Intrepid Journeys - India

Hey all

Quite eventul day today, I started with a Traditional Ayurvedic Body Massage at this place recommended by the Lonely Planet. Went nuts and had th full massage option, as apparently it also "accelerate sblood circulation to prevent diseaseses like nervous disorders, rehumatism and muscular skeletal disorders" apparently. Beauty, guess I'm safe now. Quite an experence, and when you get an hour for less than NZ$10, why not!

A big day for the lonely planet, we also rickshawed to a restraunt it recommended on the other side of town for it's "legendary chicken and meat biryanis".. bloody good too. Nothing flash, nice and cheap and HEAPS of locals so it's gotta be good!

Strolled a few kays down to "Jewtown" as it was meant to be a bit of a tourist spot as well. Shops here were almost all the same though and the service was fairly in-your-face. Theres only so many times you can look at the same crap and ask what price it is. The dudes from the shops try like the hard-sell. They talk so much shit trying to get you into their shops. I ended up taking the piss, pointing at my foot and saying 'orange, orange!' or saying 'No, I've got a urinary tract infection'. These guys have no clue and its fun to see them confused after they hassle you for so long... [my urinary tract is fine thanks] Caught a ride back with thus guyy in his Ferrari! (again, wait till u see the pic!)

Earnt my place as the abolute KING of bartering when I bought two goods. Talked one guy from 100 ruppees down to 65 and the other from 50 to 30. Pretty good i reckon! I've got WAY more game than Maya when it comes to bargaining. It's all in the eyes......

Had booked a Kalikathi (or something like that) performacne earlier so finished the evening with that. Again recommended by the Lonely Planet, apparently it's a bit of a local specialty. A cross between a play / song / dance thing, it tells a (vague) story through song, dance and facial expressions of the characters. They have this unreal makeup on that takes over an hour to apply and can do some INSANE things with their eyes (think pop-out, spin around etc). An alright show, must admit I got a bit bored though. For your average white person I'm sure it'd be fascinating.....

The emperor really didnt dig his new look

A few more things to do tomorow AM before we're off to Bangalore!
Nick

Hi all,

M pretty much covered the haps for today. Thought during the bus ride to and from the canals I managed to suss out a few more of the road rules around here:

Overtaking...
1. If you think you cant make it..... you can
2. If you know you cant make it..... honk your horn and you can

3. Theres no such thing as GIVE WAY
4. Never, in any circumstances STOP

[/b]The boat rides
Also, in true India style the boat broke down after the first leg. Nobody bothers to tell you about this though but we (the Germans, Spanish and ourselves) kinda figured it out after 20 minute of still be tied to the island. In the end they managed to make one working engine out of the parts from two and we were on our way once again.

Fairly good trip, well worth it. Have since got a mean seafood feed at Fort Kochin and been checking out the local stores (mainly art & craft). Some pretty mean stuff that I think I'm gonna have to buy before we cruise outta here the day after tomorrow.

We opted for the prawns rather than the "Fry-D oistures and muscles" (good England, huh?) and they went straight from the seamongers table into the pot at this food stall / restraunt on the beach. Decent prawns but waaaaay overcooked - India style, so a bit of a waste.

Haha, the waiter at the beach / pavement restraunt type thing we had the prawns at recommended this bar to me. We cruised down to check it out and but it was so ridiculously dark and seedy we had to leave. Even located down a dark alleyway! Cant wait till Bangalore / Goa where drinking isnt such a subculture.

Like Urdu (old Indian language) I am starting on the Left of the page (well today and will attempt to add a Maya-retrospective to the already posted Nick-tales)

A Bugger of a night, mostly because it was so sticky hot and the sheet sacs were awesome but too hot to breath under them when one is hiding from mosquitos!! Anyway headed off to the 'Backwaters' with Crazy Erratic and Tooting bus driver to where we were loaded onto a houseboat complete with red plastic chairs. Rather an idealic ride along to the 'Shellfish processing' place which was non-operational on Sundays !! and to admire local medicinal plants etc. Highlight was Kerala Lunch... White rice (std), potatoe/pumpkin/some other root vegetable curry, salads of different types and some beautiful fresh yogurt lightly spiced!! Then punting along some smaller waterways stopping to have fresh coconuts and to see Coir ropes being made.

Exploring the backwaters of Kerala

Tonight made B-line to waterfront to buy our own seafood and have it cooked for us. Decided on a huge plate of Tiger prawns and had them made into 2 dishes. Beautiful flavours but a tad overcooked, like ordering med-rare and getting well done!!, just not what your mouth was watering for.

Cheers
Maya

Wheeeew, am sitting at an internet cafe in Cochin (South West Coast) after finally putting stuff from last week onto the blog.

Been a long couple of days. Starting yestreday with another trip to Navsari, packing for the our first Tour and leaving Matvad at 10pm for the drive to Mumbai. Again, a ridiculous drive (see above)

Found ourselves in what looked and felt like a different country after our flight. Bloody hot too at 31 degrees! Before long we were in a taxi and headed for the Kochin CBD to setup a game plan for the next few days here. Got a 5 ruppee (just over 10cent!) ferry across to the island of Fort Kochin and have got a room at a backpackers-type place here. Quite a different feel to the other places I've been in India with people being more friendly, a lot more tourists (all Germans so far) and more english being spoken. Had some yum Portugese-style fresh fish feed and have got a 7 hour houseboat tour of the Kerala Backwaters planned for tomorrow. Should be good, looing forward to bed tonight though!

Lots of cool architecture and even the 'Santa Cruz Basillica' here which was first built in 1510. Different stuff around because of the influence of the Portugese and British who had both setup decent sized colonies here.

Nick

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