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Published: March 8th 2007
Goa dinner
Marc and I for dinner in GoaToday (8 March) is our 7-week anniversary of arriving in India. While I realise we have seen and done so much, it's hard to believe this much time is already up. We find ourselves very flexible and open to the fact that our entire itinerary might drastically change -- last night we made a Pros and Cons list for keeping the entire trip in Asia or including Fiji and South America at the end. Do we keep this trip focused on seeing the more off-the-road places, like Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, or do we want the added variety and colour of Chile, Peru, Brasil at the end? Our next flight on our Round the World ticket is out of Singapore on 10 June -- so much can happen inbetween then.
In the meantime, a follow up to my last entry about Saundatti, Karnaktaka, and the religious festival. We left the afternoon after the full moon celebration on the 3rd of February. Kris and I organised a driver to take us to Hampi, a sacred city in Karnaktaka which is renowned as a mythological birthplace and meditation centre for the gods. We dropped Mark in nearby Hubli to take the train to
Bathing Ghats in Hampi
A statue sits in the river waters where people bathe, do washing and Laxmi, the temple elephant comes for her daily scrub... Bangalore and Sri Lanka, and Kris and I headed East in a lovely air-conditioned car, complete with fold-down screen from the ceiling for a nice, quick 3 hour Bollywood shoot-em-up film. There's nothing like watching a hard-ass Indian tough guy (this one had a striking resemblance to Collin Farrel) save the chick and then end up doing a coreographed dance sequence with the baddies; inevitably the girl, in a floaty sari and lots of jewellery, ends up rolling down a hill and/or running thru a fountain or lake. No Bollywood film is complete without the wet sari.
Hampi is indeed striking -- it is surrounded by rolling hills upon which perch huge boulders, which look as if any strong gust of wind will send them charging down the hill toward the village. Yet these rocks have been here for centuries -- legend has it that the monkey god Hanuman created Hampi when his mother asked him to procure water. He stirred up the earth and scattered rocks in the process to bring forth the water, and the boulders lay scattered around Hampi as evidence. Many of the ancient stories of Shiva (the destryoyer) and his faithful servant Hanuman take
place in Hampi -- Shiva came here often to meditate and once, when his wife Parvatti found out he had taken another wife behind her back, Parvatti also came here to meditate and they of course made up around Valentine's Day...
We met a sweet 23 year old guy named Ramesh in Saundatti who is from Hampi, and he and his best friend Shiva took us around in the rickshaw and told us all of the history and various stories of the gods. They even snuck us out of the thou-shalt-not-drink-in-holy-city Hampi to nearby Hospet for dinner and a couple of Kingfishers. We trekked up to a temple high in the hills to watch the sunset, which given the setting was huge and firey and awe-inspiring. Hampi on the whole is very small and charming, with winding roads lined with guesthouses, shops, restaurants and filled with cows, merchants and tourists. The main town is still sheltered by the ancient market structure, with shops constructed in between the spice market dividers that are hundreds of years old. Continuing outside the market leads to an abandoned market and temple area, which was a once-great empire ruled by a benevolent king who
Laxmi having a bath
See all her makeup? suspended the caste system, championed dance, music and arts and encouraged the indigenous talents of the Hindus and Muslims from his widespread kingdom from Mumbai to Kerala (which is about 1/5 the size of India roughly). The carvings in each of the temples were done by the best craftsmen for stone in a marriage of the Islamic and Hindu styles. Across the water is the monkey temple to Hanuman. Apparently a Belgian woman arrived in Hampi for a week's visit and ended up living in a cave near the temple... 35 years ago. I guess she found what she was looking for.
Every morning at 7.30 (ok, India time means around 8.30 or 9am) the temple elephant Laxmi (named for the goddess of wealth) arrives to the river ghat (steps leading to the water where people bathe and wash clothes) for a luxurious 2 hour bath. She is covered in her beautiful makeup from the day before, walks down the stairs with her attendant and lies down on one side to be scrubbed. She is so cute as she splashes her trunk around in the water, peeking it above the water's surface to breathe. Devotees then follow her to
Laxmi having a bath
Getting scrubbed clean! the temple afterwards to watch her get made up again and then they stand in line to give her one rupee and receive a
smooch
or blessing.
Across the water is a smaller town that houses the post-Goa crowd, a collection of very chilled out guest houses and gardens which serve Big Pepsis (if you want a beer) and a chance to look at the ancient buildings of Hampi. We stayed in a lovely, clean guesthouse right by the water, across from the serene chill out roof top cafe that Shiva and Ramesh's friends (former rickshaw drivers) run. After an afternoon of catching up on email, we ran into a pair of Irish brothers we knew from Goa -- travellers crossing paths again... We decided to head south after 3 days to Kerala, via Bangalore.
BANGALORE , what to say... three words: don't go there. It's a huge, chaotic city that is the hub of India's booming technology industry. We are finding it harder and harder to deal with big urban centres after being in beautiful villages, but Bangalore was especially shocking with farmers in the streets protesting the government's water allocation, too many rickshaws and an
Hampi Temple
Main temple in Hampi unpleasant stressful vibe. Especially after a night train next to the toilets, it's a shock to the system to instantly fight off rickshaw drivers who refuse to use their meters and are asking exhorbitant fares to take you (and your giveaway backpacks) half a kilometre to your guesthouse. We ended up passing away a day booking flights (I decided on meeting up with Marc in Sri Lanka, Kris to Mumbai to visit friends) getting manicures and pedicures (truly needed after a few weeks on the road and very much so after Saundatti) and left for Kerala the next evening.
The great thing about night trains, in second class, non-AC, is the chance to meet Indian families. We were seated with a lovely family from Kashmir with 3 daughters, on holiday in the south. We were asked all of the standard, seemingly intrusive questions (but polite, as it shows they are interested in you) -- how old are you? are you married -- No? Why not? Are you engaged? HOW old are you? Oh, dear, you should get married. Which country? How much is your salary? It's really freeing once you realise you can also pry with the same questions
and you end up learning quite a lot about each other over the requisite curry, chapati, birhyani, etc that they offer you. If we make it up to Kashmir, we also have a place to stay -- at this point, who knows!
We arrived in Kochi, the capital of the lush, green state of Kerala, around 4.30 AM. We found a great guesthouse called Geo Maria, run by a lovely older man George and his family. Kerala is (like Goa) very influenced by Roman Catholicism but also Christianity in general, as the apostle doubting Thomas landed here and planted several churches. He then is said to have moved east to Tamil Nadu preaching Christianity, where he died and is buried. We had the whole day ahead of us, so we decided to make the most of it and take one of Kerala's famous backwater boat tours in a converted rice boat to experience some of the state's backwater lifestyle. The tour was packed with Germans and a few Brit/French combos and offered a nice way to unwind from lots of train rides and hectic Bangalore.
Kochi is pleasant, but we were aching for the beach and some gorgeous
Kris and Jen at Hampi
This is an entrance gate to the abandoned city in Hampi nature, so decided to head south the next day to Varkala beach, perched high in the cliffs over crystal clear waters of the Arabian Sea. It was paradise -- water streched out as far as the horizon, every other shop was a yoga studio or ayervedic massage centre and the people were warm and welcoming. We stayed in Bamboo Village on the North Cliff, right next to
Santa's Village
guesthouse, which is decked out with a Santa Claus right on the cliff. Who knew? There's a very famous guru called Amma from Kerala and her image is displayed everywhere -- it's quite a business she runs from her Ashram, with people travelling from around the world to receive a blessing and theraputic hug from the spirital leader.
Heard from the Irish guys and suggested they come down to Varkala over Kochi, and we caught up for a drink after they arrived as we headed out to our train back up to Kochi. We somehow booked the wrong class of train ticket and found ourselves again having a
true india experience
yet again in cattle class, standing room only, stuffed in against a press of human bodies for 5 hours, silently cursing ourselves
Jen and Ramesh, Hampi
Our lovely rickshaw driver Ramesh for not realising the tickets were 50 rupees cheaper than on the way down. Take it from me, it's always worth the extra 50 rupees (about $1.15)...
We made it into Ernakulum (near Kochi) around midnight and slept in a sketchy, cockroach-friendly hotel near the station. Up at 5AM for a rickshaw to the airport. Despite the stressful realisation that the driver a/spoke no english b/ had no idea where the airport was (what?!) c/ was the brother in law of sketchy hotel owner, we made it somehow to the airport and made the plane to Mumbai. Our friends Rajat and Shaun picked us up from the airport for lunch and then I boarded a plane south to the mysterious and beautiful Sri Lanka to visit Marc, explore tea plantations and relax on the beach. That was February 13, so still a bit more updating to do...
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Marianne
non-member comment
Great!!!
Hi Jen, it is wonderful to be "part" of your worldtour. Thanks for sending your reports and fotos. We are happy for you that you have the chance and courage to do this. Enjoy what is coming next. Love Marianne