Advertisement
Published: December 30th 2014
Edit Blog Post
Yippiee…We found another black hole for hippies – Arambol in Goa…Our New Years Beach-Party-Destination….Lucky us… this year the Dollar stands bad to the Rubel so lot’s of Russians cancelled their holiday to Goa and it was easy for us to find a beach house straight away…To get here wasn’t as easy as we thought but more later…
After leaving Party-Varkala we decided to have 2 days of cleaning our soul and body in Amma’s Ashram..Yes Amma- the hugging god-mother of India…yes she’s God….that’s what ‘they’ say… After arriving in her Ashram which looks like a mass tourist resort in Spain with three 14-story high buildings build in a little sandy island between sea and backwater we went to get a token for a Hug and had to wait around 7 hours to go on stage and get a proper Big Mumma Hug and yeah it was a special hug as she hugged both of us at the same time, pulled us into her bosom, chanted in our ears and shoved chocolate in our mouths to signal the end. It was crazy as she sat in her chair from 10am - 1am hugging people with only one toilet break (yes even
god has needs)..In the morning at 5am Yvi and lot’s others got up to chant the 1000 holy names in the temple followed by Mediation at the beach at 6.30…Jude preferred to meditate isolated in the room, horizontal and with closed eyes instead..
We decided Amma is quite a great personality but unfortunately her followers were all nutters. Our next stop was Allephuza – also called Indian Venice as there are many canals..Well apart from the canals it didn’t look like Venice but the houses are unbelievable big and colourful in Kerala so even big cities look nice and clean. After getting waken up by the daily Alarm clock signal (an old world-war siren next to our house) which goes off at 4AM, 6AM and 9AM we said good bye to our nice homestay and hired a private house boat and it’s 2staff member to cruise through the backwaters of Kerala. Launching in our big armchairs we hardly moved our limps for 24 hours apart from waving to other passing boats and village people…We definitely needed this relaxation after all the Party and Meditation stress by just eating fresh fish and drinking cool drinks on deck.
Back on
our bikes we headed to the hills around Munnar. With 6km per hour we cycled up hill for two whole days to finally reach the tea plantations. Our stops were frequent and filled by loads of nice people who gave us free drinks or lunch (courtesy of the bishop at the bishop’s palace) and a guy called Mr Baby even let us stay in their 5 star guesthouse for £10 instead of £120. After reaching the heights of desolate Vagamon we cruised down to Kumily inbetween tea, spice and rubber plantation. With speeds up to 50km/h it was so far our most amazing trip…In our break we impressed 50 school kids by telling them about our tough cycling tour and shortly after chucked our bikes on a back of the truck to take us up hill again. In Kumily we spent a day trekking and following an Elephant family in the jungle, attended a cooking class, watched traditional Keralan dance theatre called Kathakali and gave up all ideas of cycling up the further 1500meters to Munnar.
Reaching Fort Cochi by bus, we spent our first night in a dump. Luckily the next door neighbours had an opening party for
their deluxe guest house which Yvi crashed and got us a room for the remaining 4 nights for dead cheap. The owner and his friend also owned a bar where we enjoyed a few nice lock-ins. The parties were a good warm up for our trip to Goa and we got our liver adapted to the cheap rum and brandy. Surprisingly Cochin had an amazing Art Exhibition (Bienalli) which was spread throughout the whole city. As Vasco Da Gama landed here in 1504 the whole city is Christian and we celebrated Christmas in the oldest church in India. Christmas Day we treated ourselves with amazing salads, roast beef sandwiches and bacon for lunch and spent the day on the crowded beach, overlooking an oil refinery.
We departed Cochin at 5am on a 12 hour train journey to Goa with a guy giving us his solemn word that he would get the bikes loaded on with us. Needless to say the bikes didn’t make it. Yvi’s turned up the following day (28
th Dec) but no sign of Jude’s, and we’re still yet to see it. So here we reside in Goa, Arambol, waiting for the approaching NYE, feeling slightly in
limbo but distracting ourselves with more beach time and beach parties.
Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year!!
X
Advertisement
Tot: 0.154s; Tpl: 0.027s; cc: 7; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0482s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb