So, i think i spoke briefly about some travellers we met at the Tree House who told us about the riot and deaths at the temple festival? Well anyway, we bumped into these three new yorkers in Fort Kochi who were pretty much wanting to do the same path as us, so we decided that 6 is better than three and we travelled for around a week together.
These guys were NUTS. I have never really hung around with anyone from the US so i guess maybe im just not used to americans. Not used to random bouts of singing, seronading, dancing when sober or inparticular rap. But after a week with these guys i got pretty dam used to it and even starting using words like 'Jazzercise'. Ridic, i know.
But despite these New Yorkers being pretty dam full on, mainly making homosexual jokes 24/7, and rapping at random points of the day then high fiveing or knuckle knocking to show their appreciation of one another, they were bucket loads of fun.
We arrived in Allappe (where the famous backwaters are) and niema pulled out the card of a guest house that we were passed on by some lovely travellers(thank you to our good friends beni, jod and brett) with the name 'BIJOU' at the top. I literally had this card in my hand, fresh off the bus and was about to ask how to get there when a gang of indian guys started laughing and then all pointed to their left, where a man stepped forwards and said in this booming voice 'I AM BIJOU'. Coincidentally he was just lingering around the bus, and was just as confused as us about why he was there, and how we already had his card when we had only just arrived. Anyways, we went with this guy and he takes us to a MANSION house which he says we can just decide what we pay. We chose a pound a night, and he is like 'yes yes yes, very good'.... we were pretty shocked, it was lush!
So had a house to ourselves for like 4 days which was amazing!
Then we decided to go on the backwaters, which for me was the most HORRIFIC day of my life. I hated it. I didnt hate it infact, I was just so horrendously swamp sick that i had to put all my concentration on NOT boffing on one of the new yorkers, that i saw pretty much nothing, and moaned pretty much all day. it wasnt so fun for me.
We had this INCREDIBLE guide though, who hated me because i was swamp sick and didnt eat very much so he kept calling me his 'bad daughter'. i tried to save myself from his wrath by pretending i was pregnant, and thats why i felt sick, thinking that he may understand this but instead he just laughed and said 'you no look like this if you pregnant. you look like wrinkles if you pregnant' which i thought was quite funny so i laughed for a long time which made him a bit happier with me.
Anyway, our guide told him to call us 'Dad' which firstly was hilarious, and secondly he spent the majority of the day singing shakiras world cup song 'waka waka' and doing some kind of chemical brothers esque salom dance!! we have videos so when theyre up you can all laugh at him- crazy, crazy guy.
After allappe we travelled to varkala, a beach which reminded me a lot of home. There was very little to do in varkala apart from eat and drink so we had a few days there including my birthday, which was a fucking FANTASTIC night including a massage which the girls bought me... i was slightly terrified when the woman told me to take off my top and then started massaging my boobs.... stiffling laughter throughout i was! ahaha
Weve been in Sri lanka for a day now, spent it at hikaduwa beach but were all feeling like its time to go inland for a while despite the ridiculous heat. Were planning on going to see the elephant orphanage and maybe work there for a few days, and tomorrow were going to a English convention, mainly for me which also has wine tasting, mainly for jo and niem! hahah so its all good!
Were still having to get used to the currency though because we still work in ruppees but the exchange rate is different, so your really getting twice as much for your money despite things seeming expensive.
So, basically sri lanka here we come! It seems easy enough to travel around here, so much smaller than india so trains are cheap and only last a few hours rather than the ridic 16 hour one we got skanked on!
Right, well thats the update! Ive put up photos of my horrific bum accident for you all to laugh over so hope you enjoy them!!!
Friday, January 28, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
It is a miracle!
So, my bum has healed! After a week or two of extreme difficulty wearing pants and any clothes infact without serious pain, my bum is back to normal minus the albino patch which now graces my left bum cheek. I ended up going to a doctor with niema to mainly get our stomaches checkd out- gastro again by the way- and took the oppertunity to get my behind out for the lovely lady doctor as well, who gave me some weird aryvedic oil she had made. Cost me 500rupees but TOTALLY worked so im not complaining.
Anyways, Heather and Wan have left now, so we are once again the three amigos which feels weird after having those two as well as beni, brett and jod around for a few days in Palolem. We took a train which was supposidly 9hours to Kerala on friday.... in fact scratch that, let me explain this train to you.
So we got to the train station, and were the ONLY white people there. We attempted and failed to find anyone who could really understand English, so we were having a little problem understanding which platform we needed to be on to get the train. Anyways, this train pulls up and we looked inside, lush. Cabins with white curtains and four beds in each, little resteraunt on board, looked like you could happily walk about and stuff so we were pretty excited to get onto our train UNTIL ......our REAL train pulled up....
this looked like a tin can on very badly attached wheels. We walked in with our huge rucksacks banging into everything in their paths, and it was like being in the bottom of the titanic. It looked like the inside of a ship, and bear in mind we got on this thing at 10 at night so it was pitch black, were using torches to find our bunks, and when we do there are people sleeping in them! So luckily this indian guy hears us talking and he can speak very good english so he wakes the people up and tells them that we have tickets so they need basically to get the shiz out of our beds! THEN we have to navigate up three bunk beds, without treding on anyone in the pitch darkness! it was a pretty extreme game! So we get used to it, get to sleep and wake up around an hour before we are meant to get off this train.... turns out the train is another 9hours long!!! so we were on the raging stinky indian train for an extra 9hours in the pumping heat, with no air con and only a stupid dusty fan to cool us. The toilet was a hole onto the train track which had clearly been boffed/diareahed and urinated upon during travel by people with bad aim. Basically it wasnt pretty. But we survived, and secretly im pretty sure we all thought it was a fun experience!! It was totally nuts and mental, and stinky and hot, but it was fun too.
So, now basically we are in Kerala. We arrived in Fort Kochi, where we didnt really find much to do apart from take a look at 'Jew Town', the temples and churches in the area, and i bought an amasing painting for my parents of Krishna. Oh, actually we did go to this amasing temple festival- it might have been in the news, there were something like 100deaths in the riot there?
Well basically, we went to this amasing resteraunt called the Tree House, and one of the staff (ricado) told us about the temple festival which was a 20min ferry ride away so we decided to go. He didnt tell us that the night before there was a huge riot and over 100people were killed! We didnt even know this until we met other travellers who told us about it. But the night we went everyting was amazing and ok.
Anyway, it was like a mini festival, there was a lady im guessing famous indian singer on stage, with all the crowd sitting crosslegged (im talking a stage like at jersey live but obv bigger, with the whole crowd just SITTING in silence, mostly holding heart shaped balloons (for what reason i dont know)) really weird. Then the actual temple itself was lit up with fairy lights, and on the road leading to it there was stall after stall of the kind of tack you find at a fairground. There was popcorn, ice cream, all the shebang. So we go into the temple, and copy all of the indian rituals, lighting a candle each and saying a prayer and then go over to the back of the temple where we can hear all this insane noise and drumming.
There is a massive crowd of people, surrounding a group of men who are drumming, behind these men are 6 huge elephants with massive gold jewelry adorning their trunks, and two men sat on their heads, one with what looks like a broom and the other with what looks like air traffic controller cones. In turn these men stand and wave the objects they are holding in time with the drumming, the elephants just stand there, good as gold, clearly bored as hell but the crowd are having a whale of a time! All of the women are slightly bobbing their heads to the music, but the men are dancing with one hand in the air like guys generally do when they like a song, bouncing and waving one arm about in the air. This includes men from 15 to men who can barely stand let alone jump. They are all doing this move! It was insane to watch. You cant help but smile if your there, its crazy.
This is the reason i love religion and temples in India, because there is such freedom in the way that they worship their Gods and pray. If you walk into a temple in India and just look at each person no two people will do the same thing. Some make a prayer possition with their hands, some close their eyes, others will lie face down on the floor, some chant loudly oblivious to all others surrounding them, some press their heads to the walls of the temple whilst silently asking something of their God. Sometimes they dance around, clapping and singing as loudly as they can, and at othertimes the chants from temples sound bone-chilling how eerie and sombre they seem. No one has a set way to worship, they just do what they feel.
Anyways, Heather and Wan have left now, so we are once again the three amigos which feels weird after having those two as well as beni, brett and jod around for a few days in Palolem. We took a train which was supposidly 9hours to Kerala on friday.... in fact scratch that, let me explain this train to you.
So we got to the train station, and were the ONLY white people there. We attempted and failed to find anyone who could really understand English, so we were having a little problem understanding which platform we needed to be on to get the train. Anyways, this train pulls up and we looked inside, lush. Cabins with white curtains and four beds in each, little resteraunt on board, looked like you could happily walk about and stuff so we were pretty excited to get onto our train UNTIL ......our REAL train pulled up....
this looked like a tin can on very badly attached wheels. We walked in with our huge rucksacks banging into everything in their paths, and it was like being in the bottom of the titanic. It looked like the inside of a ship, and bear in mind we got on this thing at 10 at night so it was pitch black, were using torches to find our bunks, and when we do there are people sleeping in them! So luckily this indian guy hears us talking and he can speak very good english so he wakes the people up and tells them that we have tickets so they need basically to get the shiz out of our beds! THEN we have to navigate up three bunk beds, without treding on anyone in the pitch darkness! it was a pretty extreme game! So we get used to it, get to sleep and wake up around an hour before we are meant to get off this train.... turns out the train is another 9hours long!!! so we were on the raging stinky indian train for an extra 9hours in the pumping heat, with no air con and only a stupid dusty fan to cool us. The toilet was a hole onto the train track which had clearly been boffed/diareahed and urinated upon during travel by people with bad aim. Basically it wasnt pretty. But we survived, and secretly im pretty sure we all thought it was a fun experience!! It was totally nuts and mental, and stinky and hot, but it was fun too.
So, now basically we are in Kerala. We arrived in Fort Kochi, where we didnt really find much to do apart from take a look at 'Jew Town', the temples and churches in the area, and i bought an amasing painting for my parents of Krishna. Oh, actually we did go to this amasing temple festival- it might have been in the news, there were something like 100deaths in the riot there?
Well basically, we went to this amasing resteraunt called the Tree House, and one of the staff (ricado) told us about the temple festival which was a 20min ferry ride away so we decided to go. He didnt tell us that the night before there was a huge riot and over 100people were killed! We didnt even know this until we met other travellers who told us about it. But the night we went everyting was amazing and ok.
Anyway, it was like a mini festival, there was a lady im guessing famous indian singer on stage, with all the crowd sitting crosslegged (im talking a stage like at jersey live but obv bigger, with the whole crowd just SITTING in silence, mostly holding heart shaped balloons (for what reason i dont know)) really weird. Then the actual temple itself was lit up with fairy lights, and on the road leading to it there was stall after stall of the kind of tack you find at a fairground. There was popcorn, ice cream, all the shebang. So we go into the temple, and copy all of the indian rituals, lighting a candle each and saying a prayer and then go over to the back of the temple where we can hear all this insane noise and drumming.
There is a massive crowd of people, surrounding a group of men who are drumming, behind these men are 6 huge elephants with massive gold jewelry adorning their trunks, and two men sat on their heads, one with what looks like a broom and the other with what looks like air traffic controller cones. In turn these men stand and wave the objects they are holding in time with the drumming, the elephants just stand there, good as gold, clearly bored as hell but the crowd are having a whale of a time! All of the women are slightly bobbing their heads to the music, but the men are dancing with one hand in the air like guys generally do when they like a song, bouncing and waving one arm about in the air. This includes men from 15 to men who can barely stand let alone jump. They are all doing this move! It was insane to watch. You cant help but smile if your there, its crazy.
This is the reason i love religion and temples in India, because there is such freedom in the way that they worship their Gods and pray. If you walk into a temple in India and just look at each person no two people will do the same thing. Some make a prayer possition with their hands, some close their eyes, others will lie face down on the floor, some chant loudly oblivious to all others surrounding them, some press their heads to the walls of the temple whilst silently asking something of their God. Sometimes they dance around, clapping and singing as loudly as they can, and at othertimes the chants from temples sound bone-chilling how eerie and sombre they seem. No one has a set way to worship, they just do what they feel.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Problems begining with ASS
Amazingly, I managed not to hurt myself whilst trekking through the jungle, jumping off waterfalls, riding on the back of motorbike taxi at ridiculous speeds, riding my own motorbike (with a ridiculous helmet).... but i DID manage to hurt myself when taking a nature wee. Brilliant. To get the fishing boats up the beach here, they have logs which they lube up with oily looking tar stuff.... so i sat on one of these logs to take a nature wee, as heather said it was like 'a natural toilet'. apparently NOT.
I woke up the next day with serious ass ache, and when examined found that i have third degree burns (pretty much) ALL over my bum. Pants are a no go. Trousers are even difficult. Naked is best. Which is a problem if you want to venture outside. Were in India after all. Im going to upload a photo because I dont think you can understand the full pain I am in unless you see for yourself. Basically this tar-oil stuff is acidic and reacted with my skin, BURNING IT OFF (thank GOD i was drunk when it happened otherwise i imagine it would of hurt a lot) i have to keep it moisturized or it feels like its going to rip. Arggghhh its awful. But do you know what makes it more awful? Us four girls have had a serious case of Delhi Belly in the last 24 hours which means regular toilet trips which obviously is not what my poor rotting bottom needs right now..... as you can tell i am feeling very sorry for myself and even had a little weep this morning cus i wanted my mum to put some sudocreme on me and tell me im going to be ok, and i wont have a horrific ass scar.
But on the possitive, times like this make the mini ass shower very handy.
I woke up the next day with serious ass ache, and when examined found that i have third degree burns (pretty much) ALL over my bum. Pants are a no go. Trousers are even difficult. Naked is best. Which is a problem if you want to venture outside. Were in India after all. Im going to upload a photo because I dont think you can understand the full pain I am in unless you see for yourself. Basically this tar-oil stuff is acidic and reacted with my skin, BURNING IT OFF (thank GOD i was drunk when it happened otherwise i imagine it would of hurt a lot) i have to keep it moisturized or it feels like its going to rip. Arggghhh its awful. But do you know what makes it more awful? Us four girls have had a serious case of Delhi Belly in the last 24 hours which means regular toilet trips which obviously is not what my poor rotting bottom needs right now..... as you can tell i am feeling very sorry for myself and even had a little weep this morning cus i wanted my mum to put some sudocreme on me and tell me im going to be ok, and i wont have a horrific ass scar.
But on the possitive, times like this make the mini ass shower very handy.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Decisions, decisions.....
So obviously I have to have some kind of a plan for when i return to J town. Currently I've applied to uni but really..... being out here is making me think....do i really need to do that? I dont really want to live in the UK for three years, getting into debt. I would kind of rather go find a job somewhere random and just work there for a while, doing something crazy and fun.
But then in the long run, do i need a degree? Do i even know what i want to do? I literally have no idea. I know what I like doing but I just dont know how that can all format into one career. Very confused. I just dont really like the idea that i'd go and come out in debt, settle down, get a job and life over.
It sucks. I want to be able to do whatever I want for a while, get a few random jobs and travel a bit, no responsibilities and it not matter if i have no money. But then at some point im going to have to get a real job....with real money.....and a house and shiz..... uoh.
Maybe i should find out when i need to make this decision by, because its probally creeping up on me.....
Palolem - Oscar, Eyebrows, Nacho and friends.....
In my last post i talked about travelling down to the south of Goa, where we are now. It's absaloutly stunning. Blue seas and white sand, much more chilled out then Anjuna though with less parties so New Years was more about sitting on the beach watching fire works, rather than dancing half naked in the sea to Trance music which was actually quite a nice thing!
As I am sure most of you know, Heather arrived with an extra person- Jo's Boyfriend Wayne, who had surprised her for a new years pressie!! He is here for the full two weeks with heather so there is a nice little group of us now. Heather is making these two weeks absaloutly hilarious, last night we went for a meal which took 3 hours to arrive and when it did it was cold, turnes out that they didn't have any electricity and were therefore cooking all the food in someones HOUSE across the road! So now the new question when we get somewhere is 'are you serving food? Do you have a kitchen?' thanks to her question of 'what is going on, ive been here for 3 hours and i havent eaten? are you waiting for someone to finish with their plates so you can wash them then give them to us? is your chef on strike? do you even have a kitchen?' Pure brilliance.
In Anjuna we happened to bump into a group of 3 Jersey people which is nuts! Brett, Beni and Jodie.... who we ended up spending christmas dinner with and having a few mental nights out, (including a pagan beach marriage) before we had to split to come to palolem. We all got on like a house on fire, and it was awesome when they told us they were going to come to palolem for a few days before they travelled up to the north of India. Soooo.... i think it is fair to say that whatever you do, if your with them, it will be fun!
Im sure your going to see photos but our escapades included getting kicked out of our first beach huts (with the other residents leaving a dead, rotting chicken outside our doorstep, as well as a full babies nappy AND throwing coconuts at our huts in the night), the theiving of Shamu, lifejacket wars, 3 man piggy backs, waterfall jumping in the jungle, chai tea at a beach sellers postage-stamp of a house, and pirates of the arabian sea, never mind Eyebrows, Nacho and Oscar. (some of Beni's many rescued dogs)
Basically, we had an awesome time with them and we were all (including heather who had only known them for 2 days) really sad to see them leave, but promised to meet up either back home or along our route somewhere. So now we have one week left in Palolem before we have to leave to get our train down to Kerala which actually im not looking forward to so much at the moment because i FREEEAAKIN love being by the beach, and in the sun, and just travelling about on mopeds all day. But you gotta see something different i guess, time to leave soon.....
But before that we still have time to go tonight to Goa's famous silent disco at neptune point. It is meant to be amaze, so we shall see how that goes! Oh, also writing for gallery in Feb so keep your eyes peeled for the article and check out the photos!
Happy 2011
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