The flying carpet diary

Indian special !

2010-12-30T10:53:00.027+01:00

For the final ending of our journey blog, some pearls from India.

Signs and billboards seam to be on a very important place in India. Some of them are quite good, but some of them, even though being in English, quite difficult to understand due to cultural difference, thus very funny to read.

Signs on the road:

"Donate blood in blood bank not on this road"

In Sikkim most signs are for the protection of the environment.

In Kerala: "Smile ! You are in God's Own Country" - India's richest state, thus truly The "God's own country"

This sign is actually completely unnecessary, because drivers continuously sound horn anyway.

"Car wash center"

On Nepalese-Indian border. Very motivating sign, when you happen to travel to Kakarbhitta and just can't wait to arrive there already.

Signs in restaurants:

In southern states of India we were often very confused when trying to find a place to sleep and entering to some kind of "Hotel", instead of being showed rooms, we were nicely asked to sit into the table and soon banana leaves and food was in front of us....
Hotel = Restaurant

Good one !

MEALS READY ! This became our favorite sign. It could be only seen during noon and it meant lots of good food !

Meals ready ! Hallelujah !

Some signs that were simply very nostalgic:

"Lenin Centre"

Some bans :

In the bus: In Europe - no standing, no ice cream, no chatting with the driver. In India - no smoking, no spitting, 10 standing.

....etc. etc.....

Just some funny or nice signs :

spooky place !

We would appreciate, if some native English speaker would explain us, what this actually means.

Would you like any body part ? Yes, but not just any, hi-tech, please !

"Lift not available to go down or up". Ok ! But maybe from side to side then ?

Water bottle. EU rules of labeling products are not even close to as strict as in India.

Spiritual walk in Pushkar.....through cow shit, rubbish and millions of flies.

In train station........in case you fancy old drinking water

And finally two wishes for the new year :

DO NOT GET TIRED, GREAT EXCITEMENT IS AWAITING !

KEEP UP THE SPIRIT, THE DAY (READ: THE YEAR) IS YOURS !

Happy New Year 2011 to everybody !

Back in Delhi, back in Europe

2010-12-23T14:53:00.006+01:00

Our last stop in India was Delhi, since our flight back to Europe was supposed to go from there. As we were approaching Delhi suburbs by train, we recalled our first arrival day to India 4 months ago, our helplessness and terrifying feelings, standing in the middle of the bus station, bunch of Indians around us, everybody wanted something from us, whole-day bus ride on a bumpy road through continuous suburb, hungry, but afraid to eat anything, not to catch some stomach disease.....

Delhi suburbs

Toilet next to a outdoor restaurant - how convenient !

Delhi.....

Red Fort in the center of Delhi

Delhi tourist hub is fortunately quite close to New Delhi train station, so no rickshaws are necessary to find a hostel. However, after 4 months in this part of the world, we had still not learnt that nothing good comes out when you follow a dodgy guy who says that he knows a good and cheap hostel, that is exactly what we are looking for. You only tire yourself by walking with a heavy backpack, waste time and eventually you still have to leave disappointedly and continue your own hostel search.

We had counted with 2 days looking around Delhi before our departure, since during our first visit, we literally escaped from there there same day we arrived.
Nevertheless, we had no idea, that the long-waited and one of the many Indian festivals "Holy" will totally disrupt our plans.

Holy is a religious festival that basically marks the end of the winter and beginning of the hot season. But when in western culture people humbly color eggs, then in India they color each other. It seamed to us that this festival has mainly turned into teenagers event, who enjoy lurking around streets where tourists are and painting their faces, hair and clothes and wishing "Happy Holy" at the same time with a big smile.
For them the festival starts already few days before the main day, when it is so funny to throw colored water bombs at tourists. Thus the day before the main festival day, we were forced to walk around in raincoats...:-)

The main festival day we were forced to sit in our hostel room.
Fortunately we had bargained a room with TV for the lowest possible price, so most of the "festival day" we watched films on HBO. The festival day itself was quite an unusual for a festival day, since our street, which normally was full of people, was now empty and quiet, just few colored dogs or cows, bunch of colored Indian teenagers waiting for some more courageous tourists to pass and few misguided tourists, most of them just coming directly from train station having no idea about what is going on in the city....

Selling paints for Holy

Some pictures from our window to our street on the main festival day (note that this street was usually so full, that is was almost impossible to see the asphalt road under people (and garbage)):

Good business - Even the Holy participants have to eat

"Happy Holy!"

Brave tourists

Police ordering the young guys not to disturb tourists

Of course some tourists are also enjoying ...

Waiting for a prey

Welcoming new comers

Nobody can stay uncolored during Holy !

In the evening things "calmed down" little bit. Some shops opened again, streets became more busy and we could quickly jump to some shops and market, buy kilo of chai masala and half a kilo of garam masala - treasures of Indian cuisine - and start packing for our early morning flight.

Flying over Afghanistan and Hindukush mountain range...:

...and Volga river...:

...until we finally landed in snowy, misty, cloudy, foggy Helsinki.

Our 6 months journey was soon about to end.
Traveling through super hospitable Turkey, gorgeous Iran, poor but magical Nepal and truly incredible India, gave us many positive and negative, funny and sad, absurd and amazing stories to tell, new friends, new ideas and new points of views and more than 10 000 photos.

But as it is said: end of every journey is beginning of a new one....

Atari / Wagah border

2010-12-06T11:27:00.009+01:00

Some km-s from Amritsar, there is Pakistan border and the only crossing to Pakistan is through Wagah /Atari border point. Every day thousands of Indian people and foreigners are going to the border, but not to cross it, but to witness the unbelievable border ceremony that is taking place there at sunset.

Unless we hadn't considered going to India through Pakistan at the beginning of our trip, we might have never known about this border and never experienced it.

As most things in India, it was just another, that made us shake our heads, widen our eyes and think "it can not be real !".

After British left India and the country was violently parted into India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in 1947, the relationships between India and Pakistan have not been the best.
The border ceremony, which was initially called "lowering of the flags" has been held since 1959 when connection between India and Pakistan was restored.
Till now, it is possible to notice some sort of rivaling between the both sides, each wants to be better, nicer, stronger and louder.

Men queue to the ceremony area (the very few places in India, where the word queue actually served its meaning).

Masses of Indians waiting for the show. (Foreigners were immediately guided to the VIP zone.)

Women section on Pakistan side.

Men section on Pakistan side.

Indian troop in his marvelous uniform.

Before the ceremony starts, people are turned on with national slogans and other symbols. You can hear "Hindustan, Zindabad !!!" on Indian side and something like "Shia, Shia, Pakistan !!!" on Pakistani side. Of course the atmosphere on Indian side is ten times vivider than on Pakistan side. The etiquette and manners do not allow as much freedom to Pakistani people than they do in India. So, because of this, Indians are even more eager to show to Pakistani people their ultimate freedom through the border gate bars. Indian women are dancing, cheering and running with Indian flags, at the same time when Pakistani women have to sit quietly, heads covered, apart from their husbands.

Flag run

People waiting for their turn to run with Indian flag.

Ceremony starts with soldiers screaming a monotonous tone into the microphone.

After soldiers walking here and there for some time with their special walk, flailing their hands and legs high above heads, giving honor to each other, opening and closing the gate with sharp movements.....it is time to lower the flags. Both flags, Pakistani and Indian, has to be lowered at the same speed, in order to keep the flags at the same height all time to show that one country is no better or worse than the other.

Lowering the flags at the sunset

When flags are lowered, there is a quick, almost unnoticeable handshake between the soldiers on each side, gates are quickly closed and ceremony has ended.

You see crowds cheering and clapping their hands with incredible amazement and you feel like something has just woke you up from the most funniest dream that you have ever seen.

Branko with an Indian troop.

After the ceremony is over, masses are moving back to the cars and buses.
On the way back, you just can't stop wondering, how something like this exists and you can't imagine that this show is actually taking place every day, 365 days a year with the same grandiose manner, as you had just seen.

India really can amaze you on each step !

Once again we entered into the huge country with the largest democracy in the world, as the billboard said.
But it did not say that also the country with the largest poverty and largest variety and largest absurdity......
It should have definitely said "country with the largest absurdity" !

Amritsar

2010-11-04T15:40:00.002+01:00

Agra, Delhi and Jaipur should not be a "must" when traveling to India, but Amritsar should !!!

It was definitely one of the most spiritual experiences and highlights of our Indian trip. We were only sorry, that our flight back to Europe didn't depart from there. It would have been a perfect ending of our journey.

So why was it that we were so much fascinated about the city;
Somehow the atmosphere in the whole place is influenced by the spirituality radiating from the Golden Temple, which is the heart of Amritsar. Also it is truly amazing that we did not meet any beggar on the streets. Maybe it was because of the major population of Sikhs, who live in this region and whose values and living standard somewhat differ from those of the Hindus. Or maybe because Golden Temple provides everything for the local people, also for the poor.

It might seem like a little exaggeration for those who have been there before, but Golden Temple really seamed like Paradise on Earth.

It is said, that Sikhism is a mixture of islam and hinduism. Sikhs themselves don't approve such a simplification. However after getting to know this culture little bit and after experiencing the people's attitude in the Golden Temple, we somehow developed a great respect for this religion. All the Sikhs that we had chance to talk to, seamed very sophisticated and kind people. I guess, what creates attitude towards some foreign religion are not the myths and believes, but the people together with their deeds, who carry this religion in their hearts.

Amritsar street picture, like in anywhere in India, only little more cleaner and without beggars.

Another street picture.

So, what was so great that we experienced in the Temple area:
- calm meditating (live !) music from the very early morning till the late night.
- people smiling to each other, which on the background of everything makes you feel that you are part of something bigger.
- Everything is so clean and even shiny (this is also the way we imagine something that is considered "holy")
- Hundreds, if not even thousands of Sikh volunteers coming to the temple every day to clean, prepare food, serve food to other Sikhs or visitors, wash the dishes, renovate something (if necessary) or simply "guard the peace" of the temple area.
- Even in Golden Temple area people have to stand in a line and wait to get into the temple, but no pushing and pulling and fighting for being first. People respect their time of waiting.
- We were talking to one kitchen volunteer and he told us that the common kitchen is serving food 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. Absolutely everybody from any religion is welcome and the number of people filling their stomachs with the delicious food on an average day is around 50,000 !!!! On weekends and religious days the number can reach to double !!

And all the food is unlimited and for free !!!!
Isn't this amazing ?!

Entering to the temple. No discrimination ! Everybody, that means also men, have to wear a head cover before entering to the temple area.

Golden temple in the middle of the pond (with super clean water) and a guard.

Another guard on the other side of the pond.

Little Sikh. Weapon in Sikhism is only meant for protecting the weaker and the poor. So it is an obligation for every true Sikh to carry a small dagger on the belt.

A holy western tourist

Masses

People in the queue going into the temple. Since temple is small, but many people want to enter for a moment, they have to wait in the queue, in order to avoid overcrowds and keep the peaceful atmosphere inside the temple.

Volunteer - the whole day giving spoons to people entering to the common kitchen. There is also a volunteer for plates and cups.

Volunteers - the whole day making chapaties for everybody

Volunteers - whole day chopping vegetables.

In the eating room. Everybody is equal - rich and poor, men and women are sitting side by side to share the common food.

Volunteers - the whole day taking dirty plates from people coming from the common kitchen.

Volunteers - the whole day washing the dishes.

Evening atmosphere in the temple area.

-------------------------

We spent a few days in Amritsar. So we had lots of time to visit also other places, including one hindu temple. But after experiencing the spirituality in the Golden Temple, this Hindu temple seemed more like an amusement park. When you look at the pictures below, then you understand why...

Kadri on the funny obstacle course of the Hindu temple.

Branko on the obstacle course.

God on the obstacle course

----------------------

Quite close to the Golden Temple is a park that is famous for its bloody history. In 1919, British Indian Army soldiers under the command of General Dyer, opened fire on an unarmed gathering of innocent Hindu, Sikh and Muslim men, women and children without any warning. This event has gone to history with the name of Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
Because of the park being fenced on all sides, people could not escape, and so the only way to hide themselves from the 10-15 minutes lasting firing was to jump into the nearby well. This, however did not save them, since over 100 dead bodies were taken out of the well afterwards...
The general number of people being killed in the massacre was 379, stated by British and roughly 1000, stated by Indian National Congress.

Park that has seen a lot....

Bullet holes in the wall.

--------------------

To be continued.....

Next, Atari border - the World's most unbelievable border.

Agra

2010-10-17T13:33:00.001+02:00

After being able to manage over-crowded suburban trains in Mumbai, we thought that worst is behind us, but the worst episode of Indian over-population was only about to come. It was the train from Jaipur to Agra. First you can just observe what is going on with wide open eyes and terrifying look, when you see such a mass of people trying to enter the train, pushing & pulling each other, climbing in from the emergency windows, just to catch some places, even though they might have no ticket at all......
Then when you manage to enter the train, reach to your place through the crowd standing in the aisle and see that already five indians are sitting on your double seat, your brain wakes you up and fighting hormones rush into the blood....

It took us some 10 min to gain victory over our place, that we had bought. But within this 10 min we lost at least 10 000 nerve cells each....

--------

We went to Agra only because it's "a must" when you are traveling in India and most probably we were little brainwashed by tourist information books and PR of Taj Mahal. However, we knew from the beginning that going into this mausoleum area is not for low budget backpackers like us, we still wanted to see this "miracle of ancient world" with our own eye, even if it had to be from the distance.

Somehow we expected that since it is so touristic place, then Agra is more developed and more beautiful than most of northern Indian cities, but it was the opposite - poor, dirty and unorganized place (even the area of hotels and tourists), where you wouldn't want to spend more than just 1-2 night.

Taj Mahal and the slum in front of it

Taj Mahal in the evening light

Taj Mahal from the nearby park (entrance to the park 50 Rupees)

As we were taking pictures from Taj Mahal in the park, some beggar kids noticed us.

Monkey in the air. As in most (north) Indian cities, monkeys are ruling the area and terrorizing the people.

Since our India trip was already soon coming to an end, we started to leave our worn-out clothes everywhere, where somebody else could have some use of them. So when leaving Agra, two guys came to socialize with us, in a good hope that we will give them some money. When Branko however gave them his blue shirt, they were more than happy about it, even though they had to share it.

Rajasthan part II

2010-09-06T14:06:00.001+02:00

UDAIPUR

Udaipur, the blue city, stayed into our mind mostly as the city with narrow streets with high buildings, where hundreds of motorcycles and rickshaws made the air almost unbreathable. Aside from that, the view to the city from high maharaja's fort was quite interesting and the city really deserve its name - "Blue city".

View from our hotel balcony to the Maharaja's fort

Although most kids that tried to get our intention (and much more) in India were beggar kids, then sometimes it also happened that a school kid approached us and asked for a photo. These were really nice contacts, which resulted in very cute pictures :-)

Enjoying the newspaper on the balcony

In the entrance of Maharaja's fort. This was all we saw, since the entrance ticket for white skin was too expensive for us.

At the train station

From Udaipur we headed to Bikaner. We had been waiting for this place with a huge excitement the whole trip. And why? Because of one temple there. And even though we were so awfully exhausted of all kinds of Hindu temples, which are really on each corner in India, this temple was something special.

Branko enjoying the train ride through desert

Thar desert

Small desert village

BIKANER and RAT TEMPLE

It's true ! They have a temple, where they worship rats ! 30 000 rats are running around the temple and its courtyard and having luxurious life that even most Indians have never known. The legend says, that, Karni Mata, the 14th century mystic and an incarnation of Hindu goddess Durga, begged the God of Death, Yama, to restore the life of a son of a storyteller. When the God of Death refused it, Karni Mata got angry and incarnated the dead son and all the other storytellers into rats.
So don't be afraid of those small innocent rats in the temple, they are actually not who they seam to be !

Interesting fact about the temple is that no rat from outside the temple goes in and vice versa.

Rat temple. When entering to the temple, shoes must be removed, like in most of Hindu temples.

Never-ending milk

People bring food for rats and there are locals who take care that the bowls of milk are always filled. The courtyard of the temple is covered with net, to keep the birds of pray feeding on the holy rats. So, rats in the temple don't have to worry about anything, thus they can sleep where ever and whenever they feel like it.

There have been made hundreds of holes into the walls of the temple by local people, to make the life of rats even more comfortable.

And it is only a blessing when a rat runes over you bare foot ;-)
There are also supposed to be 4 albino rats in the temple and seeing them is a special luck. Unfortunately that big luck did not show itself to us.

Newly married couple with their companions have come to the rat temple to get blessing.

Back in Bikaner:

Peeing camel with extremely heavy load

Very common and the most terrible picture from Indian streets- burning rubbish

JAIPUR

In Jaipur old town market we experienced the most intense market style ever. Intense in the way that, it was almost impossible to pass the street in front of some shops, because the shop-keepers were simply standing on your way with some piece of cloth like matadors and not letting us go through, at the same time trying to convince you "You like it ! It´s too good !"

This kind of market style made us very tense and we were walking by as quickly as possible not even paying attention to things that we might have liked. At some point one shop-keeper stopped us and asked, why foreigners are ignoring them when they try to show them some nice cloths or other things. We explained that western markets give people some space and freedom to decide what they like and what not, so foreigners are not used to this kind of market here. The shop-keeper said: "but if you come to the other country and other culture, you should be able to adapt yourself to it."
Hmm, what on Earth were we then doing all those months in India other than trying to adapt ourselves to the culture. In some case it worked, in some case, what is enough is enough.
When and Indian person comes to Europe, will he adapt himself completely to the western customs and culture ?

One of the many gates into the old town.

The hectic street of the old town of Jaipur

Indian people have some kind of special thing with goats, they simply have to dress them ! No cows, no dogs, no pigs, but only goats are walking around - dressed.

Hava Mahal, part of the east wall of the City Palace complex. Its main purpose was to let the ladies of royal harem watch the royal possessions and life on street, without people from street seeing them, because of the very small windows.

An interesting place in Jaipur was Jantar Mantar. In translation it means "measuring" "instrument" (more nicer translation goes like this : 'Instruments of Measuring the Harmony of the Heavens',). It was built in 18th century by one Maharaja who was crazy about astronomy and science. Each instrument in the park was used for some astronomical measurement, with not much worse accuracy than nowadays.

Jantar Mantar garden. On the background the World's biggest sun dial.

With Tisbet from Venezuela

Another sun dial

Some kind of instrument for measuring the location of zodiacs in the sky

Friendly guy with huge turban enjoying ganja

Rajasthan part I

2010-08-24T13:17:00.005+02:00

We arrived to Rajasthan. Arriving into new state in India is like arriving into a different country. You need first to get used to the new rules, new habits of people, new bus system, new street picture in general.... Although Rajasthan is a desert state of India, the temperature was much more pleasant than in Kerala or Tamil Nadu - no sweating 24 hours, actually no sweating at all. Elephants in the street picture had given place to camels and men did not wear skirts anymore, but they wore huge turbans now. Women however looked more colorful than in anywhere else in India.

First we wanted to make a stop in a hill station Mt. Abu just south of Rajasthan.

Mt. ABU

Mt. Abu has become another tourist hub, because of the higher altitude and thus better climate.

To enter to Mt. Abu, white people have to pay a fee 10 Rupees, so did we. But we had no idea when paying, that our stay will be very short.

When looking for a hotel, it started to seam to us that something is wrong with the town. Hotel workers were sitting in front of their hotels, but all saying like from one mouth "no rooms !"

Finally we found one, whose manager showed us some rooms. He enlightened us about what was going on in the town - workers of the service sector (so basically all people of the town) were having a STRIKE and when we learned what they are striking against, we could not believe our ears.

The reason was that the government wanted to change Mt. Abu into eco-sensitive zone.
Imagine ! What a blessing to the town....
But ....

...locals did not think that way.
Furthermore...
They were protesting against it. How crazy is that !
First we were not sure if we understood it correctly.....
We tried to ask, why are they protesting against such a thing, it should be celebrated instead !
Nobody could give us any reasons why this government's decision did not seam suitable to them.....
Maybe they had to stop burning plastic rubbish on the streets, or were not allowed to dump it into the streams anymore....

Later on we made a little research in Internet and this is, what would change in Mt. Abu:

Only non-polluting, non-hazardous cottage industries or agro-based industries shall be permitted in the protected area.
New traffic regulations will also come up and there is a possibility that the entry of vehicles near tourist places will be restricted.
No person shall use plastic carry bags within the notified area
Restoration of denuded areas, conservation of existing water bodies including Nakki Lake, management of the catchment areas, watershed management, groundwater management, soil and moisture conservation

How bad can it be for hotel and restaurant owners ???

Anyway, the state of mind of the locals in Mt. Abu stayed a total mystery for us.

About the hotel room - we were about to take it (after all it was the only one that seamed to be available) until Kadri made a fatal mistake, asking if there is any place open where they sell food, since we had not eaten since early morning. The manager called to boss to ask him. But when the boss got to know that his manager is taking new guests and not striking together with all the others, hell broke loose and in the end the manager had to ask back the keys from us and return our money.

We were thinking what to to - no place to sleep, no place to eat or buy food....
More than anything, the big question hunted our minds : WHY
So, we had no other option than to hope that buses going out of Mt. Abu still operate and we can escape from this weird place.

We were only wondering later, why did they took entrance fee from us without any warning that most probably we would have to leave at the same day ?!

Road to Mt. Abu

Quiet street of Mt. Abu

Leaving disappointed and never about to return into this ecologically unfriendly town

UDAIPUR

All day on biscuit diet, we reached to Udaipur in the evening. It was a good atmosphere there and we quickly found a cheap room.
Udaipur came out to be the best and nicest city in all Rajasthan.

However, the most of animals seamed to have some kind of addiction:

Cow suffering in glue addiction

Goat suffering in petroleum addiction

Birdy suffering in narcissism (he was really angry and attacking when we were simply walking by with no bad intention, but most probably disturbed him.)

Rajasthani pots

Typical Rajasthani wall art

Rajasthani colors

Muslim neighborhood

Beggar kids

Tourist clothes shop with some unexpected clients

View to our hotel yard - donkeys in action

Floating palace and some kind of 100 star hotel, where we had no business to

Another palace of maharaja, where cup of coffee cost more than in any cafe in Paris

God

Vampire ?

One evening we went to see a show meant for tourists about traditional Rajasthani music and dances. It was quite impressing. Especially the woman dancing on a plate and pieces of glass with more and more pots on her head.

Dancing with fire

We thought that 3 pots are already quite much, but in the end she was dancing with 9 pots on her head

After another successful fight with the train station manager about getting a resting room for our last night in Udaipur (since our train left early morning), we moved our stuff to train station.
Kadri was having another cold with little fever and running nose. In Europe it happens maybe once in every two years, but in India it was already third time during our three moths stay.....
Well, good at least that it wasn't any other of the millions of different viruses lurking around on Indian streets.

Train station luggage men waiting for clients

Our next destination was Pushkar.

On the way we saw a horrifying train accident scene. Fortunately it was a cargo train.

PUSHKAR

Next day arriving to Pushkar, we found ourselves in the middle of the Shiva festival.

Blue Shiva on the car

Pushkar is a small touristic village and like all small touristic villages in India, it has turned into low-quality, high-price place. However it is a shoppers paradise, as they suggest in Lonely Planet.

Pushkar lake, which is the most sacred place in the village and one of the most sacred lakes in the whole India, was according to the legend, created when Brahma (the second of the three main Hindu gods) dropped a lotus flower from his hand.
Pushkar is also one of the very few places in India, where it is possible to worship this god Brahma. Supposedly his ex-wife put a curse on him that he will never be worshiped anywhere else, after Brahma married another woman out of impulse.

Maybe we came to Pushkar in the wrong time, but the "drop of Lotus" had shrunk into an ugly pond, revealing all the rubbish underneath. Besides, the village was full on small flies, flying into ears, nose, mouth and eyes and staying stuck in the hair.

The sacred Pushkar lake (Hindu priests on its shores trying to squeeze some money out of foreigners)

Camel from front.....

.....and from behind

Some random pictures:

Rajasthan continues.....

Mumbai

2010-08-04T11:00:00.006+02:00

First we thought we will skip Mumbai, as we were not so fond of getting lost in such a huge city as Mumbai is, but somehow things developed so that we finally went there and were hosted by an Indian guy Shivam, who had just few months ago hosted our good friend Xavier.

When arriving to Mumbai early in the morning and walking along the downtown wide and long streets, the city did not look so hectic, busy and crowded, as we expected. It actually looked quite pleasant.

Victoria train station

Mumbai is a paradise for book-lovers

When looking for a restaurant for some morning snack, the smell of fresh bread on the street lead us to a Zoroastrian bakery. Soon we were sitting behind table and fresh warm breads with butter were immediately in front of us. After eating them, new ones were brought, and then again new ones and new ones, so quickly that we had no chance to refuse. The boss sitting next to the door, owner of the bakery, was in command. In a good hope to make us stay longer, he put a piece of paper with sex-jokes into Branko's hand.... After some time, totally full of bread (but they were really delicious !), we find the strength to say that it's enough, payed our bill and continued our morning walk to the seaside.

with the boss of bakery

quick waiters

Gate of India. Most important port during English colonial times, also the place through which English left the India for good.

Taj Mahal Palace hotel next to the Gate of India, which suffered bombing during 2008 November attacks, still under renovation.

After leaving the downtown and getting into the "real Mumbai", we had to admit, that Mumbai is actually a big slum. Quickly raising sky-scrapers however, are continuously taking over the land under the slums, but were else can those people go, than simply to some other place and create another slum.

View from Shivam's flat window

Former railway, present-day slum street.

Life in slum, however, is tough. Not only because of the conditions, but also because of the relationships. We, of course, have very vague understanding of it, but every slum we passed we saw somebody beating somebody else up - a man beating a woman, a mother beating a daughter....we wondered, if the russian saying - "If he beats, then he loves" also applies to Indian slum people....

The most dangerous thing to do in Mumbai is to take the suburban train!
Even after few months in India and already familiar with the most common fighting rules, we decided to back away little, after Kadri got on the train, but Branko almost fell under the already moving train together with the mass of the rest of the people that didn't managed to get on.

There are so many people using suburban trains in Mumbai and at the same time there are so many people getting killed every day in an on-and-off-jumping accident. People are literary hanging out of the doors, because the trains are so stuffed. So, it is better at least to avoid rush hours.

Suburban train stop (not in a rush hour !)

In Mumbai there's quite a nice planetarium. We recommend everybody to go to visit it.

Pineapple house near the planetarium

Suddenly there was a wedding on the street. Young groom, who looked not more than 16 to us, was sitting on the horse, drummer boys taking the last breath out of their drums, men dancing around the groom like on drugs and some beggars trying to get their part. Well, it was quite fun actually. After some time of observing, we were also drawn into the dancing masses, Branko among the men and Kadri among the women. We were told, that attendance of the white people in Indian wedding has a very positive effect according to some beliefs, so we'll hope that the young husband and the wife (that we never saw) are doing great now and forever !

Groom on the horse

Women observing the dancing men

On the way back to Shivam's place, we stopped by at one of the most fascinating sight in Mumbai - the washing ghat (Laundry in our concept).
This in Mumbai is the oldest washing ghat in India. Many restaurants and hotels use this service, however they will be charged more than a local person, who brings his cloths for washing. One worker (due to hard work only men) washes about 400 pieces of clothes every day.
As it was already afternoon, we missed the main action, since afternoon is mostly for drying the clothes. The most fascinating will be the sight surely early in the morning.

Washing ghat

Men in action

After 3 days in Mumbai, leaving with the night train:

Evening atmosphere in the train

In the next post some stories from Rajasthan........

Goa

2010-07-24T17:44:00.001+02:00

Goa is a main destination of most western tourists......

SInce Goa is mostly christian, it is not uncommon to see
Indian women in western clothes instead of sarees

Traditional Goan food - Baji

Goan coffee - warm milk with 1teaspoon of coffee powder

We first went to Calangute, since we had arranged a couch there - a Turkish-Polish couple, living in Goa and teaching yoga

-Blessed are those, who are flexible, for they will not be bent over ! :-))

We made Calangute our base for few days and visited nearby cities (distances in Goa are really short compared to the rest of India).

Panaji - Capital of Goa. Quite a nice little Portuguese-style town.

In the bus station

Old Goa - former capital of Goa. What is left now are just grandiose churches next to each other, but that is really it.

Mapusa - A market town. Market is quite interesting, but be careful with entering to the bus afternoon, because all buses are full and if you are not used to fight, you will be simply trampled on.

Calangute itself is a party and tourism town. The beach is so full of Indian tourists, that it was almost as crazy as in Chennai Marina beach. Of course, Calangute beach is not recommended for western women for sunbathing and swimming - too many observers.

men...

women...

....and cows

One day, when going out in the morning and dropping by at the downstairs restaurant, one older guy turned to us and said: "So, we can continue our conversation from where we left yesterday."
"Sorry, but I think we meet for the first time."
"Ah, never mind, where are you going ?"
Anthony, as was the name of this peculiar man, started to talk with us as we were old friends. He told us many jokes, then we were talking about life and love, also he kept saying how lucky we are that we have each other.
He was a pleasant conversation partner. When we decided to continue our way, we asked if we can take a picture together. He immediately refused, wished us nice day and disappears. Then we realized - he was an elf, that jumped into our life, as quickly as he jumped out of it, at the same time reminded us what is important and basic wisdom of the life, that people ought to be reminded from time to time.

----------

We went to the main train ticket booking office in Goa with the intention to book tickets from Mumbai to Rajastan. After paying 10 Rupees the service fee, it came out that we can not book the tickets in the place A, from the place B to the place C. Everywhere else in India this ABC scheme had worked, but all Goan booking office workers kept on saying that system won't allow.... It is really funny system in a country where booking the train tickets might be one of the most nerve-racking activity.

We were not extremely facinated about Goa until we reached to our final destination in Goa - the most northern beach Arambol. There we rented a beach hut under the palm trees, for 200 Rs (ca. 3 Eur), with big bed, mosquito net, toilet and shower with hot water. Beach was just few steps away and not crowded by young Indian observers, but relatively empty, whereas most people were old hippies and other alternative people.

This was something close to what can be called Paradise........

our beach hut

Famous Wednesday Anjuna beach market

Although.....one early morning when Branko went jogging to the beach, he came to an interesting food chain theory, when seeing Indian people, who were working in nearby beach restaurants and shops, shitting next to the water in line, just like the are usually shitting next to the railway in line. In this matter they did not have to carry small bucket with water with them, since the waves were gently wiping off their asses. By the time when westeners come to beach the shit is long already dissolved in the sea, giving the late breackfast to the fish. In the evening however, the unlucky fish caught from near the beach, will be served in expensive beach restaurants for tourists.....:-)))

Paradise or not, India will still be India !

Karnataka state

2010-07-09T12:49:00.001+02:00

Mysore:

we drove to Mysore in the second class train.... just to have this experience....it really was one. Besides fighting for the room, where to sit or stand, the family who sit next to us had hard time to figure out what kind of creatures are we . First of all the women were pitting Kadri, since she did not have any golden rings or any golden necklaces, even not a silver bracelet....they were then looking at Branko, what kind of man is he....if he would truely love her, he would buy her all kinds of jewelery....what kind of weird relations are there between white people.....

One of the main curse for railway workers are peanuts - when the whole family buys a small bag of peanuts to each family member to loiter away the time, then soon the train floor is covered with peanut shells. Of course, in India, it is totally normal, because there will be always some slave who cleans after other slaves, who clean after another. And if two foreigners are looking at this with weird faces and taking pictures, then there must be something wrong with them...

In Karnataka, the cows that have any white spots on their coats are the blessed ones, because only they can go through a total make-over, and after the dull white color takes the much brighter yellow color and vague color of horns become amazingly red, they look more attractive than any other holy animals.

Accidentally we found a way to one culture house, where at the very moment was going on a children's dance competition. The children were great, but the organizational team of the competition and the moderator will have long way to develop. The most cute was a 5-year-old girl, who could still preformed a great show, even though her dance was disrupted three times due to music system shot-down.

Mysore market is the best market in the whole India. It reminded us good old times in Iran.

fruit section

banana section

flower section

color section

Branko tried betel nut wrapped into betel leaf. It is a very common drug in India, which makes you relaxed and even little bit high, but the effect was more like when the dentist is injecting you anesthetic.

Again we tried to protest against the fact that everywhere, where you need to buy a ticket, people with white skin have to pay ten times higher price than locals. But who would care for the protest of two insignificant poor backpackers, all other ATMs from western Europe and America buy the foreigner ticket with no longer thinking and are even happy to have gotten it for cheaper than a beer in the pub.

Our visit up to the hill to Chamundi temple came out to be especially jolly, because of the big horde of monkeys, who stole food from almost every second temple visitor. We learned already on the first day in India, that it is not safe to walk around the temples, plastic bag with bananas or other eatable stuff in an hand. Some Indian people have still not learned it. And so it happens, that a young girl, seeing a monkey approaching to her, can only shout: "Papaa....," and gone the plastic bag is...

quite a similar figures

Some random pictures from Mysore:

Plain dosa - rice pancake with coconut and lentil sauce.

Mysore is a city of palaces

Bangalore:

Bangalore has a big green park in the middle of the city, where local westerners are making afternoon walk with their luxurious dogs.

Even though of being an IT-capital of the World, it is hard to find a Internet cafe in the city and when you happen to find one, which seam to be a high-sophisticated prepay place for using Internet, and you have been given two high-sophisticated "systems", then it can happen, that non of the "systems" works, and no high-educated Internet cafe keepers can fix the problem....

Hampi:

Coming off in the Hospet train station, we felt again closer to the Northern India, and realizing that once again we probably have to enter to Northern India with a shock...

Hampi village, the former capital of the Vijayanagara Empire, is a geologically attractive place, but being at the same time touristically attractive, the money-atmosphere has ruined a lot of its historical-mysterious atmosphere. Even though we were able to find ourselves in an totally empty temple in the evening.

There was a big festival about to take place in this small village. They expected about 1 million people taking part. We on the other hand escaped one day earlier. Many Indians asked us with excitement, of how many festivals have we taken part in India, but aside from all the places where we happen to be spontaneously during some people's gatherings, we were really afraid to take part any of bigger Indian festivals. Besides, anywhere you go in India, the street picture makes you feel like in the middle of a festival.....

preparations for the festival

drawing a mandala

Some more pictures from Hampi:

Our train to Goa was suppose to leave very early in the morning. That left us two choices - either to stay in Hampy guest house and in the morning take a half an hour ride to Hospet train station with Rickshaw, whose driver would charge us double-triple price, or to try to get a resting room in the Hospet train station, save money and some more sleeping time. To get a train station resting room for 24 hours, you have to go there in the morning, to be sure that you get one, because during the day there is most of the times no chance. Somehow we realized that train station worker do not want to give resting rooms to white people, because even if you go there in the very early morning, they try to make you believe that all the resting rooms have been already given out. Branko however did not surrender that easily and after some fight with the station manager and promise to contact his boss, we finally had the key !

For everybody who are thinking of using the resting rooms in Indian train station:
Train station resting rooms are very convenient, as the cost the same as a cheap hotel and you don't have to fight with rickshaw drivers in the morning over the price, to catch your early train.
However, if the station manager trying to tell you 8-9 o'clock in the morning, that for coming night all the rooms are full......do not believe him and claim what you have a right to.

waiting for a train to Goa 5 o'clock in the morning.

Ohh !!!

2010-07-03T14:38:00.001+02:00

This was supposed to be a travel blog, but now it has become memoirs with colorful pictures.
We are long back from India already, and the emotions of the trip are slowly becoming weaker and weaker.

However, it would be pity not to end the story. Thus, we gonna take us few more times back to India in our minds and write down the brightest experiences and remarks.

Kerala continues...

Keralan buses - windows are not necessary, only if it rains they let down a heavy cloth on the windows.

Keralan village

Keralan banana shop

Varkala:

Beautiful beach (especially at sunset), with even "tourist zone", where no Indian guys are allowed to go to peek at naked western women

However, for backpackers quite an expensive place compared to the rest of India.

We got our first serious sunburn in India, which ended up spending the whole next day inside, hiding from the sun and healing our skin.

after the sunburn

Kollam:

the longest annual solar eclipse of the millennium, which was best to observe on the southern tip of India. We did not go back to Kanyakumari, but even though could experience a mysterious light when the moon covered big part of the sun.

Allepey:

Backwaters boat ride

Allepey - Venice of Inda

boathouse

drying the wings

First Couchsurfing experience in India- we become tired of the routine of going from hotel to hotel, so we decided to start couchsurfing again. Our first Indian host was Santosh. We were sleeping in his Ayurvedic centre.

Great dinner on the beach, under the palm trees and starry sky, together with our host and his friends, three girls from Sweden and two jolly ladies from Belgium. (The Belgian ladies where there to carry out a social project, which teaches teachers to teach children not to through garbage on the street. They could not, however, believe us that Kerala is actually the cleanest state in whole India, as they had not seen the other states. If they did, maybe they had lost all their motivation...... )

Kochi:

We got bedbugs from one cheap hotel. Even after a week we could still find some of them crawling on us or in our bags.....

Visited a great Indian fair for Indian people with real Indian stuff.

Got a glimpse of how does the movie industry works in India.

Chinese fishnets in Kochi - in the top middle is the light, which attracts insects in the night, they touch the light, die and fall into the water, fish come to eat them and in the morning, fishermen rise the nets together with fish.

And off we went to Karnataka state....
but this already in the next post.....hopefully soon....

Welcome to Kerala !

2010-06-11T19:20:00.000+02:00

We arrived to Kerala......to the most richest, most cleanest, most civilized, most educated, most touristic, most hottest, most communistic, most relaxed, most..... state of India.....where by the way are only three seasons: hot, hotter and hottest.

Super-lux business building next to the typical Keralan (Portugese) building

On our first glance we thought that this man is carrying a rabbit in his hair :-)

Kerala is governed by communistic government. It is quite unbelievable, but it seams that this might be the only place on Earth, where communism actually works. Literacy rate is the highest in whole India, perfect health care system, people seam to be happier and more satisfied, fewer beggars, NO COWS ON THE STREETS....they are actually eating them !

Although, where is communism, there is no way round from propaganda....this we saw and heard a lot in Kerala: meetings, cars with communist flags driving around the city and talking some monotonous stuff into the loudspeaker.

On each street of the capital city of Thiruvanantapuram (Trivandrum) you can see the great leaders of the "Great Communismus".

We also noticed picture of Stalin, but somehow this picture mysteriously disappeared from our photo collection......

We heard that in Trivandrum, there is the best zoo in all over Asia, where quite good living conditions have been provided for animals,
So we went to see it.

However, if this was supposed to be the nicest zoo in the whole Asia, then it gives us shivers to think about how do the other zoos in this part of the World look like.....

One unofficial zoo inhabitant

Another interesting feature of Keralan communism is that when usually communism opposes religion and tries to "clean" the country of it, than in Kerala, communism and religion, either Christianity or Hinduism, seamed to be existing happily together.

Keralan government building. We tried to ask one of the guard, what does the "South Sandwich Block" mean, but with no success. He only pointed us the way to "North Sandwich Block"

A religious (Christian) meeting, which from the angry and energetic tone of the speaker seamed more like some kind of terrorist organization gathering.....

Madurai, Kanyakumari

2010-05-12T11:22:00.006+02:00

Like most of Tamil Nadu cities, also Madurai is famous for its huge and grandiose temple complex. All the carvings and details on the temple complex buildings are truly amazing.

sewing and market section in the temple

Holy cow !!!

Actually, we are really much back in time with reflecting our journey. But better later than never, so we continue uploading some of our pictures (there are 10 000 of them all together) of our trip with comments.

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It was beginning of January, when we ended up in Madurai. It is time when Kadri has a birthday and just like we celebrated Branko's birthday in Iran with a holy lunch and parrot, the fortune-teller, so it was also on Kadri's birthday.

Birthday dosa. Probably the cooks knew about the birthday, because it was the biggest dosa in Kadri's whole life.

Our waiter ;-)

The "Banana leaf restaurant"

And fortune. Parrot picked the card with Shiva and Parvati for Kadri, which was supposed to mean, that everything will be great..... :-)

Another exotic thing that we tried during our stay in India - coconut tree. Tasted like turnip with the flavour of coconut.

In Madurai, we also noticed something that seamed to be very unusual for India - a "non-veg. restaurant", but of course it was empty....

KANYAKUMARI (CAPE COMORIN)

We reached to the most southern tip of India - the land's end. It is the meeting point of three seas - Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. Behind this water, there is no other land than Antarctic. We had no chance to go further south, so after few days we headed back to north.

The geographical location of Kanyakumari is actually very special, because once in every month, it is possible to see the show of sun setting to the west and moon rising from the east. Unfortunately there was no full moon during our stay, so we had to be satisfied only with seeing tropical sunset, which was no less exciting.

People watching the sunset.

Land's End

The same island as on the upper picture, in the night.

Kanyakumari is not only known for being on of the thousands of Hindu pilgrimage spots, but it is also known for the wondering monk Swami Vivekanda, who meditated here before setting out to the pilgrimage to preach about his concept of life to the rest of India. The island 400m offshore is dedicated exactly to him. Although the huge statue belongs to one Tamil Nadu poet instead.

There is an interesting Wondering Monk museum in Kanyakumari with many stories of his life.

One of them went like this:

Once, Swami was passing through Rajputana (which is present day Rajhasthan) in a train and was traveling with 2 Englishmen in the same compartment. They took him to be an ignorant monk and made jokes in English at his expense. The Swami sat as though he did not understand one word. When the train stopped at a station further on he asked the station-master in English for a glass of water. When his companions discovered that he knew English and had understood all that they had said, they were much embarrassed by their conduct and asked him why it was that he had not shown any sign of resentment. He replied…”My friends, this is not the first time I have seen fools.”

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Hindu women washing their saris and drying them then.

Jump on the Land's End

What else is in the end of the land, besides the sea ? Shit !

Just next to the sea in Kanyakumary, there is a market street. And where else should the poor selling stuff go to lighten themselves during the day, than to the beach. Sea will flush after them one day anyway !

Shit walls are not as common in India, as pee walls, but there still are some...

Mahatma Gandhi museum - it is more interesting from outside, than from inside....

...... but at least the balcony serves as a great view point

Thanjavur, Tiruchirapalli, Kodaikanal

2010-05-05T10:36:00.000+02:00

THANJAVUR

In the bus...

in the bus station......pee wall

The biggest temple in Tamil Nadu. In general, Tamil Nadu is a state of temples. So mostly temples are the main attractions in each city in Tamil Nadu.

Dance for the God in the courtyard of the temple

The God

A young Hindu carrying out a ritual

Men in southern India walk in skirts. It's a piece of sheet, which they wrap around the waist and when it is really hot, they make shorts out of it.

Free food in the temple courtyard; People waiting with their banana leaves

TIRUCHIRAPALLI

Late breakfast in the most usual outdoor restaurant

Rock temple

View from the rock temple to the city

a church

When Men in south India are wearing skirts, than women like to put jasmine flowers into their hair. It works as a perfume, actually.

India is a country with unlimited variety, that sometimes even ends up in contradictions.

Just in front of the huge and important temple we saw a statue of a guy with big beard and rounded glasses.

And underneath was written his quotations in large script:

"Forget God - Think of Man !

No God, No God, No God at all

Devotion is nothing but one's privat asset,

But morality is a public asset,

If there is no devotion nothing is lost.

But if there is no morality, everything is lost."

Later we found out that this other charismatic Indian fellow (aside from Gandhi and many others) was Mr. Periyar- The prophet of the new age; The Socrates of South East Asia; Father of social reform movement; Arch enemy of ignorance, superstitions, meaningless customs and base manners.

He is known as the Dravidian (South Indian) social activist, who propagated the principles of rationalism, self-respect and woman's rights. He also attacked the evils of religious influence on society, mainly what he regarded as Brahmin domination.

Periyar

KODAIKANAL

Kodaikanal (more than 2000 m above sea level) is a perfect getaway hill station in Tamil Nadu, to where even loads of locals escape from the terrible heat of the plains.

Air is much cooler there, but because of the altitude and being just above the clouds in the direct sun, it is very easy to get sunburn. Just like we ended up with read cheeks and nose.

Above the clouds

European food - a sandwich. After eating several months only Indian spicy food, the simple sandwich tastes like heaven.

Branko decided to start getting rid of his stuff, so shoes were first to go.....

Pondicherry

2010-04-29T21:18:00.003+02:00

Pondicherry, former French colony, is divided into two totally different parts by a channel running through the city. The part between the sea and the channel is still very much the face of the France - streets with villas, museums, memorials, parks.

And the part behind the channel is 100 per cent Indian - Indian restaurants at every corner, cows, rubbish, more cows, more rubbish.

French part

Statue of Gandhi

Policemen in Pondicherry still live in old French times.

Pondicherry is maybe the only city in India, where there are street names on the houses, and besides, they are in a readable writing...

Milion different kinds of bananas....

In south of India there is Ganesh, the God, standing in front of each temple, in his full size. He gives blessing to people with his trunk. However, Ganesh is trained so that he only reacts on Rupees....

All gourmets should immediately head to Tamil Nadu or Pondicherry. There is the most delicious food in the whole world - super-good, unlimited quantity for just 30 Rupees and ecological after all - instead of plates, they use banana leafs, which afterwards go behind the restaurant, where they are easily accessible for cows, who then give shit, which is then again used as an energy for cooking new food.

"Meals" is the name of this south Indian lunch. Consists of rice, many different salats and sauces, sometimes also chappatis or pappad or both and very often there is cardamom desert included.

The best dish we have ever eaten !!!

Banana leaf-plate factory

Typists waiting for somebody who would use their service

Near Pondicherry, there is a place that does not belong to any country but to all of the World, or at least this is what they say.... It is called Auroville after the founder Sri Aurobindo. It is a place where ecology, modern technology and spirituality meet. The village attracts many visitors, but unless one has a possibility to live in the village and feel the difference, the short trip to the visitor center does not show much of the atmosphere of the place.

However, visiting Auroville, even shortly, is like a jump to a different World than India for a while.

visitor center

The idea of the Auroville

Visitor's area in Auroville

solar cooker

approaching Matrimandir...

Matrimandir - a symbol of the Divine's answer to man's inspiration for perfection. In other words, place for stillness and meditation. Entering is possible only with special permissions.

"The whole World yarns for freedom, yet each creature is in love with his chains"
/Sri Aurobindo/

"Man seeks at first blindly and does not even know that he is seeking his divine self; for he starts from the obscurity of material Nature and even when he begins to see, he is long blinded by the light that is increasing in him."
/Sri Aurobindo/

Mamallapuram

2010-04-21T11:48:00.002+02:00

Mamallapuram is one of the few tourist hubs in Tamil Nadu. At the same time it is the center of ancient rock carvings. All kinds of souvenirs made of stone, that tourist can buy all over India, come mostly from this place.

Mamallapuram is full of rock sculpture shops and constant voices of hammering

Statue of monkeys, cleaning from fleas

As Mamallapuram is also on the coast and the beach here is much more narrower than in Chennai, the tsunami in 2004 put much bigger pressure on this little town. It is still possible to see some traces of destroyed houses near the beach. The only building that stayed untouched on the beach zone was Shore Temple.

Shore temple that survived the tsunami

Branko trying to keep the boulder from falling

Indian tourists

Monkeys were once again one of the biggest attraction of the place.

Monkeys are clever, they know how to open a stolen water bottle, but they still have to learn how to drink from it without spilling most of it on the ground

Such a pity we did not take the picture from lower position, so that the hand of the man would have been little more higher :-)))

Lighthouse

Chennai

2010-04-16T15:36:00.002+02:00

Already long time we had been waiting for arriving to Chennai (Madras), the capital city of Tamil Nadu.
In Chennai is living our new friend Suresh, head of the Geography department of the University of Madras, and he had invited us to stay with his family in his home.

When we came off the train in the Chennai station and walked towards the main lobby to find a phone to call to Suresh, we suddenly noticed a tall young man standing with the sign "Branko Branislav Skokan, Kadri Rull"
Suresh had sent one of his PhD students to pick us up and bring us to the University.

Sunil, as was the name of the student, took us to the University where we finally met Suresh and also got to know all the other professors that were still at work at this late hour.

Suresh behind his desk in university of Madras

When leaving the department and going to the train station to take the suburban train towards home, we were struck by a heavy tropical rain. It was the first time, we experienced something like that. It was just like somebody from above poured all water of the World quickly at once on us. With first few seconds, we were totally wet.
We grabbed some snack (on the picture below) in the snack bar near train station, hoping that maybe the rain will stop, but as it didn't, well what to do....just run....

South Indian food is very different from north Indian food. On the picture, one of the most common breakfast in south India - Idli - rice cakes with some spice sauce

The next day we decided to take the time off.
We had been continuously on the move since we started the trip, and the home of Suresh and his wife Padma was a perfect place for just having rest from the travel tiredness.

Washing all of our clothes. Last time we washed them in Turkey, in Onder's washing machine

In south India, there is a custom to draw beautiful patterns in front of the gate, in the sake of good luck. We were explained, that in old times these patterns were drawn with rice or some other foodstuff, so that animals passing by the site can have something into their bellies.

In the evening, Suresh asked Sunil to look after us and show us around the next day.
We said to Sunil that he does not have to be with us, if he maybe has some more important things to do connected with his studies.
He answered that whatever his Sir asks him to do, he will do.
If his Sir asks him to go to hell, he will go....
This is the relationship between professor and student in India !

Fruit market

An interesting discovery for us - coconut embryos - with coconut taste fluffy texture, like a marshmallow inside the nut ...

The gate of the former British fort, now the place for Tamil Nadu Secretariat & Legislative Assembly. Not so much history left there anymore, but the thickness of the wall shows its old-time importance

Bricklayers - like many other Indian people, they insisted us taking photo of them

Noon siesta in the park. The mid-day in Tamil Nadu was terribly hot even in December.

University canteen

Food at university canteen - rice with papad (a big lentil chip with the taste like our potato chips)

University of Madras is located just next to the main entrance to the Marina beach, so one day we spent half the day on the beach.

We were shocked by the masses of people, even though it was a regular working day.... once again we were convinced that there are too many people in India.

Gate to the Marina beach, through which is visible the tower of the university of Madras

Memorial on Marina beach, dedicated to a beloved actor and politician of Tamil Nadu

This is how Marina beach in Chennai looks like on a normal working day.

Spicy fish

Amusement on the beach

Marina beach was also affected by the tsunami in 2004.

For the luck of Tamils, the tsunami hit the shore at night, when most of the people were at home sleeping and fortunately the beach is wide enough, so that the water did not cause any major destruction in the city.

On the Christmas day, with Suresh, his wife Padma and daughter Vedha

For Hindus Christmas does not have any deeper meaning, only that it is a national holiday and most people have the day off from work.

Suresh told us that he knows a family little outside of Chennai who are christians and to whom we could pay a visit, so that we could celebrate Christmas together with them.

Even though we were absolutely not on the Christmas frequency, due to this heat and atmosphere and palm trees around us, something that absolutely do not fit together with Christmas time, we were curious enough to get to know how Indian christians celebrate Christmas. So we were heading there.

Islam, Hinduism, Christianity happily together on the sticker on the front window of the bus

When approaching to the Christians house we were first welcomed by the Santa Clause on the wall. Every year at Christmas time, they paint some Christmas picture on the front wall and when Christmas are over, they paint it white again.
We entered the house and first thing that was given into our hand was a glass of home-made wine. That was the one and only glass of alcohol that we were offered in India, and that happened in the house of Christians :-)

The whole bunch of people gathered there were quite jolly already.

After the Christmas lunch, lots of children suddenly came to wish happy Christmas, everybody having a Christmas card in the hand..... and for sure most of these children were simple Hinduist family offspring.
In this matter, India is a perfect example, how all cultures, religions, ideologies are existing next to each other, and nobody have problem with it...... at least this is how it seamed to us....

Besides, the name of the Deputy Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu is Mr. STALIN

After Christmas we were ready to move on again, packed our things in the morning, said thank you to Suresh before he left to work, everything seamed to be ready for leaving.....except one thing.....
Branko did not feel very well, in fact after minutes and minutes passed he started to feel more and more weaker and more sick.

So after some discussing we decided to stay for one more day and give some time for Branko to start feeling better again.

Next morning, we repeated everything, packed our stuff, said good bye to Suresh before he went to work, Branko was already feeling much better, but......now all the same things started to happened with Kadri - weakness, loss of apatite, nauseous being..... and once again we decided to stay for one more day.

In the evening of that day we started to suspect that maybe we have both caught malaria from somewhere. In all the hotels that we had slept before, we had contributed enough blood for the continuation of the mosquito spices and all the symptoms we had, were the same as described in internet about malaria.

So, what next......one of the worst things in the life is to live in unknowing.....
Because of that, we decided it is better to know for sure, than not to know for sure.

We made up a plan - next day we will go to the nearby hospital and let them to take few drops of our blood and find out.
If the results will be negative, we will immediately move on and forget these weird symptoms, if the results will be positive........ well, for this case we did not have any plan yet...

In that hospital, we were given the most quickest and unbeliavably professional service that we had ever experienced anywhere in Europe. After 5 min blood was taken, all the bureaucracy filled in and they said us to come to pick up the results in few hours.
It all cost us 3 EUR for both.

After few hours, we received the results: NEGATIVE

All is funny that ends good !

Later, we found another explanation to our mysterious sickness, was it true or not, that does not need any proofs anymore, cause after these two days, all the symptoms were gone forever.
So, we figured that it could have been Hepatitis. In India you can basically get it everywhere. The Indian food in Indian average restaurants is very delicious but only as long as you don't see how they make it and how often (or seldom) they wash their hands, especially after doing the holy business...
Anyway, we were both vaccinated for hepatitis (Very much recommended to everybody traveling to India !!), but even in this case, body sometimes needs some time to fight with the virus....

Finally after the results came out to be good news for us and we both felt healthy again, it was time to leave. Just one more thing was to be done - watch Ice Age 3 with kids.

And then leaving......
It was one of the saddest leavings, because we already started to feel like family members at Suresh house. It was definitely one of the best and relaxing weeks while we were in India.
Thank you for this great hospitality, Suresh, Padma and Vedha !

Suresh coming to send us off, Padma standing on the gateway

Kadri's hands, Padma's art

Vijayawada

2010-04-13T14:47:00.001+02:00

We opened our eyes in the train in the morning and were amazed by the total shift. Instead of continuous human slums and settlements as in the middle-north India, train was only passing through greenery, palm tree and banana tree forests.

As we stepped out of the Vijayawada train station, we looked around us and smiled to each other with big eyes.....no beggars, everything clean, beautiful, organized. At the same time the humidity and heat rushed into our face and nostrils. And for the first time during our India trip we got to know what does it mean to keep sweating and sweating through day and night.....

Vijayawada is situated on the head of the delta of the Krishna river, another river holy for Hindus. At first we wanted to go to visit famous cave temple some km-s out of Vijayawada, but we had a misunderstanding with the rickshaw driver, so he took us to the other temple instead.
We found out soon that it was not that bad option after all.
The picture that opened to us, kept us busy observing for quite some time.
The ghat near the temple was even more crowded than in Varanasi. But at the same time the atmosphere was something totally different, more like the happy people spending Sunday together bathing.

The Durga temple itself was up on the hill. To our disappointment we noticed that there is a fee for getting in the temple, 50 Rs - the whole dinner.
As we were standing there in front of the fee sign with long faces, something happened that we would have never expected to happen in India - we were allowed to go inside for free, just because we were tourists..... it reminded us "the good old times" in Turkey.

That was actually the second time that we got something for free in India. The first one was in Kajuraho, where the Brahman that we got to know, invited us for the chai.

queue of people, each one waiting for his/her turn in getting blessed

we also got our blessing and the red dot in between the eyes - the third eye

As we had arrived to tropics, Branko fulfilled his promis, went to the first barber on the street and came out from there some grams lighter.

before...

after...

with a jolly rickshaw driver

If somebody is looking for the "Lenin centre", it is in Vijayawada.

Vijayawada was one of the last cities in south of India, where we still noticed cycle-rickshaws

Kajuraho

2010-04-05T14:05:00.010+02:00

From Varanasi we headed to Allahabad. Just picked the place randomly on the map, something that would be close to Varanasi. But we did not know one very important thing about Allahabad - it is one of the most famous places for Hindu marriages and another thing that we did not know was that, it was just the marriage season.
So, as a result, all the hotels and lodges were fully booked.

It was already dark and we still did not have any place to crash.
Fortunately we found a rickshaw-puller, who said he knows few hotels that might have few places. He drove us around the city, looking for hotels, just for 5 rupees (0,08 €) - what a kind and honest soul.
Eventually as finding a room, we gave him 10 rupees, which made his eyes shine.

The hotel room however was one of the most expensive and at the same time one of the worst ones we ever stayed in the whole India.
There were no windows, but holes in the walls instead. And there were other rooms behind walls, of course. On one side was a crazy noisy Indian family, consisting at least of 10 members and turning on the TV at 5am. On the other side a lunatic, who were having conversations with himself the whole night.

Besides, Branko´s stomach went out of order after Varanasi....

So next day we decided to try to change the train ticket for one day earlier. We succeeded in this, so we left Allahabad the same evening.

The biggest church of Northern India is in Allahabad, at least according to the friendly priest in charge of it.

A rickshaw-puller sleeping in his home behind the church fence.

After the night in train and few hour bus-ride to the Kajuraho, we came down the bus, drive off the annoying auto-rickshaw divers and just sat down to check into tourist "Bible" where to go.
Suddenly a fancy car stopped in front of us and a man came out offering us a nice hotel room for 250 Rupees and free ride there.
Of course we were skeptical at first, but after a short conversation with him decided to go along.
We ended up in one of the best hotel rooms, that we ever stayed in India and only for 250 Rs, which is usually just an average room with dirty walls and cold water.

For most of touristic places applies the main rule: cheep hotels with good standards and expensive eating places with bad standards.

Kajuraho is a place, which is known for its temples, decorated with Kama Sutra sculptures.
Today there are only 25 temples survived out of 85.
Most famous legend says that erotic figures were carved on the walls of temples to show adolescent Brahman boys "how-to-manual", who grew up without maybe seeing any woman more closer.

The main temple that is just in the middle the tourist hub, costs 250 Rs for foreigners. For Indians it is almost for free.

Shiva festival going on in front of the main temple

After we become friends with a local man, a Brahman, we got to know that the other temples few km-s away are exactly the same and for free.
So, one day we hired bicycles and drove to see the other temples and the famous Kama Sutra sculptures more closer.

going....

There are also stories connected with the sculptures. The inner 3 scenes tell a story about a man who had a beard, and whose wife refused from sex because of that. After, the man shaved, woman was happy and they practiced Kama Sutra together.

coming....

Throughout the stay in Kajuraho, Branko still had stomach problems, so we bought dry bread, as recommended in this case.
One pack of dry bread tasted so badly, that we decided to get rid of it somehow.
After leaving Kajuraho and going to train station, we offered the breads to dogs first, as they are in the most pathetic situation in India - carnivores living in the vegetarian environment. Even though the dogs were so skinny, they refused the bread.
Next we saw a cow and gave few pieces to it, but the cow was so slow that we would have missed our train after finishing feeding the cow the whole big pack of breads.

The creatures that most appreciated our offering were rats. All of the sudden there were so many rats running around, so that each one got its nice piece of bread.

cow wandering on the platform

The chaos in Northern India had entirely exhausted us, so we stepped into the train with the huge anticipation to wake up in the "Promised Land" next day - In Southern India.

Varanasi

2010-03-30T02:05:00.001+02:00

Varanasi.....

Ganga river at the dawn.

Varanasi was surely one of the most unrealistic place, that we happen to visit during our trip. No wonder Timothy Leary, writer, psychologist and researcher of psychedelic drugs, went to Varanasi to test the effect of LSD on himself.

Varanasi is simply high concentration of absurdity of all life.
The most everyday life of Varanasi is going on on ghats - stairs of the river bank.
If you just walk around the ghats and keep your senses open, you can experience something similar to lucid dreaming.

In one section they are burning bodies. Many men together in the middle of the smoking piles of wood. The smell that comes into your nose is something so familiar - just like smell of sausages grilled on the forest bonfire. At some point the legs fall off the dead body, because there were not in the direct fire. The fire-keeper is putting the legs back into the fire with a stick. A cow is slowly walking into the burning ghat area, looking right, looking left, thinking, thinking and suddenly making everybody around it jump away with its long urine falls. Just little further away, children are playing cricket and flying kites. Then suddenly you hear load sound of barking - two gangs of dogs appear, fighting over the ownership of the ghat area. One of them was arrogant enough to enter into the neighboring ghat. That is not his territory! As you continue the walk on the ghats you soon reach to the beggars section. All corporation is sitting together on the stairs and pointing you with the bowl in their hand. Just next to the river, somebody is washing clothes, somebody is washing himself or a chimpanzee, somebody is getting married. There are yellow-faced people praying in the river. A crowd has gathered together to observe something happening. When you go closer you see a dead body sitting on the chair, men putting her on the boat and two other men making picture together with the white body decorated into yellow flowers. Then you notice a goat dressed in a vest, then a holy man jumping and playing a clown....at some point you just feel need to close your eyes for a moment and open them again to make sure that you have not drifted away into some kind of la-la land....

Big burning ghat

Burning ghat in the background, washing ghat in front

Wood is a great business in Varanasi.
Only the most richest people can afford to be burnt on the bank of Ganga and spread into the river as an ash, in order to become free from the reincarnation circle and reach to eternal heaven.
That is in turn a paradox, because the poorest people and beggars who suffer the most, have to go through the rebirth again and again and again and bear the heavy burden of karma.

Washing ghat

Drying the clothes after washing

People praying. Probably south-Indian tourists.
Women in south India have a habit to dye their faces yellow with turmeric, in order to look more fair.

The holy banks of the holy river Ganga are so holy that even the most holiest activities are done there.

Washing on the bank of Holy river Ganga

Every day about 60 000 people go down to the Varanasi ghats. There are 30 large sewers continuously discharging into the river. Ganga river is so heavily polluted that the water is septic, thus no dissolved oxygen exists. The water has 1,5 million fecal coliform bacteria per 100 ml, whereas the water that is safe for bathing should contain less than 500.

After all these researches, Hindu people still believe that the water is pure, holy and good for divine zip. And sometimes belief is powerful.

Morning tooth brush with the tooth branch

Dogs waiting for bones maybe ?

some kind of ritual, that we had no clue about

washing...

Dead women on her last journey into Ganga.

a holy man, a sadhu

There are all kinds of services on the ghats. One of them is shaving, as according to the Hindu tradition, shaving the head is a sign of mourning.

Little business-women trying to sell children's skin colors for 100 Rupees (200 Rupees is a night in double room)

Beggar's ghat

washing water buffaloes in the river Ganga

Ghat children

Washing....

Washing plates for the restaurant

Ganga.
One side of the river is fully inhabitated and they call it Varanasi, the other river bank is simply cursed.
No local goes there, because bad spirits live there.

The narrow streets of Varanasi are not less hallucinogenic.

pee wall next to the eating place

One of the worst habits of Indians - burning rubbish, sometimes also standing around the fire, warming their hands and breathing in the toxic gases of plastic.
And India has huge burden of plastic rubbish.
But again, what can they do.....Indian waste disposal system is still very underdeveloped.

Entrance to the bakery. Who goes first ?

vegetable market place

In each city of India, that is lying on the banks of the holy Ganga river, every evening is like a big festival - thousands of people gather to see the Ganga closing ceremony, give flowers to Ganga and get a blessing.
The hour long show was quite nice. Seven Hindu priests dancing with incense sticks and candles with the intensive Hindu music in the background.

When enjoying the ceremony, two little dwarfs appeared suddenly , holding their palms upwards...

Some travelers consider Varanasi as one of those Indian cities, that is good to see only once in a lifetime.
For us Varanasi was a psychedelic experience, in a weird way maybe even one of the pearls of India. So, when it will happen that we will be nearby in the future, we would stop by again.

"Varanasi, the holiest Hindu place, where already 5000 years is going on a non-stop hippie festival."
/Timothy Leary/

State of Bihar

2010-03-21T20:52:00.002+01:00

After leaving Sikkim we were suddenly again back in real India, feeling like waking up from a beautiful dream.

We wanted to go from Siliguri to Bodhgaya - the village, where Buddha was sitting under the tree for 40 days and finally attained his enlightenment. Bodhgaya is a place in the state of Bihar, the poorest and most corrupted state of India.
To get there we needed first to take the train from Siliguri to Patna and from Patna go by bus to Gaya and from there by rickshaw to Bodhgaya.

some spicy stuff

For a foreigner, who uses trains not only between the most touristic places, it can be quite a hassle to get train tickets. Even though Indian trains are more than half kilometer long (seams like enough place to everybody), they are usually always sold out already months before the departure. If the train tickets are sold out, there are three options for the tourists:

1) try to buy tickets with tourist quota - positive side: no extra charges, negative side: possible only with the trains going to most touristic places.

2) buy ticket 48 hours before train departure with tatkal quota - positive side: if you are quick and first in line in the morning when the reservation office opens, there is quite a high chance you will get the ticket, negative side: extra charges 75 rupees per person.

3) add yourself to the waiting list - positive side: since Indian people are buying tickets months in advance, then things can change during those months and some of them have to cancel the ticket, negative side: most probably you will not go with the train, especially when your waiting list number is 261 ...

We chose the third option, since no tourist quota was possible on the train we wanted to go with and since we were still not acquainted with the Indian Railway system, so we did not know about the tatkal option.

Our waiting list numbers were luckily 63, 64, not bad, and after few hours of waiting in the train station, the station manager put up the list with all the people in waiting list and their results, if they managed to go through the selection or not.

We were happy to see that we had seats in the train.

little beggar behind the train window bar

In the train we were sharing the compartment with an Indian family that could have as well been a gypsy family from Slovakia - two men, many women and even more children, all shouting, no matter if it was day or night, throwing rubbish on the train floor and eventually bribing the conductor to get few more beds for the night, since they did not seam to have enough space for all of the family.

After a noisy night with gypsy family we woke up in the capital city of Bihar, called Patna. Since the moment we walked out of the train station, froze on the stairs and stared at the picture in front of us, the word PATNA will always bring up shivers in us.
We were so paralyzed in the train station area, that we even forgot to take pictures. There were loads and loads of beggars, sitting in groups in front of the train station in the smoke of burning rubbish and occupying the whole big area, so that it was even difficult to cross it. At the time we were looking for a rickshaw to take us to the bus station, the beggars become more excited and energetic to see white skin.
It is hard to imagine that the square in front of the train station is not only their "working place", but also "eating place", "sleeping place", "shitting and peeing place" and who knows what else...

Then we reached to bus station, witch looked as terrifying as train station.

bus station open-air restaurant's dish washing section (little after taking the picture, a cow came and started with its everyday job - cleaning dishes)

From Gaya bus station we took a shared rickshaw together with 3 buddhist monks from Darjeeling to reach to Bodhgaya.

Bodhgaya was a small touristic village, but like any other Bihar place, full of beggars and piles of rubbish.

outdoor barber

The village itself was nothing special, every once in a while we were targets of beggars, but the Buddhist place had a peaceful and very special atmosphere. It consisted of a tree, the most holy object of the area, under which Buddha attained enlightenment and formulated his philosophy of life, World Heritage temple, erected in 6th century AD, gardens full of praying Buddhists monks from many different countries and all this was surrounded by a double fence.
Due to the meditative mantras coming from each monk section, it was very easy to forget inside the complex, what kind of place is there outside of that area.

Mahabodhi temple

Bodhi tree - a holy tree for every Buddhist

praying Buddhists

ceremony

Bodhgaya is like a little version of Lumbini in Nepal. There are many other Buddhist places and temples all over the village. Each of them surrounded by a fence and the gateway of each of them full of beggars.

The poverty of Bihar is simply unbelievable. We have not seen the higher concentration of beggars anywhere else in India and especially so many crippled beggars.

Our way happened to cross with one Croatian guy as we were leaving Bodhgaya. He said he is coming to India every year and already since ten years, but for the first time he found enough courage to come to Bihar.

"Poverty is the worst form of violence"
/Mahatma Gandhi/