Back home

Its good to be back in ny. It was a long flight and I'm now recuperating from jetlag; hopefully I'll be good by Monday. Even though I'm back I still have a couple more posts on backlog so keep checking back for more updates.

Trouble!

My last full day in Goa started off as usual, with some breakfast while overlooking the beach. However, after a stroll up and down the coast, I found myself not feeling well, and went back to the hotel to get some rest. I soon found myself incapacitated in bed with slight fever, headache, bodyache, chills, nausea, and diarhea. Now I'm no hypocondriac, but when you are ill away from home in a country with unknown quality of medical services your mind can start to go on hyperdrive. As I lay stewing in my sweat I began to imagine all the horrible diseases I could have come down with. After several hours of self inflicted mental torture I gathered the strength to hobble downstairs to my hotel lobby to use the internet access point there to put my mind at ease about my condition. Unfortunately after browsing the CDC website on India, and consulting wikipedia and various other medical websites I had become more paranoid since pretty much every terrible disease starts with the symptoms I was experiencing, including Malaria, Dengue Fever, and H5N1 which are present in India. Oh yea, you're supposed to get IMMEDIATE medical attention. I reasoned with myself that if I could some how tough it out for two more days I'd be back in the US and could get some proper treatment. Once it became a reasonable hour in NY I gave my dad a call for a medical consultation. After describing my condition as best I could he seemed to determine that I most likely didn't have anything serious, and could go with the ol' doctor's favorite: the wait and see. I, on the other hand, still thought it was a very real possibility that I had something serious despite the fact that I was on anti-malarial meds, had gotten a flu shot before I left, and that Dengue Fever is pretty much non-existent in the parts of India I was in. This must be why doctors hate slightly sick patients equipped with WebMD (sorry to all my MD or to-be MD friends...) Later in the evening I retched up what was left of my breakfast porrige and felt new life breathed into me, though I was still very weak and sick. At this point it was pretty obvious I had food poisoning and it helped put my mind at rest as I recouped as quickly as possible.

The next day I felt much better, and continued to rest as I spent most of the day and night on a train back to Bangalore. In retrospect, my bout of food poisoning came at pretty much the least disruptive time through my whole trip, with much of my recovery time spent while in transit anyway. I couldn't have picked a better day through my journey to have gotten sick if I had the option. I suppose a trip to India wouldn't really be complete without an episode of food poisoning so I can leave content knowing I got the full experience. Also Jake was pretty amazing at being there for me when I needed him, all while not letting me hold back his fun too much. Yay for Jake. Hes the best!

Northern Goa

After a relaxing stay on the peaceful beaches of southern Goa, Jake and I made our way up the state via the Goa bus system. I will try to explain what it's like taking the bus in Goa.

Buses arrive very frequently; the longest we had to wait for any bus was 2-3 min, but usually it was an immediate transfer. As you approach a bus or as it pulls into a station, the "bus conductor" starts shouting in the most rapid fire indian you've ever heard the destination of the bus. Its actually really helpful in finding the right bus to get on, once you decypher what he is saying. The conductor then rounds up everyone that wants to take the bus and heards them into the bus as quickly as possible and packs everyone in as far back as they will go, and off you go. Usually as the bus progresses along the route more people get on, but nobody is getting off, so the bus just continues to get more crowded, thus the bus escalates in temperature, body odor, and physical contact with your neighbors. This situation is exacerbated by the fact that it takes forever to travel even short distances, which can be blamed mostly on the road infrastructure. Goa is a small state. The length of the state is only about 100km, which is about 60 miles. In the states, even at conservative highway speeds this is not much more than an hour's drive. However in Goa (along with many other parts of India), most of the roads only have one lane in each direction, which is shared by scooters, motorcycles, cars, buses, and industrial trucks. What results is excruciatingly slow travel punctuated by knuckle whitening passing in the face of oncoming traffic. At least its cheap. A single ride amounts to not more than 50 cents.

Our first destination using Goan PT was a spice plantation in central Goa called Tropical Spice Plantation. The plantation is 120 acres with a smaller demo area for tours. We got to see the various plants that produce spices such as pepper, clove, nutmeg, betel nut, tumeric, cardamom, vanilla, all spice, cinnamon, cashews, and bay leaf. Unfortunately, many of the plants were not flowering this time of year and so we only got to see the plant and not the spices. The tour wrapped up with a buffet, with many of the dishes using the spices grown on the plantation.

















After the spice plantation we slowly made our way to Calangute-Baga, once again using public transportation. Calangute and Baga deliver pretty much the opposite beach experience as the southern beaches. Where Palolem and Agonda are quiet and serene, Calangute and Baga are loud and crazy. These are the beaches most tourists and indians come to for vacation and it definitely shows through the order of magnitude in commercialization. There are plenty of restaurants, bars, clubs, and beach activities such as jet skiing, banana boating, and parasailing. The crowd here is split between the same english retired crowd and young russians on vacation here.

Jake and I started off our first full day in Baga by renting scooters. There is pretty much no regulation; they will rent it to anyone that has the money, even if you've never ridden a scooter before. The man who loaned us the scooters also advised us that if we had a run-in with the police, we should just start by offering him 100 rupees before he says anything and continue going higher until he is satisfied.
(btw, the dials on my scooter were broken if you were wondering about the picture)





We took the scooters first to Anjuna beach to the north to view some of the spectacular views of the beach from some higher cliffs. After climbing around and soaking in the views we headed further north to Vagator where we scaled an old fort to see some more amazing views of the coast and people paragliding off the hill opposite us. We capped off the day with some more joy riding on the scooters (seriously lots of fun), not one, but two dinners, and exploring some of the nightlife at Baga.

Southern Goa

After taking a 15 hour train ride from Mumbai to Goa, Jake and I headed down to the south to Palolem beach. From what we heard, the south is way more quiet and has fewer tourists than the popular areas of the north. We found a pair of British sisters also headed in the same direction and split a taxi from the train station to Palolem.

Palolem is pretty gorgeous, like most other tropical locations around the world. Restaurants, bars, small shacks and hotels line the coast with more things slightly inland. Up until now, the weather for me in all parts of India has been absolutely fantastic. It has yet to rain, and days have been clear with highs between 70 and 90 degrees, depending on how north I am. Goa, however, takes the cake. The evenings are cool and dry, perfect for either shorts or long pants depending on your preference, and days are sunny, warm, and breezy. The beaches are way cleaner than what I had expected given the amount of trash I've seen in the rest of India, and locals are friendly and helpful. Each restaurant on the beach seems to have a handful of resident dogs that will come sit next to you as you eat waiting for you to give then a bit. The dogs are pros when it comes to this. They either patiently look at you with their big doe eyes or will gently rest their head or paw against your thigh until you succumb to their cuteness or shoo them away. The food here is delicous, and reminds me a bit of Korean food in that a lot of it is very spicy, sweet, and salty. The fish and calamari curries have been my favorite local specialties while the fresh fish caught off the coast has also been spectacular. Most restaurants have "happy hour" specials, 2 for 1 cocktails running 6pm-midnight and you can enjoy your drink in the evening with a firework show launched off the beach every night.

After enjoying our first night in Palolem, Jake and I rented some bicycles the next day to check out another beach to the north. It took a good 30 mins of hill cycling, but it was worth it to reach Agonda beach. The beach at Agonda is barely populated, and the prices at the restaurants are even cheaper. A wonderful way to relax if you're not a fan of huge mobs of tourists or locals trying to sell you boatrides. Speaking of tourists, south Goa is pretty much frequented entirely by retired English couples which makes for some interesting people watching. After Agonda and another strenuous bike ride back to Palolem, we had another relaxing evening soaking in all that Goa has to offer.

Right now, I'm blogging on the shores of Anjuna beach, which I'll talk about later, along with my visit to a spice plantation.

Goa

I'm not saying this place is paradise... but its pretty darn close.












My 5 day forecast, complete with days of the week in korean since i'm using my dad's netbook.

Its gonna be tough coming back...

A City Formerly Called Bombay

Last night Jake and I got into Mumbai. After settling in, grabbing dinner and some kingfisher beer, we called it a night so we could get an early start today.

Some highlights of today:

Post breakfast at the hotel we started our tour of Mumbai at Chatrapathi Shivaji Terminus (CST) rail station. Though we didn't need to take a train at the time, the station building itself is a landmark, much like Grand Central Terminal is in NYC. The building is built in Victorian Gothic style architecture, which interesting to see after all the historic landmarks in Dravidian and Mughal styles I've been swimming in til now.











We took our first Mumbai train ride to head to the north suburbs to check out whats there. None of the trains' doors close and you frequently see cars packed full of people that many are hanging outside of the train as it travels. To get a taste of local flavor I tried it also (breifly), but found it too terrifying to hang your head and body outside of the train for more than a second.

On our way back from the suburbs, Jake and I were sitting down when the ticket checker came to check out tickets. Upon surrendering our tickets the checker told us that we were sitting in the 1st class cabin but our tickets were for 2nd class. He pulled us off the train and told us the fine per person would be Rs.250 plus the difference in fare, which came out to Rs.290. After trying to explain we were new, and just tourists and asking for leniencey, the checker agreed to waive the fine for one of us be we still had to pay Rs.290 between the two of us. In retrospect, a fine that translates to $3.10 per person isn't that big of a deal but its never fun to get a ticket, especially when you've had no chance to learn the rules.

We got back to the downtown area to Chowpatty Beach. Nearby there was a Kulfi vendor where we got several dishes to try out various flavors. Kulfi, by the way, is a traditional Indian ice cream that is not whipped, so its really dense and delicious. An amazing afternoon treat.





















A bit more south was a rooftop bar and restaurant, Dome, that we decided to check out. Its a pretty cool place, with awesome views of the coast and downtown Mumbai. After paying homage to this city with a Bombay and tonic, we were treated to one of the best sunsets I've seen yet.




















This is the Gateway of India.
















Dinner was at an outdoor restaurant where they grill kebabs on a charcoal grill and the seating area is pretty much the entire back street. Eating vegetarian meals pretty much every other day makes me appreciate meat so much more :)















Overall, Mumbai is an amazing city. It is so full of life, with so many different cultures contributing to what it is now. The people are some of the friendliest I've met in all of India. Seeing some of the sites that were targets of terrorist attacks in the past serves as a good reminder the reality of religious tensions that exists around the world, something that is easy to be desensitized to when in the US.

Tomorrow, I get to spend all day on a train to my final destination in India, Goa. To all my friends toughing it out in the northeast winter, I will be joining you in a week. But for now, my shallowest, most insincere condolences ;)

Check out Jake's Blog

You can follow along the journey through the eyes of my PIC, Jake.

http://whatsinindia.blogspot.com/