Getting from Udaipur to Goa turned out to be a bloody mission. Because most of the trains were fully booked and we didn't want to go on waitlist, we had to try and find trains that had tourist quota tickets available (there are a couple of tickets held back for foreign tourists on certain trains). So in the end our journey took two days and involved a bus ride, two overnight trains, a brief sleep on a train platform while we waited for sunrise, and a 2km walk. After all that we were very happy to finally see the ocean again.
There are heaps of beaches to choose from along the Goan coastline, and we'd decided to stay at Palolem beach in South Goa. It's a nice sandy beach that curves around to form a relatively protected bay which is good for swimming, and there are palm trees lined all along behind the beach huts. There are no big resorts or really flashy places that ruin the look of the beach, and most of the beach-front accommodation is temporary huts that are broken down at the end of each season and erected again the following season. On recommendation from a couple we met in Jaipur, and Cliff and Joyce who also stayed there shortly before us, we ended up staying at Lira's. She's a lovely, friendly local woman who has 6 or 7 rooms she rents out and we got a great one - it was a permanent structure attached to the house, rather than one of the temporary huts on stilts, so it was sheltered from the sun which made it much cooler. We had our own bathroom and a couple of chairs outside on the porch which looked right out on the beach in front. And all for only AU$6.35 a night. What more could you ask for?
We spent three weeks on the beach getting quality chill out time, and we happily spent our days swimming, reading, finishing our stash of bhang cookies and eating some great food. The day we arrived was the end of Meat Free March, so we rewarded ourselves with a full English breakfast including baked beans and bacon. A month of being vegetarian was easy and not at all lacking in variety, but we also enjoyed being able to eat delicious pork products again. Lira really looked after us too, cooking us a couple of tasty meals and getting fruit and veges from the market for us at local prices. What a gem. When we reluctantly left Palolem at the end of April, it was getting towards the end of the season so a lot of huts were already being taken down. We could easily have stayed longer, but we still had a couple of weeks to check out some other places.
From Goa it was a relatively easy journey inland to Hampi, a village among the ruins of the former capital of the Vijayanagar Empire. It's a very popular place to visit and it's visually impressive - the whole area is surrounded by millions of huge rocks and boulders piled in random hills and formations. Apparently this is all as a result of nature - wind, rain and erosion all working to expose these rocky outcrops. Whatever happened, it's a very unique and strangely beautiful landscape. We probably chose a bad time to visit Hampi as it was stinking fucking hot, with no escape from the constant and oppressive heat. But we didn't let it stop us from exploring the ruins of the ancient empire. Because they cover a huge area, you have to either hire scooters or pay someone to drive you around in a tuk-tuk. We chose the latter. Our guy drove us around for a couple of hours, taking us to all the free sites where we could walk around and check it out. It was pretty cool and he knew a fair bit about the area and it's history so he had some interesting facts to tell us along the way.
Another day we hired scooters and rode around checking out the surrounding area. There's a big lake with warnings all around not to swim because of the crocodiles (just a scare tactic), and we rode miles in both directions, simply enjoying feeling a breeze on the scooters which was non-existent otherwise. Of course it did eventually get too hot so we had to have a break until the sun went down, but it is a great way to see the area. And cheap as shit too - less than AU$3 per scooter (plus petrol).
From Hampi we cut straight down the middle of the country to Mysore, a city known for its palaces, monuments, markets and friendly people. It's also apparently the second cleanest city in India. We only had a couple of days here, and just for something different we decided to visit the zoo, which is one of the oldest in the world. We don't actually like seeing animals caged in small enclosures, but there were heaps of different animals and birds we'd never seen before. It's a very popular place for locals to visit, and unfortunately for us there were a lot of fucktards there that day - either pushing their way to the front and fucking up our photos or throwing stones at animals to wake them up. For those particular dickheads Kurt gave them a taste of their own medicine by throwing stones back at them. See how you like that you twats.
To our utter delight, Mysore had some pretty good street food which we were all over like a rash. Our favourites were manchurian, which is little bits of cauliflower coated in a kind of batter, fried and then tossed through a tasty sauce; an awesome salad of very thinly sliced veges in a slightly spicy dressing and topped with nuts and crispy crackers; and for something sweet a faluda (or falooda) really hit the spot. A faluda is a sweet ice-cream drink, with all sorts of goodies added to it - rose syrup, jelly, dried fruit and then topped off with a thick, creamy milk almost like condensed milk. The perfect way to round off a meal.
By this point we only had a few days left in India, so we headed across to Pondicherry (now Puducherry), which is on the east coast. It was the largest French colony in India and it still retains quite a heavy French influence in the old quarter, with Mediterranean style houses and a lot of bakeries. It's a very pretty city, so although it was stinking hot here as well, it was a nice place to walk around. Especially along the waterfront, which at night is packed with thousands of people taking a constitutional in the relative cool of the evening. We had a nice place to stay, which had a communal kitchen and huge dining table, so we happily spent our final days in India wandering the streets and eating good food - cheap mangoes (one kilo for AU$1) to eat and make into smoothies and deliciously fresh baguettes we bought to make sandwiches. Sometimes it's the simple things like being able to make our own meals that we miss while on the road. So this was a great way to end our time in India.
And with that our 3 months were up, so it was off to Chennai to get our 1am flight to Sri Lanka. India still remains Kurt's favourite country to backpack in, as it's just so full of excitement and input for the senses. It's a bit of a love/hate relationship for me so I was ready for a change, but we're definitely not done with India just yet.
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| Views from the train to Goa |
There are heaps of beaches to choose from along the Goan coastline, and we'd decided to stay at Palolem beach in South Goa. It's a nice sandy beach that curves around to form a relatively protected bay which is good for swimming, and there are palm trees lined all along behind the beach huts. There are no big resorts or really flashy places that ruin the look of the beach, and most of the beach-front accommodation is temporary huts that are broken down at the end of each season and erected again the following season. On recommendation from a couple we met in Jaipur, and Cliff and Joyce who also stayed there shortly before us, we ended up staying at Lira's. She's a lovely, friendly local woman who has 6 or 7 rooms she rents out and we got a great one - it was a permanent structure attached to the house, rather than one of the temporary huts on stilts, so it was sheltered from the sun which made it much cooler. We had our own bathroom and a couple of chairs outside on the porch which looked right out on the beach in front. And all for only AU$6.35 a night. What more could you ask for?
We spent three weeks on the beach getting quality chill out time, and we happily spent our days swimming, reading, finishing our stash of bhang cookies and eating some great food. The day we arrived was the end of Meat Free March, so we rewarded ourselves with a full English breakfast including baked beans and bacon. A month of being vegetarian was easy and not at all lacking in variety, but we also enjoyed being able to eat delicious pork products again. Lira really looked after us too, cooking us a couple of tasty meals and getting fruit and veges from the market for us at local prices. What a gem. When we reluctantly left Palolem at the end of April, it was getting towards the end of the season so a lot of huts were already being taken down. We could easily have stayed longer, but we still had a couple of weeks to check out some other places.
 |
| Our reward for a month of vegetarianism |
From Goa it was a relatively easy journey inland to Hampi, a village among the ruins of the former capital of the Vijayanagar Empire. It's a very popular place to visit and it's visually impressive - the whole area is surrounded by millions of huge rocks and boulders piled in random hills and formations. Apparently this is all as a result of nature - wind, rain and erosion all working to expose these rocky outcrops. Whatever happened, it's a very unique and strangely beautiful landscape. We probably chose a bad time to visit Hampi as it was stinking fucking hot, with no escape from the constant and oppressive heat. But we didn't let it stop us from exploring the ruins of the ancient empire. Because they cover a huge area, you have to either hire scooters or pay someone to drive you around in a tuk-tuk. We chose the latter. Our guy drove us around for a couple of hours, taking us to all the free sites where we could walk around and check it out. It was pretty cool and he knew a fair bit about the area and it's history so he had some interesting facts to tell us along the way.
Another day we hired scooters and rode around checking out the surrounding area. There's a big lake with warnings all around not to swim because of the crocodiles (just a scare tactic), and we rode miles in both directions, simply enjoying feeling a breeze on the scooters which was non-existent otherwise. Of course it did eventually get too hot so we had to have a break until the sun went down, but it is a great way to see the area. And cheap as shit too - less than AU$3 per scooter (plus petrol).
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| Time to get the ducks back home |
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| Giving way to a wide load approaching |
From Hampi we cut straight down the middle of the country to Mysore, a city known for its palaces, monuments, markets and friendly people. It's also apparently the second cleanest city in India. We only had a couple of days here, and just for something different we decided to visit the zoo, which is one of the oldest in the world. We don't actually like seeing animals caged in small enclosures, but there were heaps of different animals and birds we'd never seen before. It's a very popular place for locals to visit, and unfortunately for us there were a lot of fucktards there that day - either pushing their way to the front and fucking up our photos or throwing stones at animals to wake them up. For those particular dickheads Kurt gave them a taste of their own medicine by throwing stones back at them. See how you like that you twats.
To our utter delight, Mysore had some pretty good street food which we were all over like a rash. Our favourites were manchurian, which is little bits of cauliflower coated in a kind of batter, fried and then tossed through a tasty sauce; an awesome salad of very thinly sliced veges in a slightly spicy dressing and topped with nuts and crispy crackers; and for something sweet a faluda (or falooda) really hit the spot. A faluda is a sweet ice-cream drink, with all sorts of goodies added to it - rose syrup, jelly, dried fruit and then topped off with a thick, creamy milk almost like condensed milk. The perfect way to round off a meal.
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| Fresh and slightly spicy salad |
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| Cauliflower manchurian |
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| Refreshing faluda |
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| Masala dhosa |
And with that our 3 months were up, so it was off to Chennai to get our 1am flight to Sri Lanka. India still remains Kurt's favourite country to backpack in, as it's just so full of excitement and input for the senses. It's a bit of a love/hate relationship for me so I was ready for a change, but we're definitely not done with India just yet.
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