Where Have We Been? (post and photos by Mary)

Hello Dear Readers!  OK, we got the comments, the questions, the demands for information!  So sorry for neglecting you all, but how nice to know that you are waiting for our next blog update!  Sweet.  Where to begin?

Tah Mahal  from the river side

First, our excuses.  By the end of April, we had made our way from Agra (home of the Taj Mahal) to New Delhi.  Our distraction was dealing with Matt’s house rental.  Tenants suddenly giving notice of exiting!  ACK!  Much time spent in the Hotel AMAX lobby on the wifi internet drafting rental contracts and craigslist adverts and phone calls home for support.  And what grand support we received, we are so grateful!

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Nightmares and dreams in Agra : Story/Photos Matt

Heat, sweat, tiredness, sleep, dream, pain, searing pain! dream?  Eyes open, darkness and  knife like pain, reality I have been bitten by something, spider, snake?
Mary, Mary ehhh.. Mary nuuuuhhh, lights, turn the lights on I have been bitten and it hurts!

Lights flicker on and a critter dashes for cover under my pillow, I squish hard with pillow, peer slowly under.. zooom critter tries to escape, Matt seeks revenge and squishes bug harder. pain is worse, ack this is serious what was it? In the dim fluorescent light the small body of a scorpion is revealed.

Every childhood movie involving scorpions flashes though my head (at 24fps). Question, how many survived?   Am I the bit part expendable actor or the hero?
I wrap my arm tight with a shirt (its in all the movies), should I write a quick fair well to everyone or make Hemingway like dry jokes before I go?  Help seemed a better option, the night staff at the Hotel peered at the scorpion with bugged out eyes and the dead scorpion peered back.  They had never seen one before and it took a while before they realized I had been stung. A quick call to an expert (Hotel manager), best advice wait and see what happens. if it swells up a nighttime dash to the hospital for anti-venom or something? Starting to relax and accept my fate, I ditch the shirt tourniquet and holding my arm high to slow the blood flow to the sting (movie advice) we went back to the room. Peering at the bed sheets for more critters we find a large 6″ by half inch  red and white centipede with a forked tail, this time in Marys bed, she hop’s around the tiny room squealing just like the movies!
The kindly calm Indian hotel staff called for security, the centipede was arrested and squished. We were offered another room, an air-conditioned one to wait out my final hours… very thoughtful. Ice and an anti-histamine were taken,  Its now 2am or so and the ice has reduced the pain and the swelling appears to have stopped to the point that sleep is an option, or is it the final drowsy end…

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Finding Peace on the Holy Ganges River (posted by Mary)

After eight days in our cosy nest at the Sahi River View Hotel, it is time to move on.  We are on the train to Satna, about 7 hours away, and then a four hour bus ride to Khajuraho.  There we will see the world famous Kama Sutra Temples.

Matt and I enjoyed our very relaxing stay on the river.  Luckily the right time to get out and photograph the river scene was at sunrise, so we took four early morning boat rides at 0530 AM!  The sun rose on the east bank, often shrouded in a deep haze, but today, it was almost clear and the sun was actually seen on the horizon.  The weather here has been extremely hot – 45 degrees C!  Record breaking for this time of the year and yesterday it was 46.5 (115 F).  Too hot to do anything but retreat to the coolest places we could find.  That kind of heat is mind and body draining.  This allowed us to retreat to our hotel where we had our own little lounge area outside our room, looking over the river and life in the Assi Ghat.   Or a quick dash next door to the pizzeria for apple pie and ice cream (ah, we will miss that pie!).  We were very disciplined and worked on editing photos – mostly deleting the hundreds of rejects and catching up on blogs and other technical administration.  I find it a good way to balance the hectic pace of travel and a sense of “home” by long stays in peaceful places.

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Varanasi -Holy city and one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world. Photos/blog-Matt

Left Kanha on the 1.30pm bus, a 5hr ride through farming communities and rocky hillsides.  It all looks very dry and the underbrush is always being burnt off in small patches to prevent major fires. The Lady behind us had a very nasty looking arm and it was bandaged but oozing yellow puss, her pain was clear and she gratefully accepted some Ibuprofen for the pain.  Most people in India cannot afford medicines. As usual we traveled without a plan and never book ahead and ended up staying one night in Jabilipur as we could not get a train to Varanasi  the same day.

We slept well on the train as some dignitary rode in our carriage which required 4 armed police guards with snub nosed machine guns, one at each end of the carriage and two in the corridor.   No chance of our bags being nicked tonight.
Security in India is ever present and most guards/police look very alert and mean business.

Rowing into the sunrise

Ginger Tea / Curd & Fruit               Hotel entrance..

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Out of the Jungle Onto the River (posted by Mary)

Hello Faithful Followers!  It has been ages since my last post. Matt and I had hidden ourselves away for two weeks in two different National Tiger Parks armed with our Canons in search of the famous Bengal Tigers!  We have now been drifting on the Holy Ganges River for the last five days.  Where do I even begin to fill you in on all the details!

Seems I last wrote about our travels to Aurangabad, where poor Matt was consumed by some nasty tummy bug.  Miraculously, he has been cured and is back-firing away quite happily!  We did get out to visit all the caves in Ellora and Ajunta.  It really is amazing the accomplishment of a few stone carvers back one to two thousand years ago!  We have marveled at how daunting the first day on the job would have been for some man with a vision (or team of men) with their crude chisels and hammers making their first cut into a large solid mountain!  How to begin and see your way through to the end?!  Somehow I suspect slavery may have been involved as a key employment motivator under the rule of some or subsequent Maharajas (kings).  The vision, skill and endurance has left world heritage monuments that define the depth of Hindu, Buddist and Jain symbolism and devotion.

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Tiger Tiger Tiger! – Photos/blog Matt

We arrived in Umaria the nearest train station at on to Bandanvargh National park at  1am in the morning as the train was late, quickly negotiated the taxi down from 750R to 300R,  we almost went with a tuk-tuk at 400R but as it turned out the taxi was a blessing. It was 32km’s and the road was very rough and would have taken 3 times as long in a tuk-tuk as they do not do well on bumpy roads, not long after leaving Umaria you enter the Park and we had to wake up the sleeping night guard to open the gate. Tigers roam this road and you are not supposed to get out of the vehicle at anytime.
By the time we get to the village of Tala it is almost 2am and our chosen Hotel Kum-Kum  was dark and although the taxi driver banged on every door and yelled no one answered, apparently everyone gets up at 5am for Tiger  Safaris so they are very soundly asleep. “Bridges” our  taxi driver is at aloss of what to do wuth to homeless foreigners and  he says we are to sleep in the taxi (no one sleeps outside in Tiger country), so we crash for 4 hrs in his taxi. I woke several times in the night and swear I could hear a Tiger growling nearby! Turns out later I was probably correct as a Tiger had killed a pig a few days before next door just over a rickety wood fence next to our car.

Home base-KumKum Lodge        Suki 4×4-India made!

Checking in to our cabin we met the owners of a 500cc Enfield motorbike, a young Irish couple, Laura and Steve bravely riding the highways of India, tigers will be easy for them.
They had booked a Tiger tour in the eve and we shared the cost about 3,000R ($65.00) per jeep split between us. We had a bumpy ride into the park and drove through lovely forests and bamboo groves, saw lots of deer, monkeys, eagles, mongoose, but no Tiger.

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Afraid to fart – blog/Matt-no photos by request.

Yep its true I’m sick with some sort of bug, God knows what!   Don’t get me wrong, I am loving India and especially the people who have redefined  the word friendly, however it must be told that almost every city, town, village so far has open sewers on every street.  Streams and rivers look more like the local garbage dump, its a good thing the blog does not support smells of India. The trains also join in spreading everything along the tracks and I it appears to me  the toilets get busier in the stations and thus the stations kinda stink especially in the heat of India. We read a great article on the subject in the Hindu Times, calling on Indians to demand change. Tourists to India that fail to mention  the pollution and health hazards both in the cities and the country side are clearly seeing the world with rose tinted glasses. I was sure careful but was outwitted by a simple bug.

So back to me, with the fan on the ceiling constantly whirring and a high temperature both in my head and the room, it seems like I am spinning and the fan is still, constant treks to the toilet bring little relief and although starving, I fear eating as the after effects after 4-5 days are taking their toll. All the while the Hotel had decided to undertake a new installation of air ducts which involved loud banging to form the metal ducting for most of the day, there was no peace  when the banging stopped as the family next door would seize the opportunity to scream something at each other probably just as well I speak no Hindu.
My one attempt to walk the hallways ended with an innocent fart, yes fear of farting is real…

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Mamallapuram Photos/blog by Matt

Mamallapuram  faces south east across the Bay of Bengal and every morning the sun rises through a hazy sky and the light is a soft magical yellow colour, fisherman in small multi-log or painted high prow canoes paddle out through golden waves, not really surfable but the one surfer in town did offer to rent me his board, to bad the waves were never good enough.

After two lazy days doing very little we finally rented a moped and explored the many temples along the seashore and inland.
Out on the west side of town behind the bus station is  “Krishna’s butter ball” a 30ft diameter red sandstone rock ball sitting on  a large red rockshelf, the British tried to move it with elephants in the 1800’s and failed, Mary tried too.

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Mamallapuram to Aurangabad (Post/Photos by Mary)

Where has the time gone?  It is hard to keep track of time – the hour, the day of the week, the date.  It is all a blur.  The only way to keep track is to check our train ticket records (which are now completely up to date on a detailed spreadsheet).

I seem to have adjusted to being here in India.  I am no longer a bit nervous about getting from place to place.  We have made a few booking errors which has brought us new travel adventures, making us all the more seasoned travellers.  For example, in our attempt to avoid arriving by train in the massive city of Chennai, we cleverly studied the map and found a small town to disembark, with the idea that we would catch a bus to the small fishing village of Mamallapuram.  This great scheme turned very scary when we read the small print on our ticket and found out that we would have to get off the train at 0330 in the morning!  What were we thinking!  In the dark, we wandered out to the main street and found a fair bit of early morning life.  The tea wallah stand by a bus stop was already serving chai to a growing crowd.  After a cup of chai and a few enquiries, we found our bus stop just a short jog down the road.  By 0430, we were on the bus and arrived in Mamallapuram by 0530.  Time for another chai to get our bearings and soon enough we were escorted by the owner of the Laksmi Lodge and negotiated and considerable cut in our hotel rate!  (Rs500 versus Rs750!).  All done before 0700!  It seems India is awake and functioning at all hours.

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To be a Western Woman Wandering in India! (Posted by Mary)

A bit late for International Women’s Day, but worth a word or two on this subject.  India is really a man’s world.  Men dominate the work place, particularly in places we have gone – hospitality, hotels, restaurants, the street wallah (vendor) stalls that line every street in all towns.  Women seem to have no role in those businesses, except for the few women bus girls in some family restaurants in Trichy.  Yet the women are out there in full, beautiful force – shopping, house chores, laundry and minding the children.  We have seen women at work in government jobs at the post office and in the train stations. and clearly lots of women marching off to work each day in the stream of workers flooding the traffic lanes each morning and night.  I was most impressed about the media coverage and office bulletins found around commemorating Women’s Day.  Issues like sexual harassment, job equality and even a political raucous over approving a bill to set 33% of the seats in their Congress House for women!  And it passed after a lot of politically embarrassing behaviour by certain male dominated parties!

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