It was sooo nice to finally arrive in the south of India.. just what we'd been waiting for since finishing work - a nice relaxing time on the beach! But.. the Indian Railway Corporation parcel office had other ideas! They told it was gonna take another week for the bike to arrive, so we decided to head to Kerala - on the night train. - Yet again!! We'd left all our rucksacks in the left luggage at the train station. We tried to leave three litres of petrol in plastic water bottles (the fuel tank has to be empty before we can put it on the train) all tied up inside sacks but the guy sniffed them out. If we'd tried that one in London, we'd probably still be detained in custody
now, being questioned by the anti-terrorism sqad!
First stop in Kerala was Fort Kochin. Really really nice- full of old colonial Portuguese buildings and mostly well-maintained. Not really India though- more like an enclave for rich older Western tourists. The best food we tried was a tea stall near the fishing nets where all the fishermen went for breakfast after their day's work. We had to eat with hands which I'm still not used to - especially when it's liquid! A guy in a homestay we stopped at insisted we eat with hands and refused to let his daughter give me a spoon. Of course I obliged, but somehow it just tastes better with a spoon.
We spent one night on a houseboat in Kerala crusing the backwaters. We'd toured the place the day before- searching out the best bargain. It's really expensive if you're backpacking -that's why most people
tend to be package tourists. In the end though, we met a crowd of backpackers from England, Sweden, Ireland and Canada at a homestay in Alappey who wanted to rent a houseboat for three nights so we ended up staying with them one night -two rooms. - Worst night's sleep since I arrived! But a great 24 hours - mostly drinking rum and jumping off the boat into the water.
After leaving Kerala, we headed to the beach in a place called Gokana in the state of Karnataka not far from Goa. A few people advised us along the way that this place is much nicer than Goa and I'd definately agree with that... The beach we're on has about seven or eight cafes along it each with huts to rent as well.
One day Angel was relaxing in a hammock in the cafe, finally feeling totally mellow, staring into space, being hypnotised by the waves and palm trees swaying gently in the breeze and starting to drop off- when suddenly a (very) loud German accent announced 'Sorry but that hammock is personal property!' He opened his eyes- all startled and saw a giant Gandalf-like figure with long grey hair, kind of grey skin (and not altogther beardless), huge hands and feet and a staff in one hand. We still weren't sure whether the creature before us was a man
or a woman until we saw the long drooping boobs clearly visible beneath her wet tshirt. It was a bit of a shock to the system and at that moment I realised actually how huge the hammock was, and how much Angel looked like Frodo Baggins as he scrambled out out of the giant hammock and came face to face with the fore-mentioned boobs!! After that, we thought it was safer to just buy our own hammocks.
After a couple of days, Yarif, the guy we'd travelled with before, arrived. We spent alot of time just chilling and chatting at different cafes or swimming in the sea and he stayed about a week with us. After Yarif left, we helped a German guy make a volleyball pitch on the beach and got quite into the old beach volleyball. Everytime someone got tired and bowed out, there was always someone ready to jump in. - Loads of fun even though I definitely need more practice!
We met a good crowd of people at dinner, from Spain, Australia and Germany and ended up having a bonfire party on the beach.. People arrived from all over and when the rum ran out we got more ...and more and more... Fantastic night, - so much fun with people playing guitar and Belinda La Espanola, even persuaded me to dance Sevillanas with her. As Martha will tell you... You can tell I'm really hammered when I start with the flamenco ;)
Unfortunately, we had to leave all our new friends the next morning to try and change our flight to stay in India longer. If not, then we only had ten days to get to Goa, sell the bike and get back to Dehli for our flight to Bangkok.
Luckily we managed to change the flights to leave India for BKK on 3rd Feb and I booked to go home for Martha's wedding on 20th May.
Extending our stay was great but we still were under a bit of pressure to sell the bike. We thought it best to go straight to Goa, where we stood the best chance. We didn't really want to go as we knew it'd be busy and we were right - nothing like Gokarna we'd just come from. We were in Goa a couple of years ago in October and this time was much much busier in high season, but still quieter than usual according to the locals. We took a room above the German Bakery in the busiest stretch of Arambol, so more people would see the bike, and went around sticking posters everwhere. We had a couple of offers from locals till we realised that our log book stamp only went up to 2006. We left the bike on display at the famous Anjuna Fleamarket but almost everybody seemed to be package tourists.
After the fourth day of failed sales attempts we decided that maybe the price was putting people off. We'd bought the bike for 28,000 rupees - £400 but we'd spent at least 10,000 fixing things - new seat,
new tyre, new battery, new rear shockers and of course a new paint job... so our original price was 38,000. There were a few other bikes for sale around - all belonging to Israelis, but non (in our opinion ;)) as nice as ours. They were all going for around 35-40,000. In the end we printed out a better photo- in colour and changed our poster price to 32,000. A local mechanic saw it and told us to leave the bike in his shop and he was positive he'd sell in two days and get us 32,000. We agreed that if he got anymore than that, he could keep it. Anyway, we said we'd be back in half an hour with the bike, but just a bit further down the road, a Norwiegan couple stopped us and had a look at the bike. The girl said she'd take it before she even tried it. So that was it! Sold! Gone! ...and suddenly we were bikeless!
We left Goa the next day for Hampi, which everyone has told us is amazing.... hasta la proxima! xx
now, being questioned by the anti-terrorism sqad!
First stop in Kerala was Fort Kochin. Really really nice- full of old colonial Portuguese buildings and mostly well-maintained. Not really India though- more like an enclave for rich older Western tourists. The best food we tried was a tea stall near the fishing nets where all the fishermen went for breakfast after their day's work. We had to eat with hands which I'm still not used to - especially when it's liquid! A guy in a homestay we stopped at insisted we eat with hands and refused to let his daughter give me a spoon. Of course I obliged, but somehow it just tastes better with a spoon.
We spent one night on a houseboat in Kerala crusing the backwaters. We'd toured the place the day before- searching out the best bargain. It's really expensive if you're backpacking -that's why most people
tend to be package tourists. In the end though, we met a crowd of backpackers from England, Sweden, Ireland and Canada at a homestay in Alappey who wanted to rent a houseboat for three nights so we ended up staying with them one night -two rooms. - Worst night's sleep since I arrived! But a great 24 hours - mostly drinking rum and jumping off the boat into the water.
After leaving Kerala, we headed to the beach in a place called Gokana in the state of Karnataka not far from Goa. A few people advised us along the way that this place is much nicer than Goa and I'd definately agree with that... The beach we're on has about seven or eight cafes along it each with huts to rent as well.
One day Angel was relaxing in a hammock in the cafe, finally feeling totally mellow, staring into space, being hypnotised by the waves and palm trees swaying gently in the breeze and starting to drop off- when suddenly a (very) loud German accent announced 'Sorry but that hammock is personal property!' He opened his eyes- all startled and saw a giant Gandalf-like figure with long grey hair, kind of grey skin (and not altogther beardless), huge hands and feet and a staff in one hand. We still weren't sure whether the creature before us was a man
or a woman until we saw the long drooping boobs clearly visible beneath her wet tshirt. It was a bit of a shock to the system and at that moment I realised actually how huge the hammock was, and how much Angel looked like Frodo Baggins as he scrambled out out of the giant hammock and came face to face with the fore-mentioned boobs!! After that, we thought it was safer to just buy our own hammocks.
After a couple of days, Yarif, the guy we'd travelled with before, arrived. We spent alot of time just chilling and chatting at different cafes or swimming in the sea and he stayed about a week with us. After Yarif left, we helped a German guy make a volleyball pitch on the beach and got quite into the old beach volleyball. Everytime someone got tired and bowed out, there was always someone ready to jump in. - Loads of fun even though I definitely need more practice!
We met a good crowd of people at dinner, from Spain, Australia and Germany and ended up having a bonfire party on the beach.. People arrived from all over and when the rum ran out we got more ...and more and more... Fantastic night, - so much fun with people playing guitar and Belinda La Espanola, even persuaded me to dance Sevillanas with her. As Martha will tell you... You can tell I'm really hammered when I start with the flamenco ;)
Unfortunately, we had to leave all our new friends the next morning to try and change our flight to stay in India longer. If not, then we only had ten days to get to Goa, sell the bike and get back to Dehli for our flight to Bangkok.
Luckily we managed to change the flights to leave India for BKK on 3rd Feb and I booked to go home for Martha's wedding on 20th May.
Extending our stay was great but we still were under a bit of pressure to sell the bike. We thought it best to go straight to Goa, where we stood the best chance. We didn't really want to go as we knew it'd be busy and we were right - nothing like Gokarna we'd just come from. We were in Goa a couple of years ago in October and this time was much much busier in high season, but still quieter than usual according to the locals. We took a room above the German Bakery in the busiest stretch of Arambol, so more people would see the bike, and went around sticking posters everwhere. We had a couple of offers from locals till we realised that our log book stamp only went up to 2006. We left the bike on display at the famous Anjuna Fleamarket but almost everybody seemed to be package tourists.
After the fourth day of failed sales attempts we decided that maybe the price was putting people off. We'd bought the bike for 28,000 rupees - £400 but we'd spent at least 10,000 fixing things - new seat,
new tyre, new battery, new rear shockers and of course a new paint job... so our original price was 38,000. There were a few other bikes for sale around - all belonging to Israelis, but non (in our opinion ;)) as nice as ours. They were all going for around 35-40,000. In the end we printed out a better photo- in colour and changed our poster price to 32,000. A local mechanic saw it and told us to leave the bike in his shop and he was positive he'd sell in two days and get us 32,000. We agreed that if he got anymore than that, he could keep it. Anyway, we said we'd be back in half an hour with the bike, but just a bit further down the road, a Norwiegan couple stopped us and had a look at the bike. The girl said she'd take it before she even tried it. So that was it! Sold! Gone! ...and suddenly we were bikeless!
We left Goa the next day for Hampi, which everyone has told us is amazing.... hasta la proxima! xx
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