Thefts and Disease

Not the most joyous of titles I know, but this is India. This time I'm not the one to have been robbed, the unlucky guys this time were the two Jonas (nicknames Billy and Salle) and Daniel who woke up one morning to find that someone had snuck into their room and stolen: two mobile phones, one camera, one ipod and quite a few thousand rupees. Very annoying and it feels even more uncomfortable to know how professional these guys were managing to get with them the chargers for all electronics despite being in different cases and parts of the room. Anyway I went one of the guys to the police station, were we basically just waited and waited whilst identical officers in uniform (which i think includes a big black mustache) walked in circles around us until eventually (aka 3 hours) we got the ONE signature they needed and left. The morning after I managed to pick up my 39.6 degree fever again, which I have missed o so much, and it chose a great day to show up on Isabelle's birthday which Miriam and I had planned for quite some time. I'm not sure exactly how the day turned out as I was in bed for most of it, but I think it all went down very well. The surprise-day was spent poolside in a luxury hotel and then we had a nice dinner and drinks in the cocktail lounge, before settling in our Air conditioned rooms with thick duvets and television. It's strange the luxuries you can forget, just things you take for granted like warm water and electricity without power cuts feel topnotch when in India. The illness seems to have settled now but I know how devious he can be, so I'm taking it a tad more relaxed at the moment. Varkala otherwise is treating us well, relaxing on the beach, eating good food (most of the time) and beer or as they call it here "Pop Juice" served in teacups as the alcohol law in Kerala is quite strict (allthough the police know exactly what's going on and quite obviously take loads of money under the table.) Soon though I think we have to head over to another country which is sad as we haven't seen everything we want to see in India yet and also to say farewell to everyone, but you can always come back to India and practically everyone we've met are swedish so they won't be hard to keep in touch with either. More news when we know what's actually happening to us...

Houseboating

So just to make everyone calm from the start I can tell you all: my flipflops were successfully mended. The magical man was called Anthony, he was about 1 metre tall and worked in a shop the size of a shoebox. My shoes were fixed within a minute with some simple stitching and he refused to take my money until i forced it into his hand, so remember if you ever have troubles in Fort Cochin ask for Anthony he can mend anything from flipflops to broken hearts. We stayed in Cochin for a total of 5 nights before heading south to the small town of Alleppey by local bus. The local busrides here are no joke, the white dotted line down the middle of the road has no meaning in India and the whole trip quickly turns into a constant chicken race. We only stayed in Alleppey for 1 night and then went on a 24 hour houseboat cruise down the river and canal systems to the town of Kollam. The houseboats in Kerala are just amazing, incredible craftsmanship and the best accommodation we have found in India so far, allthough you can't help but feel like you are a white man during colonial times when you cruise between the palm trees sipping tea served by Indian men throughout. Apart from that feeling I would say it was one of the best experiences of my life, beautiful environment, great food, nice weather and all you can hear is birds and the silent motor humming. I don't think I can think of anytime in my life when I've been more relaxed and tranquil. I could have stayed on that boat for weeks on end, but "unfortunately" we reached our destination as planned and two local busrides and 4 hours later we arrived in the beach town of Varkala. I haven't had too much time to judge Varkala yet, but what I've seen so far I really like. The whole town is built high up by the cliffs and has a nice beach waiting below. It's nice to get back into beach-mode and as a difference from the beaches we've been on before the waves down here are actually quite strong which can be nice for a change. I'll see if I can manage to persuade Miriam and Isabelle to let me post some of their pictures on here soon even though they have a strict policy of not uploading any of their pictures on the internet. However my stomachs rumbling now and we're going to go get some dinner...

Cochin

So after two nights in Mangalore, in a hotel room full of bedbugs and mosquitoes, we have now been in the coastal town of Cochin in the state of Kerala for three days. The bus ride down took 11 hours but once again went very smoothly. Cochin (or as some call it Kochi) is a really nice town, about the size of Stockholm with a once vibrant but now rather dormant harbour. It has an interesting mix and history, with amongst others Portuguese, British and Dutch settlers, and also has a 2000 year old Jewish community melted in with the Catholic, Muslim, Hinduist and various other religious cultures. Vasco Da Gama died and was buried in this town (though later moved to Portugal) and Kerala is the first place in the world to elect a Communist government in a democratic election back in 1957, which quite obviously still rules to this day as you can’t walk many metres without seeing posters of Marx and Lenin or red flags with scythes and hammers swaying above your head, but enough of the history lesson. Our days here have been spent cruising between the two main islands on the cheap ferry, walking or rickshawing around the town looking at various sights, playing football (so far no cricket) with local kids and eating delicious cakes and doughnuts. Joshua has been unfortunate enough to pick up a nasty infection, oozing with pus in his knee and has been to the local hospital to get some anti-biotics which will hopefully help. Also we have met up with the three Swedes we met in Palolem, Jonas and Jonas from Dalarna and Daniel from Gothenburg, tagging along with them is the Essex lad James, how he copes with us 7 Swedes I don’t know. Anyway the 8 of us will probably head further south soon heading for backwater houseboats and more beaches as tans in India don’t seem to last very long in the cities. Sadly I can tell you all my trusty flip-flops have now broken and as the Indian market does not offer very comfortable slippers this could mean serious bad new for your brave author, however all hope is not lost as rumour has it an old man in Fort Cochin with a wooden shop can mend anything… We’ll just have to wait and see…

Mangalore

We (still the same four swedes) have now arrived in the small town of Mangalore (not to be confused with the bigger town of Bangalore) on the western coast still in the state of Karnataka, but first things first an update on Gokarna. Our stay in Gokarna (and really our whole time in India) can be described with one Hindi word: "Shanti", which means something like "relax" or "take it easy," I'm not too bothered what it really means as long as I can continue doing it. "Om Beach" in Gokarna was nice and quiet, empty at all times except for Saturdays and Sundays when Indian male tourists flock from all over the country to stare at western women bathing in bikinis, this has been the case on every beach so far but was made (if possible) even more obvious when a beach is so deserted at other times. It was nice to come back to the beach-life as our tans had already started fading after a week away from the coast. Gokarna town was also nice and very cute, it felt very Portuguese not to different from some neighborhoods in Maputo. So anyway back to the present, I'm happy to say that my illness has now almost completely vanished and I am now hopefully immune to all Indian bugs. Last evening we took the train for five hours down the coast, and arrived in the town of Mangalore. Mangalore is a lot bigger than what we have seen for the past month, and it feels like we have now left “Diet India/India Light” and have reentered the real world with just as many calories as it should contain. However Mangalore is much smaller and cleaner than for example Mumbai, and has some nice air-conditioned shopping malls which feel rather luxury after nothing but street shopping so far. We stay in Mangalore for one more night and tomorrow evening we take a sleeper bus to a new state and a new town, but more about that when we have arrived.

Sick As A Dog

All right who had their money on 29 days? In that case cash in, because that's how long it took me to get sick in India. I've had some minor hiccups prior to this but have now landed the full scale "Delhi Belly." I've been more or less knocked out with 39.5 degree fever for a few days now, going up and down all the time, crushing headache, pain in all limbs and also irregular visits to the very nice Indian lavatories (Nurse Niki what do these symptoms indicate?). I picked it up at some point during my "Rehab" in Hampi but still decided to make the 10 hour bus-journey (no bicycles yet) down to the coast again, this time to the small town of Gokarna. The bus-ride was not the most pleasant but not at all as bad as I had expected it to be. We were scammed at every possible point though as we were forced to buy additional trips to our allready fully paid ticket, but eventually arrived on "Om Beach" at around 5 o clock in the morning. As all guesthouses were closed when we arrived we decided to catch a few hours sleep on the beach. This seemed like a great idea until we woke up surrounded by cows who got a bit aggressive when they realised we had nothing to offer them apart from a few bananas, however things worked out fine and we are now staying at a really nice guesthouse right by the beach. I feel better now and hopefully it will stay that way but you never know with India, I'll write more when I can give a more detailed report on Gokarna.