Sunday 20 December 2009
The final installment
I forgot, the first thing our taxi driver from Colombo said to us, upon disembarking was:
‘Welcome to Sri Lanka Mr Sir Charles Butcher. Great country, stupid people’.
We left Hikkaduwa with tears in our eyes. We went downstairs to say goodbye to all the staff that had treated us so well, and at first I thought they too had tears in their eyes, but they were actually still stoned and tired from the trance party. I had shaved the night before for the first time in a month, so I don’t even think the owner recognised me. Nevertheless, genuine thanks were exchanged and we were off.
Our destination was Yala national park, not too far from the South-East coast, via a 100ft concrete Bhudda statue and tunnel-temple built from Japanese donations. Apparently the Tamil Tigers and the SLA had fought a battle in Yala some years ago. Yala also has one of the most dense leopard populations in the world.
We did not see wild cats of any description. The park is best not viewed in a monsoonal downpour, and as we checked into the Yala village, at about 2pm, we were just in time for the first rains of the eastern monsoon. I was a bit nervous about the storm, because we had heard that it had not rained in Yala much over the past few weeks. When it has not rained, all the animals must search for water at the easily identifiable, large, watering holes. I asked the man at reception whether the booming, pulsating thunder meant that it was going to rain. ‘No sir’ he said, ‘this is just a small tropical shower, it will pass’.
It did not pass. It was pouring when we jumped in the jeep and pouring when we jumped out. Yala had been quite popular that day and there were no trackers left, so it was just us and the driver. However, he did a magnificent of job of searching every cranny for the elusive leopards, hooning up and down rivers, over big granite rocks and generally breaking the rules. We saw the rocks that leopards always hang out on and the remains of a meal, but the driver’s efforts were to no avail – leopards just don’t like the rain.
Despite not seeing any leopards, and getting saturated for three and a half hours bouncing around on the back of a jeep, we had a great time. Yala is mostly scrub-jungle, not the plains of Uda Walawe, so spotting wildlife is an adventure in itself. There are also huge, moss covered wetlands and an incredible beach that juts out with a granite boulder like an obelisk. We saw a lot of spotted deer, some very close up. There were reptiles galore, from goannas to crocodiles and even a chameleon eyeing us off from a tree branch. As usual there were thousands of peacocks and waterbirds perched above the buffalo wallowing in the pools of mud. Down at the beach, we caught site of a lone elephant feeding from a distance. There are very large, tusked elephants in the park, but elephants too don’t like the rain, they hang out under the cover of the jungle and wait until it stops. There is no hurry too – water is everywhere.
Right as the sun was setting, our driver glimpsed an elephant walking over the road and blasted down the trail to find it. It was a big male and we watched its trunk curling between the thicket of jungle, but it did not come out and we had to leave. We returned to the village a little disappointed, but that’s the way it goes. We contemplated the idea of canning the train from Ella to Nuwara Eliya the next day and going out on the jeep again the next morning, when it would be clear, but the observation carriage on the train was supposed to be very good – so we opted to stick with the plan.
Our hotel was very nice. Yala village is right inside the park, so after six you have to be escorted to and from your room on the chance that wild elephants attack (oh how I wish they did!). Our room was simple, but very clean, with, I must say, the best interior decor thus far. We had a drink on the observation balcony and stared at pictures of leopards and elephants and bears that we did not see. Dinner was a huge buffet with everything imaginable. However, I opted for the plain old Indian curry and roti breads.
We were up at 5:30am for the drive into the hills. As we expected, the weather was beautiful. We saw a crocodile lazing in the lake right out the front of our hotel. The drive to Ella took a few hours of winding through the Sri-Lankan hills, and we stopped at a waterfall for some tea on the way. We arrived at Ella train station roughly on time to find out that our observation carriage tickets were not actually booked, but had been supplanted by some public sector intervention. So we had to be satisfied with second class tickets. The very little green and brown train rattled into the station on time, but, as we got on, there were no seats in second class. In the end we sat in the corner on the floor of the ‘restaurant car’. It was a beautiful view if you could squish past the other two hundred people packed into the restaurant car, and we took turns at kneeling beside the window to take photos. By the end of the three hour journey, neither of us could feel our bottoms and we certainly had a taste of Sri-Lankan public transport, but all I could think about were lost leopards, elephants and bears.
We disembarked at Nuwara Eliya, the highest town in Sri Lanka and one of the centrepoints of the tea industry. Tea is everywhere – I have often heard that the hills are ‘carpeted’ in plantations, and that is a pretty accurate metaphor. It is like that have taken the original hills and shaved them bald. Then they put a knobbly green carpet all over them. The plantations roll on and on forever – kilometres and kilometres of smoothed, luminous green hills broken only the roads and armies of tea pluckers traversing the brown tracks cut into the hills.
For lunch we had some very genuine Sri Lankan rice and curry with beef, chicken, dahl, coconut sambol, and papadums. It was an enormous meal. That afternoon we visited a tea factory which went through the process of how tea is made. I did not know that tea is fermented. I was pretty tired from the early start though, and was most entertained by the Santa Claus wearing what looked like a bearded ‘scream’ mask handing out balloons. From there we visited a ritzy hotel, and our driver went AWOL and pretended that we were interested in a room so he could get a look at them. We managed to convince him to drive us back to the hotel, and, both still full from lunch, we went to bed.
We slept in (relatively) the next morning for a leisurely breakfast at about nine. By ten we were on the road again, this time to Delhouse – the launching point for our 2am walk to Adam’s Peak. The drive was extraordinary – along potholed, single lane roads swirling through the tea plantations. Driving through them was a slow affair - apart from the hair-pin bends that plummet into the green abyss, there are the psychotic red buses that career around every one of them. The road moves through many tiny villages with mothers and fathers and their children, just standing on the porch, waving and smiling to whoever comes past. So too the tea pluckers who come to the roadside to combine their individual sacks of tea – they smile and wave as we pass. Even at the innumerable security checkpoints the eighteen year old soldier with an AK-47 smiles and waves as he lets us through.
We arrived in Delhouse in time for some lunch and a stroll through town. Delhouse is a tiny town, built mainly to service the pilgrims who take the 5000 step walk to the peak at this time every year. Most religions claim the peak in some way or another. The Catholics think that Adam (or St Thomas, either will do) took his first step on earth here. Hindu’s believe something similar, but with one of their gods and Buddha is said to have taken his last step here before ascending to nirvana. Most of the pilgrims are Buddhists, but through the window of our hotel room, we could hear the familiar, sonorous Hindu music wafting from a loudspeaker over the valley. Our hotel had a great view – from a balcony you could see up either side of the mountains surrounding the valley – some of them planted with tea, to the peak itself, which is periodically covered with passing clouds. At night, a single lane of lights crawls up the mountainside to the summit.
Dinner was an assortment of curies with rice and pappadums, served with the assistance of a sri-lankan man sporting a huge gut, a mullet, a sarong and a t-shirst reading ‘i’m sick of it all’. We both went to bed early, but I was anticipating the 2am alarm and didn’t sleep well. The alarm didn’t matter anyway as someone came bashing on our door at two. We woke, put some DEET on for the leeches (along with some clothes) and went downstairs for coffee (the ‘i’m sick of it all man was still there in the same shirt’, smiling). By 2:30 we were on our way through Dalhouse town. All the shops were covered in tarpaulins, but you could hear people snoring behind them. It was a clear night. Stars and the illuminated trail were clear and easily visible – except for the peak which was obscured by a solitary cloud.
The first part of the walk was gentle, past a couple of temples, some statues of Buddha and one of Ganesh. After the first couple of kilometres, however, the stairs became steep. And when we thought they could not get any steeper – they did. All the way up the trail – right to the summit – were shops overstocked with coke, biscuits and lumps of what looks like brown fudge (but is actually awful to eat). The fittest people on earth walk up and down this trail with boxes of glass coke bottles on their heads.
We had been walking for an hour and a half or so, and were now stopping every couple if minutes to rest, when we heard the sounds of Buddhist chanting and thought we must be close. We struggled further and further up, sweating and heaving with breath to find out that another of these small shops had a big radio and that the summit was ‘another 2 hours’ further up.
Further on the stair became so steep that handrails were attached to the trail. As we moved into the solitary cloud (produced by the sweat of westerners I think now) it became extraordinarily cold. The steps went on and on. Kate threatened to vomit every couple of minutes. It was an eerie place. It is pitch black but for the orange lights. Clouds rush past in front of your eyes and it is bitterly cold, but sweat has wet your entire shirt and you are really hot on the inside and cold on the outside – like a badly microwaved pie – trudging one foot after another towards a distant echo of chanting further up in the clouds.
Eventually, eventually, we ascended our last step to the summit at around 5am. I was expecting a flat rock with some vegetation and this mythical footprint, but there is just a small temple with some drummers and a guy sitting behind a desk asking for donations from a microphone.
We had walked up 7km of steps for nearly 2 and a half hours and felt duly satisfied. However, the point of walking up is to catch a glimpse of the sunrise. Being an hour or so away, we huddled at the top in the freezing wind beside a dog that had followed us the entire way.
Alas, we were foiled again. All we saw (apart from a very occasional glimpse) was the grey innards of passing clouds. At around 6:30 we joined the local pilgrims and walked back down. We met a Welsh guy on the way and chatted back through the valley to the hotel. After breakfast, we jumped back into the car. Kate sat in the front and spent most of the slow, windy journey, waving at people on the roadside.
Eventually we turned onto the main highway, although we had to stop and turnaround at a few points because we had gone the wrong way. Once on the highway, it was a quick drive to Kandy, stopping only once for spicy roadside rottis .
Our hotel in Kandy was on the side of one of the hills surrounding the city, and looking over the lake in the middle of town. Both Kate and I were exhausted and sore from the walk and we chose to lay low for the night – we went for a swim, had dinner and went to bed.
Kandy is an old city and the Sinhalese cultural capital. I read that for 300 years this kingdom in the hills managed to survive against repeated Dutch and Portuguese raids. It was not until 1815, when, what sounds like internal dissent, created the motivation for the Kandian king to sign over his territory to the British for the purposes of ‘law and order’. Kandy is now Sri Lanka’s second largest city (but pales in comparison to Colombo, which has over a million people. Kandy had around 112,000 in 2006). The town is nestled into and surrounded by hills crawling with jungle. We have to keep the doors locked because the monkeys hanging in the trees are on constant patrol for anything left on the balcony. Every morning they come out and sit on our balcony, munching on their morning’s steal of croissants and bread rolls from the buffet downstairs. One night we made the mistake of leaving a bottle out there. By morning the monkeys had smashed it all up, probably looking for food inside.
The main part of town seems to be the lake, which is long and narrow and ends in the centre of town, not far from one of Sri-Lankan Buddhists most sacred sights – the temple of the tooth.
We were up at 7:30 the next morning and went for a swim, had breakfast and prepared for a big (and final) day of sightseeing. As we were about to leave we got a phone call advising against travelling on public transport, as there had been some cases of avian flu here recently. The guys at reception did not seem perturbed, they just suggested not to travel on the bus. We had actually planned to take the 654 from the clocktower to the botanical gardens later that day, but alas, just as with Unawatuna, the public bus in Sri Lanka eluded us.
So we walked down, past the lake in the centre of town (which had some dead carp in it), to the temple of the tooth. The temple is said to contain the sacred relic of Buddha’s left tooth, but there is some controversy over whether the Portuguese stole the tooth on one of their raids and destroyed it in Europe. Of course the Portuguese records say that they did and the Sri Lankan records say that the Portuguese destroyed the ‘fake’ tooth relic that they kept for that purpose. Either way, the Sri Lankans believe it resides in the inner sanctum of this temple, and is a very sacred site for them. In fact, even the British acknowledged that this relic was important for the stability of the Kandyain state and consequently the effectiveness of their indirect rule. The British took the tooth as well, but had to return it and apologise for the offence caused. That is probably why the LTTE bombed the temple in 1998 or 1999 ( I think ). In the museum there are many photos of the crater left by the truck bomb and the damage to the temple, which was very extensive. Burma and Thailand had donated many ornate statues and gems to the temple and they were on display as well. It was a good museum.
Before visiting the museum, which is inside the temple, we walked though the outer courtyards, where they were preparing for an address by the president that evening. As you would expect, there the army was everywhere with roadblocks and machine guns. It was an interesting contrast to see a fully fortified pillbox out the front of the ‘ministry of Buddhist affairs’ building.
Once inside the temple, we visited the inner sanctum where the tooth is supposedly kept. During our visit the morning ceremony was underway (good luck rather than good management) and so we watched the Kandyian drummers and pilgrims being herded past the relic. We joined the line and were herded ourselves past the little door that opens to the place where the tooth is kept. I was being a good tourist and trying to take a photo, so missed the chamber we were being herded so fast. Kate looked and saw one of the big gold dagobahs (half domes with a pike on top) that the tooth is supposedly in. I think i now understand George Lucas’s inspiration for the planet dagobah where the very Buddhist Yoda comes from. In fact there was a Yoda lake on our way to Yala National Park.
From the sanctum there was a series of smaller temples, one very hindu looking with colourful dragons and an unidentified god, and a reading room. Outside people were placing prayer candles on a rack and another dagobah and some more temples with adorned statues of Buddha and other figures inside. The temple elephant was hanging around eating and there were two more elephants chained further outside for the pleasure of tourists. Elephants have obviously always been a part of Sri Lankan life and culture, but it’s still not enjoyable to see them like that.
From the temple we walked down the main street of Kandy, past the heritage queen’s hotel which retains all its white, austere Britishness. A wholesale handicrafts market was in one of the adjoining buildings and both secret santas did well here.
Further down the main road there was a bakery which did decent coffee and fantastic pastries and sandwiches. Being a little sick of rice and curry we hung out here for quite a while. The main street was busy with stalls on the footpath selling colourful toys and underwear. As we walked towards the clocktower, where the red buses and green tuk-tuks live, a demonstration started to brew. After three weeks, I finally worked out who the opposition candidate for the presidency is. It is a general from the army. Both candidates are running on the platform that they won the war. The demonstrators marched up the street letting off fireworks, waving green flags and jutting pictures of the general in the air. Near the clocktower busloads of people carrying blue flags brandishing pictures of the president were gathering. We decided to head off at that point.
A tuk-tuk drove us to the botanical gardens, about 7km outside of central Kandy. We wandered around the gardens which had every variety of vegetation imaginable form herb gardens to flowers to rainforests. One palm tree, found only in the Seychelles produced coconuts 10-20kg in weight that take decades to produce. Mostly, however, the botanic gardens were a den of kanoodelling. In every shaded corner and tree crevice were local couples embracing and glancing furtively at passers-by. As with everywhere, there was a scam, and here, it is the ‘come and look at the scorpion I just caught’ angle.
We did not ask our tuk-tuk driver to wait around, but as we walked out of the botanic gardens, exhausted from the kilometres of wandering in the heat, there we was at the gate, waving and smiling. I was impressed at the initiative – he certainly took a risk in coming back to get us. It also means that we probably paid a little too much. Nevertheless we were overjoyed that he was there and, although he also tried to take us to a silver shop (which is standard), we tipped him well.
That evening we went for a Kandyian dancing show. Officially it is the ‘Kandyian arts and cultural centre’, but if you walk in the front door, it looks more like a bingo hall with old men leaning lazily against the wall sipping drinks and smoking. A lady was counting piles of money on a cheap craps table. Down the hall was the auditorium and we sat with about six other people waiting for the show to start. It was a shame that so few people attended, because the dancing was brilliant. The show was professional, the costumes were incredible and the performances visually stunning. There was fire walking and some great drumming. We enjoyed it alot. Kate enjoyed it so much she wanted to take home a piece of the action, and with some translation help did a dark deal in the carpark for a handmade Kandyain neckpiece.
We had dinner but something was awry in Kate’s and she spent the night vomiting. By the morning she was tired, but feeling much better. We put our departure time back an hour and left the hotel at nine. The drive to Kegalle took two hours or so. We stopped on the top of of one of the hills surrounding Kandy for a photo before leaving.
Kegalle is near the Pinewalla elephant orphanage. Various people had told us differing stories about the quality of the place, but we were impressed. First we walked down to the river, where maybe 200 elephants, orphaned for some reason or another, were having their morning swim. None of them were chained and it was an awesome spectacle to watch them wallow and roll in the river and throw mud all over themselves for a few hours. They come incredibly close to the rocks where people watch (and there are many many tourists), although always under the eyes of their ‘mahouts’. The elephants are still wild and have been known to get aggressive. One elephant had lost a leg, apparently from a land mine.
After the bathing, all the elephants walk back up the street to the park area. We had lunch in the restaurant overlooking the river then walked up the park. In the park the elephants just roam around eating. The only chained elephant was a huge blind tusker. Apparently if they don’t restrain him he just walks around bashing into trees and other elephants, injuring himself and potentially the numerous baby elephants in the park. He does get regular walks. It was extremely hot and all parts of the park are in the sun, so we jumped back in the van and headed for Negombo.
We reached Negombo (near the airport) at around four, (after I had to guide our driver through various towns). Negombo is a lot like other Sri Lankan towns that we passed through except that instead of a Buddha or a ganesh in a little box with flowers around his head, there is a statue of Jesus in a box with flowers around his neck. Negombo is 90% Catholic – something which dates back to the Portuguese era. There are still large white churches and river canals from that period.
Kate had a sleep when we reached the hotel and I sat outside trying to find a wireless internet connection and getting eaten by mosquitoes. We left for the airport at 1am, and had a little sleep before. Our flight left Colombo at 3:20am and we arrived in Chennai at 4:25. After making our way through the incomprehensible web of security checks and forms our flight to Delhi left at 6:35 and we came in on time at 9ish. Thankfully there was someone there to pick us up and we got into the hotel by 11 – not in time to visit our favourite Indian buffet joint around the corner for breakfast. It was interesting to see Delhi from the air. After an endless patchwork of rice fields and agricultural land, delhi rises like a juggernaught from the landscape. There are very few tall buildings, just a jungle of stout, square apartments. Even from the air, the pollution on the Yumna was visible.
After checking in we took the metro to Ramakrishna Ashram Marj and finished up our shopping. Even for the third or fouth time, Delhi is still left us bewildered. As we walked out the door, a giant eagle swept down in front of us to grab a piece of rubbish that must have had some morsel of food in it.
From the metro we walked down the Parhaganj bazzar and fended off our last wave of touts and shifty men asking you to come back to their house for tea. Many of them have an uncanny ability to pick your nationality. There are very few Australians here, but they seem to be able to spot me – maybe its the shorts. For the last time we choked and coughed in haze, dodged the piles of rubbish and dangling electrical wires and picked black snot from our noses. Thankfully we didn’t have to do too much bargaining.
In the evening we had dinner at a local restaurant and met up with Kristine – the girl we met on our first tour into the mountains. It was nice to catch up, although we were all tired and we met up again the next morning for breakfast and lamented about all the things we would miss (mine was the food).
We are staying in the same hotel as when we first arrived. Mentally (and temporally) it is eternity ago that we stepped into the burning air from Delhi international airport and thought ‘what have we done?’ as the tuk-tuk careered its way through what looked like a wasteland of rubble and dust.
We are looking forwards to stepping off the plane in Sydney.
Love,
Kate and Charles.
‘Welcome to Sri Lanka Mr Sir Charles Butcher. Great country, stupid people’.
We left Hikkaduwa with tears in our eyes. We went downstairs to say goodbye to all the staff that had treated us so well, and at first I thought they too had tears in their eyes, but they were actually still stoned and tired from the trance party. I had shaved the night before for the first time in a month, so I don’t even think the owner recognised me. Nevertheless, genuine thanks were exchanged and we were off.
Our destination was Yala national park, not too far from the South-East coast, via a 100ft concrete Bhudda statue and tunnel-temple built from Japanese donations. Apparently the Tamil Tigers and the SLA had fought a battle in Yala some years ago. Yala also has one of the most dense leopard populations in the world.
We did not see wild cats of any description. The park is best not viewed in a monsoonal downpour, and as we checked into the Yala village, at about 2pm, we were just in time for the first rains of the eastern monsoon. I was a bit nervous about the storm, because we had heard that it had not rained in Yala much over the past few weeks. When it has not rained, all the animals must search for water at the easily identifiable, large, watering holes. I asked the man at reception whether the booming, pulsating thunder meant that it was going to rain. ‘No sir’ he said, ‘this is just a small tropical shower, it will pass’.
It did not pass. It was pouring when we jumped in the jeep and pouring when we jumped out. Yala had been quite popular that day and there were no trackers left, so it was just us and the driver. However, he did a magnificent of job of searching every cranny for the elusive leopards, hooning up and down rivers, over big granite rocks and generally breaking the rules. We saw the rocks that leopards always hang out on and the remains of a meal, but the driver’s efforts were to no avail – leopards just don’t like the rain.
Despite not seeing any leopards, and getting saturated for three and a half hours bouncing around on the back of a jeep, we had a great time. Yala is mostly scrub-jungle, not the plains of Uda Walawe, so spotting wildlife is an adventure in itself. There are also huge, moss covered wetlands and an incredible beach that juts out with a granite boulder like an obelisk. We saw a lot of spotted deer, some very close up. There were reptiles galore, from goannas to crocodiles and even a chameleon eyeing us off from a tree branch. As usual there were thousands of peacocks and waterbirds perched above the buffalo wallowing in the pools of mud. Down at the beach, we caught site of a lone elephant feeding from a distance. There are very large, tusked elephants in the park, but elephants too don’t like the rain, they hang out under the cover of the jungle and wait until it stops. There is no hurry too – water is everywhere.
Right as the sun was setting, our driver glimpsed an elephant walking over the road and blasted down the trail to find it. It was a big male and we watched its trunk curling between the thicket of jungle, but it did not come out and we had to leave. We returned to the village a little disappointed, but that’s the way it goes. We contemplated the idea of canning the train from Ella to Nuwara Eliya the next day and going out on the jeep again the next morning, when it would be clear, but the observation carriage on the train was supposed to be very good – so we opted to stick with the plan.
Our hotel was very nice. Yala village is right inside the park, so after six you have to be escorted to and from your room on the chance that wild elephants attack (oh how I wish they did!). Our room was simple, but very clean, with, I must say, the best interior decor thus far. We had a drink on the observation balcony and stared at pictures of leopards and elephants and bears that we did not see. Dinner was a huge buffet with everything imaginable. However, I opted for the plain old Indian curry and roti breads.
We were up at 5:30am for the drive into the hills. As we expected, the weather was beautiful. We saw a crocodile lazing in the lake right out the front of our hotel. The drive to Ella took a few hours of winding through the Sri-Lankan hills, and we stopped at a waterfall for some tea on the way. We arrived at Ella train station roughly on time to find out that our observation carriage tickets were not actually booked, but had been supplanted by some public sector intervention. So we had to be satisfied with second class tickets. The very little green and brown train rattled into the station on time, but, as we got on, there were no seats in second class. In the end we sat in the corner on the floor of the ‘restaurant car’. It was a beautiful view if you could squish past the other two hundred people packed into the restaurant car, and we took turns at kneeling beside the window to take photos. By the end of the three hour journey, neither of us could feel our bottoms and we certainly had a taste of Sri-Lankan public transport, but all I could think about were lost leopards, elephants and bears.
We disembarked at Nuwara Eliya, the highest town in Sri Lanka and one of the centrepoints of the tea industry. Tea is everywhere – I have often heard that the hills are ‘carpeted’ in plantations, and that is a pretty accurate metaphor. It is like that have taken the original hills and shaved them bald. Then they put a knobbly green carpet all over them. The plantations roll on and on forever – kilometres and kilometres of smoothed, luminous green hills broken only the roads and armies of tea pluckers traversing the brown tracks cut into the hills.
For lunch we had some very genuine Sri Lankan rice and curry with beef, chicken, dahl, coconut sambol, and papadums. It was an enormous meal. That afternoon we visited a tea factory which went through the process of how tea is made. I did not know that tea is fermented. I was pretty tired from the early start though, and was most entertained by the Santa Claus wearing what looked like a bearded ‘scream’ mask handing out balloons. From there we visited a ritzy hotel, and our driver went AWOL and pretended that we were interested in a room so he could get a look at them. We managed to convince him to drive us back to the hotel, and, both still full from lunch, we went to bed.
We slept in (relatively) the next morning for a leisurely breakfast at about nine. By ten we were on the road again, this time to Delhouse – the launching point for our 2am walk to Adam’s Peak. The drive was extraordinary – along potholed, single lane roads swirling through the tea plantations. Driving through them was a slow affair - apart from the hair-pin bends that plummet into the green abyss, there are the psychotic red buses that career around every one of them. The road moves through many tiny villages with mothers and fathers and their children, just standing on the porch, waving and smiling to whoever comes past. So too the tea pluckers who come to the roadside to combine their individual sacks of tea – they smile and wave as we pass. Even at the innumerable security checkpoints the eighteen year old soldier with an AK-47 smiles and waves as he lets us through.
We arrived in Delhouse in time for some lunch and a stroll through town. Delhouse is a tiny town, built mainly to service the pilgrims who take the 5000 step walk to the peak at this time every year. Most religions claim the peak in some way or another. The Catholics think that Adam (or St Thomas, either will do) took his first step on earth here. Hindu’s believe something similar, but with one of their gods and Buddha is said to have taken his last step here before ascending to nirvana. Most of the pilgrims are Buddhists, but through the window of our hotel room, we could hear the familiar, sonorous Hindu music wafting from a loudspeaker over the valley. Our hotel had a great view – from a balcony you could see up either side of the mountains surrounding the valley – some of them planted with tea, to the peak itself, which is periodically covered with passing clouds. At night, a single lane of lights crawls up the mountainside to the summit.
Dinner was an assortment of curies with rice and pappadums, served with the assistance of a sri-lankan man sporting a huge gut, a mullet, a sarong and a t-shirst reading ‘i’m sick of it all’. We both went to bed early, but I was anticipating the 2am alarm and didn’t sleep well. The alarm didn’t matter anyway as someone came bashing on our door at two. We woke, put some DEET on for the leeches (along with some clothes) and went downstairs for coffee (the ‘i’m sick of it all man was still there in the same shirt’, smiling). By 2:30 we were on our way through Dalhouse town. All the shops were covered in tarpaulins, but you could hear people snoring behind them. It was a clear night. Stars and the illuminated trail were clear and easily visible – except for the peak which was obscured by a solitary cloud.
The first part of the walk was gentle, past a couple of temples, some statues of Buddha and one of Ganesh. After the first couple of kilometres, however, the stairs became steep. And when we thought they could not get any steeper – they did. All the way up the trail – right to the summit – were shops overstocked with coke, biscuits and lumps of what looks like brown fudge (but is actually awful to eat). The fittest people on earth walk up and down this trail with boxes of glass coke bottles on their heads.
We had been walking for an hour and a half or so, and were now stopping every couple if minutes to rest, when we heard the sounds of Buddhist chanting and thought we must be close. We struggled further and further up, sweating and heaving with breath to find out that another of these small shops had a big radio and that the summit was ‘another 2 hours’ further up.
Further on the stair became so steep that handrails were attached to the trail. As we moved into the solitary cloud (produced by the sweat of westerners I think now) it became extraordinarily cold. The steps went on and on. Kate threatened to vomit every couple of minutes. It was an eerie place. It is pitch black but for the orange lights. Clouds rush past in front of your eyes and it is bitterly cold, but sweat has wet your entire shirt and you are really hot on the inside and cold on the outside – like a badly microwaved pie – trudging one foot after another towards a distant echo of chanting further up in the clouds.
Eventually, eventually, we ascended our last step to the summit at around 5am. I was expecting a flat rock with some vegetation and this mythical footprint, but there is just a small temple with some drummers and a guy sitting behind a desk asking for donations from a microphone.
We had walked up 7km of steps for nearly 2 and a half hours and felt duly satisfied. However, the point of walking up is to catch a glimpse of the sunrise. Being an hour or so away, we huddled at the top in the freezing wind beside a dog that had followed us the entire way.
Alas, we were foiled again. All we saw (apart from a very occasional glimpse) was the grey innards of passing clouds. At around 6:30 we joined the local pilgrims and walked back down. We met a Welsh guy on the way and chatted back through the valley to the hotel. After breakfast, we jumped back into the car. Kate sat in the front and spent most of the slow, windy journey, waving at people on the roadside.
Eventually we turned onto the main highway, although we had to stop and turnaround at a few points because we had gone the wrong way. Once on the highway, it was a quick drive to Kandy, stopping only once for spicy roadside rottis .
Our hotel in Kandy was on the side of one of the hills surrounding the city, and looking over the lake in the middle of town. Both Kate and I were exhausted and sore from the walk and we chose to lay low for the night – we went for a swim, had dinner and went to bed.
Kandy is an old city and the Sinhalese cultural capital. I read that for 300 years this kingdom in the hills managed to survive against repeated Dutch and Portuguese raids. It was not until 1815, when, what sounds like internal dissent, created the motivation for the Kandian king to sign over his territory to the British for the purposes of ‘law and order’. Kandy is now Sri Lanka’s second largest city (but pales in comparison to Colombo, which has over a million people. Kandy had around 112,000 in 2006). The town is nestled into and surrounded by hills crawling with jungle. We have to keep the doors locked because the monkeys hanging in the trees are on constant patrol for anything left on the balcony. Every morning they come out and sit on our balcony, munching on their morning’s steal of croissants and bread rolls from the buffet downstairs. One night we made the mistake of leaving a bottle out there. By morning the monkeys had smashed it all up, probably looking for food inside.
The main part of town seems to be the lake, which is long and narrow and ends in the centre of town, not far from one of Sri-Lankan Buddhists most sacred sights – the temple of the tooth.
We were up at 7:30 the next morning and went for a swim, had breakfast and prepared for a big (and final) day of sightseeing. As we were about to leave we got a phone call advising against travelling on public transport, as there had been some cases of avian flu here recently. The guys at reception did not seem perturbed, they just suggested not to travel on the bus. We had actually planned to take the 654 from the clocktower to the botanical gardens later that day, but alas, just as with Unawatuna, the public bus in Sri Lanka eluded us.
So we walked down, past the lake in the centre of town (which had some dead carp in it), to the temple of the tooth. The temple is said to contain the sacred relic of Buddha’s left tooth, but there is some controversy over whether the Portuguese stole the tooth on one of their raids and destroyed it in Europe. Of course the Portuguese records say that they did and the Sri Lankan records say that the Portuguese destroyed the ‘fake’ tooth relic that they kept for that purpose. Either way, the Sri Lankans believe it resides in the inner sanctum of this temple, and is a very sacred site for them. In fact, even the British acknowledged that this relic was important for the stability of the Kandyain state and consequently the effectiveness of their indirect rule. The British took the tooth as well, but had to return it and apologise for the offence caused. That is probably why the LTTE bombed the temple in 1998 or 1999 ( I think ). In the museum there are many photos of the crater left by the truck bomb and the damage to the temple, which was very extensive. Burma and Thailand had donated many ornate statues and gems to the temple and they were on display as well. It was a good museum.
Before visiting the museum, which is inside the temple, we walked though the outer courtyards, where they were preparing for an address by the president that evening. As you would expect, there the army was everywhere with roadblocks and machine guns. It was an interesting contrast to see a fully fortified pillbox out the front of the ‘ministry of Buddhist affairs’ building.
Once inside the temple, we visited the inner sanctum where the tooth is supposedly kept. During our visit the morning ceremony was underway (good luck rather than good management) and so we watched the Kandyian drummers and pilgrims being herded past the relic. We joined the line and were herded ourselves past the little door that opens to the place where the tooth is kept. I was being a good tourist and trying to take a photo, so missed the chamber we were being herded so fast. Kate looked and saw one of the big gold dagobahs (half domes with a pike on top) that the tooth is supposedly in. I think i now understand George Lucas’s inspiration for the planet dagobah where the very Buddhist Yoda comes from. In fact there was a Yoda lake on our way to Yala National Park.
From the sanctum there was a series of smaller temples, one very hindu looking with colourful dragons and an unidentified god, and a reading room. Outside people were placing prayer candles on a rack and another dagobah and some more temples with adorned statues of Buddha and other figures inside. The temple elephant was hanging around eating and there were two more elephants chained further outside for the pleasure of tourists. Elephants have obviously always been a part of Sri Lankan life and culture, but it’s still not enjoyable to see them like that.
From the temple we walked down the main street of Kandy, past the heritage queen’s hotel which retains all its white, austere Britishness. A wholesale handicrafts market was in one of the adjoining buildings and both secret santas did well here.
Further down the main road there was a bakery which did decent coffee and fantastic pastries and sandwiches. Being a little sick of rice and curry we hung out here for quite a while. The main street was busy with stalls on the footpath selling colourful toys and underwear. As we walked towards the clocktower, where the red buses and green tuk-tuks live, a demonstration started to brew. After three weeks, I finally worked out who the opposition candidate for the presidency is. It is a general from the army. Both candidates are running on the platform that they won the war. The demonstrators marched up the street letting off fireworks, waving green flags and jutting pictures of the general in the air. Near the clocktower busloads of people carrying blue flags brandishing pictures of the president were gathering. We decided to head off at that point.
A tuk-tuk drove us to the botanical gardens, about 7km outside of central Kandy. We wandered around the gardens which had every variety of vegetation imaginable form herb gardens to flowers to rainforests. One palm tree, found only in the Seychelles produced coconuts 10-20kg in weight that take decades to produce. Mostly, however, the botanic gardens were a den of kanoodelling. In every shaded corner and tree crevice were local couples embracing and glancing furtively at passers-by. As with everywhere, there was a scam, and here, it is the ‘come and look at the scorpion I just caught’ angle.
We did not ask our tuk-tuk driver to wait around, but as we walked out of the botanic gardens, exhausted from the kilometres of wandering in the heat, there we was at the gate, waving and smiling. I was impressed at the initiative – he certainly took a risk in coming back to get us. It also means that we probably paid a little too much. Nevertheless we were overjoyed that he was there and, although he also tried to take us to a silver shop (which is standard), we tipped him well.
That evening we went for a Kandyian dancing show. Officially it is the ‘Kandyian arts and cultural centre’, but if you walk in the front door, it looks more like a bingo hall with old men leaning lazily against the wall sipping drinks and smoking. A lady was counting piles of money on a cheap craps table. Down the hall was the auditorium and we sat with about six other people waiting for the show to start. It was a shame that so few people attended, because the dancing was brilliant. The show was professional, the costumes were incredible and the performances visually stunning. There was fire walking and some great drumming. We enjoyed it alot. Kate enjoyed it so much she wanted to take home a piece of the action, and with some translation help did a dark deal in the carpark for a handmade Kandyain neckpiece.
We had dinner but something was awry in Kate’s and she spent the night vomiting. By the morning she was tired, but feeling much better. We put our departure time back an hour and left the hotel at nine. The drive to Kegalle took two hours or so. We stopped on the top of of one of the hills surrounding Kandy for a photo before leaving.
Kegalle is near the Pinewalla elephant orphanage. Various people had told us differing stories about the quality of the place, but we were impressed. First we walked down to the river, where maybe 200 elephants, orphaned for some reason or another, were having their morning swim. None of them were chained and it was an awesome spectacle to watch them wallow and roll in the river and throw mud all over themselves for a few hours. They come incredibly close to the rocks where people watch (and there are many many tourists), although always under the eyes of their ‘mahouts’. The elephants are still wild and have been known to get aggressive. One elephant had lost a leg, apparently from a land mine.
After the bathing, all the elephants walk back up the street to the park area. We had lunch in the restaurant overlooking the river then walked up the park. In the park the elephants just roam around eating. The only chained elephant was a huge blind tusker. Apparently if they don’t restrain him he just walks around bashing into trees and other elephants, injuring himself and potentially the numerous baby elephants in the park. He does get regular walks. It was extremely hot and all parts of the park are in the sun, so we jumped back in the van and headed for Negombo.
We reached Negombo (near the airport) at around four, (after I had to guide our driver through various towns). Negombo is a lot like other Sri Lankan towns that we passed through except that instead of a Buddha or a ganesh in a little box with flowers around his head, there is a statue of Jesus in a box with flowers around his neck. Negombo is 90% Catholic – something which dates back to the Portuguese era. There are still large white churches and river canals from that period.
Kate had a sleep when we reached the hotel and I sat outside trying to find a wireless internet connection and getting eaten by mosquitoes. We left for the airport at 1am, and had a little sleep before. Our flight left Colombo at 3:20am and we arrived in Chennai at 4:25. After making our way through the incomprehensible web of security checks and forms our flight to Delhi left at 6:35 and we came in on time at 9ish. Thankfully there was someone there to pick us up and we got into the hotel by 11 – not in time to visit our favourite Indian buffet joint around the corner for breakfast. It was interesting to see Delhi from the air. After an endless patchwork of rice fields and agricultural land, delhi rises like a juggernaught from the landscape. There are very few tall buildings, just a jungle of stout, square apartments. Even from the air, the pollution on the Yumna was visible.
After checking in we took the metro to Ramakrishna Ashram Marj and finished up our shopping. Even for the third or fouth time, Delhi is still left us bewildered. As we walked out the door, a giant eagle swept down in front of us to grab a piece of rubbish that must have had some morsel of food in it.
From the metro we walked down the Parhaganj bazzar and fended off our last wave of touts and shifty men asking you to come back to their house for tea. Many of them have an uncanny ability to pick your nationality. There are very few Australians here, but they seem to be able to spot me – maybe its the shorts. For the last time we choked and coughed in haze, dodged the piles of rubbish and dangling electrical wires and picked black snot from our noses. Thankfully we didn’t have to do too much bargaining.
In the evening we had dinner at a local restaurant and met up with Kristine – the girl we met on our first tour into the mountains. It was nice to catch up, although we were all tired and we met up again the next morning for breakfast and lamented about all the things we would miss (mine was the food).
We are staying in the same hotel as when we first arrived. Mentally (and temporally) it is eternity ago that we stepped into the burning air from Delhi international airport and thought ‘what have we done?’ as the tuk-tuk careered its way through what looked like a wasteland of rubble and dust.
We are looking forwards to stepping off the plane in Sydney.
Love,
Kate and Charles.
Saturday 12 December 2009
Sri Lanka (2)
We had worked ourselves into a nice routine. Each evening we would say – ‘we’ll get on a bus to Unawatuna tomorrow morning... definitely’. Then we would go to bed, wake up, have a breakfast of fruit, eggs, toast and press coffee, check the surf and decide that we would not go to Unawatuna. We never actually got on a bus to Unawatuna.
So that is how it went: breakfast, a surf check, a little ping-pong, a surf, a bike ride up town to the ATM, lunch, a surf, dinner, a game of ping-pong, and bed.
Each day we would also remark to one another that the surf could not possibly get any smaller than it was that day, but alas, it continued to impress. Despite the dwindling waves and increasing crowds, we would still head out for a couple of surfs a day, although most of the time out there was spent scratching lice bites and following turtles underwater. Kate would have everybody know that she has upgraded from a 7'10 at home to a 7'2 here. Because she is taller than everybody else, she will also have you beleive she is riding a shortboard. She came in the other day and was upset because she did not get a barrell. No joke. she actually said this to me and followed it up with, 'how long do you think it will be before I get one?'. All the same, she is surfing really well - standing up on most waves and riding reef breaks. Kate prefers the reef breaks for the predictability of the wave. At reef breaks the 'tunnel' is easier to find.
Many of these afternoons were interrupted by a storm and some light rain. But as they passed over the air became very still, making the surf look a lot better than it was.
Eventually it all this relaxing became too much and we decided to do something different. So, on Wednesday we booked a tour to Uda Walawe National Park – where we were ‘guaranteed’ to see many elephants. We were picked up at about 10am, by Charles (the driver), and the journey took nearly 3 hours. First we followed Galle road all the way along the south coast and we got our first glimpse of the breaks at Kabalana, Midigama and Weligama – Kabalana looked quite rideable. We stopped for a photo of Weligama harbour, which is a wide U shaped bay with fishing boats hiding behind the reef. There is a little sandbar leading out to a small, rocky island where a Dutchman has built a house. Not a bad location at all.
We didn’t get a look at Mirissa, but travelled on to Martara and followed the coast road, past innumerable palm-fringed beaches, fishing harbours and street side stalls selling fresh blue-fin tuna until we took a left and turned into a completely different landscape of irrigation canals and staggered rice paddies. Regardless of the environment, there are a few constants – people with bicycles, people with umbrellas (for the sun, not the rain) and people riding bicycles holding umbrellas. Of course there are rows and rows of billboards with the president on it – hugging mothers, holding children, waving to the crowd, helping old women across the road, discussing important matters etc. Along the coast road there are also many cemeteries and roadside graves with people’s pictures on it fromthe tsunami.
Although most has been rebuilt, there are still the ruined skeletons of houses abandoned on the beachfront.
Uda Walawe National Park is special because of the density of elephants within its bounds (the elephants are actually all displaced from a controversial reservoir project) and its climate. Because of something to do with the surrounding mountains, this small area of land get very little rain compared with the rest of Sri Lanka. As such, it cannot support the same jungle that fills in the gaps between the rice paddys, and is mostly savannah and plains of chest-high grass. As we approached, it was certain we were going to give this theory a good test, as the surrounding mountains were completely blotted out with ugly green clouds moving towards the park.
Before going into the park, we stopped in a little town for a bite to eat. It would have been a fairly uneventful visit of it not for these little, fried rice cakes that we later found out were made of rice, chilly, spices and ‘mouldy fish’. Only after our stomachs had well and truly turned did we find out that ‘mouldy’ fish is actually dried fish from the Maldives – i.e Maldy’ fish. We still both had a bit of a stomach upset the next day – and it the rice-cakes look pretty guilty in the line-up.
Anyway we entered the park, jumped on an open canopy jeep and met our tracker. The jeep rumbled into the park and set off along the dirt roads wiggling through the high grass. Some of these roads were atrocious, and a 4WD was a necessity. Many times we would have to plunge through huge puddles of water or drive through crevices that made us feel as though we would tip. It wasn’t long before we saw the first elephants – feeding beside the road and about to make their way across. They are fascinating animals and we watched them eat for a while. As they made their way across the road they came in groupings. For each baby 2 females position themselves either side of the baby almost obscuring it from view. We saw a lot more elephants including one herd that got very riled up at our approach and started trumpeting and stamping their feet and throwing dirt all over the place. Our tracker said that 6 vehicles had been damaged that month from elephant attacks. It’s mating season and the males are quite territorial.
Apart from the elephants we saw the single scale of a crocodile, many birds whose names I cannot remember – but I do remember one very odd-looking bird called a hornbill – a buffalo that I didn’t realise was getting very cranky at me, lots of monkeys, and some jackals that looked like foxes. There are apparently a few leopards in the park, but we did not see any.
Miraculously the storm over the mountains split into two and passed either side of the park. One storm was enormous with a round falling lip, like the bell of a mushroom. It was so stark, at one point we could see under the lip and into the storm. Somehow, it did not rain while we were there. Incredible.
Part of the allure of the park is the setting. The plains and swamplands are set against the dramatic peaks of Sri-Lanka’s hills. As the sun went down and the clouds drifted down and between the various summits, standing in the back a jeep watching elephants in the foreground and the mountains behind was a remarkable experience.
It was dark by the time we headed for Hikkaduwa. Our driver and Kate got into a conversation about eating and fish and before she knew it she has locked us into a home cooked meal of the most questionable fish we had passed prior to the safari. Charles (driver) had spotted a fat river fish on the road side for a good price. He said that they were excellent on the BBQ. I was unsure. The fish had definitely been sitting there all day with the flies doing the business and a group of goannas hanging around waiting for the fish guts. Not to mention I had no idea about the river that it came from. Anyway, we remained polite, he bought the fish (which would have been a few kilos), wrapped it in one of his car-floor rugs and away we went.
It was a long drive back home, and we were all tired. Again, most of the conversation revolved around the end of the war. I feel quite uncomfortable talking about it with people (mostly because I don’t have a clue what I’m talking about) because, as you would expect, many of them have lived this war and have passionate feelings. Not being in the north of the east, most people, including our driver have very positive feelings about the conduct of the current president. This driver was quick to recite the story that the LTTE placed civilians in front of firing government troops and that government troops would never kill a civilian. There are also some other commonalities, like that the united states was indirectly supporting the LTTE with weapons and also made an offer to purchase the south harbour as a strategic missile base, that Norway, when they tried to broker a cease fire gave financial support to the LTTE and that the UN, when it worked here distributed satellite phones to them. In the same breath are justifications for the government expelling NGOs (unless you go with a government soldier) from the refugee camps (which appear to be indefinite) and claims that the perpetrators of past bombings are confessing to their crimes and being brought to justice. Some of all this might be true and it is very difficult to sort fact from propaganda. Whatever the case, it is clear that the government is very adept at controlling the information coming out of northern Sri-Lanka. He also had some incredible and distressing stories about the tsunami day.
Thursday was a formula day with a late wake up, stinking hot weather and small surf. We did not contemplate the idea of going on the bus to Unawatuna and I spent most of the day stressing about how to politely decline the river-fish. Charles picked us up at about six-thirty, and we drove north a couple of kilometres to his village – Milla. He had a small, but really nice house. We met his three kids who were very funny and his wife, who cooked us an extraordinary dinner, his sister, brother, aunty and great-aunty. As fate would have it, Charles left the fish in the back of the car all day and it went off. So we had an amazing tuna steam-grilled in banana leaves with sides of local brown rice, lady fingers (which are not bananas here, they are okra) dahl curry, coconut sambal, papadums and a sour Mango chutney. They say the best food in Sri Lanka is at the home and it’s true. We had a fun night looking at old wedding photos and pictures of the kids.
Friday morning we planned a surf trip down the south coast. We got up early, packed the suncream and wax and left with a driver named Samba at eight. Samba is a local surfer who works at the place we are staying. He had excellent knowledge of all the breaks and surfed with us wherever we went. It was nice to feel like you were sharing the fun with someone showing you around. He was a quiet guy, but spoke excellent (if sparse) English and wasn’t afraid to share his critique of his religion and culture. We enjoyed the whole day talking and surfing with him.
First we visited Kabalana, it is named after the hotel it breaks in front of. Apparently it was only ‘discovered’ 10 years ago, but maybe you Dad or Ph surfed it in the 70s or 80s. It was pretty small when we arrived, but was picking up by the time we left. Kabalna is only about 5km from Midigama and is a left-hand reef break with a bit of right on it. Apparently it can hold quite big swells and get very good (it is the south coast’s most ‘powerful’ reef break according to Lonely planet) but this day it was a short but fun ride. All up we surfed for about two hours. Kate rode the beach-break further down by herself. The beach itself is superb with clear, light blue water, white sand and palm trees. She was going well until I came down to check the progress and convinced her to go out for one more. We paddled back out together and she pulled back on one that took the board and flicked it into her sternum. She left the water soon afterwards with some tears and a damning stare. It’s just bruised, but it hurt alot.
Next we surfed at Midigama, at a place called ‘plantation’, which was a fun right hand point, set in front of some semi-cleared land and houses, presumably by the tsunami. Just beside plantation is a point called ‘Coconut’ – it looked okay but we didn’t surf there. I was the only one out at plantation.
Just down the road we stopped at Weligama – the harbour I described earlier. Down the beach there are some great learning waves. Kate had a go, and even managed to jag one, stand up and ride it into shore, but her chest was too sore and we moved on to Mirissa.
Mirissa is a tiny place, just some small houses with bamboo fences and cows. At Mirisisa we had a lunch of fried rice, and Kate had Dahl curry, looking out over the point. Samba had described surfing at Mirissia like surfing in a pool – and it is. On side is a steep headland covered in palm tress, on the inside of the break is a line of reef bristling with urchins that forms a barrier to the shore and on the other open side is a rock outcrop that you paddle around to get out. Mirissa is a fun wave and a very beautiful place. It was only 2-3ft but I surfed for 2+ hours. If we come back it would be great to stay here.
On the way home we checked out Kabalana again but I was exhausted and we drove back to Hikkaduwa. Our surfing adventure, apart from Kate’s injury (she stiff but okay today) was a great day.
Today the well has come up, and it was quite good this morning (although I surfed very poorly and was very tired). The wind is quite strong this afternoon and it has mostly blown out, but I surfed again at lunch. We will see what happens at sunset. Tonight is also occasion for the weekly A-frame trance party. One way or another, it shall be a sleepless night.
Tomorrow we leave at about 8am for an afternoon safari and stay overnight in some ritzy bungalows inside Yala National Park. I’m hoping for some more elephants and maybe a leopard. We have had a wonderful time in Hikkaduwa and are sad to leave.
Our love to you all,
Kate and Charles.
So that is how it went: breakfast, a surf check, a little ping-pong, a surf, a bike ride up town to the ATM, lunch, a surf, dinner, a game of ping-pong, and bed.
Each day we would also remark to one another that the surf could not possibly get any smaller than it was that day, but alas, it continued to impress. Despite the dwindling waves and increasing crowds, we would still head out for a couple of surfs a day, although most of the time out there was spent scratching lice bites and following turtles underwater. Kate would have everybody know that she has upgraded from a 7'10 at home to a 7'2 here. Because she is taller than everybody else, she will also have you beleive she is riding a shortboard. She came in the other day and was upset because she did not get a barrell. No joke. she actually said this to me and followed it up with, 'how long do you think it will be before I get one?'. All the same, she is surfing really well - standing up on most waves and riding reef breaks. Kate prefers the reef breaks for the predictability of the wave. At reef breaks the 'tunnel' is easier to find.
Many of these afternoons were interrupted by a storm and some light rain. But as they passed over the air became very still, making the surf look a lot better than it was.
Eventually it all this relaxing became too much and we decided to do something different. So, on Wednesday we booked a tour to Uda Walawe National Park – where we were ‘guaranteed’ to see many elephants. We were picked up at about 10am, by Charles (the driver), and the journey took nearly 3 hours. First we followed Galle road all the way along the south coast and we got our first glimpse of the breaks at Kabalana, Midigama and Weligama – Kabalana looked quite rideable. We stopped for a photo of Weligama harbour, which is a wide U shaped bay with fishing boats hiding behind the reef. There is a little sandbar leading out to a small, rocky island where a Dutchman has built a house. Not a bad location at all.
We didn’t get a look at Mirissa, but travelled on to Martara and followed the coast road, past innumerable palm-fringed beaches, fishing harbours and street side stalls selling fresh blue-fin tuna until we took a left and turned into a completely different landscape of irrigation canals and staggered rice paddies. Regardless of the environment, there are a few constants – people with bicycles, people with umbrellas (for the sun, not the rain) and people riding bicycles holding umbrellas. Of course there are rows and rows of billboards with the president on it – hugging mothers, holding children, waving to the crowd, helping old women across the road, discussing important matters etc. Along the coast road there are also many cemeteries and roadside graves with people’s pictures on it fromthe tsunami.
Although most has been rebuilt, there are still the ruined skeletons of houses abandoned on the beachfront.
Uda Walawe National Park is special because of the density of elephants within its bounds (the elephants are actually all displaced from a controversial reservoir project) and its climate. Because of something to do with the surrounding mountains, this small area of land get very little rain compared with the rest of Sri Lanka. As such, it cannot support the same jungle that fills in the gaps between the rice paddys, and is mostly savannah and plains of chest-high grass. As we approached, it was certain we were going to give this theory a good test, as the surrounding mountains were completely blotted out with ugly green clouds moving towards the park.
Before going into the park, we stopped in a little town for a bite to eat. It would have been a fairly uneventful visit of it not for these little, fried rice cakes that we later found out were made of rice, chilly, spices and ‘mouldy fish’. Only after our stomachs had well and truly turned did we find out that ‘mouldy’ fish is actually dried fish from the Maldives – i.e Maldy’ fish. We still both had a bit of a stomach upset the next day – and it the rice-cakes look pretty guilty in the line-up.
Anyway we entered the park, jumped on an open canopy jeep and met our tracker. The jeep rumbled into the park and set off along the dirt roads wiggling through the high grass. Some of these roads were atrocious, and a 4WD was a necessity. Many times we would have to plunge through huge puddles of water or drive through crevices that made us feel as though we would tip. It wasn’t long before we saw the first elephants – feeding beside the road and about to make their way across. They are fascinating animals and we watched them eat for a while. As they made their way across the road they came in groupings. For each baby 2 females position themselves either side of the baby almost obscuring it from view. We saw a lot more elephants including one herd that got very riled up at our approach and started trumpeting and stamping their feet and throwing dirt all over the place. Our tracker said that 6 vehicles had been damaged that month from elephant attacks. It’s mating season and the males are quite territorial.
Apart from the elephants we saw the single scale of a crocodile, many birds whose names I cannot remember – but I do remember one very odd-looking bird called a hornbill – a buffalo that I didn’t realise was getting very cranky at me, lots of monkeys, and some jackals that looked like foxes. There are apparently a few leopards in the park, but we did not see any.
Miraculously the storm over the mountains split into two and passed either side of the park. One storm was enormous with a round falling lip, like the bell of a mushroom. It was so stark, at one point we could see under the lip and into the storm. Somehow, it did not rain while we were there. Incredible.
Part of the allure of the park is the setting. The plains and swamplands are set against the dramatic peaks of Sri-Lanka’s hills. As the sun went down and the clouds drifted down and between the various summits, standing in the back a jeep watching elephants in the foreground and the mountains behind was a remarkable experience.
It was dark by the time we headed for Hikkaduwa. Our driver and Kate got into a conversation about eating and fish and before she knew it she has locked us into a home cooked meal of the most questionable fish we had passed prior to the safari. Charles (driver) had spotted a fat river fish on the road side for a good price. He said that they were excellent on the BBQ. I was unsure. The fish had definitely been sitting there all day with the flies doing the business and a group of goannas hanging around waiting for the fish guts. Not to mention I had no idea about the river that it came from. Anyway, we remained polite, he bought the fish (which would have been a few kilos), wrapped it in one of his car-floor rugs and away we went.
It was a long drive back home, and we were all tired. Again, most of the conversation revolved around the end of the war. I feel quite uncomfortable talking about it with people (mostly because I don’t have a clue what I’m talking about) because, as you would expect, many of them have lived this war and have passionate feelings. Not being in the north of the east, most people, including our driver have very positive feelings about the conduct of the current president. This driver was quick to recite the story that the LTTE placed civilians in front of firing government troops and that government troops would never kill a civilian. There are also some other commonalities, like that the united states was indirectly supporting the LTTE with weapons and also made an offer to purchase the south harbour as a strategic missile base, that Norway, when they tried to broker a cease fire gave financial support to the LTTE and that the UN, when it worked here distributed satellite phones to them. In the same breath are justifications for the government expelling NGOs (unless you go with a government soldier) from the refugee camps (which appear to be indefinite) and claims that the perpetrators of past bombings are confessing to their crimes and being brought to justice. Some of all this might be true and it is very difficult to sort fact from propaganda. Whatever the case, it is clear that the government is very adept at controlling the information coming out of northern Sri-Lanka. He also had some incredible and distressing stories about the tsunami day.
Thursday was a formula day with a late wake up, stinking hot weather and small surf. We did not contemplate the idea of going on the bus to Unawatuna and I spent most of the day stressing about how to politely decline the river-fish. Charles picked us up at about six-thirty, and we drove north a couple of kilometres to his village – Milla. He had a small, but really nice house. We met his three kids who were very funny and his wife, who cooked us an extraordinary dinner, his sister, brother, aunty and great-aunty. As fate would have it, Charles left the fish in the back of the car all day and it went off. So we had an amazing tuna steam-grilled in banana leaves with sides of local brown rice, lady fingers (which are not bananas here, they are okra) dahl curry, coconut sambal, papadums and a sour Mango chutney. They say the best food in Sri Lanka is at the home and it’s true. We had a fun night looking at old wedding photos and pictures of the kids.
Friday morning we planned a surf trip down the south coast. We got up early, packed the suncream and wax and left with a driver named Samba at eight. Samba is a local surfer who works at the place we are staying. He had excellent knowledge of all the breaks and surfed with us wherever we went. It was nice to feel like you were sharing the fun with someone showing you around. He was a quiet guy, but spoke excellent (if sparse) English and wasn’t afraid to share his critique of his religion and culture. We enjoyed the whole day talking and surfing with him.
First we visited Kabalana, it is named after the hotel it breaks in front of. Apparently it was only ‘discovered’ 10 years ago, but maybe you Dad or Ph surfed it in the 70s or 80s. It was pretty small when we arrived, but was picking up by the time we left. Kabalna is only about 5km from Midigama and is a left-hand reef break with a bit of right on it. Apparently it can hold quite big swells and get very good (it is the south coast’s most ‘powerful’ reef break according to Lonely planet) but this day it was a short but fun ride. All up we surfed for about two hours. Kate rode the beach-break further down by herself. The beach itself is superb with clear, light blue water, white sand and palm trees. She was going well until I came down to check the progress and convinced her to go out for one more. We paddled back out together and she pulled back on one that took the board and flicked it into her sternum. She left the water soon afterwards with some tears and a damning stare. It’s just bruised, but it hurt alot.
Next we surfed at Midigama, at a place called ‘plantation’, which was a fun right hand point, set in front of some semi-cleared land and houses, presumably by the tsunami. Just beside plantation is a point called ‘Coconut’ – it looked okay but we didn’t surf there. I was the only one out at plantation.
Just down the road we stopped at Weligama – the harbour I described earlier. Down the beach there are some great learning waves. Kate had a go, and even managed to jag one, stand up and ride it into shore, but her chest was too sore and we moved on to Mirissa.
Mirissa is a tiny place, just some small houses with bamboo fences and cows. At Mirisisa we had a lunch of fried rice, and Kate had Dahl curry, looking out over the point. Samba had described surfing at Mirissia like surfing in a pool – and it is. On side is a steep headland covered in palm tress, on the inside of the break is a line of reef bristling with urchins that forms a barrier to the shore and on the other open side is a rock outcrop that you paddle around to get out. Mirissa is a fun wave and a very beautiful place. It was only 2-3ft but I surfed for 2+ hours. If we come back it would be great to stay here.
On the way home we checked out Kabalana again but I was exhausted and we drove back to Hikkaduwa. Our surfing adventure, apart from Kate’s injury (she stiff but okay today) was a great day.
Today the well has come up, and it was quite good this morning (although I surfed very poorly and was very tired). The wind is quite strong this afternoon and it has mostly blown out, but I surfed again at lunch. We will see what happens at sunset. Tonight is also occasion for the weekly A-frame trance party. One way or another, it shall be a sleepless night.
Tomorrow we leave at about 8am for an afternoon safari and stay overnight in some ritzy bungalows inside Yala National Park. I’m hoping for some more elephants and maybe a leopard. We have had a wonderful time in Hikkaduwa and are sad to leave.
Our love to you all,
Kate and Charles.
Thursday 10 December 2009
Sunday 6 December 2009
Sri Lanka
(സൃ ലങ്ക)
We arrived in Colombo airport at around 2:30am, after travelling since 7pm the previous evening. Thankfully, the guest-house driver was there to pick us up. He was up for a chat and talked for the whole 30 minute drive, mostly about the recent developments in the civil war. He was very happy that the government had won a military victory over the LTTE and was full of praise for the current president. Heeding the general advice not ‘talk about the war’ I just listened, and Kate slept in the back. Our driver (Sunil) also warned us against going to Hikkduwa because it was full of dope-smoking, drunk young men who harass western women. He suggested staying elsewhere.
The first thing both of us noticed was how clean the streets are compared to India.
It was around three when we arrived at our hotel in Negombo. I was so tired I couldn’t get to sleep.
We both woke at about ten. The owner of the guesthouse was a friendly guy called Mark. We had some breakfast, including some good filtered coffee, and decided to head to Hikkaduwa right away. We left at about 12:30 and arrived at around 4. Mark (the owner) drove us.
The most prominent feature of the drive from Colombo was the abundance of political posters. There is a presidential election coming up on January 26, but by looking at the posters, you would think there was only one man running. Posters of the current president are everywhere, on every streetcorner, roundabout, shopfront and billboard. There are various types, from the president advancing triumphantly, with his arms in the air, to pictures of him looking gruff with some men with machine guns or navy boats in the background. There are various ‘thankyou armed forces’ posters around the place too, but in all of them, the president’s face appears. It is remarkable because the incumbent has completely appropriated the armed forces for his political campaign. Many of the victory posters appear quite triumphalist, but I cannot read the Sinalese (which is an amazing script) to confirm. In addition to all the posters, when driving through Colombo, there is a solder with an assault rifle every 100m or so.
As we drove down the coast road, the damage from the tsunami was still visible. Ruined houses, sometimes just the foundations, sit just off the roadside in land that looks as though it has been bulldozed. Some boats are rotting 20 or 30 metres from shore, having been washed up there. There are many many, China-Sri-Lanka, Japan-Sri-Lanka, and various other country-Sri-Lanka aid plaques along the way.
In Hikkaduwa, we had booked two nights at ‘Mambos’ hotel/guesthouse, just in front of the ‘A-frame’ surf shop. We picked it because we thought it would be closest the main break at Hikkaduwa, and it is right in front of it. Our original room was on the third floor and had great views over the break. We also found the dope-smoking, long-haired layabouts we were warned about – they all work here. All 15 discs of Bob-Marley’s greatest hits are on repeat and the decor has a distinctive Jamaican - our curtains are red, yellow and green. It was difficult to get some sense out of anyone at first – how much for a board, do they have laundry, does the air-con work, how long are the rooms available for, and there were many red-eyes and blank stares. We’ve since worked out that the ‘managers’ of the hotel are at their best before about 3pm.
The first night was extremely hot. The fan was not really working and the AC definitely did not work. The next morning we decided to pay a little extra ($5 a night) and get a room with air conditioning. It has been worth every cent.
On our second day we decided that we liked this place a lot (and they decided to include our breakfast, which was nice). Somehow, in defiance of all logic, this is an extremely well-run, clean, friendly place. We felt very comfortable and welcome with all the people (especially the long-haired layabouts, who just this evening asked us to join them in smoking a giant hookah, with the additional incentive of many different flavours, of course, we declined, but appreciated the gesture) who run the place like a big house (it is difficult at times to get things organised, but that doesn’t matter, we’re not in a rush). So we are staying here until the 12th of December.
Its hard to describe how hot it is. On the weather it might say 29 or thirty degrees, but they should just say – “only go out in the morning and at night or you will shrivel on the roadside”.
Hikkaduwa is a great place. Its everything we imagined it to be – palm-lined beach, coral reef, clean water and good surf. But what makes it is, for a place that is rapidly developing, how warm the people are. Sometimes I find myself shaking my head at just how friendly the place is. Everywhere there is a smile and a hello. Even the beach-front vendors are friendly.
There are two unfriendly guys in Hikkaduwa – one walks around carrying a monkey tied to a string and a 10ft python in a sack demanding money from tourists. The other must be the father of the owner of this hotel, who comes down from his room at nine every morning wearing a traditional sarong and a billabong cap (flat brim, tilted just to the side) and berates all the young-guys for an hour or so. I assume it is a lecture about how they are not going to make anything of themselves or something like that.
The surf has been good. The water is hot. I’m not used to sweating in the water.
I have hired a 6’3 board which is in pretty good shape. The main point is a left-right peak. I think the right is faster and has more shape than the left – but they are both good. Day 1 was about 4ft, but because we arrived there in the afternoon, it was a bit onshore. Days 2 and 3 were about 6ft and offshore until 10 in the morning. Day 4 was about 4ft again, and offshore until about 1pm. The last few days have been smaller (2ft, but with 3ft sets) but it’s still good fun. The winds have been offshore in the morning, and then light until about 1pm. By 4:30 or five, the winds back right off again (usually accompanied by a storm) and sometimes go offshore. The forecast is for small waves for the next for days, but picking up from Thursday to Saturday (we leave Sunday morning).
On the first three or four days (when it was 6ft), I more or less had the main point to myself. It has become more crowded since then, but my strategy (unless it is very good) is to skip the morning surf, have a leisurely breakfast and then put in a long session between 11 and 2 when people go in for lunch. It really works, when I woke up this morning, there might have been 10-15 people surfing a 2ft peak. At lunch, I was the only one out.
Kate has been surfing. She has a fin chop on her thigh to prove it. Her arms are tired and sore, but she is standing up and carving the reef-breaks. She has also been standing on the reef, but I’ve suggested that may not be such a good idea. I met an English guy in the surf today who trod on an urchin last season. It went right through his foot and came out the other side. One spine was lodged in his bone and required surgery. He didn’t seem bothered though, as he said ‘the hospital was only 30 bucks, cheaper than the hotels here. You get air-con, three meals and the nurses are hot – they all wear white socks”. (??)
This guy was among the more tame Europeans staying here. There are a lot of Germans, but also a lot of French and English. There are very few Australians. Last night we went to restaurant next door and were entertained/embarrassed was three fat, semi-naked plastered English guys playing frank Sinatra classics and twisting coloured balloons into shapes and fixing them on the waiters head. One very thin, frail, member of the group put a motorbike helmet on (I don't know why) but could not hold his head up afterwards. We thought he was about to die.
There is no way they would do that at home. It’s funny, but in a pitiful way.
So we have been passing the days surfing, playing ping-pong and chess, riding bikes, walking along the beach, laying on the beach, and eating. Mostly its surfing and playing ping-pong. Kate had the upper hand early, but i’ve revised my serving technique and now am a formidable force. Considering I have relegated Dad, I reckon I’m in enough form to take on Simon.
The one variation occurred on our anniversary, when we visited Galle and walked around the old Dutch fort. We got about halfway through the streets before succumbing to the heat and returning to Hikkaduwa. We were tempted to go to the hospital and see if another immaculate conception was on the cards, but we figured that only happens every couple of thousand of years, and since it happened around this time in 1981, it was unlikely to happen again in 2009.
Sri-Lanka is much more expensive than India, although it does depend on where you eat. For lunch we have been visiting a little ‘roti’ restaurant that does 58 different kinds. Rotis, at least according to this restaurant’s interpretation are layers and layers of fried, thin pastry. You can put fillings in them like pasties, but flat. On the first day I had a tomato, cheese, avocado one and have frequented the restaurant since. Kelly, these things are made for you – if quarantine wasn’t going to arrest me, I’d bring one home in my pack.
I have also been trying to find a traditional sri-lankan curry, but its difficult to locate among the seafood platters and French fries. I have had one at the restaurant here, but it was not very good.
Last night there was a trance party at our guesthouse. We went to bed at a respectable 9:30, but did not get to sleep until 4am. Apparently every time there is a party, one group of local boys comes down and fights the other group of local boys for the women attending that night. I guess this is where the night scene has received is bad name.
Tomorrow we are getting on the bus to Unawatuna. Apparently there is a mellow point break there for Kate to practice on. Over the next week we will also visit Mirissa, Midigama and Ahangama, as they are all supposed to have good surf.
On the 13th, we leave for Yala national park to hopefully see some elephants and crocodiles in the wild. Then we spend four nights in the hills before going back to Negombo.
We really are having a great time here and relishing the opportunity to rest.
Our love to you all, and we are looking forwards to coming home. Our flight is due to arrive at 8:35pm on 21 December.
Love Kate and Charles.
We arrived in Colombo airport at around 2:30am, after travelling since 7pm the previous evening. Thankfully, the guest-house driver was there to pick us up. He was up for a chat and talked for the whole 30 minute drive, mostly about the recent developments in the civil war. He was very happy that the government had won a military victory over the LTTE and was full of praise for the current president. Heeding the general advice not ‘talk about the war’ I just listened, and Kate slept in the back. Our driver (Sunil) also warned us against going to Hikkduwa because it was full of dope-smoking, drunk young men who harass western women. He suggested staying elsewhere.
The first thing both of us noticed was how clean the streets are compared to India.
It was around three when we arrived at our hotel in Negombo. I was so tired I couldn’t get to sleep.
We both woke at about ten. The owner of the guesthouse was a friendly guy called Mark. We had some breakfast, including some good filtered coffee, and decided to head to Hikkaduwa right away. We left at about 12:30 and arrived at around 4. Mark (the owner) drove us.
The most prominent feature of the drive from Colombo was the abundance of political posters. There is a presidential election coming up on January 26, but by looking at the posters, you would think there was only one man running. Posters of the current president are everywhere, on every streetcorner, roundabout, shopfront and billboard. There are various types, from the president advancing triumphantly, with his arms in the air, to pictures of him looking gruff with some men with machine guns or navy boats in the background. There are various ‘thankyou armed forces’ posters around the place too, but in all of them, the president’s face appears. It is remarkable because the incumbent has completely appropriated the armed forces for his political campaign. Many of the victory posters appear quite triumphalist, but I cannot read the Sinalese (which is an amazing script) to confirm. In addition to all the posters, when driving through Colombo, there is a solder with an assault rifle every 100m or so.
As we drove down the coast road, the damage from the tsunami was still visible. Ruined houses, sometimes just the foundations, sit just off the roadside in land that looks as though it has been bulldozed. Some boats are rotting 20 or 30 metres from shore, having been washed up there. There are many many, China-Sri-Lanka, Japan-Sri-Lanka, and various other country-Sri-Lanka aid plaques along the way.
In Hikkaduwa, we had booked two nights at ‘Mambos’ hotel/guesthouse, just in front of the ‘A-frame’ surf shop. We picked it because we thought it would be closest the main break at Hikkaduwa, and it is right in front of it. Our original room was on the third floor and had great views over the break. We also found the dope-smoking, long-haired layabouts we were warned about – they all work here. All 15 discs of Bob-Marley’s greatest hits are on repeat and the decor has a distinctive Jamaican - our curtains are red, yellow and green. It was difficult to get some sense out of anyone at first – how much for a board, do they have laundry, does the air-con work, how long are the rooms available for, and there were many red-eyes and blank stares. We’ve since worked out that the ‘managers’ of the hotel are at their best before about 3pm.
The first night was extremely hot. The fan was not really working and the AC definitely did not work. The next morning we decided to pay a little extra ($5 a night) and get a room with air conditioning. It has been worth every cent.
On our second day we decided that we liked this place a lot (and they decided to include our breakfast, which was nice). Somehow, in defiance of all logic, this is an extremely well-run, clean, friendly place. We felt very comfortable and welcome with all the people (especially the long-haired layabouts, who just this evening asked us to join them in smoking a giant hookah, with the additional incentive of many different flavours, of course, we declined, but appreciated the gesture) who run the place like a big house (it is difficult at times to get things organised, but that doesn’t matter, we’re not in a rush). So we are staying here until the 12th of December.
Its hard to describe how hot it is. On the weather it might say 29 or thirty degrees, but they should just say – “only go out in the morning and at night or you will shrivel on the roadside”.
Hikkaduwa is a great place. Its everything we imagined it to be – palm-lined beach, coral reef, clean water and good surf. But what makes it is, for a place that is rapidly developing, how warm the people are. Sometimes I find myself shaking my head at just how friendly the place is. Everywhere there is a smile and a hello. Even the beach-front vendors are friendly.
There are two unfriendly guys in Hikkaduwa – one walks around carrying a monkey tied to a string and a 10ft python in a sack demanding money from tourists. The other must be the father of the owner of this hotel, who comes down from his room at nine every morning wearing a traditional sarong and a billabong cap (flat brim, tilted just to the side) and berates all the young-guys for an hour or so. I assume it is a lecture about how they are not going to make anything of themselves or something like that.
The surf has been good. The water is hot. I’m not used to sweating in the water.
I have hired a 6’3 board which is in pretty good shape. The main point is a left-right peak. I think the right is faster and has more shape than the left – but they are both good. Day 1 was about 4ft, but because we arrived there in the afternoon, it was a bit onshore. Days 2 and 3 were about 6ft and offshore until 10 in the morning. Day 4 was about 4ft again, and offshore until about 1pm. The last few days have been smaller (2ft, but with 3ft sets) but it’s still good fun. The winds have been offshore in the morning, and then light until about 1pm. By 4:30 or five, the winds back right off again (usually accompanied by a storm) and sometimes go offshore. The forecast is for small waves for the next for days, but picking up from Thursday to Saturday (we leave Sunday morning).
On the first three or four days (when it was 6ft), I more or less had the main point to myself. It has become more crowded since then, but my strategy (unless it is very good) is to skip the morning surf, have a leisurely breakfast and then put in a long session between 11 and 2 when people go in for lunch. It really works, when I woke up this morning, there might have been 10-15 people surfing a 2ft peak. At lunch, I was the only one out.
Kate has been surfing. She has a fin chop on her thigh to prove it. Her arms are tired and sore, but she is standing up and carving the reef-breaks. She has also been standing on the reef, but I’ve suggested that may not be such a good idea. I met an English guy in the surf today who trod on an urchin last season. It went right through his foot and came out the other side. One spine was lodged in his bone and required surgery. He didn’t seem bothered though, as he said ‘the hospital was only 30 bucks, cheaper than the hotels here. You get air-con, three meals and the nurses are hot – they all wear white socks”. (??)
This guy was among the more tame Europeans staying here. There are a lot of Germans, but also a lot of French and English. There are very few Australians. Last night we went to restaurant next door and were entertained/embarrassed was three fat, semi-naked plastered English guys playing frank Sinatra classics and twisting coloured balloons into shapes and fixing them on the waiters head. One very thin, frail, member of the group put a motorbike helmet on (I don't know why) but could not hold his head up afterwards. We thought he was about to die.
There is no way they would do that at home. It’s funny, but in a pitiful way.
So we have been passing the days surfing, playing ping-pong and chess, riding bikes, walking along the beach, laying on the beach, and eating. Mostly its surfing and playing ping-pong. Kate had the upper hand early, but i’ve revised my serving technique and now am a formidable force. Considering I have relegated Dad, I reckon I’m in enough form to take on Simon.
The one variation occurred on our anniversary, when we visited Galle and walked around the old Dutch fort. We got about halfway through the streets before succumbing to the heat and returning to Hikkaduwa. We were tempted to go to the hospital and see if another immaculate conception was on the cards, but we figured that only happens every couple of thousand of years, and since it happened around this time in 1981, it was unlikely to happen again in 2009.
Sri-Lanka is much more expensive than India, although it does depend on where you eat. For lunch we have been visiting a little ‘roti’ restaurant that does 58 different kinds. Rotis, at least according to this restaurant’s interpretation are layers and layers of fried, thin pastry. You can put fillings in them like pasties, but flat. On the first day I had a tomato, cheese, avocado one and have frequented the restaurant since. Kelly, these things are made for you – if quarantine wasn’t going to arrest me, I’d bring one home in my pack.
I have also been trying to find a traditional sri-lankan curry, but its difficult to locate among the seafood platters and French fries. I have had one at the restaurant here, but it was not very good.
Last night there was a trance party at our guesthouse. We went to bed at a respectable 9:30, but did not get to sleep until 4am. Apparently every time there is a party, one group of local boys comes down and fights the other group of local boys for the women attending that night. I guess this is where the night scene has received is bad name.
Tomorrow we are getting on the bus to Unawatuna. Apparently there is a mellow point break there for Kate to practice on. Over the next week we will also visit Mirissa, Midigama and Ahangama, as they are all supposed to have good surf.
On the 13th, we leave for Yala national park to hopefully see some elephants and crocodiles in the wild. Then we spend four nights in the hills before going back to Negombo.
We really are having a great time here and relishing the opportunity to rest.
Our love to you all, and we are looking forwards to coming home. Our flight is due to arrive at 8:35pm on 21 December.
Love Kate and Charles.
Saturday 5 December 2009
Sunday 29 November 2009
थे लास्ट ट्रेन तो डेल्ही
The Last Train to Delhi
It was afternoon in Orchha when we arrived, checked in and took and walk around town. Orchha, like many of the places we have visited is a small town set among the ruins of a much larger, older empire. However, in Orchha the town is very small and the ruins very large. We walked first down into the main square. On one corner was an enormous old and brown Hindu temple, largely abandoned. The base of the temple is square, and on top were four tapering domes, the largest of which dominates the Orchha skyline. On another corner was the old queen’s palace, which has now been painted pink and covered in fairy lights. Today, it is an active temple and Hindu’s believe that Rama himself (an incarnation of one of the big three – Vishnu) lives and breathes here. As such, Orchha is another of the sacred places and has no shortage of incense, piles of bright powders on the footpath and painted, singing old men wandering the streets. Apparently the queen had a separate palace to the king because she did not approve of his daily hunting habits (not his six concubines), and after issuing an ultimatum, moved down the street. It is said that they met only once a year for prayer.
The main square is filled with sweets and fruits shops. The fruits stalls have quite some difficulty fighting off the goats, cows and dogs lurking just a round the corner to steal a banana. The king’s palace is visible just down the street.
After the main square we took a right and walked down to the river Batewa, another holy river in India (I asked about this, there are actually no ‘unholy’ or neutral rivers in India, but the Ganges and Yumna have special status). There is a single-lane stone bridge over the river that barley keeps the tourist coaches and tractors from tipping into the water. As we stood on the bride, the sun was setting behind the cenotaphs (tombs) that we would visit the next day.
For dinner we ate a family-run restaurant. I had absolved dinner ordering responsibilities to Mahindra, with the condition that it be spicy (as Indian cooks tone it down a bit when serving westerners). As a result, I have had some of my best meals in India on this trip. Indian food is spicy, but its not ridiculously so. In no dish, even the ones where I have asked for very spicy, has the chilli been overwhelming or dominating.
At a leisurely hour the next morning we went down to the restaurant for breakfast of fruit, muesli and porridge. From the restaurant the kings’s palace was just over the river, so we started the day’s sightseeing there. The main attraction of the King’s palace is not actually the palace, it is a larger structure behind his palace called the Jahangir Mahal. The Hindu kings that ruled this area fell in and out of favour with Mughals. Most of the Mughal emperors disliked the apparently belligerent and headstrong king, except for one, who received help from the Orchha king to stage a coup. To further ingratiate the Mughal king, the Orchha king built the palace for a single visit by Jahangir. The square fort with dozens of small, domed watchtowers and larger, blue-tiled domes, was apparently used for just one night and is the height of the beautiful, and arrogant wastage reminiscent of these kings. From the top of the fort, we could see over all of Orchha, over the temple in the central square to the river. Perhaps the main attraction was the vultures that perched on top of the domes and in the crevices of the watchtowers.
From the Jahangir we visited the King’s palace, which was in a greater state of disrepair, but still pleasant to walk around with some well-preserved paintings from the 16th and 17th century. We had some lunch at the family-run restaurant, which was again very pleasant, except for the two diseased dongs that hang out the front. After lunch, we returned to the centre square to visit the temple. It was wide and open. The inside of the dome formed a deep ceiling that echoed even the slightest sounds around the hall. I had seen some people walk up and view the city from one of the balconies cut into the temple, but on this occasion there was an entrepreneur inside holding the keys and charging people to go up. We didn’t go up this time, and it turned out to be a good decision, as the upper levels are locked for conservation.
We then walked along the riverside, to the location of the cenotaphs - the tombs of the kings of Orchha. There are many of these tombs sprawled over the countryside, barely peeking from between the corn fields and the unchecked grass, but five have been very well preserved. They are designed like the main temple, on a square base with a large, decorated central triangular spire. With the river flowing right beside them, the cenotaphs are a beautiful place to stroll around. They are impressive, but, as Kate says ‘it’s no Taj Mahal’.
A dirt path leads around the cenotaphs, on the banks of the river, and follows a small canal through the farming villages around town. Further up the path there was another small stone bridge and buffalo wallowing in the mud. All around there are ruined Mughal domes and hindu temples. Apparently there was once over 1000 temples here.
We walked back through the town, and up the hill to our hotel. The walk up the hill was always complemented by a procession of kids asking our names and where we were from, for some pens, or chocolate or money. Further up the hill is the last main attraction on the Orchha itinerary. The laxhmi temple was built on this gentle hill and looks oddly like the Victoria Terminus in Mumbai. In the middle of the triangular shaped building is a tower and a dome, carved a bit like a pineapple. Some very dodgy stone stairs led to the top of the dome, and offered some of the best views of old Orchha – the king’s palace and the huge temple, the river in the background and the cenotaphs to the right. Kate bargained out the front of the Laxhmi temple with a village woman and a man decorated by a crown of fluorescent, plastic flowers playing a wood-pipe. Her secret santa picked up a something in this transaction.
By this stage we were both exhausted of walking up and down cramped sets of stairs made for much shorter people and returned to the hotel to clean up before dinner. I had another spicy dish and Kate and I made for the hotel to watch crappy movies on cable TV.
On our second day in Orchha, we took a rafting trip down the river. It lasted only an hour, but drifting with the current of the river, paddling down the occasion set of rapids and watching the temples and jungle pass by between the boulders was a great way to see the town. The Batewa is reputedly one of the cleanest rivers in India (although the bar is not set that high). I swam twice in the river – once jumping off the boat and once at the end when we stopped for chai on the rocks. It seemed relatively clean, although I did get a weird itching on my bumcheek for the next day.
Lunch was the freshly made mutton I talked about in the last post. Following that, we spent the afternoon shopping and looking around. We packed and prepared for our last train in India – to Delhi.
Our tuk-tuk ride to Jhansi (the train station) was surprisingly entertaining. First the tuk-tuk broke down, in the freezing cold. Then, as we entered Jhansi, there were a series of wedding processions moving down the main street. In these processions, the groom sits on a horse and is surrounded by his family and friends dancing to trance music under fairy lights. The speakers are carried by a bunch of kids walking down the street and it’s ridiculously loud. Everything in India is public – from the people doing their morning business on the side of the railroad tracks, in full view of passengers, to weddings, which must march down the street in bright lights and loud music.
None of us slept well on the train to Delhi. The train was late and trying to catch up time by testing how fast the train could go without derailing. We still arrived in Delhi 2 hours late.
Delhi has become something of a second home. We know the suburb we are staying in quite well, are proficient with the metro and can locate the coffee shop. We did the walk through old Delhi again, visiting the Sikh temple, the Jama Masid and the spice market. In the Sikh temple we sat on the floor and ate lentils and chipatis, and drank chai, all cooked by the volunteers. The goat-sacrificing festival was on, and the Jama Masid was packed, meaning we had to wait quite a while before being able to go in. It is still impressive.
I was deathly tired in the afternoon, but we still managed to go shopping. Kate has bought some Indian-style Levis, we both bought some shoes and, today Kate has just had a haricut and her nails done.
We leave for Sri Lanka tonight, and hopefully, some relaxing and good surf.
Our love to you all,
Kate and Charles.
It was afternoon in Orchha when we arrived, checked in and took and walk around town. Orchha, like many of the places we have visited is a small town set among the ruins of a much larger, older empire. However, in Orchha the town is very small and the ruins very large. We walked first down into the main square. On one corner was an enormous old and brown Hindu temple, largely abandoned. The base of the temple is square, and on top were four tapering domes, the largest of which dominates the Orchha skyline. On another corner was the old queen’s palace, which has now been painted pink and covered in fairy lights. Today, it is an active temple and Hindu’s believe that Rama himself (an incarnation of one of the big three – Vishnu) lives and breathes here. As such, Orchha is another of the sacred places and has no shortage of incense, piles of bright powders on the footpath and painted, singing old men wandering the streets. Apparently the queen had a separate palace to the king because she did not approve of his daily hunting habits (not his six concubines), and after issuing an ultimatum, moved down the street. It is said that they met only once a year for prayer.
The main square is filled with sweets and fruits shops. The fruits stalls have quite some difficulty fighting off the goats, cows and dogs lurking just a round the corner to steal a banana. The king’s palace is visible just down the street.
After the main square we took a right and walked down to the river Batewa, another holy river in India (I asked about this, there are actually no ‘unholy’ or neutral rivers in India, but the Ganges and Yumna have special status). There is a single-lane stone bridge over the river that barley keeps the tourist coaches and tractors from tipping into the water. As we stood on the bride, the sun was setting behind the cenotaphs (tombs) that we would visit the next day.
For dinner we ate a family-run restaurant. I had absolved dinner ordering responsibilities to Mahindra, with the condition that it be spicy (as Indian cooks tone it down a bit when serving westerners). As a result, I have had some of my best meals in India on this trip. Indian food is spicy, but its not ridiculously so. In no dish, even the ones where I have asked for very spicy, has the chilli been overwhelming or dominating.
At a leisurely hour the next morning we went down to the restaurant for breakfast of fruit, muesli and porridge. From the restaurant the kings’s palace was just over the river, so we started the day’s sightseeing there. The main attraction of the King’s palace is not actually the palace, it is a larger structure behind his palace called the Jahangir Mahal. The Hindu kings that ruled this area fell in and out of favour with Mughals. Most of the Mughal emperors disliked the apparently belligerent and headstrong king, except for one, who received help from the Orchha king to stage a coup. To further ingratiate the Mughal king, the Orchha king built the palace for a single visit by Jahangir. The square fort with dozens of small, domed watchtowers and larger, blue-tiled domes, was apparently used for just one night and is the height of the beautiful, and arrogant wastage reminiscent of these kings. From the top of the fort, we could see over all of Orchha, over the temple in the central square to the river. Perhaps the main attraction was the vultures that perched on top of the domes and in the crevices of the watchtowers.
From the Jahangir we visited the King’s palace, which was in a greater state of disrepair, but still pleasant to walk around with some well-preserved paintings from the 16th and 17th century. We had some lunch at the family-run restaurant, which was again very pleasant, except for the two diseased dongs that hang out the front. After lunch, we returned to the centre square to visit the temple. It was wide and open. The inside of the dome formed a deep ceiling that echoed even the slightest sounds around the hall. I had seen some people walk up and view the city from one of the balconies cut into the temple, but on this occasion there was an entrepreneur inside holding the keys and charging people to go up. We didn’t go up this time, and it turned out to be a good decision, as the upper levels are locked for conservation.
We then walked along the riverside, to the location of the cenotaphs - the tombs of the kings of Orchha. There are many of these tombs sprawled over the countryside, barely peeking from between the corn fields and the unchecked grass, but five have been very well preserved. They are designed like the main temple, on a square base with a large, decorated central triangular spire. With the river flowing right beside them, the cenotaphs are a beautiful place to stroll around. They are impressive, but, as Kate says ‘it’s no Taj Mahal’.
A dirt path leads around the cenotaphs, on the banks of the river, and follows a small canal through the farming villages around town. Further up the path there was another small stone bridge and buffalo wallowing in the mud. All around there are ruined Mughal domes and hindu temples. Apparently there was once over 1000 temples here.
We walked back through the town, and up the hill to our hotel. The walk up the hill was always complemented by a procession of kids asking our names and where we were from, for some pens, or chocolate or money. Further up the hill is the last main attraction on the Orchha itinerary. The laxhmi temple was built on this gentle hill and looks oddly like the Victoria Terminus in Mumbai. In the middle of the triangular shaped building is a tower and a dome, carved a bit like a pineapple. Some very dodgy stone stairs led to the top of the dome, and offered some of the best views of old Orchha – the king’s palace and the huge temple, the river in the background and the cenotaphs to the right. Kate bargained out the front of the Laxhmi temple with a village woman and a man decorated by a crown of fluorescent, plastic flowers playing a wood-pipe. Her secret santa picked up a something in this transaction.
By this stage we were both exhausted of walking up and down cramped sets of stairs made for much shorter people and returned to the hotel to clean up before dinner. I had another spicy dish and Kate and I made for the hotel to watch crappy movies on cable TV.
On our second day in Orchha, we took a rafting trip down the river. It lasted only an hour, but drifting with the current of the river, paddling down the occasion set of rapids and watching the temples and jungle pass by between the boulders was a great way to see the town. The Batewa is reputedly one of the cleanest rivers in India (although the bar is not set that high). I swam twice in the river – once jumping off the boat and once at the end when we stopped for chai on the rocks. It seemed relatively clean, although I did get a weird itching on my bumcheek for the next day.
Lunch was the freshly made mutton I talked about in the last post. Following that, we spent the afternoon shopping and looking around. We packed and prepared for our last train in India – to Delhi.
Our tuk-tuk ride to Jhansi (the train station) was surprisingly entertaining. First the tuk-tuk broke down, in the freezing cold. Then, as we entered Jhansi, there were a series of wedding processions moving down the main street. In these processions, the groom sits on a horse and is surrounded by his family and friends dancing to trance music under fairy lights. The speakers are carried by a bunch of kids walking down the street and it’s ridiculously loud. Everything in India is public – from the people doing their morning business on the side of the railroad tracks, in full view of passengers, to weddings, which must march down the street in bright lights and loud music.
None of us slept well on the train to Delhi. The train was late and trying to catch up time by testing how fast the train could go without derailing. We still arrived in Delhi 2 hours late.
Delhi has become something of a second home. We know the suburb we are staying in quite well, are proficient with the metro and can locate the coffee shop. We did the walk through old Delhi again, visiting the Sikh temple, the Jama Masid and the spice market. In the Sikh temple we sat on the floor and ate lentils and chipatis, and drank chai, all cooked by the volunteers. The goat-sacrificing festival was on, and the Jama Masid was packed, meaning we had to wait quite a while before being able to go in. It is still impressive.
I was deathly tired in the afternoon, but we still managed to go shopping. Kate has bought some Indian-style Levis, we both bought some shoes and, today Kate has just had a haricut and her nails done.
We leave for Sri Lanka tonight, and hopefully, some relaxing and good surf.
Our love to you all,
Kate and Charles.
Friday 27 November 2009
Another Day, Another Ruin
Congratulations if you got through the last post. I'll try to be more brief this time.
We are in Orchha and leave for Delhi tonight. The India portion of our trip is more or less over, we leave for Sri Lanka on the 29th. I have just had a lunch of mutton, bought fresh from the market and a genuine, home-cooked Rogan josh sauce. It upsets me to think that I won't have it like this again, probably for a very long time.
But, we were in Mandu when I last wrote, about 5 days ago I think.
For the next few days after Omkareshwar, we had a car and a driver, which, compared to the day trains and local buses, is traveling in comfort. For lunch we stopped at a roadside stall, just out of Omkareshwar for some coffee and Paranthas. The great thing about the coffee is that they serve it in these really small cups, so you can go from one place to the next and sit and have a coffee without overdosing on caffine.
Mandu is on the top of a mountain range, and our drive took us through some remote countryside. The lonely planet guide said Mandu and its surrounds have a 'lost world' feel to them, and this is true. We rode past mud-rendered huts with thatched roofs and luminous green paddy fields where bullocks would pull a plough while husband and wife (with the wife in a sari of course)followed. We rode up the mountainside where apparently there is still a significant leopard population, but we did not see anything. From the top of the mountain you could back over all the checkered fields and think, as we had in Hampi, that little had changed here in hundreds of years.
Mandu is famous becuase the ruins of an entire Mughal city remain here. A Mughal king established a city on the top of this eminently defensible mountain around the 16th century, and it was, once, one of the largest and most prosperous cities in India, with nearly one million inhabitants. These ruins draw the (fairly small it has to be said) tourist crowd.
ON the way to the hotel we stopped at a Shiva temple with more lingums and bought fresh custard apples off the roadside. I had actually never had a custard apple (well not that I can remeber) and, remarkably, they do taste like custard.
We checked into our hotel, which had a garden and a nice view over the valley from the top of the mountain. It was late afternoon by the time we arrived. There is a good place to watch the sun set over the valley, and the skies were clear, so we took a rickshaw there. On the wall of an old Mughal watchtower, we sat and chatted while the sun set. There were a bunch of young boys and our leader tried to convince them we were hollywood stars. This scenario was only briefly interrupted by a rambling tourist from flanders, dressed in a skin-tight singlet and rainbow AFL shorts fulminating at the nearest Indian (which happened to be Mahindra in this case) that Indians were prejudice and racist. I think the irony escaped him.
After taking some 'fancy photos' as the flanders man described them, we returned to the hotel garden for dinner. Dinner was nice but it was genuinely cold. I did not think I would be cold in India. Apparently it was 7 degrees in Delhi yesterday. It was 40 when we left.
The next day we hired bicycles and rode our way around the ruins. There was a tomb, a huge mosque and mini-city called the royal enclave where the emperor and his 1500 wives lived. In the afternoon we rode 12km to visit two palaces on the mountaintop looking over the realm. The ruins are extraordinary, and very well preserved, but the real pleasure of Mandu is riding through the town, again, past all the villagers and their shacks, past the people working and the goats and buffalo and cows, imagining what a city 400 years ago would have been like. Apart from the main tourist sights that visited, all over the mountaintop a tomb, or a sentry tower, or a mosque pokes out from the overgrowth and farmland. Most farmers just cultivate around the ruins. In the afternoon, Kate bought some shawls from the local market. They turned out to be invaluable, even for me, as it was very cold again that night.
The next morning we left in the car for Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh and site of the Unione Carbide disaster in 1984. People are still waiting for compensation - its all over the papers to this day, 25 years later.
It was nearly evening when we arrived. On the road we stopped at the most filthy unhygienic restaurant we have yet experienced. You meal was complemented by a litter of emaciated puppies and a mother dog with an awful, weeping cyst. Remarkably, none of us got sick.
In Bhopal we visited the 3rd largest Mosque in the world, again built by the Mugals (the second biggest is in Delhi and the first in Mecca). Compared to the Delhi mosque, it was a relaxed place to walk around, with boys playing cricket in the courtyard. Bhopal is a lot like Delhi, with a congested, claustrophobic old city. It has the highest proportion of Muslim people in India, and there was a festival coming up where goats are sacrificed and eaten by family and friends. People were auctioning the animals in the old city and there were some very nervous, unsettled goats being dragged through the tuk-tuk traffic in the old city.
Incidentally, I read in the paper that 55,000 water buffalo were sacrificed in Nepal only a couple of days ago for a festival.
We visited Bhopal lake, which is still poisonous from the chemical spill. There here hundreds of locals strolling up and down the promenades set up along the banks. A local guy was playing a guitar and singing what sounded like bob marley songs. There was a green-lit mosque in the middle of the lake and ducks overfed on fairy floss and popcorn awkardly moved around the small pier.
I got into the festival spirit and had a mutton dish for dinner (mutton is goat here, not sheep) and afterward we walked across the road to catch the 9pm session of '2012' the latest apocalyptic movie with John cusak in it. I lost 10 rupess on a bet that it would be in English, but it didn't matter, dialog was not its strong suit.
Early the next morning we took a short, but packed, local bus to Sanchi. We were staying in a resort with quite nice, large rooms. Sanchi is home to Bhuddist 'stupas' - big domes with spires on top as old as 200BC. Some of the stupas have Bhuddas relics encased in them, bust you cannot see them (the relics). We visited these stupas not long after lunch and it was a pleasant walk through the parks. There was a good museum too, dedicated to the English archaeologists who stumbled upon the ruins (the oldest preserved structures in India I should add) and made it their work to restore them. Apart from the Stupa's, Sanchi is a one street town from w ild west movie. There are wooden shacks either side of a dusty street where people on either side sit and stare at one another when they are not collectively staring at a passer-by. There is one bank and a man with a shotgun stands guard out the front. I watched star cricket and slept for the rest of the afternoon.
The train to Jhansi was an hour late, so we had a quick look around the local temple, whose entrance is a giant lion's mouth. On the train, kate and I had a side berth, which was very comfortable. We were in sleeper class, so the carriages were attended by a regular stream of vendors and beggars. We played quite a bit of chess and stared out the window for the 4 hour journey. This was our last day train in India.
From Jhansi we had a tuk-tuk to Orchha, about 20 km away. Orchha is a beautiful city set among the ruins of a Hindu kingdom and on the banks of a wide and clear river.
But I am going for a last bike ride through rural India this afternoon, and will have to leave our last couple of days in Orchha for some other time soon.
Our love to you all.
Kate and Charles.
We are in Orchha and leave for Delhi tonight. The India portion of our trip is more or less over, we leave for Sri Lanka on the 29th. I have just had a lunch of mutton, bought fresh from the market and a genuine, home-cooked Rogan josh sauce. It upsets me to think that I won't have it like this again, probably for a very long time.
But, we were in Mandu when I last wrote, about 5 days ago I think.
For the next few days after Omkareshwar, we had a car and a driver, which, compared to the day trains and local buses, is traveling in comfort. For lunch we stopped at a roadside stall, just out of Omkareshwar for some coffee and Paranthas. The great thing about the coffee is that they serve it in these really small cups, so you can go from one place to the next and sit and have a coffee without overdosing on caffine.
Mandu is on the top of a mountain range, and our drive took us through some remote countryside. The lonely planet guide said Mandu and its surrounds have a 'lost world' feel to them, and this is true. We rode past mud-rendered huts with thatched roofs and luminous green paddy fields where bullocks would pull a plough while husband and wife (with the wife in a sari of course)followed. We rode up the mountainside where apparently there is still a significant leopard population, but we did not see anything. From the top of the mountain you could back over all the checkered fields and think, as we had in Hampi, that little had changed here in hundreds of years.
Mandu is famous becuase the ruins of an entire Mughal city remain here. A Mughal king established a city on the top of this eminently defensible mountain around the 16th century, and it was, once, one of the largest and most prosperous cities in India, with nearly one million inhabitants. These ruins draw the (fairly small it has to be said) tourist crowd.
ON the way to the hotel we stopped at a Shiva temple with more lingums and bought fresh custard apples off the roadside. I had actually never had a custard apple (well not that I can remeber) and, remarkably, they do taste like custard.
We checked into our hotel, which had a garden and a nice view over the valley from the top of the mountain. It was late afternoon by the time we arrived. There is a good place to watch the sun set over the valley, and the skies were clear, so we took a rickshaw there. On the wall of an old Mughal watchtower, we sat and chatted while the sun set. There were a bunch of young boys and our leader tried to convince them we were hollywood stars. This scenario was only briefly interrupted by a rambling tourist from flanders, dressed in a skin-tight singlet and rainbow AFL shorts fulminating at the nearest Indian (which happened to be Mahindra in this case) that Indians were prejudice and racist. I think the irony escaped him.
After taking some 'fancy photos' as the flanders man described them, we returned to the hotel garden for dinner. Dinner was nice but it was genuinely cold. I did not think I would be cold in India. Apparently it was 7 degrees in Delhi yesterday. It was 40 when we left.
The next day we hired bicycles and rode our way around the ruins. There was a tomb, a huge mosque and mini-city called the royal enclave where the emperor and his 1500 wives lived. In the afternoon we rode 12km to visit two palaces on the mountaintop looking over the realm. The ruins are extraordinary, and very well preserved, but the real pleasure of Mandu is riding through the town, again, past all the villagers and their shacks, past the people working and the goats and buffalo and cows, imagining what a city 400 years ago would have been like. Apart from the main tourist sights that visited, all over the mountaintop a tomb, or a sentry tower, or a mosque pokes out from the overgrowth and farmland. Most farmers just cultivate around the ruins. In the afternoon, Kate bought some shawls from the local market. They turned out to be invaluable, even for me, as it was very cold again that night.
The next morning we left in the car for Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh and site of the Unione Carbide disaster in 1984. People are still waiting for compensation - its all over the papers to this day, 25 years later.
It was nearly evening when we arrived. On the road we stopped at the most filthy unhygienic restaurant we have yet experienced. You meal was complemented by a litter of emaciated puppies and a mother dog with an awful, weeping cyst. Remarkably, none of us got sick.
In Bhopal we visited the 3rd largest Mosque in the world, again built by the Mugals (the second biggest is in Delhi and the first in Mecca). Compared to the Delhi mosque, it was a relaxed place to walk around, with boys playing cricket in the courtyard. Bhopal is a lot like Delhi, with a congested, claustrophobic old city. It has the highest proportion of Muslim people in India, and there was a festival coming up where goats are sacrificed and eaten by family and friends. People were auctioning the animals in the old city and there were some very nervous, unsettled goats being dragged through the tuk-tuk traffic in the old city.
Incidentally, I read in the paper that 55,000 water buffalo were sacrificed in Nepal only a couple of days ago for a festival.
We visited Bhopal lake, which is still poisonous from the chemical spill. There here hundreds of locals strolling up and down the promenades set up along the banks. A local guy was playing a guitar and singing what sounded like bob marley songs. There was a green-lit mosque in the middle of the lake and ducks overfed on fairy floss and popcorn awkardly moved around the small pier.
I got into the festival spirit and had a mutton dish for dinner (mutton is goat here, not sheep) and afterward we walked across the road to catch the 9pm session of '2012' the latest apocalyptic movie with John cusak in it. I lost 10 rupess on a bet that it would be in English, but it didn't matter, dialog was not its strong suit.
Early the next morning we took a short, but packed, local bus to Sanchi. We were staying in a resort with quite nice, large rooms. Sanchi is home to Bhuddist 'stupas' - big domes with spires on top as old as 200BC. Some of the stupas have Bhuddas relics encased in them, bust you cannot see them (the relics). We visited these stupas not long after lunch and it was a pleasant walk through the parks. There was a good museum too, dedicated to the English archaeologists who stumbled upon the ruins (the oldest preserved structures in India I should add) and made it their work to restore them. Apart from the Stupa's, Sanchi is a one street town from w ild west movie. There are wooden shacks either side of a dusty street where people on either side sit and stare at one another when they are not collectively staring at a passer-by. There is one bank and a man with a shotgun stands guard out the front. I watched star cricket and slept for the rest of the afternoon.
The train to Jhansi was an hour late, so we had a quick look around the local temple, whose entrance is a giant lion's mouth. On the train, kate and I had a side berth, which was very comfortable. We were in sleeper class, so the carriages were attended by a regular stream of vendors and beggars. We played quite a bit of chess and stared out the window for the 4 hour journey. This was our last day train in India.
From Jhansi we had a tuk-tuk to Orchha, about 20 km away. Orchha is a beautiful city set among the ruins of a Hindu kingdom and on the banks of a wide and clear river.
But I am going for a last bike ride through rural India this afternoon, and will have to leave our last couple of days in Orchha for some other time soon.
Our love to you all.
Kate and Charles.
Tuesday 24 November 2009
Mumbai to Omkareshwar
We arrived at Goa train station early and lay on the concrete staring at some leaking water and men trying to haul bags of rocks over the tracks for two and a half hours. From Goa to Mumbai we travelled first class. What is the difference between first and second class? An overzealous attendant barges in with a can of Glade and sprays the cabin and there is some first class sticky tape on the beds. We slept pretty well apart from an entire Indian family (in two beds) who came in at 1am and got off the train again at 3am.
The sun was not quite up when we reached Mumbai. We negotiated an overpriced taxi to the hotel – but he actually found the hotel, so we considered it money well spent. It was ‘impossible’ for us to check in before 12pm, so we walked around town trying to find a place for breakfast.
You’d imagine Mumbai to be one of those all night cities where you can get anything you want at any time. Well, not so. Mumbai does not wake up until 10am, so we did some incidental sightseeing while waiting for the breakfast shops to open.
We were staying in Colaba, in the southern part of Mumbai. Colaba is not far from the Taj hotel, the ‘Gateway to India’ and Leopold’s cafe, where the attacks in November last year were. On sunrise we strolled down to the waterfront of Mumbai harbour and saw the Taj hotel – an enormous colonial edifice with red domes on top, still being repaired at one end from the attacks. Looking out over the water was a large stone arch – the ‘gateway to India’ – reputedly the point where the British landed, and hundreds of years later, where the last official left. There is a wide boulevard in front of the Taj and behind the gateway where the hawkers were preparing for their day’s scamming and hundreds of pigeons were being fed by an old man. A circle of people were practising ‘laughing yoga’, where they all run towards each other laughing at nothing, or perhaps laughing at how silly they looked. I was laughing.
Eventually we had breakfast at a place called Cafe Monde, which had good coffee and we read the paper.
Lonely planet had a suggested walking tour of Mumbai, so we roughly followed its course after breakfast. The walk took us down MG road (every town and city has an MG road, and I have only now worked out that it is Mahatma Ghandi Road) past numerous dominating colonial buildings, Including the Police Headquarters (previously the yacht club), the high court, the museum, and Mumbai university. Some of the buildings were formerly white, but the pollution had taken to them and many parts were stained black. The high court and the university were side by side and very impressive. I know nothing about architecture, but they looked like gothic cathedrals. The man with a machine gun standing behind a bunker of sandbags said we could not go in. We didn’t try to bargain.
Mumbai, or Bombay as it was, (and lots of people still call it Bombay, to my surprise) is a very impressive display of British power, and perhaps that is how they meant it to be. Interestingly, I have heard that Bombay is just a British mispronunciation of Mumbai that caught on. Similarly the British couldn’t quite say Kolkata, and said Calcutta.
There were also some quite different buildings along the way including a baby blue synagogue with a ‘mobile combat team’ vehicle out the front and a massive art deco construction with two women holding longswords carved into the facades. The women must have been 100 feet.
This area of Mumbai is a living relic. Even the unmarked buildings are old British mansions stained from the pollution or crumbling with age. That said, this was clearly a wealthy area. The streets were wide and clean, traffic signals were obeyed, brand stores, ATM’s and coffee shops (with espresso coffee!) were numerous.
The walk also guided us around the central park of Mumbai. It is a huge rectangle, surrounded by markets. There are seven or eight cricket pitches there and the teams were warming up in their whites for Saturday matches. Heaps of kids were playing ad-hoc games with no pads and real cricket balls. We stopped for a while in the shade(away from the flying balls) and watched one old guy smash some boundaries off another old guy.
A few kilometres down a street of local markets (from which Kate bought a pair of denim shorts for Rs 100) was the Victoria Terminus, or the central railway station of Mumbai, where we had got off the train earlier. The building is famous for the attacks last year, and apparently there is a market in Mumbai for ‘terror tourism’ (although I don’t know how you could tell the difference considering most of the attacks were at the most popular tourist destinations), but it is a huge old stone building with a large, spiky, pollution stained dome. With the double –decker buses and yellow taxis whizzing past the roundabout – it is an impressive sight.
By then it was past check-in time so we walked back to the hotel and my secret santa acquired something on the way. On the way, we stopped at a patisserie that sold real croissants. It might not sound like much, but the sight of proper, soft, light, flaky, buttery croissants brought us unspeakable joy.
Our room was more like an apartment. People were living permanently in the surrounding rooms and we had a little balcony that looked over a garden. Not that it mattered, we were barely in the room for a waking hour. The hotel was in a nice area, with banyan trees shading the entire street. I think it was for this reason that all the taxi drivers hung out here.
An island of Mumbai, in the harbour, is the site of some very ancient caves. The island is reachable by boat, so after unpacking we returned to the harbour and paid for a ticket on the ‘deluxe boat’. Once on the ferry, there was additional tax to get onto the top floor of the boat, and I hereby stand as the only person in history who has fallen for that one. We didn’t even get a seat.
Mumbai harbour is very polluted. We ploughed through the soupy air and the slick water for about an hour, passing tankers and battleships and even the occasional surfacing submarine. As we stepped off the boat there was a small train that went only 100 metres along the flats to the base of a hill, where, if you were still feeling lazy, you could be carried on your very own chair by four men to the beginning of the caves. The caves were very old, some as old as 200BC. The first cave was impressive, it was a large hall with some elephants and an huge Shiva head, one of the biggest in India. These caves are monolithic, which means they cut the caves, and all the ornate carvings, from the mountainside with only a hammer and chisel. There were also a number of big lingums, but I will come back to Shiva and his lingums later.
We were both starving by the time we arrived back on land in Mumbai and went to dinner at a restaurant called Indigo. It was expensive, but I can truly say that I had the best burger of my life there. It exceeded even the glory of Ben Bry. It was simply a bun, a big piece of steak and some brie cheese, but as you bit through the bun, there was no resistance upon reaching the steak. In the restaurant, when you ordered a beer they showed it to you first, like it was a bottle of wine. Very posh. The restaurant also had salads and meats and desserts on display, exactly like a Sydney delicatessen. In the end we concluded that it would have been best not to visit Mumbai. The food was so good and we would be venturing back into the land of mixed vegetable curry and three chapattis.
We walked home through the night markets that sell 4-foot polka-dot balloons, gold monacles and telescopes, mens and women’s underwear, tourist t-shirts and multicoulred bangles. Secret Santa acquired another item on this walk.
Overnight there was a huge storm that woke me up.
Theoretically breakfast was included in our room price, but when we found out this consisted of one bread roll and a packet of Nescafe, we went back to Indigos for some porridge and coffee. We checked out at 12 and got ripped off again for a cab to our next hotel (we eventually realised you can get metered ones and they are the way to go), but there was extra pressure to just get inside something because a holy man was walking down our street, naked to the hip, cracking a whip at us and demanding money.
We met our leader for the next tour from Mumbai to Delhi. Mahindra is best descried as jolly. He’s a borderline alcoholic that laughs deeply, is a well of knowledge and specialises in gourmet trips (and looks the part). We are travelling with just one other person, a girl from England – Emma.
With the group, we returned to the Gateway of India and ate some raw onion, coriander and green mango on a crisp from the streetside. Seeing another bollywood movie was on the cards, but having already experienced (and barely understood) one in Jaipur, Kate and I opted to take a taxi to Asia’s biggest laundry. You might have seen it on that ‘History of India’ show. It was a 15 minute drive out of the plush, harbour side area of Mumbai into the poorer areas. The laundry is beside the train tracks and consists of thousands of sweaty, topless men bashing soapy clothes against some smoothed rocks. We decided to go inside and take a look (and got done by the ‘you need to pay us 100 Rs ($2.50) to get in’ scam – but what can you do, they are standing there, you want to go past...). We were guided by a young man who took us through all the pastel shirts and bedsheets. All the workers were more than happy to share their time with us, so it was a good experience. The OHS was questionable. Electrical wires connected to dryers just dangled on the soaking floor and we went into one room where some chemicals were bubbling under a 40 gallon drum, right beside where people were taking a rest.
We returned to the hotel via Chowpatty beach – Mumbai’s answer to Bondi. It was more like a mudflat and there were stockpiles of those jack-shaped concrete things to stop boats landing on the shore. Locals were snuggling each other on the sand and while vendors inquisitively strolled past selling fluro windmills. Kids were riding along the beach in these little multicoloured cars blaring hindi trance. The city is built right along the edge of this stretch of water, and we walked the 2-3km back to the hotel. We had a beer at a restaurant that smelt of urine and had red lights out the front.
For dinner we ate at a local restaurant and had some excellent Indian food. It was the first Indian in a week and tasted good.
The next morning was a 4:30am start, so we packed early and made our way to the Central Mumbai Railway Station for a train to Aurangabad. There is still the odd bullet hole visible in the walls.
Overall, we really enjoyed our time in Mumbai. We did not see the slums and much of the poverty (although they do run ‘tours’ of there, and people have mentioned how a significant number of people living there are white collar workers, how there is electricity, drinking water and most people rent, and how the annual turnover of trade in the slum is US$650 million a year – slightly less than the GDP of the Solomon Islands). We were both struck by how different Mumbai is, how diverse, multicultural and modern it is. It has to be said though, eating some of the finest food we have ever eaten certainly improved our perceptions.
I had a couple of cups of coffee for breakfast before the train left. We were sitting in an AC chair car, which for day trips, is fairly luxurious. A waiter comes around and asks for orders for breakfast and lunch. He had an astonishly clam and gentle demeanour. Payment was a relaxed ‘when you want affair’ and the carriage was full of young professionals, presumably going to work, as the men smelt heavily of cologne. I had two omelettes, the second of which I though the waiter was giving me because I looked hungry, but alas I had to pay. Lunch was vegetable biriyani, basically spicy fried rice.
We arrived in at Aurangabad at around 1:30pm. Aurangabad takes its name from the Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb, who ruled from here between 1653 to 1707. Aurangzeb is famous firstly for being the son of Shah Jehan who locked his father in the Red Fort in Agra in a chamber overlooking the Taj Mahal, which Jehan built. He is famous secondly for being a paranoid psychotic who had an incestuous relationship with his sister and oversaw the demise of Mughal rule in India.
Our first hotel room was fine except for the smell and the big hole near the roof of the bathroom through which workman only a few metres away could see. We changed rooms to one where the same hole was patched up.
After checking in we jumped back in the cab and took the ride out to the Ellora caves. The caves are 20km out of Aurangabad. Again, these were monolithic caves, so they were cut out of an existing mountain. Ellora’s caves are remarkable because three different religions plied their trade here – Buddhists, Hindus and Jains. The Buddhist caves were the oldest, but the Hindu caves were the more impressive. The main Hindu cave was constructed over 150 years, involving six generations of craftsmen and was dedicated to Shiva and his lingums.
Shiva is a multi-limbed, dope smoking, deamon smoting, destroyer god. As such there are many images carved into the caves of Shiva decapitating daemons with one hand, while fondling the breasts of his wife with another. The Shiva lingum, is basically a half-egg shaped stone that sticks out from the ground. Lingums represent the unity of the penis and the vagina and are believed to be imbued with considerable power (especially over fertility) if consecrated with the right prayers. Lingums are everywhere, often covered in garlands of flowers. Some lingums are huge and some are very small. People have lingums in their houses and restaurants.
The highlight, however, was when our guide chanted a Buddhist mantra in a cave with ribs cut into the roof to amplify the sound.
Kate was not feeling well that night, so we both had an early night.
The next morning we hired a car and driver to do some sightseeing. We drove out, back in the direction of the Ellora caves to Dalutabad. It had been raining quite steadily all morning and the hills and mountains were barely visible in the cloud. Thesemountains around Aurangabad are like readymade forts. They have sheer sides and flat tops. From there it is really just a case of add a wall and a citadel and presto, you have an impregnable fort. One such mountain in Dalutabad has been popular for fort-building for nearly 1000 years. Dalutabad fort was the first stop on our sightseeing tour.
Archaeologists are currently excavating a Medieval village on and around the mountain where Dalutabad fort now sits. Dalutabad really shot to fame, hoever, when another psychotic Mughal emperor, Tulaq, marched the entire population of Delhi 1100km to establish a new capital here. Most died upon the way, and those who didn’t made the return journey less than 12 months later.
Many years later a second Mugal emperor, Aurangzeb, also moved his capital here and the fort that stands atop the hill now is mostly his conception. Because this fort was built by a maniac, it is far more interesting. The red fort in Agra was like a well-proportioned body – large limbs for defence but an equally large brain, in the form of spaces for public gathering and politicking. Daultabad fort has massive limbs and no brain.
The outer walls remain and are spectacular among the overgrowth and moss. In the courtyards there is a beautiful orange Minar, (a large, thin mughal tower) second only to the Qutb Minar in Delhi. These outer areas at the foot of the mountain are open and peaceful with abundant gardens, temples and mosques. Move up the hill towards the citdel, however, and the paranoia grows. First, there are two steep moats with tiny drawbridges and two enormous brass-cast cannons. If you manage to get past here, you walk into a deep and winding cave cut into the mountain itself. It is called the ‘dark passage’, and inside there is no light but for carefully placed tunnels letting in just a glint of light. Enemy soldiers, in their claustrophobia and madnesss (apparently soldiers used to kill each other in the tunnel) would run towards these lights only to plummet into the moat below. Channels were also cut into the tunnel, so, unseen by enemy solders, boiling oil could be poured on them. The doors either side could be closed and if you did make it thorough, you would have to fight your way, single file, out of the doorway.
We needed a man with a flame torch to guide us through the tunnels, and if they weren’t claustrophobic enough, the smell of bat poo was almost overwhelming. Kate enlisted the guiding hand of a local woman to get through the passage.
The story goes that the fort has only been twice breached, and on both occasions the guards were bribed.
After the tunnel there is a very long set of stairs the curls around the mountain. I puffed up these and reached the summit. The views of the surrounding mountains and khaki forests were breaktaking, but the citadel was just a lonely hall and a massive cannon.
After the fort we visited another ‘Baby Taj’ – which was just that, a miniature, pollution stained and version of the Taj. Apparently the designer of this Tomb was more into finanacial austerity than the Shah Jehan – the architect of the Taj in Agra.
We finally convinced our driver to take us for lunch, which was at a nice restaurant called Kalish. After lunch we visited a water wheel, which is apparently a feat of Medieval engineering, but looked to me like a pool with a huge banyan tree.
In the evening we visited the Pathan market, which takes its name from the Afgahns that ruled here. Now there is a green-lit mosque with a spire like a lantern and local fabric and clothes shops on either side of the street. There were no tourists here and very little bargaining. First we visited a Sari shop, which had striking assortment of colourful silk fabrics, many just strewn over the floor. We also visited a jewellery shop, and Kate bought the marriage necklace she had been looking for the whole trip – for a very reasonable price – from a friendly man with green eyes. Just walking down the street was a great experience, the people were incredibly friendly and curious, but without the aggression (and commensurate defensiveness) of some other places we have visited. It was just interesting to see local people shopping as they would normally.
Aurangabad is not much to look at. It is like many other Indian, cities – it is dusty, polluted, crowded, cows stop traffic and a roundabout is not a roundabout without a statue of a freedom fighter on it. It does not have the charm of Jaislamer or the energy or the bright lights of Mumbai, but we had a fantastic stay. Tourist places are touristy because there is something very impressive there, and they are definitely worth seeing. Aurangabad was a different experience though because it is off the trail a little bit. You walk down the street and know that all the hellos will not be followed by a sales pitch.
We had dinner at a Tandoor restaurant. I ordered chicken which Kate ate most of.
We took a car the next day from Aurangabad to Jalgoan. For breakfast we stopped at a vendor on the street and ate fired rice cakes and chai tea, in public, as everyone else does.
On the way to Jalgoan are the Ajanta caves. These caves were much like the Ellora caves, but are entirely Buddhist and cut into mountains overlooking a river and waterfall. They are also famous because they have some of the best preserved cave paintings in India. Historians have theorised that the caves are so well-preserved state because nearly 1500 years ago, the Buddhist dynasty here collapsed very quickly and people fled the caves. From then they were forgotten, until a British official stumbled across them during a tiger hunt.
To get into the caves you must first run a tight gauntlet of hawkers offering you ‘gifts’ of crystals. I am quite weak, so had one thrust into my hand. In the caves we shared a guide with some European tourists who were very unhappy about something to do with the price (which was, in perspective, $2.50 each).
After making our way through the caves and admiring the painting and some incredible, deep monasteries with arched roofs and what looked like a rib cage cut into it, we crossed the river and walked to the top of a nearby hill for a view from a distance. For some reason my guard was down and I accepted another gift from a ‘farmer’, who led me around, pointing out the waterfall and trying to convince me that he was not a salesperson while trying to sell me crystals. The view of the waterfall set against caves in the background was impressive.
We arrived in Jagaon late in the afternoon. Jalgoan is mostly a stop for people visiting the Ellora and Ajanta caves. As we arrived, however, Kate had noticed that one of the tassles on her marriage necklace was broken. We knew there was another outlet of this jewellery store in Jagoan, so we got a tuk-tuk there and tried to sort it out. At first they simply tried to weld it together and paint over it with sparkly gold paint. It looked atrocious and we settled for an exchange (although the pendant was slightly different). In the evening we took a stroll around the street near our hotel. We stopped in at a cotton shop with a very friendly owner (and fixed prices, again) and Kate bought some fabric. My secret Santa acquired a little something on this walk.
We had dinner in a bar with dimmed lights. The lights are dimmed so people hand make under the table deals... apparently.
Our hotel in Jagoan was only 2 minutes from the train station. So, after another 4:30am start, we hopped the train to Omkareshwar. We were in sleeper carriages this time, so the train was chockers with people getting on and off to go to work, chai wallahs wailing down the aisle and people coming past selling what looked like sticks, but are actually portable toothbrushes. The toothbrushes come from the neem tree. People just break off the stick, shave off the outer layer of bark and expose the coarse bristles underneath. We had another conversation about Ricky Ponting, this time with some men working for a pharmecutical company somewhere on the train route. People are generally very friendly, but I will not miss day trains in sleeper class.
From the train station it was another hour’s drive to Omkareshwar. Just as we left the station there was a procession of people in the main street. At the head of the procession was the body of a young woman. She was on a wooden platform, wrapped in cloth but for her face, which, while surrounded in lace, was visible.
The drive to Omkareshwar took us past many cotton and chilli plantations. Piles of chilli lie on the roadside drying in the sun. In many of the fields there are the small tents of nomads with little more than their yellow tarpoulians, their pots and their goats. Almost as common as the cars are wooden carts being pulled by cows with painted horns and pom-poms between their eyes. In the towns that we pass through, there are many more dead dogs than we have seen elsewhere.
On the way we stopped at roadside stall for paranthas (stuffed, fried bread) and saw a buffalo with its head tied to its front, left leg as punishment for being naughtly. We arrived in Omkareshwar by mid-afternoon.
Omkareshwar is a dirt-poor, flyblown place with rake-like holy men and Shiva Lingums everywhere. The air is as thick with superstition and religion as it is with hashish and incencse here.
Omkareshwar is an island at the meeting point of two holy rivers. The island is shaped like an ‘Om’, or a backward “3”. There is an emourmous dam at one end of the river. Our hotel was on the other side of the river, and after checking in we took a walk across the bridge to the central part of Omkareshwar, past a cow painted as a tiger and beggars on either side. Omkareshwar is a very small place, and the central area is a Shiva temple and a collection of yellow tarpaulins, under which vendors sell flowers and chai to pilgrims. The air is very thick under the tarpaulins with incense and the holy-men and their white-painted faces just appear from the incense smoke and disappear again. There were steps leading down to the river, and people bathing there. We stopped for chai with the flies under one of the tarpaulins.
After getting our bearings we crossed back over the river and had afternoon tea at ‘Ganesh rest’ house, run my some very friendly Nepalese. Ganesh rest-house is under siege from monkeys. The owners keep a little jack-russel and an armoury of slingshots to hold back the tide. Occasionally a monkey slips through, races into the kitchen and steals a banana, then sits in a nearby tree and eats it slowly, in full view of guests and staff. I had nutella toast and coffee. Nutella must grow here because I recieved almost a full jar lumped on my plate.
Kate and I spent most of that afternoon relaxing and watching TV. Kate discovered that the laptop had games on it, so that is why this blog-post is so delayed.
The next morning we returned to Ganesh rest house for breakfast, I ventured the museli and Kate did the porridge. We both survived and it were the better for the fruit and fibre. Omkareshwar is so small and isolated, and in many ways so dirty, that we thought if there was ever a place we were going to get sick, this would be it. Thankfully, that never eventuated.
The plan for the day was to walk the 8km circuit around the om-shaped island. After breakfast we crossed the bridge, said hello to the tiger cow and began our stroll, clockwise, around the island. Two minutes in we were stopped for a series of photos by some school girls. We continued along the banks of the river. Pilgrims make this walk quite regularly, so the pathway was well maintained. It wound through numerous straw huts, under which naked holy men would sit cross-legged in a cloud of marijuana smoke and distribute big, toothless smiles. Scatted along the path are little temples and idols covered in flowers or honey and milk. Some idols are little more than a rock painted red with two goggly eyes stuck on. Every house or stall along the way (and there are hundreds) had a lingum or lingums, like blobby rock gardens. Many families take this walk around the island, paying their respects and giving their offerings of flowers to the various gods they encounter on the way.
The river below was flowing fast. We could see numerous areas where the wide water would funnel into a set of rapids. The water looked relatively clean, and as we reached one point of the island, two fast-flowing rivers collided and created big, shallow rapids that the boats struggled to climb their way up.
On the point at the confluence of these two rivers was a little temple with another red, multilimbed god, from which some kids were pilfering the offerings. We went and sat by the waterside. There were odd rockpiles everywhere (like from blair witch project!) and clothes (and rubbish) strewn over the pebbles and boulders leading to the water. People who have experienced hard times or suffering come to the banks of this river, take off their clothes and bathe in it. They then leave put new clothes on and leave the old, tainted life behind.
The path then led up the spine of the mountain, through some abandoned mud-shacks and bangle-stores and small temples. Halfway up, black-faced monkeys started appearing. They were lining either side of the path waiting for someone to give them food. One monkey looked particularly impatient and agitated. I walked past, then Kate walked past, then, as Emma was walking past, the monkey grabbed her pants and would not let go. Kate clapped and advanced towards the monkey, but it hissed and bared it teeth, letting go of Emma and grabbing onto Kate’s leg. I then hissed at the monkey and stomped at it, but this just aggravated it more and it reared its sharp teeth towards me. There was a local family walking up, so, not knowing what else to do, I yelled at a teenage boy to do something about it. Calmly, he did something that I don’t remember in the fuss and the monkey was gone. We all are now terrified of these black-faced monkeys.
Anyway, much good came out of the attack, because this family escorted us through the monkey zone, and once we reached the top of the hill, we all stopped for a chai and exchanged photos and the little hindi/English that we knew. We walked further up the hill with them, to an 80ft Shiva statue painted in full colour. Here they stopped to eat at a place where the food was free for pilgrims, so we said our goodbyes. The path moved past some more ruins of a Hindu Kingdom, to the opposite end of the island, for a view of the dam, and down to the banks of the river, past some 11 or 12 year old girls labouring in their Saris, to the bridge with the tiger cow.
In the afternoon we took a boat tour of the island. Most of the boats are colourfully adorned with tassels and a painted hull. Ours was, aesthetically, the worst boat in the river. It had cloth for a roof, and ageing wooden hull with water sloshing inside. What it lacked in looks, however, it made up for in strength. Along the way there were five or six sets of rapids that the boat had navigate. On one side of the island we would go down with the rapids, on the other we had to go up them. So we bumped down the one side of the island and bashed our way up the other. At one point I though the river had the better of us, as we had attempted to ascend a steep looking rapid to find ourselves up against the rocks and going backwards. Only the intervention of both boys at the front of the boat and a big stick did we make it to the other side.
Upon returning to land we stopped for a chai with flies and a bull chased a kid up the street, we think because he threw a water bomb at him. In the final hours of the day, Kate perused the bangle shops and made some purchases. My Secret Santa acquired two possessions on this sojourn.
We walked back up the hill to our hotel as the sun set. Kids were running up and down beside us, rolling a bike tyre with a stick as they went. Their sisters were in a nearby house, labouring away at the washing. A whole busload of kids pulled over just to run out and shake our hands.
That evening we had dinner at the restaurant and were given a lecture on the trials of the holy men. One category of holy man (they seem to be exclusively men) called Nagus, pledge themselves to chastity. In order to ensure that they do not break this vow, when they graduate from holy man school (there is the equivalent of primary secondary and tertiary education) these men pierce their foreskin and place a ring through it. To the ring they attach a bell.
Omkareshwar is all that is strange and foreign about India squeezed onto a tiny island. It is almost ridiculous to think that Mumbai and this place are on the same planet, let alone the same country. Nowhere so far have I felt so far from home. Apart from Nutella, nothing is familiar. Not the mantras that echo over the river each night at exactly 8pm, not the gak blobs on the side of road that people worship, not the bizarre characters and stories that people follow as their religion, not the rationale behind why people would starve themselves and put a rod though their penis, not the blind 90 year old on the bridge with no hands, not the air raid siren that goes off each morning at 7, not why you would paint a cow as a tiger, and not even the flies.
We left Omkareswar a few days ago for Mandu, and Mandu for Bhopal. Tomorrow we leave Bhopal for Sanchi. I always say it, but I will try to get these more recent places up soon.
Our love to you all.
Kate and Charles.
The sun was not quite up when we reached Mumbai. We negotiated an overpriced taxi to the hotel – but he actually found the hotel, so we considered it money well spent. It was ‘impossible’ for us to check in before 12pm, so we walked around town trying to find a place for breakfast.
You’d imagine Mumbai to be one of those all night cities where you can get anything you want at any time. Well, not so. Mumbai does not wake up until 10am, so we did some incidental sightseeing while waiting for the breakfast shops to open.
We were staying in Colaba, in the southern part of Mumbai. Colaba is not far from the Taj hotel, the ‘Gateway to India’ and Leopold’s cafe, where the attacks in November last year were. On sunrise we strolled down to the waterfront of Mumbai harbour and saw the Taj hotel – an enormous colonial edifice with red domes on top, still being repaired at one end from the attacks. Looking out over the water was a large stone arch – the ‘gateway to India’ – reputedly the point where the British landed, and hundreds of years later, where the last official left. There is a wide boulevard in front of the Taj and behind the gateway where the hawkers were preparing for their day’s scamming and hundreds of pigeons were being fed by an old man. A circle of people were practising ‘laughing yoga’, where they all run towards each other laughing at nothing, or perhaps laughing at how silly they looked. I was laughing.
Eventually we had breakfast at a place called Cafe Monde, which had good coffee and we read the paper.
Lonely planet had a suggested walking tour of Mumbai, so we roughly followed its course after breakfast. The walk took us down MG road (every town and city has an MG road, and I have only now worked out that it is Mahatma Ghandi Road) past numerous dominating colonial buildings, Including the Police Headquarters (previously the yacht club), the high court, the museum, and Mumbai university. Some of the buildings were formerly white, but the pollution had taken to them and many parts were stained black. The high court and the university were side by side and very impressive. I know nothing about architecture, but they looked like gothic cathedrals. The man with a machine gun standing behind a bunker of sandbags said we could not go in. We didn’t try to bargain.
Mumbai, or Bombay as it was, (and lots of people still call it Bombay, to my surprise) is a very impressive display of British power, and perhaps that is how they meant it to be. Interestingly, I have heard that Bombay is just a British mispronunciation of Mumbai that caught on. Similarly the British couldn’t quite say Kolkata, and said Calcutta.
There were also some quite different buildings along the way including a baby blue synagogue with a ‘mobile combat team’ vehicle out the front and a massive art deco construction with two women holding longswords carved into the facades. The women must have been 100 feet.
This area of Mumbai is a living relic. Even the unmarked buildings are old British mansions stained from the pollution or crumbling with age. That said, this was clearly a wealthy area. The streets were wide and clean, traffic signals were obeyed, brand stores, ATM’s and coffee shops (with espresso coffee!) were numerous.
The walk also guided us around the central park of Mumbai. It is a huge rectangle, surrounded by markets. There are seven or eight cricket pitches there and the teams were warming up in their whites for Saturday matches. Heaps of kids were playing ad-hoc games with no pads and real cricket balls. We stopped for a while in the shade(away from the flying balls) and watched one old guy smash some boundaries off another old guy.
A few kilometres down a street of local markets (from which Kate bought a pair of denim shorts for Rs 100) was the Victoria Terminus, or the central railway station of Mumbai, where we had got off the train earlier. The building is famous for the attacks last year, and apparently there is a market in Mumbai for ‘terror tourism’ (although I don’t know how you could tell the difference considering most of the attacks were at the most popular tourist destinations), but it is a huge old stone building with a large, spiky, pollution stained dome. With the double –decker buses and yellow taxis whizzing past the roundabout – it is an impressive sight.
By then it was past check-in time so we walked back to the hotel and my secret santa acquired something on the way. On the way, we stopped at a patisserie that sold real croissants. It might not sound like much, but the sight of proper, soft, light, flaky, buttery croissants brought us unspeakable joy.
Our room was more like an apartment. People were living permanently in the surrounding rooms and we had a little balcony that looked over a garden. Not that it mattered, we were barely in the room for a waking hour. The hotel was in a nice area, with banyan trees shading the entire street. I think it was for this reason that all the taxi drivers hung out here.
An island of Mumbai, in the harbour, is the site of some very ancient caves. The island is reachable by boat, so after unpacking we returned to the harbour and paid for a ticket on the ‘deluxe boat’. Once on the ferry, there was additional tax to get onto the top floor of the boat, and I hereby stand as the only person in history who has fallen for that one. We didn’t even get a seat.
Mumbai harbour is very polluted. We ploughed through the soupy air and the slick water for about an hour, passing tankers and battleships and even the occasional surfacing submarine. As we stepped off the boat there was a small train that went only 100 metres along the flats to the base of a hill, where, if you were still feeling lazy, you could be carried on your very own chair by four men to the beginning of the caves. The caves were very old, some as old as 200BC. The first cave was impressive, it was a large hall with some elephants and an huge Shiva head, one of the biggest in India. These caves are monolithic, which means they cut the caves, and all the ornate carvings, from the mountainside with only a hammer and chisel. There were also a number of big lingums, but I will come back to Shiva and his lingums later.
We were both starving by the time we arrived back on land in Mumbai and went to dinner at a restaurant called Indigo. It was expensive, but I can truly say that I had the best burger of my life there. It exceeded even the glory of Ben Bry. It was simply a bun, a big piece of steak and some brie cheese, but as you bit through the bun, there was no resistance upon reaching the steak. In the restaurant, when you ordered a beer they showed it to you first, like it was a bottle of wine. Very posh. The restaurant also had salads and meats and desserts on display, exactly like a Sydney delicatessen. In the end we concluded that it would have been best not to visit Mumbai. The food was so good and we would be venturing back into the land of mixed vegetable curry and three chapattis.
We walked home through the night markets that sell 4-foot polka-dot balloons, gold monacles and telescopes, mens and women’s underwear, tourist t-shirts and multicoulred bangles. Secret Santa acquired another item on this walk.
Overnight there was a huge storm that woke me up.
Theoretically breakfast was included in our room price, but when we found out this consisted of one bread roll and a packet of Nescafe, we went back to Indigos for some porridge and coffee. We checked out at 12 and got ripped off again for a cab to our next hotel (we eventually realised you can get metered ones and they are the way to go), but there was extra pressure to just get inside something because a holy man was walking down our street, naked to the hip, cracking a whip at us and demanding money.
We met our leader for the next tour from Mumbai to Delhi. Mahindra is best descried as jolly. He’s a borderline alcoholic that laughs deeply, is a well of knowledge and specialises in gourmet trips (and looks the part). We are travelling with just one other person, a girl from England – Emma.
With the group, we returned to the Gateway of India and ate some raw onion, coriander and green mango on a crisp from the streetside. Seeing another bollywood movie was on the cards, but having already experienced (and barely understood) one in Jaipur, Kate and I opted to take a taxi to Asia’s biggest laundry. You might have seen it on that ‘History of India’ show. It was a 15 minute drive out of the plush, harbour side area of Mumbai into the poorer areas. The laundry is beside the train tracks and consists of thousands of sweaty, topless men bashing soapy clothes against some smoothed rocks. We decided to go inside and take a look (and got done by the ‘you need to pay us 100 Rs ($2.50) to get in’ scam – but what can you do, they are standing there, you want to go past...). We were guided by a young man who took us through all the pastel shirts and bedsheets. All the workers were more than happy to share their time with us, so it was a good experience. The OHS was questionable. Electrical wires connected to dryers just dangled on the soaking floor and we went into one room where some chemicals were bubbling under a 40 gallon drum, right beside where people were taking a rest.
We returned to the hotel via Chowpatty beach – Mumbai’s answer to Bondi. It was more like a mudflat and there were stockpiles of those jack-shaped concrete things to stop boats landing on the shore. Locals were snuggling each other on the sand and while vendors inquisitively strolled past selling fluro windmills. Kids were riding along the beach in these little multicoloured cars blaring hindi trance. The city is built right along the edge of this stretch of water, and we walked the 2-3km back to the hotel. We had a beer at a restaurant that smelt of urine and had red lights out the front.
For dinner we ate at a local restaurant and had some excellent Indian food. It was the first Indian in a week and tasted good.
The next morning was a 4:30am start, so we packed early and made our way to the Central Mumbai Railway Station for a train to Aurangabad. There is still the odd bullet hole visible in the walls.
Overall, we really enjoyed our time in Mumbai. We did not see the slums and much of the poverty (although they do run ‘tours’ of there, and people have mentioned how a significant number of people living there are white collar workers, how there is electricity, drinking water and most people rent, and how the annual turnover of trade in the slum is US$650 million a year – slightly less than the GDP of the Solomon Islands). We were both struck by how different Mumbai is, how diverse, multicultural and modern it is. It has to be said though, eating some of the finest food we have ever eaten certainly improved our perceptions.
I had a couple of cups of coffee for breakfast before the train left. We were sitting in an AC chair car, which for day trips, is fairly luxurious. A waiter comes around and asks for orders for breakfast and lunch. He had an astonishly clam and gentle demeanour. Payment was a relaxed ‘when you want affair’ and the carriage was full of young professionals, presumably going to work, as the men smelt heavily of cologne. I had two omelettes, the second of which I though the waiter was giving me because I looked hungry, but alas I had to pay. Lunch was vegetable biriyani, basically spicy fried rice.
We arrived in at Aurangabad at around 1:30pm. Aurangabad takes its name from the Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb, who ruled from here between 1653 to 1707. Aurangzeb is famous firstly for being the son of Shah Jehan who locked his father in the Red Fort in Agra in a chamber overlooking the Taj Mahal, which Jehan built. He is famous secondly for being a paranoid psychotic who had an incestuous relationship with his sister and oversaw the demise of Mughal rule in India.
Our first hotel room was fine except for the smell and the big hole near the roof of the bathroom through which workman only a few metres away could see. We changed rooms to one where the same hole was patched up.
After checking in we jumped back in the cab and took the ride out to the Ellora caves. The caves are 20km out of Aurangabad. Again, these were monolithic caves, so they were cut out of an existing mountain. Ellora’s caves are remarkable because three different religions plied their trade here – Buddhists, Hindus and Jains. The Buddhist caves were the oldest, but the Hindu caves were the more impressive. The main Hindu cave was constructed over 150 years, involving six generations of craftsmen and was dedicated to Shiva and his lingums.
Shiva is a multi-limbed, dope smoking, deamon smoting, destroyer god. As such there are many images carved into the caves of Shiva decapitating daemons with one hand, while fondling the breasts of his wife with another. The Shiva lingum, is basically a half-egg shaped stone that sticks out from the ground. Lingums represent the unity of the penis and the vagina and are believed to be imbued with considerable power (especially over fertility) if consecrated with the right prayers. Lingums are everywhere, often covered in garlands of flowers. Some lingums are huge and some are very small. People have lingums in their houses and restaurants.
The highlight, however, was when our guide chanted a Buddhist mantra in a cave with ribs cut into the roof to amplify the sound.
Kate was not feeling well that night, so we both had an early night.
The next morning we hired a car and driver to do some sightseeing. We drove out, back in the direction of the Ellora caves to Dalutabad. It had been raining quite steadily all morning and the hills and mountains were barely visible in the cloud. Thesemountains around Aurangabad are like readymade forts. They have sheer sides and flat tops. From there it is really just a case of add a wall and a citadel and presto, you have an impregnable fort. One such mountain in Dalutabad has been popular for fort-building for nearly 1000 years. Dalutabad fort was the first stop on our sightseeing tour.
Archaeologists are currently excavating a Medieval village on and around the mountain where Dalutabad fort now sits. Dalutabad really shot to fame, hoever, when another psychotic Mughal emperor, Tulaq, marched the entire population of Delhi 1100km to establish a new capital here. Most died upon the way, and those who didn’t made the return journey less than 12 months later.
Many years later a second Mugal emperor, Aurangzeb, also moved his capital here and the fort that stands atop the hill now is mostly his conception. Because this fort was built by a maniac, it is far more interesting. The red fort in Agra was like a well-proportioned body – large limbs for defence but an equally large brain, in the form of spaces for public gathering and politicking. Daultabad fort has massive limbs and no brain.
The outer walls remain and are spectacular among the overgrowth and moss. In the courtyards there is a beautiful orange Minar, (a large, thin mughal tower) second only to the Qutb Minar in Delhi. These outer areas at the foot of the mountain are open and peaceful with abundant gardens, temples and mosques. Move up the hill towards the citdel, however, and the paranoia grows. First, there are two steep moats with tiny drawbridges and two enormous brass-cast cannons. If you manage to get past here, you walk into a deep and winding cave cut into the mountain itself. It is called the ‘dark passage’, and inside there is no light but for carefully placed tunnels letting in just a glint of light. Enemy soldiers, in their claustrophobia and madnesss (apparently soldiers used to kill each other in the tunnel) would run towards these lights only to plummet into the moat below. Channels were also cut into the tunnel, so, unseen by enemy solders, boiling oil could be poured on them. The doors either side could be closed and if you did make it thorough, you would have to fight your way, single file, out of the doorway.
We needed a man with a flame torch to guide us through the tunnels, and if they weren’t claustrophobic enough, the smell of bat poo was almost overwhelming. Kate enlisted the guiding hand of a local woman to get through the passage.
The story goes that the fort has only been twice breached, and on both occasions the guards were bribed.
After the tunnel there is a very long set of stairs the curls around the mountain. I puffed up these and reached the summit. The views of the surrounding mountains and khaki forests were breaktaking, but the citadel was just a lonely hall and a massive cannon.
After the fort we visited another ‘Baby Taj’ – which was just that, a miniature, pollution stained and version of the Taj. Apparently the designer of this Tomb was more into finanacial austerity than the Shah Jehan – the architect of the Taj in Agra.
We finally convinced our driver to take us for lunch, which was at a nice restaurant called Kalish. After lunch we visited a water wheel, which is apparently a feat of Medieval engineering, but looked to me like a pool with a huge banyan tree.
In the evening we visited the Pathan market, which takes its name from the Afgahns that ruled here. Now there is a green-lit mosque with a spire like a lantern and local fabric and clothes shops on either side of the street. There were no tourists here and very little bargaining. First we visited a Sari shop, which had striking assortment of colourful silk fabrics, many just strewn over the floor. We also visited a jewellery shop, and Kate bought the marriage necklace she had been looking for the whole trip – for a very reasonable price – from a friendly man with green eyes. Just walking down the street was a great experience, the people were incredibly friendly and curious, but without the aggression (and commensurate defensiveness) of some other places we have visited. It was just interesting to see local people shopping as they would normally.
Aurangabad is not much to look at. It is like many other Indian, cities – it is dusty, polluted, crowded, cows stop traffic and a roundabout is not a roundabout without a statue of a freedom fighter on it. It does not have the charm of Jaislamer or the energy or the bright lights of Mumbai, but we had a fantastic stay. Tourist places are touristy because there is something very impressive there, and they are definitely worth seeing. Aurangabad was a different experience though because it is off the trail a little bit. You walk down the street and know that all the hellos will not be followed by a sales pitch.
We had dinner at a Tandoor restaurant. I ordered chicken which Kate ate most of.
We took a car the next day from Aurangabad to Jalgoan. For breakfast we stopped at a vendor on the street and ate fired rice cakes and chai tea, in public, as everyone else does.
On the way to Jalgoan are the Ajanta caves. These caves were much like the Ellora caves, but are entirely Buddhist and cut into mountains overlooking a river and waterfall. They are also famous because they have some of the best preserved cave paintings in India. Historians have theorised that the caves are so well-preserved state because nearly 1500 years ago, the Buddhist dynasty here collapsed very quickly and people fled the caves. From then they were forgotten, until a British official stumbled across them during a tiger hunt.
To get into the caves you must first run a tight gauntlet of hawkers offering you ‘gifts’ of crystals. I am quite weak, so had one thrust into my hand. In the caves we shared a guide with some European tourists who were very unhappy about something to do with the price (which was, in perspective, $2.50 each).
After making our way through the caves and admiring the painting and some incredible, deep monasteries with arched roofs and what looked like a rib cage cut into it, we crossed the river and walked to the top of a nearby hill for a view from a distance. For some reason my guard was down and I accepted another gift from a ‘farmer’, who led me around, pointing out the waterfall and trying to convince me that he was not a salesperson while trying to sell me crystals. The view of the waterfall set against caves in the background was impressive.
We arrived in Jagaon late in the afternoon. Jalgoan is mostly a stop for people visiting the Ellora and Ajanta caves. As we arrived, however, Kate had noticed that one of the tassles on her marriage necklace was broken. We knew there was another outlet of this jewellery store in Jagoan, so we got a tuk-tuk there and tried to sort it out. At first they simply tried to weld it together and paint over it with sparkly gold paint. It looked atrocious and we settled for an exchange (although the pendant was slightly different). In the evening we took a stroll around the street near our hotel. We stopped in at a cotton shop with a very friendly owner (and fixed prices, again) and Kate bought some fabric. My secret Santa acquired a little something on this walk.
We had dinner in a bar with dimmed lights. The lights are dimmed so people hand make under the table deals... apparently.
Our hotel in Jagoan was only 2 minutes from the train station. So, after another 4:30am start, we hopped the train to Omkareshwar. We were in sleeper carriages this time, so the train was chockers with people getting on and off to go to work, chai wallahs wailing down the aisle and people coming past selling what looked like sticks, but are actually portable toothbrushes. The toothbrushes come from the neem tree. People just break off the stick, shave off the outer layer of bark and expose the coarse bristles underneath. We had another conversation about Ricky Ponting, this time with some men working for a pharmecutical company somewhere on the train route. People are generally very friendly, but I will not miss day trains in sleeper class.
From the train station it was another hour’s drive to Omkareshwar. Just as we left the station there was a procession of people in the main street. At the head of the procession was the body of a young woman. She was on a wooden platform, wrapped in cloth but for her face, which, while surrounded in lace, was visible.
The drive to Omkareshwar took us past many cotton and chilli plantations. Piles of chilli lie on the roadside drying in the sun. In many of the fields there are the small tents of nomads with little more than their yellow tarpoulians, their pots and their goats. Almost as common as the cars are wooden carts being pulled by cows with painted horns and pom-poms between their eyes. In the towns that we pass through, there are many more dead dogs than we have seen elsewhere.
On the way we stopped at roadside stall for paranthas (stuffed, fried bread) and saw a buffalo with its head tied to its front, left leg as punishment for being naughtly. We arrived in Omkareshwar by mid-afternoon.
Omkareshwar is a dirt-poor, flyblown place with rake-like holy men and Shiva Lingums everywhere. The air is as thick with superstition and religion as it is with hashish and incencse here.
Omkareshwar is an island at the meeting point of two holy rivers. The island is shaped like an ‘Om’, or a backward “3”. There is an emourmous dam at one end of the river. Our hotel was on the other side of the river, and after checking in we took a walk across the bridge to the central part of Omkareshwar, past a cow painted as a tiger and beggars on either side. Omkareshwar is a very small place, and the central area is a Shiva temple and a collection of yellow tarpaulins, under which vendors sell flowers and chai to pilgrims. The air is very thick under the tarpaulins with incense and the holy-men and their white-painted faces just appear from the incense smoke and disappear again. There were steps leading down to the river, and people bathing there. We stopped for chai with the flies under one of the tarpaulins.
After getting our bearings we crossed back over the river and had afternoon tea at ‘Ganesh rest’ house, run my some very friendly Nepalese. Ganesh rest-house is under siege from monkeys. The owners keep a little jack-russel and an armoury of slingshots to hold back the tide. Occasionally a monkey slips through, races into the kitchen and steals a banana, then sits in a nearby tree and eats it slowly, in full view of guests and staff. I had nutella toast and coffee. Nutella must grow here because I recieved almost a full jar lumped on my plate.
Kate and I spent most of that afternoon relaxing and watching TV. Kate discovered that the laptop had games on it, so that is why this blog-post is so delayed.
The next morning we returned to Ganesh rest house for breakfast, I ventured the museli and Kate did the porridge. We both survived and it were the better for the fruit and fibre. Omkareshwar is so small and isolated, and in many ways so dirty, that we thought if there was ever a place we were going to get sick, this would be it. Thankfully, that never eventuated.
The plan for the day was to walk the 8km circuit around the om-shaped island. After breakfast we crossed the bridge, said hello to the tiger cow and began our stroll, clockwise, around the island. Two minutes in we were stopped for a series of photos by some school girls. We continued along the banks of the river. Pilgrims make this walk quite regularly, so the pathway was well maintained. It wound through numerous straw huts, under which naked holy men would sit cross-legged in a cloud of marijuana smoke and distribute big, toothless smiles. Scatted along the path are little temples and idols covered in flowers or honey and milk. Some idols are little more than a rock painted red with two goggly eyes stuck on. Every house or stall along the way (and there are hundreds) had a lingum or lingums, like blobby rock gardens. Many families take this walk around the island, paying their respects and giving their offerings of flowers to the various gods they encounter on the way.
The river below was flowing fast. We could see numerous areas where the wide water would funnel into a set of rapids. The water looked relatively clean, and as we reached one point of the island, two fast-flowing rivers collided and created big, shallow rapids that the boats struggled to climb their way up.
On the point at the confluence of these two rivers was a little temple with another red, multilimbed god, from which some kids were pilfering the offerings. We went and sat by the waterside. There were odd rockpiles everywhere (like from blair witch project!) and clothes (and rubbish) strewn over the pebbles and boulders leading to the water. People who have experienced hard times or suffering come to the banks of this river, take off their clothes and bathe in it. They then leave put new clothes on and leave the old, tainted life behind.
The path then led up the spine of the mountain, through some abandoned mud-shacks and bangle-stores and small temples. Halfway up, black-faced monkeys started appearing. They were lining either side of the path waiting for someone to give them food. One monkey looked particularly impatient and agitated. I walked past, then Kate walked past, then, as Emma was walking past, the monkey grabbed her pants and would not let go. Kate clapped and advanced towards the monkey, but it hissed and bared it teeth, letting go of Emma and grabbing onto Kate’s leg. I then hissed at the monkey and stomped at it, but this just aggravated it more and it reared its sharp teeth towards me. There was a local family walking up, so, not knowing what else to do, I yelled at a teenage boy to do something about it. Calmly, he did something that I don’t remember in the fuss and the monkey was gone. We all are now terrified of these black-faced monkeys.
Anyway, much good came out of the attack, because this family escorted us through the monkey zone, and once we reached the top of the hill, we all stopped for a chai and exchanged photos and the little hindi/English that we knew. We walked further up the hill with them, to an 80ft Shiva statue painted in full colour. Here they stopped to eat at a place where the food was free for pilgrims, so we said our goodbyes. The path moved past some more ruins of a Hindu Kingdom, to the opposite end of the island, for a view of the dam, and down to the banks of the river, past some 11 or 12 year old girls labouring in their Saris, to the bridge with the tiger cow.
In the afternoon we took a boat tour of the island. Most of the boats are colourfully adorned with tassels and a painted hull. Ours was, aesthetically, the worst boat in the river. It had cloth for a roof, and ageing wooden hull with water sloshing inside. What it lacked in looks, however, it made up for in strength. Along the way there were five or six sets of rapids that the boat had navigate. On one side of the island we would go down with the rapids, on the other we had to go up them. So we bumped down the one side of the island and bashed our way up the other. At one point I though the river had the better of us, as we had attempted to ascend a steep looking rapid to find ourselves up against the rocks and going backwards. Only the intervention of both boys at the front of the boat and a big stick did we make it to the other side.
Upon returning to land we stopped for a chai with flies and a bull chased a kid up the street, we think because he threw a water bomb at him. In the final hours of the day, Kate perused the bangle shops and made some purchases. My Secret Santa acquired two possessions on this sojourn.
We walked back up the hill to our hotel as the sun set. Kids were running up and down beside us, rolling a bike tyre with a stick as they went. Their sisters were in a nearby house, labouring away at the washing. A whole busload of kids pulled over just to run out and shake our hands.
That evening we had dinner at the restaurant and were given a lecture on the trials of the holy men. One category of holy man (they seem to be exclusively men) called Nagus, pledge themselves to chastity. In order to ensure that they do not break this vow, when they graduate from holy man school (there is the equivalent of primary secondary and tertiary education) these men pierce their foreskin and place a ring through it. To the ring they attach a bell.
Omkareshwar is all that is strange and foreign about India squeezed onto a tiny island. It is almost ridiculous to think that Mumbai and this place are on the same planet, let alone the same country. Nowhere so far have I felt so far from home. Apart from Nutella, nothing is familiar. Not the mantras that echo over the river each night at exactly 8pm, not the gak blobs on the side of road that people worship, not the bizarre characters and stories that people follow as their religion, not the rationale behind why people would starve themselves and put a rod though their penis, not the blind 90 year old on the bridge with no hands, not the air raid siren that goes off each morning at 7, not why you would paint a cow as a tiger, and not even the flies.
We left Omkareswar a few days ago for Mandu, and Mandu for Bhopal. Tomorrow we leave Bhopal for Sanchi. I always say it, but I will try to get these more recent places up soon.
Our love to you all.
Kate and Charles.
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