding the monkeys bananas, eggplants, and tomatoes was pretty cool.
After that, we went to Jaisalmer, a small town out in the desert less than 100 km from the Pakistan border. All the buildings are made of golden sandstone, including the gigantic raised fort in the middle of the city.
While in Jaisalmer, we went on a three-day/two-night camel safari. Us and our camel driver, Armand, loaded up our three camels with all the supplies we'd need and we headed out into the desert. We saw things such as the ruins of a deserted village, heaps of wild camels, large sand dunes, a castle/fort, temples, villages, and a "water oasis". Armand cooked us delicious, fresh Indian meals and we slept on blankets under a sky full of stars. It was a lot of fun, but after three days our backsides were ready to say farewell to the camels.
The first day of our safari was the Hindu festival of "Holi" which celebrates the start of Spring. It is essentially a colour festival - everyone wears old clothes and buys various powder dyes, which they dilute in water guns or just throw on each other. We were at a few small villages out in the desert during the day, so we celebrated primarily with children who loved that we shared our coloured powder. Or, they just loved getting tourists covered with dye. Who knows?
We're now in Jodhper, the "blue city" since so many buildings are painted the same shade of indigo. We toured another amazing, old fort today, the Mehrangarh fort, which is again raised above the city and provided us with panoramic views of the blue city.
Tomorrow we leave for Udaipur, supposedly the "most romantic city in India".
Since this state, Rajasthan, is home of the "Rajasthani moustache" (long and turned up at the ends), men here continue to love Craig's handlebar moustache and he gets called "Mr. Desert" or complimented on average once every five minutes as we walk around towns. Indians even tell him that he looks like a (Bollywood) movie star. Andrea just thinks it is a nice diversion from her being stared at and ogled all the time.
Since Agra as a city doesn't have much more to offer than the Taj, we headed to Jaipur after two days. It was another city that sounded better on paper than it was in reality - it was busy and loud and probably not a necessary stop. The only neat thing we saw there was the Monkey Temple, which is exactly what it sounds like: a temple with hundreds of monkeys living around it. We even saw a motorcycle crash after being overwhelmed with monkeys grabbing their bags full of vegetables. Hand feeding the monkeys bananas, eggplants, and tomatoes was pretty cool.
After that, we went to Jaisalmer, a small town out in the desert less than 100 km from the Pakistan border. All the buildings are made of golden sandstone, including the gigantic raised fort in the middle of the city.
While in Jaisalmer, we went on a three-day/two-night camel safari. Us and our camel driver, Armand, loaded up our three camels with all the supplies we'd need and we headed out into the desert. We saw things such as the ruins of a deserted village, heaps of wild camels, large sand dunes, a castle/fort, temples, villages, and a "water oasis". Armand cooked us delicious, fresh Indian meals and we slept on blankets under a sky full of stars. It was a lot of fun, but after three days our backsides were ready to say farewell to the camels.
The first day of our safari was the Hindu festival of "Holi" which celebrates the start of Spring. It is essentially a colour festival - everyone wears old clothes and buys various powder dyes, which they dilute in water guns or just throw on each other. We were at a few small villages out in the desert during the day, so we celebrated primarily with children who loved that we shared our coloured powder. Or, they just loved getting tourists covered with dye. Who knows?
We're now in Jodhper, the "blue city" since so many buildings are painted the same shade of indigo. We toured another amazing, old fort today, the Mehrangarh fort, which is again raised above the city and provided us with panoramic views of the blue city.
Tomorrow we leave for Udaipur, supposedly the "most romantic city in India".
Since this state, Rajasthan, is home of the "Rajasthani moustache" (long and turned up at the ends), men here continue to love Craig's handlebar moustache and he gets called "Mr. Desert" or complimented on average once every five minutes as we walk around towns. Indians even tell him that he looks like a (Bollywood) movie star. Andrea just thinks it is a nice diversion from her being stared at and ogled all the time.
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