From South to North, beaches, new peeps, bobbo, Rajasthan tour

Once again I have waited far too long to catch up on a blog, so I will have to abbreviate a bit of the trip just to catch up. I want to do this so that I can tell, in detail, about my day on the set of a bollywood movie.

After leaving Kiran, Vibha and Bangalore I headed to the coast to check out some beach towns, and such. It is truly amazing the mix of party beaches, relaxing beaches, secluded beaches, beaches generally for Indian Tourists, beaches that host many Russians, and really if you know where to look, you can find what you want. I have met some great and very interesting people along the way which always adds to the memory of a place and I always love hearing stories other people have to tell about there lives and where they have been, what they have experienced, and their general ideas of life.





This is a view from a private island that I went to visit that until now has only been visited by Indian Tourists.

Always great sunset views on the west coast of India!!!

A couple above who invited me to their home for a delicious Kashmiri meal with Kashmir Tea. Very nice and generous people; it also made me even more so desire to go visit the north of India.

Marco and Howard who i could always find at the same spot relaxing with a beer in hand talking to the comers and goers on Patnem beach.

A beautiful, secluded beach, that has no direct road going to it.

Below is me and a new friend Klaus, who had stories to make my life sound boring. A great guy who had an opinion about everything and we never got tired of talking with each other.

I stayed in a little hut place that has predominenly Russian guests. I was the first American there in 3 years. I had a chance to spend a bit of time in Agonda with Russians for the first time really in my life. They were such nice, genuine people, and after a few days together I apologized for us always making them the bad guys in movies.

Two years ago in the same beach, Anjuna, I met and spent time with Jon. Now, two years later, we met up again and he had his girlfriend Chris with him. We spent a couple of days together catching up and reminicing. This is there car that they drove some years ago from England to India. After leaving them, I took an overnight train to Mumbai where I had about 10 hours, so I decided to walk the whole time in order to be wiped out for my night train on the same day.

Above in the Taj Hotel where the Mumbai attacks took place.

I went on a walking tour, just me and a guide and he showed me where all the locals eat near all the fancy restaurants; in the back of this car. Aparently I was the first white guy to eat here and they were all extremely happy about this experience for me.

I then boarded the train for my 17 hour train trip in general class. this is the cheapest ticket you can buy where they will fit 40 people into a space made for 16. I slept with parts of 4 bodies on top of me, and all in all is wasn't so bad. Once again, I was the only white guy in the whole compartment. I arrived back in Jaipur to see my cousin bobby and my Indian family. When I was near to the village, a boy said "are you bobby" and I knew he had made his mark already. We headed out with a car a day or so later on our tour of Rajasthan.

The Hindu God Ganeesh, who is everywhere.

Us visiting the Rat Temple, which literally has thousands of rats running around. This is my cousin Bobby (Bobbo) who came to join me for a couple of months and has been a lot of fun to have around.

We went to a cattle festival where they had camels dancing, horses dancing, and many different local events going on. Although it looks like this camel is biting this guys neck off, it is part of the dance.

This man won the 1st place award for his horses dance. And he has a cool moustache.

We went out on a desert safari with two friends, Haley and Lucy.

We stayed in local huts in a small village in the middle of the desert.

There is a fairly unknown place in India where around 10,000 Siberian Cranes come every year for about 6 months. We went in the morning to where they all fly to for there daily food. The sky was completely filled with this birds, it was really something to see.

This is a new friend, Kelsi who we met traveling. She was researching about the life of cows in India. We were at a desert Festival in Jaisalmere where Bobbo and I lost with other foreigners in the tug of war against Indians (they told us 2 out of 3 after we won the first, and they cheated in more ways, I swear!!) Kelsi and the girls dominated the Indian women and were quickly made celebrities with gifts, news interviews, and instant stardom which pained us even more.

We would eat in Boppi's restaurant numerous times during our stay in Jaisalmer.

In Jodhpur (the blue city) at a guest house, looking up to see the fort.

This is the Jodhpur fort during the day.

We were offered to stay on a farm near a little village by a friend we made in Jodhpur. Such a nice break from the hectic city travels.

A grandmother and her grandson sitting on there porch in the local village.

We visited in the mountains, Kumbalgarh fort which has the longest wall built around it after the great wall of China (36 KM)

We got to visit some great off the beaten track places that had loads of character and will be great parts of the onelovetours with old palaces and forts scattered all about Rajasthan.

Locals in India in general don't handle their drinks so well. This guy found a nice comfortable cart to sleep on.

I know I have been really slack on this blog this time around, but I don't get the time to update it and many days I don't have access to internet (since I am trying to find less visited places) or I just don't have the energy at the end of the day. It will all have to come when I write my book.

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.