The last leg

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There are no straight flights from Cochin to Goa so we had to go back up through Bombay. We had a short layover though. Goa is known for its beaches and having been "invaded" by Western hippies in the 60's and 70's. Let me tell you, some of them have never left and some of them are going back! We even had a few gray, long hair to the butt, friends on our flight. Good for them! (:

We weren't in Goa for long so we didn't have many plans. Our only real goal was to see these amazing beaches. So we found the closest tourist trap travel agent (that's a tongue twister!) and booked a day long "beaches" tour! I was surprised to find that we were the only Muzungu on the thing! I don't know why, Indian people go on vacation too!! We had the privilege of riding in the very front of the bus so we had a bird's-eye view of the car or other bus that was going to hit us head on!! Wonder if we had to pay extra for those "action" seats!! Actually the driver was pretty good and was a master at missing other vehicles at the last possible moment. The day started off with an optional "dolphin" boat ride. Imagine with me, if you will, 10 boats gunning their engines towards the dorsal fin of a dolphin all at the same time. Then, when they see a dorsal fin in the opposite direction, doing the exact same thing again. That's what we did for 1 hour! I felt sorry for the dolphins!

We spent the rest of the day stopping at various beaches. We would stop for 1.5 hours and then move on. We didn't bother bringing our swimming suits due to the fact that it would have been a bit inappropriate for me to walk around in what Americans call a swimming suit! I think they would describe our swimming suits as something that should only be worn behind closed doors! Women do go swimming sometimes but they wear their entire sari out there. I cannot imagine how heavy that would be. While strolling down one of the beaches we were overtaken by a cow that seemed to be on a mission! He was heading somewhere very quickly but I couldn't get over the fact that there was a COW on the beach. This amused me for quite some time (: The last beach we went to was the "popular beach". There were hundreds of people there but they were all standing up and fully clothed! There are often hundreds of people on our So Cal beaches too but a good majority of them are lying down. Not in India! Of course they are not intending to get a sun tan and many will not go swimming so they just stand around!

That night we booked ourselves on a "fun cruise" around the bay. Once again, we were the only Muzungu on the boat! This boat trip was an absolute riot. We got ourselves a few Smirnoff Ices and settled into our plastic chairs to watch the dancing. First it was the children and of course that was really cute. Then they had some traditional Goan dancers and a couples' dance. Yuri and I never made it back to the hotel so we had all of our crap from the day and didn't want to leave it sitting there. Good excuse not to dance right? That didn't work out so well after a group of older gentlemen from Bombay offered to watch the stuff for us and INSISTED that we dance. We danced and sat back down. Yuri wasn't done, although not by choice!! The next dance was for "All of the men in the house". Can you imagine a DJ saying that at an American club and getting ANY sort of response at all? It was quite the opposite on this party boat! All of the men ran up to the stage. I remember one guy in particular who was wearing sunglasses, mind you it is dark at this point, and just couldn't wait to get out there and show us his stuff! Two of the older group from Bombay went up there and took Yuri along with them. I managed to snap a few pictures of that one! Next it was time for the women to go dance. Not ONE person went up there. Again, would have been opposite here I think. My feelings were that it would have been very taboo for any self-respecting Indian woman to go up there and dance without a man. Perhaps that wasn't the reason at all but that was the impression I got. An hour and a half later the cruise ended and we left with some great laughs under our belt! However, before we were allowed to leave we had to take enough pictures for a photo album with our older friends from Bombay. They wanted pictures with us in ALL combinations. Singles, group shots, Yuri and I together, in front of the boat etc..... We felt like Brad and Angelina. Just kidding (:

The next day brought a 13-hour train ride to Bombay. We had read that it was a beautiful train ride but you couldn't really see much. We had an air conditioned little box and enjoyed listening to the same man walk up and down the train saying "Chicken lolly pop, veggie spring roll, egg roll". We never did figure out what a chicken lolly pop was!

The Bombay train station was a lot to take in. We saw more destitute people, and animals, there than anywhere else on our trip. I was exhausted and was having a hard time taking it all in. I just wanted to break down in tears FOR these people, es$pecially the children. I can't even tell you how many entire families were setting up their beds for the evening on the train platforms. Our hotel was a short taxi ride away, but again, a very hard one. It was nearly midnight so you would think that the streets would be clearing but there were still people everywhere. These people had nowhere to go. They just laid down and went to sleep where they were, under their rickshaw or food booth. Many of them under nothing. We were back at the train station at 4:45 the next morning to catch a 6 am train to Ellora.

We made our train reservations on the internet but there were no more first class seats available. It's not that we felt that we needed to be in first class but it was going to be a VERY long train ride so we wanted to try and make ourselves as comfy as possible. That was a challenge on the benches we ended up on. It's hard to describe the configuration so take a look at the picture of me in the train. Keep in mind that this was WELL before anyone else got on. Within 2 stops the car was packed to the gills. Yuri and I got stared at quite a bit, especially as the train traveled east and away from the bigger cities. There were men walking up and down the aisles selling chai, coffee and food. A little side bar on "chai tea". Chai MEANS tea so when you order a chai tea at Starbucks you are ordering a tea tea. I was amused when I found this out! It can be quite difficult to stay comfortable, and keep your limbs to yourself on those benches for 10 hours so people just DON'T! At one point the woman across from me had her feet up next to me on our bench! At first I was a bit surprised but then it brought a smile to my face. It was just so refreshing to know that people in this country are so comfortable and friendly with each other that this sort of thing is OK. I know that is a lot to deduce because a woman put her feet up next to me, but that's how it made me feel! All of the people around us would share their food with complete strangers too. A woman in the aisle was selling this strange green fruit that I have never seen before. One man bought several of them, cut them up and started passing them out to anyone who wanted one. It was GREAT!

We arrived in Augerabad in late afternoon and a taxi driver quickly made himself our best friend. No need to search for them on your own. They find you! We arranged for him to pick us up from the internet cafe three hours later. We're pretty sure that he just waited in front of the internet cafe the entire time to make sure he didn't miss us. After all, he was going to make more from us that afternoon than if he had continued to wait at the train station!

The Ellora caves were phenomenal! There are 34 caves in total, of which 12 are Buddhist, 17 Hindu and 5 Jain. The caves were started in the 7th century and were carved into a rock face. They would carve the rock from top to bottom, back to front. When inside some of these temples that were 100 feet deep, it was hard to imagine people doing ALL of that work without any sort of real tools. In one of the caves our guide said a prayer in his very deep voice and it gave us goose bumps! The way the sound echoed off of the walls. You could almost FEEL it!

It was our last night in India (not counting the airport) so we decided to celebrate by purchasing a bottle of Indian wine. This was kind of like the decision to purchase "Mexican food" in Andorra!! Holy crap, it was so disgusting! Another American couple, that turned out to be from the Bay area, walked by and told us that we were very brave! Stupid is what they meant! Between the wine and a bottle of Captain Morgan rum, we had been carrying around since Goa, we celebrated our last night in style!

On our way back to the train station we visited the "poor man's Taj Mahal". The son of the emperor that built the real deal built this one out of limestone instead of marble. Limestone does not stand up well to the elements so it is not very pretty anymore. The train ride back to Bombay was a little more eventful due to the fact that it didn't leave until 2 pm. Our first one left very early in the morning so we were able to claim our seats before someone else did. That was not the case in the afternoon. First of all, getting on the train felt like I would imagine getting onto a full cattle car would be. You know how here we let the people off of the train, bus, elevator etc.. before trying to get on? Well, most of us do anyway! That is not the case there! The getting on and getting off processes are trying to happen at the same time so there is A LOT of pushing and yelling going on. Our large backpacks didn't really help the situation but we eventually made it on. That didn't mean we had anywhere to sit though! We found our seats and I very kindly told the men that they were ours. They graciously moved thank goodness. About 3 hours into the ride we met a young man that spoke perfect English. One of his first questions to us was "Why are you riding in this section?" As I mentioned earlier, Muzungu generally try and get the air conditioned seats (near as I can tell) when they can; knowing that made me happy to be sitting in the 2nd class section. If these people didn't need A/C, why did we? Yuri talked to this guy for a good portion of the train trip while I did my cross stitching! This evoked many stares as you can imagine!

As dinner time approached I became very hungry and had already ran out of my snacks! Time to hit up the guys walking up and down the aisles! They had these yummy things called somosas with vegetables inside. We had them when climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and my dad told me that they were everywhere in India too. They were delicious! I know what you are thinking: "Good lord. What was she thinking eating train food?" That briefly crossed my mind but it was all part of the experience! And yes, Yuri and I seem to have intestines of steel and managed to avoid any sort of stomach problems in India! From what we understand, that is a bit rare! The next vendor down the aisle was selling a book. She honed right in on Yuri and encouraged him to buy a copy of "Bhagavad--Gita" meaning "As it is". It was written by "His Divine Grase A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada". This book is known as "the jewel of India's spiritual wisdom". Anyhow, all of the Indian people around us were most pleased that we purchased this book for $2! However, one woman had learned, through translations from our friend, that Yuri was "non-veg" and I was "veg". Upon hearing this she told Yuri that you really should be "veg" to read this book! The book got passed around to bored passengers as we made the rest of our 8 hour journey to Bombay!

From the train station we made our way to the Bombay airport via a taxi cab driver that tried to screw us! He quoted us one price and then tried to get more at the airport. We just walked away! It was 12 am when we arrived and our flight didn't leave until 6:30 am. It was a long night to say the least!

And with that, our trip to beloved India came to a happy, sad, happy, sad, happy, sad ending! It is quite hard to sum up your feelings and thoughts about India with one word, let alone a few sentences. Here are a few final thoughts on India before you read again from Thailand!

1: The Indian "head bobble" is SO cool yet so confusing. I could never replicate nor can I describe it very well. It mostly happens when someone is trying to answer a question for you. Their head goes from side to side ever so slightly leading you to believe that the answer to the question is no. This is not always the case though. Upon inquiring about this, we were told that the head bobble comes into play when there is indecisiveness about the answer. I wish I could DO the head bobble!

2. India needs more trash cans. The trash situation is quite sad.

3. Not a big fan of the eating with hands thing. I know I don't have to because it is not part of my culture. I'm just saying! It was so strange to be eating at a really fancy restaurant and look over to see someone making mounds of rice and sauce with their hands in preparation to eat the mound with their hands! Many of these fancy restaurants have "wash rooms" because peoples' hands are very messy at the end of a meal!

Namaste my friends! I hope you all get to go to India someday.

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Photos

Pink bus
The bus station was super busy with lots of people yelling. I have no idea how anyone found the correct bus!

It was an experience!
Me on our train to Augerabad at 5:30 am.

The caves
Can you imagine carving something so detailed out of rock?

A monestary
This used to be a school for monks. You can still see the divisions for the rooms but the students slept on the rock floor.

Amazing
Remember that they carved from the top down so there was some SERIOUS planning involved!

Caves
This gives you an idea of where they started at hte top.

ATTACK!
These monkeys were on a path near the caves and one of the babies came after my feet. It scared the
#*%@ out of me!