Haifa, Jan 20 2009

Final post.
I'm back at home already two days. The travel back home was smooth and everything went as planned. The kids waited for me in the airport which was very nice. It was great to see family and Fiji my dog. We had a very nice dinner. Thanks Janine for the good cooking.
For the last two days I'm feeling a bit weird. Trying to re-adapt to the routine.
It is also a bit cold (much colder than India) and I feel cold most of the time. Probably because
I lost weight, my body is feeling more the cold. After doing nothing for so long, and being served by Indians in eating places all the time, I have to get used to cook, shop, etc do things on my own.
Fortunately the war in Gaza finished exactly the day I got in, therefore the news are a bit more optimistic.
Overall the trip to India was unforgettable. I visited so many amazing places and met so many interesting people. I'm sure it will have a big impact on my future.
I recommend a long back-packing in India to anyone. I believe it really changes your life as it forces you to flow and enjoy the moment much more than in western countries.

For me the big question is what is next ? I have to make some big decisions in my life in special related to my work. So this will stay as a question mark as I'm not yet in the mood to deal with it.

This blog has been written as a very personal travel diary of my 2.5 months in India.
END

Mamalapuran, Jan 15 2009

This is probably my last post, as tomorrow I'm starting to fly back home.
As I said before Mamallapuran has been beyond expectations. Today I woke up early and went for a long beach walk.
On the way I passed by a restaurant which I had been in my last beach walk. They had a Pongal breakfast buffet. So for 80 rupees I ate Idly, Puri, Dosa, Omelet, fruits, coffee, tea, etc. It was great and a surprise. So this is was my brunch. Then in the afternoon
I went to a village visit organized by the local Tourism office. I met my German friend Margaret and I also met another German girl which I had 1st met in Gokarna. The tourism office organized a trip for tourists to this very authentic village to commemorate Pongal. It was just amazing. We get there and they greet us with flowers, music, etc. Then we go around the whole village and are greeted by all the locals. They live mostly in Huts but the village looks very well organized. Then they organized some games like musical chairs and breaking pots (blindfolded). Later the local women prepared the Pongal which is the traditional food which is eaten during this harvest festival. It is a kind of sweet rice porridge with different condiments and cashews. The tourist women helped stir the Pongal. The village people were very excited with our visit and very happy, specially the kids. I took tons of pictures. Later they organized for us a bullock car tour around the village. We spent some 4 hours in this very cute village with the locals commemorating the Pongal festival.
Tonight they say there will be similar commemorations on the beach which I'm planning to go.
I made some shopping for gifts and tomorrow I'm heading by taxi to the Chennai airport at 2:00 PM. From Chennai I take a flight to Mumbai and from there home.

Overall this India trip has been amazing and will be memorable. I visited amazing places, met tens of nice and very interesting people and less but not least really relaxed myself physically and mentally. It is good to go back home,
And who knows, when I get there I may start planning my next one (Himalaya, Nepal, etc ...... :-)


THE END

Mamalapuran, Jan 14 2009

This is my 2nd day in Malalapuran and this place is far exceeding my expectations. I thought I was coming to a small beach place with good seafood, etc. Actually this place is a world heritage and is full of huge stone boulders all with amazing carvings. It has many temples in the area, most dating back 1300 years. Therefore it is proving to be one of the most interesting places in my trip. It also has an incredible concentration of Stone Carving artists known world-wise. Additionally it is a quite cute beach place, with a few guest houses, many western tourists (many French coming from Pondecherry) and many restaurants serving western food and seafood. The beach is OK, but the sea on the gulf of Bengal is very wavy and almost impossible to swim. I got here yesterday morning from Pondencherry, the road to my surprise was extremely good and well signed. I'm staying in the Siva guest house, very good room for 400 RPs. As soon as I arrived, I met in front of my guest house in the cafe a nice German woman, Margaret. Since we have been sight seeing together. Yesterday we did a 9 kilometer wald on the beach. And today we rented bicycles and did a tour of 40 kilometers. She lives in Munich and commutes by bicycle every day. I'm also in very good shape. We went to an amazing temple which is on a high mountain. You have to climb about 500 steps (barefoot) to get there. On the way you pass by many small Indian villages, rice fields, etc. It was really very pleasant. At the same there is a dance festival going on, with performances every night. It is Indian folk and classical dancing. It is considered one of the best in India and is very high level. On this days there is also the Pongal festival, where people thank the gods for the harvest. All homes have some chalk drawings on their entrance which women do early in the morning. The area is full of Indian families on vacation for the Pongal festivities. All in all I'm enjoying this place a lot.Two more day and back home.

Pondencherry, Jan 12 2009

So I got to Pondencherry two nights ago. I got here in the evening, and as expected most of the recommended guest houses in Lonely Planet were full. I called them from the train. I found one which was available, a bit on the expensive side (700 RPs) but pretty nice.
I went for a walk in the beach in the French part of the city and it was very nice. On the way I checked another very recommended guest house, Park GH which was very full. They told me to come the next day at 9:00 for possible availability. Pondencherry has a "French" part, with numerous heritage houses, as it was a French Colony till 1952. This area is extremely clean (for India), it has French Heritage buildings and hotels and French restaurants. Most of the tourists are Indians. The boardwalk near the beach is very nice about 1.5 km. You cannot bathe in this area as it does not have a sandy beach. You need to go farther away. My hotel had very good hot water and I took a long hot shower after a long time with cold water only.
The next morning I woke at around 6:30 and went to check other lodging opportunities. I went to the Park GH again and they told me that they probably would have rooms but to get back at around 10:00. So I decided to go some sight-seeing before checking-out and trying to move to a different guest-house. I was a bit disappointed as I planned to stay a few days in Pondencherry and it did not seem that it deserved it.
As I've been saying, everyday is a new day.
So while I'm walking, comes this Young French woman Candice and stops me in the street asking If I knew of any good and cheap guest houses in the area. I told her about Park, but also the possible price. It was a bit high for her and she told me that she had checked another one which was cheaper. She decided to go back to the one she checked before and invited me to come and check too. We get there, they have only this big room with four beds, which is kind of a dorm and they offer for both of us to take the room for 350 RPs. Therefore we decide to share the room, which is great, big with a huge shower and toilet inside. So we become friends and we spent the whole day and evening together. We rented a scooter and wandered around Pondicherry. We went to Auro-Ville which is an experimental community (a bit like a kibbutz) with people from 50 different countries. Looks an amazing experimental community. They don't let you go Inside but they have a big visitors center and the place attract lots of tourists. It is impressive.
Then we went to a lake nearby, and to a temple city about 10 KM range from Pondencherry.
Candice actually changed my perception of french woman I had met before. They seemed a bit distant and not approachable. Maybe because she had such a good English and had traveled so much. She had been 6 months in Indonesia, quite a few months in Africa, spoke German, etc.
She has a degree in business administration and is doing research in Recruiting. This time she is traveling for a whole year by herself around the world. She has been in Africa in a few different french speaking countries, now in India for a few months, then to Tokyo, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico and Peru, etc. Today she already left and I'm staying another day in Pondencherry prior to going to my last destination (I think) Malalapuran.
Yesterday was Sunday and Pondencherry had the Sunday market, which filled with thousands of people the central streets.
So my India experience is a blend of seeing some very interesting places and meeting amazing people.

Madurai, Jan 9 2009

Today at 3:00 AM I took an 8 hour train from Varkala to Madurai. I got to Madurai two hours ago. Here there is a wonderful temple but unfortunately the temple is being renovated and most of its facade is covered with straw. I hope I'll be able to see some of its inside later. Otherwise this trip here may have been a waste of time. Tomorrow I'm continuing to Pondicherry which is supposed to be a very nice place, french style as it was colonized by the French.
Varkala was nice. The beach is OK, too wavy and very difficult to swim. The 2nd day was pretty good. I met a Brazilian woman from S. Paulo. Thais, she has been traveling 4 months in India and mostly doing yoga in different Ashrams. She is a Yoga teacher. You find a tremendous amount of Yoga people everywhere in India.
As I said before Varkala is pretty touristic, but on the 2nd day I started to feel more at home, after I moved to this more centrally located guest house. Thais was looking for a room, so we met, quite a coincidence to meet a Brazilian in this circumstances, and she was actually taking the room that I was vacating. I got a very good hotel in Madurai, and I started reading Chantaram, this famous book about Mumbai which I'm enjoying a lot. I have too much time in Pondicherry, and Chennai where I'm catching my flight to Bombay seems pretty boring, therefore I may pass by another beach in the area for a day or two before I head home.
The closer it gets to my return the more I'm feeling home-sick

Varkala, Jan 7, 2009

So I'm changing my plans. I was planning to stay many days in Varkala, but I figured that two days will be enough. Varkala is a very nice beach, but too touristic. Feels a bit like Pucket in Thailand. Many charter tourists from the UK, sophisticated resorts and relatively expensive restaurants (in Indian terms). All the resorts, hotels, restaurants are on the top of a cliff and the beach is down the cliff. Reminds a bit of Hertzliah Pituach. There are tons of guest houses, hotels, small resorts and restaurants. The tourists are very different than the other places I've been. More middle class, older and richer than the typical back-packer which I have been meeting so far. For me it is less interesting and I decided to move on to Madurai on the 9th by train. My train leaves in the middle of the night. I get to Madurai at about 11:00 AM. Madurai supposedly has a very beautiful temple. From there I'm moving to Pondicherry. Which is a very nice city on the east cost of India. Pondicherry was under French colonialism and supposedly has a French charm to it. From there I go to Chennay and I have already booked another flight from Chennay to Mumbai.
Varkala has very good seafood and fish, therefore I'm profiting to eat some fish and seafood.
The beach is not very good, as it is very wavy and with strong currents. Quite dangerous for swimming. In the beach there a few Indian guys with whistles controlling where people bath. Feels a bit like in Israel, but without the Megaphones. They only whistle. Not clear that they are life-guards. Today I changed to another guest house. It is cheaper and better located. In the previous one I felt that I was not getting to return to my money. So Varkala and in General Kerala is one of the richest states in India and in many respects sometime you feel it is too organized. I prefer the messy India. Tomorrow I'm going to the town, as the beach does not feel like India. I liked much better Goa and Gokarna compared to Verkala. Today I bought a few used books. The books in India are in General quite cheap, specially used. There is a book that all tourists are reading called Shantaram. This is a story which happens in Mumbai and talks a lot about the life in this huge city. So it is quite interesting for someone which is traveling in India. I also bought a book of Salman Rashid, his books are very recommended to all the ones I talk.
So now my travel is much more planned as I cannot just flow. The days are counted. I'm starting to feel homesick, so it seems I had enough.

Allepey, Kerala Jan 6th, 2009

Now I'm in Allepey for my boat trip in the backwaters. I've decided to take the trip down to Kollan which is an 8 hour trip. Some people say it is a bit boring, but it is convenient to me as I'm going down to Kerala and it is on the right direction.
Allepey is a small village close to the see. Not much to see here. It has two big canals and many of the boat trips to the backwaters start here. I'm in this Heritage Hotel (long name) which is nice and nicely located. Unfortunately they gave me a room which has lots of problems with the water. Everytime I need to use water, they need to turn a noise pump on. But the place has a very nice internal garden full of birds, and green.
Yesterday I passed the day in Fort Cochin. Cochin is nice but not much to see.Fortunately I'm becoming pretty good at meeting people and starting to talk to them. Today I basically spent most of the day with a Canadian woman (a Jewish one) and made my day more enjoyable, instead of touring by myself. Cochin has a very ancient (1600) Jewish community. One of the highlights of the city is the Jewish city, which is basically a small neighborhood with a very ancient synagogue and Jewish cemetery. So I met my Canadian friend in the Jewish cemetery :-). It was closed but we were the only ones there. It is quite interesting. So I figured she would be Jewish and started a conversation. She is a Yoga practicer for many years, a chef and lives in an Ashram in Vancouver Island in Canada.

So Cochin has not much to do in the evening. Food here is very good, but quite expensive in India terms (not in western). Actually Kerala is a communist state inside India. It is richer than most states, more educated and more quiet. You really feel the difference. Streets are clean, well signed and cars don't use their horn at all. Feels quite different than the standard Indian City. Lots of arts, spices, antiques, etc.