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.