2014

Goan at it in Goa – part I

Check out at hostel in Delhi. Go to Delhi Airport. Fly to Goa. Share a cab to Vagator Beach with some fellow backpackers. Get lost on our way to the hostel. Find hostel, which is full of young people, just staring at your red sweaty face. Drop new expensive camera and therefore break it. Look for new chargers for computer online, and fail. Get mad. Have a fight. Go to bed. Discover a gecko in the room. Name him Fredo. That pretty much sums up our day. Needless to say, it has sucked.

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Dat cute charge tho

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This should be a sign that you’re heading in the wrong direction, and into a poor neighbourhood. We were sooo sure this was the way to the hostel.

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I obviously cannot get over this whole cow thing

We wake up the next day with an entirely different attutide, though – it must have been because we’ve had an amazing nights sleep. Our hostel, The Jungle Hostel, is very tiny and modest, but it’s full of young people, who sit barefoot on pillows in the common area with a beer in hand all day and night long. It’s just so cozy.

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The main hang-out area, with pillows and sitting hammocks

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Sitting hammock and 50 rupee Kingfisher beer? This is the life

Breakfast is included, so we start off the day by going into the kitchen and grab some toast with jam and butter, and some mini bananas. The mission for today is to look for a charger for the computer in Mapusa (pronounced Mapsa). We get a taxi to the city center, which is also by the entrance of a big street market. While checking out the market, a young local woman follows us around. She seems very nice, and pretends to think Sara has Indian roots. What it all comes down to is that she wants us to check out her shop. I end up buying some toe rings and a scarf, which is way too expensive. We continue our mission to find the charger by visiting dodgy shop after office that sells electronics after dodgy shop, with no luck. Someone suggests we go to Panaji, so we get on a Tuk Tuk. After almost finding the right charger, we decide to go to lunch at a very local place, as in no one here understands english. We have to just point at random dishes and hope for the best. We end up being fairly satisfied with our choices, except we really need to get used to how spicy the food is everywhere.

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There is some garlic naan, fried rice with vegetables and some sort of spinach puree with paneer up in here.

We finally conclude that our mission is impossible, and give up on the whole charger treasure hunt. Back at the hostel in Vagator, we start talking to a few German girls, and even go shopping at the little stalls on the streets with one of them, Gül. I need to get me some India pants! Gül is an amazing negotiator, and thanks to her, we save a lot of rupees on our purchases. We walk back to the hostel together, and I suggest to her and her friend that we get some seafood and then have a bonfire on the beach (see my bucket list). All 6 of us have dinner and drinks at Tin Tin (yes, that cartoon guy), which is a really nice restaurant.

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Gül, Saskia, Selina and Angi

After dinner, we all head for the beach along with our roomate, Jonas, and 12 beers, rosé wine and marshmallows! We pick up some wood and branches on our way, to the amusement of some locals. An old Indian lady starts grabbing branches and hands them to us and I could just die. She’s so cute.

We find a spot on the beach that is as far away from the restaurants as possible. Saskia and Jonas are skilled fire-makers, so we leave it to them to start this thing. A group of people join us, and we all sit and enjoy the big, warm fire with our beers, rosé wine and roasted marshmallows. Even though we have a lot of wood, we constantly have to split up in groups to go look for more in the grassier areas, bringing our flashlights. As the fire is dying, the wood group comes back and lets us know that a lifeguard saw the fire from his tower (what is he doing there in the middle of the night?), and apparently what we’re doing isn’t exactly legal. So we let the flames die, and we head back to the hostel.

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Safe Delhi-very

We didn’t sleep too well last night. A few horrifying screams from the bazaar outside woke us up. My legs are red, itchy and bumpy, and it’s probably from those bed bugs Sara was on about. We had to get the receptionist to get the lights to work again, and to ask for some warm water. This is how you take a bath here:

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Complimentary breakfast. I am falling in love with masala chai.

At this point, we don’t really want to go out and be scared and stared at, but we do have to go do something with our day, at least eat some food. We pack a few rupees each and my iPhone. Right outside our hostel is the main bazar – something we apparently weren’t aware of until we step out of the alley that was so dark and creepy a few hours earlier – and it’s super busy, crowded and aggressive – it’s scary. A few months before we ended up on this very bazar, a Danish woman was raped here. People are staring at us, yelling and honking because we are in the way no matter where we are, and some guys even follow us a little bit. Suddenly my entire right side is wet – someone has thrown a bucket of water on me. I much later realise that it was probably unintentional – people often throw buckets of water on the drying streets – but as I look down on my bright red tunic and my 40 denier tights that are drenched in water, I feel as if I have offended a lot of people by dressing this provocative – and it’s the most modest thing in my backpack!

A bit away from all the noise and people, we find a fast food place that seems busy and filled with locals. That’s usually a good sign, so we go in. At this point though, all the people and the business of the place are making me feel very anxious. I don’t want to be stared at anymore, and especially not when I have no idea what I am doing. What are all these things on the menu? Where can we sit? How do you even order? I get it together, and we end up having a Chinese platter, out of all things. Our first meal in India is Chinese! And it is beyond spicy! We can’t even eat more than like 1/3 of the whole thing.

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We study our map with great frustration, and end up asking two young girls at the table next to us to point out our location on the map. Then we head out to find some things that are worth to look at. We meet several guys that walk besides us, asking about us and giving us advice. While this is certainly nice of them, these men are strangers, and the warnings and bad stories we have been offered prior to coming here, are constantly in the back of our minds. We try to ignore them as much as we can, and never reveal anything truthful about us, just to give ourselves a sense of protection. We end up having this whole story made up – we’re sisters-in-law from Norway, who are going to meet up with our husbands in Southern India.

While trying to find our way to the temple Laxmi Narayan Birla Mandir, I not only step in dog poo, we also meet Naresh, a very helpful guy studying in Delhi. He takes us some of the way and says he hopes to meet us later.

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Beautiful place, unfortunately photography isn’t allowed inside.

We go to our very first temple. It is beautiful, but odd. For one, I am not used to walking around barefoot in public. Witnessing religious acts like praying also make me super uncomfortable, especially as I have no idea how to behave around a man on his knees. Do I avoid the entire room he is in so I wont disturb him?

On our way back, we run into Naresh again. He is telling us that getting some traditional Indian clothes will be a good idea, and we agree. He then takes us to a “hard to find” factory with Indian clothing by the RK Ashram Mark metro station. It is a small alley that leads to a tiny, dirty street full of buildings that are probably shops just like the one we walk into. An older Indian woman welcomes us, sits us down on a comfortable bench and offers us masala chai and cold water. She is very nice, asks us what we’re looking for, and has her young assistants pulling out one beautiful piece of fabric after another. We decide on a few pieces, and she sends us and some young girls into her office, where we can try them on. We absolutely have to come out after every wardrobe change, so everyone can see and compliment us. At one point, I am trying on a Punjabi dress that Sara has just worn, and the older woman isn’t afraid to tell me she doesn’t think it’s my color. Well, at least she’s being honest.

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Naresh claims that it is much cheaper to buy clothes at a local factory rather than in a fancy store, which is the reason we’ve followed him this far, but I end up spending 7500 rupees on a purple Punjabi dress and a red sari (just the shawl though)! It has been a great experience though, and I even learned how to do the sari.

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Naresh – who patiently has been waiting for us this whole time! – calls his uncle who is a Tuk Tuk driver and takes us to India Gate and the President’s House. His “uncle” is also super nice, and they give us plenty of advice on safety, saving money, culture etc. Of course I don’t remember anything well enough to pass on to you guys, sorry. What is really cool about this ride around Delhi to see the sights, is that we see monkeys running around in the streets, and bats hanging in the trees – all this is just like one giant casual zoo. An expensive one to get into, may I add.

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As the sun is setting, and we are too paranoid to stay out after dark in this mad city, we need to find some dinner and get back to the hostel. Naresh recommends a local vegetarian restaurant, and takes us there to get a thali plate to go for 120 rupees each. We offer Naresh some too as a thanks, but he declines. With our white bags of food, we get dropped off by the alley to our hostel, and we tip the “uncle” 200 rupees. As we hand over 500 rps to Naresh as thanks, he yet again declines, saying “then we wouldn’t be friends, and I wouldn’t be happy“, even though he had earlier joked that he’d rather have money than dinner when we offered. We go to our room and have our first Indian meal in India – amazing, dirt cheap thali:

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Super photogenic food

What started as a scary trip to see a temple ended up being a great experience. We have new, India-appropriate clothes, we’ve seen monuments and buildings we wouldn’t have bothered to go see otherwise, and we met a great tuk tuk driver and Naresh, who made us feel safer and a lot less lost. Thank you Naresh!

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Next stop, Goa!

NovaTOURient

I have been spending a lot of time trying to come up with a name for my upcoming trip. I just really like to name things, OK? I was looking at the always inspiring Word Porn page, and I stumbled upon a word that I think describes this trip perfectly:

1508148_399372620198580_363077803_nFor some reason, I cannot escape the curse of making puns, so I decided that this adventure will forevermore be known as Novatourient. See what I did there?