Don't come to this town!!!

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..... At least only to catch your train out! :-)

So this is my first blog entry, welcome to my blog. To people who know me I'm sure this will be a welcome relief from my long rambly emails which you then feel obliged to read and reply to: this way you have a choice!

There won't be any photos on this one as I'm still working out the technology (ie the wires that came with my camera) to do this, but will have some really soon!

I'm 3 and a half months into my trip already, can't believe I've survived India for so long actually!

Briefly (if I can....) I flew to Mumbai (though my luggage didn't, so that was my first fun task in India) on Oct 20, stayed a fraught day and night there, then caught a flight down to Trivandrum, in Kerala, and stayed at an ashram for 3 weeks (Sivananda). This had good bits and bad bits: good: really toned body after 4 hours of yoga a day (didn't last beyond a week after I left, sadly...), safe food (if a little dull - no garlic, chilli or onion allowed as too stimulating and enjoyable), really great opportunity to meet people, ayurvedic doctor and ayurvedic massage on site, beautiful surroundings. Bad: bitten to death by both mosquitoes and bed bugs, caught the Keralan 2nd monsoon weather for almost the entire time, two hours a day of (the same) chanting, a rigorous schedule starting at 5am with no food till 10am, and no choice not to attend parts of the programme except when menstruating (had a strange cycle while I was there.....), and general hardcore cultlike vibe...
Some really nice people I met while I was there: Rebecca (mentioned below) Nada from Sweden/Jordan - so lovely!, Carola opposite me in the dorm, the Irish gals Florian and Eife, Silvana, my cubicle mate, Celine and Jen, Carl, Chris, Barrett, Yvonne, Margaret, Effa (another cubicle mate), Miwa, Sarah and Jenny. And Viera who works there and also Dr Aardash, and Nalini from the massage clinic.
Met a great travel companion, Rebecca (who's madly returned to the ashram to do a yoga teachers course????????) and travelled with her for nearly 2 months, up through Kerala, stopping at Varkala, Kovalam, Kollam - one of the backwater towns and took a great canoe trip via the KTDC office - I highly recommend this; then up to Fort Cochin, which I loved, it's so chilled out and beautiful and charming there and great places to eat. Then on into Goa which I didn't like much to be honest despite staying away from the real touristy places. Nice to have some sea and sun but I had enough quite early on, though met some nice people at our guest house, specially Ramon (who I think is still there!) who was a great talk buddy, and also Laura and Don. I did quite like Panjim (Panaji), the state capital, and stayed there for a while. Met some lovely guys from various places around the world who were here to do an IT course, and was really nice to hang out with them, especially Joel for some lovely days, and also Paul, Kunal and Anil who were great companions over New Year.
Then took a mad (Indian style) bus journey from Panjim to Hampi, in Karnataka, the neighbouring state - on a bus that looked like it had been taken out of service ready to be crushed and reinstated at the last minute due to shortages - this 10 hour journey took 18 hours due to above state, and also the brakes failing during the night (though this didn't warrant stopping the bus, best to just keep going over the mountains....), but was a fantastic opportunity to meet some really great people, especially Mel, who I've then travelled with a bit, also Kat and Alex, who we hung out with in Hampi, Robyn,Gavin and Suzy who I shared a 3a/c sleeper to Bangalore with, and Matt and Andy, great guys from Oldham, England, who kept me company in Bangalore for a really fun couple of days. Hampi's a great place and well worth a visit, an old capital of a Hindu empire and now a town of ruins and also great temples and statues of gods and goddesses, the place is surrounded by these giant boulders that make it look almost prehistoric. To any travellers reading this, if you go there on a festival day, watch the crush at the temple, and women, it's a groper's paradise in there, so be warned...!
Climbing up the boulders to watch the sunset is fantastic and really magical, though the monkeys up there got a bit scary over a bag of Bombay mix we had - best not to start feeding them!
So I left there after 3 days and as I said went on to Bangalore and had a great time there - it's a really westernised city and hardly looks like India till you get out on the outskirts and the slums appear again, but for me, after more than 3 months away from London, it was really nice to turn up in a big buzzing city (with a Marks and Spencer!!? - and a Lush.... yes, that famous scent has reached the subcontinent) and have a couple of days of bright lights and wide choice of cuisine. We went to see a bizarre Bollywood movie at the Gurada Mall, called Bhagam Bhag (I think). Half of it's set in London (the outside half!)....it was kind of funny at first :-)....

I succumbed to taking a Volvo a/c bus on to Mysore after the Hampi bus experience, which was well worth the extra rupees except for the Bollywood movie which was shown (and still not over by the end) for the entire journey and my MP3 player full blast could not even drown it out.
Mysore was great - absolutely loved it and had one adventure after another - the whole touting game is more connected up there than anywhere I've been so far - everyone from rickshaw drivers (of course) to parcel packers to post office workers, is ready and eager to take you to their 'uncle's' shop where you are given a lecture, photocopy sheet and samples of various oils on your skin and then given the hard sell of both those and hand rolled incense. Silk is the other main thing famous about Mysore and there are shops and emporiums everywhere - when the government emporium on the roundabout realised I had pounds and dollars in my purse they practically shut the shop for me, and even the rickshaw driver was looking bored by the end.
I had lots of lovely encounters with people along the way, both locals and travellers, especially Mukat, my 2nd rickshaw driver, who took me to his home to meet his family (and entire neighbourhood, who crowded into his little stone dwelling to see the western woman who had just come round...), Babu who took me round Mysore and Sheika who told me I would never forget him after taking one drop of sandalwood in hot milk for 40 days, who both took it upon themselves to also read my palm; Anoop from Southampton who I bumped into on Sri Harsha Road, got talking to and had dinner with, the guy by the lift in my hotel who recommended I go to Ooty, Tom who I met in one of the many, many oil shops I was taken to, and who I had a lovely time with hanging out in Mysore, and also Emily and Pam who we met over dinner; also Rinchin and Vicky who I met in the Parklane restaurant down Sri Harsha Road, and Katarina who I bumped into while walking round the Maharaja's palace and wishing I could bump into another traveller!
Mel who I knew from Hampi joined me in Mysore for the last couple of days, and then we went on to Ooty, in Tamil Nadu, which I'm so pleased I went to - it's a hill station with amazing views and the journey there is completely spectacular, beautiful deep valley views and misty mountain peaks, amazing forests - and also spectactularly scary, very narrow bumpy mountain roads and your average Indian style of driving over them and around several hairpin bends. But well worth the risk! It's kind of cold up there though, enough for a fleece and socks though people are dressed in hats and scarves as if it's REALLY cold - it's really not! Great little town, and apparently good trekks though we preferred to enjoy Ooty's speciality home made cashew nut chocolate, and take a taxi to the top of the Doddabetta mountain - though too misty for views (probably our punishment for being lazy!) The Green Valley Hotel by the lake is a good bet for a place to stay, cheap and cleanish with buckets of hot water when you want (though the bathroom in room 204 is haunted - yes it is!)
We really wanted to take the miniature railway back down the mountain but couldn't get tickets (or didn't realise you can queue up on the day and still get them - do this - arrive at the ticket office for 2pm, it opens at 2.30 for the 3pm train), so we got the main railway down to Conoor which was still fantastic views - if you sit by the windows on the right there will be several times you're less than a foot away from a 2,000 plus metre drop with no edge - but it really is spectacular.
From Conoor we had to take a bus to Coimbatore and if anyone does this, prepare yourselves for a fight to get on - we were at the 'front' of the queue and when the bus arrived all hell broke loose with people jumping the barriers and trying to pull us off the bus stairs! When we got on a fight broke out on the seats next to us which had to be broken up by the conductor. The ride is very very bumpy, very very noisy, very very fast down the mountainside for a long long time - again, great views, watch your pulse rate.
Mel has now cruelly left me in Coimbatore and caught a train to lovely Cochin along with Nilius (spelling?) who weirdly was in the room next to us in Ooty and then bumped into him on the station platform here, and suffice to say Coimbatore is the kind of town where you can happily catch up on all your emails and blog and surfing and not feel like you should be out doing stuff - in fact, it's a positive haven here in the internet cafe. And don't stay in the Ruby Palace if you ever come - Lonely Planet are WRONG - it's not nice at all, and they've got a rigged STD phone.

So - onward from here - tonight I've got a 3a/c to Chennai, where I think I'll stay one night - am headed for Mamallapuram which apparently is a travellers drop in, beach town, maybe Pondicherry, then I think I start to head up north and am hoping to meet more travelling companions for this. Varanasi I think will be the first place I go up there, but who knows - my plans change all the time.

So this is it for my first entry - hope you enjoyed??

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Comments

[handmaid]

fantastic..!!
welcome to blogging - great idea!!!!!!! of course we want to read all the details xxx looking forward to pics!!

[Beth]

HI Deb!
You should definately be a writer. xxxxxx

[Pam]

Brilliant
keep it coming debbie for me it is like breath of fresh air to read this, helps me to forget my own mundane life, for a few wonderful moments

[Mark in Ja.]

Can't wait for the next one! Want to see some pics. xxx

[Carola]

Hello from Berlin!
Hello Debbie! It's so nice to read your lines. So you are really enjoying your trip finally. I remember how scared you were in the beginning to be just on your own in a crazy country like India. But now you really got into it. Very nice!!! When I read your text all my India experiences come back as well. It was a great time. What am I doing here actually? No I can't complain really. I fall deeply in love and now I'm trying to settle down in Berlin, trying to find work as well of course, which is not easy at all, but I'm trying really hard and very slowly things start to happen I think. I have only been in Berlin for about a month or so, so it's the very beginning. I'm trying to penetrate into the film scene here, which is difficult and takes time, but I think it's gonna be possible. Btw I'm doing my Sivananda Yoga about 5 days a week. I get up in the morning at 7am and start the exercises at around 7:30am. It feels really great, I love it, kind of got addicted to it. Please keep writing the blog, it's really nice to read about your adventures. I wish a phantastic and unforgettable year out there. Big hugs from Berlin, Carola :-)

[tim]

hello you
can't waite for photos, almost forgotton what you look like!