May 10, 2005 - Bangalore

I felt terrified. I landed at 10pm with no room booking (but it's low season, and the rooms are pretty cheap). I was lacking hours of sleep and after reading the guide book I was preparing myself for chaos and con-men. I was steeling myself, hoping to keep my patient and cheerful mood for as long as I could, but I didn't trust anybody. I got in the cab. I wasn't very good a lying about being an experienced traveller, and he wasn't very good at lying about knowing where we were going. We were both new at this. The things I have heard about,...

Mar 4, 2005 - Hampi: Temples, Coach hell, and Breathtaking Landscapes

In Hampi now - seen a load more fantastic temples in a weird boulder strewn red landscape a little reminiscent of the landscape R2D2 and C3PO are lost in after crashing in Star Wars! (sorry my Star Wars trivia isn't good enough, Rigby, to remember the name of the planet) - seen some simply beautiful and unique sunsets over the last few days. Anyway, we got here after a 14 hour 'sleeper' bus journey - obviously no sleep was had as we had approximately 3 square inches to bed down in, and all of the roads were being resurfaced. This led to Lou...

Feb 28, 2005 - Mom is gone :(

Hello every body, sorry it has been a while, a lot of stuff has been going on!! any who, we left a new family behind in alleppey, our friends we met there were incredibly nice but a little overbearing at times. back to mumbai to meet up with my mom, sister whitney, and aunt rachel. it was a good reunion, some tears shed and then we turn around to start yelling back and forth for to a taxi driver about prices, welcome to india. Mom treated us good, she put us up in a 5 star eco hotel, so sweet. we hung out there for two days, did some...

Feb 25, 2005 - India - Karnataka - Mysore

Namaste!!! Two buses again, one to Channarayapatna and one to Mysore. We've spent two days in Mysore now and it's quite a city. It's not as beautiful and they say and the whole place is quite dirty and smelly, but there is definitely something about this city that makes it distinct. Our first afternoon was cultural. We went to the Maharaja's Palace, a huge Indo-Saracenic palace set in the very middle of the city. It was very impressive both from the outside and the inside, full of ostentacious mirrors, gaudy colours, inspiring carved wooden...

Feb 22, 2005 - India - Karnataka - Belur

Namaste!!! So we left Gokarna and believe me when I say that it was hard, not only because it was a heaven, but also because there were no boats to leave the place (not even the following day), so we decided to climb up and down the mountain to Gokarna with our rug-sacks on our backs. It was hard, but we managed and we finally got to the bus station, where we were told that we needed to take three buses in order to get to Belur. First, one to Kumta and then another one to Arsikere and, from there, to Belur. As it happens, the one from Kumta...

Feb 18, 2005 - India - Karnataka - Gokarna

Namaste!!! We are in Gokarna now and it's paradise!!! But first we must tell you about our journey to get here... quite an adventure!!!! From Panaji we took a 'semi-luxury' bus to Alkona in Karnataka, but 'semi-luxury' basically means that the rug sacks go on the roof of the bus, everything else was like any other local bus, crowded and smelling of sweat all over the place. Anyway, it was a pleasure to the eye to look out of the window to the changing landscape. We finally made it to Alkona (kilometers here seems to be much longer than in...

Feb 14, 2005 - India - Karnataka - Hampi

In the end we spent four days in Hampi, because the place was simply gorgeous and there were so many things to see. One day, we rented some bicycles and rode for three hours and even crossed the river on a timber round little boat (with the bikes and everything) in order to get to the other side and see Hanuman Temple. We had to climb 300 steps to get to the top of Anegondi's highest mountain, so you can imagine that the best part was the view. You could see all Hampi, with all its temples (and there are many), its banana trees, palm trees...

Feb 13, 2005 - Mangalore and Hassan: Comedy Hotels

Have experienced the comedy of Indian hotels over the last few days. Indian Elvis playing at a 5 star hotel in Mangalore, followed by us wandering into a big tent with a sort of Indian pantomime being acted out, and then getting lost in the streets of Mangalore being pursued by packs of dogs! Cockroaches the size of dogs on the train from Goa too! Now in a very nice hotel in Hassan, near the sites of a couple of amazing temples. Have experienced Indian wine (seems to be a very sweet sherry), and are being regularly confused by the head...

Feb 11, 2005 - India - Karnataka - Bijapur

Namaste! In the end, Bijapur turned out to be quite an interesting place, despite the mosquitos and coackroaches of our hotel room. We visited Ibrahim Rouza Mausoleum and the amazing Gomgulaz with its whispering gallery. In the latter, it was possible to climb to the very top and not only enjoy the amazing views, but also experience your voice being echoed ten times... and you can be sure that locals were making good use of this facility. They just seem to love being noise, no matter where or how sacred the place might be. However, the most...

Feb 10, 2005 - Mysore: Unexpected Transfer

We left the national park and took a very bumpy bus ride to the busy city of Mysore. We couldn't work out our passage up to Goa till the following evening so we wound up seeing the city for a day, which proved to be a nice stop. We toured the extravagant Mysore City Palace, built by the Maharaja of Mysore at the turn of the century. We also walked through the city marketplace where we met an incence maker who showed us how incence is made and sold us some essential oils. We took a miserable bus ride to Mangalore where we transferred to a...

Jan 21, 2005 - Motorcycle Diaries

When I get back home I think I am going to develop a new video game. It will be called "Biking Through India." In this game you will be awarded points for the following while on your motorcycle: Dodging wandering bulls, erratic bicyclists, random, unaware pedestrians who carry large things on their heads, and barking dogs; extra points for staying on the road while missing insane on-coming bus drivers who pass around blind corners, 20 points for successfully weaving through herds of water buffalo, 2 points each for honking at Indian...

Jan 12, 2005 - Mysore, India

Yesterday I climbed the 1,000 steps of Chamundi Hill to reach the Sri Chamundeswari Temple. Since pilgrms are supposed to climb the 1000 steps to the top, rather than take the local bus, I pictured hundreds of people clamoring to the top, elbow to elbow. Instead, I was completely alone. When I got to the top I was again surprised...there were about 1,000 Indians waiting to get into the Sri Chamundeswari Temple. All of them, presumably, had arrived on the tour buses which were strategically parked at the other end of a long row of small...