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Well folks, the time has come to leave the sunny shores of india to head west, but before we do, some final reflections on our time in this amazing country (well, a small fraction of it anyway...).
People
People are what made our trip here so amazing. Not only are there so many of them, but on the whole they've been incredibly friendly, and happy to share details of their lives and areas with us. During our train journeys alone we've met and enjoyed a glimpse into the lives of shoe sellers, journalists, engineers, priests, etc, and very very occassionally another traveller. Indians everywhere have been very curious about our lives and absolutely could not believe that we were having a year long holiday to see the world. Although, admittedly most people in Australia can't believe we're going on holidays for a year either, so that's a response i suppose we should get used to.
It is absolutely astounding how many people can speak english, and not just that but usually a few other indian languages as well, and perhaps a spattering of french or german. At one stage we were riding along on a scooter, jeff
driving and me on the back, when two men on a scooter started to pass us. the man on the back called out 'cava?' obviously judging from my graceful poise that i was clearly parisian...i answered 'bonjour' which is not really the correct response, but i thought it was pretty good to answer anything at all. But this man promptly switched to english to carry on the conversation as we rode along, with jeff and the other driver dodging cows, goats and buses to enable us to chat. Amazing...
Jeff's critique of Indian road transport
We've now travelled many hundred kilometres by road transport in southern India, and have seen our lives flash before our eyes an equal number of times! Some observations:
* Most roads in main towns and big cities have lane markings. We are unsure why this is, as they are never followed. And that even includes those thick lines in the middle of the road.
* Instead, slow vehicles
generally keep towards the left, and faster ones overtake on the right - though not always so. Here is a rough order of vehicle speeds, from slowest to fastest,
all using the road at the same time:
- cows, goats, dogs
- man-pulled carts
- pedestrians
- bicycles
- autorickshaws
- trucks
- scooters and motorbikes
- cars
- our bus from Allepey to Kumily!
* Overtaking is best done on a blind corner...
* The horn is used a lot! So much so that the following translations could be derived:
- beep = hello
- beep = watch out!
- beep = hello mr cow, please stay where you are - I will drive around you
- beep = I am behind you
- beep = I am overtaking you
- beep = I have just overtaken you
- beep = how about that local sporting team of ours? They played well on the weekend
- beep = get out of my way! (i.e. the universal meaning of the horn, but in India it seems to be prefixed by a 'please' as the people being tooted generally do move!)
* Despite all of this, we were not involved in any accidents, nor did we witness any! Near misses
on the other hand were countless!
Favourite drinks
- Jen - Sprint (pretty much a take off of Sprite, but with a hint of ginger and tasting oh so good!)
- Jeff - Thums Up (yep without the b). I really can 'taste the thunder' as the ad campaign states
- both - chai!
Favourite quotes
- overweight Indian man on the beach to Jen:
"What is your name?...Are you married?...How old are you?...How fat are you??? I am 112kg!"
- a stranger to Jeff, upon observing many freckles:
" Excuse me sir, what is your skin problem!?"
And we've had a few different names as well
- Jen = Madam
- Jeff = Sir
- Jen = David's sister
- Jeff = David's sister wife.
- both = 'taxi'. (Each time we got off a bus people were constantly saying "Hello, Taxi?!" to us.)
- both = Ricky Ponting.
Throughout our five weeks in India there were many times when we felt we had had enough - mostly of the unrelenting heat and humidity,
the unrelenting trips to the bathroom and the unrelenting touts trying to sell absolutely anything. But all in all, we had an fantastic time, saw some beautiful sights, the extremes of wealth and poverty, polluted cities and crisp mountain jungles. And everywhere we went India was so welcoming of us, it was amazing!
p.s. score at the end of the all important Indian leg: Jeff 2, Jen 1.
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susie
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loving the updates guys and the commentry is superb! great reading from this end ;) see you soon in europe and we could add to the tales of the jen/jeff adventures!