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Bleached and beached
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Our 38 hour $10 trip was pleasant enough all in all only setting us down on the Karwar station at just after midnight. So a night in an Indian station had to be slept away, before we headed our to the sleepy pilgrimage town of Gokarna. Here I lost the others (we'd picked up Kim, a likeable Kiwi at the station) as they stopped for Chai (sweet milky tea, and an integral part of subcontinent life) and I headed out for the beach. I sampled every beach's tiny surf as I progressed to the somewhat strangely named paradise beach. A 5 km walk from town along beaches and round and over rocky headlands , this supposedly idyllic bay turned out to be the haunt of dopeheads. The beach, with its mud and palm huts and three relic chai shops, was a filthy mess, but everyone had been there too long or was too stoned to notice. A couple of nights was all I could take before shouldering the Pakistani trekking gear and returning to Om beach, to find Kim and Chris. An idle three more days passed with tons of swimming and little else, before those relentless travel glands of mine started urging me on. On to here actually. Reasoning that carrying down jackets, fleece longs and that sort of ilk was a)superfluous b)Damn hard work and c)plain dumb, I dumped a bag of stuff here before heading to the hills.
Initially I made for Ooty on a busload of honeymooning Indian Tourists, by way of Bandipur national park. We managed to spot, all inclusive, 3 spotted deer (greeted by my busload with squealing and yelping and much throwing of food) 4 noisy monkeys (greeted by the honeymooners with squealing and yelping and much throwing of food) and 3 roped elephants (greeted by my fellow passengers with squealing and yelping and much throwing of food). Indian wildlife in its natural environment, and some tame animals too !! The park is little more than a very large Lantana (South American Weed!) shrubbery and the words degraded ecosystem would be to give it too much credit. However the scenery got much better as we climbed the hills up a narrow winding road. My wildlife experience of the day was a Paradise flycatcher (they are white here) drifted across the road, ribbonlike and ephemeral.
Ooty was a commercial disaster so I boarded the afternoon steam train thing down via a stunning descent to Coimbatore, over the mountain. I spent most of the trip lost in the intricacies of Crickets finer points. To a fan of the game, there is no better country to travel. Even the smallest town produces ardent and immensely knowledgable fans, and the papers have write-ups that make small local games into battles of the Gods. To be south African here (where they favor us for this years world cup) is to make hundreds of instant friends. And as long as you diligently follow all the worlds cricket results, endless hours can be passed on train and bus trips. Congrats to our boys on beating the Kiwi's
From a miserable hotel (where incense needed burning to cover the sewage stench) I headed up to Kodiakanal, a higher, smaller and altogether nicer hillstation. It has one of those hostels……… the Mr Stevens, El Carreterro, Backpackers Paradise, Ma Roches kind of place. The world is littered with them. A heady combination of excellent location, good facilities and a broad cross-section of easy going travelers to match made this the sort of place to chill for a couples of days. So I did. I'd planned a three day hike into Kerala, the next region, but had that little fanciful idea bureaucratically snuffed. So I contented myself with a couple of day walks. Half the hostel joined me on the longer one, resulting in us out numbering the Indians some of the time ( a very rare expeirence here) and hence giving them the sort of mindless glares and senseless mirth they always give us. Don't take as well as they give, I must report.
Eventually I moved on to Periyer national park (staying in a "wild hut", snigger snigger 2 points for effort). Still the game walk the next day, with Khaki clad guard (unarmed and unenglished) was good enough, getting 40m from genuinely wild Asian elephant (only to find our guide had bolted in the other direction !!). Aside from a herd of wild boar, 2 monkey species and a flotilla of otters, my spotting was otherwise restricted to the avian realm. Our guide raced ahead, but I still found a couple of tasty beeeaters and a garnish of kingfishers. The birdwatching has been frustrating fun, with me picking up 40 odd new species so far (along with loads of old favorites)
From there I bussed and trained to the coast. First to Kollam to a backwaters tour I never did. I ended up playing in a Cricket match instead with a local youth team. 20 odd off two overs seemed good enough (shocking bowling !!) and two towering sixes had both teams braying in ecstasy. When I cleaned up the tail with a hattrick (appalling batting), it took 5 minutes for them to calm down, in which time I'd shaken hands with everyone twice and signed the ball, a bat and someone's helmet (???) Got some good photo's too. The next morning I left the sight of my greatest cricket performance and bussed, confusing and frustratingly to Varkala. I got in no happy mood, but four days of some ok surf and good company (old and new) saw me feeling nicely relaxed when i left a couple of nights ago. Not after the festival though, complete with a myriad dances, swordsmen (arthritic old goats trying to look nimble) a couple of peacock clad girls (in the middle of some bitchy argument) and 54 golden foreheaded elephants. It's a bit of a mad place. India. After that my train broke down, and I bused, via the empty national park, back to here. Nepal, via Varanassi next
Oh well, its all in the fun of travel. Oh, and Ant, I know, massive ego I've got. The whole world can surf in and read my egotisitcal accounts (and bad spelling). Only, I think most would have moused on to more exciting things by this stage. Hang about though, we might get to sleep in Mo selected campsites in the desert in a few months. My teeth long for the grit already....!