I knew (and still mostly know) basically nothing about the geography of India. It was only in researching that I realised Delhi and New Delhi are, in fact, the same place. Furthermore, it was only because of the training centre locations that I knew that Goa existed, and that it was nice and had beaches. Based on this knowledge, and a desire to leave Delhi, Goa became my destination.
Outside the travel agent's office in Delhi were the most flies I've ever seen in one place. I don't know why that particular street attracted them so much, it was no more filled with filth and stray dogs than any other. The train ticket gave a departure time and date, and an arrival time, but no arrival date. I asked the travel agent guy if it was, as it appeared, a 16-hour journey. He assured me it was. Twice. This seemed unlikely for 2,100km, and factoring in a bonus 24 hours brought it nicely in line with the 40 that Wikipedia claimed it would take. Wishful thinking won out over logic and rational thought, I bought the ticket. It was the equivalent of ten Euro. Naturally, the journey turned out to be 35 hours long.
The night trains I had taken in China and Vietnam had been pretty OK. Far better than buses, anyway. I could survive this. I had a middle bunk booked. On boarding it turned out that they're folded into the wall until whenever the appointed bedtime is, so the choice was to sit on a crooked seat next to an old lady for 12 hours - bear in mind my lifelong fear of old ladies - or try trade someone for a top bunk (which are always in bed form). The latter was pretty easy to do, since top bunks are undesirable due to being awkward to climb onto, but I was of a mind to see if sleeping for 30 hours straight was a thing I could do. (Result: no, it was not).
On Indian trains, or in my experience of spending 47 hours on them so far, it seems that everyone is pretty oblivious or indifferent to their surroundings. If someone wants to listen to the same music from a crappy mobile phone speaker or laptop for three hours, then by god everyone within a ten seat radius will do the same. If your group happens to be the only one to have suddenly awoken at 4am, then turn on the light and shout so you'll be heard when all of you are talking at once.
They kept us fed well though. There were always guys walking up and down the aisles with samosas (delicious!) or crisps (weird flavours!) or the guy who repeated, Pokemon-like, “coffee, coffee... coffee” as he lugged a tank of it around. When the meals were finished, I couldn't figure out where to put the rubbish. I waited, and when a group just down from me finished, I saw them gathering the remains watched for the procedure. They threw the whole pile out the window. The doors are always open on the train, and on the time I spent dangling out, willing time to pass more quickly, I noticed that pretty much the entire 2,000km track had a consistent pile of rubbish alongside it.
My destination in Goa was Madgaon, which also comes under about six different, similar names. This was just a stopping-over point (there's nothing to do there), and I had the the name of a hostel to crash in for the night. The motorbike-taxi guys who hang around every transportation point and street corner in Asia said it was 6km away, and quoted 50 rupees (75c). About 1km later, we pulled up in front of the building where the hostel apparently no longer exists. Some wandering and more motorbiking later, I found myself in the dingiest place I had stayed on this trip. It was 300 rupees (4.10 Euro, more or less) for the night, the bathroom had dirty water tracked all over the floor, the bed had no sheets and what could only be very charitably called a mattress, and curtains that the ceiling fan prevented from ever closing.
I left the next morning, realising I didn't actually know where I was going. A taxi guy wandered on up and offered to take me the 40km to Palolem for a tenner. He said there was a beach there. I was under the impression that there was a beach everywhere in Goa, and I couldn't remember if this was a place I actually wanted to go (why do I not write these things down?), but it was somewhere, so I went with it.
It turned out to be what I was looking for, and as he dropped me off next to the beach I was besieged by guys with cards offering huts to stay in. I picked one kind of arbitrarily and lugged my stuff a couple of minutes down the beach. The hut is 500 rupees a night (7.10 Euro. I wonder if quickly dividing by 70 in my head is getting any more accurate. I wonder how many currency conversions I can remember. 50 Thai Baht to the Euro, 100 Myanmar Kyat to the USD), and contains a bed with mosquito net, attached bathroom and a ceiling fan.
The weather is perfect. Sunny as hell but without the humidity. I walk daily past the cows into the sea. I read. I skip breakfast and have two meals for lunch and nothing else for the rest of the day. I sometimes poach wireless from “default” when it appears. I grow bored out of my mind. Everyone else is in groups or couples, and I don't want to be the guy who ambles up and says “hey, I'm hanging out with you guys now”. With hostels and tours and the like, there's a communal room, or common ground, or a pool table next to the bar. In Delhi last week I was awake all of half an hour before finding a bunch of people to go look at forts with. Too much time inside my own head. I wonder if I should have spent more time rambling on this instead of taking the lazy route and posting pictures. Maybe more time disconnected from people and the internet and I'd be knocking out 1,100 word entries like this every other day, but becoming more crazy. Time for a break. Delhi Friday, Agra and the Taj Mahal Saturday, Kathmandu by Monday morning. Two weeks from now, I'll be in Canada. I really need to buy some winter clothes before then.
I can hear the sea from my hut. It's pretty nice. As I write that sentence, I can hear a gang of stray dogs freaking out over something. There's something walking on my roof. Time to see about sleeping.
Thursday, 10 December 2009
Sunday, 29 November 2009
Day 87: A Tale of Two Something Something
Delhi looked like this:
It was an endless symphony of car horns and dust, and I had a low level of illness the entire time I was there.
Dehradun looks like this:
It's quiet, there are cows and stray dogs wandering about everywhere.
And it's been two weeks, so it's beard update time. In this edition, I try to look as surly as possible.
It was an endless symphony of car horns and dust, and I had a low level of illness the entire time I was there.
Dehradun looks like this:
It's quiet, there are cows and stray dogs wandering about everywhere.
And it's been two weeks, so it's beard update time. In this edition, I try to look as surly as possible.
Saturday, 14 November 2009
Day 72: Last Days in Delhi
Had the option of spending my last two weeks in Dehradun, which is about 250km north of here in the Himalayan foothills. Since Delhi is noisy and dusty and overall a bit shit, I said sure. So that's where I'm headed tomorrow, and why I have to get up at 5.30am. There three weeks have flown by, as I'm sure the last two will.
Meanwhile, here's a beard update. This thing is getting a bit out of hand.
Also pictured, my collection of empty juice and water containers.
Meanwhile, here's a beard update. This thing is getting a bit out of hand.
Also pictured, my collection of empty juice and water containers.
Sunday, 25 October 2009
Friday, 16 October 2009
Day 43: Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons
I was concerned about Myanmar (which I guess I've settled into calling it) at first. Not for safety or anything, but that a week might be too long, I'd be bored and alone because how many people go to Myanmar? Turns out a decent amount. They blocked blogger there, and the internet in general was too slow for using a proxy to be anything but frustrating, so I'm updating the whole week now.
I was sitting next to an Italian guy named Marco on the plane from Bangkok, and he turned out to be going to exactly the same place I was, as was the Portuguese guy, Diogo, sitting in the row behind us. Going through customs, I saw my airport pickup guy, first time anyone's been at an airport with a sign with my name on it.
First day in Yangon, I walked a huge, four hour loop of the city. Not knowing what there was to be seen, I homed in on a giant, gold pointy thing that turned out to be the Shwedagon Pagoda. Inside was nuts, like a Buddhist theme park. It was just endless, endless Buddha statues houses in ornate gold buildings. There were people everywhere, monks, kids, people there to pray, people there to scam. The gold buildings against the blue sky looked pretty awesome.
Went out that night with the two guys from the plane, and an American we happened to run into.
Myanmar differs from a lot (i.e. all).of the other countries I've been to in that there are actually people who don't see foreigners as a walking cash machine. People would say hello without trying to sell something. Not that there weren't any, the two most common English words people seemed to know were “hello” and “money”, but it was nice to hang out with people. A bunch of guys on the side of the road invited Diogo and I to join their game. It's hard to describe, but it works basically the same way as pool, you have to use the bigger discs to knock the smaller ones into the corner holes.
The second night, Saturday, Ireland were playing Italy in a World Cup qualifying game, starting at 1.30am. We set out at 9pm with the intent of ending up somewhere we could watch it. Food was first, in some tiny place that had a TV in the corner showing King Kong (the new one) and occasionally flicking around to music videos and Futurama.
On the way to check out a place to watch the game, we ran into three guys playing football on the street. It was approaching midnight, and it was dark and everyone was barefoot, but they challenged us to a game and we said, sure, why not. An hour later, I had never sweated so much in my life, I couldn't walk and I lost my socks to mud, but we won, dammit. We searched for water and found some people hanging out on the street corner that sold us some. The lady there also directed us to a place that would show the game, and we actually ended up in a different one, but they had satellite TV and chairs (and that's about all) so we settled in.
1.20am, the power goes out. They tell us that's it, no game. We leave, and ten minutes later the lights in the street and buildings flicker back to life. We return. They're closing up a bit, there's kids putting chairs away and some old guy asleep on a table, but we park ourselves back in. Ten minutes later, the power goes out again. And came back again. And then, totally anticlimactically, they weren't showing the game anyway. Lame.
I left for Mandalay the next day. A 14 hour, overnight bus journey that actually wasn't that bad. Then I didn't do anything in Mandalay, and moved on to Bagan via another seven hours on a bus with no suspension flying over potholes, with obnoxiously loud pop music playing the entire time.
They charged $10 to get into Bagan. I'm uncomfortable just handing money over to the government, but it was that or walk back to Mandalay. They stung me with another $10 “airport tax” on leaving the country, which was a huge scam too.
Bagan was lovely though, I rented a bike and just went out into the fields of temples. I didn't see a single other tourist, and barely any people, the entire time. Mainly just people herding goats and cows. I went out onto a dirt track and ran into a family who spoke zero English, but showed me a temple building nearby that had a small, almost hidden staircase that led up onto the roof, giving me a great view of the entire area. Best temples yet, and I was in Angkor Wat last week. I guess I liked that they were just there, no people at the entrance, nobody selling books or water or pineapple, just these ancient temples with hidden stairways and giant Buddha statues. Check out my bag for a sense of scale in the picture below.
Flew back to Yangon from Bagan, no 20 hour buses, thanks. I went to the movies for the first time in months (what was the last one, Harry Potter in Japan?), to see Public Enemies. I don't know what I was expecting, but the cinema was big and modern, and showed the movie as is, in English with no subtitles and no cuts as far as I could tell. And then back to Bangkok from Yangon. India countdown sits at 9 days. I'm going to find a beach in Thailand somewhere to live by for four or five of them.
I was sitting next to an Italian guy named Marco on the plane from Bangkok, and he turned out to be going to exactly the same place I was, as was the Portuguese guy, Diogo, sitting in the row behind us. Going through customs, I saw my airport pickup guy, first time anyone's been at an airport with a sign with my name on it.
First day in Yangon, I walked a huge, four hour loop of the city. Not knowing what there was to be seen, I homed in on a giant, gold pointy thing that turned out to be the Shwedagon Pagoda. Inside was nuts, like a Buddhist theme park. It was just endless, endless Buddha statues houses in ornate gold buildings. There were people everywhere, monks, kids, people there to pray, people there to scam. The gold buildings against the blue sky looked pretty awesome.
Went out that night with the two guys from the plane, and an American we happened to run into.
Myanmar differs from a lot (i.e. all).of the other countries I've been to in that there are actually people who don't see foreigners as a walking cash machine. People would say hello without trying to sell something. Not that there weren't any, the two most common English words people seemed to know were “hello” and “money”, but it was nice to hang out with people. A bunch of guys on the side of the road invited Diogo and I to join their game. It's hard to describe, but it works basically the same way as pool, you have to use the bigger discs to knock the smaller ones into the corner holes.
The second night, Saturday, Ireland were playing Italy in a World Cup qualifying game, starting at 1.30am. We set out at 9pm with the intent of ending up somewhere we could watch it. Food was first, in some tiny place that had a TV in the corner showing King Kong (the new one) and occasionally flicking around to music videos and Futurama.
On the way to check out a place to watch the game, we ran into three guys playing football on the street. It was approaching midnight, and it was dark and everyone was barefoot, but they challenged us to a game and we said, sure, why not. An hour later, I had never sweated so much in my life, I couldn't walk and I lost my socks to mud, but we won, dammit. We searched for water and found some people hanging out on the street corner that sold us some. The lady there also directed us to a place that would show the game, and we actually ended up in a different one, but they had satellite TV and chairs (and that's about all) so we settled in.
1.20am, the power goes out. They tell us that's it, no game. We leave, and ten minutes later the lights in the street and buildings flicker back to life. We return. They're closing up a bit, there's kids putting chairs away and some old guy asleep on a table, but we park ourselves back in. Ten minutes later, the power goes out again. And came back again. And then, totally anticlimactically, they weren't showing the game anyway. Lame.
I left for Mandalay the next day. A 14 hour, overnight bus journey that actually wasn't that bad. Then I didn't do anything in Mandalay, and moved on to Bagan via another seven hours on a bus with no suspension flying over potholes, with obnoxiously loud pop music playing the entire time.
They charged $10 to get into Bagan. I'm uncomfortable just handing money over to the government, but it was that or walk back to Mandalay. They stung me with another $10 “airport tax” on leaving the country, which was a huge scam too.
Bagan was lovely though, I rented a bike and just went out into the fields of temples. I didn't see a single other tourist, and barely any people, the entire time. Mainly just people herding goats and cows. I went out onto a dirt track and ran into a family who spoke zero English, but showed me a temple building nearby that had a small, almost hidden staircase that led up onto the roof, giving me a great view of the entire area. Best temples yet, and I was in Angkor Wat last week. I guess I liked that they were just there, no people at the entrance, nobody selling books or water or pineapple, just these ancient temples with hidden stairways and giant Buddha statues. Check out my bag for a sense of scale in the picture below.
Flew back to Yangon from Bagan, no 20 hour buses, thanks. I went to the movies for the first time in months (what was the last one, Harry Potter in Japan?), to see Public Enemies. I don't know what I was expecting, but the cinema was big and modern, and showed the movie as is, in English with no subtitles and no cuts as far as I could tell. And then back to Bangkok from Yangon. India countdown sits at 9 days. I'm going to find a beach in Thailand somewhere to live by for four or five of them.
Thursday, 8 October 2009
Monday, 5 October 2009
Day 32: Yarr, you call that an Angkor?
Siem Reap was flooded when I got there. Not as bad as Toyohashi back in the day, but I got heartily moistened by this passing motorbike.
So, Cambodia has about a million giant, ancient temples, and here's some pictures of them and parts of them. The flood made it here too, so some of the entrances were planks of wood you just had to hope you didn't fall off.
That's some Angkor Wat right there.
Sorry about the title, Franklin.
So, Cambodia has about a million giant, ancient temples, and here's some pictures of them and parts of them. The flood made it here too, so some of the entrances were planks of wood you just had to hope you didn't fall off.
That's some Angkor Wat right there.
Sorry about the title, Franklin.
Friday, 2 October 2009
Day 29: These currents pull us 'cross the border
I got on a boat, three days up the river, into Cambodia. It was, y'know, alright. It seems mostly to be used for commerce and throwing rubbish into. Lots of rickety houses line the banks.
Flickr isn't letting me upload pictures, but rest assured, they're so amazing your mind will explode.
We had stopoffs along the way, they showed us local people making rice, paper, and rice paper. Things like that. I had two shots of some kind of liquor that came from a huge jar filled with dead snakes, scorpions and a dead chicken. It wasn't too bad.Picture of that when I get them working. Picture!
On the last night we stayed in this boat-hotel thing, I left my bag locked in the room while I went upstairs to eat, and some fuck stole $400 from it. I asked the tour guide to call the police, probably about seven or eight times. He just decided to be a total prick about it, and complain about the trouble I was causing him. It's 11 o'clock and he's tired, boo fucking hoo, or the police are asleep, or when he called nobody was there. Who answered the phone then, genius, I asked. Oh, there's one guy there. But he can't leave. In the morning, I tried again. He wouldn't call. Because the police would "kick you [ie me]" and/or only arrest the Chinese guy I was sharing a room with who wasn't on the boat when it happened, and completely ignore the staff who were shady as hell and had a spare key. The boat to Cambodia was leaving, there was nothing left I could do, so I called him a cunt a few times and resigned myself to the loss.
The previous day was cool though, I got drunk with a Canadian guy at lunch next to a giant statue of Ho Chi Minh.
We had stopoffs along the way, they showed us local people making rice, paper, and rice paper. Things like that. I had two shots of some kind of liquor that came from a huge jar filled with dead snakes, scorpions and a dead chicken. It wasn't too bad.
On the last night we stayed in this boat-hotel thing, I left my bag locked in the room while I went upstairs to eat, and some fuck stole $400 from it. I asked the tour guide to call the police, probably about seven or eight times. He just decided to be a total prick about it, and complain about the trouble I was causing him. It's 11 o'clock and he's tired, boo fucking hoo, or the police are asleep, or when he called nobody was there. Who answered the phone then, genius, I asked. Oh, there's one guy there. But he can't leave. In the morning, I tried again. He wouldn't call. Because the police would "kick you [ie me]" and/or only arrest the Chinese guy I was sharing a room with who wasn't on the boat when it happened, and completely ignore the staff who were shady as hell and had a spare key. The boat to Cambodia was leaving, there was nothing left I could do, so I called him a cunt a few times and resigned myself to the loss.
The previous day was cool though, I got drunk with a Canadian guy at lunch next to a giant statue of Ho Chi Minh.
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Day 27: Prostitute Wednesday
It's Wednesday right? You walk down the street, and if you glance into traffic for only a second, a motorbike will pull up beside you with two women on it: one older, disinterested, the Driver; the other young, usually pretty hot, but made-up to her back teeth, the Worker. I didn't actually hear what their sales pitch was, but it was probably something along the lines of "you! young foreign man! if you pay me money you may have sexual intercourse with me!". It lacks the subtlety of "massage!" This happened to me four times in 25 minutes today, and only today. The funniest was when I was waiting to cross the road and one happened to stop in traffic in front of me. The Worker opened her mouth to say something, but I just waved them on down the road, and traffic started moving at just that second so the bike moved off without her getting to say anything.
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
Day 26: Saigon. Shit. I'm still only in Saigon
I've been waiting years to do that title. Nothing has even really happened in Saigon. It seems like a pretty nice, modern city. I went to the Reunification Palace, and the war museum (hello, deformed children photos). I went to a restaurant that served food from Singapore, like beef. Beef only comes from Singapore. I've been offered drugs and motorbikes a lot.
Anyway. One travels to discover oneself, and in amongst all the 21 hour train journeys where I explore the inner recesses of my mind, trying to discover what kind of person I am and whether I'm happy with that, I've wondered what would happen if I tried to grow a beard. Doing it in college seemed pointless, seeing as Conor and Enda were present. But it's been about two weeks since I shaved in Shanghai, and I'm wondering if I should leave it straight through to Christmas just to see what happens. It's kind of annoying to have, but when will I get this chance again?
So tomorrow I'm going to tour the Cu Chi tunnels, and Thursday I'm taking a two day boat up the Mekong into Cambodia. You could argue that I'm doing this because of Apocalypse Now, and you'd probably be right. Right now I'm going to see what Lars Von Trier has been up to, there's another post below this that I just published too, check it out.
Anyway. One travels to discover oneself, and in amongst all the 21 hour train journeys where I explore the inner recesses of my mind, trying to discover what kind of person I am and whether I'm happy with that, I've wondered what would happen if I tried to grow a beard. Doing it in college seemed pointless, seeing as Conor and Enda were present. But it's been about two weeks since I shaved in Shanghai, and I'm wondering if I should leave it straight through to Christmas just to see what happens. It's kind of annoying to have, but when will I get this chance again?
So tomorrow I'm going to tour the Cu Chi tunnels, and Thursday I'm taking a two day boat up the Mekong into Cambodia. You could argue that I'm doing this because of Apocalypse Now, and you'd probably be right. Right now I'm going to see what Lars Von Trier has been up to, there's another post below this that I just published too, check it out.
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