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Sunset in Varkala
It isn't too hard to take in a few of these for a week. After a little flight confusion (and leveraging my Marriott points from the work-days of yesteryear for a night at the cushy JW Marriott Bangkok) we made it to Bangalore a week early. We met a really nice couple from California who live just north of the city. They helped us get in from the airport and showed us a nice hotel; and as our flight didn’t get in until after 1 a.m., the help was much appreciated. They got us on the right foot the next morning with a great Indian breakfast, introduced us to some great people, and showed us the (few) sights to see in Bangalore. It was a fantastic way to begin the next (sub) continent of our trip; I’ll consider it good foreshadowing.
Bangalore doesn’t have much in the way of tourist attractions, but Darren and I, being the socio-political-business geeks we are (Darren’s edit: Sounds about right.), wanted to see the city given the India IT boom. I don’t know what I expected, but the city had some very interesting quirks. Given the “Silicon Valley of India” image, I expected more of a downtown area. That area might pass as a busy two-block square in
Lincoln Park (northern Chicago), but it isn’t much more than that. However, there are small pockets of beautiful buildings scattered throughout the city; it seemed as though they were built wherever the multinationals could get a good piece of real estate without much central coordination. It is relatively clean, for an Indian city, which puts it above Phnom Penh but below Vientiane (and way above Detroit). The thing that surprises me the most, and maybe it shouldn’t have, is the prevalence of English. Everyone knows that many Indians speak English well, but I had thought this would be limited to the well-educated classes. However, as there are a number of different languages spoken in throughout India, a common tongue is needed. I expected it to be Hindi, but frequently English is used as the language of conversation between Indians of different linguistic backgrounds. This makes traveling much easier; bus conductors, ticket sellers, street vendors, security guards, even beggars, speak English well enough to understand random questions, give directions, and hold reasonable conversations. I've also fallen in love with the Indian head bobble. Whenever they want to make an affirmative or positive comment of any kind, such as yes, okay, hello,
Dyes
The colored dyes in Mysore market were amazing etc., they give their head a little wiggle side-to-side. It is fantastic!
After a few days in Bangalore, we headed on to Mysore. It is a city that is famous for the Raj palace that was built here around the turn of the century. It is a very impressive building and served as a nice introduction to the numerous palaces we are going to see in the next few months (e.g. Taj Mahal). Some of the details in the palace were just astounding. In particular I found the ivory inlays on the doorways to be just amazing. Knowing someone who makes guitars with mother of pearl inlays, I can attest to the amount of time and craftsmanship that would have to go into the doorway’s creation is just astounding. In Mysore there was also a great fruit, spice, and flower market that we enjoyed; not exactly the same as the supermarkets back home. We only spent one night (two full days) in Mysore as we found a night bus that would take us nearly all the way to Varkala, a beach town in southern Kerala (one of the southern-most states in India). I won’t complain about the night bus,
Black Beach
A cloudy day at Black Beach, but it was beautiful none-the-less. as I am sure we will encounter worse transportation experiences (and already have), but I felt unbelievably disgusting after sitting on the bus for 14 hours and was covered in some nasty grime from having fallen asleep during the night with the window open. Sick nasty. We got to the city of Kollam where we jumped an auto rickshaw (a motor bike with a carriage on the back) that took us the last 40 km. We got the first room we saw and I jumped into the shower to clean up and enjoy the rest of the day on the beach.
Varkala has a very long, wide stretch of beach with nice, though polluted, red cliffs rising directly behind it. On top of the cliffs are the hotels, guesthouses, bungalows, restaurants, and, of course, souvenir shops. It is the start of the rainy season here, so, while there is frequent cloud cover (though little rain), we have had some beautiful days and there aren’t many people around making it real quiet. The water is perfect for body surfing, though the rip current can be quite strong. The people that we have met here are fantastic (locals and travelers alike).
Mysore Palace
A decent start to our palaces in India We’ve fallen in with a fairly large group of friends, which has made it a fantastic respite from our past few weeks of travels; it has been non-stop since we left Sapa in northern Vietnam (Sapa - Hanoi - Bangkok - Bangalore - Mysore in a week). I will admit, though, that some of the tourists here are a bit more into the reiki/yoga/ayurvedic thing than I am, so some of the conversations are pretty interesting. One guy told me that scientists just recently made a discovery disproving Christianity and Judaism; my jaw dropped. I thought Galileo and Darwin would have set that precedence, if it was possible to “disprove” a faith (which, by definition, it isn’t), but I egged him along to hear more. Like I said, the conversations get interesting…
Anyway, we both have been enjoying our big events of the week: Darren has done a lot of CPA and Hindi work; I’ve been falling asleep on the beach while reading. Appropriate. And, great news, my friend from college, Ben Lawless, got in from Washington D.C. yesterday! He had a heck of a trip from Mumbai to Varkala, using planes, trains and automobiles (Ben’s edit: technically speaking
it was a motorized Rickshaw). There were plane delays, lost luggage, wrong bus stops, and hospitality from random Indians; an appropriate start to his trip! But he made it here in one piece, and is mostly caught up from jet leg already. It is going to be great having another person along for the ride to spice things up a bit (sincerely, Darren and I have gotten along fine). From here we start our trip through the sub-continent of India, south to north. We had planned on leaving tomorrow, but we have really enjoyed this week so we are probably going to stay a bit longer. We don’t have many firm dates, but we will be in Mumbai on May 23 and 24 (two more nights at a JW Marriott; traveling all the time for work did have its benefits). Hope all is well with you and yours wherever you are!
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Corbin Bergsma
non-member comment
Fun
I hope you guys are having fun, i like the pictures! keep them coming.