Blogs from India, Asia - page 1980

After a grueling 35 hour train ride and a terrifying 30 minute taxi ride, I am in Goa, Arambol to be exact. So far the coolest thing about arambol is the lizards, they're everywhere and considering they eat the mad mosquitos they make me happy. I got devoured on the train by mosqs, it's was awful, I am taking malaria but i couldn't take it the one day because of a bad case of motion sickness on the train. So far the one thing that i've really noticed about goa is the staring, today is a national holiday (indepenance day) and bus loads of men come to walk up and down the beach and stare at you. They're totally not coy about it either, it's rather invasive. I'm going to have to do some serious shopping, ... read more

For some reason it's been difficult to write about what I've done here and I still havn't come up with anything interesting so I'll let the photos give people a rough idea of what this place is like when I finally find a place where I can upload them. What do you get if you cross a sheep with a goat? I don't know but if someone didn't kill the bloody goat someone was going to find out! Kamakyha temple (which i went to today) is just outside the city and they keep a whole bunch of animals tied up together outside which they routinely sacrafice (apparently). I didn't see any sacrafices myself but I did see lot of people buying pigeons and taking them into the temple. I don't think they kill all the animals ... read more

The drive down to Agra was a interesting experience. We had been in cars in Delhi but this was our first long distance journey. Vehicles dringin the wrong way down a dual carriagway, cows wandering in the middle of the road, piles of drit in the middle of the road and no real traffic rules to speak of (at least none that anyone abided by!). The horn seems to be the most important thing on the car and can mean almost anything. Indicators seems to be used just to show that you can overtake on that side and arms out of the window are used to say I'm turning. "Give way" doesn't exist and stop signs just mean slow down a bit. All in all a frightening experience! Eventually though we got to Agra. I was ... read more

We then vuisited a very tranquil and peacful park-the place where Ghandi and subsequently Indira Ghandi and her son Ravi were cremated. There was a single black marble stone with a perpetual flame in recognition of his simple lifestyle- it was quite moving.We visited the REd Fort and several Kashmire Crafts shops before returning to our hotel. Next day we visited the home of Indira Ghandi. Here we witnessed a museum of her life and struggles-she appeared to be similar to Maggie Thatcher in many ways. There were many exhibits including the sari in which she was shot and the pyjamas in which her son Ravi was blown up. In her garden was a glass plaque showing were she was assasinated. We then visited the Railway museum where we were able to climb on and off ... read more

Aaaaaaaaaaaah! That is the only word to describe the culture shock we are suffering here. Well, not so much culture shock as shell shock. This place makes Bangkok look like Windsor, Ontario (Moss Vegas for the Aussies). We've heard people complain that Delhi is a filthy place - it's certainly dirty here, but not so much more than southeast Asia that we would remark on it. Actually what really knocks us off our feet here is the mind-boggling over-stimulation. Walking down a street here there are so many things happening at once that you could never hope to catch them all. It's an adventure doing the simplest things. We spent our first day walking around to try and get the feel of the place - we we didn't feel it so much as IT felt US. ... read more