Winter Wonderland (Palolem, India)

Such A long Journey

Well, as you all know, I'm in Goa right now enjoying my Christmas holidays. Its like I'm on vacation away from the rest of India. It took quite a while to get here. I had to take a train ride from Udaipur to Ahmdebad where I arrived at 5am. There was this awful, chemical like smell lingering around all night in my cramped upper bunk as I tried to sleep. I asked this Israeli guy what he thought it was and he came back at me with this cocky response "that's the smell of India!". I know what the smell of India is like you idiot, thanks anyway! Well, thanks to that smell, I ended up being quite nauseous and felt quite ill and feverish. I was intending on going to this Gandhi Ashram for a couple hours while I waited for my next train at 11:30am. That was no cigar. I ended up just going across the street and slept in this hotel for 4hrs.

The next train ride, I was originally waitlisted as #127 and made it down to #29. Either way, I didn't have a reserved seat/bunk on the train. I got on anyway and ended up sitting with this nice Indian family. I waited all day for the ticket collector to come around, but he never showed. The family ended up feeding me dinner and let me sleep in on the floor of their compartment. Phew... I don't know where I would have slept otherwise. The floor wasn't so bad.

Beach Bum

So needless to say, for the last week I've just been sitting on the beach mostly and doing a whole lot of nothing. Its so relaxing not having to worry about what sights to see and what city I should go to next and finding a new room to sleep in, etc, etc. Allen says that travelling in India is hard work, I'll have to agree. My vacation is a nice treat to myself. I guess its my Christmas present that I've bought for me.

I spent the first 3 days at this beach in a village called Benaulim but have now been at Palolem for the last 3 nights. I was able to meet these nice English girls, Alex, Sanne, Kay & Cat. I've been hanging out mostly with Alex and Sanne. We arrived here a couple days before Cat and Kay and got a cool little hut right by the beach.

A place to call home

So our huts are these tiny little rooms that are made out of bamboo sticks, blue tarps, beach mats and some palm leaves. We're actually on these stilts that make us about 6 feet off the ground. Every time you walk up the wooden stairs or even just turn in your bed, you feel the whole fixture wobble! I'm not too worried about it though. We've even got a balcony with a couple of chairs that we share with Paul, our neighbor from Vancouver. The hut is only costing us Rs-200, whereas some of the huts on the beach are like Rs400-Rs800! That's crazy. I guess its what happens every year at peak season. We've got a mosquito net, electricty, a fan, two large beds, a little mosquito repellent and a little table. Its amazing, all the stuff we can fit in there. Alex and Sanne are sharing a bed and I obviously get one to myself.

Deck the halls with boughs of holly...

Even though we're in a foreign country where's there's no snow and no Christmas commercialism, we were still able to decorate our place to make it feel like home.

Last night I made about 10 different sized snowflakes out of paper and hung them all around our ceiling. Everytime you walk in the door, its like a winter wonderland! As well, Alex received a couple xmas cards and she's hung them up for decor on the wall. She also bought a big colorful star that we've hung up at the top of the stairs. They're actually supposed to be put over top a light bulb and look really cool at night time (many of the restaurants have them, its really beautiful actually). I bought some cinnamon incense and we burn them to give us that smell of Christmas. I've even got some henna done on me (Alex and Sanne have taken it up as a hobby), so right now I've got a band on my arm that is made out of stars and little pine trees. On my chest I've got the symbol of Ham, a chakra or something, we took it out of a reiki book. This isn't for Christmas decor though.

A celebration

This evening, (Christmas Eve), there's all these parties going around and some nice dinner deals along the beach. I on the other hand am going to be a good boy and go to midnight mass. Each year, my siblings and I always try to find an excuse to not go, however, we all end up going anyway. I figure this year, I should go voluntarily on my own. The family that owns our huts, has offered to take me with them, since I have no idea where the church is. I hope that once I arrive back at 1am or whatever, I can find a place to have a midnight snack, in the tradition my family follows.

Tomorrow night (Christmas day), there's going to be 6 of us all going out for Turkey Dinner at this restaurant on the beach. Its a little pricy, but Christmas is always expensive isn't it? We've got some festivities planned. I took the liberty of printing off "T'was the night before Christmas" and a bunch of Christmas carol lyrics. How typical of me. As well, we're going to each buy a generic present for Rs-200 and do a gift exchange. I have yet to do my shopping!!! Oh well, I've only got one to buy. How typical of me.

Cheeky!

One night in Benaulim, Alex, Sanne and I all had a bit of a night out. We had a great dinner (by the way, the food in Goa is the best I've had all over India. There's seafood everywhere, and chicken, beef and pork. I've yet to try the beef and I don't intend to.) and then we were off to "Pedro's" where there was a "beach party". Well, it started out with just this duo on the keyboards and this girl singing some Western songs. She actually had a nice voice. After some port wine and a few other drinks, the dance floor filled up quite nicely. Mostly with Indian men dancing together, a sight you normally don't see in Canada. There was a lack of women at the party (you would never see an Indian woman there), so Alex and Sanne became very popular. We were trying to just dance with ourselves, but the men kept taking them away and wanting to have a dance. It was good fun, I haven't danced in a long time and it was well deserved. I just wish that the band and the restaurant had a bigger music selection. They only had like 7 or 8 dance type songs that they played over and over. One of them was the Cheeky, Cheeky song. I did a bit of booty dancing!


Anyway, I'm off to do my last minute, or my first minute shopping. I hope that all of you reading this have an excellent Christmas! God bless!

No time. (Palolem, India)

I keep meaning to write a blog, but the beaches here in Goa are keeping me really busy. Maybe I'll write one tomorrow. Oh what a life!

Gotta go to Goa (Udaipur, India)

I'm off tonight for like a 30 hour or more train ride to the land of Goa. I plan to make it there in one piece. I have to take 2 trains, one that stops in Ahmdebad where I have a layover of like 5 hours. In that small period of time I plan to see this Ghandi Ashram. Then I'm waitlisted on another train ride to go down to Goa, along with every other foreigner and Indian on holiday. Even though I'm on a waiting list, I can still hop on the train and go along for the ride. Why? because this is India, where there's always room for more to fit in, even when you think there's no more room, 20 more people will cram in. Also, a little 'baksheesh' (a bribe to the ticket man) won't hurt.

How Romantic!

I'm leaving an awesome city called Udaipur! Its where Octopussy was filmed. Its absolutley gorgeous here, there's a few different lakes and in the main one is the Lake Palace. I haven't gone in it because its way too expensive but from the outside at night, its just beautiful.

The other night I saw this cool cultural show, with dancing, puppets, and a balancing act. It reminded me of the days when I used to do Philippino dances at my church.

Last night me and this guy Nils from San Fransisco (I keep meeting Americans??) went to the Monsoon Palace high up on this hill/mountain and watched the sunset over the city. This is what the city is actually famous for, being romantic and having nice sunrise/sets. Afterwards we went for a really nice dinner on the lake front and splurged for some Tandoori Chicken. Man, do I miss meat!!! It was nice to have some good ol' chicken! I would have really enjoyed it more if I was having the candlelit dinner with Jeremy and not with Nils, but what can you do?

Before I forget, a few things about Jaisalmer...

The city itself was beautiful. Everything was in Sandstone. There was a cool fort, but it was really touristy inside with vendors everywhere. There were also some cool Havelis (old mansions). One of the highlights was watching this street performer sing on the street with this violin type instrument.

Also, on my safari, we stopped a few times and saw a cool Jain temple (I once did a school report on Jainism, but have no recollection of it) and also went through this old ruined village. Very interesting, I wanted to play Hide n Seek, but no time to do it unfortunatley.

The best stop was in this little village where all these kids came running up to us wanting money or chocolate or pens. In the end we just entertained and play with them. Basically we played dress up, they would try on our sunglasses and hats and jackets and we'd take photos of them. They loved it, I loved it!

Anyway, gotta go, Nils is waiting for me and we're going to check out this artificial town called Shipilgrim. Basically another cultural center.

Talk to you once I get to the beaches in Goa!

Eye of the Tiger (Jaisalmer, India)

I just returned from my 3 day camel safari yesterday. Overall it was quite an experience. Not one that I'll probably ever do again, gratefully.

What do you see in the Thar Desert?

Well, not a whole lot. I was actually expecting to see only sand for 3 days, but that was a misconception on my part. There was actually lots of different bushes and small plants. The cacti was in large clumps, not individually placed. We only came across Sand Dunes a few times, but its was so neat to see them! There was lots of different terrain as we went along, sometimes a bit of grass, sometimes rocks, hills, etc. No matter where we went, there was always shit piles everywhere, not tonnes, but enought to know that the camels have definitley done this route before. Not to mention... cows.

Its so cool to walk in the sand and make fresh footprints along the ripples from the wind. I took a picture with my own footprints, maybe I'll frame it with the famous poem printed beside it! (Kidding)

Yesterday we saw a lake where the camels were fed, that came out of nowhere. They only drank for like 3 minutes, I thought they'd drink for like 30 minutes! Man, I keep getting everything wrong!

Hey, where'd you come from?

Once again, I had this notion that we wouldn't see anybody in the desert, but for some reason, we kept seeing people cutting up fire wood, or sheep/cow herders (there was a young Indian boy with like 30 sheep, I thought of Santiago from "The Alchemist"), a few young boys playing in the sand. The thing is, there's no houses or huts or anything around. Maybe they were just a figment of my imagination!

The best one of all to appear was on our first night; we'd been riding for a couple of hours with no break and finally arrived to the sand dune where we'd set up camp. The 5 of us went for a walk around the sand and were sitting at one spot. Out of nowhere, this man comes walking towards us. He's wearing a long white outfit with a white cap on his head (he's Muslim) and a plaid scarf around his body. Around his shoulder he's got a large bag, inside was semi-cold pop and beer! Me and one of the guys got a beer each and watched the sunset go down. This is the first drink I've had since getting trashed in Ko Phi Phi. It was so relaxing and enjoyable. A little uncalled for, who expected to have a vendor selling drinks in the desert, but who cares.

Spoiled

Okay, if you've seen the movie City Slickers, the 3 characters are forced to do everything by themselves; cook, herd cattle, saves lives, give birth to a baby calf, etc. Well, I was hoping that we'd have to do some of that ourselve, but for the 5 of us travellers, there were 5 guides/workers that came along. They did EVERYTHING for us except wipe our asses when we took a dump in the sand.

They cooked good lunch/dinners! Mostly just veggies and rice or chapatis, but it was still good. They washed all the dishes, by using sand as a scrubber and water to rinse. Made nice warm fires. They always saddled the camels, like three times daily and fed them. At night they even tucked us into bed!

What's there to do out there?

Luckily I was with a good group. A Scottish couple, Jenny and Paul, who kept us laughing with their sarcastic attitudes towards themselves. They once travelled from Scotland to Indonesia without getting on a plane. So they know that they have to argue every now and again in order to keep sane, but its entertainment for us. Dave, a parole officer from Kingston, Ontario. He's funny too, just the way that he always makes fun of us and tells silly jokes. And Jolyn, a girl who grew up on a farm in B.C. She was good company to have around when I just wanted to talk about life.

When we'd have free time and not sitting on the camels (I mostly listened to my discman while riding, good call to bring it!), we would play cards or just play like good old camping games. Read our books and just tell stories of our own. I think the trip would have been different if we didn't have a good group.

Tiger and Friends

Tiger was the name of my camel. He had this weird tumor like bump on his neck. I figured out though that its for extra food storage. None of the other camels had it, so I guess that Tiger is special. Other than the camels slobbering, farting, pooing, peeing and make really weird noises, I'd say they're pretty cool animals. I love the way their legs move around and how they sit. When they eat, it is really neat to watch their mouths move around.

There was one camel that was sick or something and he kept having little outbreaks. Once I was being dragged behind him (the person in front carries my rope, Tiger was slow at times) and he went all wild. He started like screaming and huffing, the rider gave me my rope quickly and then the camel took off in a crazy rush. I'm surprised the rider didn't fall off! I'm glad that I wasn't taken along for the ride. I didn't even like the regular trotting, for one it made my ass really soar, secondly it was sometimes too fast for me to handle.

Pain.

Well, obviously I was expecting to be a little soar after the whole thing, but man, I can't believe what muscles are in pain. I figured it would only be my poor butt that would suffering, that was a naive thought. Don't get me wrong my ass is definitley soar, but so is my lower and upper back, my shoulders, my abs, my inner thighs and my upper chest. I think my preconception of only getting a soar ass, made me tense the rest of my body during the whole ride in order to prevent my ass from really riding the saddle that much.

Those little pricks!

I lived in Texas when I was 5 years old and attended kindergarten there. I really don't remember much of my whole year though. One thing that always sticks out in my head though is that all over the land there'd be these little round prickly things on the ground, the size of like a pebble. They were annoying and hurt you if got it on your bare skin. My sister and I used to try and find them and put them in other kids' hair, just to be mean.

Well, I think that Karma has kicked in and those kids just got their revenge. They were everywhere!

Not so Pushy (Pushkar, India)

Don't have much time, I was going to leave this morning around 8am to catch a bus, but they come every 30min. I kinda got stuck here in Pushkar. Its a beautiful little town (or valley) that's surrounded by these hills. In the middle there's this holy lake which is quite lovely. Unfortunatley and fortunaltey, the town is very backpacker oriented, therefore its easy to get 'stuck'.

For the first couple days I just kinda hung around and walked up and down the market, talked with other travellers and such. I was able to go up to these 2 different hills to watch 2 sunsets. There's lot of Israeli's here, like tonnes. They're all nice though. I met a Philippino American girl! That's cool to meet someone in the same situation as me, getting called Japanese, Nepali and Korean all the time. I actually met her and her boyfriend in Calcutta, but bumped into them here again and actually hung out. I watched another Tabla concert and was offered a "special chocolate ball." I almost bought one until I realized it was Chocolate covered in Hashish. Close call. The weird thing is, the city is so holy, no drugs, alcohol or meat is allowed. Go figure.

I met up with Emilie and Melissa again yesterday, but we depart again in about an hour. It was a cool little reunion after being seperated for 3 days.

I almost this guy Shyam, an Indian man working at my hotel. He's got a very sad story, how he's stuck here too. But in a different sense. His problem is that he's a computer engineer but cannot find a job and he hates working at the hotel. He feels that his god put him here to work and then good things will come. All he wants to do is support his parent in Nepal. He doesn't know what to do. He asked if there's any work for him in Canada, ANY work. I told him I don't know how immigration works, but I'd try to help him if I can when I return back to Canada. Can any of you help?

The people here are really nice, not like all the other pushy vendors I've been meeting throughout India. Ironic that it's called Pushkar.

Does anyone understand who or what Hare Krishna is? I don't. They play this song/chant everywhere. Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare, Hare Ramma, Ramma, Hare Krishna, etc, etc. For like hours. I always thought it was cult like, but maybe I'm jsut ignorant.

Okay, gotta go!

A little self education (Agra, India)

Okay, I arrived here yesterday in Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. I'm not really going to talk a lot about it. I'm sure you've all seen it in pictures and know that its a wonder of the world. You've probably even eaten in a restaurant with the same name, its that popular. I can talk about it for hours, but nothing is the same as standing face to face with it. Even in a large crowd of tourists, who've all paid 750 rupees, all fighting to find that pefect spot to get that perfect picture of when the sun first beams upon on this landmark built out of love for a dead wife, nothing will taint the magnificance of the Taj Mahal.

One thing I do have to say about Agra is that people are very very pushy about buying things and its hard to trust anyone, because all they want is money! Yesterday we were tricked into going into this marble shop where they taught us the method of how the Taj Mahal was built and how each little piece is carefully done. Afterwards it was like we were in an info-mercial, being cohearsed to by a beautiful marble table to send back to Canada. "This one is only $300 Canadian, you can put it on your credit card!" I don't think so, buddy!

Now, let me rewind a few days....

Flying High!

This is one of the most enjoyable experiences I've had so far. One afternoon in Varanasi, we found this cool hostel with a rooftop patio of the Ganja river. Of course the food took forever to prepare from scratch, like I'm talking an hour, at least. In the meantime Melissa and I just took our chairs to the edge of the balcony and people watched.

Below us there was an older man who was going about his daily business. He kept shooing away pigeon and the nasty monkeys that roam around. Later he began to roll some dough as he sat on his cement roof. It turns out (we figured this out the following day when we came back for yummy seconds), the man was actually a pigeon breeder, or owner, (I don't know the correct term). He had a whole cage full of pigeons and he would feed them and then release them. They'd all fly up into the air for about 30 seconds and fly in this circle and come right back to him. A man explained to us that owning and training many pigeons is like a sport and there's competitions for having well trained pigeons.

There was another roof top that was full of family and friends. We watched as they combed each other's hair and did their laundry and laughed amongst themselves.

The thing that I was most delighted about was these small kites that all the children had. It was a Sunday afternoon so obviously no school. If you were to look up in the sky, you'd see at least 150 kites, all different colours and all different heights. I couldn't believe at how many of them there were, everywhere! It was so cool! We saw many kids just sitting there pulling and shaking their kite strings as they watched their kites flap and go higher and higher.

I wonder how the strings don't get all tangled up together???

Live in Concert:

When we first arrived in Varanasi, this man outside of our Lodge kept asking us if we want to see a concert, his son is in it, he plays the tabla. We finally agreed on the second night.

It was really a cool experience. Our Lodge owner (Ronnie, you'll about him in a bit), told us that the family is quite poor and they are lucky if they can survive in the summer months when there's less tourists. Anyway, we basically came in and sat down on a mat on the floor and they offered us Chai tea. Melissa sat there and got henna put on her hand by the mother.

Afterwards, they turned the lights off and there were two young men sitting there, one with the tabla and one with the sitar. Basically, its a set of like bongo drums and an Indian guitar. For two hours we sat there and listened to classical Indian music. I would often close my eyes and be in awe. This was no fancy concert by any means, but was definitley one of the best I've been to.


Om

The following day, the 3 of us did a quick one hour meditation class. We learned a few things in the short time we had. I wish that I could go back and do more. I guess I've got a lifetime to learn.

We chanted, you know like OMmmmmm and stuff like that, there was this one Hindu chant we did for about 7 minutes. We did some cool breathing exercises, which reminded me of Clea, my old voice teacher (Hi Clea!).

Then we also did some focussing while we closed our eyes, its called pyschic screening. It was hard to focus, they kept saying not to analyse anything that pops up in your mind, just let it pass through. At first I could only see Jeremy, then it went to the sun and moon, then I saw that scene in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy is getting taken away in the Tornado and she sees the her Mom and the farm and Toto and then the Wicked Witch.

Then in the end we lay down while the instructor talked to us about being in the mountains, gardens, etc. It was really relaxing, he told us not to open our eyes until we orientate ourselves with the surroundings. I opened my eyes a little too soon and was like, whoa, where am I? Well, not that extreme.

Written in the stars

Afterwards, I spent 30 minutes getting my palm read by this old man. He spoke English very well, but all the stuff he was talking to me was like mumbo jumbo to me. He kept asking if I understood and I was always like, yes. It was stuff like venus and jupitar meeting at this point and prosperity because of this line on my hand which coincides with these stars. He was more of an astrologist than a palm reader.

One thing that I kinda understood was that something good will happen in July 2004 and will last for 19 years! Well, that's cool whatever it is.

A Splurge

Varanasi is famous for its silk. There's tonnes of little shops selling scarves, pillow cases, cothes, etc. Emilie and Melissa decided that they wanted a "shopping day". I could really argue with them. I haven't really boughten any souvenirs along the way other than postcards since I've been gone. They went wild, they were buying Christmas presents for everyone back home. Sorry folks, I did not do that. I did buy 2 shirst for myself! One of them has the Om Mantra on it and the other is just a plain teal Indian style long sleeved shirt. Its so nice to have new clothes. We wore them this morning, just so we'd be presentable for the Taj Mahal.

Ronnie to the Rescue

Okay, my last story, I'll make it quick.

We stayed at the Yogi Lodge in Varanasi, owned by this very nice Christian man, Ronnie and his wife. They had the best service there and were really polite and kind.

Anyway, we had to catch a 6:15pm train to Agra and got to train station at 5:45. As we were walking to our platform, I hear Emilie scream "Oh fuck! My money belt!" Foolish girl left it at the lodge in the safety box.

We had to run through a huge crowd and find a free telephone. Emilie called Ronnie in a frantic and begged him to rush the money belt over on his motorcycle.

Soon after, while we were walking down the steps to the train, Melissa slips and almost sprains her ankle. My goodness, we were wondering what would soon happen to me.

After making a few different standing posts we waited for to spot Ronnie. We were all ready to jump on the train if it was about to depart as well. Ronnie miraculously was able to find Emilie right at 6:15. She hugged him and offered him a money reward, but all he could say was to "Think about Jesus." God Bless you Ronnie.

Another Goodbye

Well, today I said goodbye to Emilie and Melissa as they go off to Jaipur and me to Pushkar (see, I'm going Al). Last night we sat around the dinner table and said why were grateful to find each other. This was Emilie's idea, not mine surprisingly.

You meet so many people along the way and some of them will be burnt into our memories. Good luck my champignons!!