nickrav

Hey dudes

Currently at Mumbai Airport after a harowing 6 hour drive into the city, followed by 4 hours of waiting for my cousins plane to land and then about an hour trying to find the right terminal in the muckhole that is the airport here!!

Had at least three attempts but the info on the ticket & what the information dudes & what the roadsigns say all contradict each other! Nightmare I tell ya... nightmare.

Also got stopped by cops somewhere in Bombay city who demanded to see our drivers license and stuff. He started offering them $$$ but they werent interested. Sketchy there for a while as I didnt know if he actually had a license and we had to check in in 10-odd minutes!

Either way we made it and in 45min Maya and I are boarding our flight to Cochin to begin our first mini-adventure. From here we've got flights booked to Bangalore, Goa and then back here, spending a few days at each place. Lookin forward to gettin away from the greater fam and seeing some new scenery. Have got the last week's worth of blog and some mean pics on a cd next to me but India being what it is I havnt had much luck! The first computer here lost its internet connection halfway thru so I've switched computer. This one's cd drive refuses to open so it's not looking good!

I'll do what I can, if not here then maybe in Cochin. Sweet as, hope all are well!

Nick

9.30am start to celebrations at the town hall to celebrate the anniversary of India’s Independence. Flag raising and speeches. Followed by procession to the local primary school for even more speeches. Some well known NRIs (non-resident Indians) who happened to be in the gaam at the time took the mic but it was no use to us as none was in English.

The best bit came with the primary school kiddies singing and dancing. Any celebration is worthy of some song and dance here. Pretty awesome, wickedly colourful and a real treat to watch. The girls wear these incredibly intricate saris and loads of jewellery. Took an absolute shitload of pictures and movie clips. So many in fact that the battery went dead.

Booked flights for the India Tour 1.0 in Navsari, though it was a bit difficult with lots of places being closed due to the public holiday. Ended up with flights from Mumbai to Cochin, to Bangalore and then to Goa all courtesy of ‘Kalpna Travel’. All three flights for like NZ$350 pp was pretty sweet. Tragedy struck when they didn’t accept credit card though: gotta go back with the cold hard stuff tomorrow.

Thought we’d whip up a feast while the olds were out, turned to the fridge and realised we had all the ingredients for toasted sandwiches! Don’t expect Camaberet, Brie or even plain old tasty around here though. In India when you want cheese you get just that ‘cheese’ (or so it says on the packet) Looked promising when we bought it as it came in a block reminiscent of Mainland or Anchor, but its actually a complete block of PROCESSED CHEESE. Think 20 Chesdale cheese slices coming together as one…. Anyway there wasn’t a Panini Press in sight so I got out a pan and violla…before you know it (processed) cheese and tomato toasties! Not too bad either, tasted kinda like Maccas cheeseburgers.

It’s a bugger not having cell phone reception in Matvad, as the guy that leases our land was trying to get hold of us for another feed at his and I was going to spend a night at my granddad’s old house. Ended up a bit confused but Mum and I got there round 8 for another mantis dinner. Tandoori chicken and other stuff, Kingfisher and even rum this time. Fuck the chicken was hot though… actually thought I was gonna DIE eating it. But they keep spooning it onto your plate and you don’t wanna offend them by refusing!

Scored few km of midnight motorbike ride to get some quilts and linen. That was pretty mean; down a deserted village road while the guy driving my bike and the guy driving the other bike tried to talk to each other through their helmets at 80kph. Slept at Vajifa that night with the leasee’s nephew (also 21) to keep me company. Pretty classic, when Mum left after dinner I realised my dictionary had left and I was on my own(ie. I couldn’t ask here what the Gujurati word for xyz was when I got lost talking to the locals) Nephew dude and myself did our best with the combination of Broken-English and Broken-Gujurati; got along quite well even. I’m officially invited to play some cricket with the ‘boys’ whenever I feel like and they’re gonna hook me up with a motorbike to use when I get back from the Tour. According to him the big cities of Mumbai and Delhi have copious amounts of hot chicks too. Haha! What a good dude...

He was cruising pretty slowly when we rode to drop me home the next morning. Not being one to get bored I asked him to “Jarak aap” (loosely translated to: Give it some!) He obliged and before long my eyes were watering from the speed with which we were cutting through the cold wind. Shot!

Just got some wicked photos of a massive peacock in our back yard. Saw it sitting on a neighbour’s roof, managed to coax it down with peanuts and before long it was eating straight out of Maya’s hand. How cool is that!

Told everyone I was gonna mission the 8am bus from Matvad into Navsari last night and thought I’d better deliver otherwise I’d never hear the end of it. Maya and I got to the bus stop at 7.55 to find out that it had already gone. Ridiculous, you miss the 8AM BUS when getting to the bus stop at 7.55! Neways, flagged us a sacked-out rickshaw to Char-Raste (literally, four-roads), which is an intersection about ¾ of the way into Navsari. This rickshaw was the shit, equipped with hubbies and phat beats even! Opted to walk the couple of kays from here as we could explore on the way. Maya hooked herself up with a simcard for her mobile so she’s back online.

Navsari was chaotic as ever. Dust, cars, people, cows, animals, motorbikes, cycles, trucks, horns… you name it. India assaults all your senses at once. Managed to get ourselves into the section where we’d been over the last few days and got a card-reader for our camera on the way. ALMOST scored another shirt but I rookied out at the haggling stage and ended up walking away (a must do apparently if the shopowner refuses to budge on the sale price). No big loss, we’ll be back. In and out of lots of shops but they’re all largely the same. After a few days in the city I’ve realised all the stores can be put into five baskets: Sari / fabric shops, Menswear Shops, Jewellers, Fast food (indian style) and yup… dairies. There are a huge number of DAIRIES in India…no big surprise I reckon! Though they havn’t failled to diversify - try dairies selling footwear, freshly made sweets and crickets bats….

Explored the village for a bit on this 1950’s style bike and saw some locals at the village cricket grounds. May have to pop down have a hit around soon.

Few dramas with sickness in the camp. Two team members have been feeling sick and managed to puke a few times. Delhi belly? The Evil Giardia? Who knows…… Either way, Maya’s on to it and has been dispensing panadol + anti-nausea tablets as she sees fit. Sweet

Rudely awaken by the household waking at around 6.30am.... average. REAL average. Went for a 7am walk to Vajifa (the land that my Dad's Dad owned and Dad and his bros have now inherited) with some of the fam. Following this and some bfast at home we missioned it out to Dandi Beach. Breakfast here is SO good. Awesome smells in India and one of them is the smell of the (really really processed) bread here being toasted on a gas stove. Absolutely magic!

Grandad was a guest speaker at the opening of a new hostel at Dandi Beach High School. All 6 of us weren't gonna fit into a rickshaw so Maya and myself haille done down the road. Which was again quite an adventure.......... try 14 people in a 9-seater rickshaw. Pretty epic ride, I was half hanging out the side and all was sweet...untill we came up against some roadworks (you betcha, by hand). Turned out the detour wasn't very rickshaw-friendly so all 14 of us had to jump off and walk for 100 metres. Lots of speeches at the hostel opening so we walked the half kay to the historic Dandee Beach. Wearing boardies and packing a towel I was pretty keen for a dip but being there the water didnt look that flash. It was mid-tide but the beach is really wide and flat, took heaps of cool pics before heading back to the hostel opening for a feed. Another stock-standard communal feed. Always spicy. Always good.

Fell onto the couch and slept it all off as soon as we got home. Scored a rickshaw out to grandad's farm where we had been invited for bbq and drinks by the GC (see above!). Took us for a mean tour of the land' amongst Mango trees, coconut palms and rice plantation (plenty of screams from the old plantation) before heading back to the homestead. Had a shot at climbing a cocunut palm and felling some of the good stuff a-la locals but must admit I was quite shit. Found an old tennis ball and picked up a stick-cum-cricket bat for some BYC with one of the tenants kids. They all love cricket around here so it's a sure way to make friends. Before long Mum, Maya, Jaya and the GC himself got involved and it was a full-blowen one dayer. Play got called off for the day to poor lighting and we retired inside for some drinks. Treated to some Kingfisher beer and even a couple of big Fosters. All brewed by Bombay Breweries. Apparently Dad or my uncle had given them a heads-up and they'd managed to hook some up in the alcohol-free state. Again, Good Dudes. Need I say more? Mean feed, I got stuck into the curried chicken with roti. FRESH chicken as well, more than likely it had it's neck wrung just this morning...

Still questioning whether it's possible for me to 'adjust' to the food here. Its all bloody spicy and meal after meal I keep thinking that 'it wont be that bad this time'. Never works. It was all I could do was to try numb the burn with another Kingfisher

Nick

Hey everyone

Day four of the adventure and it's all pretty crazy. India is out of this world. Have been keeping a track of whats goin on when I get home on my Auntie's laptop and will try post them all up here one day. It's not easy to get to the net here. Currently Im cramped in this tiny cubicle upstairs somewhere in Navsari. Our rickshaw driver is supposed to pick me up again in half an hour. Havnt sorted out how much this place cost so hopefully they dont try rip me off.... fockers!

Just thought I'd check in, you'll get lots more when we get decent internet or bring the stuff from home in here on a cd. Have been eationg like a horse, sunk a few beers and generally having a good time. We were meant to set off for Goa or some other week-long trip tomorrow but its been delayed because all of the stuff we're doing / got to do here. Have scored a mean shirt for about $7 and most things here are ridiculously cheap. Have also gone crazy with photos, just because theres so much out of it stuff here. Took a couple of movies hanging out of the rickshaw too, trying to capture the absolute CHAOS on the roads down here.

Had a wee solo adventure in town getting to and from this internet café. Reasonbly cheap, it turned out to be 20 rupees an hour. Less than a buck! 20 minutes of the power cutting out and emails being lost it didn’t seem like such a bargain…. Our rickshaw driver met me here after dropping some fam off at the vegetable market. This driver clearly also a GC, whilst following him back to the vege market where some Fam were waiting with the rickshaw he took me to a CD Store. Unfortunate they were all Hindi / Bollywood CDs and I couldn’t read anything on them...

Nick