Welcome to India

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Happy new year !

I arrived in Bombay very early in the morning and began to search for someone who wanted to go to Colaba (the cheap place in town), so we could share the taxi fare. I finaly found a friendly couple from Finland. Most people I talked to were going to Goa for the new year so I decided to give it a go as well. After spending two weeks in a deserted area (Sinai) I felt like seeing more people.

I bought a ticket in a 'sleeping bus' to Goa (14h), that sounds nice, doesn't it ? The bus has two levels with beds that are quite small but it's much better than a seat. All was good, until my 'bed-mate' arrived... Yes, we were supposed share a per (tiny) bed. Anyway, the other guy was korean (Chonhun)and I made up the time by practicing the few sentences of Korean I could remember. We ended up watching a Korean drama on his phone and of course I couldn't understand much of the dialog 😊

I'm staying in a great guesthouse with Chonhun and we got a good price in a fairly good location. We rented a scooter but because of the new year, there was nothing cheap available. A guy in the street accepted to rent his own bike he wasn't using. Great ! this was cheaper than the regular renting places. However, after driving for about 3km at night, the bike stoped and did not want to start again (despite my expert mechanical knowledge, haha). Some guys offered to 'repair' it for an astronomical price and we ended up pushing the scooter back to the owner place. These things are really heavy... In the end, he gave us the money back but we lost the full tank of petrol. Oh well, I hope I'll make a good use of it, he seemed like a nice guy. That's when we decided to rent from a real shop and everything went smoothly with the new bike.

I spent new year's eve on the Arambol beach. I was hoping to find a big party with loud music but apparently, the police forbid them a few years ago and they are now held in remote hidden locations. Too bad. Anyway, the beach was lively with a lot of people juggling and playing with fire. There was also tons of fireworks 😊

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Photos

ChongHun trying to sell things at the market.
He buys thing for cheap and tries to resell them to tourists. But that didn't work very well :)

Comments

[Jullietta]

What do they do with the scared cow? Do they take the cow for a walk or something?

[Aymeric]

Happy new year!
Nice! I hope you will have a nice trip in India. The pictures add so much to your stories, put some more when you can :) Happy new year mecton!

[francoisbeaussier]

Hehe
Thanks, happy new year to you as well ! I've been sick for 2 days so I don't do much apart from reading. I'll put more pictures soon :)

[francoisbeaussier]

Cows
well, I'm not too sure yet but it seems like they don't do anything with them. Cows just wander around all day and do as they wish :) Eating beef is taboo in India but I've still seen some on the menu in a few restaurants.

[Travel India]

http://www.indiaroutemap.com
Cow is treated as sacred animal in the Hindu community. With special offerings and rituals that are performed on auspicious days and its mostly Hindu's who take it as a taboo eating beef but not others.