Thursday, February 22, 2007
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Pondicherry and other stuff
I was taught as a little boy by my Christian nurse (in my house we had a nurse to look after the kids) "cleanliness is next to godliness". If so, then India, despite its myriads of gods and temples, is the most godforsaken place I have ever visited.
I am now in Pondicherry, a little piece of France left behind when the French moved out some 50 years ago (I think). It is unbelievable: wide streets, a beautiful waterside boardwalk (tayelet) but with no cafes restaurants along it, which I can't understand, well preserved buildings, policemen with 'kepis' and French and other European restaurants - and you all know what that means! Last night I had a real hamburger. Thank the gods that I have decided to service my bike here and to rest up a bit, the last leg to here was 430 kms in one day and I could not think of a better place to rest up. The only problem here is that it seems to be the worst smelling town I have visited so far - you smell shit half the time! However the town is full of French tourists and even a number who live here permanently - there is some sort of international community - - that leads a special lifestyle, I hope to visit the area and check it out tomorrow.
If you remember I left Varkala and the delicious fish on the 2nd of Feb setting happilly off for Kodaikenal - well no zen, no nothing - got completely lost, I must have driven an extra 150 - 200 kms and most of that in the mountains on real scary roads. I bought a map in Varkala, the best map of India available here - I think I will use it for toilet paper. Half the roads marked on it don't exist or don't go where they show they are going or end suddenly at some ashram in the middle of nowhere. And roads that do exist and lead somewhere are oftimes absent from my Eicher Map Book - Aaaaaaagh! But the drive was magnificent and the road filled with animals, squirrels, monkeys, birds of a gazillion varieties, cows dogs, donkeys, horses, pigs and of course at least one elephant and the views were breathtaking etc.....
I finally in Kodaikanal in the late afternoon after 2 hard days of travel and checked into a fairly decent guesthouse. And then it got cold, and then it got colder and then it froze. I spent about 3 nights there and never left my room after 6pm, what kind of a holiday is that? Mind you, it is very beautiful up there and I did do a couple of walks and was impressed by the scenery. of course the Israelis have taken over Vattakanal, a little village about 4 kms from Kodai and a bit higher in the hills - they can have it. On my second day there I met a guy who knew me from Om Beach and he invited me to visit him and his girlfriend in Vatta and so I walked about 30 minutes downhill to their little hovel on the mountainside. I then crawled up the hill for about 60 minutes - fortunately I was alone and nobody saw what a wreck I really was. I found a place that made really good chicken pies and I think that because of the food I stayed in Kodai an extra day. But it was too cold and I wasn't enjoying it and so I left.
From Kodai I drove to Madurai where I spent 2 days visiting the local temple and the Ghandi Memorial Museum. In Madurai I found a great supermarket (there are a couple like that here in Pondi too) sold all sorts of western foods and stuff, Scottish butter biscuits, decaffe coffee, impoted cigarettes but most important of all - tinned meatloaf (luf!, the Israeli equivalent of spam --J.B.) and I bought a couple of tins and had a gastronomic orgasm. (okay, I admit that luf is not a reason for an orgasm but after my experience with meat in Varkala it was the best meal I had eaten in days)
From Madurai I drove to Rameswaram which is as close as you can get to Sri Lanka in India - the town is about 40 kms from Sri Lanka and if you drive east for about 18 kms you reach Adams Bridge (after a 4 km walk along the beach) which is only about 18 kms from Sri Lanka - unfortunately it is 18 kms across water and there are no ferries so you can only almost see S.L. as it is beyond the horizon - in Rameswaran I ate luf because even the dhabas were bad there.On my second night there I went for a walk around town, well there is no real around town so I walked to the temple which is the center of town and came across a ceremony with guys carrying statues of gods and of course in front a beautifully decorated elephant.
So as long as I am enjoying the food I will spend a couple more days here and then start making my way slowly north.
I am now in Pondicherry, a little piece of France left behind when the French moved out some 50 years ago (I think). It is unbelievable: wide streets, a beautiful waterside boardwalk (tayelet) but with no cafes restaurants along it, which I can't understand, well preserved buildings, policemen with 'kepis' and French and other European restaurants - and you all know what that means! Last night I had a real hamburger. Thank the gods that I have decided to service my bike here and to rest up a bit, the last leg to here was 430 kms in one day and I could not think of a better place to rest up. The only problem here is that it seems to be the worst smelling town I have visited so far - you smell shit half the time! However the town is full of French tourists and even a number who live here permanently - there is some sort of international community - - that leads a special lifestyle, I hope to visit the area and check it out tomorrow.
If you remember I left Varkala and the delicious fish on the 2nd of Feb setting happilly off for Kodaikenal - well no zen, no nothing - got completely lost, I must have driven an extra 150 - 200 kms and most of that in the mountains on real scary roads. I bought a map in Varkala, the best map of India available here - I think I will use it for toilet paper. Half the roads marked on it don't exist or don't go where they show they are going or end suddenly at some ashram in the middle of nowhere. And roads that do exist and lead somewhere are oftimes absent from my Eicher Map Book - Aaaaaaagh! But the drive was magnificent and the road filled with animals, squirrels, monkeys, birds of a gazillion varieties, cows dogs, donkeys, horses, pigs and of course at least one elephant and the views were breathtaking etc.....
I finally in Kodaikanal in the late afternoon after 2 hard days of travel and checked into a fairly decent guesthouse. And then it got cold, and then it got colder and then it froze. I spent about 3 nights there and never left my room after 6pm, what kind of a holiday is that? Mind you, it is very beautiful up there and I did do a couple of walks and was impressed by the scenery. of course the Israelis have taken over Vattakanal, a little village about 4 kms from Kodai and a bit higher in the hills - they can have it. On my second day there I met a guy who knew me from Om Beach and he invited me to visit him and his girlfriend in Vatta and so I walked about 30 minutes downhill to their little hovel on the mountainside. I then crawled up the hill for about 60 minutes - fortunately I was alone and nobody saw what a wreck I really was. I found a place that made really good chicken pies and I think that because of the food I stayed in Kodai an extra day. But it was too cold and I wasn't enjoying it and so I left.
From Kodai I drove to Madurai where I spent 2 days visiting the local temple and the Ghandi Memorial Museum. In Madurai I found a great supermarket (there are a couple like that here in Pondi too) sold all sorts of western foods and stuff, Scottish butter biscuits, decaffe coffee, impoted cigarettes but most important of all - tinned meatloaf (luf!, the Israeli equivalent of spam --J.B.) and I bought a couple of tins and had a gastronomic orgasm. (okay, I admit that luf is not a reason for an orgasm but after my experience with meat in Varkala it was the best meal I had eaten in days)
From Madurai I drove to Rameswaram which is as close as you can get to Sri Lanka in India - the town is about 40 kms from Sri Lanka and if you drive east for about 18 kms you reach Adams Bridge (after a 4 km walk along the beach) which is only about 18 kms from Sri Lanka - unfortunately it is 18 kms across water and there are no ferries so you can only almost see S.L. as it is beyond the horizon - in Rameswaran I ate luf because even the dhabas were bad there.On my second night there I went for a walk around town, well there is no real around town so I walked to the temple which is the center of town and came across a ceremony with guys carrying statues of gods and of course in front a beautifully decorated elephant.
So as long as I am enjoying the food I will spend a couple more days here and then start making my way slowly north.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Shpitz - Varkala
Most of the men wear diapers for fucks sake, and I have seen them expose themselves at each other and I have noticed that all the teachers of girls wear the diapers. Makes you stop and think, right!
So I am still in Varkala, first it was because I was sick and then because the next day I was thrown out of two (yes, 2) guesthouses because they didnt believe that I had had food poisoning but I really did! And I was damned if I was going to let them chase me away. And then the fish is the best food Ive eaten since leaving Goa, I never thought I would say some thing like that but there, I have, the blue marlin/swordfish is especially tasty with an almost steaklike texture to it and very little 'fishiness'. I have stayed in 5 different guest houses in Varkala and on Saturday I am leaving for Kodaikenal.
The day before yesterday I set off with Eyal who also has a bike but it is hospitalized so he rode pillion, for the shpitz ('tip' or 'point') of India, Kunyakumari, where that night I watched the sun sink into the ocean on my right and that morning I got up at 5.45 so that I could watch the sun rise from the ocean on my left. The sunset/sunrise is a big thing with Indians and they come in droves to watch it. The sunset is watched from the beach by thousands but the sunrise only by those who dont have a hotel roof (we did), those who do have a roof gather there in their hundreds from about 6am, at about 6.45 they begin to leave but our sun only rose from behind the clouds at about 7.15, well worth waiting for. I also took a tour of the island memorial to some revered 'baba' but since I am pretty irreverant myself I didnt bother remebering his name. Kunyakamary is very pretty in a rundown, dirty sort of Indian way and for the life of me we couldnt find a decent eating place even though the town appears to have about 2000 active fishing boats!
On the way back we got lost and then hit a really deep pothole! 10 minutes later the steering begins to wobble and people to shout at us, we reach a town and by then the wobble is uncontrolable. Descending from the bike we find that about 8 of the spokes (shpitzim or slikim - what do you call them, I'm taking a census) on the rear wheel are broken - it must have started with the pothole and as the wheel weakened spoke after spoke broke, eventually 14 had to be replaced. Luckily (Its India, its the zen thing again) we were right next to a puncture-wallah who took the wheel off and sent it to the spoke-wallah by a ricksha-walla and 3 hours later (just twice the promised one and a half) we were on our way again only to promptly get lost again and then after finding the right road getting lost yet a third time! Okay, I'm not the best navigator ever! We did find a very nice air-conditioned restaurant (my first AC in India!) where I had a reasonably good chicken-liver and no food poisoning.
Eventually, about 9 hours after setting out we arrived back in Varkala - WHICH I AM LEAVING TOMORROW!!! It only took us 4 hours to get there. Mind you, on the way we saw an elephant being washed in a river by his mahout and when I stopped to take pictures he invited me to join them, some stupid 'Polish" prissiness prevented me from doing it, the water was dirty, I didnt have a change of clothes, and other stupid shit. Ten minutes later I was overcome with regret but by then it was too late. If I believed in anything I could say that they broken spokes were punishment for not joining the elephant, you know, karma and all that shit.
Thats all for now folks, I have to get back to my exceptional Kerala-grass of which I have a goodly supply. Ha!
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