Au Revoir Pondicherry, Bonjour Silence!

The last 5 days in India have consisted of a whole bunch of nothing. There isn't really a lot going on in Pondicherry if youre not an exchange student. It's on the ocean but with a polluted and rocky seaside, and no beach. When I arrived here, I found it a little frustrating because I knew I was stuck here for at least 5 days not having to be up in Chennai till the 10th. But after a bit of thought, all of a sudden I embraced the whole bunch of nothing and enjoyed every single day of it. So in Pondicherry I have had a lovely few days of doing nothing but eating and drinking and walking and reading, oh and sleeping, lots of that too.

Pondicherry (now officially called Puducherry, but Pondi has a much nicer ring to it) was a former French colony and apparently a real educational hub. There seems to be schools and hospitals on every corner. With the French influence here, there is also a surplus of cafe lattes, baguettes and croissants, part of the reason I kicked back and enjoyed my days of nothinginess. Ive been lazily eating French breakfasts every morning with a book, real coffee and an overdose of carbs. I also came across a very reasonably priced english book store cause I am chewing through books faster than pastries! And if thats not enough, I also scored a room with a phone and have spent hours on the phone to Canada with the long distance love of my life!!!! Pondicherry may actually turn out to be the highlight of India ;)


Aside from all that, there was a festival here (shocking, I know) when i arrived, celebrating the 100th year of Sri Aurobindo coming to Pondi. Aurobindo was a freedom fighter for India's independance and later an important philosopher. The festival itself was pretty lame. I walked about, got blessed by a beautiful elephant named Lakshmi for 10 rupees, took a tour of the principle ashram here and then went to go eat chocolate. Happy 100th.

So that was Pondicherry in a nutshell, uneventful yet enjoyable. Next stop, I head north back to Chennai. Thankfully its only a 4 hour local bus ride, no overnighters necessary. Apparently Chennai is not a place to linger so I have planned to go directly to my destination which is a 10 day meditation course in Vipassana. Ive heard lots about this practise in the last few months. It seems quite daunting but at the same time, Im so keen to learn about it. Ive added a link to a website that does a better expalantion that I could of what it is all about.

http://www.dhamma.org/en/vipassana.shtml

I learned a little about it at Ashiyana's, the yoga retreat I did in Goa, and am looking forward to exploring it a little further. Did I mention it is a SILENT MEDITATION for 10 days? So hopefully I dont come out on the flip side clinically insane from being in my own head for too long, left to my own devices. Fingers crossed.

Magical Hampi

We arrived in Hampi after dusk and woke up to the most beautiful surroundings. It feels a little bit like the ruined temples of Cambodia's Angkor Wat, but not as well preserved. This town is a World Heritage Site, but the people live in and amongst it all, which doesnt do much good for the preservation of the architecture but definately adds colour and flavour to things.

As it seems more often than not, I arrived on the eve of a festival (there is always someone celebrating something in India) and the place went off the next day. Pilgrims come from near and far and by the reaction of so many people here to us, it's not everyday they get to see white folk. The children mobbed us every step of the way and if we stopped for too long in one lace we would get swarmed by people around us just being nosy. On the main bazaar, where everyone was congregating for the parade, there was a small tent with a three-legged woman on a loudspeaker, assumably preching about religious antics. There was a steady stream of people coming out of the tent and when they came out, cameras posed, it seems we got more photos taken of us then the freak show inside. So bizarre!

So the first day here I just wandered around with the 3 Ozzie girls. The heat here is really intense, everything is done really slowly, and with lots of water. We saw as many of the ruins within walking distance as possible but just decided today was a chill day to enjoy the festival. There was a parade to leave at 4pm and as it got closer to the time it seemed there was a constant flow of people coming in and a frenzied feeling in the air. The crouds were insurmountable and with 4 girls, we got hassled so much trying to get around that we finally perched ourselves atop a hill to watch things with a little air to breathe. After ages in the hot sun we tried to get passed the crowd and it got a little scary so we had enough and went back to our sideof the river and chilled for the rest of the evening. It took everything out of you just getting around in the heat and the chaos.

Our second day was spent renting a rickshaw and getting driven about to a few further off temples, including Hanuman Temple (the Monkey Temple, cause Hanuman is the monkey god) which was an exhausting climb but paid off with incredible views of Hampi and the area. At sunset we went rock climbing up some boulders and had another amazing view of the place. It feels like Ive gone back in time being Hampi, there is a really magical and mystical sense around here....I think I could stay here for awhile, its seems separate from the craziness of India.

Marlee and I rented a bike the next day and got to see even more of the area and get a feel for how spread out it all is. We seemed to be on the same site seeing schedule as another family with a little boy who was obsessing over us. He'd wave like his arm was falling off everytime he saw us and was haing so much fun. The last temple we came out of he was itting mwith his whole extended family in the shade under a tree and they motioned an invite to come and join them. With no actual verbal communications we manged to sit and enjoy lunch wiith them miming and pointing and giggling. It was fantastic! The food was so lovely and basic and they took so much joy in sharing it with us that I was in heaven! The boy alone mustve posed for about 20 different pictures on our camera. Such lovely people.

I've hung around Hampi with the girls for as long as possible and now its time to move on, further east. I have another epic jouney planned to leave here:

15 minute walk by foot with pack in miday heat to the boat. cross river. hire rickshaw to Hospet, about 15 km. 2 hour train ride from Hospet to Guntakal. switch to overnight train to Chennai. rickshaw from train station to bus station. 4 hour bus from Chennai to Ponducherry, and then rickshaw to get to whatever accomodation i pick. That was exhausting to write nevermind do!!!!

Yoga & Beyond

My last week in Goa was so lovely and quiet. I spent it at a yoga retreat called Ashiyana's, in a small little beach village called Mandrem. The beach was long and almost entirely deserted, it was so refreshing. My days consisted of 2 hours of yoga in the morning from 8 to 10, followed by an amazing breakfast. During the day I was still beach bumming and taking nice long walks with the sand in my toes. Id stroll back for yoga from 4 to 6, and then have a beautiful dinner. The food at this place was so clean and healthy and good for me ( I could even drink the filtered water STRAIGHT out of the tap)! After dinner there was chanting and meditation. I was asleep almost every night before 10pm. There was a a few nice things that went on, like the Saturday Nite Market in Arpora, where I healthily treated myself to a few lovely new peices. I also had a great Ayurvedic massage, ya know cause I was so stressed out an all, LOL. The place was recommended to me and I would easily recommend it to anyone looking for a rejuvenating and healthy boost for the body and soul.

My next stop was Hampi, in the next province of Karnataka. The journey itself was epic. The taxi to get from Mandrem to Mapusa (pronounced Mapsa) was 400 rupees and since I had being doing so well on the Goan local buses i knew i could handle. I had to be there at 6 to catch the overnight bus to Hampi so I left Ashiyana's by 4 giving plenty of time for the hour bus ride and then some. I navigated myslef to the main road away from the small village, being offered numerous taxi rides along the way. A few guys even tried to convince me the busses dont run Sundays but I know these guys and their cheeky ways so I trucked on. It was mid day scorthing heat, somewhere in the high 30s but i was determined. I got to the bus stop and managed to confirm with a locallady i was headed the right way for Mapusa. After half an hour (I guess they dont run as frequently it being Sunday) a rickety old bus pulls up with people hanging out of every door and window and the guy pretty much laughed at me and he hauled the one woman waiting at the aside of the road with me onto the bus and just shook his no. I was sooooooooooooooooo ANNOYED! Defeated and deflated I had to walk back tot he village, dripping in sweat and succomb to one of the snickering taxi drivers. Great start.

After lots of mucking about in Mapusa the bus finally filled with a handful of backpackers and only made its way to Panjim, further south to exchange busses and load us somehwere else. With absolutely no coherence, the Indian way, we eventually got on our way and made a few stops in random dark villages to pick up a few straglers until the bus was full. No joke, less than hour into the overnight journey, while most people had already passed out we broke down. I was sharing the tightest little double bunk with a lovely girl from Byron Bay (the 2nd person in my life that ACTUALLY comes from Byron!) and it wasnt until about 6 the next morning when we finally got up and mosied outside to start chatting with other passengers and figuringout what the hell was going on. Long story short, dead battery and no one around that spoke Hindi so we all were hot and tired and wondering when and how we would be rescued until after 10 in the morning when a new battery finally arrived. Almost 12 friggin' hours stuck on the side of a dusty dirt road with nothing other than a chai shop to tie us over. What a trip. Once the bus was fixed we got back on the road to continue the epic journey (though i should mention as soon as the bus started running, the driver and his lackie decided to sit and have their chai at the stall, we were all seething). Oh, and just to make the jouney even more fun, every toilet stop we hit, lacked actual toilets. In a 24 hour journey not ONE toilet, pop-a-squat was the only option. So many hours and so many stops later we slowly rolled into Hampi just as night was falling. The from there we banded together as a group, heckled with the rickshaw rivers as they swarmed us when we got off the bus and zipped through town to catch the last boat ferry over the river.
In complete darkness, we piled on the boat bags and all and FINALLY made it to a small little road full of guest houses, over 26 hours from my intial departure from relaxed and sleepy Ashyana's.

The best part of the journey was hooking up with my bed share partner from the bus, Marlee, and the 2 Ozzie girls she was travelling with. We banded together the way people do when they have shared a traumatic experience together! I ended spending my whole week in Hampi with the girls and it was so nice to have such good company. So even though the journey was exhausting and dirty and soooooooo long, I wouldnt have changed a thing, everything happens for a reason!

GOA DIVE!

After a lovely week of doing not much on the beach in Palolem, I finally made the move to head North. I took 4 different local buses; for the eqivalent fare of about $1.50, and a few hours later ended up in Anjuna. Anjuna is another hippie infested beach side village in Goa. I was pretty comfortable in Palolem and once I got off the bus it took about a 10 minute walk on a road, and then a 20 minute hike on the beach in broad day, 30 plus degree sun, with my backpack and so I ended up staying at the first guest house i came across. Slightly over priced, but worth it just so i didnt have to keep on walking!

The day after arriving I actually picked up and left and went back south to meet the diving crew back in Calangute, near Baga for the day. It was nice to see familiar faces. We spent the diving "Suzy Wreck", which was the sunken ship Jess and I had attempted to dive first time round when the visibility was pretty much nonexistant. I had a great day, all kitted out with their equipment and jumping right back into my role as an underwater Lara Croft with my dive watch, a huge knife strapped to my leg and a few other bits and bobs hanging off of me (ive always been an accessories kinda girl). On the hour and a half boat trip home we saw tonnes of dolphins off the boat and the ocean was calm and peaceful (the total opposite of my experience with Jess doing the same route a week or so back).



We went out for a cheap, spicy and fantastic lunch at a local joint and then I loitered around the dive shop until it closed for the day. We gathered a small little crowd and Richard, one of the dive masters guided us through a great night visiting the shadiest back alley bars and food joints in Calangute. I loved it! I would never even come close to setting foot near these places solo, but with this bunch it was safe and a good glimpse at a more local side of Goa.

I made it back to Anjuna but not back to my own place. A few of us crashed at one of the girls' places who was actually living in a local house. The owner of the shop asked me to dive again tomorrow and help out cause they had a big group and were short numbered, so I got to dive the wreck again- on the house!!! What a life. I loved being back under water again. I usually only do a few dives a year, depending where I am travelling so having 6 back to back dives, I was SO at ease under water and able to pick out lots of different things and really be comfortable with the experiences.

A few days later I got back to Anjuna, and the landlady at my guest house looked so relieved when she saw me. She had been worried cause she noticed I had come back, and it felt really nice to have someone worried about me and looking out for me, even if it wasnt really necessary!

From Anjuna I headed further north on more local buses, which i am becoming a pro at navigating (though I almost did miss my stop cause i was too plugged into my ipod), to Arambol.

Same, same but different. Another beach town, more shops, bars on the beach and cows wandering about. My plan is to stay here for a few days, sucking up all the beach sun and sand I can and then head to Mandrem, apparently pretty close to here, to do some yoga.

Although I feel like Goa is a little un-India, I can't help be swept up by the ease of life and how nicley one day rolls into the next.

GOA

After just a few days we headed away from the madness of the big city south to Goa. Another crazy 10 hour train ride and we finally caught sight of the ocean. We picked Baga (not the best choice) to arrive at because there was a Dive Shop there, but Baga itself was pretty crappy. The ocean was lovely but the beach was composed mostly of aged, wrinkled, gigantically overweight and oiled up Europeans getting waited on hand and foot by Indians.

Ya it was quite the site. Anywho, we did our dive with Goa Aquatics and met some great people. Unfortunately the day we went diving the visibility was NON EXISTANT! It must have been less than a metre and Jess and I actually had to hold hands not lose eachother at the bottom. We were almost holding on to our dive masters fins also, not to lose him!!!! Needless to say we didnt last long. The second site was a bit better but not much. We had planned on diving a ship wreck and I am was so disappointed cause we just barely got to see it and mostly just kept crashing into it. But I think I will return to Baga later to redo the Wreck Dive.

We just barely wet our whistle with the dives, and the guys at the shop were headed on a road trip down south to another site called Mugudeshwar a few hours south, so we ended up tailing along with them and a small diving entourage for a few days. So nice to travel in a group and with a few locals who actually knew where they were going (more so than us, anyways) and what they were doing! We all stayed together in a dodgy guest house, had meals out, went boozing in the evening and lived with a pack for a few days.

After the dive, we all headed back up towards Baga. Jess and I parted ways with them and jumped off the train in South Goa. Jess was with me for a few amazing days in sleepy Palolem. The high season is pretty much done so now its blissfully quiet this far down south. Palolem beach is relatively empty but we walked a few beaches over to Patnem and it was basically EMPTY, so nice to see after the disappointment of Baga.

So Jess left 2 days ago and I am now, quite happily, flying solo. I LOVED every minute spent with her and she made it so easy cause when I was lazy and couldn't be bothered to figure anything out Jess totally stepped up to plate. But I don't mind being on my own now (ask me that again in a week, and i might not be so keen).

I'm only just starting to take out my guide book and piece together the next few weeks and where I will be. Its looking like a few more days here, then back to Baga for the wreck dive and then up to the north to do a yoga retreat. But who knows....that could all change at the drop of a pin. So for now I'm here in Palolem, happy as a cat!

Udaipur and Onwards

We left Udaipur the day after the Holi Festival, March 2nd. We loaded onto a sleeper bus for 16 hours to Mumbai. I was missing Vikram (our driver)like there was no tomorrow. Jess and I were in the very last, 2nd storey, compartment at the back of the bus, stuffed into our little make shift bed and flying all over the place like popping pieces of popcorn! I came out battered and bruised with next to no sleep, meanwhile I had to wake Jess up once we got to Mumbai, she was out like a light, almost the whole time, shocking, huh?

We headed to Colaba, an area in Mumbai and did a few touristy things. We went to the India Gate, similar the Arc de Triomphe, then took a very long boat ride to Elephanta Island and saw some cave temples, and met a lovely young Indian girl who took to us on the journey.

I was adamant to make it to Chowpatty Beach in Mumbai for the sunset and we had a lovely dinner from the food stalls watching all the locals parading around enjoying the evening.

From there we decided to beelineoutta the big city and head south to catch some sun and beach in Goa......YEAH!

Happy Holi! The Festival of Colours

Okay its been awhile and I have to jog my memory and do a bit of back tracking. I blame it all on Jessie that I haven't written in anything in so long. Not only was it difficult to tear myself away from her lovely company to be a computer nerd, but she also kept me on a back breaking tight schedule during our time going through Rajasthan. We spent 8 nights in 6 different places. Agra, Ranthambhore, Jaipur, Pushkar, Jodhpur and then Udaipur.

Udaipur was the last place we were delivered by Vikram, our driver...then we were left to our own devices. We arrived in Udaipur on the eve of Holi Festival, which is the Festival of Colours. It is supposed to represent all the different people of India with all their different shades of beliefs and traditions. What a festival!

The night before there were crowds of people gathered, both foreigners and locals, to the town centre where a stage was set up with a HORRIBLE cackling sound system and an odd Indian drag queen dancing to a mix of Indian music, hiphop and Shakira....suprisingly the crowd LOVED it! There were a few other randon performers, a procession from a temple overlooking the square and a HUGE teepee like structure set up to be lit to conclude the evenings events (think Burning Man Indian style).

Jess and I had a good view of the concert part but the sound was so horrible we went for a breather and came back for the finale. The second time round though we stayed towards the outskirts (with an escape route) cause there were masses of uncontrolled crowds and fire involved. There was a display of fireworks that was soooooooooo unsafe yet no one seemed concerned, then the teepee thingy went up in smoke directly under a set of electrical wires which eventually caught fire. Again, no one seemed remotely concerned (though the power later in the evening did get cut off to an entire grid). I was happy to watch it all from a safe distance away.

The next morning was a free for all with this herbal natural powder that everyone kept in little baggies in the most magnificent shades of blue and purple, pink and green. Traditionally, these colours were diluted with water and people used water bottles and squirt guns, but now it has changed to just sprinkling the powder due to environmental concerns and water shortages (one point for India). I say sprinkling cause the powder is soft like fairy dust, but in actuality people were dumping this powder. With it comes a little blessing, a hug and a "Happy Holi". Unfortunately we were warned by the guys who ran the guest house that the men get quite unruly (there were NO Indian women on the streets celebrating....literally NOT ONE!!!), and it gets a little unsafe as the day progressed and the men got drunker and rowdier. So we stayed in the stoop of our hotel and used these guys as bodyguards. It was such a scene. I posted loads of pics from it on faceook and am trying to upload a videos of the fire display.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=404941&id=610365186&l=3808f3f48d

All in all, it was a beautiful festival minus a few scenes I could have lived without witnessing. Jess and I were covered from top to bottom in this herbal powder and looked like walking pieces of artwork! A lovely festival to both watch and take part in!

Next stop MUMBAI!