Intrepid Journeys - India

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

Started the day with a cool dawn walk towards Dandi beach. Nice to be out before the rest of the village wakes up. Got some mean shots of the sunrise and of random goings on along the main road. Some absolute MANSIONS here, which are invariably built by NRI's (non-resident Indians) from the UK or wherever, spending up large with an exchange rate of 80:1. Nice. Came back as people were biking to school, taking their cattle to the fields and what not along the main road... quite interesting. Found myself followed by a couple of cattle and tried to take a covert video over my shoulder of them with their owner. The set-up of our “pleasant rural road” (Singh et al, 2005, p657 Lonely Planet India) in the Gaam (village) is different from Mumbai: ONE main road which everything happens along surrounded on each side by forrest / pasture / farm and then the occasional road off it leading to various villages.

Lagan
Lagan (wedding) happening in the village today, which we all got invited to yesterday. Ended up doing it with Maya and Jaya as others had gone to the town for boring stuff. Weddings are done quite differently over here; you invite your ENTIRE village (since you all pretty much know each other) Anyway, the pre-wedding (11-4pm) included a live band, well kinda Indian Karakoke with one guy on the mic all the time. Then there was the feed. OH the feed. I had to sit with Tagore, the guy who took us, as the ladies sit in different aisles. And it was fully village-style....Seated cross legged on mats on the ground. Had a MASSIVE feed, pretty sure I sunk more than the guy next to me...which is a good sign. Apparently they like big boys in the gaam.

[/b]Navsari Take One
Had a wicked second half of my first day in the Navsari city centre. We caught the bus in just for the experience; and an experience it was! At least 70 people in a bus that was meant to seat maybe 40. I think I know where stagecoach send thier old buses now.... this thing was borderline impound material. Noticed that the driver was reaching BEHIND his seat to change gears, there was a huge carburettor sitting next to him courtesy of a massive hole cut in the floor and beside that a four-pack of heavy duty car batteries connected together to power the beast. Interesting. Guess this is India’s idea of suped-up.

Navsari was as crazy as Mumabi but on a smaller and dustier scale. Didnt see any slum areas but the roads were carnage thanks to the shoppers / cyclists / motorbikes / rickshaws / cows / pigs / camels and cars that were weaving over them. Scored a mean shirt for all of about 180 rupees. $6! We also had a pretty yum munch at this hotel, some Masala Dosa (Savory pancake with spiced potato stuff on top) and a couple of pizza-like things... curried of course but a bit of a gamble, we ordered a "P A Pizza" and took bets on what the 'P' and the 'A' would have in store. After opening the box we decided that Maya won with "Possibly Anything" - try pickle, cucumber, cashewnuts, cabbage, capsisum, mango chutnry and cheese atop pretty much a big bread roll. Fairly boring shopping with some of the fam, but am definitly keen for another trip in. Finished up with buying some fresh fruit and vege in this crazy Bazaar (market) totally packed with people and their wares before a rickshaw ride home that was even more outta control than the taxi ride here. Wicked experience really, like a rollercoaster but with real live cars/peope/animals/bikes to avoid. Vice City fans buy your tickets now. No shortage of 'shit' / 'holy .....' and the likes from the back seat. Its not how guys drive these things that I cant get my head around.... its how they survive! Im thinking law of nature applies: IF ITS BIGGER THAN YOU GET OUT OF THE WAY....COZ OTHERWISE IT WILL KILL YOU. Doesnt get much more natural than that.

Home at dusk and have just had a visit from the people who rent my Grandad's (on Dad's side) land down the road. We went over there this morning to visit his grave, pay some respect and check out the extensions that Dad had got put onto the house there. These guys were cool, in the morning they hooked us up with this big jar of 'Tahi'. Essentially palm tree sap; called 'Neruh' when it's freshly sapped, you let it sit till the afternoon and it naturally ferments and becomes alcoholic. All good. We chilled it and just tried some, tastes kinda like really really sweet Malibu. (and yes I've got plans to distill that bad boy...see how damaging it can get). Anyway, these guys came to visit and invited us over for a woodfire bbq tomorrow. We've lined it up for late afternoon, should be awesome. Remembering that there's a ban on the sale and purchase of liquor of any kind in this state...... as they left one of the guys semi-whispered to me that they've got some beers in the fridge. This guy obviously a good cunt. My new best friend even. Excellent... beach, beers and bbq lined up for tomorrow. How can this possibly go bad?

Nick