17.2.2011 – 2.3.2011 Family holiday

At last the long waited date when my family is arriving to Goa! We planned a barbeque with Warner to celebrate their arrival so therefore we drove to Margao market early in the morning to shop some supplies.

We bought fresh tiger prawns, beef, spicy Goan sausage and fresh vegetables. Sheekey’s chef and I cooperated in the kitchen and made an excellent marinade for the prawns consisting of garlic, coriander, lime and chili. Beef was marinated with Warner’s garlic-ginger recipe. Vegetables were grilled in skewers with just a pinch of salt. Grocery shopping for 8 persons cost me 1500 Rs, which would have given me only a package of HK sausages in Finland.

Warner and PeterPan

Uncle Bob explaining cricket rules

Anna got very ill on the first night, which was probably caused mostly by dehydration and the excitement of long flights to India. The dehydration creeps up on you especially in the plane where you don’t notice it due to the air conditioning. One thing I have learned on this trip is that you don’t go anywhere without a water bottle.  It will also save you a few stops when sightseeing or travelling on a mountain.

I also suffered from stomach cramps for a second time on this trip (first time after a hamburger in Bengaluru), after eating a larger amount of white bread. It has never been an important part of my diet so I think I’ll drop it completely. Rye bread is far tastier anyway.

The boys visiting naval aviation museum near Dabolim airport.

22.2. We packed our suitcases and headed towards Palolem in Southern Goa. Taxi there took 1,5h and cost 1200 Rs, which was more than we should have paid. I think the guys negotiating the price were a bit too soft, or maybe got hypnotized by the taxi’s “interesting” décor…

Find 5 odd things!

I found a place near beach called Sevas which should have family-sized cottages/huts. The place was at the south end of the beach; about 2 minutes climb of rocky stairs. The hut itself had 2 floors and a small terrace. The locking of the hut was nearly impossible as you could get in anyway via bathroom (sky view toilet, bucket shower, bamboo walls) but the three dogs in Sevas adopted us as members of their pack so we felt extremely secure. The barking did get a bit annoying after a view days and we were also afraid that they would scare away our cleaning lady. 

The opposite Bhakti Kutir had a far more inviting garden and huts, but also far more expensive.

Palolem beach is filled with restaurants and shops, and you may easily find a sun bed free of charge (you are expected to order from the restaurant though). What I hated about the beach was the constant flow of beach sellers with their henna, scarves, stickers and whatnot. There is not a 10 minutes peace unless you swim further away from the beach. This might be nice for families travelling with kids as there are hardly any waves, and there are plenty of activities to choose from; trips by boat, snorkeling, bodyboarding etc. 

There is one marvelous thing about Palolem; it has a Desigual shop!

One day we did one of the most touristic things to do in Goa; spice plantation trip. Place was quite close to Margao, so it would have made sense to actually do this when we were in Utorda. Well the trip was anyhow quite nice, maybe most interesting thing to see was the fenny distillery. Makes you wonder why Westerners have made booze making so difficult and expensive!

Fenny distillery

The 600 Rs entry ticket included also a lunch at the plantation in buffet style. Lunch was very nice with plenty of options to choose from and afterwards you could buy spices and oils from the shop beside.

After spice plantation Anna’s biggest holiday wish came through when she got to ride and bathe an elephant. (Also see To/In/From Varkala.)

Paparazzi rehearsal

To/In/From Varkala

I decided to travel to Varkala by train which takes appr. 5 hours from Ernakulam. The unreserved ticket cost 50 Rs and you may buy a seat from the train if there’s availability. I was told all trains from a certain platform would go to Varkala and I could just jump on the next one. Great, I thought and found myself a seat from an AC3 cart, from the next train. 

Conductor showed up only after couple of hours and he instructed me to step out on the next station as I was in the wrong train, my ticket was meant for the next one, and in addition to that this train would not even stop at Varkala! I had made the grave mistake in trusting 1 person instead of asking the opinion of ten, and then taking the average answer as the closest truth. No worries though, I switched trains in Alleppey and didn’t have to pay that much extra for my newfound AC seat as I was already half way through the trip. So I actually saved some money this way.

Rickshaw from train station to Shiva Garden cost 40 Rs and took only ten minutes. Shiva Garden has clean budget rooms, huts and couple of dormitories situated only a 5 min walk from the cliff side and beach. 

There is a relaxed, welcoming and homelike feeling around this place and I think it was here where I forgot the existence of my laptop. I rather spent my days by the beach, at the cliff edge restaurants or relaxing in the garden hammocks.  

 If you find yourself in Varkala do check out if Shiva Garden still has their local rap talent entertaining the guests in their restaurant!

General Manager of Shiva Garden

Shiva lounge

Varkala is the place in this trip where I will definitely return. The place has a lot of backpackers but none of package tourists (yet) so it still hasn’t lost its relaxed charm. Here you may also experience the happiness in finding a totally empty sandy beach for your morning swim. Lonely Planet warns about the strong currents in Varkala but I didn’t experience anything like that during my 2,5 week stay here. The waves are big though and they may pull down your worn H&M bikini top if you’re not careful… 

Varkala Beach has no beach sellers except for couple of coconut sellers so you may even take a nap without anybody bothering you, and I felt safe enough to leave my stuff on the beach while I went swimming.

View from the cliffs

Black beach

Fishermen

Sunset over Varkala beach

My henna tattoos

"Tea time"

Ville had borrowed a Royal Enfield from the Kerala Enfield club which we took for a spin one day to Ponmudi. Our planned road trip went via Parapalli and Vithura and should have taken couple of hours one way. After ditching the useless map altogether we navigated by asking people which way to drive. 

Roads we drove were hard on the back and bum area, and after 22 hairpin curves up “the mountain” to Ponmudi also my hands were in blisters. I tend to slide backwards when we drove up and my hands got stuck between my own (light) weight and the holding rail. I might have been also holding quite tight simply because I was afraid; the bike had no proper brakes and the clutch was working so and so.

The view from Ponmudi was worth the trip and the hilltop restaurant served a fair lunch for reasonable price. Do not expect the find cheap accommodation here; the couple of places located at the end of the road are either fully booked or expensive (2000 Rs).

After arriving back to Shiva Garden we had couple of well earned cold beers and treated our wounds:)

Ponmudi mountains

When it was time to leave Varkala and head back to Goa to meet my family, who were arriving for holidays, it was suddenly hard to find a train tickets. I found one very useful site for checking availability and other India related information:www.mustseeindia.com. It shows how many persons are in que so you can evaluate better your changes in getting a ticket. 

I booked first trip back to Ernakulam where it is easier to catch express trains to Margao, Goa. I got an AC1 sleeper seat from Margao Express train by the corridor so I could prepare my bed and start relaxing without anyone nagging about it. No matter how nice the Indians are there are times when you just wish to close your eyes and sleep for most of the journey, while you do have the sleeper seat.

Train was supposed to arrive to Margao at 4AM so I told Warner to pick me up at 5 AM as the trains have never been on time here so far. Arrival was at 4.45 and we drove to Utorda via the fish market. 

After getting the luggage to my room I felt like I had arrived back home! It was nice to have breakfast again back at Dom Pedro’s with Uncle Bob.

Backwaters, Kerala

I don’t know what happened but it seems I lost track of time completely in India… So let me travel back in time to Kerala and let’s start the update from there:)

Backwaters, Kerala - someday early Feb...

We booked a trip with Wilson Tours for a more eco-friendly option to see backwaters and in the morning Elephant sanctuary. Taxi picked us up 6.45am from our hotel and our first surprise was to notice that we were the only clients, as we expected there to be more people joining the tour. 

It took 1,5h to drive to the elephant sanctuary but even the drive was nice as you could see some countryside before the crowds woke up. You could notice that there are a lot of elephants in Kerala as you saw their transportations passing by…

We stopped by the Periyar River, near Kodanadu, and were met by two elephants and their caretakers. Once again coconut came handy as piece of its shell was used for scrubbing the elephants in the water! Respect the coconut!

The scrubbing took quite a while even though our elephants were only 8 and 15 year olds, having to wash the 50 year old male elephant took 3 guys and an hour! These guys really seemed to enjoy the bathing and scrubbing and acted kindly even towards the odd tourist who just marveled being this close to these great animals.

After maybe an hour or so other tourists came to the scene to the watch the bathing and get their pictures taken with the animals. We felt extremely happy having been able to enjoy the quiet morning moment with the elephants, and gave 200 Rs tips to both the caretakers. After all we were the only ones soaked with water along with the elephants:) 

Aaza wants more banana!

2 guys with hairy fronts

Le big one!

(Couple of weeks later my husband and daughter would travel to Goa and we would take our girl for an elephant ride and bathing, which was a total rip off for 1200 Rs, near spice plantation. Also the poor elephants would need to do the bathing several times per day. Maybe they enjoy it, or maybe not.)

After some photo-moments were “enjoyed” breakfast in the taxi and took off towards backwaters boat trip from a small remote village near Cochin. The lakeshore was quiet and tranquil and we took off to smaller canals by a punting canoe, and I felt like I was in a different world; no traffic, no noise, no trash smell. This place was beautiful; there really aren’t words or proper photos to describe it.

Our 70-year old punting man

A houseboat

Relaxing trip was finished by a lovely dinner by the lake.

I would have still wished to take a swim in the lake but I was afraid there would be leeches. After seeing a huge snake swimming by I dropped the thought about swimming, and never mind the leeches.  I guess every paradise needs a snake…

Day 1-2 Cochin

After taking it easy for 1 day mainly at the hotel it was time to explore the city and the famous Fort Cochin island. I've heard and read so many wonderful things about the island that I just had to see it first thing!

Island ferry

One way ferry ticket to Fort Cochin cost horrible 2 Rs (3 cents) and took about 15 minutes. Island looked nice, lush green after the dryness of for example Hampi. My first impression was very positive, and we walked slowly on the quiet streets until we reached Fort House's waterside restaurant.
My pepper tuna with lemon rice was lovely with generous amount of pepper in the coconut gravy! I will try to modify the recipe for Finnish fish when I get back home.

Moments after we had finished our lunch a bus load of French speaking tourists arrived to the restaurant with their own local French speaking guides. After we left the restaurant the same pattern continued all across the island. It seems that maybe Fort Cochin is the favourite vacation spot for the French, like North Goa is for the Russians. Who can tell, but either way I felt like I was teleported out of India and to French Guyana instead.

Both seemed to be out of business...

Chinese fishing nets

Still operational chinese fishing nets were an impressive sight, smell of the fish market late afternoon equally impressive. Island has also a lot of beautiful colonial type houses by the water and in the small town of Fort Cochin. The main area is easy to see on foot or take a rickshaw but prepare to pay nearly double than in Ernakulam.

CCD - the best place for green apple soda

Rickshaw graveyard

I visited the David Hall art gallery while there was an exhibition of paintings by Bahuleyan C.B. His works were quite impressive and provoking, definately worth while to check out if ever in a gallery near you.


2.2.2011

Today I was still feeling the good art vibe and decided to visit the Fine Arts Hall mentioned in the hotel map. I walked for few kilometres in the "warm" weather and found a big university / arts campus... and a video cassette rental store (yes, they still exist). Needless to say the Fine Arts Hall wasn't exactly what I was expecting. For my defence I have to say that the map was very misleading! After all, I'm just a tourist:)

Tomorrow is booked for a canoe boat trip and a visit to an elephant sanctuary.

Train travel in India

We started our journey south by train from the city of Hospet on the evening of 27th Jan. We had booked train tickets via travel agency, which are in every street corner in most cities (check commission before booking), and managed to get AC3 class to a sleeper wagon. It pays to book well in advance so you may get better and cheaper seats, prepare to book atleast 2-3 days in advance if you wish to travel at all by train. Otherwise you may need to settle for a bus or to a class with rock hard seats... Good tips for train travel in India can be found at A beginner's guide to train travel in India
Our wagon had 3 bunks on top of each other and another 3 opposite, and another 2 on the other side of the corridor. Bunks were quite comfortable altough way too short even for me who's only 174cm tall.Clean sheets and blankets were provided by Indian Railways.
I actually slept couple of hours, as the wagon was filled with business folk who all went to bed around 10PM, and arrived to Bengaluru reasonably fresh at 7AM.

Travelling light

I had booked a room from an Indian business hotel, Golden Residency for 1200Rs/night, so we were expecting to get a high-class hotel:) Indeed we had warm water, soap, wifi and roomservice breakfast. We never managed to get what we ordered from the roomservice, but it was included in the room rate. Also wifi didn't quite work, but hey you cannot ask for everything!

After 3 meatless and beerless days in Hampi we headed to Bengaluru's famous MG (Mahatma Gandhi) Road with high hopes to find a non-veg restaurant serving cold beer. As were were in India's beer capital we thought this would be an easy task but we actually found only couple of places and neither of them really inviting.
We had couple of frosties at Ruby Tuesday restaurant and our first Western meal of the trip! What a big mistake. I got terrible stomach cramps which i suffered even the next day. I will stick to Indian diet from now on as it has worked well so far. And if some wise-a says it could have been the beer that made my stomach upset, then I say you don't know me:)




30.1.2011
As I mentioned earlier it is worthwhile to book train tickets in advance. I wish i would have followed my own advice when we took the last tickets for 2nd class day train. Superfast train leaving at 6.15AM to Ernakulam (528km) meant 11h trip on "church bench" with sometimes 4 people on a bench orinally designed for 3 small Indians. Experience was somewhat painful. My back was complitely shot when we arrived to Ernakulam on the afternoon. This means that I might need to recover couple of days on the beach, I reckon.

All seats are booked by name. You may find the list outside your wagon.

Blue fans in a white ceiling.