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Published: October 9th 2007
Relax...
We took a break on the beach in Goa. Supposedly one of the nicest beaches here, although to stroll down it requires deft footwork to avoid the spent hyperdermics that have been abandoned here. Lovely. We did however find a fantastic black rock, which is coming back with us!Our previous entry now has pictures... see the link... http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Goa/Panaji/blog-206016.html
With that...Hello everyone! Welcome to what will possibly be the funniest, grossest, and perhaps even the longest entry we have made to date. Now, if that doesn't scare or titilate you, then you are a cold character indeed!
We have now been in India for almost 3 weeks, and our experiences have been outrageous to say the least, although they have built in such small degrees as to be fairly unnoticed by us until it hit home in a conversation the other day. Hopefully in giving an account of our recent activities, we'll adequately describe a few observations of general life in India...
We will begin with BUSES, and the reasoning behind the title of this entry, so inspired by our travels to/through Goa, and into Karnataka. We have been 'flitting' across India like an enchained cave-troll, dragging behind him the most cumbersome and din-producing collection of 'stuff' you could possibly imagine. By this we mean that the buses themselves are the most cumbersome and din-producing, enchained cave-trolls you could possibly imagine...!
We have been on 5 significant bus journeys in India; Mumbai -> Aurangabad, Aurangabad ->
St Steven
We *think* this is St Steven's church at any rate (we don't have our notes with us). Anyway, Goa was administered by the Portuguese for a long time until only just recently, so there is a strong Catholic influence and the place is very European in architecture. Pune, Pune -> Panaji (Panjim), Panaji (Panjim) -> Hospet, and Hospet -> Mysore. These journeys collectively add up to about 1350km (840miles), and have taken about 46 hours total. That amounts to a resoundingly stunning, sonic-boom-worthy, 18mph!!! One of the legs actually averaged only 9mph too...! AARGH! It is not that they actually move that slowly... when they move, they fairly fly along the 'roads', but they stop so frequently... for food breaks, or just because the road is closed/blocked by a flood/collapse, or more commonly because of an accident. All but one of the bus trips we have been on has seen us ease past (precariously close to a big ditch, or cliff-edge) a stricken bus/lorry that has somehow managed to find it's way onto it's side, or roof, where it is seemingly now permantly lodged in the brush and overgrowth of the side of the road! Huge backlogs of trucks as a result, with stopped traffic backing up for more than a mile. Spectacular scenes of spilled loads, just like one of those 'over dramatised' car commercials we get on TV back home...! Ha ha ha.
The worst thing about the buses, though, is the noise. Or
Convent in Old Goa
Old Goa is the old capital of Goa. It has barely any homesteads that we could make out, but has about a dozen massive cathedrals and chapels. is it the bumps?... ooh it's close. You have to sit forward of the middle of the bus, lest you be propelled through the ceiling, like a submarine missile, by one of the many 'imperfections' of the road. We have once had to sit on the very back seat, and I swear we spent more time in the air than on the seat! Charkins would love it... (Alabamians and their red-neck rollercoasters!). The bumps are in themselves very noisy; the buses rattle like they're about to fall apart (and that may very well be exactly what might happen one day), but the horn is the worst. The drivers' best friend, without which he may get cabin fever, isolated and alone in his little metal cage, inaccessible from within, like a prison transport bus. Brigid has said she feels like Andy Dufrey on his way to Shawshank. Drivers' use of the horn seems invariably to follow one unerring principle... louder = prouder. It's a wonder they can drive the bus and blare the horn as constantly as they do. The honk to warn pedestrians, hundreds of feet way of their passing. They honk at vehicles that are passing, to remind them
St Francis of Assissi Cathedral, Old Goa
See prior caption. While this looks like an impressive structure from afar, like all of the others, it is remarkably bland and unimpressive up close, although the insides of this one were pretty cool in places, it consisted mainly of bare crumbling white-plaster walls. that the bus is there. They honk as they roll through a village or town, to announce their arrival (?). They honk to make sure that the horn is still working...? They honk contunuosly when they pass other vehicles, which often takes several minutes. In fact, the back of almost every vehicle even has painted on it "HORN OK; PLEASE SOUND HORN". Maddening! We leave these buses bone-sore and thoroughly shaken, such that the phrase "bus-hair" may soon enter into our common vocabulary, and we are always more than slightly more hard of hearing than when we embarked, and never in the best of moods.
Eating has been fun. The food is ridiculously cheap and very tasty. We never have to spend more than $3-4 for a meal for two, after which we'll trundle away, bloated and fat! We try to go to smaller places that are bustling with locals. Some of them seem bursting at the seams at certain hours, and the atmosphere is loud, boisterous, and amazing. Friendly faces everywhere, food flying past in all directions, and people enjoying the company of others. They have a table-sharing scheme at most places, so you can often find yourself
St Catherine's Chapel, Old Goa
Artsy shot of this chapel. We got a couple of Indians inside necking in this one, which is definitely not proper...! sitting cosily with locals, enjoying some local chat. People here in general do not seem overly conversive. Short responses to questions, and some very interrogative questions of their own, is about as much as you can get. Almost always, we get asked the following, more or less in this order; "Where are you coming from?". "You are married?". "You have children?". "What is your job?". "How much do you get paid?". And that is about it. It is apparently perfectly normal to ask what we would consider rudely invasive questions, and no-one has seemed in the least bit offended the few times we have asked these same questions in return. Of course, you have to eat with your hands (or rather, your right hand only, since the left is used for cleaning yourself after poo-ing etc).
There is a certain skill behind this (eating with your right hand that is!); food drops everywhere unless you adopt the technique of shovelling the food with your straightened three 'long' fingers. Once you have a pile of food balanced such, you have to push the food into your mouth using your thumb, much like stoking a fire. We have learned to eat
Monsoon!
It is the tail-end of the monsoon... we got rained on big time! with our hand quite successfully; we make far less mess than at least half of the locals, and no-one ever seems to look at us with horrible offence or disgust. It is still somewhat 'weirding' to have to mix the rice with the watery sauces by hand, as it forms a very squelchy, gooey mess, and it can be tricky to grasp, and rip the various breads using only one hand! We have taken to doing as the locals do, and wash our hands, face and mouth thoroughly with water both before and after meals.
Warning... next section gets gross...
The bathroom situation is pretty bad. We're getting used to certain smells and are learning to endure some pretty foul sights and experiences. We carry with us our own 'Holy Roll' (no-one here uses paper; it is deemed unsanitary!), and we readily accept any opportunity we get to use a 'throne' (sit down, western toilet) rather than the holes in the floor that are so common. We have however been forced to use these many times, and without going into too much detail we'll mention that we leave with painful leg cramps (our knees are no longer very good
Housefront in Panaji, Goa
There are loads of these 'quaint' looking house fronts in the backstreets of Panaji... at prolonged squatting what with the surgeries we've both had), but we have to date always managed not to succumb to the fumes, happily exiting such facilities relieved not to have passed out and fallen into our own 'pile'. The toilets are 'flushed' by filling up a small bucket by the side and pouring it down the hole--which is supposed to force things down the hole, but usually doesn't so nice smells are prevalent. The locals also use the bucket to splash water on their bits to clean off. Brigid tried this once, but just managed to get her pants all wet and did NOT feel clean! We have had many thoughts of the locals, many of which seem to go wherever and whenever they please. They boldly walk bare-foot into fields and scrub-land to make a 'deposit'. What if they step in someone else's 'account'...? urggggggggg.
Anyway... we are quite enjoying life in India. Amongst all of the poverty, there is actually boundless opportunity. Even the smallest and slightest skill can allow you to develop a business enterprise, sufficient to subsist on. I find this a happy and hopeful facet of life here, and it energises me to
Looking GOOOOD!
Lachlan got a haircut. About 80c. It is actually one of the better haircuts he's ever had...! Brigid got a shampoo, haircut and dry too...for $4!!! YESsir!! think that a man can set up a type-writer on the side of the street and make a living typing out letters for people, whereas he'd be largely without hope if that were all he had to offer in the UK or US. In a sense, it is quite 'honourable' that so few people strive to wholly outdo others as they do in our own societies... people seem generally happy with their lot, so long as it can get them by, and seem to appreciate that by trying to enter into a second field of business they would be depriving someone else of their 'place'. It may seem to some that this amounts to a degree of laziness, and a lack of ambition, but it works fairly well I think, in the caste-based system that is in place here, and ensures that all get by with a level of dignity. We both wish however, that something could be done for the countless homeless, and the horribly disabled... the 'untouchables' as they are called. It is painful to see sometimes, although we are fast developing a blindness to it.
So... with these thoughts and observations done with, we'll leave you
A typical Indian toilet
This one is actually cleaner than most; which often have brown spray marks all up the walls. Like we said, we only select the best...! Can't complain when you're only paying about $6-7 a night! to enjoy the pics of our various activities of late. Hopefully we can talk enough about them in the various captions...
Love to all...
B and L
PS: Happy Birthday Joe
PPS: Congrats to Joe and Brenna on the new baby! We still need details!
PPPS: This truly IS the cubs' year; years waiting to get into the playoffs, and they're done already. Sorry guys, "maybe next year"!
PPPPS: Down with the Yankees! 😊
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-K
non-member comment
Great Indeed!!
So much fun to read your blog. :-) -K (you don't know me :D)