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.

Southern India: East to West +down up down

After arriving in a city I didn't know the name of I got a good night sleep and the next morning headed to a little place called Tranquebar which was an old Danish Colony and sits right on the water. This area was heavily affected by the Tsunami, but they are working hard to restore it. It was a great little unique place to visit. Also while being here I bumped into a film crew as they were filming scenes for a movie. They all paused when they saw me and then the director wanted some footage of me standing there wondering what they hell they wanted me to do.




Next I headed west to a city called Tanjavur. It has this enormous temple in the center of the city that I visited and was pretty cool. This part of the country really doesn't get too many tourists, they are there, but only a few. This is when I started to really notice how they have these big billboards or marketing signs with completely wrong spelling; and it's not part of their marketing plan. Some examples: Footwere. Luxery. Chinies. Famoos. This is what they spent lots of bucks for and will be their campaign for some time.


After Tanjavur, I headed to Trichy which had some of the best restaurants I've eaten at (they call their restaurants hotels here). In Trichy I went and saw some more famous temples, climbed a hill to a temple that had a city view and then spent time in the Big Baazar and Chinese Baazar (there were no chinese people there) and bought some dvd's for about 40 cents each. (It turned out to cost more since only half worked or were in another language).
I then headed to Madurai which is a big city. I only had a brief time here so I decided to do a bus tour of the highlights. They picked me up first and then had to pick up 11 others which took an hour and a half. Our first stop was a palace that had construction going on throughout. we had 40 minutes to check this out. The next stop was the much awaited Ghandi museum, I had heard great things about this and it told the story of Ghandi's life along with the history of the british in India. Our bus driver said 15 minutes to visit here. I took a half an hour and I could have spent hours in this place. When I got back I asked how anyone was supposed to see it in 15 minutes and he said it was small. Granted, you could walk through it in 15 minutes if you didn't read any information. The next stop on the tour was a temple; 45 minutes.
From Madurai I caught a bus to the mountains, a place called Kokaikanal. I sat next to this kid on the ride and we talked the entire time; he was a clever little guy and I quite liked his company.
On arrival in Kodaikanal, the temperature had dropped significantly from the city, but this also meant no mosquitos. It was absolutely beautiful here. I got a room in a house that had seven other rooms that were all vacant, so I had the house to myself. I visited many different lodges, made a friend at a shop, and met a white guy who had been here for a few years getting his doctorate. He introduced me to some great locals who knew the surrounding villages and tribal villages well and one man I spent time with will definitely be part of the onelovetours team. See Vetri below with his family.
I really enjoyed my stay here and started to work with some people on getting tshirts made of for the company (anyone want to order one?)
Some of my time in Kodaikanal it was beyond foggy due to the elevation. I was actually in the clouds and couldn't see 20 ft ahead.
This is not what the t-shirts will look like, it is only what the friend from the shop did one night on his shirt with some markers while he was working.
From Kodaikanal, I headed on a 7 hour bus trip down and through the mountains to tea country, which is known as Munnar. Completely surrounded by tea plantations, this is a little city that sits in the middle of the hills, from one view point you can see a church, a temple and mosque sitting near each other on a hill near the city. I ate in a place where all the drivers eat and this is the first place in India where I see people eat meat; we have now entered the state of Kerala, the only Democratic, Communist state in the world.
I visited some heritage guest homes that sit high in the hills in the middle of the tea plantations that I can send guests to. This is where I met up with Benny (a friend from home) and his family. They were taking a day trip and picked me up to see the surrounding sites.

I then headed back to Cochin, a city on the water; no more mountains, with Benny and his sister to meet up with their mom at home. On Christmas Eve we got some carollers; these are them.
Benny, his sister Joslie and I headed out of Cochin to the backwaters to take a house boat for a day and night. After bargaining hard we got a great boat which we cruised around on, had some good food, played some cards and games, and it was a great change of pace.
The following day we went to Allepay where we strolled through the city, visited some guesthouses and then found a carved out canoe with a guy (Saboo) to take us around small alley's that I big boat can't fit into. We ended up stopping to see his home in his little village that is an island.

Back in Cochin we celebrated Christmas with lots of movies, lots of food, and good company. It is so nice to be with friends over the holidays even when it is just relaxing and not doing too much; so thank you to Benny and his family.

The day after Christmas I went to a nearby island that is quite quiet with home stays set up right on the water. I also learned how to catch prawns and fish at a prawn farm.

I know this blog lacked detail, but it has been some time since I wrote my last one and I just wanted to give a quick update with lots of pictures. Southern India is a completely different world than northern India, it is like visiting different countries. Also, in the south, each state speaks their own language and many people only know this local language.

Here they say "Happy Christmas"

A cake we ate on Christmas said "Happy Celebration"

Fair thee well until next time.

Warm, southeast, the full range of the french, beaches, and new good friends.

I had a long bus journey when I left Bangalore and headed to Chennai (can you believe a long bus ride in India) Luckily for me the bus wasn't very full and it rained a good part of the way which was actually quite pleasant as I watched the change of surroundings heading to the coastal city of Chennai. What I found out was that it had rained the previous few days in Chennai causing floods throughout the city and making it a hell for people living in the slums; destroying there foods, wetting everything in their homes and encouraging the rat population. When I arrived I heard a girl dealing with a rickshaw driver and agreeing to pay way too much. I stepped in and helped (me, helping an Indian with the bargaining of a price) She was thankful and offered to share the ride and then when we arrive at her place she would drive me on her bike around to get a hotel room which she did. A few days later I met with her for a home made lunch which was just great!!


One day I went sight seeing to get a feel for Chennai. There is a common thing that goes on in big cities where a rickshaw driver will take you on a long tour of sights for fairly cheap as long as you will go and look in a couple of shops. They are hoping that you buy something which will end up being much more for them in commission. Many people apparently have the mind set to go into the shop and just look and then spend their money. Little did he know that his chances of me buying something were not too good (this means 0, nothing, not gonna happen). But I did get to visit sights for about 3 hours including the Marina beach which is the 2nd longest in the world. It is also disgustingly filthy, nobody swims in this water. Then the visiting of temples, churches, etc...

I was curious to see a slum, so I was brought to a fishing village slum. He waited in the rickshaw and I meandered through the little alleys. I asked this man above if it was alright if I walked down one alley and he continued to take me down that alley, show me his home, his family, his neighbors and a full tour of the slum which was wonderful; the tour, not the slum, although everyone was extremely happy and nice. It is said that fishing slums have a big drinking problem towards the afternoons, I was visiting early afternoon and the man that showed me around doesn't drink or even eat meat, including fish.

This was one of the churches on tour that is one of the most famous churches in India because some high ranking person is buried under an alter. My facts on this are not with me at the moment.

This is Veera and his cousin who you will hear more about later. I met Veera briefly early on in my trip while in a restaurant in Varanasi. He told me to let him know when I would be in Chennai because that is where he lives. We met up for dinner and he took me to an unbelievable restaurant and forced me to eat until I could barely stay awake and would not let me pay for anything...ever. His cousin smiles a lot!!

Starting in Chennai to now I have been a busy little bee as far as work goes, meeting with people and seeing places, hotels, sites. I also met a woman who I will be working with, Gouthami, in Chennai who had me over to her house for a home cooked meal.

From Chennai I went south to Malaburipuram. This is when I started to realize that many places, especially in the south had two names. Some maps and signs on the street say Malamalapuram. There town is small and on the beach and is swarming with tourists. The way the locals act and talk you know they are used to dealing with laid back tourists and know the right things to say. After a full day of visiting hotels and seeing the little city I decided to do a day of nothing; this was because Veera was going to come down the following morning (his saturday off) and spend the day.

We got pool passes at a nice hotel and spent half the day relaxing by the pool, eating, drinking and swimming. That night after dinner we met up with our hotel neighbor, Sandra (a columbian yoga teacher). The three of us walked the beach and enjoyed the fire work show due to a wedding down the beach.

The next morning his cousin showed up and we visited a few of the other sites in the town that I hadn't seen including this one. I really like this photo. Then the 3 of us and Sandra headed a little north to a beach where Veera's family owns a prawn farm on the water. We spent time on the beach swimming and just relaxing (I scared some local kids by chasing them and when I caught them threatening to take them in the water). We then headed back to the building where the people who work for his family made us possibly the best meal I've had since being in India; home made fried fish with seasoning that is making my mouth water as I write, some great chicken and a rice mix that we add a onion/yogurt salad too. Veera and his cousin were beyond hospitable and just good people. I know that I will be friends with him for a long time to come.

Veera and his cousin then headed back to Chennai and Sandra and myself headed south to a place called Auroville. This place is an international city built in India. It is intended as a moneyless society. You will have to research on your own for now if you want to know more. Inside this huge area they have no public buses, you must have a motorbike which we didn't know. After walking around for quite some time we grabbed lunch which we paid someone cash to let us swipe their card (remember, moneyless). This is the monument at the center of Aroville and is the focus point for meditation.

It then started to pour. We were a long way for where we wanted to be and any rides and the rain wasn't going to let up for some time. I concentrated no a plan and then stuck my thumb out on the road. A fifties british car drove by and then hit the breaks and a big head with a british accent stuck his head out of the back door and asked where we were going and I said anywhere, so we jumped in and it turned out we weren't going where he was going. He had a meeting and then after the meeting we were still waiting for another car so he (Kenny) said to get in and he would drop us off after we stopped by his house. While waiting in the rain a guy walked by completely covered in rain gear from head to toe and had a smile like he enjoyed the rain, so I said "it looks like you are having fun in this rain". He turned to me and with a french accent said "I have never met you, why are you talking to me?"

Don't worry, for each of those there is a Kenny. We stopped at Kenny's where we met a girl who was staying there who apparently was stranded a couple days before and Kenny helped out and gave a place too. As it continued to rain outside we all sat around listening to music, singing, painting, drinking beer, and more music, more beer, more talking and better friends. We ended up crashing there and heading out the next morning. I could write a mini book about Kenny and the stories he told. In the end, he is a good guy and was a great host and has moved to this place a couple of months ago to spend the rest of his time with his own home-stay that specializes in ayurvedic treatments; someone I will work with also.

Next morning on our rainy drive into Pondicherry.

Some girls who we had met a couple days before gave us their number in case we come into Pondicherry and wanted to meet for dinner. We did, and at our table sat me, from the US. Someone from Columbia, Holland, a real nice girl from french and then we called a girl over who was sitting at a table alone who was from Spain...it was like the UN.

Below is the streets of Pondicherry inside the French quarter.

I can't believe how big the damn sea shells are in this city!!!!!!

We walked around the big markets which had tons and tons of flowers, fruits, vegetables, fish, clothing, really anything.

If any of you have listened to the comedian Mitch Hedgeberg than you will appreciate this picture below of the red bananas. If you don't know him than maybe you will still like the picture of red bananas.

We stayed in a fantastic home-stay in Pondicherry where there are only five rooms and the family that runs it is extremely nice and beyond helpful. They too lived in Paris for 30 years and were beyond nice... just that damn raingear wearing frenchie.

This homestay I will definately send people too on my tours. They are completely booked for the rest of December and January.

I headed south on my own from Pondicherry and was trying to go to one place but ended up in a nearby town where there were NO tourists around and eating in the local restaurant this was my view while I was eating; everyone looking at me like "he eats food just like us, can you believe it?"

Since then I have been to two more cities, am now in the third, drove a car, ate a free lunch, and am getting close to running out of clean shirts and underwear.

I have seen quite a bit of rain in the last 2 weeks...actually not that much, but only compared to the rest of the time I have been here. When it rains a lot in the US it is a little of an inconvenience; it is crazy to see how heavily it impacts so many's lives here, more so there livelihood that just their feel for the day.

I want to see slum dog millionaire, I have gotten a few emails about it.

I have read since being here:

Grapes of Wrath

Five point something

Unbound India

White Tiger- Such a great read. This is a book I wouldn't want the people I send on tour to read before, it really shows the "dark side" of India.

I am now reading Sacred Games-another Indian book.

Ciao