Matt & Kate's travel blog or: Matt & Kate's bogus journey

To continue with a rather long post this time.  But first, the Indian take on an old classic for us.  “Where are you from?“, “Australia”, “ohh Ricky Ponting!“ A whole country defined by one man, amazing.  A lot of “Australia used to be good, now India is number one” attitude around, admittedly reflected somewhat in the rankings, but still.  Cricket is popular here, as you may have guessed.  Two dedicated cricket pay tv channels, front page (and almost the entirety of the sports section) coverage in the newspapers, I love it, Kate’s not convinced.

Anyway, from Bikaner, we went to Jaisalmer, another desert town, another impressive fort.  We took the bus for a change this time, not nearly as bad as we thought it could be.  Like most bus trips in developing countries, the stops were numerous and often seemingly in the middle of nowhere, the only real hardship was the volume and frequency of the horn on the bus.  Most of the trucks and buses have magical seeming horns that play a variety of tunes randomly, at ear splitting levels, and boy do the drivers see this as an essential part of driving.  We were dubious about the necessity. Anyway, Jaisalmer. The fort, like Carcassone so long ago in France, was a huge one with people still living in the walls but not a particularly traditional lifestyle – 99% of the buildings were hotels, restaurants, money changers, travel agents and souvenir sellers. But you get that in India. Inside the fort there was a palace museum and a series of about 6 Jain temples that were particularly great. Another big thing was all the traditional merchants mansions (called Havelis) that are outside the fort, seemingly everyone was a wealthy merchant back then as there was house after house of fantastically carved facades (the interiors weren’t always that exciting, it being all about appearances to the outside world).

Onwards to Jodhpur, the blue city and also home to jodhpurs but we didn’t see any polo matches in progress.  The fort here was particularly impressive set on top of a hill/mountain in the middle of town.  Once we eventually got to the top of the fort, the view over the blue painted houses (a sign of nobility once upon a time, now it is thought to repel mosquitoes) was great.  The fort (and audio tour) was what we had come to expect – beautiful buildings and tales of war and death.  But the rest of the town was a little underwhelming.

From Jodhpur we rented a car (with a driver – there is no way we were driving anywhere) to take us to Udaipur with a stop at Ranakpur. Ranakpur has another complex of Jain temples, but in the middle of nowhere but much bigger and better than in Jaisalmer.  Fantastic and well worth the effort of the detour.

Udaipur was always intended as a bit of a relax spot, but also a bit of an indulgence too.  We were there for 5 nights and stayed at 3 different hotels, first off was a cheapie until we secured our room in a nice 5 star job called Udai Kothi for two nights of luxury, and then back to a cheapie for our last night before we flew out.  There wasn’t a whole lot to do in Udaipur, it has a lake, but it’s reputation is more as a place to relax and do not much in fantastic restaurants and hotels, king amongst them the Lake Palace Hotel right in the centre of the lake (where, as just about every budget hotel proclaimed by showing it nightly, some of Octopussy was filmed).  There was of course a palace to look around, a temple, some shops and in one of the many luxury hotels there was an “English afternoon tea” which we had set our sights on some time ago.  I can’t say it was a strictly traditional high tea (toasted sandwiches and chips featured?) but it was very nice and in a great location looking over the lake and lake palace.

We then flew out to Goa for a (bit more of a) relax.  We did the obligatory stop in the capital Panaji (where there was a very uninspiring carnival in progress – tacky floats and bad music everywhere) and Old Goa where the Portuguese influence is everywhere and all the sights are.  Very nice, very church filled and then headed off to the beach to do nothing for four days, along with throngs of other tourists.  Goa is strange, the capital is, as I say, Portuguese influenced but still Indian, but by the beaches any hint of India disappears and you could be anywhere in SE Asia sitting on the beach drinking cocktails, eating western food, buying the standards of beach fashion and reading on hammocks and sun-lounges.  Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just unexpected.  After getting “nicely” burnt, we moved on.  Or at least tried to…

Trains continued to be a pain.  We had been on a waitlist the whole time in Goa and while usually this isn’t a problem as there is a lot of movement in the tickets so you move up the queue (very complicated system as I say) this time no such luck so it got to 11pm on the night of our train and we had no tickets and couldn’t get any for the next night either.  So we stayed on in Goa in a much crappier room and booked ourselves on an overnight bus out of there.  Unfortunately the buses are a far slower and less comfortable ride.  We could only make half the distance in a night and reached Mangalore where we had booked an onward train the next afternoon.

After killing time we got to the train station only to discover that we had gone to the wrong train station (Mangalore Junction instead of Mangalore Central, or possibly vice versa, hard to remember).  There being not enough time to make the journey to the correct train station we had to buy tickets on the next train. Which involved a huge (and very hot and sweaty) queue for unreserved tickets to be upgraded when the train arrived.  Of course the train arrived and it was full, the only seats in a general seating carriage straining to bursting – when we had 5 hours of it in extremely hot and humid weather we thought better of it and opted for one more overnight bus.

Eventually we arrived in Kochi (or Eranakalum or Cohcin or Cochi depending on who you ask) a day or two behind schedule.  A very nice town spread over several islands and the mainland.  We had a wander around the fishing district and so called “Fort” Cochin, including the fantastically named area Jew Town (even funnier for John Saffran fans).  We finished the day with a performance of the traditional dance style “Kathakahli”.  We didn’t realise it at the time but it involves a fancy costume and make up and then just wriggling your eyebrows and shaking your hands around, not very exciting at all.  The next day we booked on a boat trip through the, again, amusingly named Backwaters.  A network of rivers and creeks and the like that spans a huge area.  Our tour was on a big houseboat first, visiting a factory that makes lime out of mussel shells (supposedly, it looked abandoned when we were there), tasted a coconut based drink (toddy) and just generally ambled on the rivers. In the afternoon we switched to smaller canoes for the narrower creeks and visited more stuff.  A very relaxed day.

Next stop was another beach stop a completely incident free train trip away, Varkala.  A very nice beach (and for the first time in a long time, slightly rough seas) was protected from all the restaurants and hotels and souvenir shops by a large, convenient cliff.  A great spot to finish our relaxing finish to India.

A short train trip later we were in Trivandrum (renamed Thiruvananthapuram post-Independence but that’s not a name that I ever used) to finish off with a bit of administration and wait for our flights out of here.  Printing e-tickets, organising money and other things for Kate’s volunteer leg and that sort of thing. All very ho-hum.  We left just enough time to see the main attraction in town, the zoo.  The good old Lonely Planet talked it up a bit so we were looking forward to it, sadly it wasn’t quite that good.  Some enclosures were good (and in these the animals were nowhere to be seen) but most were either cramped or just a rock garden full of forlorn animals. And the locals had a bad habit of hissing and yelling at the animals to get them to move.  Oh well, at least it was cheap.  All in all, Trivandrum was not that fantastic, no great sights, no good restaurants, a whole lot of mosquitoes and a whole lot of noise – we arrived in time for another celebration of sorts, something to do  with the temple and of course involving incredibly loud music all through the night and day..

And with that, India is over.  In Kuala Lumpur waiting for our flights – mine to Melbourne and Kate’s to Sumatra.  India has left a strange impression on us both.  It is certainly a fantastic country, plenty to see and do, some truly amazing experiences, but on so many instances one or both of us was so completely fed up with the place that we would have jumped on a plane back to Australia that second if the option was offered to us.  There are just so many things positive and  negative all happening at once that can be an overwhelming experience.  One that we both enjoyed, taken as a whole of course.  After the last few days though, I am happy to be leaving.  But at the same time, wanting to return in the future.  Who knows when, but I think we will be back. So much more to see. And so many more people to stare at us.  But for now, sweet relief.  And some photos to share.

We’ve been in India over two weeks now and now that the seemingly compulsory train problems, sickness problems and getting ripped off (very minor compared to some – only a couple of dollars on the often dodgy airport pickup) have all been and gone, we are having a marvellous time.

It all started in Delhi and things were far from rosy.  While I enjoyed the sights (Red Fort, Old Delhi, Connaught Place,     Bahai Temple, Qutb Minar, Jantar Mantar) none, with the possible exception of the beautiful Bahai temple, really blew us away at all.  Even after all our middle eastern and African travel there was still a bit of an adjustment to make (as I said last time, perhaps 4 weeks in England contributed to that) and the smog, millions of people, cars, stray dogs, cows, pigeons, rubbish everywhere, etc just set us on edge and we didn’t  really enjoy the place that much.  Just when an exit was in sight (an overnight train to Varanasi) Kate got very sick.  She dragged herself to the train station only for us to discover that the train had been cancelled due to fog (a big problem on winter nights, though it is difficult not to call it smog) and we were trapped.  Probably for the best as Kate had a shocking night and wouldn’t have enjoyed the toilets on the trains as we later discovered.  We gave up on Varanasi (time constrained) and made for Agra the next day when Kate was up for it, knowing we were going to see the Taj Mahal helped.

Things were not so rosy at the train station however, after negotiating the huge crowds (what else would you expect, though luckily we never had to travel near peak hours) we found out our train was delayed several hours, we went off for dinner and came back to find a further delay so we waited some more (a funny incident happened about this time, I got into a small – and what would become frequent – conversation with a guy on the platform asking the usual stuff about us and our trip. As the conversation wound down he asked me “Mac (Matt is very hard for them to understand) are we friends now?”, I was a little bemused (we had spoken for maybe 2-3 minutes) but answered “yeah, sure, why not.”  “Well, can I have your mobile number?”  And so we exchanged numbers and maintained a very strange dialogue for a few days via texts – up until I lost our phone.  The highlight being him imploring Kate to send a message to a girl he met on the train who he fell in love with, Kate was to tell her what a fine person he was and to convince her he was a great guy.  Interesting.)  Anyway, the train arrived, we jumped on and found our seats/beds.  It was now midnight but we knew that the train should arrive at Agra at 3am so we decided to stay awake until then, which we did, but no sign of a train station… And then we both drifted off in our separate bunk beds where we couldn’t see out the window.  We woke up regularly but no sign of any train station at all and by this time (about 7am) we had assumed we slept through our stop and would have to backtrack and just jump off.  The train pulls up at a station and we are set to jump off when the name  sounds familiar – it’s on the way to Agra.  Happy (sort of) we stay on the train until it pulls in at Agra at 10.30am – a mere 10 or so hours to go 200km, but the fog was to blame again.  This left us a little unsure about our travel plans and seeing so much if this was the way the trains ran – a tour loomed as a real possibility, but we thought we would try the trains again before making that “drastic” decision.

Anyway, we were in Agra after all that, more than a little tired.  After a nap it becomes clear that now I’m not feeling so great either so we take it very slowly in Agra.  We  of course saw the Taj, which was as fantastic as we had hoped – such a beautiful building, and so, so many tourists, foreign and domestic alike.  In fact, perhaps not surprising considering the population, domestic tourists always outnumbered the foreigners – usually by about 10 to 1 wherever we went. I like that.  We also saw the “Baby Taj”, a smaller, earlier tomb, Agra Fort and took a taxi ride to nearby Fatehpur Sikri, an abandoned city, complete with obligatory palaces, beautiful.

We then took a train (and tempted fate by it arriving at 3am again, but not a problem this time) to Sawai Madhopur to see Ranthambhore National Park, the only place in Rajasthan that still has tigers.  Touring around Rajasthan seeing all the palaces and the like, it quickly becomes clear why there are so few tigers left – the maharajas absolutely loved their tiger (and other large animals) hunting and there are photos, heads or whole skins everywhere you go.  But we wanted to see some in the flesh so booked in for two “safaris” around the park. But even with the backup trip we still had no luck, they are pretty scarce and it is a large park. It was still a lovely park and a great way to see deer, monkeys, boar, peacocks, and all sorts of other birds as well as some nice flora too, and to listen to fellow passengers’ tales of the tigers they had seen that morning…

From here we took the train to Jaipur, a cattle class ticket this time, we couldn’t find a seat but a nice young fellow found us some seats (that belonged to other people, they didn‘t mind too much) and it was quite fun watching them play childish games to pass the time and the like.  About half way there everyone started running around, hiding valuables and pretending to be asleep, we were told to hide our ipods.  What we were told is that a group of “bisexuals” roam the train and offer to bless you, for a fee, if you don’t want to be blessed they “show you something you don’t want to see” or take something of value until you pay them.  As curious as this made us, we decided feigning sleep was the best course of action and so they passed us by and everyone “woke up” again.  We shall never know.

Jaipur was great, very big, but great.  The big drawcards were the old, pink city with shops everywhere selling all sorts of amazing stuff; Jantar Mantar, one of 5 observatories built years and years ago around India (Jaipuir is the best preserved) that are truly awe-inspiring creations; the City Palace, typically sumptuous and luxurious; a fantastic old cinema, with a great interior, where we saw half a bollywood flick; and Amber Fort, the best fort we have seen so far (out of a large field).  Oh and some western eating options (pizza hut and McDonalds both got a look in) appealed as we were both still struggling with food, not so anymore. Food is a major highlight of this trip, it just takes some adjustment.

From Jaipur there was another train, another drama.  We were at our hotel printing our tickets, time running out, jumped in a rickshaw and headed  to the train station.  We got there and I realised that the mobile we had bought was back at the hotel, as we got to the platform though, that thought disappeared as our train was there and moving. So, in true India style, we ran along and jumped on the moving train.  Wrong carriage of course (the trains are huge), but we chatted with people in the carriage before changing at the next station (another run and jump affair) and we were away, minus the mobile.  The train was headed to Bikaner, one of two desert towns on our travels.  The main attraction for us was a fort in the centre of town, which was pretty great, a lot of people also go to do desert safaris by camel, but we had decided a while ago that we had ridden our last camel for a while…  We also had lunch at a rather luxurious hotel (Rajasthan is famous for it’s old heritage hotels) that Kate’s parents had stayed in a few years ago – very nice.

Almost forgot!  We took a side trip from Bikaner to the small town of Deshnok to the Karni Mata Temple.  A long story involving reincarnation but basically they believe that the rats in the temple are holy descendants of a god and so are given free run of the temple.  We had a (quick) wander around in amazement before we had to give up.  A truly strange sight, but a touch on the uneasy side.  Being rats the temple isn’t the cleanest either, their favoured corner is a hideously messy section but they are all over.  You could also buy rat food at the front of the temple but we didn’t see any need to encourage them further.

I could write another blog this size about the strangeness of India, but I might leave that for another time.  Needless to say the constant noise (traffic honking, music from temples, loud conversations, loud everything), spitting everywhere, men urinating everywhere, cows all over the place, stray dogs roaming all around (some supposedly carrying Rabies), and always people, people, people takes some getting used to.  But once you are used to it, India is fantastic.  A shame we have “only” 3 weeks left.

Here are a lot of photos.