12/11/05-17/11/05 India (Update #2)

(Bombay-Goa-Hampi)

Hallo again, for those who stuck with the last update until the end I
thank you. Once again ignore any misplakes.

Anyway...

12/11/05 - Bombay
Arrived in Bombay in the middle of the night and got slapped by the
smell from a near by river. Like a slap from a sick,homeless, infected
wet fish. Starting to regret not taking the plunge and going to
varanasi to see the dead along the septic Ganges river. But from
reports, Varanasi is 10 times worse than Agra and I have trouble
believing that even Benji would stop there! Cockroaches were up in
arms(or legs) over the dirt, organising daily rallies. To be honest
everywhere would be considered dirty compared to home but each place
offers a new experience.
So Bombay about a half spoonful cleaner than Delhi and with more rats
also has its charms..finding them is the challenge.
Took a walk to see India's Gate in search of some touts to annoy us
(what would we do without them) Some were selling stupid large
balloons and others were selling drums. Come on what idiot would buy a
drum or balloon ( I swear at the time of writing this Eamon I didn't
know you had bought a drum !! of course I know I didn't have to really
include this sentence) Had some great food for about 2 euro but
couldn't find a drink as its a dry town on Saturday.

13/11/05 - Towers of Silence (Sounds like something from the lord of
the rings doesn't it)
Got up at 7 to try and find the laughter club. In 1995 a
mumbai(Bombay) physician, Dr. Madan Kataria wanted to prove that
laughter was the best medicine so he started a movement to gather
people together and make them laugh. So now this movement has spread
all over India into what they call laughter clubs, where people just
stand around and laugh at anything. It's no place for the paranoid.
You wouldn't want to be greeted by these people getting out of the
Irish sea in your speedo's. But if you were speedo's then you've got
it coming in fairness.

Anyway the laughter club, Sounds like mecca for my dad, a chance to
tell jokes with the possibility of laughter as a response.. a dream
come true. Dragging Kelly out of bed at 7 is some achievement (and
deserving of a zomax "You make it happen award"), but she wasn't
impressed when we couldn't find them..not very funny we thought, but i
bet you're finding that amusing you sick bunch of people.
Im sure there were about 50 of them behind a bush p1ss1ng themselves
looking at us. But as I said this is no place for the paranoid.

Right, next on the list was a trip to the Towers of Silence. The
Parsees hold fire,earth and water sacred and so they don't bury or
cremate their dead. The corpses are laid out within these towers to be
picked clean by Vultures. Although this is off limits to tourists you
still have to give it a go. Couldn't get in the main gate but we were
in the side one before being caught and thrown out...seriously though,
what does one have to do to see a dead body in this country !!
Although there were no vultures due to pollution( according to the
lonely planet Arati not me..i know they're on holidays) there were
plenty of eagles circling overhead making a funnel. A local told us it
takes 20 mins to pick a body clean.

Not having much luck with the sightseeing today, cut the losses and
headed for another slap up 2 euro meal. Made up for the dry night
before too, and drink comes bravery. I hate rats...hate them, but have
a fascination with them at the same time, so when the night porter saw
me looking for them on the street with camera, he brought me to the
kitchen area out the back. "Wait there" he said leaving me at the end
of a corridor. I thought he was was going to bring a rat out and show
me. "Certainly", I said. "Ready ?".."Yep".. and so in the middle of
getting the camera ready this rat comes darting around the corner at
me, head on. The little b0ll*x was cornering the rats and sending my
way.. the only way out. He'd nowhere else to run, so in this momentary
game of chicken I decided to move out of the way, and so did he. I'd
love to tell you were he went but it's hard to see when you close your
eyes. Missed the rat but got a lovely photo of the floor. Blamed the
rat on screaming like a girl, cancelled breakfast and went to bed.


14/11/05 - The laughter club strikes back
The previous days failure of not finding the club wasn't going to
deter me. 6:30 start, leaving the goddess of sleep back in the room. I
had to see this. Bombay doesn't offer an awful lot more. Couldn't
believe the amount of people out walking and jogging at that hour.
Went to a place called the hanging gardens but still no sign of the
funny ones. Plenty of eagles, parrots though. Some fine birds around
and some of them on their way to work too!!
I was just about ready to give up when what i thought was a yoga class
started laughing. As i didn't have my speedo's on I was happy I'd
found them. It was gas. Very infectious too. You find yourself
laughing at people laughing. The madness of it all. And with that it
was over. 2 rounds of laughing and they were done. I could do better
than that.. i'd a rake of material ready. Like my favourite, why does
your feet smell and your nose run ? But i suppose they had a full day
ahead of them and as it turned out so did we.


3 hours spent in the train station trying to get a ticket to goa and
left empty handed. It's a pain in the ass trying to get anything
organised. The first thing you should do in India when you arrive
anywhere is organise you way out. Of course we could have taken about
an hour off the time if a con man poising as an employee for the train
station hadn't latched on to us. He was so helpful and had his routine
down to a tee. Part of the con was to show you on screen that your
train was full or had a waiting list. Best to take another train,
tickets was probably cheaper which meant more profit for him. It was
only when he was leading us to his office that we tweaked it. Why
would his office be outside the train station if he worked there. Good
luck..and back we turned.(Another pupil from the cheating school of
Calcutta Mike!!) It turns out the waiting list on trains is for
locals..tourists get preference on trains.
Spent the next 2 hours watching a local (at a designated tourist
counter) cancel,order,cancel again 50 tickets. Im a senior citizen
he'd repeat. Senile more like !! then we had to deal the clerk, the
Indian Manuel. I swear the conversation went like this
2 for the 5:35 to goa..you can only take the 7 train..ok 2 for that..
you can't take that one only the 7 train...thats what i said 2 for
that..no no you can't take that one.. you can only take the 7 o clock
train or the 7 o clock train and please make up your mind people are
waiting...
I couldn't take this for long so I left. A french lad had "erd" you
could get cheap flights and we did. Swapping a 14 hour train for a 1
hour flight for an extra 20 euro was a good deal to me.

15/11/05 - Bombay- Goa
Plane delayed for 3 hours so we'd not save time with the plane..but
save the cheeks at least. Leaving Bombay and its beggars behind wasn't
an upsetting experience. Again the poverty is very evident. Kids
sleeping on the streets at night. I wanted to leave money in a girl's
hand, no more than 5years old. But you're asked to make donations to
organisations not individuals as the kids are owned by people and used
in begging rings. Other beggars purposely disfigure themselves in the
hope of touching your sensitive side. The crab man, as i called him
appeared out of an alleyway,sideways. Walking on his hands, legs set
to go up his back and his knees over his shoulders. You could offer
him money but how could he take it. I'd insist on putting it into his
hands but that'd make him fall over. Cruel i know but he was very
annoying. Other break their arms, feet or legs and reset them..strange
and sad.
Anyway off to the tropics of Goa. Had a row with a tout over the drums
(sorry again Eamon)..You have to snap eventually.



16/11/05 Goa
Arrived late yesterday evening so today was the first real glimpse of
the beach. It's the one shown at the beginning of the film the bourne
supremacy, Palolem Beach. Had to walk through a herd of water buffalo
to get on the beach which is a challenge first time round. Those horns
are for there for a reason, I doubt they just make good
toothpicks.Plenty of Hawks, pigs and wild dogs around too. Met a real
funny guy from Cork, reminded me of Neill from the young ones.
Everything he touches seems to turn to mud. He has a strange
infatuation with the number 23, has a tattoo of it and says it keeps
on appearing in everything he does.
The first story he told us was of how he had just bought a bike and
drove round a corner and hit a cow. He choose the smallest of the 3,
it was either that or get smacked by a truck. The cow was knocked out
cold and a local had to help him drag it off the road to try and
revive it. After 2 buckets of water the cow woke up and off he went.
Upon further digging into his series of misfortunate events (which has
led him to Goa) he'd tell us of how his restaurant was shut down and
his girlfriend dumping him. He was so unfazed by it all and real
apologetic in his tone. His Israeli friend was a hoot too. On the run
from his girlfriend because she asked him to marry her..right im off
he said..In Israeli(a new language) of course !! He's take great pleasure in
complaining or giving bad news. He's been there 4 days and moved 4
times already. His 1st hut was too near the sea, 2nd was too near the
road, 3rd beside a place that played "Tracy f*cking Chapman" all day
and finally when he thought he'd struck gold the kitchen woke up him
up early doors. We told him of our plan to leave Goa on the sleeper
bus the next night."Sleeper..haa haa.. I don't think so... maybe small
f*cking nightmare" and off he went into hysterics. The best part of
this story is that he was so stoned
all the time that he didn't realise that was his only option out of
there too.. he'd forgotten he'd asked a travel agent. How do I know
all this ?? I've read ahead i know what happens.



17/11/05 Goa - Hampi
Small nightmare..what an understatement. Aldad and ourselves waited
for the sleeper bus to hampi. Of course I could go into the 34 degree
heat ,the beautiful beaches of Goa or the perfect temperature of the
Arabian sea but what pleasure would you take from that. So let me tell
you the story of how me and my arse fell out with each other.
To begin with how do you describe a bus that reminds you of a prison
ship to Australia. Discovered that "Gavin" means back of the bus and
"Harmon" meaning near the exhaust because they always insist on
putting me there. I mean sharing a bus, poorly ventilated with 30
other curry eating non nationals wasn't going to be pleasant to begin
with. Thank god is was non smoking, back draft came to mind. As heat
rises, all I could think about was the poor souls in the top bunks..
Im sure I sent up a few presents along the 11 hour journey. The driver
had a bet he could do it in 9 hours. "Disaster eh?" grinned Aldad as
we settled in. The worst of it was Kelly's reclining seat wouldn't
lock down into the horizontal position which meant every bump would
throw up her like Dracula at sundown. The little bumps were few and
the massive were plenty and sleeping wasn't going to happen. More
often than not Kelly was the Olympic hero on the gymnasium horse,
launched into the air doing triple pikes and half axles landing with
both cheeks in tandem. I couldn't work out the look on her face.. was
it because she was just woken up and tossed like a pancake or was it
because the rest of the bus wasn't holding up scorecards for her
acrobatics. But it wasn't funny really because it was keeping me awake
and there's only so many times you can offer to swap seats.. once is
more than enough !!
Aldad's run of bad luck continued, some cracker latched on to him
during a pit stop and again at hampi, so off he went with her. I know
Im going to bump into him again where he'll complain about having to
make love to her continuously over 3 days.
poor fella.

Bonjour !!