Have you noticed a ridiculous overusage of “Top 5, 10, or 20 lists” in the media over the last few years. Know why? Another symptom of the internet age shortening people’s attention spans and media outlets watering down content to retain readers. They (the lists) annoy the shit of out me.
I’ve noticed upon my return home, that people don’t want to “just” ask me about my trip, because they don’t want to spend more than a few minutes hearing about it, or I must be pretty unbearable. So they ask for a Top 2 instead.
It also amazes me how some supposed friends of mine can’t take 10 minutes out of the last 6 months to even glance at my travels and get an idea of what I did. (you’re all off the hook) Whatever. It was for me, not them.
So without further ado, I reluctantly present to you my Top 6 of my 9 country whirlwind backpacking “don’t call me a backpacker” trip.
6. Lisbon, Portugal – having friends/tourguides made the quick visit of this cool city very thorough, not to mention home cooked meals.
5. The Acropolis, Athens, Greece – yeah
4. diving on Ko Tao, Thailand – an improvised plan that was such a great decision
3. Cordoba, Andalucia, Spain – just a perfect small Spanish town, and the Mezquita was very moving for me. In retrospect maybe it’s just the feeling one gets the first time you see Moorish architecture in person, but still a very special city.
2. Kochi, Kerala, India – the last bastion of old, slow, friendly, beautiful southern India. I sooooooo want to go back and explore more.
drumroll please Anton…
1. Borobudur, Central Java, Indonesia – simply incredible monument surrounded by spectacular scenery.
pictures do not really do it justice. they do not convey feeling.
(Here’s the first of my country wrap ups. I’ve jotted notes along the way but haven’t fully written them, and now that I’m home I’m just feeling lazy.)
If you’ve EVER wanted to visit India – DO NOT DELAY – THE TIME IS NOW my friends. (If you have no interest in visiting India, then I recommend you not go. hah. Don’t let me talk you into it, it’s not for everyone )
I’ve personally thought for a while, mostly just on gut instinct and a little reading, that India is on the verge of possibly returning to a world power. Television and articles I’ve read since then support my theory. They have certainly seen a huge middle class, and entire cities, emerge through technology jobs. Indian software engineers have been returning to India with money made in America to start new businesses. That’s not going to end soon.
If India can manage to stay in relative peace with themselves and their neighbors for the next 10 years, I think big changes will be coming. I think it’s archaic infrastructure will probably be modernized and a lot of what makes India the special, old, dilapidated, noisy, smelly place will be changed or gone.
The one thing that would conflict with my prediction is that I get the impression that they are just not in a hurry. India moves pretty slowly. They (even the rich Bollywood types) have all grown up with it the way it is and are ok with it. I don’t know how they will solve the poverty in the future, but it should be interesting to watch.
Costs: Accommodation is not cheap in Mumbai, but everything else – food, taxis, trains, sights – is. Plane rides used to be cheap but they have risen in the last few years.
Food: Incredible, and you don’t have to spend much to taste the incedible food. The only thing I’d recommend is learning food names. Often the menus were huge, not in English, and filled with so many names I’d never seen before, and I eat Indian food.
People: Totally nice, very accommodating, both in the tourist areas and not. About the only place I can remember them not being nice was the airports. I mentioned in this post how sometimes you get stared at, and it feels cold, but once you acknowledge the person with a smile or head nod, it is almost always returned. I neglected to mention the Indian man “head lilt,” when they talk they have this awesome bobblehead motion. I’d noticed before, but it’s much more noticeable when you are there! By the end of the trip I was starting to do it too.
Now a woman traveling alone would probably have an entirely different experience than I did. The differences and roles between the sexes is still very real here, which leads us to…
Culture: Indian culture is VERY complex, to say the least. I think it would take a lot of reading and talking with people to even begin to get a grasp. When I would ask the guys in Kochi about everything from walking in the street, to dating or lack thereof, they would just laugh and say “that’s the way it is, that’s the way we do it,” but would not elaborate on why. Oh well.
Hot Tip: if you go to Mumbai, don’t mess around leaving the airport, take the $6 pre-paid taxi like I did. Other cities you can find shuttles or buses, but it’s not worth being cheap there and getting a bad first impression (i’d heard horror stories.)
Highlight: Kochi, and everything about it, but the whole 11 days was all pretty amazing.
My stay was short and limited, only two cities/areas, but that was on par with what I thought most of my trip would be like. Mumbai exceeded my expectations on the whole. It was pretty intense, but not overwhelming at all after visiting Java, Vietnam, and Thailand.
Kerala, and the city of Kochi – wow! What can I say except I’d love to go back and spend more time in southern India. The cities are not built with a lot of aesthetic qualities in mind, but all of the charm of India there, surrounded by beautiful green countryside.
Later when I was the Costa del Sol, I was chatting with a hotel owner (seen here surrounded by women, haha what a character) who started telling me about his visits to India and SE Asia when he was a hippie in the early 1970’s. He’d been to India 3 or 4 times, and said the only place he would want to go back to in this day and age… and I guessed what he was going to say before the word came out of his mouth… Kerala.
Goals: India was one of my top priority destinations when I planned this trip. But I was mostly wondering if I could “handle” India, whether it was a destination to be endured more than enjoyed as it is for many. I learned that not only did I enjoy it, but I did not want to leave. Scary to think how I just scratched the surface of this enormous and dense country… I think I will be going back before my life is over.
I just edited and uploaded a video from a documentary called Street Musicians of Bombay, from the early 1980’s. In the middle it has a clip from the outdoor laundry I’m standing in front of in the picture up above. Check it out.
New Years Eve bombs in Bangkok shortly before I go there…
Train bombs in India just after I leave India…
anyone noticing a pattern here? The reality is these things happen anywhere and everywhere.
But what I really wanted to say here, is I have felt totally safe traveling alone in just about every place I’ve been.
Truth be told, I was a little nervous at times in Java, but nothing happened, and the people from Java that I met were some of the nicest along the way. I did choose Mumbai because it is well known to be much safer than Dehli, the capital, and I felt very safe there.
The American media and government seem to want to make you believe that the rest of the world is this wild and dangerous place. It is not. Many people I meet in Asia think that everyone in America carries guns and you’re likely to get shot if you visit New York City. Now you and I know that is not reality (but not that far from the truth either, haha.)
Obviously if a country is at war, like India/Pakistan, there are greater dangers in those areas. But everywhere I’ve been has been fine. So there’s that.
So my mess of trying to extend my India trip also resulted in a $75 wasted plane ticket. Well I have a voucher I can use if I go back to India soon, hah. I couldn’t go standby on the plane I had bought a ticket back to Mumbai for, a mistake, so I had to buy a more expensive one from another airline.
F*#k Qatar Airways. F*%k Go Air.
Arrive in Mumbai around 9pm, apply mosquito repellant so I don’t get malaria, and shuttle over to the International airport. 10 pm. Hmmm, my flight is at 5 am. Guess I’m spending the night here. It really was not as bad as I had anticipated as they had free wifi. Haha. That’s where I posted my last posts and photos.
Our stopover is in Doha, Qatar. Embaraassing, but I wasn’t even sure where this was, but apparently it’s next to Kuwait. But they had a super nice new airport, also with free wifi. Qatar and Dubai have become these nice new “peaceful” destinations of the middle east. Dubai is flat out nuts with money! It’s decided to shun it’s religious principles to become the Las Vegas style playground of the region for Arabs and foreigners alike. I thought about stopping there, but realized that would be ridiculous. There’s a short story about it in my travel book I mentioned earlier that Tom gave me, and apparently it’s amazingly beautiful, totally clean and new without any of the Vegas low-brow element, but totally surreal.
We boarded the plane to Athens, only to get off 10 minute later because something “minor” was wrong. Hopefully it was minor, because we got back on the same plane, and made it to Athens only one hour late.
trespassing, drinking 80 rupee ($2) brandy and soda, holding hands (!!!), laughing it up, with men from India.
How can you beat that?
Tell me where in Lonely Planet or tourist desks the experts show you how to do that?
I don’t forget for a second how I’m extremely lucky I am doing this trip while I’m still in my 30’s, and most people tell me they can’t believe how old I am (even when I lie and say 33.) I don’t know if I’ll always have this ability to be able to mix comfortably with the wide variety of people I have on this trip. You can always mix with tourists your age, but locals? dunno.
I was lucky enough to meet Unni and some of his crew across the street from Biju’s hotel while I was going out exploring. This band of troublemakers go to the “notorious” (as they said) Government Law College in Kochin. He just hailed me over to chat me up. At first I thought they were clowning me a bit cause I was a tourist, but I just went with it. I remembered, even at the moment, the time when I was wandering the streets of Yogyakarta Java, and a group of guys hailed me over to have a drink in their yard. But I was scared, for various reasons, and didn’t do it. I had kinda been kicking myself for that ever since.
So somehow this led to me hanging out with them on the roof of the tallest building in town, still under construction. Yes, things like that are possible in a small town in India. One of the friends, Jet, was asleep on the roof when we got there! Jet was not one of the students, but was another one of the call-centre generation, living in Bangalore, and on holiday.
A good time was had, but I had made plans with my Israeli friends to go see the festival at a temple that night, so I had to go. Probably a good thing before anyone fell off the building.
The festival was good, and it was the real deal. I think the Israeli’s were impressed that I knew what to ask to get us to such a performance. The first night of 5 days of elephants, music, and dance. Apparently the size of a festival performance is based on how many elephants they have. Night 1 was only 1 little elephant, and we just caught the end of his parade so I was a bit sad. It was too dark to really get a good picture of him. But the next day I saw a huge decorated elephant getting ready for a parade, so I felt better.
The following day, the guys wanted to hang out again, so we decided we would visit Fort Kochin and I would get the tour from locals. Unni, Jet, and I took the ferry over to the old part of town. We had a good time hanging out, but Fort Kochin was a bit of a disappointment. We saw the cathedral where Vasco de Gama was buried, before his body was excavated and taken back to Portugal.
The end of this trip was unfortunately ruined, and I guess I only have myself to blame. Long story short… for various reasons I waited too long to talk to Qatar airlines about extending my trip. They told me every seat in my class was booked through March. I refused to believe this was true of course, so for these last few days, I made several phone calls, talked to my travel agent, took a 30 minute motorbike ride to the Qatar airlines office to see if there was any way to get a seat, including upgrading. One lady on the phone said unless I want to chance getting stuck in India, I should be on my plane. Nothing would work.
I was so mad, and sad.
The motorbike ride was provided by Collins, one of the law schoolers, who decided we should stop and try some toddy on the way home. This was another experience you’ll never get from staying on the tourist path. We turned down a dirt road and parked where it hit a canal. I had no clue where we were going. We walked around a corner to a shack, with corrugated metal roof, and about 5 big wooden tables and benches. It was about 11 AM. A few old, working class Indian men sat alone. They would have their 2 glasses of toddy, and then leave.
Collins went in and came back out with a milk bottle of what looked like, well… milk, and two glasses. I asked if he needed any money and he said no, it was cheap. I learned on our backwater trip, that toddy only lasts a short while before it turns to vinegar, so I kinda knew what to prepare for. It tasted like milk, with maybe a couple of lemons squeezed in it, with a slightly alcoholic tinge going down your throat. Pretty nasty stuff. Collins joked how long it was taking me to drink it. He said it usually takes about two bottles to actually get buzzed, and we weren’t going to do that.
This was the real deal. Thanks Collins.
On my last night I decided to hang out with them again and drink. This time I treated them to 284 rupee ($7) whiskey, which I’m pretty sure was a treat. We had to wait in a long line at the ONLY liquor shack in town, due to this being a majority Muslim city. Not a lot of nightlife here at all. This time we broke into the campus of the notorious government law school to do our drinking. A few more friends joined, but some didn’t drink, which I thought was strange. Then I found out they were Muslim, heh. Of course.
Unni and several of them made it very clear how cool and unusual it was that an American tourist was hanging out with them. I thought that was nice.
India was a whirlwind of activity, it just flew by, and I didn’t get to do many things I wanted to do. /cry.
Kerala was really a good choice to see more of India. Kochin (which is actually the area made up of several towns) is quite a busy city, but still small enough to get a feel of more normal Indian life.
I’ve had better luck with getting my hotel rooms in India, despite it supposedly being a busy time right now. In Mumbai I got my room Bentley’s very late at night and without reservations. Same thing in Kochin, I got my first choice of rooms which was Biju’s Tourist Home. Clean (for India,) super nice staff, very nice priced rooms and very popular place so I met fellow travelers, including several who went on my backwater trip. Biju’s is highly recommended if you go to Kerala.
(Hmmm, right now I’m writing this in the airport, it’s 2 AM, and I can’t focus… I can’t even remember much about the trip at the moment because I’m thinking about other stuff. I’ll have to come back and finish this up later. I’m on my way to Greece, more on that later too)
I did the backwater tour that Rough Guide recommended, which includes two boat trips, lunch, and visits to island villages to see interesting things. Those things included the converting of mussel shells into calcium carbonate (if i remember correctly), which is used for a wide variety of things. That was really interesting. We saw the huge variety of plants that grow in the region, including fruit, spices, medicines including insulin, and the mangoa. The mangoa, looks like a nice orange fruit, but has enough poison in it to kill 300 people. Occasionally people use it to commit suicide, but it’s used for real as a natural pesticide. Interesting. We also had coconuts right off the tree, and watched women make rope out of the threads of the inside of a coconut shell. Wow! (see the photo gallery for that stuff.)
The food was great too. We had the option of buying a dish made of the fresh freshwater mussels. When he asked who wanted, I was like the only one that was ready and willing, but then after I said yes, more people raised their hands, haha. The traditional Keralan vegetarian lunch was also fantastic.
If I had had more time I would have taken another public ferry ride on the rivers. Highly recommended.
I’m on my first Indian train! So far so good. There are tons of coach classes on Indian trains, very complicated. 1st and 2nd class were filled, so I took 3rd class with A/C. I can only compare to the Vietnam train, which turned into a lousy experience because I was getting sick. In V.N. the train berth had a closed door, which felt kinda gross after a while, and this one the whole car is open. This experience has been much better, and that’s good because it’s twice as long. I haven’t seen a single cockroach, the train hasn’t been full, and my sleeper berth has been less than half full the whole trip.
India’s rail network is the largest employer on the planet with 1.6 million employees! For those that don’t know, you also have train employees walking through every 5 minutes or so, saying “cofFEE, cofFEE” or “chai chai chai” or “dosa, vada.” You get the picture? After 100 trips through my car they even start joking around with me. It’s an experience that hasn’t changed much in the last century.
I finally was able to crack a book for pleasure reading! Tom Heyman gave me a few books including “The Best American Travel Stories 2006″ a collection of short stories and articles. One was a hilarious story on Vietnam, where these journalists came to do stories on some controversial people, with only tourists visas. They ended up getting followed by the government and 2 of the 3 got thrown out of the country, escorted to the plane by military police. Guess this stuff really does still happen there, my Saigon friend was not kidding.
The cool thing about the train, is when you wake up in the morning, it’s like you’re in a whole different country. We crossed two states and are now in northern Kerala. Complete change of scenery! Right now were crossing over an enormous river full of birds, fishman with nets, and shores thick with coconut trees.
As far as interaction with people here so far, it’s been lukewarm. Most people stare with a stoic face, and then maybe will crack a smile or say hello. A lot just stare. It’s a very formal culture, influenced equally by the primary religions here and the British formalities in conversation. So I feel like as a foreigner, they definitely are waiting for me to make the first move if you will. Like if I smile, then they will smile. The Muslim man across from me would just exchange glances of acknowledgement, and I finally had to break the tension by asking him where he was going.
Best of all, very few tourists on this train!
I am seeing AMAZING scenery from this train, see the pictures…
Let me try to pick up where I left off in my completely scatterbrained/overwhelmed state.
Firstly I forgot to tell the best parts of the Elefanta trip. A big part of the total Mumbai pollution problem is not just the air, the tons of trash on the ground, but the water as well. So on a small ferry across the Bay you get a close up view of it, but it’s not too bad once you get away from the shore. I thought, gee I wonder if the aquatic life has survived the last century of this level of waste? We pull up to the docks of the island, and I kinda see a flash out of the corner of my eye, and a guy on the boat starts pointing excitedly. Dolphins! We get a free dolphin show, everyone on
the boat is happy. I guess that answers that question.
On the hike around the back side of the island after you’ve seen the caves, I found myself alone for a hillside stretch of the hike, except for a runaway cow and some fighting monkeys. I start to approach a drink stand, and a tourist couple coming towards me, with two rather large monkeys patrolling the path between us. Suddenly I see the closer monkey howl, bare his teeth, and start bounding towards the woman who’s carrying a big water bottle. She hangs onto her bottle but drops her Lonely Planet as the 4 of us, monkey included, all converge. I’ve seen this behavior before, and fortunately for them, I know how to handle it. I start barking back at the monkey and raise my arms in the air, he kinda of responds with more chatter but won’t move. The woman, British I can tell now, says “does he want my water?” Duh. Then I pick up a rock and toss it his direction and the monkeys run away down the hill. They don’t like that. I saved the British tourists from certain peril.
Next up on my full schedule… the National Museum of Modern Art is recommended and within walking distance, and I haven’t been to an art museum yet. I walk up to check the schedule, also closed on Monday. There’s no time like the present.
The building itself is not that spectacular, but interesting. The gallery is 4 floors in a round, so you kind of spiral your way up. There were some really good women artists featured, as there’s no shortage of women’s issues to draw on inspiration in this country. One mixed media piece that had a newspaper clip of a government official raping a girl, and no one willing to testify against him, was particularly poignant to say the least. Another that was really touching were vibrant acrylics done by a rural woman in Kondagaon, depicting her abusive marriage, hard divorce, custody battle, and difficult fallout from it in her village. And these were done on both sides of the paper because the paper is so expensive and hard to get for her.
Other interesting works were the “Handmade Saree” made of 1800 coke and diet coke bottle caps, attached with fasteners. There was a large, comical triptych of paintings depicting visits of Putin and Clinton with the Taj Mahal in 2000, after India’s return as an economic and military power. The third painting was a famous Indian magician making the Taj Mahal vanish. Hah.
I headed back across the street to where the last day of the Times of India arts festival was going on. Food stalls, art stalls, craft stalls, lots of happy cheery people. Where am I again? This was not at all the visions I had of arriving in Mumbai. This is a city full of energy and fun.
All this time I was putting off what I really needed to do next, which was go to the train station and buy my ticket to Goa or wherever I was going. So I headed in that direction only to find a big music stage where a drummer and tabla player were sound-checking. Hmmmm. I just stumbled across another free concert, and this one looks to have 2 drummers and 4 percussionists, so it’s bound to be at least interesting.
I sat through the world’s longest sound-check, in which i probably could have gone to get my train ticket and back, it’s finally showtime! The outdoor stage has filled up quite a bit. I have no idea who is about to perform! Turns out it’s Bollywood singing sensation Abhijeet!!! Wooohooo! I love him! Just kidding, apparently he’s one of the guys who actually SINGS the songs in the big Bollywood hits, while the actors lipsync and dance around like fools. The performance was complete with 4 male and 4 female dancers, and costume changes, but I think one of the guys missed a few rehearsals. Cheesetastic!
After all that excitement, and the fact that it was dark, I gave up on the train station and decided to find dinner intead. There were still tons of people out and about in the early night. I was searching for some fancy sit down south Indian place, but stumbled across a back alley place with a lot of people eating around it. I see the orange glow, the sparks shooting wildly off of charcoal fires, large fans above the doors blowing tons of smoke out, and the smell of charred meat, one of my favorite smells.
Rule #1 of eating international street food: is it busy? Yes, tons of people eating here in this alleyway at 9pm. Looks like fancy sit down south Indian is out, and stand up lamb kabobs are in! Yum.
Welcome to Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay before they started ridding the country of colonial names. And joy, they are changing street names too, always fun for travelers! City of over 16 million people, half of which live in poverty. Formerly one of the most polluted cities in the world.
All that said, I’m doing fine. No culture shock. I haven’t seen anything in the streets that I haven’t seen before in San Francisco, Dublin, Indonesia, Hanoi, etc. Amazingly it’s easier to breathe in the streets here than Hanoi or Hong Kong. Guess what they did a few years ago? Forcibly converted all of their ancient taxis to natural gas. I asked my taxi driver today if it is less polluted and he said yes. Imagine what that would do for cities like New York or Hong Kong.
I think as far as culture shock, it’s important not to come here directly from a modern Westernized country. That would be intense. Of course, I haven’t gotten on the train yet…
Maybe getting in late at night has it’s advantages. I did not see “Slumbai”, but I certainly smelled it, crossing over two bridges of what must be close to raw sewage. I chose to head straight to the southern neighborhood of Coloba, which is where a lot of the tourist activity and non-suburban nightlife is centered.
I’m staying at The Bentley, which my guide book calls a Mumbai institution. An institution? I guess so, it has charm. $27 gets me a clean but no frills room, kind of exactly like my $30 hostel in Hong Kong, except bigger and in a nicer neighborhood. Everything here is horribly overpriced by virtue of being very outdated. I didn’t really expect that, so I am making quick plans to move on out of Mumbai sooner rather than later.
But let’s go back to things I noticed boarding the Air India flight.
Moustaches – It’s too bad I had shaved mine off for diving, or I could trim one up right now and fit in here. Why is the moustache so insanely popular on men’s faces in India?
Gerth – Hmmm, how can I say this nicely? After just visiting 4 countries where I rarely saw someone overweight, I could tell right away we’re headed to a different part of the globe now. I don’t think as many people in India hit the gym, or work in agriculture. Awww screw it, if the rest of the world can say Americans are fat, then I guess I can say another country is fat. I mean, we all know I have a weakness for the ice cream and could stand to lose 10 pounds, but I do go to the gym, so whatever. I guess one thing is proven out of this… it ain’t red meat that makes you fat.
Same sex affection – I had read to expect this in Bali. The guide books explain to us Westerners that in SE Asia, it is common to see female on female, or male on male affection. Like hand holding. It doesn’t mean they are gay, it’s just a perfectly normal way of expressing friendship here. And the flip side, especially some conservative areas more than others, there’s much more limited man/woman public affection. What I didn’t know is that this really carries all the way across through every country I’ve been too. And here in India, the men REALLY like to hold each other and hold hands. Ok then. Keep in mind being gay is illegal. food for thought in a complex culture.
Opening morning I just walked around the ‘hood and navigated my way right to the Gate of India. Very touristy, but fun, and the Taj Mahal Hotel is right there as well. I wanted to book my trip to Elefanta island to see the famous caves, and the ferry’s depart there. But the island is closed on Mondays. Well, good thing I’m flexible lets go right now!
The Elefanta trip provided a nice start to things here. Plenty of foreign and Indian tourists. The caves were nice but it also was a nice, welcome bit of exercise. Lots of stairs and a nice hike around the island in nice warm weather.
I’ve seriously done sooo much in the last 48 hours, I can’t find the time to write about it. I came to this cafe to continue working on this, and then I have my second experience of sitting at a table, having a conversation start up with the person at the table next to me, to find out they are from San Francisco. (Anyone remember where that happened the first time? answer correctly and win a trinket from Thailand.) So Suki and I talked for quite a bit as she is an artist. She’s been in Goa for 6 weeks, and is on her way to the airport to go back to SF.
So now that it’s 10:30, she headed to the airport, and I’m wanting to leave here and get a beer… I’m going to have to write more on my long long long train trip to the south tomorrow.
Not to mention, I haven’t even finished writing about Thailand! I’m way behind. I am also planning on writing “wrap-ups” to each place I’ve been after the fact.
My original plan was to go to Goa. That plan has changed… screw Goa!
I just spent two weeks in Thailand looking at other western tourists at resorts! I didn’t come to India to see white people! I came to see Indians, not hippies! I hate hippies!
So I’m going to the deep south of Kerala. Mostly inspired by this picture I found a few months ago while planning my trip. It’s of the tiger festival. This picture freaks people out for sure, I love it.
Most of Rough Guides highlights of southern India also center around here. Kerala is where the serious voodoo magic and arcane culture of India goes down. And that’s where I’m goin. In Rough Guide we trust.
(so I’m on a long train ride and have no idea what kind of internet situation is down there. It’s not great in Mumbai so I’m guessing it’s worse down there. So count on me being offline for a few days.)
of my 9 country whirlwind backpacking “don’t call me a backpacker” trip.
