Arambol, Palolem and Benaulim

Goooo Goa the razor sharp wit of an Indian T.V. advertisement advises. Who am I to decline such a witty invite? Nobody, thats who, so we took off to Goa.

One problem: The collosal distance of 2700km from Amritsar to Goa. Such a distance required a comfortable journey so the pre-booked firstclass cabin came in very handy. Although, housed in a firstclass cabin the cockroaches were seemingly unaware of the price we paid and refused to depart the cabin; some stamping later they got the idea. We only had a firstclass cabin from Amritsar to Mumbai (Bombay), the first 2 nights and 2000km, after that we would rough it.

I can only recall one particular part of this journey as being interesting: Upon pulling into a station I noticed a fruit stall on the platform, ravinous, I jumped off and joined the queue. Less than a minute later the engine choo choos and my train begins, albeit slowly, departing. Indian trains depart very slowly, like old fashioned movies, and eventually pick up steam so, nonchalantly, I began the 'chase'. A sudden problem rears its head: My carriage is 5 cars ahead and each of the doors I pass is locked. Picking up the pace I catch the third car: It's locked. The train is now moving considerably faster so I began an all out, shit yourself run faster approach to reaching my carriage. Droplets of sweat streamed down my face, others resided in the frames of my glasses creating a reflective pool of non-vision, my legs were burning but I had to make a final dash. With all my might I ran and finally caught the fifth car. I threw myself in and was immediately pressed for my ticket, unable to breathe and seeing Forrest Gump congratulating my physical prowess I let out a kinda of puzzled noise. Luckily one of the tea boys was about, he took one look at me, tutted and told the conductor: "Amritsar" while shaking his head.

I also read two books on this journey, reading is fun.

At 05:30 the train settled into Mumbai Central and our wild, 4km, dash to Mumbai Victoria began, our connection to Goa would depart in under one hour at 06:20. With 30 minutes to spare I was seated in Sleeper (very low) class and ready for the journey to Madgoan (Goa). Timetabled to arrive 9 hours later I couldn't wait to arrive and pick up a beer, unfortunately the Konkan Railway had other ideas: What I can only assume was Congestion and Signal Failure led to a 3 hour delay. Eventually we arrived, a one hour taxi ride to Palolem completed the journey.

Signed into a cheap hotel, had a shower and rushed out for last (food) orders; being low season the restaurants all began closing at 22:30, it was 22:15. With a touch of luck there was a splendid restaurant located 10 metres from the hotel and, rather sacrilegiously for India, they served steak. I blasphemed.

Goan days were devastating, a minimum daily high of 37^oC was promised by our waiter the previous night, promises suck! It was, still is, impossible to adequately function in the heat, it is essential to consume at least 4 Litres of water a day to replace what im losing in sweat.

Palolem is a lovely beach, truly beautiful, the problem here is a lack of activities. I believe the following are popular:

1. Sweat, and I mean buckets, it drips from my head after a mere 50metre walk
   
2. Swim in the sea. I even bought a rubber ring to float on, High Five! Caution: Due to the intensity of the sun the only sensible bathing times are: 07:00-10:30 and 16:00 - 19:00
   
3. Locate shade and drink beer. Some muppets, sadly all British, were practicing this art at 11:00 and were clearly incapable of obeying step 2, above. It was a shame this beach attracted life's outsiders: I'm no gem of society but I really hate the scum who think a holiday is only a success if they incinerate themselves to 'prove they've been away', drink all day, speak as loud as possible so we all know they're "not a fackin pussy, i'm fackin British me mate" and display their bulldog tattoos proudly on the aforementioned red chest/back.
   
4. Locate shade and drink water.
   
5. Show bogus interest when passing the homogenous shop fronts just so you can duck in and avoid the sun.
   
6. Fishing, Dolphin and romantic sunset trips were available. We went fishing and caught a grand total of zero fish in 2 hours. Marvelous.
   

Just as with every Indian city, village, shanty town, Palolem had its street cows. Not just street cows, come early evening the shore was transformed into Bovine Beach and the dogs didn't like it. Every night without fail they would foolishly pick fights with the bulls and cows, luckily for the hounds it never came to blows.

Dogs attempt a pincer movement on beach cow.

I decided to mash the rules a little and took part in what I will christen: Frying Feet, Swimming Water.

Firstly a little pre-school background: In order to swim in the sea you must remove flipflops, money and shirt. Unless you want these items stolen they are best left with a minder, usually a friend or family member. You enter the sea, swim, get bored and, once dried, put stuff back on.

Frying Feet Swimming Water strays from these standard rules. You walk to the sea, barefoot because no-one is around to look after your clothing, footwear or money. Having covered half the 200m distance you realise the black tarmac getting rather hot, after all it's two in the afternoon. Rather than head back you continue to the sea. By this time your feet really hurt. Upon entering the sea you notice that where your feet once had skin you now have enormous blisters, another give away signal is that you cannot stand up or walk and are in excruiating pain. The swimming water part comes in because all you can do is swim, walking is that unbearable.

After one hour in the sea the game contestant attempts to walk back to his hotel; he can't and hides under a palm tree for 30mins. With no cash to buy some cheap flipflops or a coke and the seat that comes with it you have to hobble back to the hotel and hope your brother is there. He isn't!

"Gone to Inet again" reads the note.

You sit on the hotel porch for 2 hours, the pain so unbareable you cannot undertake the 25 metre walk back down the road to the internet cafe. To top it off you have also been playing another game, this one lasts several days. Spicy Samosa, Sloppy Shits.

Oh Yes! The Delhi Belly arrived in monsterous fashion. No details needed here but I have to be a bloke, well gross, and inform you of the following:

The Delhi Belly had taken control of my to such an extent that in one restaurant, upon finished a lovely tandorri fish I shit myself. Personally I thought it was just a fart but it carried on.

Belinda joined me in Arambol on the 14th April, Arambol sucked ass though and we went straight back down south to join the drunken Lobsters.

It was great to see Belinda again and without wanting to whine on and on I'll say that we had a brilliant, if somewhat lazy week, in Palolem. It was only today when I was leaving her at the airport that it hurt, kind of felt as though I took her presence for granted whilst she was around and now she was off I was empty again. Mustn't dwell, I'll keep my emotions close to my chest and not bore you good people with yucky lovey stuff.

After leaving the airport I had to find a place to stop for one night, I decided to travel 45km south to Benaulim and get a room. I'm not going to investigate too much here because I'm tired, the Internet cafe has A/C and I'm only here for a day. All I've done today is spend an hour looking for a cheap room with a television, Man Utd play Boro tonight, had breakfast and sat at a computer for the last 3 hours.


Me and Paul fly out to Singapore tomorrow, 22nd April, I am excited and also sad. It was sad to see all the shops closing up for Moonsoon season: A beach closing up much as our Indian account is about to close. I will be sad to leave India on Sunday, I really like it here and will be back next January with Belinda; once you adapt to the place its really nice.

Signing off from India,
Mark


The sun sets on Palolem Beach

Awful Blogging Skills

Okay, Okay, my blogging skills have took a real savaging recently and I'm over 12 days behind the times. The problems are manifold:

1. I have actually typed my entry for Amritsar twice only for the internet to drop out and me lose it all. From now on, i'm working in Word (except for this which i'm foolishly typing directly into the Internet window) Dickhead!
   
2. We spent 3 days on a train travelling 2700Km, the train had no internet access.
   
3. I got Delhi Belly for real and it rendered me 'unreliable' for 5 days. If you visit India never ever eat the Samosas and Bhajis that are sold from station platforms.
   
4. The sun! It has been so hot since we left Dharamsala that I have really lost all motivation to type loads. It is currently 40 Degrees in Palolem; very unpleasant.
   

Until I get my ass in gear, NO! this isn't a Delhi Belly pun, I simply mean get my shit together, er... get my blog back on track, here is a link to my Palolem (Goa) and Amritsar photos.

I'm hungry, get me out of here!

Thursday morning was a time to be consigned to the rubbish bin, and then, as in every Indian city, gallantly digested by the cows who manage the waste disposal bureau. Waking up at 5am with stomach cramps so severe I thought my oesophagus would get shorter at any moment I was having a rough time. This was perhaps a self inflicted predicament having, albeit in an inebriated mindset, rashly consumed several glasses of Indian H₂O two nights hither.

Laying on my back the pain would wallow like a shallow puddle on my stomach, twisting to my side and it would casually wash down my side like an acidic waterfall. Adding to the considerable pain, with an unreasonable potency, was the frustration of Man United’s 2-1 loss in Rome the night before: A result whose ramifications I am still unable to effectively judge.

As fitful sleep washed over me for several hours the clock was stumbling towards 10am; time to get up. Stepping into the glorious sun had an instant positive effect on me, burning off the layers of tiredness and replacing them with a dazed inquisitiveness to investigate the local waterfall. This didn’t last and within the hour I was back, face down, on my bed groaning.

In normal circumstances taking drugs to relieve pain doesn’t appeal to me, taking them because they are illegal and feel nice, well, that’s another story; a story predominantly consigned to the past I must add. However, on this morning Ibuprofen was required and after a couple more hours peaky sleep I felt better. After one month the infamous Delhi Belly came close to acquiring a hostage, some clever negotiation, of the sort a U.S. Foreign Affairs committee could use learning paid off, and within another hour I was a free man.

The free man proudly marched off in the direction, 3km east, of the waterfall, a sight alluded to by so many it was certainly worth a punt. It wasn’t! It was the most pathetic excuse for a waterfall I’ve ever been duped into seeing. It resembled a leprechaun pissing down the white cliffs of Dover; from 200m away I couldn’t even hear the splashes from plunge pool. Unable to rouse the sufficient level of excitement to smile and trigger any endorphin release I turned my back and marched to the ice cream stand. Chocolate iced cream never tasted so good.

Today I want to eat, I want to eat eat eat. Not having the appetite for bland Tibetan or poorly prepared Indian cuisine, also a nominee for my suffering means the choice of Italian or Chinese food. Normally both are fine but after a solid week of eating Itali-fucking-an food I want something new, something nice, something English. I’d love to kill one of the street cows myself and sizzle up a steak; they’re enough to go round. Whats that? An enquiry as to the culinary skills of the Chinese Chefs? I reckon this stuff is produced my a man with a similar disposition as myself; a high blood cholesterol, and he is taking revenge at every normal person by loading the Chow Mein with so much ghee it arrives on my lap looking more like a soup.

Yes, I’m sick of Dharamsala now. Thank I’m departing bound for Amritsar tomorrow.

Dharamsala

"Dharamshala! Dharamshala!" yelled the coach person.
I was half awake and was hoping that it would soon be time to disembark. The alarm on my phone had been set for 4.30 having been promised a 5am arrival time. Yet to sound I realised this was early. Looking at my watch I was stunned to read 3:30am.

We got off the coach and luckily there were a couple of others with us, 2 Thai girls and a French lass, we all got taxi into Mcleod Ganj (Dharamsala is nothing more than a stopping point) by now it was pushing 04:00. I whipped out the Rough Guide from my bag and began to search for some of the hotels advised to stop at. Setting off down a pitch black alley only my K750i in hand I used the light from its camera to guide the way, 5 mins later, and a long hill: Nothing. Every hotel we found was closed and had no bell to ring the reception.

After trying 5 hotels and desperatly needing sleep we were in no mind to give up and set off down another road, again phone torch in hand. 3 mins downt he road it was pitch black and the only sound we could here was barking dogs. From past experience in Delhi and Shimla dogs tend to have owners and hence be locked behind walls or gates so we carried on. All of a sudden the barking became louder, more aggressive and we could here paws clambering up the hill and heading our way.

"SHIT!" I thought. Before I knew it, five growling dogs were 2m from me, I was at the front being the bravest, hehe. As we all turned around to calmly (but really i was shitting it) walk away 3 more dogs appeared behind us. These were eyeing us up and worryingly one of them was limping and drooling, the worrying appearance of a Rabid little shit. I cannot describe my fear in words but it was a lot of not niceness. Luckily the Thai girls were good with animals and told us to stay calm as they made noises and calmed the mutts down. Eventually, after what seemed like forever, 2 mins, we were walking back down the street with the 3 dogs as our loyal guards; they actually turned to bark back at the orignal 5. Result!



Learn to read signs Mr Driver


A couple of minutes later we found a hotel which cost us 600Rs (rip!!) and we slept from 5:00 until 11 then wentto find our new room. We had the choice of two rooms, one with a TV and the Football channels, 600Rs or one for 300Rs without. We opted for the cheaper one and to pester Dad with texts for score updates, haha.

Since we have been here we have not really done much. A visit to the Tibet museum being the only notable event. We have been so lazy in fact that I have only taken 4 photos. During the days we have been wandering around the shops, mostly bookshops, reading and then going out to the pub in the evening. This is the first place we have found with a decent bar and a few travellers to speak to. We've also been chatting to some Tibettens which is really interesting.
One guy hiked here with a group of 12, It took him 40 days, really makes you realise how much of a crappy life some people have had. Puts in perspective the things that we moan about: Who stole my parking space? I can't get through to my bank because there isn't a human to speak to just a machine! My boss wants me to show the new person around, what a chore!

We've not had a chance to meet the Dalai Lama though apparantly he is in town at the moment. We took a walk down to his residence but didn't see him gardening to plotted revenge on China.



A Buddist Monk spins the prayer wheel.

Manali

After an unprecedented final day in Shimla we boarded the overnight coach destined for Manali. Manali lies in the Kullu Valley, 80 miles from Tibet, cradled by the Pir Panjal mountain range to the north, Parvati to the east and Barabhagal to the west. The mountains range from 3500 to 6200m and add a beautifully stunning backdrop to the town.

The roads used by our coach driver were not really worthy of such a title, dirt tracks would be an apt description. It never once seemed to enter the driver's mind that these tracks skirted around valleys which were over 1km deep. Taking corners at speed Michael Schumacher would be proud of I feared to look out the window to see how close we were coming to plummeting over the edge. Luckily the coach travelled overnight so I couldn't see too much. The occasions I glanced out of the window I could not see road, only a perilous descent.

We arrived at stupid o clock, 5am I think, and because the coach ride felt more like a ride on Nemesis at Alton Towers I got very little sleep. Upon arrival in the hotel I went straight to sleep and didn't stir until 3pm.

Due to the spiralling costs of buying tea at cafes and hotels combined with the inconvenience of not having access to a brew when I most wanted one the purchase of a kettle was in order. Frustratingly the kettles were all overpriced and would have made packing a nightmare. Conceding defeat I informed the shopkeeper we needed something small and to "forget about it". He rummaged about in a draw and found an electronic filament, "fifty Rupees you say? I'll have it". All that was needed now was a flask to boil the water in, after picking this up I was a happy lad. Tea, whenever I want. Woohoo!

The next day it was time for my second and final Rabies vaccination, so what better time for Manali to close down and hold a religious festival. Alarm bells began ringing in my head: I needed that injection to live. Luckily a local Doctor had boycotted the festival and promised to administer the vaccine once I found an open drugstore. Eventually, after a lot of panic, and 6 hours later, a shop opened, then another, then,... a drugstore. I rushed in, picked up the prescription and got myself fixed.

Our third day saw us undertake a 15km hike to a city we never found. Bloody Typical! Setting off at 10am for a village called Solong, mapless and with a promise from the tourist office that we need just follow the path and we would arrive in 4 hours we did just that. It was a nice walk but after 4 hours we hit a dead end: An army base and a river. We attempted to skirt around the base following the outer wall around the bank of the river. Unfortunately the route became perilous, snow 3 feet deep blanketed a river bank which consisted of loosely piled rocks and a drop of over 6m into the rocky river bed. Peril and the vast quantities of snow entering our boots and le to an abandonment of the trek. We turned around and headed back to Manali for tea. At this point the backs of my legs were burning; forgetting to apply sun cream to my poor calves was a schoolboy error. My legs burnt, our destination unfulfilled and over 8km from food I was not a happy bunny.

Back at the hotel I spent the rest of the day taking photos of the mountains from the balcony, the view was so perfect I continued messing with my camera well into the evening and captured what I consider to be some beautiful scenes.



Orion sits neatly above the mountains.

View looking down the Valley.

Lunchtime.