My time in India is a foot. At the moment, it's hard to put into words the last two months in Gulmarg as I'm still over awed by it all. So rather than start at the end I'm going to go back in time. All aboard the auto-rickshaw time machine. It's a fantastic little machine. However, it's limited two stroke engine means the relative time travel is not the same as, say, a delorean. It will just push the boundaries of time and space and take us back to the last few months of 2010. Please keep your hands and feet in the vehicle at all times, shut your eyes, breathe normally and hope for a comfortable ride, highly unlikely in an tuk-tuk I know! Here we're go.........ajeincwj39-4 dl2d8dnnjx#(...............................woooooohooooooo..........now wasn't that fun? Lets see where we are, looks like a nice relaxing beach scene in the sleepy temple town of Gokarna. At least the journey back in time on the rickshaw wasn't as brutal as the bus journeys that it took to get to and from this place.
Quite quickly on the buses, across India, it dawned upon me that a 6'3" person was not something they incorporated into any of the design plans. If you would like to get an idea of how I feel on an Indian bus go out and find a marshmallow (not the mini kind) and a box of matches. Now empty the matches from the box. Okay so the empty box now represents a typical space available for a person on the bus. I am the marshmallow. I'm pretty sure you can all figure it out for yourself, but try squeezing the marshmallow into the matchbox. Not easy, is it? And that's me without my backpack on either! Needless to say, it wasn't my most favoured mode of transport. So a ten hour journey, from Ooty to the nearest train station, to take me to our beach paradise, was even less romantic than the train journey up! But get there I did.
Gokarna was an interesting place for me. It was the first, and might I add the only, place in India I got sick. Admittedly it wasn't properly India kick the living life out of your guts and sanity for five days sick. Just a day in bed feeling like a junkie coming of the brown (hypothetically speaking as I have no actual knowledge of what it's like to come off smack). But the other 9 days on the beach were a little jaded by this. I got some good help from friends to try and get my mind back on track. It was just, no matter how hard i try to occupy myself on the beach, I find it inherently boring after a while.
Yes swimming in the sea is fun, hot chicks in bikinis i'll never grow tired of, building sandcastles brings a child like joy not matched by much, drinking beer is great everywhere, having cow shits to dodge keeps you, literally, on your toes, adventures into the under growth always yields something new, plus you have the sun rise and sunset to marvel at too but that's all day one. After that you just lie there and tan or mix up all the afore mentioned stuff. For me that soon sets into a monotony, which makes me feel like I'm wasting my life away. Well it did in Gokarna anyway. I'm not saying that I couldn't spend weeks on the beach. I definitely could. Just not there.
So off I went to try and stimulate my mind and body in the bouldering mecca known as Hampi. Before i could reach there I had the worst bus journey yet. Night buses are a cruel joke. Get your match box and cut it in half. Push marshmallow Norval into the half. Now put it in a blender with some stones, switch it on and leave for 8 hours. This is how it felt!
Ramble on............................
Gokarna pics here
Quite quickly on the buses, across India, it dawned upon me that a 6'3" person was not something they incorporated into any of the design plans. If you would like to get an idea of how I feel on an Indian bus go out and find a marshmallow (not the mini kind) and a box of matches. Now empty the matches from the box. Okay so the empty box now represents a typical space available for a person on the bus. I am the marshmallow. I'm pretty sure you can all figure it out for yourself, but try squeezing the marshmallow into the matchbox. Not easy, is it? And that's me without my backpack on either! Needless to say, it wasn't my most favoured mode of transport. So a ten hour journey, from Ooty to the nearest train station, to take me to our beach paradise, was even less romantic than the train journey up! But get there I did.
Gokarna was an interesting place for me. It was the first, and might I add the only, place in India I got sick. Admittedly it wasn't properly India kick the living life out of your guts and sanity for five days sick. Just a day in bed feeling like a junkie coming of the brown (hypothetically speaking as I have no actual knowledge of what it's like to come off smack). But the other 9 days on the beach were a little jaded by this. I got some good help from friends to try and get my mind back on track. It was just, no matter how hard i try to occupy myself on the beach, I find it inherently boring after a while.
Yes swimming in the sea is fun, hot chicks in bikinis i'll never grow tired of, building sandcastles brings a child like joy not matched by much, drinking beer is great everywhere, having cow shits to dodge keeps you, literally, on your toes, adventures into the under growth always yields something new, plus you have the sun rise and sunset to marvel at too but that's all day one. After that you just lie there and tan or mix up all the afore mentioned stuff. For me that soon sets into a monotony, which makes me feel like I'm wasting my life away. Well it did in Gokarna anyway. I'm not saying that I couldn't spend weeks on the beach. I definitely could. Just not there.
So off I went to try and stimulate my mind and body in the bouldering mecca known as Hampi. Before i could reach there I had the worst bus journey yet. Night buses are a cruel joke. Get your match box and cut it in half. Push marshmallow Norval into the half. Now put it in a blender with some stones, switch it on and leave for 8 hours. This is how it felt!
Ramble on............................
Gokarna pics here
