Intrepid Journeys - India

Now in Goa, self-proclaimed 'beach party capital' of India. Look like the peak tourist season is over though as it's not exactly pumping.

Domestic air travel in India rocks!! Rest assured there are no cows or beggars in the aisles and the service is top-notch. Had a great flight here on Kingfisher Air, and domestic airports are excellent too.

Kingfisher Air, supposedly India's 'budget' domestic airline are totally wicked. Run by a dude that owns the brewery producing the renowned beer of the same name (what a guy!), they offer a A-Z service. They're with you from taking your bags out of your rickshaw when you arrive at the airport, right through to loading them at your next port of call. Not to mention good food and inflight entertainent to rival Singapore Airlines. Reading through the in-flight mag, there was an article about the Director of Kingfisher also publishing a swimsuit calendar. Again, what a guy! Makes beer...owns planes....makes swimsuit calendars.

Anyway...In an attempt to avoid hotel issues a-la-Bangalore, we wasted no less than an hour in Panji (capital of Goa), trying to find a fax machine where we could get the Navsari travel agents to fax a copy of our passports to. Worked in the end, by which time my t shirt felt like a blanket in the 36' heat. Note to all travellers... dont expect that 'Tourist Office of India' or the 'Government Tourist Office' to be able to help you with anything AT ALL. Nothing. Zilch. Zippo.

Got a decent mid-range hotel for the night (still no 24/7 hot water, let alone carpet) as we planning to splash out for the last night or two at a food+booze provided palace. Had entrees at this AMAZING lebanese restraunt next door to Hotel called 'Shalom' - dining tables / bar are on a multi-level deck ON TOP of a massive bottom-lit pool. Totally wicked. Turns out it'd only been open 12 days. Food was a treat too! Ate Kingfish at a beach shack (with liquid equivalent on the side) for desert. Delicious.

Have walked a few kays along the beach this morning, it's totally packed with beach hut / shack restraut-bars and zillions of loungers. Ridiculous really...think Baywatch but on loungers and with 'Raj' and 'Ashok' instead of Mitch and Kit. The loungers look pretty inviting; am gonna set aside a day to lie back, get comfortably drunk and enjoy the view.

HEAPS of Hawkers everywhere here too. On the streets... on the beach.... constantly pestering. Every Dipak, Anil and Apu have "very special prices just for you" on anything from shoes and towels to lobster and margaritas!

Gameplan for today is to book some top-end accom for the next few days + get transport from Mumabi to Navsari on the 7th.

Sweet as, am gonna try upload some photos now too
Enjoy

Nick

Ok so you know the whole 'fingers crossed' thing? Didnt help. Got back to Hotel Toms at ten past two and tried talking to the manager (who was now on the front desk). After a lot of wasted time I've decided I need to get my hands on an Indian dictionary and lookup what a 'Booking' means to these fools.

He stuck to his speil that no1 had vacated and they had a 'wedding party' coming in who had pre-paid for their rooms...therefore there were no rooms available. Sure, acceptble enough. Except when the guy on the desk who we phoned the previous night said 'Yes, we have rooms available', took our details and said he'd see us at 2pm. Mr Manager maintained that this was a "conditional booking", conditional upon them having rooms available. Despite none of these 'conditions' being told to us over the phone when they confirmed our booking. Go figure. It was all I could do to open up a can of Whoop Ass (Contract Law edition) on his ass!

So.... he sent us to 'Hotel Vellara'. Didnt look too bad from the street but trying to get a room proved more than difficult. Our Navsari travel agent had advised us NOT to take our passports. Being a tad wary about only having a NZ Drivers License as ID I took a photocopy of mine. Turns out Hotel Vellara had a strict passport-checking policy for all non-indian nationals. Anway the guts of it is that most hotels here insist that THEY had to check you're a legitimate tourist (hey, forget customs and all that...) and since we were holding only a copy of my passport and nothing of mayas(thanks for your advice, Kalpna travel, Navsari!!!) we couldnt get a room.

Despite what Maya may tell you about Hotel Sunflower, it was another dump. Clean enough but nothing spectuacular. VERY bottom of the range by NZ standards. Hotel dude insisted it had hot water. Tempted by the 'hot' tap on the shower before we went out, this turned out to be a lie. He neglected to mention the hot water only runs in the mornings...

Collected a pretty good haul from the Brigaide Rd shopping area. Nice and cheap, just the way I like it!

'Out' in Bangalore is eventful once you find a place that is open past 11pm. Must take a concerted effort to get decently drunk here as you'd have to be rocking up to bars right on opening time! Hahaha it was Bollywood Night at 'Zero G' so we though we'd go along for a laugh. No less than half an hour of walking later we found it and were predicatably amused by the antics of drunk indians. Complete with token Dirty Old Men and Absolutely Munted Girl no longer able to walk. Funny tunes but they must be big pop hits as everyone(else) knew the words. Almost had to stop some people on the dance floor as it lookd they could hurt themselves....

Laters all, off for a rickshaw-tour of the city before the flight to Goa.

Ciao People,
Well yesterday was Bangalore in a nutshell... From the slums, thanks to Nicks elaborative descriptions to the Rooftops.
We managed to a place to sleep for the night.."Hotel Sunflower", right on a busy intersection, but at least it was central and came with supposed hot water and a TV (100+ channels, about 20 in English and 80 in different Indian dialects)
Wandered down Richmond Road to MG Road, the Hub and place to be seen here. Got flyer for Channa pattie burger at ...... KFC !! and there was also Eat as much Pizza for Rp99 (=$3)

Speaking of Hubs, there are these roadside, well arranged 'cafes', not unsimilar to 'Starbucks' which were positively pumping with people all there to be seen and heard, if that was possible above the loud 1980s music. Ha Ha...

Well, as Nick was hanging out for a beer we went in pursuit of some cold alcoholic liuid refreshments.. found a place called 'the 13th floor' and had to wait till 7pm (15min) for it to open, and it was well worth the wait.. cool, outside barstools with views over Bangalore in the evening, lights and no noise at that height, and the Beer .. 600ml Kingfisher was superb as well.

En-route back to Sunflower checked out another Bar called 'NASA' and Yup it was all about being in a spaceship with fluoro blue lighting and TV screens all over the place. Not sure if the music is as loud in space !!

Ho, Hum ,after some decision and indecision was decided to try and find some 'nightlife', so consulted the "Lonely Planet' only to find the so-called open to 2am places were in fact closing at 11:30, anyway headed off to a place that didn't look so far on the map. About 6 blocks later and we hear loud music coming from the top of a highrise !, Yup right on track to "Zero G", a rooftop club that was 'going off'. Yest truely there was dancing and jumping on the dancefloor, really drunk people being held up by their friends, young and old alike... but all Hip in the bangalore way. The place was rather incredible, actually outdoor with big sails well arranged and great seating in the adjacent restaurant. Watched and drank for a short time, felt strange not knowing any of the music, but pretty good beats none the less.

Not a bad day overall in Bangalore.. Silicone Valley of India
Cheers
Maya

So we slummed it in this absolute shithouse of a "hotel" (note the punctuation) in a suburb of Bangalore called Whitewaters. En route to the train station for a trip to Puddapati (where that Sai Baba dude has his ashram and mini-city) the taxi driver tells us that Baba is at his alternative ashram in Whitewaters. As Puddapati closes when he's away (and we wouldnt be able to stay there or check out the museum and stuff) we did a u-ey and headed to Whitewaters.

This Sai Baba faith is unreal; dont quite understand it but apparently the guys a bit of a living god, with millions of followers from all over the world, many of whom follow him wherever he goes and donate shitloads of $$$. There was a service on when we arrived so they wrent letting people into the compound. Seeing the crowds of people we thought we'd better find some accom asap. After a good half hour of walking and finding everything bookd up we let ourselves get led around by this guy who reckoned he could get us a room. It boilled down the the lesser of two absolute slum 'hotel' rooms. Everything in the area was packed out beacuse the Baba dude and his followers were here!

The accom was an absoltue grotto, got photos to prove it. We doused the place with fly spray and spent a good while stamping on cockroaches before getting 'comfortable.' The shower was a joke too, 80% of the water came out of the BACK of the shower head and sprayed right onto the wall....

Anyway this morning we got to the Ashram at 8.30 to check out what the service was like and see the man himself. Heck, see a living God - why not?? Cloackrooms (not allowed bags/cameras etc inside the compound) and secutity checks later we sat down inside. After an hour of waiting they played some tunes (hymms I guess, since people sang along). There were thousands of people seated in this big hall-like thing; brown people, black people, yellow people and even white people! The man himself didnt show, it was all just tunes and lighting a fire on the stage. Then everyone got up and left.... kinda anticlimax.

Got my enlighting experience escorting this blind boy to the prayer hall though. There are seperate Mens and Ladies entrance to the hall as each sit on differnet sides. As I went to take my shoes off and go through secutiry check #2 this lady comes up to me and talks in some foreign tongue and hands me her sons hand. I didnt quite understand till I turned and realisd there was a 'mens' and 'ladies' entrance to the prayer hall. The kid was blind and she couldn't guide him in coz she had to enter from the other end. So I stepped up and took the guy through, sat him down with me. Neither of us understood a word of what the other was saying but he chanted and clapped along to the tunes, looked like he was having a raging good time. I was secretly holding out for some Sai Baba miracle... like the man himself comes out, touches this guy and BOOM he can see again. Didnt happen though...maybe next time. Anyway after it all ended I was like fuck I cant just leave this kid sitting here. So I took him outside the hall + courtyard and waited for his mum. She took ages but finally came...mother and son reunited again! She looked pretty pleased to see him and thanked me by holding my hand. Awwww warm fuzzies all round.

Weird in/out rules at the ashram meant we could either check out the ashram / museum / hospital but wait until 2pm to pickup our bags or get our backs but then we wouldnt' be allowed back in. Deciding to hoof it to the (nice) hotel we booked for tonight in search of a decent shower and shops we took our bags and tried getting a taxi. After crossing railways lines with the traffic, pedestrians and animals in what felt like a dust storm we still hant seen any taxis. Ended up getting a rickshaw to "Hotel Toms".

An hour of dust-filled, pothole puncutated rickshaw ride later we got dropped off. Rickshaw driver was an absolute ROOKIE and had to keep asking people for directions. Upon going in the front desk they said that our booking wasnt in the 'book' so there were no rooms. After a bit of to and fro-ing I managed to sneak a look at their 'book' and realised the fool at the desk had written us in under 'Whitefields', despite us actually spelling the name out to him on the phone. Amatuer.

So... turns out our rooms not free til 2pm. Fingers crossed this is the case as the other three hotels we called were all bookd up. As it was its now 12.30 and we thought we'd try kill some time at this internet cafe down the road rather than hit the shops etc with our big packs and stuff on. I'm keen to see what the Bangalore 'lounge bar' scene is all about tonight, as the Lonely Planet talks sure talks it up and I'm dying to a drink

Again, fingers crossed!
Nick

Hey all,
This is gonna be brief as I have 4minutes on the net here! We've now left Fort Cochin thanks to Kingfisher Air and are currently in Bangalore. Thought we'd check out some of the wacked stuff the 'Sai Baba' faith is meant to have (apparently theres a whole mini-city here with airport, hospital and all!) plus see what else Bangalore has to offer before we fly to Goa the day after tomorrow.

Walked around the beach area in Fort Cochin this morning int he hope of seeing the Chineese Fishing Nets (they're wicked wharf-like moving structures) acutally be brought but with some fish in them....and we were in luck! I even got invited to help pull one down / in (all these guys pull down on ropes, which makes the net come in) which was a bit of fun. But, as Indian tourism goes nothing is free and I found out after that I had to part with some coin for the experience.

Currently trying to find accomodation in Bangalore, hopefully only gonna go cheapo for one night and go somewhere nice the second!

In other news I lost my Aviators off the side of the ferry in Kochin as we were getting off, amongst the hustle and bustle while (literally) jumping off the ferry.

The End
By Nick