Illness!

Derek caught some bug yesterday, leaving me to wander around the town by myself. It's so different here then it was in the north, I'm the only white person around, and NOBODY CARES. I love it. I picked up a large dinner for the two of us with desert for 3 dollars. I was getting really worried last night, Derek felt like a radiator, but was shivering and complaining of being too cold. Then a few hours later his fever broke and he was all clammy, now he's almost fine. Who knows what that was, probably food related. I was worried I'd have to bundle him onto our 42 hour train ride all fever-dreaming.

We're in Munnar right now, surrounded by tea plantations and spice farms. It's lovely here. A month ago I was all GOD why won't this end, but now I don't want to go home. Of course. We're heading to Mumbai on the 4th to do some shopping, then a week in South Korea annoying Courtney before heading home so Derek can go to a bachelor party in Montreal and I can send him angry text messages every few hours.

There's a shop nearby that sells spices and homemade chocolate (of questionable quality), and their halwa is AMAZING. It's like a large block of jujube-jelly full of figs and nuts and every spice in the store. Also it's 30 cents for 100 grams.

We saw this painting for sale in Kochi. They wanted about 600 dollars for it. I'm tempted to go back and try to bargain them down, this is the most amazing thing I have ever seen.

Camel Trekking Part 1

(I wrote this a month ago and haven't finished it, but it's getting long so I'll just put up the first part for now. The camel trek is one of the reasons I'm glad I went to Rajasthan. Also - green mustard curry.)

Part of our over-priced car rental was a free camel safari, which is a very touristy thing to do in the northwest of Rajahstan. I was looking forward to this, and not too worried since I figured if they deal with hysterical suburbanites and their sullen children then we probably won’t get thrown into too many thorn bushes. (Just the one.) Now that I’ve done some reading on the treks, I think we got very very lucky, not in where we stayed (scammer central), but in one of our camel drivers, The Smartest Camel Driver in the World. He must work for tips, and instead of being the smarmy annoying scammer that is all too common to the north, he’s gone with the be really nice and authentic style of tip-upping. Is it possible to start a school to train people in that style? Somebody needs to write that book. I feel like I need to track him down right now and give him more money, with everyone else I just want to go back and kick them in the butt. Derek’s camel guy was somewhat less impressive, a 15 year old who treated it much like your average teen would treat flipping burgers.


Khuhri is a small town outside of Jasailmer, located within a national park. The place we were at, The Desert Camp, has a group of thatched huts inside an enclosure for tourists to stay. They offered to show us around the village, which is all old-style mud homes with goats and cows wandering around, which of course ended with a sales pitch. Oh, won’t you help these poor people by buying these homemade blankets that take them many months to sew, you know, the ones you can buy in Canada for half the price that are made in Nepal. TTHHPTH.

There were two options with the camel ride, sleep out in the desert (a kilometre or so away) or come back and sleep in the hut. I chose the desert, so they piled on the heavy blankets and assured us they’d be bringing us dinner.

(My camel driver and his Camel, Lalu. When I went to take the photo he held up a hand and took his turban off and stuck it on Derek's head. This is when I realized he is the Smartest Camel Driver in the World.)

Riding a camel is a lot like riding a horse, if that horse was on pogo sticks. They lie down for you to climb on, and when they stand back up they stick their butt in the air, putting you at a nearly vertical angle. It's terrifying. It's also the only thing keeping you from telling them you want down, because you know the camel going to stick their butt in the air to do so. And there’s nothing to hold onto. At least on a horse you have that thought that if things get out of hand you can grip the horse’s neck. A camel’s neck is very far away, and long enough so that it can reach around and bite you, or perhaps spit in your face. Our camels were very nice though, and only stumbled occasionally.


They took us on a roundabout journey, a few hours through rocky land before hitting the sand dunes. We saw lots of antelope, some large Egyptian vultures, a desert fox that they chased for a bit, and, of course, goats and cows. I didn’t get many photos as that would have required loosening my death grip on the saddle. My camel driver, who sat behind me, only knew the few English words he needed to know, “okay?” “welcome”, and “okay, okay, many many tourist”.

(Camels have weird feet. I'd never really thought about it before. Also weird tails, they don't have a brush on the end, they have thick fur running down both sides so it looks like a big centipede growing out of their butt. Usually their tail is tied up by the tip to the saddle, I'm not sure why. Probably poop related.)

We set up camp in the dunes and wandered around barefoot. I tried to track some animals by their prints, but we could never figure out which direction they had gone. It’s just as well, turns out they were spider tracks. A very large spider. Some small local urchin showed up and tried to get Derek to give him his watch, then maybe 10 rupees? Pen? Rupees? Rupees? Rupees? And so on.


Our driver and a man from the resort showed up with our dinner in a large tiffin box set and stayed to chat for a while by the fire. It was a very good dinner, including small thin “desert beans” and fresh chapattis that my camel guy (I think his name was Acheze. It was very guttural. There are only so many times you can ask someone to repeat their name before you just smile and nod.) roasted for us on hot embers. They got to eat after us, which I found awkward. If we ate too much, they get less dinner, if we take too long, their dinner gets cold. Cultural difference between valuing a guest over not wanting to be a hassle, I suppose. After they washed up by rubbing everything down with sand, and a tired looking dog came by and licked the spot for a long time.


(to be cont...)

India Doggies

I swore I would avoid all animals in India, due to the alarming amount of rabies (go read about rabies. It's terrifying. Like some made-up sci-fi disease, you go insane before you die), but the dogs in India, woo, it's hard. This is one major untapped resource, the dogs here are awesome. If any of them were in a kennel in Toronto they'd be adopted the same day. They're all the right size, they're pretty, they're really well behaved because they get the shit beat out of them if they do anything wrong. One fat little black and white dog thought I was going to give her some food and so desperately wanted to jump up on me, but just pressed her nose against my thigh and did a silly little doggy dance instead.

On the beaches there are tons of puppies being carted around like babies by young hippie children, all hand-fed and wearing homemade collars. I can just imagine the scene when it's time to go home. Not surprisingly all the dogs love you and will sit by your feet and follow you everywhere.

At the train station on the way out we met the worlds smartest dog, he came up behind me when I was sitting on a bench so I patted him on the head and turned around, so he walks in front and starts rubbing his head against the bottom of my foot and then rests his chin on my knee. No one taught him any doggie parlour tricks, he just figured out the best way to sucker white tourists. We named him Plato.

I can only imagine the red tape it would be to get a street dog into Canada, but I'm starting to think it could potentially be worth the hassle. It's the new postcard, mangy doggies!

I am having fun, I swear

I was taking to Mom over skype last night and apparently the blog makes it sound like I am all surly and upset, so clearing the air, I am having a good time. We're heading to Munnar to wander around tea plantations and find some spice farms. There are some nice people here, and men holding hands will never stop being awesome. Especially when it's two cops holding batons with their other hands.

I think I'm just a bit disappointed in how things have changed in India, I wasn't expecting it to be exactly like it was when we lived here, but also wasn't prepared for the difference. For example, Mom doesn't remember any touts or people trying to sell you junk while touring Rajasthan in 86. It is the only thing I remember from touring Rajasthan in 09. It would be another thing if there were good changes as well, but there's still heavy corruption, no sanitation, all of that, and they've just added more people, more traffic, and the tourists have made everyone surly and expecting money. It's that 'Lonely Planet' effect, where as soon as it's written down that a place is good, it instantly becomes not good. As usual, I blame everybody else. Though I think the german guy who was completely wasted at 10 in the morning, burning a pile of his clothes and garbage in front of the restaurant while trying to start fights with the locals, completely deserves my scorn.

Om Beach in Gokarna

That is where we were. We have now moved one beach north, we're renting a hut for 2.50 a night and this one has a concrete floor! What an upgrade. Derek bought us tickets for a night train heading south tomorrow and has told me to figure out what we should do when we get there. More of the same, I imagine. We were lucky to meet up with another traveler (hi Dan) to hang out with for a while. Three months is a long time to hang out with just one person. I asked Derek what we'll be doing when we get back and he just stares at me. Probably not a good sign.

We're both looking forward to going home. I don't know how someone could travel around India for one or two years, hell, even the four months we had originally planned. There's just not that much going on here. It's kind of boring. Can someone keep an interest in temples for that long? Maybe if they were all rat temples.

There are herds of local men on the beaches that wander around asking women in bikinis if they can get a photo with them (there is actually a large sign before the beach telling men not to do that. I am serious), something that happens everywhere here and confuses me. What are you going to do with all these photos of yourself with some white lady you'll never meet again? Are they telling people they slept with her? I can't imagine any other purpose so it always really creeps me out when they ask, though thankfully due to the scantily clad young women here who seem to have missed the cultural sensitivity memo they've been leaving me alone. Except that time I was walking to the hut and a group of about 8 guys stopped and slowly turned to watch as I walked by. I'm wearing a shirt and long board shorts into the water, what the fuck am I supposed to do. It's probably a good thing they keep the beaches so clean, I couldn't find a rock to throw at them and so I flipped them the bird and stormed off.

I'd be really interested in reading some sociology studies on this kind of behavior. What can be done to prevent it, mainly. There are plenty of other patriarchal societies where men aren't so freaking creepy, what's happening here that's so different? I keep thinking about how in Paris I got stuck in a turnstile on the subway with my large bag and a group of men materialized out of nowhere, lifted me and my luggage over, and then disappeared again. If I got stuck in a turnstile in India a group of men would appear out of nowhere and stick their hands up my shirt.

A Beach!

We're on a beach! I'm blanking on the name of the beach, we're just south of Goa. The beaches of Goa, or should I say A beach in Goa, because I only bothered to check out one beach, was gross and sucky. They were burning a pile of plastic right on the sand, the food sucked, lots of drunk pasty white people wearing no clothes and driving scooters into ditches. I took a look around and told Derek we should leave. I think we've been at this enough to know that if a place sucks you can pick up and try somewhere else. He thought we should at least give it some effort, but I was all TTHPTTH and went back to the cottage and slept it out.

This beach is much nicer. I'm not sure when we'll leave, it is so nice. The water is murky, but the waves are awesome, and the food is good. Lots of cows and fat puppies and nice hippies. We're staying in a hut on the sand that has no real floor so there is sand in everything we own. The shower is less of a shower and more of a bucket of water behind a wall.

We've been wandering around a bit and getting knocked over by waves. Derek is especially good at get tumbled about. I look over and all I can see is a foot and part of an elbow. I mainly excell at having my clothes ripped off. Managed to get my top back on before anyone saw, completely not noticing that my shorts had come undone. Hello India!

There's a festival in town in a few days that might be fun, hopefully some photos soon.

Travellers Lament

So, I've been thinking that I am not so good at backpacking. Every place we visit is either really meh (or downright UHG), or else we find out about a bunch of cool things right after we book tickets to leave. After almost three months, things have gotten somewhat monotonous. It's the same trying to track down decent food, trying to find a decent place to stay, trying to follow a map, trying to avoid touts. All the ruins and temples have blended together in my mind. I'm not really sure how to spice things up. I'm not unhappy or complaining here, just hoping if there is something to figure out, that I do so before we leave.

I'm starting to suspect that most backpackers are liars. It's like asking someone if they're good in bed, no one's going to admit how awful they are. Also mainly they appear to be interested in getting wasted. Backpacking might just be one of those things, like night clubs and office meetings, that are far more entertaining after tossing a few back.

We watched 'The Beach' at a restaurant last night, a surprisingly worse movie then I remember, which is all about creating this secret place only a few people know about on a tropical island. They go on about how much better it is then the mainland resorts but... it's the exact same as the mainland resorts. Just secret and hard to get to. One scene has the lead character sitting on a beach looking at the partiers dancing around on the sand and listening to techno, all badmouthing it and wanting to go back. And then later everyone's back at The Beach.. dancing around in the sand and listening to techno. I think this really says more about backpacking then the movie gets into.

Next time I go travelling I'm going to turn it into an art retreat and bring materials to sit around and draw ruins and people. At first I thought, what's the point, I can do that at home, but then, people can get drunk at home. Maybe that's the point of travelling. Also the food here is better.