Some last pictures from Goa

I am on the Philippines so the updates on the blog is a bit late, but I had some more pictures from Goa that I wanted to show you;-)

Last days in India

I believe that I did a good job planning Stig's two weeks in India. Unfortunately he can not verify it as he spent half of the days being ill and not leaving the bed. If you ask him about South India he can tell you a lot about the quality of mattresses in different guest houses and food that for him did not taste anything. (Stig's comment to my writing; “Heim te mor!”) He can not tell you very much about beautiful scenery, tea gardens and temples and how to explore them. Well, I can not either. It is not too much fun to wander of alone when he is in bed with 39.7 °C in fever. Poor Stig!

But still I believe that I did a good job in planning the trip. (Stig being ill was not a part of the plan.) I even think that I can recommend other to follow the same plan. (Being ill is still not part of the plan!) If you have two to three weeks in India this trip will take you from the beaches of Goa to the network of lakes and channels in the Backwaters of Kerala. It takes you from the lush, green Western Ghats with its tea plantations to the rocky hills of Hampi with its ancient ruins after the Vijayanagara empire. Sounds tempting? Of course you do not get all this without some hours on trains and in taxi/bus and two weeks might be a little to short time. :-)

We had 18 days and this is how we did it:

Day 1: Flight from Oslo to Goa via London and Mumbai

Day 2: Arriving Goa, 1 ½ hour taxi drive to Patnem beach and Bodhi Eco Resort. Since I have walked from the northern point of Goa to Colva and also been to most of the beaches south of Colva, I think that I can say with a certain authority that this is one of the most idyllic places to stay, though the price do not fit a backpacker budget.

Day 3 to 7: Enjoy swimming in the Arabic ocean, the food and atmosphere at Bodhi Eco Resort and maybe join an early morning class in yoga. At 5 pm on day 7 you take a taxi to the railway station in Madgaon and enter the train to Ernakulam, Kerala at 7.30 pm.

Day 8: When arriving in Eranakulam at 10 am you find a taxi outside the station and drive about 1 hour to Alleppey. This is where you find the houseboats for a 24 hours journey on the Backwaters. Choose a small boat with a nice crew (driver and cook) and they will take you to the small channels. I usually do not use the word exotic, but I do find it quite descriptive for this experience.

Day 9: Check out from the houseboat at 9 pm. Take a auto rickshaw to the taxi stand where you pick a taxi with a driver who you find trustworthy your life. It is a 5 hours drive up to the fresh air and green hills of Munnar. Here we stayed at a resort called Aranyaka with a view to the Attukkad Water falls. This resort has bungalows with hotel standard and good service and there is nothing to complaint about, but I missed some intimate charm. A place called Rose Garden Guest House sounded nice, so check it out. You find the smaller resorts and guest houses 5-10 km before the town of Munnar.

Day 10: Arrange a whole day hiking and sightseeing with a guide through your guest house and spend this day wandering through tea gardens and coffee and strawberry plantations and enjoying the splendid views from some of the highest peaks of the Western Ghats (approximately 2200 meter above sea level).

Day 11: To reach the train that will take you back to Goa from Kerala you have to take a taxi at 7.30 am from Munnar. This is a 3 ½ hours drive and the train leaves Eranakulam at 13.10 pm.

Day 12: You reach Madgaon, Goa at 3.30 am and you board the train to Karnathaka again at 7.30 am. The train takes you to Hospit at 14.53 pm where you take a rickshaw the 13 km to Hampi. When you arrive do not go for “the first and best” guest house. Ask the driver to drop you by the ferry/boat to cross the river and then you have many nice places to choose between on the other side. We stayed at Shanti Guest House and can recommend it. No hot shower, but you get your own hammock outside your bungalow.

Day 13 and 14: Hampi is a historical site where the glories of earlier empires is evident in the numbers of temples and ruins of king palaces. I do not know how to find a good guide here, maybe the tourist information can arrange one for you, but I guess that the best thing you can do is to read about the site before you leave home, or maybe use the hours at the train to update your selves on Indian history. Even if Hampi is a place where you can run from heritage monument to tempel to ruins the whole day is the atmosphere here “Shanti, shanti”; “no problem, take it easy”. Take your time to relax and enjoy the sunset or sunrise from the Hanoman temple on the hill top.

Day 15: The boat to cross the river do not begin before 7 am, so if you do not want to change your accomondation to somewhere on the right side of the river you have to take a taxi at 4.30 am to reach the railway station in Hospet to reach your train back to Goa at 6.30 am. We went back to Goa this day to join a opening party for an English school in Colva this afternoon. For everyone else I would recommend to spend one more day in Munnar and then the return back to Goa will be at day 16.

Day 16: Chill out by the pool at the hotel in Colva and buy travel gifts in the shops in Goa.

Day 17: Stig's flight back to Norway, via Mumbai, Delhi and London, left at 7.30 am from Goa airport. My flight to the Philippines is scheduled to 16.15 pm.

Day 18: Back home:-)

The are two drawbacks with this trip. The first is the taxi drive to and from Munnar, but this is so beautiful that I find it worth it. Just choose your driver carefully. And if you have the possibility you should stay here one more day. The other is the four hours you have to spend at the railway station in Madgaon between the trains from Eranakulam and to Hampi. You arrive Madgaon 3.30 am and board the train towards Hampi at 7.30 am. You easily find somewhere to sit down and the station is a safe place, but just not very nice when you rather wish to be asleep in a bed somewhere.

The price for this? A backpacker would turn over in her grave if she heard how much we spent on 16 days in India, but for one who is home in Norway it is quite a nice price. In total for two persons (except flight tickets) we spent 71.000 Rupee/10.000 NOK/1.250 EUR. The reason why this would make a backpacker cry out is that it would be possible go to the same places for one third of this price. You could manage with approximately 23500 Rupee (or for sure less), but then you have to travel by public transport and you do not get your own houseboat or hot shower. We managed to spend so much money because we for example chose to travel by taxi to save time and we slept at more expensive resorts.

But do not get ill! Because then you will miss the hiking in Munnar and the historical sites in Hampi, and it is just not nice to be in bed with 39-40 °C fever far away from home and mom.

January 2011

I am sorry that my blog has been silent for a while now. The two first weeks of the year there was nothing to write about and then there was a lot to write, but I was to busy. The last five days I could have written because I have not done anything, but then I needed to do nothing for a while to get back to life. I was a bit exhausted, I guess. Stig came on Monday and then we went to Patnem, a beach in the south of Goa. We are staying in a bamboo hut on the beach with a restaurant four palm trees away and literally doing nothing but sleeping, reading and eating.

Now I have finished my program in IDEX and I have no organization organizing everything for me any more. It feels OK. So it is time to sum up my stay here in India and write something enlightened about Travelling and Learning and Exchange and Change; or let us take the clever words another time. It takes to much thinking which is not possible in 35 °C.

On New Years Eve I was patrolling the turtle beach in solitude together with Kathrin. No people, no drunken people and no fire works. Just a few stray dogs accompanied us at the beach. We figured out during the night that the world might be a better place without humans. If there should be humans about one million would be enough and they should live in small groups divided from each other by vast areas of forest. We solved some world problems that night. A perfect way to spend the first hours of the new year.

And then there was about ten days with lots of time to write, but nothing to blog about. I guess that a good blogger always can find something to write about. The clue I have heard is to keep your readers busy and always have an updated blog so they keep visiting it. I guess my blog is not like that because after these ten days I did not have the time because I was in Rajastan in the North-West of India for a week and then I was walking the beaches of Northern and Middle Goa for a week.

Visiting Prakash's home in Rajastan

Sunday morning the 9^th of January I had my breakfast together with the staff in the camp when Prakash told me she was going home for a one week leave. That would be my last week in the camp and I would miss having Prakash around; always happy and dancing and giving me a shower while she was watering the grass and flowers in the garden (we had a small or lets say big water fight the other day). So she said that I should come with her to her family’s village in Tonk in Rajastan and I said “yes, I would love to come with you”. “What”, she said, “you come?! Very hard; 22 hour train, no seat reservation but woman compartment, no problem, and 3 hour bus, public bus”. I replied that if she could manage I guess that I would manage too and if she would invite me I would go with her. So we went!

The seat reservation and the travel were no problem, we sat in the women's compartment and had lots of space. But it was a long journey I realize now, as I have spent the last days relaxing to get my energy back. And then it was the language; How to talk together with no common language? “Me small English problem,” Prakash always said. Well, I have a Hindi problem. “Me nahi Hindi samje, sirf tola tola Hindi bolo. Me suno, suno Hindi, lekin nahi samje.” We managed in English, but there was no one to ask to explain if there were things I did not understand.

Prakash's village is a small cluster of houses in the middle of flat farmland as far as the eye could see; shining yellow fields of mustard seeds between fresh green wheat, vegetables and some salad plants of which we could not find the English name. In Prakash's home lived her brother with his wife and two children, her father and her uncle with his wife. As Prakash described it: “big house, big property, but small family”.

When we arrived there was first some practical things to settle; where is the toilet? “No toilet, bathrom not finish, open field, no problem.” I could use their neighbours western toilet during the day, but in the evening it was not very polite to visit the neighbour for this so then it was the open field. No problem! And then there was another thing that was difficult to understand. Why would they serve me my food alone? Could I not eat together with them? “No, no, I eat later”, Prakash would answer when I asked her if she would eat together with me. “You hungry, so very fast make food, you eat.” Hmm, but I would rather eat with them. Would it be impolite to ask for that? I do not know, but for dinner the second day I insisted that to to eat with them was better. “OK, no problem. Come, come.” So from then on we sat together on the flour in their kitchen. I have always been slow at eating my food and now I would begin my meal together with Prakash's brother and the two children and then finish together with the women who ate after them. I was very happy with this solution. I never really understood when they had breakfast, so this meal I still ate alone when ever I got up from bed.

The whole journey lasted from Monday to Sunday, but four of these days were spent travelling so I only had three full days together with Prakash's family. The first day we went on an excursions to a national tiger park, Rantambore, where we actually saw a tiger and we visited a Hindu temple. The second day we drove for five hours to get to the two cities Pushkar and Ajmer, where we saw a temple and a mosque, rode on a camel for ten minutes and visited some family of Prakash. For me it was a bit strange to drive for so long time and when we first got there we just went quickly into the temple, sacrefied and prayed and then we left again. I guess I did not understand much of what we did there, but there was no one to ask in English either. To visit a modern, new Hindi home was very nice and a new thing for me to see too. The mosque was a myriad of all kinds of people. Lavely and I hold hands the whole time we were there. I am not sure if the 11 years old girl was looking after me or if I was looking after her, but I guess both of us looked just as lost and curious as the other. The last day was just spent looking around in the village, visiting the governmental primary school and to fly kites with the two children in the family.

Walking the beaches of Goa

Isabel got an idea one day; she wanted to walk all the beaches of Goa, from north to south. She and I shared room the eight weeks in Goa and our programs in IDEX ended at the same date. Then she would begin walking and I had one week before Stig would come here. I did not have any plan for this days, but I could not really decide if I should join her. As I already have written the beach is not my favourite habitat, but I like walking. I ended up joining her for seven days on a low budget beach expedition. It was fun to see how each beaches have a different image and attract different kind of people: alternative, old hippie, party, middle aged Brits escaping winter, Russians, Indian tourists and so on.

We had some small, fun experiences during our walk like being thrown of the bus because the conductor was convinced that this was the place we wanted to go to (which it was not). We also had two really nice days visiting some friends of some friends of Isabel who has lived in Goa the last seven years. Unfortunately is it the last day I remember most. We walked for four hours in burning sun and 35 °C. When we finally arrived our last stop and got a room I spend my evening shared between the bed with fever and running to the toilet. I guess I should not complain to much cause it is only my second day in five months which I wish I could have spent in bed.

Sunday the 23^rd of January was spent in the IDEX camp again getting updated on all the gossip we had missed the week we had been away. It was really entertaining. The next day I picked up Stig at the airport and we went to Patnem, a quiet beach in the south of Goa. I had booked a beach hut here on recommendation from some other volunteers. Ridiculously expensive, but I think it is the nicest place I have seen in Goa:-) And we did not spend money on anything else as we spent all our time in the hut, sleeping and reading, only going out for a swim or for eating and a chatting in the restaurant. So now I am ready for travelling south to Kerala; for a houseboat trip on the back waters and hiking in the Western Gats.

And by the way: HAPPY NEW YEAR / NEUE SAL APKO MUBARAK HO / GODT NYTT ÅR

a touch of home sickness came up on me.

I got my Christmas present from my mom on Monday! And you will never guess what the best and most optimistic mom in the world sent me; PEPPEKAKEHUS or a ginger bread house. She said something about giving me some work or a project when I asked her on the phone about what she had come up with, and I promise you that she was right. The house did not exactly arrive in one piece, he he. It had had a hard journey as you can see from the pictures, but I have done my best to rescue the pieces and I think that I succeeded fairly well. And note that the candy, icing sugar and the cotton were also in the package from Norway! Nothing was missing.

But then I must admit that a touch of home sickness came up on me. Ohh, the snow and fresh air, sitting around the fire in our cabin in the mountains, all the food and the breakfast in Christmas morning, to actually spend several days together with my family without any disruptions of any kind: I miss you and look forward to Christmas in 2011!

Merry Christmas under the palm trees

So, how was my Christmas then? As I have expressed before is the tourist beach not my favorite habitat so another volunteer and I made a plan about spending Christmas on the turtle beach in solitude. The problem with the plan was that we could not really explain to the other volunteers why we did not want to celebrate together with them. I was even booked in on a beach hut because they expected that I wanted to come. So we ended up celebrating Christmas on the tourist beach. Christmas dinner was enjoyed in a restaurant where some of us got their food three hours after ordering it,the calamari was not properly grilled, the ashtray never came to our table and I never got my cognac. When we complained to the manager he raised his voice and begun arguing. In the end we got 300 Rupiee in discount on a bill on 5800 Rupiee (we were about 20 people), but after everyone had paid we discovered that they had overcharged us at least 300 Rupiee so there went that discount. So never go to Café del Mar on Palolem beach in Goa.

Of course I am very pleased to say; I told you so! We should have gone to the turtle beach. The evening continued with a walk on the beach to find a party or restaurant that did not play the same club/techno music that had accompanied our Christmas dinner, but this should turn out to be impossible. At one or another point Kathrin and I lost the rest of the group and decided to go to our hut, buy a beer and play our own music. I think this was the best decision I made that evening. We had a very nice time sitting in the plastic chairs outside our hut enjoying the view to a Christmas tree made by two branches of a local variant of pine with blinking red and blue lights.

Merry Christmas:-D

Sea turtle mama!!!

We have seen a sea turtle mama lay her eggs! After five weeks of not sleeping properly in the night because of patrolling I have not bothered to walk all the patrols lately so I was far away in dreamland when Mukesh woke up me and Kathrin and told us that there was a sea turtle on the beach. I think that the first thought of both of us were “ha ha, good joke, now let us sleep”. One would think that we would get up with a start, but both of us turned over in over in our sleeping bags and kept our eyes closed until our brains started working and we understood that there was an opportunity that he could be serious.

And there it was! We could not go close to it while she was laying her eggs, but when she begun to “walk” back to the ocean we could take pictures and touch it. She laid about 100 eggs. When she had disappeared into the ocean again the guards from the Forest Department moved the nest closer to the “turtle protection center”, which is the shelter we sleep in, to more easily survey it.

Why the turtle hatchlings were kept in a bowl.

I wrote earlier that I would try to find out why they kept the sea turtle hatchling in the bowl and if this could harm them. I spoke to the manager of the wildlife sanctuary and he told me that there was no problem to keep the hatchlings in the bowl. What might harm them are direct sunlight, strong lights and if they were kept inside the enclosure around the nest when they comes out of the nest because the net can harm their mouth.

Quality time with Sirwa

Sirwa has left me alone! She went back home the 18^th of December to spend Christmas with her family and to begin to work again after new year. Before she left we had an intense program of quality time ever day for two weeks. We had a list of things to do and when she left we had ticked of all the points on the list; cinema, going together to the turtle beach, kayaking, getting our legs waxed (ehh, yes), walking around in Margao, visit a spice plantation, take the local bus, bike to the super marked, take pictures, buying fruit at the local marked and buy train tickets for Stig and me to Kerala and Hampi. And now she is gone and I have to manage on my own. I look very much forward to see you again on Hidra in June, Sirvipirvi!

Jungle “trekking” and nights on the beach

And how is our work actually going...? Well, the situation on these projects are that there is not so much project. It is kind of OK because I worked a lot in Himachal, but it is a bit annoying too. IDEX is a serious organization, but in my opinion are the wild life-programs a bit outside their field. We have seen sea turtles and that have been great experiences, but we do not do any work here. The Forest Department has their people working here and they do their job. The same is the case with the wild life sanctuary. I think that there are some work to do if you are a super-volunteer who know what you are doing and are very independent and eager, but unfortunately are most of us unqualified, confused and disillusioned common-volunteers and we end up doing nothing.

What saves the stay here in Goa is that the group is very nice and we have a good time “hanging out” on the beach or being seven people picking grass for fodder for the deers in the rescue center and raking leaves off the road in the jungle. There is a play ground at the rescue center where we can climb, swing, hang up side down and do head stand and we also have lots of time to look after frogs, take night pictures on the beach and learn tola, tola Hindi.

And I have begun teaching English again:-) In the afternoon I go together with Amber for one hour to teach English to adolescent girls in the slum in Margao. The girls are very nice and eager to come to class. I enjoy it very much!

I am going to Thailand!

When I was still home my wish was to volunteer in Thailand working with issues regarding Karen refugees from Burma/Myanmar. At that time this sounded as a too big challenge and I did not know how I could approach it. After some time here in India it did not sound as impossible as before and I called my friend Deena who is Karen and I mentioned my idea for her. She was immediately positive and contacted a friend in Thailand and then it was done; I am going to Thailand the 3^rd of March and I will stay there until 28^th of May. You will have to read this blog for some more months;-) I will of course write more about this.

If anyone should happen to be interested...

I have just posted my Master Thesis in Culture Studies on my blog. You can fint it on the bottom of the right column. It is of course in Norwegian, though. I finished it in September 2009 at Telemark University Collage (Institutt for kultur og humanistiske fag, in English?). I think that it is interesting in this context beacuse I wrote about tourism, travelling in foreign countries, nature and culture meeting. The case study is done in Kyrgyztan, but the analytical questions can be asked anytime a meeting between two strange cultures takes place.

Baby sea turtles!!

So, finally time to see some sea turtles! And not a few either, I think they said it was about 80. While we drow to the beach the hatchlings decided to get out of the nest. Mukesh got a phone call from the forest department guy who asked where we were! "We are on our way, wait for us!" :-) When we arrived the turtles had hatched, but they were collected in a bowl to wait for the officer from the Forest Depatment and a reporter from a newspaper. It can be difficult to understand things somtimes when we do not speak the same language. Why did the baby turtles have to wait for the officer? And spend more then an hour in a bowl exhausting themselves before getting into the ocean? I will try to get an answer from Sameer next time we go there. It was a mixed feeling to release the hatchlings; it was great to get the opportunity to see it, but I felt bad for keeping them in the bowl and a bit lost or empty when they entered the ocean and were gone forever. The ocean is so big and the baby turtles so small, and there is no place for humans in this animals life. I hope some of them will come back to the beach to lay their own eggs sometime.

Going on patrol again

Oj oj oj, maybe we will see 90 baby sea turtles crawl out to the ocean tonight!!! One of the two nests on the beach we are patroling are supposed to hatch now any time. The sand over the nest collapsed (about 3 cm as it is supposed to do) two nights ago and that means that tonight is the night:-D There are 97 eggs in the nest. I have to go and get ready for another night on the beach. The last 10 days I have only spent 2 in my own bed, the rest on the beach waiting for the hatching. Because of the patroling we sleep about 4-5 hours each night so now the nest has to hatch so I can get some sleep! As I might wrote before I have got company of two other girls on the project and we all enjoy the camping on the beach.