P.S.

This is just a post script regarding monkey mischief hour; a series of monkey related incidents in the temple town of Hampi where the monkey problem, although hilarious for us, is a serious issue for the locals. Everyday, at certain times, gangs of little brown monkeys made their way stealthily from the surrounding temples towards the town to wreak havoc in the local shops and houses.

One morning I was sitting on the balcony at our guest house and I saw a monkey on the neighboring roof with a bottle of juice in its hands. Amused, I watched as it unscrewed the lid and guzzled the beverage in less than 20 seconds. Later that day another monkey appeared on the balcony clutching three bags of chips in its little hands- following him was the slingshot-wielding owner of the burgled shop. The monkey managed to escape with its prize into the gap between the ceiling and the roof where it could enjoy the chips in peace. 

That day I marveled  at our little hairy cousins gymnastic abilities as well as the sophisticated plot hatching skills required to pull off a heist without anyone getting killed. 

Maybe a little more terrifying was the day a monkey got into our room. I alerted a sleeping Jordan that we had a guest, she proceeded to wail and gnash her teeth like a terrified damsel in distress; fortunately I flexed my enormous muscles and the monkey fled with the fear of death in its eyes...but not before it attempted to steal everything it could get it's hands on. 

by will

  

something interesting is always happening

After yet another overnight train trip we finally arrived in Hampi, a dusty, little village surrounded by huge boulders, temples, banana plantations and coconut trees and bordered on one side by a river. This area is a world heritage site and, as we found out from an English girl we met there, the houses and businesses in the area are slowly being demolished and the people ordered to move away. It's a little controversial as there has been no compensation for these people yet and this began happening 3 years ago. I think the ultimate plan is to make accommodation only available in the town 1/2 an hour away and charge astronomical (by Indian standards) entry prices to the temples. Right now you only have to pay for one ticket but there are plenty of free temples to visit, and you can stay within walking distance of lots of them. So it's a lovely place right now; the time to visit would be now!

It's a very relaxed little area. We were there in the off season so it was quiet and there wasn't much open but we just wandered among the temples and rocks and felt as if we were on the set of an Indiana Jones movie. We spent a lot of time watching monkeys do hilarious things and climbed a big, rocky hill for views of banana fields, rocky crops and the big temple that dominated Hampi town. One day we rented bikes and rode out to other temples and old stone builidings, carvings and statues. It is all very impressive and the work that must have gone into each building would be astronomical; they are so detailed and intricate. Complete devotion to a higher being (or orders from a higher and very un-merciful mortal) are the only ways I can see these structures coming into being. No way would anybody be sitting down one day thinking, 'hmmm, you know what I feel like doing? Carving tiny, extremely detailed figures into rock. Should only take a few decades to finish...'

There were a lot of fake Sadhus in Hampi, waiting to catch unsuspecting tourists and charge them for photographs. Real sadhus are holy men who wander around India smoking, begging and creating huge piles of dreadlocks on their heads. The ones in Varanasi also smeared themselves with the ash of corpses. These men were just dressed in orange with peacock feathers in the hair and bangles on. They did manage to catch a few westerners who obviously thought they needed to rid themselves of some money though.

This was also a domestic tourist destination so we could not sit still, admire a temple or even stand anywhere for more than a few minutes before someone would be upon us asking for 'just one snap'. This became more and more irritating- imagine just wanting to sit and watch the river flow by and all of a sudden you are surrounded by an ever growing group of Indians who all want separate photos with you- so that the last picture I was in I graced with an enormous frown. Suckers!

We met a few other westerners in Hampi; it was a small place so easy to run into to people and get chatting. One of the days we passed some people and they stopped us and asked if we had been in Kalpetta recently. Turns out they had seen us opening the bakery there (dressed in traditional Indian clothing) and remembered us. So that was both embarrassing and extremely unlikely!

After templing ourselves out, eating chicken on the other side of the river- Hampi is super religious so no alcohol or meat, and Will having a dip in the river to try and escape the ridiculous heat, we were about ready to leave. Back to the train station and onward to a town that wasn't so much fun at all but which Will liked because there was always something happening.

I can't remember the name of the place, it's really long and starts with T, but it is kind of in between Bangalore and Pondicherry, which was to be our next destination. This town boasted a 10 hectare temple complex and a big hill to climb so we thought it was worthy of a night or two. Our time there didn't start well though; it was impossible to get decent accommodation at the right price and we ended up staying at the worst place we have yet been, paying way too much and being yelled at 3 times by management (not because we did anything wrong, just because they were big, fat jerks). They also had the audacity to ask for a tip when we checked out. I laughed at that one.

I was also quite sick and this town was really condensed so all the noise, smells and humanity was very tightly packed in and seemed very exaggerated. I was on the verge of tears whenever someone honked their car/bus/tuktuk horn.

But in our short time there we saw some memorable things...we visited the big temple and Will got blessed by an elephant- they are really smart creatures. They have been trained by their owners to recieve both money and food from people but they only give a blessing (a tap on the head with their trunk) if they have been given money. Seriously! We also had a conversation with an Indian man who a) spoke enough English to carry on an interesting chat, b) didn't ask for a photo at any point and c) didn't try to sell us anything. A temple miracle! We saw what seemed to be a funeral procession in the streets. Men were banging drums in front of a huge vehicle carrying the body and bedecked with thousands of flowers while more people followed, littering the streets with flowers and letting of entire boxes of fireworks at once.

While I was incapacitated in bed, Will climbed the big hill and saw just how crowded the town really was. And he could apparently still hear all the noise from the streets even from the top. He also ventured out one night, lured by fireworks, and chanced upon what he thought was a wedding- apparently it was similar to the funeral, with the flowers and fireworks and people on vehicles. Except there was a bride and a groom. Obviously.

So I don't have great memories of that town, Will has better ones. We left after two nights and caught an agonising bus to Pondicherry, a town of French colonial times where we can eat cheese, steak and crepes. Hello paradise! No but Indian food is delicious, you just begin to miss the small things like dairy that isn't yoghurt or chai. And meat that isn't chicken (or un-identified). Anyway, we are in Pondicherry for the next few days to pig out and then go swimming at the (admittedly not very nice) beach- we don't care though, I reckon it pushes 40 degrees here during the day.

mysore

We left Varkala and headed north again, this time inland. We were on our way to a little town called Hampi but were stopping for 2 nights in Mysore to break up the journey.
Mysore is a noisy Indian city, famous for silk, aromatherapy and incense so of course every single person that struck up a conversation with us was selling one of these products. We even ended up at one man's house/shop smelling incense and oil (after he led us around for 1/2 an hour) and could only make our escape when the man noticed a policeman outside and became oddly nervous and distracted. A good time to take our leave I thought.

The highlights of Mysore were a pub that we walked for 1/2 an hour to find that had meat and beer- really a luxury after being in India for so long- and where we saw girls smoking, drinking beer and generally looking like they weren't confined by archaic Indian ideas. So that was nice. We also wandered through a market that was just an explosion of colour in the form of flower garlands, huge mounds of spices and coloured powder and whatever else Indian households might need. We sat in a central square and watched all the people...we saw a (probably drunk) man asleep against a light post, harming nobody, being rudely awaken by a policeman throwing water in his face and hitting him with a huge stick. Horrible, but if you are ever bored in India it must be because you have a bag on your head- there is always, always something to see. Good or bad. Or just odd.

We stayed in the worst youth hostel I have ever been to in Mysore. It's list of rules numbered at least 20 and included things like 'no music, no merrymaking, no whistling, no drinking, lights off at 11...'. You get the idea. It wasn't so much a youth hostel as a prison- there was even a warden (apparently but I never saw them).

After drinking lots of coffee and tea and eating heaps of idlis (little steamed rice cake things) and dosas we decided to leave Mysore but before we left we visited the train museum and had some fun climbing over all the old trains that were imported from England back in the day. We also found an old car...maybe an Austin?...anyway, it had been converted by a railway worker so that it could run on tracks and it used to take the inspectors on their rounds. That was super cool.

Then we got on the train, back to Bangalore station, to meet our connecting train to Hampi.

getting caught in the rain.

We left Our Home some time ago and following a day of amazingly easy travel (and there was a lot of travel- bus, train, boat and tuk-tuk) we arrived at Fort Cochin in the evening. We jumped off the ferry and, ignoring all the tuk-tuk sharks, we made our way up the street to find a nice place to sleep. Which was also surprisingly easy...as it is the low season in the south of India now (the weather alternates between boiling hot and muggy to torrential downpours) everyone is desperate for business and we had hardly walked for 5 minutes before a lady ran out of a building and offered us a very nice room for only $10 a night.

We stayed in Fort Cochin for about 3 days; it's a nice place to wander about but as I said, it's the low season, so there wasn't a lot happening. We also arrived on a Thursday evening and it turned out that Friday and Saturday are kind of holidays so almost everything was closed. So we walked around a lot...along the riverfront we saw the old Chinese fishing nets, which are huge and take four men to lever in and out of the water. Very impractical in the modern world but quaint and a perfectly picturesque photo-op for tourists. We also found an old tree, bare of leaves but painted in bright colours so each gnarl or limb became an animal. We bought a snack of unripe mangoes in some kind of chilli sauce which is exactly as gross as it sounds and which, after 3 bites, we threw surreptitiously onto the ground. We ate a lot of delicious things too though, don't worry. Like dosas, which are basically thin pancakes made with lentil flour and served with coconut chutney...we also spent the best part of a day arguing about the similarities between dosas and pancakes, which I think are enormous because they are essentially the same thing but this was an opinion with which Will was unwilling to acquiesce because he said pancakes are made with wheat flour so that means they are completely different. Flimsy argument, I know; needless to say, I won that one.

Fort Cochin is like a picturesque 'old town', sitting on a peninsula separated from the main city by either a long drive around or a short ferry ride across. We needed to buy a new memory card so one day we went to Ernakulam (the city) to see what our chances were. Turns out it was easy. You need never worry in India if what you are after is some kind of electrical goody- they are completely obssessed with electronics. We bought our memory card from a mini-mall of 3 stories in which every single shop was devoted to technology, mostly mobile phone related. And on a strip of road lined with mini-malls this was the only one which was thriving. When Indians find something they like, they go all out.

On Sunday, when everything opened up again, we walked to the old Jewish quarter (kind of hilariously called 'Jew Town') to visit the old Dutch Palace which was in fact gifted in 1555 from the Portuguese to the Raj of Kochi, but renovated by the Dutch in 1663. It is small, but worth visiting for the amazing Hindu murals which are incredibly detailed and cover at least 6 entire walls. They tell the stories of old Hindu legends (apparently...we could really only admire the intricacy of detail and beautiful colours). The rain which was bucketing down had stopped by the time we had wandered around the palace so we decided to have a meander through Jew Town where the air is lightly scented with cinnamon and cardamom, which are for sale at vastly inflated tourist prices at every second shop. I did give in and buy some overpriced leather thongs though. Now I have cuts on my feet- I just do not have the savvy to buy shoes, this is why I always go barefoot everyone!

We left Fort Cochin the nex day and headed to Varkala, a beach town a little further south. This is not a beach for swimming though, especially in the rainy season. The shoreline is a mess of rips and currents and crazy tides with waves crashing in continuously- if you got swept out even a little you'd have to be fairly lucky to make it back to shore. And there is no way the "life guards" could help; they are all rather portly and clumsy looking and have no equipment save army hats and whistles which they blast whenever anyone gets too near the water.

It is nice here though. So nice that a week has slipped by and we've hardly noticed. There are clifftops to be strolled along, a beach to be sat on, delicious espresso coffee to be drunk and lots of different types of food begging to be eaten. There are storms to watch (and, more times than I think is prudent, be caught in) and the occasional, very clandestine beer to be drunk- I think none of the cafes are licensed but they do, of course, want to make money selling beer to foreigners so they pour it out the back and bring it to customers in giant "coffee mugs". Sneaky.

So that has been our last week...if you remember my post about Goa, well, we've been doing pretty much the same thing only with less swimming and more getting caught in the rain. No pina coladas though...haha. You don't have to tell me, I know I'm a comic genius.   

you give freedom!

We have spent the last month staying at Our Home, a home for about 40 children up in the tea and ginger hills of Kerala. It's an exceedingly lovely spot; surrounded by banana and coconut trees and forest, with a mountain in the background. Green everywhere. They live there with Mummy and Achen ('father' in Malayalam, the language of Kerala) aka Avi and Chacko, and whoever else happens to be staying at the time- volunteers, friends, teachers...

We lived in a bamboo hut on the property- the property also houses a boy's and girl's home for the children- which we shared with lizards, spiders and cockroaches. It was actually quite cosy, although one night we did eat some snacks in bed and I woke up to tiny little ants biting my arms and legs....from then on all snacking was done outside the hut. We ate mostly all of our meals (which were delicious but very rice heavy) with the children, as well as a coconut or two, that the kids liberated from the forest, every few days.

As well as eating we did actually help out a bit while we were there. We spent the best part of 3 weeks taking spoken English classes at the Good Shepherd Public School, also on the property. This was very challenging but a good experience. A lot of difficulty and frustration interspersed with small moments of triumph and success...we played a lot of games and tried to get the children speaking as much English as possible, while also trying to get as many of them on our side as possible. One day I gave one of the classes a small amount of homework and I was both excited and surprised when one girl actually did it. The children who lived at Our Home were very helpful though, they were always the most well-behaved and acted as translators when we were struggling. In one class two of the boy's from Our Home took this very seriously, shouting directions and disciplining the other children in the class who acted up, which was pretty funny.

We also spent a good amount of time moving rocks from an area designated for banana and tapioca crops- fairly tedious work but good exercise.

The best part about staying there was getting to know the children- and learning their hilarious take on English:
fastly = quickly
blood is coming/my leg is paining = my leg is bleeding/hurting
come, go = come on let's go (this we heard A LOT)
simply beating = hitting
...and Will's favourite quote from the whole stay: 'you give freedom!'. The story: one afternoon some of the younger boys came running up to the hut with a backpack which they showed us had 3 baby mice or rats inside (somehow, not sure how this happened). The boys thought it was hilarious and we left them giggling and discussing what to do about the mice when we heard on of the boys- quite a smart lad and very good at chess- exclaim 'you give freedom!', at which they let the mice go and Will burst out laughing. So the kids are smart, they just don't have all the words yet to say what they want to say without sounding a little hilarious.

So we had a good time. Will played a lot of chess and soccer every night. I played hide and seek and shared my make-up and moisturisers with the girls. Will became quite good friends with a bee that was always outside our hut- it used to come and sit on his hand for some reason.

I realise this post is long (we were there a month) so just quickly, here are some other things that we think are note-worthy about our stay...

We saw a bull being slaughtered (as it's India, most of the country thinks cows are gods so it's probably the most unlikely place to see this happen) then we ate beef for the next week, morning, noon and night.
We helped open two bakeries, which entailed us dressing up in traditional Keralan clothes and handing out cake to all the Indian people standing around. I wore a sari, which is basically a skirt and top with 6 metres of extra material wrapped around you, and I am completely baffled as to why it's such a popular outfit- it's boiling and horrendously uncomfortable.
We ate a lot, like an unhealthy amount, of treats. Nearly everyday we would go to the corner shop or the bakery in the closest town and gorge on tea and coconut cookies and egg puffs and other delights. It's just so cheap! We never spent more than $2.50 and we ate heaps. Lucky it was a 40 minute return walk from Our Home or we'd probably both be battling some health issues by now...

So that was our last month. A great, very full-on and interesting experience. We left last Thursday morning, with watery eyes (me) and promises from both of us we would be back next year. Then we jumped on the bus and headed south.