India

March 20, 2014

The Golden City

christinelouise Asia, NovaTOURient, Travel Talk 2014, Asia, camel safari, India, jaisalmer, thar desert

I have to be honest with you: my butt is very sore today. I had the best ride of my life yesterday. More about that in a butt, err, bit.

Right now, I’m sitting with a cold beer in my hand in Jaisalmer, The Golden City. It is basically a big sandcastle, that I can admire from the rooftop of our hostel, Mystic Jaisalmer. The atmosphere here is amazing. Our first night, after exploring the fort, we sat down with the owner, the great “Mullah”, who offered free curries and masala chai, while we talked about travelling, amongst other things. It was the most amazing conversation I’ve ever had, and I was left feeling so inspired and so in love with life.

Well, let’s rewind a little bit. On the bus, we meet Michael from Germany and Hagar from Israel. Sara and I share a sleeper right across from Bruno, who has this weird tinfoil-looking blanket with him, and we are just laughing at him. At one point, while he is out of the bus, we grab his iPhone and take a collection of the ugliest self-portraits you can imagine.

Like this one. You’re welcome.

We get to our hostel and get a nice – shared – room. Bruno’s bed is basically the window pane with pillows, but he doesn’t mind. And we have a TV with Bollywood music videos playing all day long! This is pure luxury.

We decide to head out to see some sights and buy some clothes for a desert trip. On our way to the Fort, which is where the party’s at, we stumble upon a Bhang shop, and lots of places selling blankets like these:

I don’t usually have that kind of problem, but will definitely keep Jaisalmer in mind if it happens.

Bruno harrassing local women with his camera, as usual.

Once inside of the fort, we just walk around the narrow streets for ages, before visiting as many temples as we can before closing time, with an audio guide in hand.

Some ladies selling jewelry by the entrance of the fort. They wanted me to be in their pitcure.

I really like this picture. Also, I think that is probably the best looking man in all of India.

Cute kids in creepy masks following us around

Inside one of the temples

And here are some animal pictures, because Sara is obsessed:

Sara makes sure all the stray dogs in India stay hydrated.

Sleepy puppies!

The following day, the hostel has arranged a camel safari in the Thar desert for us and Hagar, Michael, Campbell and Paolo. We drive out with a funny local guy who’s dancing while driving to the deserted village of Rajasthan for a quick look. Also, from now on I am shamelessly using some of the pictures, the other guys took.

We then drive out to the desert, where we meet our “camels”, which are actually dromedaries, and our guides. We get on our camels – I’m really just going to continue calling them camels now – and as they stand up, we all freak out. It’s so scary. We start making our way across the desert, stumbling upon a gypsy village, and of course, lots of sand. The camels are quite painful to ride on. Mine is called Michael Jackson!

After a few hours, we stop at our camp, where the camel guys serve us fried pasta(!), which is definitely an interesting snack to go with our Kingfisher beer. We then go for a walk in the desert, see the sunset and roll around in the sand dunes, which is so much fun.

As dinnertime approaches, the camel guys have Sara and me sit by the fire and make chapati. We have them with curry-boiled vegetables and rice. So good!

Earlier on, we all decided to arrange our beds into a circle, so we could all talk before going to sleep. As we are lying in our beds under the stars, we see a shooting star. Then several more. The moon is rising behind the dunes, so Michael, Hagar, Bruno and I go to check it out, and we end being gone for hours, just taking pictures like these, while bugs are crawling on us, because we are standing so still for pictures.

In the very early morning, we are woken up by the sunrise. Everything’s just so bright out in the open. We decide to go to the sand dunes to check it out and it’s so beautiful.

We then have breakfast and get back on our camels. We head back to the hostel to have a shower and book our train to Jaipur (we were really supposed to go to Jodhpur), and now it’s time for the train (1st time woo!)

Thanks a lot, Mystic Jaisalmer!

March 18, 2014

Busride from Hell

christinelouise Asia, NovaTOURient, Travel Talk 2014, Asia, bombay, India, mumbai, Night bus, scary stories

A 19-hour bus drive. That’s not too bad.

Or so we thought.
After sitting on the pavement of a hot, busy street for what seems like ages, our bus stops a few hundred metres away from us. As we are entering the bus, we are greeted by a handful of local guys right by the driver’s seat, loudly exclaiming “nice” as they stare us down. Creeped out, we go to the back of the bus to get to our top sleeper. As we climb the ladder, the guys go absolutely nuts. They are laughing, yelling and pointing, just because they got to see us bend over to get into our sleeper. Great. At this point, I am 90 % sure we are going to get either robbed or raped at night. I am extremely terrified, so we try to keep our spirits high by singing children’s songs about bad busdrivers.

But it gets worse.
The sleeper is disgusting. It’s old, worn down and downright dirty. It has to be the smallest, most expensive double sleeper we have ever been in, with no AC either.

But it gets worse.
The bus barely drives anywhere for the first five hours. It will drive for 10-20 minutes, then stop for an hour, then drive for another 10 minutes, only to stop for several hours again. Not having AC on the bus is acceptable when you’re actually driving, as the wind cools you down, but being parking for hours directly in the sun with no curtains to block the warm rays is awful. The mattress and blankets under us gets soaked with our sweat. We are getting increasingly annoyed. And the bus keeps stopping. We realise that it doubles as a delivery service, as we stop just to unload packages, and at one point, all the guys are outside, trying to lift motorbikes to the roof and then attach them. This gives the bus a slight tilt, which is just great when your driver is a maniac behind the wheel.

But it gets worse.
The road is so bumpy, and our bus is driving so fast, that our bodies actually elevate and we bump our heads into the ceiling, even though we are lying straight down. It’s like a long rollercoaster ride that you never asked for.

But it gets worse.
We get our only toiletbreak 9 hours into the ride, but we both have to pee long before that. I blame the bumpy road punching our bladders. Sara is so desperate, she takes out a plastic bag and asks me if it’s OK if she pees right in our sleeper, into the bag. Of course I say no, the girl has no aim and the road is bumpy, and I don’t want to spend 15 hours on a pissed-soaked mattress.

But it gets worse.
At one point, I pull aside the curtain that seperates our sleeper with the rest of the bus, and to our surprise, the bus is completely full. So full, that people are sitting on the floor of the bus. We are the only tourists on the bus, and as soon as I pull aside the curtain, people notice us and we are now the most interesting thing to look at on this bus. I close my eyes, enjoying the breeze coming from the window, drying my sweat-soaked clothes a bit. All of the sudden, Sara starts screaming, and I really think it’s because she has to wet herself, since we had had no toilet breaks. No. Big spider crawling right next to me. I freak out completely, find a reciept and try to squish the son of a bitch, but it slips away and crawls out of the sleeper. Except it didn’t really. So 5 minutes later it is back for more, and I brutally kill it in front of several locals just staring at the only blonde person on the bus, who is letting out a victorious laugh.

Our 19-hour bus ride turned into 22 hours, of course. We only had an apple and some crackers each all day, one pee break, and so many horny locals around us in this confined space. This was without a doubt a busride from Hell.

March 14, 2014

Bombaystic Mumbai

christinelouise Asia, NovaTOURient, Travel Talk 2014, Asia, bombay, India, mumbai

I wish I could tell you the story of how we went to Mumbai and saw everything there and took lots of pictures and were extras in a Bollywood movie and had the time of our lives. Sorry to disappoint.

On the bus, as we get off it to have our only toilet break that night, instead of available toilets, I am sent off to pee behind a bush. Not only is is pitch black outside, I am also very worried that the bus will leave without me, so I hurry up and relieve myself behind a friggin’ bush. As I walk back, a girl, Jill, jumps out and begs me to not let the bus leave without her, as she is running towards the bush now.

We arrive in Mumbai early in the morning, and Sara feels a bit sick and I want a shower more than I could want World Peace or a million dollars. We get into a cab, arranging to meet later at a café with Mike, Jill and a girl named Victoria. We take a long time agreeing on a price with our driver, and as we get in, another driver/businesspartner gets in with him. We start driving, and the deal we made with the driver is out of the window. When we come to a stop in traffic, we get out and start getting our luggage, until they both agree to lower the price a bit, but it is far from what we initially agreed on. They’re upset, we’re upset, and there’s just no winning this, but we’re sick and tired and dirty, so we stay in the cab. Turns out that not only is our hotel nearly impossible for taxi drivers to find (then again, they seem to know the city as well as we do), it is also very far away from the bus station. We drive through neighbourhoods consisting of old, worn-down buildings, “nicer” slums and a whole lot of pollution. At first I think it’s just a very foggy day, until someone tells me it is actually dirty air. How nice.

We are staying at Bentley Hotel Churchgate (on Marine Drive), and it is better than we could have ever expected. Our room is so big and clean, with a vanity, air-con, a couch and a safe box omigoshyouguys! The bathroom is out of this world, compared to what we’ve had to deal with lately, although showering is still just pouring a bucket of water over your head.

Shower time

We put on our Salwar Kameez’/Punjabi dresses that we bought in Delhi, and go to Leopold’s for lunch, with all the men outside yelling “Bollywood extras!?” It has been on my bucket list for ages, but with two days in Mumbai and Sara feeling sick, it seems that will have to wait until next time. Oh well. We break our vegetarian streak by eating a Caesar salad, and I actually feel bad about it. I was kind of proud of myself , since I am a huge fan of meat. After that, we walk around for like an hour trying to get a taxi that isn’t trying to scam us, and of course we almost rip each other’s heads off in the process.

We take a nap at the hotel, hoping that it will make Sara feel better, but it doesn’t. We have to meet up with our friends from the bus at 7 though, so we get out of bed and into a cab. Our driver is hilarious, saying he doesn’t want our money and proceeds to ask us if we “like Indian banana?” I am appalled, thinking he means he wants something other than money as payment for the ride, but then suddenly he gets out an actual banana and hands it to me, insisting I keep it. Needless to say, we payed him, ’cause that was just plain weird. At Leopold’s (again) we meet Mike, Victoria and Jill. A big meal, 6 huge Kingfisher’s and a banana covered in ketchup (that I actually eat on a dare) later, it’s almost 11 at night, which seems to be a dangerous time to be out as a white girl in India. We all say goodbye, I get Jill’s number in case she wants to hang out before her flight the following night, and we head home.

Next morning, Sara isn’t feeling any better, but we have a lot to do on our last whole day in Mumbai. After breakfast at the hotel (more masala chai, yum!), we take a long taxi ride to a much recommended, super hard to find travel agent. Holi Festival is coming up, and we have been thinking about celebrating it in Pushkar, as alcohol is not allowed there. Sara is concerned for our safety during such a big celebration. Well, no one seems to be able to get us to Pushkar in time, so instead we book a bus to Udaipur. We’re so spontaineous, ha ha.

We go see the Gateway of India, which is kinda underwhelming, but it gives us a reason to take a picture of me.

Close by there is an Indian Starbucks which means air-con! We head in and grab something to drink, share a cake, and Sara steals a roll of toilet paper in the bathroom. We are so cultural.

Next thing on our list of things to get done is to find a charger for the computer that we brought. After another drive with a confused man behind the wheel, we find a place where the nice people promise to order one and bring it to our hotel – and they even agree to take a look at my camera too, but can’t promise anything. Well, a few hours later, a guy brings us our stuff to the hotel and we are beyond excited… Until we realize a part of the charger/adaptor is missing! I call the company, but no one understands me, so the nice receptionist at our hotel talks to them for us, but it doesn’t help. Instead, he gives us directions to a department store that’s closing within an hour, where we can find plugs, so we run down to Asiatic and pick up a plug, along with some colours for Holi. Day saved!

We then watch the sunset from Chowpatty beach, which is right across the street from the hotel. It’s so beautiful, that everyone gathers at the beach to look at the drowning sun, even the crabs. Sara and I sit there for a long time, just watching the crabs have an epic duel.

We have a late dinner at Pizza by the Bay, where we also had lunch (we’re repeat offenders). The lunch was amazing and the dinner good, although I underestimated the amount of chilli flakes on my pasta, and I end up eating less than half of my portion. The waiters are all very nice, but I think they are a bit offended that I don’t finish. Still a bit hungry, but unable to finish my pasta, I order dessert, and so does Sara. Halfway through my cheesecake I am full. Once again, the waiters seem to think I hate the food, and it’s really awkward.

I’m a bit bummed we didn’t see more of Mumbai, but we definitely needed more time. Even though it is more populous than Delhi, it doesn’t seem nearly as crowded or aggressive, and therefore not as scary for a tourist. While a lot of what we’ve seen are poor neighbourhoods, the cleaner parts of Mumbai has some amazing architecture (Central train station, High Court and so on) that reminds me a bit of Europe. It seems very different from the flamboyant India, with the bright colours and details, we’ve seen so far. I thought wearing a Punjabi dress would make us blend in more with the locals, but not only do a lot of them wear more “western” styled clothing, it also gives us more attention than ever. Especially from men. I will definitely recommend any tourist doing it though, as people really seem to appreciate that you try to blend in, and I’ve gotten so many compliments on my dress!

March 13, 2014

No Hospetality in Hospet

christinelouise Asia, NovaTOURient, Travel Talk 2014, Asia, Hampi, hospet, India, Night bus

Since we’re becoming packing geniuses, we have a lot of time to kill before checkout from Hema Guest House, so we sit at their restaurant and relaxed for a few hours. Then we move on to an internet café for an hour. Then The Laughing Buddha for a couple of hours as well. Today is our fourth day as accidental vegetarians!

A group of aussies are also sitting at The Laughing Buddha and I basically just listen to them talk. I love the aussie accent and I miss it every day. India is like New Europe – full of Germans, Brits and the occassional Scandinavian. Well, it’s 3-ish and we put on our backpacks and get on one of the little boats to get to the other side of the river. This glamorous broad falls. On my knees. On a boat. That is just a little bit awkward.

We get on a tuk tuk and drive off to Hospet. Our bus stop here is basically just a pile of dirt on the main road. Mike from England is the first person on the bus to get there, and we sit there just the three of us for an hour until we start wondering where that bus to Mumbai is at. Robin from Canada and Victoria from Spain arrives and announces it’s delayed a few hours (of course), so we all go for some Thali, which is so spicy it makes me cry, but at least it’s only 50 Rupees. Poor Mike goes on an hour-long search for a bathroom, as only women are allowed to use the ones around the bus stop. People in Hospet don’t seem too helpful, I tell you that. Also, women actually have the upper hand here? That is new.

Finally our bus arrives, and it is a bit nicer than our last one. Still a bumpy ride though.

March 12, 2014

Hampi

christinelouise Asia, NovaTOURient, Travel Talk 2014, Arambol, Asia, Elephant, Hampi, Hema Guest House, India, Ludu's Guest House, Night bus, Sightseeing, Sunburn

A night at Ludu’s Guest house is like sleeping on the beach. Our room, or should I say hut, is located right on a giant rock, that’s attached to several others going out in the water. As we are slowly snoozing off, we can hear the waves from the ocean hitting the rocks, and we feel the cold air streaming through the windows – they aren’t completely sealed, as one could imagine. Definitely an experience.

By 11.00 we are all packed and ready to go, except we need to find that guy who showed up out of nowhere last time we needed him. Whaddaya know, he’s right there! It’s amazing! Truly magical! We pay him 600 rupees and head off with our heavy backpacks once again. Sara sneakily picked up an old edition of Lonely Planet at The Jungle Hostel that had recommended the Relax Inn restaurant, so we go there for breakfast (err, pancakes), which is nice. We still have a lot of time to kill before going to Mapusa though, so we go to a café close to the bazaar and the beach, and just abuse the Wi-Fi for travel planning (and Facebook, who are we kidding?)

When we are super bored of that, we grab a shady-looking cab, but I negotiate a very low price, and there are no better options around. 30-60 minutes later we are in Mapusa and meet up with Selina and Angi at Ashkor restaurant. In the heat, eating this super spicy food with nothing but water to drink, our eyes are watering and the sweat is running, not dripping, from our faces.

The next couple of hours we all sit pretty much in silence by the bus station, waiting impatiently for our busses – theirs to Mumbai, ours to Hampi, which Angi recommended for us back at The Jungle Hostel. The sunburn is slowly turning into a painful scab on my face, and the Nivea cream Tal gave me helps, although the perfume stings a bit. I feel miserable and ugly. Lucky, our bus has a nice double sleeper bed in the front waiting for us, but calling it a bumpy ride to Hampi would be an understatement. Really.

At one point, the bus stops to let the passengers empty their bladders. 10 rupees each, and you got this luxurious stall:

Now, I don’t mind paying to sit on a porcelain throne, use silk to wipe my ass and water to flush with. Paying to squat in harem pants is just wrong. I can happily announce it went well though. Back to the sleeper for a ride that has me singing Mohombi – Bumpy Ride all night long.

At 7 or so in the morning, the roads get even bumpier, and nature outside is looking greener and more lush. We are finally in Hampi. As we haven’t booked a hostel, we get our backpacks and go straight on the hunt for a hostel, as do all the backpackers. It is like a race to see who gets the last room in a hostel first, so we are all taking big steps. We first go to Mowgli’s Guest House, but it is a bit too expensive and too long until check-in. We move on, and a few minutes later, as all hope leaves my body, we find Hema Guest House, which consists of a cozy restaurant and turquoise houses with bright hammocks. We immediatley check in and demand a hammock. A monkey is jumping around on the thin roof of our house, which gives off loud, thundering noises, so we name him Lars Ulrich.

We drop off our stuff and head to the river and buy a ticket for a tiny boat to take us to the other side, where Hampi Bazaar is. The elephant Lakshimi of the main temple is getting a bath in the river as we arrive, so people are gathered around the drop-off.

Hampi bazar from our part of the town

We are surrounded by drivers that offer to take us around to see the sights for the day. We get into a tuk tuk and start our day of sightseeing. It takes most people at least 5 hours, if not several days to see it all, but we are done in about two hours – we didn’t bother to get a guide book, so all of these pretty ruins are just that: pretty ruins. I took a 1000 pictures of them, though. Prepare to be visually bombed.

Lotus Mahal, the Queen’s palace, in Vijayanagara

The elephant stables in Vijayanagara

Rice field across the street from our hostel

A place to wash your feet at one of the temples

The Queen’s bath

We go back home to nap, and then head to The Laughing Buddha for dinner. It has the best atmosphere yet, with candles, Bob Marley posters on the wall, chill music and pillows on the floor instead of chairs. The walk there through small paths seems a bit sketchy though.

The next day we wake up early to go see the main temple, Virupaksha, and the elephant. Absolutely amazing. For 10 rupees, Lakshimi will smooch (bless) you, which feels, uhm, funny. Sara takes the most unfocused picture ever, so I try going back to do it again, but an elephant never forgets, so it refuses to accept my money.

The kid is obviously excited about this elephant. At home, we pay to see them. It’s called a zoo.
There are so many monkeys around the temple, it’s (pea)nuts.

Groups of young local people approach us and ask for pictures with us. It’s pretty common for tourists in India to experience this, but this is our first time! I feel like a celebrity! Actually, thank God I am not a celebrity back home, this will get old really fast.

As we are walking out of the temple, two men dressed up in God-know-what approach us and ask for a picture, too. We get the feeling that they want us to pay afterwards, just like the gladiators do at the Colosseum in Rome, so we politely decline. They don’t back down and we explain to them that we do not have any money on us, which they say they’re fine with. I take a picture of them with Sara, the one of me is too blurry to make out.

After the pictures have been taken, SURPRISE SURPRISE, they want money from us. We just tell them the same thing we did before, and they let us go with the promise that we will pay them next time we see them. Yeah right.

For lunch we go to The Mango Tree, that unfortunately is not the same as in Vagator. It’s still very cute though. We also look around the bazaar and buy some stuff, and I meet a couple of kids and have a “sword fight” with them. So adorable. At this point, we are just a nose ring away from looking like every other tourist around here in our tank tops, harem pants, messy hair in a bun and colorful anklets and toerings. I swear I also have a Ganesh T-shirt now.

For post-lunch snack and dinner we go to Sai Plaza, which is close to our hostel and has terrible service and just alright food, but at night they show The Wolf of Wall Street, so we decide to come back for some entertainment. Although a sign in the restaurant specifically says “no drugs allowed”, a couple decides to pass a joint around, and the guy sitting next to us holds on to it long enough to finish it. It’s kinda off-putting when you’re eating, really.

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