The Last Day

Today is my last day in India. I've been shopping, eating as much as possible, and trying to pass my India knowledge to as many people as possible. Most tourists here are either just arriving or leaving, so I've met a few just arriving and given them some tips.

My flight leaves tonight just before midnight; until then I'll be wandering around, breathing dirty air. The weather is legitimately good, warm in the day, cool at night, so that's been okay.

I'm also excited to shave this crazy beard off. There is a large Muslim population here and I've been asked 3 or 4 times if I'm a Muslim because of my beard. That's definitely a first for me. I also know it's out of hand because I can see it in my shadow, people that I've just met don't recognize me in pictures without it, and my mustache is always getting in my mouth. It needs to end.

I'm sad to leave, but excited to come home. When I get back I'll do one more blog entry with links to lots of photos, so you have that to look forward to.

Well, for now, namaste from India, I will see many of you soon.

Back to Delhi

I arrived in Delhi today after an almost exactly 24 hour train ride. It wasn't too bad except for the part where I had to share a bed with some Indian guy for a while.

I booked this train a couple of weeks ago, but it's a popular train. I eventually got off the wait list and was booked as "RAC" or reservation against cancelation. It means you're guaranteed a seat, but you may have to share if not enough people cancel. Well, not enough people cancelled. There were other open beds until 2am and starting at 3am, but for that hour or so, we sat across from each other trying to sleep. Anyway, I didn't sleep to well but I did meet and talk to three Canadian people that grew up in India, so that was good.

Delhi is about what I now expected. The pollution is worse than I remember, but the weather is better. The craziness seems less crazy now, but it's still crazier than most places I've been. The pollution really is terrible though. You can practically taste it (although I really can taste the cologne coming off the guy next to me, he must have just dumped the whole bottle on himself).

Anyway, now I go figure out what to do.

Aurangabad Day 2 - Ajanta

Yesterday I went over to the Ajanta Caves, over 100km from Aurangabad. Unlike the Ellora Cave tour, which included several other destinations, the Ajanta tour involves driving there, seeing the caves for three hours, eating and driving back. The caves are all Buddhist, and are known for their paintings, as well as the setting. They are set in a crescent shaped ravine, carved into the sheer face of one side, more than 30 in all.

The Ajanta Caves are impressive without even going in. I could spend a couple of hours just wandering around the ravine, admiring the waterfall nearby and the sights in general, but add in ancient paintings, whose various degrees of decay only seem to add to that ancient feeling. The caves themselves are not as impressive as Ellora, but they're still pretty amazing. Three hours there was not optimal, I could have spent a couple more, but it was better than the two hours at Ellora the day before, which was about a third of what I wanted. The timing isn't ideal, but I do need to get to Delhi.

The timing was ideal, however, in that I showed up for World Heritage Week, and got in for free at the Ajanta Caves. That's right, they could have charged tourists the standard 250 rupees (about $5), but they didn't. I couldn't believe it, but I was appreciative.

I should also mention a super random and weird thing they have at the caves. There is a fairly large hill you have to walk up to get to the level of the caves from where the buses drop you off and they have services to help. You can hire a porter (100 rupees, $2), to carry your stuff to the top. The other option, for 400 rupees ($8), is they will carry you in a chair to the top, like an ancient king. I saw a couple of people do this; I'm not sure if they had trouble walking or if they were just rich, but it was crazy. I couldn't believe my eyes at first.

Well now I'm off to catch my train to Delhi. It's about 22 hours, so that'll be fun.

Vikarabad, Aurangabad, Ellora, Ajanta

Vikarabad

This may end up being the longest blog entry I've written to this point, so sit back, relax, and get ready to scroll down the page at your leisure.

Your protagonist left you last in Vikarabad, the anti-tourist trap, about to go to his first Indian movie (okay, I'm done with the third person now). I walked over to the cinema and took a seat on the wall to the street. There were a whole bunch of Indian guys (and a handful of women) that were waiting outside to buy tickets to the movie. They stared, and stared (of course), then the bravest one came over to ask where I was from and my name. By the time I replied there was a semi-circle four people thick all around me (approximate radius of 2 meters; yeah, I went there). I noticed they were now selling tickets (30 rupees, about 60 cents), so I walked that
way (with the semi-circle parting for me with no problems) and got my ticket.

I made my way inside and they asked to check my bag. Well I had all my stuff with me since I didn't have a hotel, so they began with my "satchel", with many, many, onlookers, then started with my backpack. It pretty much overwhelmed them and they gave up within a couple of minutes, but first about 30 people got a decent look at all my possessions.

The movie started late (because it's India), and it turned out to be the Indian movie, not 2012. It was entirely in Telugu, the most common language there, although it was pretty easy to follow the plot: boy meets girl, gets motorcycle to impress her, gets girl, becomes entangled with local mob, then beats them up repeatedly despite the fact that he's tiny, works as a repo guy for the bank and as far as I can tell has no martial arts training. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm usually a bit of a movie snob, but being in the theater made it too much fun not to like. When the girl first appeared on screen a bunch of guys whistled and yelled. Then when she would give the hero a little look or something they would all repeat. When they finally kissed the place went crazy with whistling and cheering. It was a good time.

After the movie I was the star of a little photo shoot in the lobby. One guy asked to take a picture with me, then all the sudden there were about ten guys taking pictures of each other with me, rotating in out and snapping away with their phones. They asked if I spoke Telugu. I said no. They asked how I could understand the movie, and I said I couldn't. I thought they were looking at me funny before, but after that I may as well have had a third eye.

I got some food (delicious bhaji puri, or fried bread with a rich curry, and a couple of samosas), attempted to book a hotel online in Delhi (maybe a success, I'm not yet sure), and headed to the train station. After a couple of hours I had talked to a few sets of people and my train arrived.

Aurangabad

I arrived in Aurangabad at about 6am. Unfortunately the train was scheduled for a 4:30am arrival, so I was up at 4:15, and looking for the station for nearly two hours. Anyway, I went looking for hotels, only to find the first several I found already full. I eventually made it to one a little thats a little pricier than I hoped, but nice.

From Aurangabad several companies run tours to the Ellora caves, the attractions around Aurangabad, and the Ajanta caves. The guide book recommends taking extra time to see them because the tours are rushed, but I don't have that luxury, so I took the tours.

First day: Fort/Ellora caves/Mini-Taj/Silk emporium/Water mill

The tour left at 9:30am bound for the local fort. It was a very cool fort, one of the oldest in India at about 1200 years old. They carved most of it straight out of the mountain, using the rock to make buildings and a wall around the bottom of the hill. We did the standard tour thing until we got past the moat to the labyrinth. Basically it's a dark set of hallways designed to confused intruders. That's where it got really interesting. The guy working there had a traditional torch, just a large stick soaked in oil. He lit it up and we followed him in through the labyrinth. It was dark, smelled terrible and was absolutely covered with bats. The bat cave in Nepal has nothing on this. They were flying all over, making all sorts of crazy noises, and stinking up the joint. It was fantastic.

From there I grabbed some sugar cane juice (tasty and not as sweet as you might think) and we headed to the Ellora caves. The caves were carved starting in the 7th century or so, Buddhist at first, then Hindu, then Jain. They carved massive caves, some taking as many as 150 years, straight into the rock, starting at the front or in some cases the top and working their way down. They were absolutely stunning.

First we went to the Buddhist ones, which were very cool, and one had some great acoustics, which the guide sang Buddhist chants in, which was great. Next we went to a Hindu one. It's the largest monolithic stone structure on Earth (bigger than Petra and any Mayan ones as well as any others). It's unreal, just a huge temple carved into the mountain, complete with statues covering many of the walls.

The last of the caves we visited was a Jain cave. It was more detailed, carved later than the others, and was pretty impressive, although after the Hindu one it wasn't as crazy. There are over 30 caves but we only had time for four of them (two Buddhist, one of each of the other two), which was a little disappointing, but they showed us the best ones. After a lunch in which I was the only tourist eating Indian style (with their hand, not utensils), we went to Ellora town.

The town of Ellora is as old as the caves and has a very sacred temple. We went inside and came to the sanctum. There was a sign of what to do and the first thing was for men to remove their upper clothes. I reread it a couple times, took off my shirt and went it. Many of the other tourists were more hesitant than I. It was an interesting and memorable couple of minutes, standing there shirtless with a couple of Indian men while they made their offerings.

After that we went to what they call the "Mini-Taj Mahal". Basically the Taj guy's grandson built it to honor his mother as her tomb. The problem is it's modeled after the Taj, but smaller and after one ring of marble on the bottom, made of stone with plaster. One of the amazing parts about the real thing when you're there is the way the light hits the pure white, almost translucent marble, but this one doesn't have that. This led me to coin it the "Ghetto Mahal". It's really not even worth seeing unless you're already in Aurangabad.

We also stopped at a silk emporium to try to sell us stuff (typical tour trick), but it was uneventful.

The last stop was an old water mill, which ran using underground ancient pipes coming into the city. It was only slightly better than the silk emporium.

For dinner I went down the street and ate with an English girl I met on the tour. We were soon joined by a couple of Indian men. One was clearly drunk. It turned out it was his birthday, but he was also a local politician. I should have known! We ended up having only tea with them, then saying we were going for a walk and meeting them later. They really wanted to come, but we walked away eventually. We went to a restaurant and asked what they had available. The manager told us to come over to him and then recommended we go somewhere else. I'm not sure why they didn't want to serve us, but it was a first for me (that I can remember) being turned away like that for no reason.

We eventually came back and ate (after another encounter with the drunk politician), including dessert of falooda (or faludha, depending on where you look on the menu). It was a combination of a milkshake and a scoop of ice cream, which topping including syrups, nuts, dried fruit, and noodles. Yes, noodles. It wasn't bad, but it was a little odd.

Well by the end of all that I was exhausted, and went to bed in order to get up early to catch the 8:30am tour to the Ajanta caves. The Ellora caves were a highlight, not just of the day, but of the whole trip. To think people carved them with chisel and hammer over a thousand years ago, and they are still there like the day they were carved is just incredible. Also the bats and torch in the fort was pretty cool.

Today I visited the Ajanta caves, but I'll write about it tomorrow before I leave for Delhi.

Hampi/Vikarabad

I saw a lot of ruins yesterday. I also saw a lot of boulders. That's pretty much what Hampi is all about, so it was a successful day. In the morning I took a little boat across the river and hiked to the "Monkey Temple", which they claimed had 200 monkeys and looked out over the ruins and the current city. At least the part about the view was right. I saw maybe five or ten monkeys, and the temple itself was pathetic. I grabbed some lunch back in town with an Aussie I met at the temple, then headed out for more ruins.

The areas around the ruins are generally fields, where locals grow bananas, beans, rice, and graze their animals. More than once I tried to take a little shortcut through a field, and now my legs have some cuts on them from the spiked plants the locals use as fences. I did see plenty of temples and old buildings, including the old royal elephant stables, where I hid out during an afternoon rain.

I headed out of town, sad to see it go so quickly, and without seeing everything. Hampi is an amazing place. In addition to the actual sights it's nice because despite the influx of tourists, the ruins are so spread out that everywhere you go the most people you see at any one sight is less than a dozen or so. This leads to a very peaceful place.

One thing I forgot to mention in my last post was my dinner that night. I went to a place where there were a bunch of Indians, figuring it must be good. Well it turned out they were all about to go to a festival. I asked for the thali (a full meal), they said they didn't have that, so I asked what they did have. Their answer: just thali. So I had the thali, served on a banana leaf. The woman brought it out and said it was free, because it was their festival thali. It had some sort of sweets as well as some good lemon saffron rice (and the standard vegetarian curry, plain rice, and sambar). Anyway, it was delicious and my cheapest meal yet (and ever).

Last night I caught the bus to Hospet, and then the train from there to Gutakal, where I changed trains and came to my current location of Vikarabad. There is nothing to see in Vikarabad. It's not on any tourist maps, in any books, and there are no sights as far as I can tell. Why did I come? To catch a train to Aurangabad in order to see some caves. So I have from 9am this morning to 6pm this evening (it's now about 10:30am here) in this random Indian city. I wandered around for an hour to find this internet cafe, and I found a cinema so I'm going to the movies next. I'm not sure what's playing, either 2012 or some random Indian movie (fingers crossed), but it'll kill some time.

Being in a town that apparently never sees any tourists is interesting. I don't get hassled at all by rickshaw drivers, shopkeepers or hotel owners, but everyone stares. In tourist towns I get plenty of stares, but here it seems to be pretty much everyone. It's actually kind of nice to see just a regular town, I don't feel like I'm wasting a day (like I thought I would).

Hampi

Today I find myself in one of my new Favorite Places in the World (yes, of course it deserves to be capitalized), Hampi (Vijayanagara, as it used to be known). Basically Hampi is the modern city built within the ruins of Vijayanagara, the capital of the ruined empire of the same name.

I should mention how I got here I suppose. Last night I discovered there was a train scheduled (online at least) to come to Palolem at 6:30pm, so I went to catch it. When I got there (at 5pm to buy tickets) they said it was at 7:45, so I killed the next couple hours only for the bus to arrive during a thunderstorm at about 8:30pm, with my section at the very front. This was unfortunate because it stopped probably 100-200 meters from where I was and it was only scheduled for a 1 minute stop. Of course I can run that far in that amount of time easily, it just makes it more difficult when there are large groups of people in the way and a backpack on my back (in addition to a "satchel" at my side). I did, however, make it, with a few seconds to spare.

I spent the night at Margao train station (in a "retiring room", not on the ground), and caught the 8am train here this morning, arriving in Hampi after a bus ride at about 4pm.

Anyhow, as I was saying before, the ruins and setting are spectacular. The combination of plentiful, well preserved ruins scattered around the city and massive, imposing boulders all around them makes for an amazing sight. Unfortunately I'm here only until tomorrow night, but this afternoon I covered most of the place already. In the Rough Guide, they have a list of 41 "must see" things in India, and this is #1. Now I understand why (and I wouldn't argue with it).

Plus it has monkeys, which is always popular.

Dolphins

Last night I met my neighbor in the next hut over, a guy from Belgium. We went to dinner at my favorite place (which he agreed was fantastic; another opinion is not plausible), where we met an American. I don't think I mentioned it in Gokarna, but I happened me meet my first Americans in India when I was there, a couple from San Francisco (of all places) and their kid. Anyway, I met another American, this one from Omaha, which was very exciting for me, this place being a little overloaded with Brits, Israelis, and the rest.

So this Belgian guy (I can't pronounce, let alone spell, his name) tells me he has come to Goa for a quiet place so he can write a book and corresponding screenplay. I asked what it was about and he said he was going to write a pro-drugs story, whereas pretty much every book and movie involving drugs ends in disease, despair, etc, his will have a happy ending. Interesting.

On our way back to the huts we got sucked into talking to a guy that gives rides on his boat to go see dolphins (or rather my Belgian friend did while I took a quick swim). It turned out a couple of girls were going at 8:30am and he said if they agreed we could go along. Well this morning they agreed and we went out to see the dolphins.

For the first half hour or more we didn't see anything but some birds (and gorgeous scenery, but that doesn't count in this particular case). I was beginning to be discouraged, but after going to the next beach north we struck relative gold. We saw I would guess ten or fifteen dolphins, slowly and casually coming up for air and swimming nearby. It was very cool, with the highlight being a baby, maybe just over a meter long, "jumping" (for lack of a better word) out of the water right near the boat. Very, very cool.

I checked out of the hotel and I'll be catching the train to Margao tonight. Palolem will be missed.

More beach

I don't have a whole lot to report today as I'm in the same town, swimming, reading in the shade, watching the sunburned Brits pass by, and eating at the same restaurant every lunch and dinner (Droopadi is the name of it).

Tomorrow I'll be heading to Margao, in central Goa. It isn't much of a tourist spot, but my 7am train departs from the train station there the next day.

So today is my last day in this seaside paradise, which is a little sad, although I'm really looking forward to my visits to the ruined city at Hampi and the ancient man-carved caves after that. It'll be nice to have some actual sights to go see, although I'm sure I'll be wishing I could take a dip in the Arabian Sea when I'm wandering around in the heat out there.

The final leg of my journey involves an unfortunately long stay in Delhi (three and a half days) due to the train schedule (there was no way I was taking a bus for that 1,396 km journey. I'll spend a month in Delhi before I do that). I have no idea what I'll do for that long seeing as how I've already visited for a few days, but I am curious to see how I feel about it after getting acclimated to this country (if you remember correctly I did not particularly enjoy my first visit).

Cyclones: Lame

Cyclone Phylan came to the coast of Goa yesterday, and I wouldn't have even known it was a natural disaster if I hadn't happened across the news. It was basically just windy and raining, and it wasn't even that windy or raining that hard. Today it's sunny and beautiful, and last night it even cleared up and I saw my first Goan sunset. It was amazing.

Yesterday afternoon I went to get a new book (#6 for the trip), then went for a haircut. I'm not sure if anyone noticed since I'm usually wearing a hat in the pictures and the beard tends to overshadow the hair, but it was getting pretty long. So I got a haircut for $1, including shaving around the edges with a straight razor and a little head massage after the fact. It was quite nice. After that I walked out to the beach to see this:
Not a bad little surprise.

By the way in case anyone is at all interested (probably not), these are the super random books I've read (and in the case of the last one, are reading currently). They've been purchased at train stations, roadside stalls, bookstores, and from a table by the side of the road, so my choices have been somewhat limited. Anyway, in chronological order of when I read them:

The Godfather, by Mario Puzo
The Stand, by Stephen King
The Witches of Eastwick, by John Updike (LAME!)
Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens
Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathon Swift

So yeah it looks like the cyclone is over, swimming is allowed (and recommended, if you ask me), and all is right with the world.

Figured out the weather

So I checked the Indian news right now and found out the reason for the "No swimming" thing:

http://in.news.yahoo.com/43/20091111/812/tnl-cyclone-phyan-threatens-india-s-west.html

I get to be in a cyclone!

Palolem done right

Last night I had the best Indian food of my life. The guide book suggests a place on the beach and says the quality of food and chef are way higher than usual for the price, so I figure I'll try it out. I had paneer tikka masala, and it was just absolutely fantastic. Needless to say I went back to the same place today. I'll probably eat there at least once a day as long as I'm in Palolem.

This morning I took a walk out to Neptune Point, a spot that juts out from the beach, separating Palolem beach from the next one over (as shown on the right). A Spanish guy I met in Nepal had recommended the place as being a little pricier but much nicer than the places behind Palolem beach, so I went to ask about rates. I'm now staying in one of their huts for $12/night (I was paying 6 for a crappy room on the main drag away from the water. They wanted $16 for this place but my skills of negotiation prevailed). If you can see the cluster of three huts by the large rock on the left, right on the water, mine is the one in the middle.

The view of the main beach from my hut is the picture below. I think I'll being staying here in Palolem for the next three nights until I move on from Goa. It's very easy and nice here, besides the continued unfortunate weather.

I finally have my swimsuit and they shut down the swimming because the wind has supposedly made the surf "dangerous". It's really not that bad, I could easily swim in it, but the men with rifles feel differently, so I don't chance it.

Here is a video of the view from where I'm now staying.

Gokarna to Goa

Yesterday, still at Gokarna, I went for a little hike. I hiked over the hill to Om beach, then over another hill to Half Moon beach. It was a very nice hike, with just small paths through the dense forests, between the beaches. I also saw some more monkeys!

I spent the afternoon at the various beaches, then settled back in at Kudlee beach for dinner. As it got dark the weather turned from overcast to thunderstorms. I met some Englishman at dinner and sat, talked, and attempted to take pictures of the lightning. I succeeded on a good one, as you can see.

This morning I headed over to the train station (a $3 cab ride), then bought a ticket on the local train (30 cents for an hour and a half train ride). It is considered a local train, so there aren't any a/c options or advanced booking (which was just fine). I hadn't ever taken what they call "Second Class", which consists of bench seats and barred windows. It was okay for a short journey, but if I was going overnight or for many hours it would not be fun.

Anyway, I made it to Palolem (after a 4km walk), in Goa. It reminds me of Pokhara, Nepal, in that there are a lot of tourists along with shops and restaurants that cater to tourists. The only real difference is the ocean instead of a lake.

I grabbed a spot along the beach for some pakora (curried, then fried vegetables) and Kingfisher beer. I had a Kingfisher in Kochi and it was pretty much terrible, as well as 100 rupees ($2), but in Goa the taxes on alcohol are much lower and the beer isn't mixed with the preservative it is elsewhere in India. The result is much better beer half the price, even in a tourist restaurant on the beach.

The weather continues to be unseasonable, as it rarely rains in November around here, yet it has rained every afternoon for the past three days in Gokarna and Goa.

I had read that Goa would be heavily influenced by the Portuguese as it was their territory fairly recently, but I have yet to see it. Maybe I will as I stay here a little longer. One bit of tourist luck is that they actually sell swimsuits here! I've been swimming in my underwear, like the locals (except theirs is a bit more revealing), but now I finally have a legitimate swimsuit to wear, which is very exciting.

Banofi Pie

I pretty much just hung out at the beach since last post, so I'll provide a haiku about my amazing banofi (banana and toffee, I think it's actually spelled "banofee", but here they spell it banofi) pie I had last night:

Oh, banofi pie,
Perfect crust and filling too.
A good beach day great.

I'm beginning to realize this blog is somewhat food oriented, but so am I, so there you go.

Gokarna

Gokarna is amazing. It's as simple as that, and I could pretty much end it there, but I'll continue anyway. Yesterday I spent most of the day in Mangalore, an old port city that was replaced in popularity by Kochi in the 1500's. It was uninteresting at best. I thought I only had a few hours there, but then the train left almost 3 hours late for no apparent reason, so I was just hanging out at the train station for quite a while.

Anyway, I took the train to Gokarna and on the way saw one of the most stunning sunsets ever. The picture doesn't do it justice. My camera is nice, but it would have to be downright amazing to take a good picture of a sunset from a moving train.

So I got into Gokarna at about 7:30pm, then hiked over the hill in the dark to Kudlee Beach. It was interesting, just complete darkness and a 20 minute hike, but I made it somehow (I did have a flashlight but it's not exactly powerful. They LCD screen on my camera puts off about the same amount of light).

I couldn't really see much of the beach, it being dark and all, but I walked along until I found a fairly popular restaurant and ate there, then got a room there for $3. I woke up this morning, walked out to the restaurant and fully comprehended that this place is on the beach (as you can see in the picture). Like sand everywhere and the water a 10 second walk from the restaurant.

Breakfast at the restaurant was tasty; oatmeal with papaya, pineapple, grapes, pomegranate, apple, orange and banana. After that I went for a swim, which was amazing. It was before 9am, but warm outside and the water is fairly warm as well (downright hot compared to home, but feels cool compared to the weather outside here). I came into town after that and an Israeli that's been living here for a month took me to this local place that sells banana buns. They're these delicious, slightly sweet fried buns that they only make here. I'll be coming back for more.

So now I'm pretty much going to hang out. There aren't too many sights here, just gorgeous beaches. Of course it being India, they have cows on the beaches as well. I'm reminded of the "Happy

cows come from California" ad campaign, and I feel like these are the truly happy cows (you know, if cows are capable of emotions, which I'm not sure about). They're considered holy, no one with kill them, and they just hang out on the beach and graze in the forest nearby. That's a pretty sweet life for a cow.

I should mention that this is a holy city. There is some sort of holy statue or something that taking just a look at it (after a ritual bath in the ocean) will absolve you of 100 sins, including the murder of a Brahman (the highest caste), so there are a lot of Hindu pilgrims (although hopefully not to many absolving murders), although they tend to be centered here in town where the temple is, with the western tourists at the beaches.

I finished booking all of my trains, so it looks like I have about a week to spend at the beach. I may head up to Goa in a couple days. It's more commercialized, but I want to see it anyway. It was a part of Portugal until something like 40 years ago, so it has a whole different feel to it supposedly. After that it's off to Hampi, then a complicated set of 3 trains to see some caves, then back to Delhi (as I write this I realize I may have mentioned this before, but oh well, now it's booked).

Cruise

Last night I didn't go to the dance thing. Surprise!

Today I went on my little backwaters cruise. It was fun, and not too hot. I would write a bunch but I'm unexpectedly being kicked out of the internet cafe, so pictures will have to do. Enjoy. Tomorrow, Gokarna

More Fort Cochin

Last night I toured around Ernakulam, the section of town where I'm staying that's newer and more like a typical Indian city. I walked to the art museum, which lacked quality art even more than it lacked size (it was three small rooms). The "artist" was actually there, standing by the door, so I felt kind of bad that I left after approximately 10 minutes (and that was stretching it). I do have to admit that despite that fact that almost everything in there was garbage, I was entertained by the two Michael Jackson portraits.

When I left I got to see my first ever Communist rally. The commies are pretty popular here; there are hammers and sickles painted all over the place. It's entirely bizarre to me to see a guy's face on a poster with the hammer and sickle next to it as an advertisement and not some sort of smear campaign.

From there I went to get some dinner. I took the extremely long route (note to the editors of The Rough Guide, "1" and "I" look extremely similar on your maps, please refrain from using them both on the same map, especially when they're in opposite directions from my hotel. Thank you), but found the place eventually. I had some delicious fish masala, I'm not exactly sure what type of fish but it was very meaty, like swordfish. My guess would be the most common locally caught fish, the kingfish. I polished that off with some fresh juice and mango ice cream, and headed back to the hotel.

On the way I met a professor of Indian philosophy. He suggested (nay, insisted) that we go have a beer and he would explain the basics of Indian philosophy to me. I agreed to go, figuring I wouldn't get too many offers in my life for a lecture on Indian philosophy to go with my beer.

We made it to the "Cool Bar" and he began to explain Indian philosophy. It was actually pretty interesting. He made it to the part about how I shouldn't ever eat red meat, then mentioned he was an Ayurvedic "doctor". He felt my pulse, then declared my chakras were all out of alignment (or something to that effect). He tried to give me (no, at first sell me) pills to take to fix my "unbalanced" body, but I refused. He then had very little interest in teaching me about Indian philosophy (funny how that works), and we left after one round (note: never buy the first round in India). Yet another lesson learned.

Today I grabbed some breakfast and headed back here to Fort Cochin. This time I actually found the fort, or at least what's left of it. It's basically a couple of small walls, one with a cannon. Very exciting! I also found the oldest church in India, from the early 1500's, called St. Francis. It's a pretty typical church, nothing too special. Vasco de Gama was buried there for a while, but then taken back to Portugal.

I watched the fisherman for a while, then took a look at their catches as they tried to get me to buy stuff to take to have cooked at a little stall. I declined on the merits of food safety and grabbed a thali (full meal) nearby.

This morning I booked an all day cruise for tomorrow. I'll be going on some sort of house boat in the morning, taking a traditional Keralan lunch on the boat, then going for a canoe ride in the afternoon. It should be a good time.

Tonight I may go to a traditional kathakali dance, held only here in the state of Kerala. It sounds mildly interesting; the book highly recommends it but I'm not so big on the traditional dancing. We'll see how I feel when the time comes.

Kochi

Today I'm in Kochi, famous for the "backwaters" (you can take a day cruise around the small rivers and bays and look at all the scenery), as well as its European style Fort Cochin, complete with Chinese style fishing nets (it's a real hodgepodge). It's very hot, very tropical, and feels very good to be in this air conditioned internet cafe (I may stay in here a little longer than I had planned).

I arrived here at 4am, and walked the half hour to the water from the train station. I settled on the only hotel that was open, a little more than I'm used to paying ($18), but it was open and therefore I did not have to sleep on the sidewalk like a homeless person (money well spent I would say). After a nap, I grabbed some breakfast and took the ferry across the little bay to Fort Cochin. It's not so much a fort as some old European buildings (starting in the 1500's it was an important port city). I visited the Pardesi Synagogue in Jew Town, just off Jew Street (seriously), which is apparently the oldest continuously used synagogue in the Commonwealth (in India! I wouldn't have guessed that one). It was a tiny little building, but had it's charms.

After Jew Town I went to Santa Cruz Basilica (and church and a synagogue in the same day; feels more like Europe than India. You know, except for the heat and all the funny symbols everywhere). It's a pretty typical old church, all sorts of paintings on the interior although they were nothing to write home about (even though I kind of am writing home about them).

Now I plan to head back to town for a little rest (the ferry is 15 minutes and 2.50 - that's two rupees, 50 paise, or about 5 cents). Tomorrow I plan to do the backwater cruise, then the night after that I head to Gokarna.

Gandhi Museum

Today I have a 4:35pm train to Kochi, in Kerala. I had to check out of my hotel at 8am this morning. That leaves a large chunk of time I didn't really know what to do with, since I've been to the main temple as well as the "palace" I went to yesterday afternoon, although I should probably start from there.

The palace was a well restored courtyard surrounded by large pillars, all in typical Italian style. The rest of it had been destroyed so its materials could be used in another palace by the original builder's grandson. Basically you could see the whole thing in about 2 minutes, but I stayed around a little longer so I would feel like I got my money's worth at least a little bit. After that disappointment I got myself some juice (amazing orange juice they have here, as well as pineapple) at one of the many juice stands and headed back.

For dinner I went back to the same place I've been going to for some dosas, then I went looking for something to do. I settled on getting all my pictures backed up on to DVD (which I had been meaning to do anyway), which was $2 and took a good hour and a half, which I wasn't counting on.

This morning I decided I would go to the Gandhi Museum across town. I walked the 5k and still got there at 9am, but it didn't open until 10. Some local kids who were cutting class came and talked to me, although of course their English wasn't very good from cutting class all the time. We passed the time talking, then moving underneath a random thatched room when it started to rain.

I got to the museum gates as it opened, and they sang a song, followed by some sort of Gandhi chant, then opened it up. It was a pretty nice building, but not a large museum. It followed the history of the white man (their words, not mine) oppressing India. I read pretty much everything in there, and was done in about an hour. It finished with some biography stuff on Gandhi, then the highlight, which was his blood stained clothing from when he was murdered (fun stuff!).

After hiking the 5k back to town I went for another banana leaf special lunch, then went to get some ice cream. I met some random Indian who convinced me to go to the roof of one of the shops next to the temple and see the view. It wasn't all that great and of course they tried to get me to buy stuff (no such luck for them. What am I going to do with a 4 foot tall statue?). So now I'll be going to catch that train to Kochi, which arrives at something like 3:40am tomorrow morning (that'll be fun looking for a hotel at that hour).

Meenakshi-Sundareshwarar temple

This morning I visited the Meenakshi-Sundareshwarar temple (I know, it's a mouthful). I remembered to wear pants (not shorts, I typically remember to wear pants in general) and I left my shoes across the street at a government shop. I entered through one of the massive gates (covered in some of the 33,000 statues of the temple) and was on my way.

It's a very large set of temples, although I was only allowed in maybe half of the place due to the fact that I'm not a Hindu. It was still very interesting, just a huge place full of pilgrims and every day worshipers. Any time there are what I consider exotic animals in a place of worship, you can count me in (this time it was an elephant all decorated, just hanging out in the temple). The statues are impressive, all painted how they were originally (some are "only" 300 years old, but many are much older, no one seems to know exactly how old).

The whole struck me as very ancient, as if it had changed very little in the last thousand years. Hinduism as I see it feels like ancient Greek or Roman religions, full of different gods, with different powers, myths explaining everything and interwoven with the local landscapes. It's very interesting, although the guys taking pictures of me with their cell phones takes away from the ambiance a little bit. Anyway, I'm not sure what I'll do this afternoon, but I may visit an old half destroyed palace of some sort, we'll see.

Madurai

This morning I arrived in Madurai, quintessential South Indian city, and an ancient city at that. I suspected it might be oppressively hot since it's so far south and a good deal inland, but it's not bad.

Madurai is known now for have one of the largest temple complexes in the south, with some massive towers at each entrance, each of which is covered in carvings which have been painted to their original colors. I haven't been inside yet because I was wearing shorts (apparently not allowed), and I'm also not allowed into the actual temple (non-Hindus are not allowed), but I'll be going tomorrow.

The rest of the city I've explored so far is like the book describes the south: more relaxed, cheaper, cleaner and more educated. It's hard to say about educated, but the rest seems to be true. My banana leaf meal (it turns out there was more to it, including yogurt, dal - lentil soup - and sambar - traditional southern soup served with pretty much everything here) was only 70 cents (same as Chennai) and this internet is only 15 rupees per hour, the cheapest I've found in India thus far. You can also get a dress shirt for about a dollar, or they'll reproduce your clothes for super cheap as well.

The salesman and rickshaw drivers seem to be a little less intense as well, so it's been nice.

I booked some more trains. I'll be going after Madurai to Kochi, an ocean-side city in Kerala, the southern-most state on the subcontinent, then up to Gokarna, a little beach town with bamboo huts and supposedly unspoiled beaches. After that (I don't have this part booked) I'll go to Palolem, in Goa, then to Hampi, then to a couple sets of caves carved into the rocks, and at last back to Delhi for my flight.