Our Journey Continued... (Goa-Delhi) -Trevor

Figuring we’re starting to near the end of January it’s time I finally write a little more about our trip around India.  Lately it has just been hard to actually sit down and write about our trips because the details, crazy situations, and stories seem so endless but I’ll try and highlight at least some of them for you guys.

Candolim Beach, Goa

Our previous blog post brought us to our first destination, the wonderful beaches of Goa.  Excitement during our stay here consisted of meeting Brooke’s boyfriend Evan at the railway station who was going to join us for the rest of the trip, being surrounded by other white people for once, our first actual over-our-heads shower after leaving the US, sampling an endless amount of restaurants due to Goa’s tourist business, and renting mopeds to explore the coast. The latter brought a little too much excitement for me when I found myself lying on the side of the road after a truck cut me off causing me and my moped to fall and slide down the road. "Awesome Trevor you would be the one to get in an accident in a foreign country," I thought.  I definitely consider myself lucky as a crash like this could have ended my ability to travel with some serious injuries, but instead other than a bloodied arm, knee, and foot, some very uncomfortable road rash was the extent of the damage.

Saying goodbye to Goa and its beaches was hard, but on Tuesday the 13^th we boarded a train for Mumbai.  Shortly into our ride, after talking to the fellow riders we learned that the train’s destination wasn’t actually Mumbai, it was Pune.  To reach Mumbai we had to get off at an early station and then take local trains to Mumbai.  This stop was scheduled for around 2:00 am or so in the morning  so my road rash combined with the fear of missing the station caused my sleep to be more like no sleep.  We got off at our stop and bought a ticket to Mumbai Central Station, we were set, or so we thought.  A few minutes into this train ride we learned that this train did not in fact go to Mumbai Central.  What followed was a series of mad dashes from train to train, often just following the crowds of people and asking for help from the whoever we could find around us that spoke English. 

The Caves of Elephanta

After a day in Mumbai, seeing the Gateway to India, taking a boat to Elephanta Island and seeing the famous caves, and exploring Crawford market we boarded a 18 hour train to Jaipur Rajasthan.  We arrived in the early afternoon but had time to head out of the city and explore the Amber Fort and Palace before the sun went down.  This was actually one of my favorite places, the massive fortress complex looming on the hill made me feel like I had traveled back in time.  In India the idea of unsafe areas and guardrails hasn’t really been implemented at many tourist sites so we found a crumbing stairway and climbed up the mountain to a second fort overlooking the entire valley.

Amber Fort, Jaipur

Jaipur was definitely an experience.  We battled the expensive prices of the auto-rickshaw mafia as it is called in Jaipur, explored the Old Pink City and it sites, and even saw a Bollywood film in a famous theater.  The rockin movie soundtrack may or may not have been blasted on Brooke, Sid, and my computers when we got back to the school. :)  We also battled the cold.  Apparently we figured that the rest of India would be similar temperatures to the always summer temperatures of Andhra Pradesh.  Ya we were definitely wrong, and the lower temperatures found us buying scarves and even a blanket for each of us to try and keep warm.

On Sunday the 18^th, we arrived in Agra.  Agra was foggy and cold but the next morning we woke up early to go see the Taj.  Considering we could only see a few hundred feet in front of us because of the fog we bought our tickets and hoped the fog would burn off later.  To kill time until then, we decided to explore a little bit of Agra.  This included some of the most persistent sellers we had encountered. A man literally followed me around for 15 minutes trying to sell me a whip.  He started at $20 US dollars and despite me telling him no matter how low he went in price I had no need for a whip, he continued to offer it to me and the price ended at around $2.  It was almost sad that he was so desperate to sell me something.

Thankfully that afternoon, although it wasn’t the bluest of skies most of the fog had burned off and we spent the rest of the day at the Taj Mahal.  The marble palace, calligraphy that scales the walls, and jeweled tomb on the inside truly were sights to see.  As the sun went down, the light colors highlighting the massive architecture combined with fog truly gave the historical site an almost mystical and heavenly atmosphere.  Before leaving we even ran into a guy and girl from good old Spokane Washington.

We were then off to New Dehli, our last major stop in India during the first leg of our trip.  I had heard many things about Dehli before we arrived, that it was dirty, full of trash, loud, and busy.  It was all of these things but we were actually pleasantly surprised with some of our time there.  We stayed in an area close to the main train station.  This area, especially at night, had the feel of a giant street fair.  There were endless amounts of street food, shops with decent prices, and vegetable markets complete with a butcher shop that looked like something out of a horror movie.

Beautiful People

So far we had not encountered any extreme problems on our trip.  But when I think about this, without the help of so many of the local people this would not have been the case.  Yes there are bad people in India, but there is also so much good here.  I remember just standing in the Mumbai Central Railway Station trying to figure out what to do.  An elderly Indian man came up to us and asked us if he could assist us in any way.  He then proceeded to give us detailed directions to our destination.  It was visible that it was giving this man joy to help us. He acted as if it was an honor to help us.  So many other people also came to our aid when we didn’t know where to go.  Traveling in India, especially on a budget is in no way easy.  It’s a constant battle for fair prices, traveling sleeper class left us feeling dirtier than dirty, and nothing really is straightforward.  But besides this, traveling India created so many memories that I wouldn’t trade for anything.  Many of the people here are just as beautiful as the Taj Mahal and being able to experience their country truly is a gift.

-T

The beginning of our epic journey - Sidney

When we started this trip, we thought it would be smart to write down, every once in a while, the things that had happened so we wouldn’t forget and so we could share it with everyone. So while in Goa, after our first journey on a train, Sid wrote this up (with a little help from me, Brooke and some input from Trevor as well). Unfortunately we got lazy and didn’t continue writing great blog posts about every place we went, so an update on the rest of the trip will come later! This will give you an idea of how the trip started though. Hope you enjoy! - B

"Vara and Prim cooked us up a gourmet meal before we left consisting of Tiger rice (enough Tiger rice to feed an army), egg fried rice, and chapathi’s (of which we made 20 and had to take some in a ‘parcel’). She also had homemade peanut butter (sweeter than ours at home) and egg curry (guudu curra). We ate at a semi-rushed pace under the candlelit dimness of the power outage – a daily routine we’ve gotten to know quite well.

Ramana was waiting for us and urging us forward because he wanted someone to come to the railway station with us and that wouldn’t happen if we rode a later bus. We ended up going to Vempalli with Rajeev and then to Kadapa as a trio because we don’t need no babysitter. The trip began. With enlightened hearts and serious anticipation we were on our way. We made a few friends on the bus to Kadapa who helped us know which stop to get out on and how much an autorickshaw would be to the railway station. Everytime we talk about a “train station” the Indians have a look of confusion but when we say “railway station” they know exactly what we’re talking about.

                Looking around the railway station in Kadapa you’d think they’re acting as part railway station and part hostile because bodies lined the floor and we had to be careful where we stepped. Dogs snuggled closely to oblivious mummies snoring under their patterned blankets as if they knew each other in a previous reincarnation. After asking the enquiry attendant about the process of our train situation we sat down in an open area where hardly anyone was around – perhaps  a little too cautious about our belongings and paranoid every time someone walked too close to our bags. However, there were reasons why no one sat at this certain area of the railway station – mosquitoes. The war began as Brooke quickly whipped out her Cutter, while 6 gigantic blood suckers homed in at Trevor’s juicy calves. It was a massacre. The war claimed no victor but left the mosquitoes hungry and moved us to an area where we sat under a nice, cool mosquito-preventing fan. After 5 games of i-Spy and 6 games of Go Fish, it was time to board the train which was conveniently an hour late. The peculiar mix of excitement and tiredness was quite the experience. You know that feeling your brain has when you’re up too late but everything’s funny and you’re tired? Yeah, that’s what it was. If there were more people at the train station at that late hour we probably would’ve gotten some confused glances.

                Chronic laugher, dim fluorescent lights, loud snoring, cigarette smoke, narrow aisles and multitudes of buff, bald men were the dominating features of our particular sleeper car at one o’clock in the morning when we boarded. Oh joy. Picture the three of us sitting on one side berth cot that we were supposed to share for the night (since only one of our tickets was confirmed) with our bags on our laps, staring at the wall wondering what the next 12 hours of our lives would bring, or if life would even bring us 12 hours. To say the least, we were pretty scared. Not just because of our surroundings but because we were tired, we wanted sleep, and it’s almost impossible to sleep with one eye open. We eventually ended up in different berths as the night went on and people disembarked the train at various stops. The train was considerably less scary after sunrise. Sid made some great friends with the bald men who had actually all shaved their heads because they were returning from a visit to a temple in Andhra Pradesh. We were all introduced and did some Hindi language practice.

                It was good to get the first trip on a sleeper car train out of the way. With many more in our future, we would have to be prepared to meet some interesting people and smell some new smells!"

- S

We were glad that Sid made good friends with these guys. :)

Home in Andhra

After an incredible 28 day journey around India and Nepal we are back safe in our apartment at the school in good old Andhra Pradesh.  We visited 9 major areas including Goa, Mumbai, Jaipur, Agra, and Dehli, Darjeeling, and Kolkata in India and Pokhara and Kathmandu in Nepal.  Transportation included trains, buses, mopeds, taxis, auto-rickshaws, bicycle-rickshaws, and subways.  Compared to the polluted dirty cities like Dehli and Kathmandu the slow farmlands where we live never seemed so inviting.  It is amazing to see the familiar faces at the school and to be back with our neighbors Ramana and Chandu.  We're still tackling each of our piles of laundry, I've never missed a washing machine so much and you don't want to know what the water looks like in the buckets when we are done, and also enjoying the joys of being able to cook for ourselves and feel clean.  It's daunting thinking about telling you guys all about our trip but in the next few days we'll try to post at least some of the crazy highlights.   I hope you all had had an amazing holiday season and that the start of 2012 has already been a blessed one.

-T