On the move, health tourism, Kiran's connections, 3months in.

(I do realize that this is totally unnecessary. Enough complaints and I'll take it down)

After finishing my last blog entry, I went in search of a massage. What I found was an ayurvedic hospital in the heart of Coimbatore. I ended up talking with all the people that run it and getting some great information about ayurvedic treatments and how to include that in a India tour. They also have different training programs to teach people basic ayurvedic theory, massage techniques, and yoga. This I plan on doing in the next couple of years combined with some other health ed. I did end up getting a fantastic massage. I was stripped down and covered in ayurvedic oils before getting a truly great massage. Afterwards I had to cover myself in a green paste which was an natural soap followed by the first hot shower I had had in weeks.
I was cleaner than I had been in a long time and noticed when I was bothered much more by mosquitos than I had been.

From here I was picked up by a friend of Kiran's, Georgie. We drove 4 hours back to Cochin where I met with Dr. Raj. He is probably one of the most expensive dentists in India, but about 60% of his patients are from overseas. He specializes in Root Canals, crowns, and implants and has been in the business 12 years. His office was cleaner than any office I've seen in the US. For the cost of a root canal in the US, it is generally between $1,000-$1,500. His cost in India is about $150. Many people come to get work done and then they basically have a vacation in India paid for. We all then went to a city club for dinner and business talks. I jumped on a bus back to Coimbatore where I immediately caught another bus only to change to a new bus which eventually took me a to a place in the mountains called Coonoor.

A day around this city and then took a beautiful train ride to a nearby place named Ooty. This is probably one of the 3 best scenic train rides in India, and I crammed in with a school group who sang to me about half of the trip.

In Ooty I met some great people, ate some great food, visited many different lodges and got some black market dvd's. Pineapple Express, Love Guru, Zohan, No country for old men, Gajini, and a foreign one. I have now seen 4 of them. It is such a treat to be able to watch a movie considering I never have a tv in my rooms. I was reading Sacred Games, but left it on one of my many bus trips; it was dragging a bit anyway. I am now reading Holy Cow; a book written by a westerner about her experience in India.

From Ooty I headed to Mysore where I got to see the City Palace lit up due to it being a sunday night; it is really a site to see.

Kiran told me to visit his friends Manoj (who I had met previously) and Ajit. I went to see them in their dentists office and the firts thing Ajit did was tell me to sit in the chair so he could check my teeth. He said all was looking good. I went with him to his home and the Jag therapy office, which was started by his father in law and is now all over the world. It is a natural type of therapy that helps in all aspects of health. It is a bit of a lifestyle more than anything else.
Mysore is really a great city, big city with a small city feel.

I spent most nights with Manoj and his other friends and even got to spend a night at Manoj's house playing with his kids who had loads of energy. After so much time dealing with adults and talking with managers, it was so refreshing to play with kids and just have that simple relationship.

On the day of the Harvest Festival where they paint the cows and in the night have the cows jump over fire a group of us went for a long drive to the forest to try and spot a tiger and some wild life. We saw lots of elephants, some warthogs, spotted deer, samba, and other small things, but no tiger. It still was a lot of fun.

After some days in Mysore, I headed up to Bangalore to stay with Kiran and Vibha again. When I arrived they weren't home, so as I waited I asked his neighbor to use their bathroom. After the bathroom we got talking and I ended up spending the next eight hours their talking with Frank, Nilini, and their 1.5 yr old Arjun. We listened to lots of music, ate lunch and watched a movie; really nice people who I will stay in touch with.

Another friend of ours, Haley was visiting with Kiran too. As soon as they came home I found out that Kiran had planned a day trip for Haley and I for the following day to visit some different cities with different monuments, including one that we arrived to after it was closed, but since we weren't coming back I decided to run past the guards and climb the many stairs. They ended up not caring at all and when getting to the top, besides the gate being closed I thought I was going to faint due to the fact I haven't ran in a long, long time; never the less, up many stairs.

The next day I went to a tourism expo and met with many different tour operators only to confirm that 99% of the tours that people book online to India are overpriced, on the normal tourist circuit, staying in not the best hotels, but the ones where they get the most commission, and trying to get as many in and out as possible. I did however go to one booth which advertised a serviced apartment in bangalore called Green apts. The owner is very into eco friendly activities and promotion. The apartments are all made out of eco friendly materials and the meals served are all from organic crops. I was invited to a talk that they host once a month that included folk singing and a presenter of some eco topic. This topic of the night was how to convert your roof into a garden of sorts using normal waste that would usually pollute the environment if disposed of the normal ways.

It is so nice to be able to stay with friends where it is just comfortable and their is no pressure to do things and they don't feel obligated to entertain. Especially after being on the go, it just makes everything sort of settled and recharges the batteries to go again.

Beaches, Celebrations, and more beaches!

This is one of the homestays that I went to visit in a village on an island near the city of Cochin.

On the island I did one of the many activities that they offer which is to go and see a prawn farm (half of the year it's a rice paddy). I also learned how they catch the prawn and then how to cook them; I know how to eat them.

Some good size ones.
On a side note: you can buy coconuts everywhere on the street here. The people selling them will then hold it in one hand and wack at it with an extremely sharp, big knife with such precision that it amazes me everytime. after you drink the juice, they wack it again in half so that you can eat the meat of it from inside. they shot a sliver of the side of the coconut for you to use as a spoon. I will have to get a video of this.


After Cochin I headed south to the beaches. In Varkala I met up with Kiran and some of his friends who were over from England; one being "Stretch" who recently ran the London marathon in the borat speedo, in 3.5 hours. He also had a flag made that says "stretch club" that was easily spotted for our group (which grew) at the beach. A few days of beach time and some good fresh fish eating for dinner, along with sharing too small of a bed with Kiran before his wife Vibha came. After she came I decided just to sleep outside instead of getting a room.

Varkala sits up on a cliff above the beach which for this time period had way too many tourists.


That is stretch next to me and a new friend Karthik who we hung out with for the days.

For new years we decided to hire a big fishing boat to go on to watch the sun set which was great!!! The ride was a bit shakier than we had anticipated, but great fun.


After the boat trip we took over a restaurant, played our ipod, ordered loads of food and did the count down with our group before yelling and passing hugs all around.

The next morning I headed out of town before anyone woke and went down to Kovalam. After getting many buses and settling in I had a very lazy rest of the day. The folowing day I walked through villages and along the coast (where I saw this goat below) and went to visit resorts, homestays and specifically ayurvedic treatment centers/ayurvedic resorts. There are alot of these in this area.


That night I met the only other people staying in my little unlabeled place behind a restaurant on a hill above one of the more quiet beaches. It was an english family, Sally, Tony, and the daugthers, Rachel and Kate. Really a great family. I also had Sandra, my friend from Columbia that I had traveled with some weeks previously meet up for a couple of days. This group then hung out together for the next few days, resting on the beach, going into town, swimming in some great waves that just pounded us.
In general Indians are scared of the water because they can't swim. So at the beach, they tend to stay where they can stand, which is also where the waves break. They are fully clothed (this doesn't bother them) and in general I don't think have very good coordination (of course this is a broad generalization). So as they stand where these huge waves come down, they get taken out like bowling pins and to be honest it is extremely entertaining!!!
I was exhausted everyday after playing in these waves.

This is the view from where we would eat dinner every night at the restaurant where we stayed, absolutely stunning view and so peaceful.

It turned out that Tony and I share the same birthday and we got along well. Since he had been traveling with the 3 girls for a couple of weeks, his family thought he would appreciate "guy time", so they surprised us in the morning of our birthdays for a boat trip and some snorkeling. The water was moving pretty good and some areas would be completely murky and some we could see fine. As you may know, when you are snorkeling you have very little sense of where you are since you are looking under water. We would be looking down and then come to the very murky area and wouldn't be able to find where the good viewing was and so come up to ask the boat guy (who does this all the time) we would ask and he would say, here no good, you must go where you can see. (thanks buddy, please point us in that direction)
The rest of the day was more swimming and laying in the sun (also the last day before taking off again).
That night we enjoyed dinner on the hill one more time. (this is the family below)

After dinner, the staff, who we had gotten to know, brought out a cake with candles and everyone sang happy birthday to us. After blowing out the candles, all the power went out around us; the restaurant, the beach, the houses near to us. We were so used to power cuts in India at this point that it didn't surprise us....until there were huge, personal fire works going on from the beach below us that the staff put on for us. They had cut the power and for about 5 solid minutes we enjoyed a fireworks show...awww what a memorable birthday.

This was followed up with the cutting of the cake. In India, tradition is to feed the first bites to everyone else. This is a photo of Tony and I feeding each other at the same time.
You will notice the real light, comfortable, good looking shirt that Sandra got for me for my birthday. Thanks to all of you for making it such a wonderful birthday!!!!!

The next day I had a 10.5 hour train ride to Coimbatore which is the center for making cotton clothing and where I had scouted out to meet with people about making onelovetours.net t-shirts, which has turned out to be worth the trip and I can't wait to show them to you later one. Final talks to comfirm everything tomorrow. This is one of the shops where I met with to make the shirts.

I am now living the 30th year of my life. So far, so good.