Goa - Calcutta
Well we arrived in Calcutta yesterday afternoon and woke up today with a full day of activities planned to discover that the whole city is on strike, all monuments,public transport,taxis, restaurants ....everything. Finally found an internet open so the blog will get an update at last!
So after skiing we decided to treat ourselves to a flight down south instead of few days train. Goa seemed so amazing when we first got there, beaches were lovely, we met a really big gang of people and weather amazing. We basically lazed on the beach for a week so not much to say. Wasn't really like being in India to be honest, just like any beach holiday. Nice break! Capital of Goa is Panaji which is gorgeous, all Portuguese colonial buildings and very relaxed vibe which is unusaul in India but think perhaps all of Goa and kerala has that vibe. Saw few nice churches and Vasco de Gamas tomb and the patron saints of Goas also. In Goa we started getting alot of local buses which are great fun and so cheap and they let us keep our bags inside the bus so much better than any other we've got!We went to the big wednesday market in Anjuna which was huge and full of hippies and strangely enough loads of Russians on holidays all sporting very weird styles! After this we went to Palolem but this wasnt exactly the party scene we had imagined. Since the girls murder in Anjuna and a few more reported cases of foreign women being attacked the police decided to shut down the season early, so curfews and no noise on the beach and nearly everything shut by 10pm...so I definitely wouldn't tell anyone to come to India for the parties seeing as most other states are dry also! Friend took this photo of mark and I, and sunset really was like this, we're not photo shopped in i promise!
Next we headed to Kerala which was so amazing and if we'd known it was gonna be so nice we might have skipped Goa all together for it!Its got everything, the colonial towns, the mountain stations, tea plantations, nature reserves, backwater boating and amazing beaches!Everything we did here (all of the above) was brilliant, although the only tiger we saw was in the zoo :(. On our trek in the nature reserve we did see fresh tiger foot prints though which was quite exciting and smelt rotting meat so our guide said that the tiger must have hidden a kill nearby. At that stage I was actually glad we didn't see anything as our guide was only armed with an umbrella!! This is photo of the leach socks we had to wear because there were so many in the jungle, tonnes! Other photo was taken near where we saw the tiger prints.
The tea plantations, beaches and backwaters can all be explained better with some photos which will be put up soon. I've borrowed a few from a friends camera that will give you an idea for now! These are of backwaters and one of mark having typical banana leaf south indian thali!
From Kerala we got an overnight train to Chennai and mark was planning on volunteering in a HIV clinic. We had rang before and they said just come along. So when we got off train we just rang for directions and then the guy said we couldn't come that he needed us to post a letter of our intent first. He wouldn't even let us come speak to him. Typical. So we headed down to Pondicherry, French colonial town on the east coast. This is where we got the best food we've had in ages. Never have we been so excited for croissants and salad!!Most exciting thing we did here was visit Auroville. Known as an experiment in Human Unity...or something like that. Was basically a big cult. We had to be shown a video first on the concept and community and then got to see the centre of the village which was a huge big gold golf ball with a meditatio room inside. Inside also had a hue crystal that connected peoples souls with 'the truth' or something. The information centre was as equally vague as the film. All a bunch of hippies but really funny!
From there we went to Mamalapuram, famous for it rock carvings and temples which I thought were brilliant (think mark may have been bit bored!) and mark got to shadow a doctor in the local clinic. So everyone was happy. He got to see a lot of typhoid, dengue,HIV, lots of dehydradtion and motor accidents! He was as excited as a child on christmas day! No photos of this yet. And now we are in Calcutta, going to Mother Teresas this afternoon to register and see about volunteering here for a while. Just hope we can find our way there without any public transport!
So after skiing we decided to treat ourselves to a flight down south instead of few days train. Goa seemed so amazing when we first got there, beaches were lovely, we met a really big gang of people and weather amazing. We basically lazed on the beach for a week so not much to say. Wasn't really like being in India to be honest, just like any beach holiday. Nice break! Capital of Goa is Panaji which is gorgeous, all Portuguese colonial buildings and very relaxed vibe which is unusaul in India but think perhaps all of Goa and kerala has that vibe. Saw few nice churches and Vasco de Gamas tomb and the patron saints of Goas also. In Goa we started getting alot of local buses which are great fun and so cheap and they let us keep our bags inside the bus so much better than any other we've got!We went to the big wednesday market in Anjuna which was huge and full of hippies and strangely enough loads of Russians on holidays all sporting very weird styles! After this we went to Palolem but this wasnt exactly the party scene we had imagined. Since the girls murder in Anjuna and a few more reported cases of foreign women being attacked the police decided to shut down the season early, so curfews and no noise on the beach and nearly everything shut by 10pm...so I definitely wouldn't tell anyone to come to India for the parties seeing as most other states are dry also! Friend took this photo of mark and I, and sunset really was like this, we're not photo shopped in i promise!
Next we headed to Kerala which was so amazing and if we'd known it was gonna be so nice we might have skipped Goa all together for it!Its got everything, the colonial towns, the mountain stations, tea plantations, nature reserves, backwater boating and amazing beaches!Everything we did here (all of the above) was brilliant, although the only tiger we saw was in the zoo :(. On our trek in the nature reserve we did see fresh tiger foot prints though which was quite exciting and smelt rotting meat so our guide said that the tiger must have hidden a kill nearby. At that stage I was actually glad we didn't see anything as our guide was only armed with an umbrella!! This is photo of the leach socks we had to wear because there were so many in the jungle, tonnes! Other photo was taken near where we saw the tiger prints.
The tea plantations, beaches and backwaters can all be explained better with some photos which will be put up soon. I've borrowed a few from a friends camera that will give you an idea for now! These are of backwaters and one of mark having typical banana leaf south indian thali!
From Kerala we got an overnight train to Chennai and mark was planning on volunteering in a HIV clinic. We had rang before and they said just come along. So when we got off train we just rang for directions and then the guy said we couldn't come that he needed us to post a letter of our intent first. He wouldn't even let us come speak to him. Typical. So we headed down to Pondicherry, French colonial town on the east coast. This is where we got the best food we've had in ages. Never have we been so excited for croissants and salad!!Most exciting thing we did here was visit Auroville. Known as an experiment in Human Unity...or something like that. Was basically a big cult. We had to be shown a video first on the concept and community and then got to see the centre of the village which was a huge big gold golf ball with a meditatio room inside. Inside also had a hue crystal that connected peoples souls with 'the truth' or something. The information centre was as equally vague as the film. All a bunch of hippies but really funny!
From there we went to Mamalapuram, famous for it rock carvings and temples which I thought were brilliant (think mark may have been bit bored!) and mark got to shadow a doctor in the local clinic. So everyone was happy. He got to see a lot of typhoid, dengue,HIV, lots of dehydradtion and motor accidents! He was as excited as a child on christmas day! No photos of this yet. And now we are in Calcutta, going to Mother Teresas this afternoon to register and see about volunteering here for a while. Just hope we can find our way there without any public transport!
posted by Mark Sherlock at
6:27 a.m.
0 Comments
